Is it paradoxical to say that cultivating virtue is a matter of looking away from yourself? If so, the paradox is only apparent, not real. Of course morality must take root deep within the individual. To insist on that, as virtue does, is to insist that it is neither an externally imposed rule, nor a calculation of consequences that could in principle have been done by a computer, nor a matter of discovering what is in the depths of one’s heart and being true to it. But if “morality” ends up coming to its focal point in faith, hope, and love, then–though it will spring from deep within–its actual focal point is outside the self and in the God and the neighbor who are being loved, in the God who is the object of faith and hope and the neighbor who is to be seen, and loved, in the light of that faith and that hope. Or, to put it another way: at this point, even the words “faith,” “hope,” and “love” can let us down. The point of all three is not “Look, here are three qualities I’m developing in myself.” To say that of faith, hope, and love is to perform a self-contradiction. All three, themselves gifts from God, point away from ourselves and outward: faith, toward God and his action in Jesus Christ; hope, toward God’s future; love, toward both God and our neighbor.
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Sunday, September 04, 2011
I found following quotation from N. T. Wright's After You Believe over at Ted Gossard's blog. I think it's profoundly accurate.
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Mark 6
This morning I read the passage in Mark, the sixth chapter, where Jesus walks on the water. His disciples were struggling in the boat, trying just to keep above water, and when they see Jesus passing them, walking on the surface of the waves, their first thought is that it must be some sort of ghost or apparition.
The reason they think that, Mark tells us, is that their hearts here hardened. That's pretty shocking I think. These same disciples had just recently returned from their first experimental missionary journey, where they'd healed people and cast out demons in the name of Jesus. See, demons (demons!) were compelled to obey them just as they'd obeyed Jesus. How thrilling that must have been.
And then, no sooner do they get back from these missional excursions than they watch Jesus multiply a few loaves of bread and a few fish so as to feed thousands of hungry people. It's just after this that they find themselves nearly swamped in their little boat, crossing the Sea of Galilee in a little boat at night, without Jesus.
That "without Jesus" part is important. On another of their frequent crossings of this same lake, this time with Jesus on board, they had been similarly threatened by a sudden storm, and had seen Jesus (who'd been trying to sleep until the terrified disciples woke him up) command the wind and waves to be still.
But see, the difference now is, Jesus is not with them. They'd left him behind, at his insistence, and now they are going down, with no one to save them this time. And their hearts are hardened.
These were ordinary men, these twelve. I don't think Judas, for example, was really all that different from Peter, and neither one of them was all that different from you and me. The Bible refers to hardness of heart as a kind of inability to believe in God or recognize him for whom he and what he is. Hardness of heart flickers in us like sheet lightning in the summer. I mean, it happens. We are prone to it.
And the evidence is right here, in this frail boat on a stormy sea, filled with 12 deeply distressed apostles ("sent ones"). How quickly our hearts go from soft to hard, from faith to cynicism. This Jesus, isn't he just the carpenter's son? This Jesus, maybe he does these magic tricks by the power of Beelzebul! Or this figure walking on the waves, it certainly looks like Jesus, but it must be a ghost. A sign of our impending deaths. We're going down!
The issue throughout Mark's account is just this issue of recognition. Who is Jesus? Do we recognize him for who he is. Because if we don't, it's because of hardened hearts.
Jesus came to a hard-hearted world when it was almost too late and he said, let me show you what life will be like in the kingdom of God. It will be strikingly devoted to mercy, as I am. Here's let me show you once again that I have the power to save! And we see it, and then later, an hour later, or a day, under the influence of the latest distress, our hearts return to their familiar state of being.
We are not better men than the twelve. We are not braver or more faithful or more consistent. We are not, generally speaking, models of faith. Anyway, a model is essentially not what we need. If that were so, the disciples would have had no problem at all. What they needed, and what we need, is One who has the power to work in us from within.
The reason they think that, Mark tells us, is that their hearts here hardened. That's pretty shocking I think. These same disciples had just recently returned from their first experimental missionary journey, where they'd healed people and cast out demons in the name of Jesus. See, demons (demons!) were compelled to obey them just as they'd obeyed Jesus. How thrilling that must have been.
And then, no sooner do they get back from these missional excursions than they watch Jesus multiply a few loaves of bread and a few fish so as to feed thousands of hungry people. It's just after this that they find themselves nearly swamped in their little boat, crossing the Sea of Galilee in a little boat at night, without Jesus.
That "without Jesus" part is important. On another of their frequent crossings of this same lake, this time with Jesus on board, they had been similarly threatened by a sudden storm, and had seen Jesus (who'd been trying to sleep until the terrified disciples woke him up) command the wind and waves to be still.
But see, the difference now is, Jesus is not with them. They'd left him behind, at his insistence, and now they are going down, with no one to save them this time. And their hearts are hardened.
These were ordinary men, these twelve. I don't think Judas, for example, was really all that different from Peter, and neither one of them was all that different from you and me. The Bible refers to hardness of heart as a kind of inability to believe in God or recognize him for whom he and what he is. Hardness of heart flickers in us like sheet lightning in the summer. I mean, it happens. We are prone to it.
And the evidence is right here, in this frail boat on a stormy sea, filled with 12 deeply distressed apostles ("sent ones"). How quickly our hearts go from soft to hard, from faith to cynicism. This Jesus, isn't he just the carpenter's son? This Jesus, maybe he does these magic tricks by the power of Beelzebul! Or this figure walking on the waves, it certainly looks like Jesus, but it must be a ghost. A sign of our impending deaths. We're going down!
The issue throughout Mark's account is just this issue of recognition. Who is Jesus? Do we recognize him for who he is. Because if we don't, it's because of hardened hearts.
Jesus came to a hard-hearted world when it was almost too late and he said, let me show you what life will be like in the kingdom of God. It will be strikingly devoted to mercy, as I am. Here's let me show you once again that I have the power to save! And we see it, and then later, an hour later, or a day, under the influence of the latest distress, our hearts return to their familiar state of being.
We are not better men than the twelve. We are not braver or more faithful or more consistent. We are not, generally speaking, models of faith. Anyway, a model is essentially not what we need. If that were so, the disciples would have had no problem at all. What they needed, and what we need, is One who has the power to work in us from within.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Jesus Calling
Reading the early chapters of Mark's Gospel, I've been intrigued by the idea of the call of Jesus, and how people have understood that over the years.
Early on in Mark, Jesus states his purpose in two ways. First, he says he came to preach in the surrounding towns and villages of Galilee. What he preached, of course, was the good news that the Kingdom of God had come. And following that he issued a call: “Repent and believe this good news.”
At another point he says, in answer to a criticism of the Pharisees, “I came to call sinners, not the righteous.”
The call implicit here is the same that is explicit in his proclamation of the Gospel. “Repent and believe.” Jesus "came" to issue this very call to one and all.
