We talked last week about the importance of developing your own personal liturgy, a structured time each day set aside for God. And we spoke about the importance of a daily bible reading program of some type to help in the development of this new healthy habit. The point of this newsletter from the beginning was to stay focused on topics that help us walk every day in the Way of Jesus. As a bible teacher I have talked to many people over the years that were either in the process of developing a bible reading plan or discussing why they have failed to do so in the past.

So this week I would like to discuss some practical ideas for how to read the bible in a way that is enjoyable, helpful, and sustainable.

What is the Bible?

I am going to start at the beginning today. The bible is not a book it is a collection of books, it is really a library of ancient books translated into modern languages. This may seem pretty obvious when you think about it for a minute but these facts are tremendously important to remember when you are reading your bible.

* This is a collection not one book.

* They are truly ancient documents from cultures very different from our own.

* They have all been translated in modern language, even the King James English is very modern compared to the original. The originals were in Hebrew and Greek.

* Finally these books are not all the same type of literature. There are poems, songs, narratives, law, biography, letters, prophecy, visions, and parables.

The last point is very important for the modern reader, because you do not read law in the same way you read a poem. And you don’t read a poem the way you read a letter. And you don’t read prophecy and visions the way you read a biography. So, to understand and enjoy reading the bible requires an awareness of what you are reading. Some things are to be read in a literal matter of fact way, others like poetry, parables, and prophecy need to be understood in a much more figurative way. This is by necessity, it’s important to remember:

The right interpretation is the authors intended interpretation. Literal interpretation is only correct if the author intended the reader to take it literally.

This might seem shocking, you might wonder, how can I know what the author intended? Generally speaking it’s not all that hard to know the literature type, and once you know what kind of literature you are reading, the way you read it follows. Of course there are difficult passages in the bible, but generally it’s not that hard to understand what it being said once you understand two things.

* Who is speaking and who the intended reader is. (This includes where, when, and what their situation and perspective was)

* What type of literature is the author using to communicate.

The good news is that some of this kind of information can usually be gathered easily either from the introduction to the book in any good study bible or from a good bible encyclopedia. The more you read about the background of the biblical books the more you will understand and feel what the author is saying.

Context, Context, Context

Once you get a sense of what you are looking at, the next challenge is context. Context can be understood in two main categories. I could talk all day about either one of these categories (and I have on occasion) but to get started I just want you to think about how important context is. Context is how we understand everything, and the bible is certainly no exception.

* Historical Context

* This is the kind of context that is most often neglected. None of the books of the bible were written to us. They are written for us to understand but they were not written to us. The newest of the documents is ancient and you have to always remember that the entire frame of reference of both the author and the original readers is very different than ours. The oldest books are speaking from the perspective of the late Bronze or Early Iron age middle eastern culture. This kind of context can be learned from study bibles and bible dictionaries. You must never forget that although the people in these stories are very relatable they have a very different worldview than we have.

* Literary Context

* This is the “normal” sense of context and includes the immediate setting of the verse or phrase you are reading. But it also includes the broader context of the entire book you are reading. For example, think about how the phrase or verse fits into the larger topics and themes of the book. Consider where the phrase or verse fits into the larger message of the author of the book. Look for the conclusion of the point the author is making and see if he makes any summary statements or draws any conclusions from what he has just said. And this is just scratching the surface.Beyond the immediate context and the context of the book, there is the context of either the New or Old Covenant. And finally there is the overall context of the entire Bible.

Dealing with Figures of Speech and Symbolic Language

Many of my students have been put off by poetry, figures of speech, and Symbolic Language or numbers. They are afraid that if it is not to be understood in a literalistic way then it could mean anything. While I understand this concern, figurative or symbolic does not mean “make believe” nor does it give anyone license to make it mean whatever you want.

Figurative language and symbols are understood in the same way that all words are understood. By Context and Common Usage.

You see every word is a symbol, it is a symbol with an agreed upon meaning. This meaning is determined by context and common usage. Think about this word for a moment: lead. Without context we don’t know how to pronounce the word in English. We don’t even know if it is a noun or a verb. But we don’t just “make up” meanings for it because it could have more than one meaning. We use context and common usage to understand and use the word. With context we know if we are talking about a leash or a soft heavy metal or the process of guiding someone or something else along.

Symbolic language and figures of speech are the same, we use common usage and context to understand their meaning. The bible is our greatest asset in interpreting the bible. Now that may sound circular but when it comes to context and common usage the bible is our first reference for both. We look for other places this phrase or symbol is used and we see how it is used and the meaning it carries. The numbers 12 and 7 are great examples of symbolic numbers. They are used all over the bible so we do not have to guess at their meaning. Again for the more obscure ones you may want to look at commentaries or some other external source, but don’t go there until you have looked carefully at it yourself, then go to eternal sources for help and possibly even confirmation. Finding something yourself can be very satisfying and also much more memorable.