That word, “believe,” has a universe of meaning, of course. Believe the good news. Believe what you will learn from Jesus as you walk with him, as you listen to his teaching, as you see how he loves people, how unafraid he is, how bold to love, and how the natural response of people who have received such love is to love him back.
But to walk out this believing is a progressive thing. Sometimes, as we will see later in Mark's account, some who have followed Jesus with dedication will suddenly drop away. And Jesus meets their later return to him not with mistrust and rejection, but again with his call. “Follow me. Keep following me. Even after I'm gone, you will be able to follow me. For that I will send the Holy Spirit, and he will empower you, and show you what to say, in a hundred ways and situations, some of them quite dangerous. But the Spirit will show you the way.”
But that's getting ahead of myself. For now, Jesus calls. His call is to repent and believe, and then to follow. “Follow me,” he says to Peter and James and John, the fishermen, and to Matthew, the tax collector. And they do. They follow. They stick close. They watch and learn. In following, they become his students, and he their teacher. They want more of him. They want to do the things he does. They want to understand.
Then, in chapter 3, having taught them, he appoints them to do the same things he's been doing. Preach the Gospel, and overpower the demonic with simple commands, demonstrating thereby that the Kingdom has come indeed.
Now, here's a kind of “leaderboard” snapshot of the moment. You have Jesus at the top. He's the preacher/teacher, calling people to follow. Then next you have “the twelve.” They've been sticking with Jesus a little more closely and consistently than anyone else at this point. But one of these twelve will betray Jesus, and most of the others will desert him when the going gets particularly rough. But for now, they're a band of devoted ones, who've dropped everything to follow them.
After these twelve we have the many who have flocked to Jesus for healing. They too have heard his teaching. Some of them have no doubt believed his news, although who at this point can really understand its full implications? But most will go home, whether believing it or not believing it, and try to get on with their lives.
Now flash ahead to the church in Paul's day. Hundreds of people had seen the resurrected Jesus. There was then the remarkable event we call the ascension. After that, the Pentecost descent of the Holy Spirit in power. There is much powerful preaching of the Kingdom, and much miraculous healing (see the book of Acts), just like when Jesus was alive. The church is spreading like wildfire. Soon, one of the Pharisees who had been chief persecutor of the young movement will flip sides, becoming a Christian himself, and in time he will be best known as a prodigious church planter and writer of memorable epistles. In many of those epistles, which are usually addressed to whole churches (not just particular Christians), he will routinely describe every single believing member of that church as a people who have been "called to be saints."
What I want you to notice is this. It is not just the twelve who are called, but all who believe. You were called to believe, and the call to believe continues, and persists, and echoes down through your days and nights. It is a call to let your believing work its way into your blood and bone, and to let it guide your feet and your hands and your thoughts and your speech.
The call "to be saints" is the continuing call of Jesus to believe the good news and walk it out. No one does this overnight. That is why the call continues and continues and continues. Sometimes, even as the twelve, we fall a gigantic step back. We go from following to fleeing. No one is immune to this.
I've noticed over the years that a lot of Christians have imagined a kind of two-tiered "call." Priests and pastors occupy the upper tier. They have been called to a closer following than the rest of us. It's their duty to be pretty near perfect, or the rest of us get upset about it. These priests and pastors are the modern equivalent of "the twelve," in this view. They answered a "special" call. They're the elite. The rest of us are simply called to obey them. They're pastors, we're sheep. That's our call. They are set apart, while we just go about our lives, like the crowds who gather for a time around Jesus, seeking healing, seeking miracles, then disperse. Our call seems to all boil down to attending church and volunteering in its programs and ministries.
This way of looking at things fits nicely with a desire to elevate the priesthood to an elite status, leaving everyone else in an undifferentiated mass known as "the flock." When egomaniacs go into the ministry, this is the view they take. It serves them well.
But all this is so wrong, has such deleterious repercussions, and (most importantly) is so un-biblical. If you have once received and believed the good news that Jesus offers, you are not only saved, but called to work out that salvation from day to day (in fear and trembling), for it is God's purpose to work his will in and through you (Phil 2:12-13). You have been called to be a saint (a consecrated one, set apart for the purpose of God). Not just your pastor, your church leaders, but you. Not by sitting on as many church boards as you can get yourself appointed to, but by walking out the love of Christ for you by loving others in the same way.
The fact that we don't necessarily do that well, we saints, tells you either that love is hard or that we are weak and sinful and need a lot of help. Or both. We're going to have to draw near to Jesus, learn from him, and follow closely behind. We're going to have to let his words dwell in us richly, thankful to God for what He has done and continues to do. (Col 3:16) For we have been called, ultimately, to the very presence of the King, high and lifted up.
Early on in Mark, Jesus states his purpose in two ways. First, he says he came to preach in the surrounding towns and villages of Galilee. What he preached, of course, was the good news that the Kingdom of God had come. And following that he issued a call: “Repent and believe this good news.”
At another point he says, in answer to a criticism of the Pharisees, “I came to call sinners, not the righteous.”
The call implicit here is the same that is explicit in his proclamation of the Gospel. “Repent and believe.” Jesus "came" to issue this very call to one and all.
That word, “believe,” has a universe of meaning, of course. Believe the good news. Believe what you will learn from Jesus as you walk with him, as you listen to his teaching, as you see how he loves people, how unafraid he is, how bold to love, and how the natural response of people who have received such love is to love him back.
But to walk out this believing is a progressive thing. Sometimes, as we will see later in Mark's account, some who have followed Jesus with dedication will suddenly drop away. And Jesus meets their later return to him not with mistrust and rejection, but again with his call. “Follow me. Keep following me. Even after I'm gone, you will be able to follow me. For that I will send the Holy Spirit, and he will empower you, and show you what to say, in a hundred ways and situations, some of them quite dangerous. But the Spirit will show you the way.”
But that's getting ahead of myself. For now, Jesus calls. His call is to repent and believe, and then to follow. “Follow me,” he says to Peter and James and John, the fishermen, and to Matthew, the tax collector. And they do. They follow. They stick close. They watch and learn. In following, they become his students, and he their teacher. They want more of him. They want to do the things he does. They want to understand.
Then, in chapter 3, having taught them, he appoints them to do the same things he's been doing. Preach the Gospel, and overpower the demonic with simple commands, demonstrating thereby that the Kingdom has come indeed.
Now, here's a kind of “leaderboard” snapshot of the moment. You have Jesus at the top. He's the preacher/teacher, calling people to follow. Then next you have “the twelve.” They've been sticking with Jesus a little more closely and consistently than anyone else at this point. But one of these twelve will betray Jesus, and most of the others will desert him when the going gets particularly rough. But for now, they're a band of devoted ones, who've dropped everything to follow them.
After these twelve we have the many who have flocked to Jesus for healing. They too have heard his teaching. Some of them have no doubt believed his news, although who at this point can really understand its full implications? But most will go home, whether believing it or not believing it, and try to get on with their lives.