Whatever you do keep reading

I have had the pleasure of working with a few top notch scholars over the years. One of them was Ronald Youngblood who, among many other things, was one of the translators of the NIV bible. After a lecture one day we were talking and I asked him, what keeps you going? You could have retired long ago (he was 80 at the time) and he told me, “every time I read the bible I see something new, the bible is not just a book it is a living thing”. This stuck with me and I have also found it to be absolutely true in my own life.

So whatever you do in your bible reading, read your bible. Read it everyday and let God speak to you, if you do that, you will have no regrets for the time you have spent.

Let me know what you think of this topic, I am thinking about doing a series on how to study the bible effectively. If this is something that interests you let me know, either in the comments below or by replying to the email if you want more privacy.

Have a great week!

According to Webster a liturgy can be described as: a customary repertoire of ideas, phrases, or observances. Often this word is used to describe the order of worship on a Sunday morning. But Sunday is only one day of the week, what do we do on the other days?

Over time, our actions describe our beliefs better than our words.

This is a thought I had some years ago as I was preparing a lecture for a bunch of aspiring missionaries. I like to use catch phrases and short quotes as hooks in my teachings and this one sounded good, so I wrote it down. The problem is that this saying is better than I am. As I stared at it I realized that this was not something the students needed to think about as much as it was something I needed to think about. Which is good I guess, since I am always telling young teachers that they can’t lead students anywhere that they have never gone themselves. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander I guess.

This led me to changes in my lifestyle that I have continued to develop to this day. I started thinking about my daily worship and lifestyle. Does it have any substance? Is it an accurate reflection of a changed life? Am I consistent? What do I spend my time on? Do I read, if so, what do I read? Who and what do I listen to? And probably most important, why do I do any of it?

Today I am going to start with a famous verse from the gospel of John. It is part of a dialog Jesus was having with a Samaritan woman by a well. She asked a question about worship in her cultural context a wanted to know who is right about worship(Jews or Samaritans) and where it should be done.

John 4:21-24 (ESV)

I went in to this article today thinking about spiritual disciplines and personal worship. But this passage is once again better than I was looking for. In this passage Jesus is pushing past outward expressions of worship and zeroing in on the source of the worship that needs to be expressed.

Worshiping in Spirit and Truth

What was Jesus really saying with this often quoted phrase? Was he suggesting that formal corporate worship was not important? That it was in some way obsolete? Or was he saying that both Samaritan and Jewish outward worship forms are inadequate? True worship is not simply ritual, true worship flows out of the heart of the worshiper from and through the Spirit.

So if true worship flows from the heart of the worshiper, where does it go from there? How is this true worship expressed? Can true worship ever be unexpressed? Worshiping in Spirit certainly must find some means of expression or it has no reality. Think about it, is it even possible to have a cause without an effect? It seems to me that while true worship is not simply external activity, true worship in the Spirit must find some expression in order to be actualized. After all in Revelation we see many scenes of worship in heaven and they are all very expressive. So what is the proper expression of true worship in the Spirit for us today? Paul says in Romans 12:1 that true worship involves making our lives living sacrifices. Unlike the worship of Jesus’ day where sacrifice was offering up an animal’s life. Paul’s understanding of worship is to offer up our own lives continuously. What does such an ongoing sacrifice look like? And where do we go to learn?

The Word, the Spirit, and us

The Spirit of God breathed through men to give us the scriptures.

2 Tim 3:16-17 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

In a way, the scriptures like Jesus are a sort of incarnation. These words are an expression of God and His will and His ways to us in a tangible form. We know God by interacting with His word. Therefore to worship in Spirit we must in some way reflect His word to the world. We need to know His word. Through His word we know Jesus with the help of the Spirit. And the Spirit through his work and the word will bear fruit in us, just as Jesus explained to his disciples:

Matt 7:16-18

What does this look like on a Tuesday morning?

This is where it gets real for me. Am I a true worshiper? Or do I just worship sometimes if the music is right. What does worship look like? How do I express this worship? I will not completely answer these questions today obviously. These questions need to be answered though, they need to be answered through the entire course of our lives, and in many different ways.

In the coming weeks I will return to these questions, but for today I want to get very practical and lay what I consider to be the first brick in the wall. Reading God’s word. Going to church is important but it will not feed your soul on a Tuesday morning when life is crashing in from all directions. I know that worshiping in spirit and truth is more than reading the bible. But getting quiet before God and listening to the word that He has breathed out by his Spirit allows his Spirit to work in us, to revive and strengthen us for whatever the day may bring.