Now flash ahead to the church in Paul's day. Hundreds of people had seen the resurrected Jesus. There was then the remarkable event we call the ascension. After that, the Pentecost descent of the Holy Spirit in power. There is much powerful preaching of the Kingdom, and much miraculous healing (see the book of Acts), just like when Jesus was alive. The church is spreading like wildfire. Soon, one of the Pharisees who had been chief persecutor of the young movement will flip sides, becoming a Christian himself, and in time he will be best known as a prodigious church planter and writer of memorable epistles. In many of those epistles, which are usually addressed to whole churches (not just particular Christians), he will routinely describe every single believing member of that church as a people who have been "called to be saints."
What I want you to notice is this. It is not just the twelve who are called, but all who believe. You were called to believe, and the call to believe continues, and persists, and echoes down through your days and nights. It is a call to let your believing work its way into your blood and bone, and to let it guide your feet and your hands and your thoughts and your speech.
The call "to be saints" is the continuing call of Jesus to believe the good news and walk it out. No one does this overnight. That is why the call continues and continues and continues. Sometimes, even as the twelve, we fall a gigantic step back. We go from following to fleeing. No one is immune to this.
I've noticed over the years that a lot of Christians have imagined a kind of two-tiered "call." Priests and pastors occupy the upper tier. They have been called to a closer following than the rest of us. It's their duty to be pretty near perfect, or the rest of us get upset about it. These priests and pastors are the modern equivalent of "the twelve," in this view. They answered a "special" call. They're the elite. The rest of us are simply called to obey them. They're pastors, we're sheep. That's our call. They are set apart, while we just go about our lives, like the crowds who gather for a time around Jesus, seeking healing, seeking miracles, then disperse. Our call seems to all boil down to attending church and volunteering in its programs and ministries.
This way of looking at things fits nicely with a desire to elevate the priesthood to an elite status, leaving everyone else in an undifferentiated mass known as "the flock." When egomaniacs go into the ministry, this is the view they take. It serves them well.
But all this is so wrong, has such deleterious repercussions, and (most importantly) is so un-biblical. If you have once received and believed the good news that Jesus offers, you are not only saved, but called to work out that salvation from day to day (in fear and trembling), for it is God's purpose to work his will in and through you (Phil 2:12-13). You have been called to be a saint (a consecrated one, set apart for the purpose of God). Not just your pastor, your church leaders, but you. Not by sitting on as many church boards as you can get yourself appointed to, but by walking out the love of Christ for you by loving others in the same way.
The fact that we don't necessarily do that well, we saints, tells you either that love is hard or that we are weak and sinful and need a lot of help. Or both. We're going to have to draw near to Jesus, learn from him, and follow closely behind. We're going to have to let his words dwell in us richly, thankful to God for what He has done and continues to do. (Col 3:16) For we have been called, ultimately, to the very presence of the King, high and lifted up.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4 ESV)A high calling, that. And it's to all who call upon the name of the Lord. There is no higher calling. Do not dream of another world, another time and place, in which you might walk out your faith. You are called to walk it out today, where you're at. May God be with you.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
My Faith Walk . . . for now
It's Sunday morning, and a part of me is thinking about church. A big part of me. Not that I'm actually longing to find a church. Not that I'm actually hoping to routinely atend a big fancy auditorium where we all sit in rows and listen to some guy I don't know talk for 45 minutes. Every Sunday. No, but it is Sunday after all, and for eighteen years or so that meant a visit to the fancy auditorium, and sitting in rows, etc.
Someone asked me last week why I wasn't "going to church." I gave my shorthand answer. I said, "I'm looking for a church that's at least as Jesusy as the New Testament."
All this is apropos of The Letter to the Hebrews. I've been reading it now for a coupla-three weeks (that's Maine-speak, people). That "letter" is generally believed to be the text of a sermon. The ESV Study Bible says this:
But back to not being in church and all that. It's not that I'm satisfied with my current lone-wolfism. Another person I talked to not long ago asked me what church I was attending these days, and when I told him I wasn't, answered rather imperiously, "May I direct your attention to Hebrews 10:25?" That's the part that says don't neglect meeting together and encouraging one another. Yup, I sure want that one another thing. But if church on Sunday morning is the best we can do, we're in trouble. On the other hand, I want to hang with fellow-believers and be knit together with them. I want a band of brothers, a tribe, a family. Well, what I really want is what Bonhoeffer described in Life Together
. And I'm pretty unconvinced that collecting up a bunch of people from across the region to come together in an auditorium once a week to listen to some music and a speech (lesson, sermon, exhortation) by a guy we don't really know and then going our separate ways for the rest of the week is ever going to be the venue for life together. I've just about given up on that.
Michael Spencer in Mere Churchianity
said there were many like me. Ian Michael Cron wonders if it's a new Christian diaspora. The conversation in the comments section of that post is very interesting too.
The danger for all of us, whether in the church or in "exile," is that we find ourselves one day having put our faith in many things, but not in Jesus. This is always the danger. Idols. Idols of the heart. Idols of the mind. And "proud towers" to house them in. And Jesus once again standing outside, knocking. Laodicea all over again (Rev 3:14-22).
[BTW, Glynn Young has collected some links to similar discussions here. Note also this post from at Public Christianity.]
Someone asked me last week why I wasn't "going to church." I gave my shorthand answer. I said, "I'm looking for a church that's at least as Jesusy as the New Testament."
All this is apropos of The Letter to the Hebrews. I've been reading it now for a coupla-three weeks (that's Maine-speak, people). That "letter" is generally believed to be the text of a sermon. The ESV Study Bible says this:
The genre of Hebrews is unusual. The book is without an introduction or other early indications that it is a letter. Yet the final verses do pass on greetings and blessings (13:23–25), and the author speaks of having “written to you” (13:22). However, the author also identifies his work as a “word of exhortation” (13:22). The careful rhetorical progression of the book, along with its frequent practical exhortations, has led many to consider it a single sermon. Perhaps Hebrews is best understood as a sermonic letter.But the point is, every sip of this rich brew is intensely Jesusy. Intensely Jesusy. Sip it yourself and see. The trick then is to find that same flavor in the church today. It just shouldn't be as rare as it seems to be. Know what I'm sayin'?