Habits can be good

This week let’s consider how we can build a habit of letting God speak through his word by His Spirit to us every day. So that, we can reflect that Spirit as true worship throughout the day.

So if you are not already in the habit of daily bible reading, I would recommend that you get a daily bible reading plan of some sort, there are many, and commit to read a portion of the bible every day. Do this with someone else so you can encourage each other. Use that time in God’s word to reflect and get quiet and allow God to speak through his word. Life will not want to cooperate with this so you will need to aggressively schedule this into each day. Jesus found time even when he was traveling, we can too. After all we never forget to eat and sleep, we always seem to find time for the things we believe to be important.

This takes me full circle to where I started:

Over time, our actions describe our beliefs better than our words.

This week let’s take steps toward becoming a people that truly worship in spirit and truth every day, so that we may show the world God’s glory through our actions. Take some time, make a plan, and begin to create a personal liturgy of your own - today. Build daily habits that will build your life.

Have a great week!

Resources:

Bible Reading Companion app (This is an app I have used especially when travelling)

Daily Lectionary Readings (a nice selection of readings throughout the year)

I am sure there are apps for iphone that give you a daily reading plan as well I just don’t know them to recommend them.

Paul very famously stated, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law”. So how do we begin to harmonize this saying of Paul with the statements of James we are looking at today?

James 2:14-17

This seeming contradiction can be a bit startling at first until you start to consider what Paul and James mean when they say the words “works” and “faith”. Once we define those terms a bit the whole supposed controversy becomes much easier to understand.

Words can have many meanings, I would say that this is one of the main reasons for our current cultural divisions. So how do we understand the meaning of words when words can have more than one meaning? The answer I give my students is that words as well as figures of speech and biblical symbols are defined by common usage and context. Faith for example can have a range of meaning depending on the context.

Faith for James and also for Paul is more than just believing that the truth is true. Faith can, and I think should, be understood as a positive response to the truth. Because as James points out in a moment even the demons “believe” in God and yet they “shudder”.

James 2:18-26

So what are we to make of Paul saying that we are saved without the “works of the law”?

The “works of the law” that Paul refers to here are not the kind of works James is discussing. James is not advocating kosher laws, sacrifices, or circumcision as a means of justification before God. He was defining faith, specifically a genuine and saving faith, as opposed to a mere intellectual assent that the truth is true.

Paul’s comments were in the context of questions that were circling around the churches at that time. There was a lot of debate around the idea that Gentiles needed to become Jewish proselytes, getting circumcised and keeping food laws and other Jewish ceremonial laws, before they could partake in the blessings of the Jewish Messiah. This was also the focus of the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. James was the leader of the church at Jerusalem at the time and he was the one that had the final word at that council. There were those that were assigning saving power to outward acts of Jewish ceremonial law and James shut them down. Paul was dealing with this same kind of false teaching when said works of the law do not save us. But Paul was not talking about being saved without repenting from sinful works. Nor was he saying there was no need for good works.

He was saying we are saved by faith and not “works of the law”. Salvation is now freely available to all, Jew and Gentile alike. This was Paul’s point in saying that. But James was making a very different point in his epistle, one which Paul would have fully agreed with.

Faith does not consist of good works, but saving faith results in good works.

We do not work to be saved, we work because we are saved.

Faith requires a response to what God has freely given us. Consider this famous passage from Paul in Romans.

Romans 10:9-10

So you see for Paul as well as for James faith is not simply believing that the truth is true, it is instead a positive response to that truth. This kind of faith is necessary for the gift to bring about its desired end. To make it more clear consider what Paul said in Ephesians.

Ephesians 2:9-10

When you read this it becomes clear that there is no controversy between Paul and James regarding salvation. James was just clarifying for his readers what real faith looked and acted like. He was guarding against a sort empty intellectual belief that was seeping in and corrupting the definition of true living faith.

I discuss this definition of faith further in the article on faith and Walmart.

And finally to show that there is no real difference in the teachings of Paul and James on faith, consider this teaching of Paul to the Ephesian church.

For you may be sure of this,

Jesus told us that to abide in him is to bear much fruit, for without him we can do nothing. As long are we don’t try to reverse the process, and begin to think that God will owe us salvation because of our works, we are in no danger of trying to “earn our salvation”. God will never owe us anything, since everything we have comes from God in the first place.

But there does seem to be a danger here that both Paul and James agree on, and that is possessing a type of faith that does not produce the fruit of good works. If our life is devoid of the fruit of the Spirit I think it is appropriate to ask if we really do have the kind of faith that saves us. Paul told the Corinthian church to “examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith”. It was good advice then and I believe it is good advice now.

This week

This week let’s encourage each other to “love and good works” as the author of Hebrews encourages us. We need to remind each other that the Kingdom of God is people, people Jesus died to save. And let’s stay focused on the gift of life that God has provided for us all, and think about what our response to such an unimaginable gift should be as we interact with each other.

This week let’s demonstrate our faith by our actions.

Have a great week!

I grew up thinking that Pharisees were holier than thou religious types, the worst of the worst. They were horrible people pretending to be super righteous people. Was I wrong? Well, no they were and are that, but it was a naive and incomplete understanding of how universal the problem of self-righteousness really is. The world we live in at this moment is really not a very religious place. Yet, it is filled to the brim with self-righteous and hypocritical people that say one thing and do another while at the same time condemning anyone that would disagree or point their hypocrisy out as evil.

While the original Pharisees were religious establishment types, the modern Pharisees have their own religious beliefs and they love power, influence, and public respect fully as much as any biblical Pharisee. They are self-righteous or to put it another way, fully convinced of their own self-defined rightness. They condemn as evil all those that disagree and use public opinion as their source of authority.

With this awareness let’s have a look at a portion of Matthew were Jesus describes this situation in his day and see if any of this sounds familiar.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,

Not long ago I asked my grandson what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, “I want to be an “influencer” on YouTube”. This made me laugh because of its raw honesty. We all want to be respected, we all want our opinions to be the guiding principles of others. And, we all like to pretend we don’t. The Pharisees were in just such a position in their society. They were the teachers, they were respected in the streets. Their opinions were sought after and people feared to contradict them. They decided who was in and who was out.

Our culture is no different, though the current popular religion has nothing to do with the true God, in practice it has many gods and many dogmas. And there are those that set and enforce those dogmas, they are the respected and feared ones. They are the ones that people fear to contradict. Think about it, people no longer fear to contradict Christianity, that’s how you can tell that Christianity is not the dominant religion in this world. If you want to know who the Pharisees are today just ask yourself who do I fear to contradict? Who sets the tone and who decides what is and is not acceptable? And who is it that is constantly fighting against Jesus and his teachings? These are the modern Scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees.

So why did Jesus talk about them so much?

Why did the Gospel writers spend so much time on them?

Two reasons come to mind for me.

* They are still around.

* The culturally powerful and influential are still at work resisting Jesus and his teachings. They are and always have been energized by the “spirit of antichrist”. They are the influencers and the “powers that be” and they never change because Jesus never changes. They are quite literally anti-Christ.

* We can so easily become them.

* This is the real threat. This is why the second half of this teaching focuses on making sure the disciples don’t become the very thing that they hate. It is all too easy to be right and wrong at the same time. Jesus instructs his original disciples and us to avoid even the language of “teacher” and “father”(both were titles of authority in the culture of Jesus’ time.)

* The way to avoid becoming the thing you hate is humility and service.

This Week

This week as we reflect on this I think there are two ways we can respond as well.

* First we must remember that having cultural authority does not make you right. Nor does agreeing with cultural norms. But our disagreement mustn’t degenerate into a self-righteous hatred either, lest we once again become the very thing we hate.

* We must humble ourselves and serve, allowing our actions be our strongest argument. We will still be hated by those that hate Jesus. But we will be hated unjustly since we will be hated for our actions rather than our hypocrisy and empty talk.

We must “Speak the truth in love” as Paul teaches, neither kowtowing to the mob nor being an ugly mirror image of the mob. But rather showing the reality of our words with our deeds. Loving each other as Jesus loved us and gave his life for us.

Have a great week!

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked,

This is not my usual New Testament reading. But this story is timeless and one of my favorites. We see in this story that God is not and will not be defined by our human categories. This is why Jesus was so confusing to friends and foes alike. In this podcast I like to focus on topics that help us walk in the way of Jesus. So I have purposely avoided anything overtly political. Jesus was also stubbornly non-political if you follow his life through the gospels. His disciples and others were often encouraging him to be more political, and his enemies were afraid he already was a rising political threat. But thankfully through all these pressures Jesus stuck to his message and his mission and did not succumb to any of these voices.

Today I want to discuss how we can maintain a kingdom focus in a world that desperately demands that we choose to be either “right” or “left”. To begin, the commander of the army of the Lord has come and our orders come from him alone. When we realize this, all other distinctions and labels become meaningless. He is the end of all arguments, God has now entered the world and His word is final. Following Jesus the King of Kings will put us at odds with the world left, right, and center. (Libertarians won’t like it either) When the commander of the army of the Lord shows up (and he has) there is only one side that matters and only one question remaining.