But back to not being in church and all that. It's not that I'm satisfied with my current lone-wolfism. Another person I talked to not long ago asked me what church I was attending these days, and when I told him I wasn't, answered rather imperiously, "May I direct your attention to Hebrews 10:25?" That's the part that says don't neglect meeting together and encouraging one another. Yup, I sure want that one another thing. But if church on Sunday morning is the best we can do, we're in trouble. On the other hand, I want to hang with fellow-believers and be knit together with them. I want a band of brothers, a tribe, a family. Well, what I really want is what Bonhoeffer described in Life Together
. And I'm pretty unconvinced that collecting up a bunch of people from across the region to come together in an auditorium once a week to listen to some music and a speech (lesson, sermon, exhortation) by a guy we don't really know and then going our separate ways for the rest of the week is ever going to be the venue for life together. I've just about given up on that.Michael Spencer in Mere Churchianity
said there were many like me. Ian Michael Cron wonders if it's a new Christian diaspora. The conversation in the comments section of that post is very interesting too.The danger for all of us, whether in the church or in "exile," is that we find ourselves one day having put our faith in many things, but not in Jesus. This is always the danger. Idols. Idols of the heart. Idols of the mind. And "proud towers" to house them in. And Jesus once again standing outside, knocking. Laodicea all over again (Rev 3:14-22).
[BTW, Glynn Young has collected some links to similar discussions here. Note also this post from at Public Christianity.]
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
A Double Apocalypse
But first a word about that word: apocalypse. As Darrell Johnson makes clear in his book Discipleship on the Edge (which is about the NT book we call The Revelation, but which was once generally known as The Apocalypse), the word means something to us that it never meant in the first century.
To us it means catastrophe. It means end of the world. Think all the horrifying visions of the end that John was given. Think four horseman, three of which are famine, war, and death (as for the other, well, you can look it up). Apocalypse draws its meaning for us from these terrifying visions.
But in the first century the word meant something quite different. It simply meant a revealing (thus, the modern English title for John's vision, The Revelation). The verb is apokalupto, and the online NT Greek lexicon has this for its meaning: "to uncover, lay open what has been veiled or covered up, to make known, make manifest, disclose what before was unknown".
Which brings us back to Romans 1. The double-apocalypse. You find them at the very heart of the chapter, in verses 17 and 18, translated "revealed" in the ESV. Paul speaks of two revealings.
For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith."That's all for now. I think in these verses we are close to the heart of Romans. 1) The gospel reveals the righteousness of God (God as the source of righteousness), and 2) the unrighteousness of man reveals (brings to light) the anger of God (which is just another aspect of his righteousness, by the way).
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth . . .
Bottom line: righteousness is a core concern of God, and should be for us as well. More in next post.
[The whole Reading Romans series is here.]
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Salvation from futile thoughts and darkened hearts
In the second part of Romans 1, beginning at verse 18, Paul paints a picture a poisoned-by-sin humanity sliding inevitably (it would seem) toward death. It's the kind of passage that tends to be discreetly overlooked in the typical Evangelical preaching cycle.
I can understand that. It's not a pretty picture, and one might even suggest it is too bleak, too unremitting. But Paul is diagnosing a condition that has been brought on by the rejection of God. Rejecting his truth, they turn to their own hearts and minds for understanding. But here's the problem: their thoughts are "futile," and their hearts are "darkened." In this condition they pursue their own way, but it all leads (as Paul will note in a later chapter) to death. Paul sums up the condition in verse 32 here, at the end of a long litany of sin. The people are:
You can't understand salvation Biblically if you don't get the seriousness of humanity's situation. But it is not a hopeless situation. By way of contrast, look at what Paul says in the first half of the chapter about the gospel:
I can understand that. It's not a pretty picture, and one might even suggest it is too bleak, too unremitting. But Paul is diagnosing a condition that has been brought on by the rejection of God. Rejecting his truth, they turn to their own hearts and minds for understanding. But here's the problem: their thoughts are "futile," and their hearts are "darkened." In this condition they pursue their own way, but it all leads (as Paul will note in a later chapter) to death. Paul sums up the condition in verse 32 here, at the end of a long litany of sin. The people are:
foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.Paul's word for all this is "unrighteousness," and my word for it, drawing from a theme I find running throughout Romans, is futility. It leads to death. It produces no life, no harvest, no good fruit. Without the merciful intervention of the rejected God, it will end in justified judgement and wrath from that same God.
You can't understand salvation Biblically if you don't get the seriousness of humanity's situation. But it is not a hopeless situation. By way of contrast, look at what Paul says in the first half of the chapter about the gospel:
- He says that the gospel's purpose is to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of the name of Jesus, everywhere in the world (v.5)
- He says that those who belong to Jesus are called to be saints (v.7)
- He expects that the preaching of the gospel in Rome will reap a harvest (v.13)
- He says that the gospel is the power of salvation for those who believe (v.16)
- And he says that in the gospel is revealed the righteousness of God (v.17)
Note the contrast between unrighteousness and futility, on the one hand, and faith in the gospel and a harvest of righteousness on the other. From the former one would need to be saved (since "futility" implies you can't save yourself), and salvation, Paul says, is for those who believe the gospel. The end result, the fruit, is righteousness, or as Paul says, "the obedience of faith."
So the key to this transformation from unrighteousness to righteousness, for Paul, is the preaching of the gospel, and the reception and believing of the gospel by those who hear it. And it is clearly a continual need, even after the initial motion of believing, for does not Paul desire to reap of harvest among the Roman believers by preaching the gospel to them? The obedience of faith is, apparently, something one grows toward, and the growth is engendered (watered?) by the continued reception of and trusting in the gospel. By this means does growth in godliness continue.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
The Lord taketh?
"The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away." It was Job who said that, I think. Dude was having a hard go of it, what with all his kids dying and all. And he says, The Lord did this!
No attitude can be farther from modern evangelicalism in America than this. We're all about the Lord giveth, but it is not possible, apparently for the Lord to taketh away, at least he wouldn't do that to good, praying Christians.
We just don't go there. It seems to indicate a lack of faith.
That the Lord takes away is a very hard lesson. We want to say that it is the devil who takes away. We live and pray as if the verse said, The Lord giveth, and the devil taketh away (that is if we don't pray enough, obey enough, go to church enough, etc.).
Just listen to the way we pray for people who have life-threatening conditions. The language we use often reveals that we believe that there is a battle between God and the devil for the life of the person in question. The devil brought the life-threatening condition, but we're praying for God to win the battle and restore health to the person. Moreover, we're to believe God will do this, because that's what faith is all about, right? Believing God will do the good thing that we desire.
It's as if we see ourselves as under God's umbrella, which protects us from the rain of hard things. But if illness and death are threatening, that must mean that for some mysterious reason (owing no doubt to the devil) the umbrella wasn't protecting us.
Of course all this sets us up for a major faith crisis when a loved one dies. Instead of God taketh away we cry, How could God let this happen!
I am not, by the way, arguing for stoicism. Job was no stoic. But I'm wondering aloud how the truth that it is God who takes life away (as well as gives life) should affect how we think and pray and live.
In Genesis 3 God actually ordains hardship and mortality for Adam and Eve and their descendants. Which means us. Jesus didn't rescind that order for believers, but his mission and ministry, his life and death and resurrection, taken together, shows us the ultimate context of suffering and death in this world. We see death in a new light. The context is not a battle between the devil and God in which sometimes God wins (and we live) and sometimes the devil (and we die). We need to see our own sorrow, pain, hardship, and even our dying in the context of the God's unfolding redemptive plan, which by the way defeated death as an enemy (for those who "look to Jesus") back about 2000 years ago, on a hill called Calvary.