“What would you like me to do?”

The answer to Joshua is a curious one. “Take your shoes off because you are standing on holy ground”. There are several ways to think about the significance of taking your shoes off, but the one I keep coming back to is this: we make shoes to lift us up and to separate and protect us from the ground. When our creator tells us to take off our shoes there is now nothing man made between us and the dust we were created from. It is an act of humility and a recognition of sovereignty before our creator all in one.

So if we are to navigate the current conflicts step one is taking off our shoes and remembering we are but dust without God. Our commander has the only word we need to listen to. And victory will not come by our efforts alone. The right side is not mine or yours it is God’s.

There is a new way

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

The world wants us to go left or right. The world wants to divide us into classes of people, defined in various ways but always, always distinct and separate and at odds. The world cries for unity while dividing into groups and fighting. They shout down those in power while grasping for more power at the same time. They want to be heard, but they want to silence others. They don’t believe in objective truth, but will call you evil if you disagree with them. This is the world we live in, but this is not the kingdom of God.

Jesus is now the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and although this world is still in a state of confusion, governed by the lies of the Devil, the kingdom of God will be fully realized in time. And while we wait He has shown us another way. Let’s call it, “the narrow way” because Jesus called it that one time. It’s called narrow because the other ways are everywhere. Everything in this world wants to drag you down one of the other ways. The way of this world, which is the way to destruction, is wide and easy to find because it’s everywhere and it often looks quite hopeful and nice.

The good news is that the narrow way is not something we have to create, as we see in this passage, God has already created it we just need to walk it. The narrow way is Jesus, the broad way is everything else. This is why Jesus confuses us. We think we can fix our own problems, we can’t. We think we know what to do, we don’t. We think history is on our side, it isn’t. Any plan that deviates from God’s plan is doomed to fail. Jesus is frustrating because he does not join our causes, he demands we join his.

But if we can just take our shoes off and humble ourselves before him we will understand that HE has come. He did not come to join our cause He came to save us from our causes. If we follow Him the world will refuse to trust us, because we are not wholly sold out to one cause or another. The world hates people they can’t categorize and put in a box. Remember, they hated Jesus even though he did nothing but heal, feed, teach, and restore. But people wanted him to join their cause and fight their battles, or if they were in power they were afraid he was going to mess up the status quo. Either way they wanted Jesus to be either for or against them, because that the world can understand. But today just like in Joshua’s time Jesus says no, I am not with your team or the other guys, I am the commander of the army of the Lord - and I have come.

Jesus has come and He is the King of Kings, he is the commander. He did not come to join our causes he came to invite us to join his cause.

This week we will all continue to be bombarded with voices trying to convince us of a particular cause. They will manipulate and intimidate, they will play to our emotions and demonize all those that disagree. What will we do? Will we pray that Jesus joins our cause or will we pray to understand the orders of our commander in this fallen and evil world? We will walk and talk like those who have been set free to serve in love? Or will we take a side and put our faith in our side? Will we follow our commander Jesus in laying down our lives for the benefit of others? Or follow our misguided desires and fight with each other.

We live in an age where it is hard to find a moments peace so let’s take our shoes off, so to speak, and listen to our commander. There is a war to fight but it is not against people, it is against evil. This week let’s fight as our commander fought, let’s do whatever it takes to help people and set them free from the evil that wants to destroy us all.

Have a great week!

In our world mercy seems to be in desperately short supply. Everyone seems very confident that they are right and that those that disagree are either ignorant or evil and probably both. This week we are going back into the letter of James and we are going to look at a single idea, it is an idea we see Jesus speak to on more than one occasion. It is this idea of mercy and judgement.

Last time we were in James we looked at the sin of partiality and James said, “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.”. After which he goes on to describe how according to the law partiality is a sin like any other and breaking any law is damnable. Today we are going to look at his final warning regarding the sin.

James 2:13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Our need of mercy is clear to anyone that still has a conscience. If we were to try and justify ourselves based on our perfect adherence to any law we would all be condemned. When we fail to recognize this, we begin to demand a sort of variable justice on others. This is how this passage connects to James’ teaching on the sin of partiality. When we start to value money, power, and influence over faith in the mercy and grace of God we invariably start to pervert justice and fall into sin.

Without the pure gift of God’s mercy and grace we could never stand before the justice of a righteous God. When we forget our own depravity we lose our ability to show this same mercy to others. When we withhold the grace of God from others we shut off our own supply. Jesus describes this in Matthew 7:1-2.

“Judge not, that you be not judged.

Can we stand up to our own judgment? How will we measure up to our own standards? Jesus tells us we will be measured with our own ruler.

And again in Matthew 6:14-15 we see how our forgiveness from God is connected to our forgiveness of others.