No attitude can be farther from modern evangelicalism in America than this. We're all about the Lord giveth, but it is not possible, apparently for the Lord to taketh away, at least he wouldn't do that to good, praying Christians.
We just don't go there. It seems to indicate a lack of faith.
That the Lord takes away is a very hard lesson. We want to say that it is the devil who takes away. We live and pray as if the verse said, The Lord giveth, and the devil taketh away (that is if we don't pray enough, obey enough, go to church enough, etc.).
Just listen to the way we pray for people who have life-threatening conditions. The language we use often reveals that we believe that there is a battle between God and the devil for the life of the person in question. The devil brought the life-threatening condition, but we're praying for God to win the battle and restore health to the person. Moreover, we're to believe God will do this, because that's what faith is all about, right? Believing God will do the good thing that we desire.
It's as if we see ourselves as under God's umbrella, which protects us from the rain of hard things. But if illness and death are threatening, that must mean that for some mysterious reason (owing no doubt to the devil) the umbrella wasn't protecting us.
Of course all this sets us up for a major faith crisis when a loved one dies. Instead of God taketh away we cry, How could God let this happen!
I am not, by the way, arguing for stoicism. Job was no stoic. But I'm wondering aloud how the truth that it is God who takes life away (as well as gives life) should affect how we think and pray and live.
In Genesis 3 God actually ordains hardship and mortality for Adam and Eve and their descendants. Which means us. Jesus didn't rescind that order for believers, but his mission and ministry, his life and death and resurrection, taken together, shows us the ultimate context of suffering and death in this world. We see death in a new light. The context is not a battle between the devil and God in which sometimes God wins (and we live) and sometimes the devil (and we die). We need to see our own sorrow, pain, hardship, and even our dying in the context of the God's unfolding redemptive plan, which by the way defeated death as an enemy (for those who "look to Jesus") back about 2000 years ago, on a hill called Calvary.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
I believe. I don't believe. Help.
In Francis Chan's Crazy Love, Chan suggests that most of us are not living any differently than we would be if we didn't believe in God. He recalls a college professor asking the class, "What are you doing right now that requires faith?"
I thought of that question as I journaled this morning about the story in the 9th chapter of Mark concerning the man who brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus for healing. You remember the exchange:
There are some popular "worship songs" out there that encourage us to see ourselves as only bringing the best of ourselves to God. What hogwash. I imagine God saying, in such a case, "Don't kid yourself, chump. You're no better than your ancestors Adam and Eve with their silly fig leaves. Get real!"
It's not as if Jesus is God's faith-proctor, administering a cosmic faith-exam that we are required to pass in order to merit his help, with some "anointed ones" passing with flying colors, the rest of needing to go back to the books and study hard, hoping we don't die before the next scheduled exam comes around.
In reality, like the father in Mark's story, our faith is accompanied by unfaith. For most of us, a little faith, a lot of unfaith. What had Jesus said just prior to this episode? "How long must I bear with this faithless generation?"
Every generation between Adam & Eve's exclusion from the intimate presence of God in His "good" world and the future gathering of the saints in the new creation-encompassing restored garden-world called in the Book of Revelation the New Jerusalem at the end of this age . . . as I say, every generation between these two perfections has been a faithless generation. As the word generation implies, it's bred in the bone.
And yet, the father in the story did say, "I believe." What stirred this foreign inclination in the man's heart? Since I am running long here, I will answer briefly. In a word, weakness. An extreme poverty of resources that led him to admit his helplessness in the face of his son's terrible ordeal. Absolute need. Helplessness. Desperation. And then, also, in the midst of this helplessness, the presence of Jesus.
Lord, I believe. I don't believe. I'm a saint. I'm a sinner. I love you, I turn from you frequently to go my own way. What a mess I am. Most of the time I don't think I am, but I am. I bring it all to you and beg you, heal my unbelief. Help me to walk by faith. I need you more than I know.
I thought of that question as I journaled this morning about the story in the 9th chapter of Mark concerning the man who brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus for healing. You remember the exchange:
The father: If you can heal my son, please do so.I love it. These have been for me, it sometimes seems, the most precious words not spoken by Jesus in the entire Bible. They encapsulate with breathtaking urgency the attitude of David throughout the Psalms. I believe. I don't believe. Help.
Jesus: 'If I can! Why, anything is possible for one who believes!
Father: Lord, I believe. But help my unbelief (by healing my son!).
There are some popular "worship songs" out there that encourage us to see ourselves as only bringing the best of ourselves to God. What hogwash. I imagine God saying, in such a case, "Don't kid yourself, chump. You're no better than your ancestors Adam and Eve with their silly fig leaves. Get real!"
It's not as if Jesus is God's faith-proctor, administering a cosmic faith-exam that we are required to pass in order to merit his help, with some "anointed ones" passing with flying colors, the rest of needing to go back to the books and study hard, hoping we don't die before the next scheduled exam comes around.
In reality, like the father in Mark's story, our faith is accompanied by unfaith. For most of us, a little faith, a lot of unfaith. What had Jesus said just prior to this episode? "How long must I bear with this faithless generation?"
Every generation between Adam & Eve's exclusion from the intimate presence of God in His "good" world and the future gathering of the saints in the new creation-encompassing restored garden-world called in the Book of Revelation the New Jerusalem at the end of this age . . . as I say, every generation between these two perfections has been a faithless generation. As the word generation implies, it's bred in the bone.
And yet, the father in the story did say, "I believe." What stirred this foreign inclination in the man's heart? Since I am running long here, I will answer briefly. In a word, weakness. An extreme poverty of resources that led him to admit his helplessness in the face of his son's terrible ordeal. Absolute need. Helplessness. Desperation. And then, also, in the midst of this helplessness, the presence of Jesus.
Lord, I believe. I don't believe. I'm a saint. I'm a sinner. I love you, I turn from you frequently to go my own way. What a mess I am. Most of the time I don't think I am, but I am. I bring it all to you and beg you, heal my unbelief. Help me to walk by faith. I need you more than I know.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Death, where is thy sting?
I don't want to break anyone's heart, but I hope you all know you're probably going to die someday.
I recently heard a Christian friend of mine say, "I just don't understand how God can allow so-and-so to get cancer." I wanted to say, do you really think certain people should be immune from the normal frailties of the flesh? Or that being a believer should mean not getting cancer, heart disease, MS, etc.? The real question is, why shouldn't he or she get cancer? Or you? Or me? Or anyone else?
Where did we get this idea that it should be disturbing when a wonderful Christian believer gets sick or dies like everyone else in the history of the human race (with a couple of Biblical exceptions)?