For if you forgive others their trespasses,

There are many other such references in the teaching of Jesus as well. To show mercy is the best way of proving that the mercy of God is real. To show mercy to others opens the gates of heaven to us, and allows God’s mercy to flow to us. It is the height of arrogance to think that we are entitled to a mercy that others are not worthy of. It is the height of wickedness to receive mercy and then refuse to show mercy. Let’s look at one more story to illustrate the point that we must never receive the mercy of God without showing it to others.

“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.

This story gets even more shocking when you convert the amounts used in this story into more familiar amounts. The first servants debt would take more than 1000 lifetimes to repay at a day laborers wages. The second debt would take just over 3 months to repay at day laborers pay. This should help us to forgive this week. We must remember that the debt we owed to God was literally unpayable and he forgave us at great cost to Himself. The debts of others to us are trivial by comparison. It is only when we forget the magnitude of the mercy that we have been shown that it becomes difficult for us to show mercy to others.

This week, let’s remember the words of James, “judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment”. And let’s, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” as Paul reminds us in his letter to the Ephesians. This week let’s let the unimaginably great mercy and forgiveness we have been given, flow through us to others.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

This is the blessing Paul gave the believers in the Philippian church and it can be ours this week as well, if we will learn to let the mercy God has shown us flow through us to others.

Have a great week!

I like the picture for today, because it says so much without saying a word. In it we can see and almost feel what the process of training is like for these football players. Training is never a passive pursuit. No one accidentally gets trained. Training requires both a trainer and a trainee and they both need to be actively involved or training never happens. Today we are going to take look at some of the ways that the grace of God trains us.

Titus 2:11-14 [ESV]

We are not alone in this world, the grace of God has appeared(in Jesus through his death, resurrection, and the Holy Spirit) it brings salvation for all people, and it is this grace that trains us to renounce ungodliness. This grace is also the source of our hope that our great God and Savior Jesus Christ will return.

But grace is not a passive gift. It is not a “get out of jail free” card. It is a transformative gift. It is a gift that teaches us. But even teaching is too weak a word. It trains us and disciplines us. I think coach or schoolmaster comes closer to the original idea of the Greek word, that is why I chose this picture of a football coach for this article. The grace of God trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.

But it seems to me that in our time grace is often seen as thoroughly passive. Some even act and speak as if grace makes sin irrelevant. Grace covers all so we can live as we please. No. Just no.

Because of this passive attitude, we are also seeing God’s people turn from the grace of God and deny the truth the moment the world applies even the slightest pressure. This lack of perseverance is a sign that we are failing to allow the grace of God to train us. We have chosen our desire for acceptance and status and comfort over the grace we find in the cross of Christ. But the cross is not a symbol of passivity. It is a symbol of self-sacrificial love.

But how does grace teach us?

Grace is a strange concept in some ways. On the one hand even a child can understand that grace is favor that is completely unearned, it is a gift. But when you get into the question of what exactly this gift really is and does the questions get more difficult to answer.

Like everything else, grace begins with God and comes to us through Jesus. It is a gift and it is our only hope in this life. In some traditions grace is understood to come through various means like, baptism and communion. But I think the “means of grace” is better described as, our response to the gift of God’s grace, and this response can take many, many forms beyond simple outward participation in the sacraments.

This passage tells us that the grace of of God teaches us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions(desires). So to respond to this grace we must listen and obey by renouncing ungodliness and refusing to cave in to the pressures of our own desires. But grace is something that is more like a who than a what, consider this passage from the gospel of John.

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Grace comes from, and in some sense maybe is, the indwelling of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit of truth in us, given to us by Jesus, that is teaching us. This presence in us teaches us to give up our former desires and habits of mind and body and to enter into a new life that is godly and upright, a life that practices self-control. A self-control that is only possible now that Jesus has conquered the power of sin and taken up residence within us. We are not alone, we are not orphans according to Jesus he has come to us, and dwells in us. And through His Spirit he teaches us and transforms us into His image.

For those whom he foreknew

The grace of God has been freely given to us all, the only question left seems to be, “What are we going to do with it?”. In all of the verses we looked at today, and in quite a few more scattered throughout the new testament, we see that God has already made the first move. And God through His grace continues to do all the heavy lifting. It seems all we need to do is allow Jesus to do His work in us. We need to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions” as he has taught us. We can do this because He now resides in us by His Holy Spirit, and His Spirit in us can do what we never could on our own.

We are a new creation now, all things are new, but the old still exists. If we choose to, we can still live according to our old nature. But why would we want this? Jesus indwells us, the Holy Spirit indwells us, God is in us in other words. God himself is conforming us into the image of His Son. And as Paul concludes after recounting all of this, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”.