I think I know where we get it. Three kinds of teaching in the church: Poor teaching. Lousy teaching. And downright creepy teaching.
Here's an example. In certain Christian circles it's very common to hear talk about the Christian life as if it were a battlefield between God and the devil. Good things happen, and that's obviously attributable to God, the author of all good. Bad things happen, like serious illness, and clearly the devil is trying to get to us. The universe, in this view, is pretty clearly a dualistic place. Good vs. evil in a fight to the finish. Mankind in the middle, choosing sides.
But much trouble comes of this dualistic cosmology. For one thing, the devil is given way too much credit for the world's evil. It's as if the greatest problem we face is "the enemy." It's the devil makes us sick, causes us to lose our jobs, messes up our relationships, causes automobile accidents . . . I've heard it all. But this view makes us out to be more or less innocent victims. We wind up crying out to God (who apparently should have been protecting us better), "How could you let this happen!"
Let me go at the problem from a different angle. If the sickness and death is from an enemy who means us harm, then the greatest problem we face is that enemy. We need God to stop him in his tracks. We have a powerful assailant, so we need an even more powerful protector (God). And we call it faith when we firmly believe that it is surely that protector's will to protect us from every harm.
Therefore, whenever someone gets sick and dies, it seems a kind of failure of God's. "How could you let this happen?"
But what if our greatest problem is not "the enemy"? Or, what if, like Pogo, we have met the enemy, and he is us? What if death is really directly related to sin (Rom 6:16)? Billions of people, throughout history, sinning. You. Me. Everybody. Ever since Adam.
If the devil is our main problem, repentance is not really necessary. We're victims, that's all. The solution is to get on God's side, because He's the more powerful one, and He will protect us. To put it another way, our most pressing need, in that case, is not grace, but power. Superior Spiritual power for vigorous devil-rebuking. If only we had more power! And here good old fashioned legalism has a chance to rear its hoary head, as we study how to coax this needed thing, power over sickness and death, from an apparently somewhat uncooperative deity.
But of course our most pressing problem is not the devil, but sin. And therefore that which we most need is not superior power for fighting the devil, but grace. Again and again grace. Again and again the knowledge of Jesus and his cross, and its victory over every enemy, including death.
I want to insert here Ray Ortlund's brilliant metaphor for the process of sanctification. Read this carefully:
I know a fellow whose ministry it is to "walk with the dying." He befriends and advocates for dying people, and he's often at their side when they pass from this world. He told me once, "Bob, there's no way to predict how someone is going to die. I've seen atheists die peacefully in their beds and lifelong Christians die in abject terror. You can never tell."
I am not foolish enough to claim to know in what way I will face my end, whether in terror or in peace. But I know how God would have me go. Giving him the glory right to the end! I hope I go out whooping and hollering like a rodeo cowboy riding Elijah's whirlwind heavenward. I pray that before my last day comes, whenever that shall be, I will have so feasted on the grace of God, day in and day out, that in the end it will be clear to all who knew me that for me, as for Paul, to die was truly gain (Phil 1:21).
I recently heard a Christian friend of mine say, "I just don't understand how God can allow so-and-so to get cancer." I wanted to say, do you really think certain people should be immune from the normal frailties of the flesh? Or that being a believer should mean not getting cancer, heart disease, MS, etc.? The real question is, why shouldn't he or she get cancer? Or you? Or me? Or anyone else?
Where did we get this idea that it should be disturbing when a wonderful Christian believer gets sick or dies like everyone else in the history of the human race (with a couple of Biblical exceptions)?
I think I know where we get it. Three kinds of teaching in the church: Poor teaching. Lousy teaching. And downright creepy teaching.
Here's an example. In certain Christian circles it's very common to hear talk about the Christian life as if it were a battlefield between God and the devil. Good things happen, and that's obviously attributable to God, the author of all good. Bad things happen, like serious illness, and clearly the devil is trying to get to us. The universe, in this view, is pretty clearly a dualistic place. Good vs. evil in a fight to the finish. Mankind in the middle, choosing sides.
But much trouble comes of this dualistic cosmology. For one thing, the devil is given way too much credit for the world's evil. It's as if the greatest problem we face is "the enemy." It's the devil makes us sick, causes us to lose our jobs, messes up our relationships, causes automobile accidents . . . I've heard it all. But this view makes us out to be more or less innocent victims. We wind up crying out to God (who apparently should have been protecting us better), "How could you let this happen!"
Let me go at the problem from a different angle. If the sickness and death is from an enemy who means us harm, then the greatest problem we face is that enemy. We need God to stop him in his tracks. We have a powerful assailant, so we need an even more powerful protector (God). And we call it faith when we firmly believe that it is surely that protector's will to protect us from every harm.
Therefore, whenever someone gets sick and dies, it seems a kind of failure of God's. "How could you let this happen?"
But what if our greatest problem is not "the enemy"? Or, what if, like Pogo, we have met the enemy, and he is us? What if death is really directly related to sin (Rom 6:16)? Billions of people, throughout history, sinning. You. Me. Everybody. Ever since Adam.
If the devil is our main problem, repentance is not really necessary. We're victims, that's all. The solution is to get on God's side, because He's the more powerful one, and He will protect us. To put it another way, our most pressing need, in that case, is not grace, but power. Superior Spiritual power for vigorous devil-rebuking. If only we had more power! And here good old fashioned legalism has a chance to rear its hoary head, as we study how to coax this needed thing, power over sickness and death, from an apparently somewhat uncooperative deity.
But of course our most pressing problem is not the devil, but sin. And therefore that which we most need is not superior power for fighting the devil, but grace. Again and again grace. Again and again the knowledge of Jesus and his cross, and its victory over every enemy, including death.
I want to insert here Ray Ortlund's brilliant metaphor for the process of sanctification. Read this carefully:
I think of my inner self as a globe, a world, with many dark continents still unexplored, uncivilized, vast jungles of primitive impulses. But Jesus the Liberator steps ashore on the coast of one of those continents, plants the flag of his kingdom in my consciousness and declares peace. That is justification.Here's my point in inserting this passage. One of the darkest regions of our interior continent is that place where we harbor our thoughts about death. Our selfish feeling that death is just not fair, and our childish fear of it, which only reveals the shallowness of our faith. We just don't want to give up this cherished complaint. We don't want to let Jesus plant his flag of grace here, for then we'd have to admit that death for us was justice after all. But Jesus will plant his flag, nevertheless. See, the wages of sin is death, but when Christ took care of sin on the cross, he took care of death. The crosswork of Christ took care of both sin and death.
Then sanctification begins. For example, it doesn't take long for a half-naked savage to run out onto the beach with spear in hand to attack Jesus. This is some selfish desire in me rising up against the King. But he declares peace all over again and subdues that aspect of me by the force of his grace. "Clothed and in his right mind" (Mark 4:15) is the picture.
The King starts moving steadily inland, planting his flag in ever new regions of my being. He brings one dark thing after another into my awareness, declares peace again and again and again, and thereby establishes civilization.
I know a fellow whose ministry it is to "walk with the dying." He befriends and advocates for dying people, and he's often at their side when they pass from this world. He told me once, "Bob, there's no way to predict how someone is going to die. I've seen atheists die peacefully in their beds and lifelong Christians die in abject terror. You can never tell."
I am not foolish enough to claim to know in what way I will face my end, whether in terror or in peace. But I know how God would have me go. Giving him the glory right to the end! I hope I go out whooping and hollering like a rodeo cowboy riding Elijah's whirlwind heavenward. I pray that before my last day comes, whenever that shall be, I will have so feasted on the grace of God, day in and day out, that in the end it will be clear to all who knew me that for me, as for Paul, to die was truly gain (Phil 1:21).
Friday, November 14, 2008
In God We Do Not Trust
Mark Driscoll's pre-election insights:
HT: allsufficientgrace
People are longing for Jesus, and tragically left voting for mere presidential candidates. For those whose candidate wins today there will be some months of groundless euphoric faith in that candidate and the atoning salvation that their kingdom will bring. But, in time, their supporters will see that no matter who wins the presidency, they are mere mortals prone to sin, folly, and self-interest just like all the other sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. To help extend naïve false hope as long as possible, a great enemy will be named and demonized as the one who is hindering all of the progress to atone for our sins and usher in our kingdom. If the Democrats win it will be the rich, and if the Republicans win it will be the terrorists. This diversionary trick is as old as Eve who blamed her sin on Satan rather than repenting. The lie is that it’s always someone else’s fault and we’re always the victim of sinners and never the sinner.Read it all here.
HT: allsufficientgrace
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thinking about dismantling a few rooftops....
I've been reading the Gospel of Mark lately, just a little bit each morning. I write it out, word for word, because that slows me down and helps me not to take the words for granted. It's a spiritual discipline, I guess. Anyway, it seems to be working for me lately. [Actually, my lovely and very smart wife, Laurie, has been doing it for a long time now. She not only reads the Bible, she writes it out! What a kook!]
But where was I? Oh yeah. Mark. So this morning the section I wrote out was the part about the men who let their paralytic friend down through the roof so that Jesus could heal him, right at the beginning of chapter 2. You'll recall that Jesus, seeing the faith of these men (their willingness to overcome any obstacle that stood between themselves and Jesus), healed their paralytic friend.
This is the kind of Scripture that provokes a healthy self-questioning. Do I have the kind of faith that would cause me to climb up on the roof and tear up the boards (or wattles, or whatever) to get to Jesus? That's what that little word, "faith," seems to mean in this context. Their faith was such that they would let nothing come between themselves and Jesus. They believed that if they could only get close to Jesus . . . then all would be well.
This is pretty close to the beginning of Jesus' ministry. At the end, people would be fleeing in all directions. All who had desired so to be near him, and those who said they'd never leave him, were nowhere to be found that bleak Friday at Golgotha.
So we have these two images, if you will. At the beginning, people clambering to get near him. And at the end, nearly everyone fleeing or denying they knew him.
Here's my theory: each one of us has something in him that deeply desires to draw near to Jesus. And something in him, just as deeply imbedded, that despises the cross and would flee from it with every bit as much zeal as we like to claim for our faith. We would have the one without the other, if only we could. One moment we're scratching a hole in the roof so we can get close to Jesus (and maybe save a friend), and the next we're denying we ever knew the man.
I could say to you that we should all be like those men who tore the top off the house to get to Jesus, but I can't help but remember that very soon after Jesus healed their paralytic friend, the Pharisees began to mutter and conspire, and the rest of the story is that of one man walking toward his cross, while all the others fall away. But of course there would be another chapter to this story. The resurrection of Jesus. And the "resurrection" (so to speak) of the men and women who had fled Jesus or denied him. The resurrection of their hope. The resurrection of their faith. The resurrection of their sense of purpose and mission.
We draw near. We flee. We want the warm fuzzies, but not the hard knot of grief in the gut that won't go away. I don't mention this so that we should condemn ourselves, or despise our small faith. Is it not amazing that small faith, very small faith, mustard-seed size faith, is commended by Jesus as something very large and consequential in spiritual terms? Lord, may we only understand this truth a little more each day.
But where was I? Oh yeah. Mark. So this morning the section I wrote out was the part about the men who let their paralytic friend down through the roof so that Jesus could heal him, right at the beginning of chapter 2. You'll recall that Jesus, seeing the faith of these men (their willingness to overcome any obstacle that stood between themselves and Jesus), healed their paralytic friend.
This is the kind of Scripture that provokes a healthy self-questioning. Do I have the kind of faith that would cause me to climb up on the roof and tear up the boards (or wattles, or whatever) to get to Jesus? That's what that little word, "faith," seems to mean in this context. Their faith was such that they would let nothing come between themselves and Jesus. They believed that if they could only get close to Jesus . . . then all would be well.
This is pretty close to the beginning of Jesus' ministry. At the end, people would be fleeing in all directions. All who had desired so to be near him, and those who said they'd never leave him, were nowhere to be found that bleak Friday at Golgotha.
So we have these two images, if you will. At the beginning, people clambering to get near him. And at the end, nearly everyone fleeing or denying they knew him.
Here's my theory: each one of us has something in him that deeply desires to draw near to Jesus. And something in him, just as deeply imbedded, that despises the cross and would flee from it with every bit as much zeal as we like to claim for our faith. We would have the one without the other, if only we could. One moment we're scratching a hole in the roof so we can get close to Jesus (and maybe save a friend), and the next we're denying we ever knew the man.
I could say to you that we should all be like those men who tore the top off the house to get to Jesus, but I can't help but remember that very soon after Jesus healed their paralytic friend, the Pharisees began to mutter and conspire, and the rest of the story is that of one man walking toward his cross, while all the others fall away. But of course there would be another chapter to this story. The resurrection of Jesus. And the "resurrection" (so to speak) of the men and women who had fled Jesus or denied him. The resurrection of their hope. The resurrection of their faith. The resurrection of their sense of purpose and mission.
We draw near. We flee. We want the warm fuzzies, but not the hard knot of grief in the gut that won't go away. I don't mention this so that we should condemn ourselves, or despise our small faith. Is it not amazing that small faith, very small faith, mustard-seed size faith, is commended by Jesus as something very large and consequential in spiritual terms? Lord, may we only understand this truth a little more each day.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Faith that Endures: Past, Present, and Future Aspects of the Gospel in Colossians 1
[I’ve been reading Paul’s letter to the Colossians a lot lately. Not the whole letter, mind you. Just the first chapter, over and over. I keep reading and rereading it, with a fascination that borders on the absurd. So I guess it was inevitable that I post something here about it. Please excuse the inordinate length of this post. If you actually read it and find it helpful . . . well I'll be darned!]