This week

Grace has been given to us, it is a grace so great that I think we often disbelieve it. We wonder, “how can this be?”, but the testimony of prophets and apostles is that God really has done this. So we need to listen to the grace that has been given to us. We need to consider our forgiveness and stop exploiting God’s grace by continuing to live as though nothing has happened. This week we need to listen to the voice of God’s grace through the Spirit and trust in that grace to give us the strength to do what we could never do on our own. Let’s take courage and renounce whatever is left of ungodliness and worldly passions. Join me in being “zealous for good works” this week, as we wait for the blessed hope of Christ’s return as the true king of heaven and earth.

Have a great week!

I once knew a woman who, for over 20 years, was married to a raging grizzly bear of a man. No one would have condemned her for leaving him, but she was a godly woman and trusted her future to God. One day this grizzly bear met God and radically changed, the grizzly bear became a teddy bear. Still a bear, but a bear of a very different kind. The transformation was shocking to all who knew him, but undeniable.

Today we are going to consider another bear of a man who God changed from a raging animal killing and terrorizing the church into a raging missionary terrorizing the Devil and his kind. The change went so deep that his name needed to be changed. This is the story of how Saul became Paul.

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Is it the day before or the day after?

It occurs to me as I read this story that meeting Saul the day before his conversion, and meeting Paul the day after his conversion would be a very different experience, especially if you were a Christian. And it caused me to think about the people in my life, am I talking to them the day before or the day after?

Far too often I put people in little boxes that I have built for them in my mind, boxes that are more like cages in reality, because I am very reluctant to let them out of those boxes.

Ananias needed a new box

Ananias had a box like this prepared for Saul, and very understandably so. Saul was a genuine threat to any Christian in his day. People talk today of “existential threats” but rarely are they talking about anything like people riding around with the authority to do harm like Saul. Ironically though, Saul saw Christianity as the existential threat to his beliefs and he was not going to sit around and wait to see how it turned out, he was going to act.

So you see, when God told Ananias that he should pray for Saul his response was quite understandable. People like Saul just don’t change, he was quite sincerely an avowed enemy of the faith. Ananias was no child, he knew how the world worked, but now he was being told something that did not fit in his box at all. He was being told to believe something that was exactly opposite of all his experience. He was being asked to pray for healing for a man who had come to harm him and his friends. He was being asked by God to let Saul out of the box he had him in, and allow Saul be who God created him to be. God gave Ananias a new box for a new Saul who would now come to be known as Paul, a man God used to change the world.

With this in mind let’s consider a passage from 2nd Corinthians where Paul was reflecting on the change he experienced which is the change we must all experience.

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this:

This Week

Let’s take a little time to think about the way we think about others. Do we see them as new creations in Christ, or do we still have them safely wrapped up in the box of who they were. Are we helping them to become all that God has created them to be or do we continue to treat them as if nothing has changed. You might be saying, “what about the people that don’t change?” well that is another article, but today we are talking about the people that have turned to Jesus in sincerity. For those that have yet to repent their behavior is on them, but our behavior is on us. We do not change people God does. The question for us is, are we going to help in the transformation like Ananias did? Or, are we going to be an obstacle to God’s work in their life? That’s a question that we can actually answer.

This week let’s encourage the transformational work of God everywhere we see God working in people. Let’s be Ananias to someone God is changing this week. And remember, today you might be talking to Saul, but tomorrow God might transform him into Paul. So if you meet a “Saul” this week remember Jesus loves him, and if you happen to meet a “Paul” this week, let him out of your box and help the poor guy he probably still can’t see very well.

Have a great week!

In George Orwell’s book, “Animal Farm” he writes,

"ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS".

This little line has become something of a sarcastic proverb since then. But the problem is real and it’s certainly not new. Current culture and politics have clamped onto the concept of equality to the point that a calm conversation about it is almost impossible in the unbelieving world. Sadly, it’s not always easy to have a calm conversation about it in the church either. Culture is a powerful force.

Today we continue our walk through the book of James. James is not afraid to tackle the cultural poison that has crept into the churches of his day. As we enter chapter 2 James comes out swinging against the sin of showing partiality among the believers.

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.

What is James Saying?

The nice thing about James is his direct and blunt style of communication. He is saying exactly what he means, no figures of speech or obscure idioms. We are simply told not to show partiality between believers. Then he gives the example of showing partiality to the rich. His first statement is not exclusive to the churches treatment of the rich it is a principle that can be widely, if not universally, applied.

However, his example of showing partiality to the rich is as valid now as it was then. So why do we almost instinctively show partiality to the rich (or powerful, or successful, or influential take your pick)? Two things come to mind for me:

* We are looking for favor in return. James reminds his readers of reality here, the believers are more likely to be sued and abused by the rich and powerful than rewarded. It is this lust for reward that James refers to when he says, “have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”. They have some selfish return in mind with all their so called “honor”.

* We assume that being rich means they are wise. How often do we assume that we need to look for rich and successful people when we are looking for church leaders? James contradicts this notion by reminding the readers of something he assumes they should already know. That being, it is the poor that God has chosen to make rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. Faithfulness is wisdom in the kingdom of God. Poverty is not a virtue in and of itself, but God does bless the poor in spirit as Jesus himself promised in his sermon on the mount.

Love is the thing

James ties this teaching off with a simple but direct contrast.

* If you love your neighbor as yourself

* You are doing well

* If you show partiality

* You are sinning

And the sin of showing partiality is as wicked as any other sin you can commit.

This last line is the most sobering. I along with most every other Christian I have ever met tend to think that socially unacceptable sins are far worse than socially acceptable sins. Just one sin is enough to land us all in the category of sinner. The type of sin we commit is ultimately unimportant. Though not all sins carry the same short term consequences, every sin is equally damnable.

The book of James is sometimes criticized for being a little light on Jesus and the gospel. But I think a closer look at this book in its historical and literary context shows just the opposite. This book is intended to be corrective and instructive not evangelical. James assumes that his readers know the hopelessness of their sinful state and their need of Jesus. They know the foundations of their salvation. His language in this passage and elsewhere seems to assume that they should know better. In this little teaching he warns them of the sneaky nature of sin, and that we can easily engage in sinful behavior even while we are worshiping together.

This Week

This week let’s help each other to see people the way that Jesus sees them. Let’s remember that faith is the currency of eternal riches. Let’s remember to check our hearts as we deal with others to see if we are truly loving them for their sake, or if we are in fact giving honor and praise to others in the hope of some form of personal gain down the road.

“God shows no partiality” according to Paul in Romans. And we are his children, so let’s walk as true children of God this week.

Have a great week!

There are many “benedictions” or statements of blessing in the bible. Romans 15:13 is one of my top three biblical benedictions. Not only is it a blessing but it is a very intentional blessing to all those who believe, Jew and Gentile alike. This is a New Covenant blessing for all who can hear and believe. Today’s passage is found in the conclusion of Paul’s argument for the inclusion of the Gentiles in the blessings of God through Jesus. I am starting towards the end of the passage so if you have the time I would recommend reading over this section in its entirety.

[Paul continues to quote the Old Testament]

Hope comes from God

So where does hope come from? According to this passage hope, joy and peace come from God as we believe in Him. First, it’s important to notice that God is called the “God of hope”. Paul connects hope so tightly with God that he refers to Him as the God of hope. Are there other forms of hope? Sure, but they are false and temporary hopes. At best they can give a bit of momentary comfort, without God to anchor these hopes in eternity they are ultimately disappointing and short lived. God is the God of eternal hope. He gives a hope with eternal value. The hope God gives is a hope with substance. He himself is the thing our faith hopes for. He is life eternal and joy and peace. He is the source of all these things. In Him these things never end and never disappoint.

The world we live in has few sources of hope of any kind. The government is corrupt and incompetent, institutions are overwhelmed and often wrong headed and corrupt as well. Corporations, banks, modern philosophies all fail. They are corrupted and/or bankrupt. Then there is the American way, we trust ourselves. Well, we are corrupt as well, we are the ones that are individually and corporately responsible for the corruption of the world.

Hope is a miracle

To appreciate hope we need to take a long honest look at our own hearts. When we do that, we will stop complaining about evil and start repenting of it - in earnest. John Mayer once wrote a song called, “Waiting for the world to change”. In it he resigns himself to an empty and futile hope that with the next generation in charge things will get better. That was in 2006. When we see, honestly see, what is in our hearts, all hope that the world will “change” through our efforts will leave us. The world will change but we will not be the hero of that story, Jesus is the hero in that story. Only Jesus can save this world. There is hope, but that hope must never be in our own efforts to change things to our liking. The hope that is real is a miracle and a gift from God, just like life itself. Our hope did not begin with us and thankfully it does not end with us.

Hope is a Gift

Hope is a gift from God but it was never meant to end with us. Like Paul we need to actively seed this hope everywhere we go. We need to water that hope with prayer for all those who need hope. We need to cultivate that hope with our words and with our actions, so that all can see that there is hope. Not an empty hope that humanity will eventually “get it right”. But an eternal hope in a God that has been working from the beginning to create and sanctify a people to spend eternity with.

Have a great week!