Very often, the first chapters of Paul’s letters tell you much about the recipients of the epistles. In the letter to the Colossians, for example, we learn that the Colossian believers are known especially for their faith in Christ Jesus and also for their love for all the saints (v4). I might pause to note that one may be a Christian and yet weak in faith (I speak out of a personal knowledge), failing to consistently apply one’s faith in Christ Jesus in all situations. In other words, what Paul says here about the Colossians may be quite unique. They are a church full of newborn Christians who are remarkable for their faith and love.
Paul had heard about it from Epaphras, who had first preached the gospel to the Colossians, and who Paul calls “a faithful minister of Christ” on behalf of the Colossians (v7). “The gospel” comes up a lot in this first chapter. Paul calls it “the word of the truth” (v5) and “the grace of God in truth” (v6). Three times he associates the gospel with a great hope for the future: he refers to “the hope laid up for you in heaven” at verse 5, “[sharing] in the inheritance of the saints in light” at verse 12, and at verse 23 he urges the Colossians not to stray from “the hope of the gospel that you heard.”
The gospel, then, is not only the good news about something that has taken place in the past, although that aspect of it is certainly of crucial importance. In fact, Paul does not neglect this past-aspect of the gospel. At verse 19 he says, “For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, making peace by the blood of the cross.” But this past-aspect, as I call it, has a regenerative impact on the present, and a magnificent fulfillment in the future. All three temporal aspects of the gospel–past, present, and future–are on display in Colossians 1.
Let’s sort out Paul’s references to things past, things present, and things future.
In the past the Colossians had been alienated from God and “hostile in mind” toward him. Later, in this same letter Paul will describe them as a people who once walked in “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness” (3:5-7). I don’t suppose the Colossians were especially immoral people, far worse than the people in, say, Ephesus or Corinth. They were simply members of a fallen and sinful race, sliding toward death. Just like the rest of us.
But something happened. A fellow named Epaphras came along, and shared with the Colossians a message about Jesus (he ministered Christ to them, v7). The message included, no doubt, the story of Christ's finished work (see verses 13-14 and 19-21), but it also featured prominently the future hope that Christ’s finished work had made available to them. In other words, what Christ had done in the past secured for them, if they would only accept it, a bright future. And they did accept it. They heard it, understood it, and believed it (v6), and that was the beginning of their new lives.
But life is lived, of course, in the present. What does Paul have to say about the present-aspect of the gospel? Is their new life in Christ a matter only of the hereafter, of a pie-in-the-sky in the great by-and-by?
Not hardly. The gospel, Paul says, is–in the present–bearing fruit and growing. It is doing so among the Colossians, as well as “in the whole world,” wherever the gospel has been preached (v6). What does he mean by this? What sort of fruit does the gospel produce in people? The answer, at least in part, is love. Just look at verse 4, where Paul commends the Colossians first for their faith, then for their love “for all the saints,” which they possess “because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.”
Now, the hope laid up in heaven is a reference to the future-aspect of the gospel message. They heard the gospel, understood it, were born again or regenerated, and the fruit of their trust in the gospel guarantees of a future inheritance was an abiding “love for all the saints.” [Note: the gospel makes us lovers.] Epaphras later told Paul about this love. That’s how noteworthy it was. It was the kind of love that people told their friends about it. The Colossians had such love for the saints that it was something far more than natural. It was “love in the Spirit” (v8).
So here we have a vibrant assembly of believers, full of faith and love. What more do they need? In answer, Paul says they will need to increase in the knowledge of God and of his will, and so that is the burden of his prayer for them. Why so? Paul quickly answers, “so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (v10).
So, between the new birth and the inheritance “in light,” there is a worthy walking. Back before their new birth they had done “evil deeds” (v22), but now they will bear fruit in the form of “every good work.” And yet it is not something that comes with ease. We know this because Paul adds to his prayer for knowledge a prayer for the power of God to work in their lives for the purpose of providing them with “all endurance and patience with joy” (v11).
All endurance! The words are laden with ominous implications. The question I ask myself is, what is the cost of not enduring? What is lost when we don’t endure? Or to put it another way, what exactly are we to endure in? One might say, good works, and not be far wrong. But the real answer comes clear a few verses later. Let’s follow Paul’s reasoning.
After praying for power to endure for the Colossians, Paul then composes one of the mightiest hymns to Jesus Christ as God the any man has ever penned. This comes in verses 15 to 20. It is a brief but awesome perspective on the “preeminence” of Jesus in “all things.” Then, returning our focus from the Godhead to the Colossians, Paul says this:
Paul knows their faith will come under attack. There will come people who will try to delude the Colossians “with plausible arguments” (2:4). People who will try to capture their minds with “philosophy and empty deceit” (2:8). Or recall what Paul described in a similar passage in his letter to the Ephesians: he says that God gives us teachers in order to help us grow to maturity in Christ, “so that we may longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes” (Eph. 4:14).
So, a key descriptor of the present-aspect of the faithful life is endurance in faith. And one of the lessons of Colossians is that our faith is strengthened when we set our minds on the future-aspect of the gospel. On "the hope laid up in heaven" for us. On "the inheritance of the saints in light." If that future hope falters, so does their present walk. Their present walk, in other words, depends on their clinging to (“not shifting from”) the gospel, but not only the glorious past-aspect of the gospel, but the wondrous inheritance that it guarantees to our future. The critical nature of this future-aspect of the gospel is captured in a nutshell when Paul describes the wondrous riches of God's grace as, "Christ in you, the hope [sure expectation] of glory." Let not this hope be eroded, downplayed, or shuffled aside in favor or lesser things. In chapter 3 Paul will put it this way:
Very often, the first chapters of Paul’s letters tell you much about the recipients of the epistles. In the letter to the Colossians, for example, we learn that the Colossian believers are known especially for their faith in Christ Jesus and also for their love for all the saints (v4). I might pause to note that one may be a Christian and yet weak in faith (I speak out of a personal knowledge), failing to consistently apply one’s faith in Christ Jesus in all situations. In other words, what Paul says here about the Colossians may be quite unique. They are a church full of newborn Christians who are remarkable for their faith and love.
Paul had heard about it from Epaphras, who had first preached the gospel to the Colossians, and who Paul calls “a faithful minister of Christ” on behalf of the Colossians (v7). “The gospel” comes up a lot in this first chapter. Paul calls it “the word of the truth” (v5) and “the grace of God in truth” (v6). Three times he associates the gospel with a great hope for the future: he refers to “the hope laid up for you in heaven” at verse 5, “[sharing] in the inheritance of the saints in light” at verse 12, and at verse 23 he urges the Colossians not to stray from “the hope of the gospel that you heard.”
The gospel, then, is not only the good news about something that has taken place in the past, although that aspect of it is certainly of crucial importance. In fact, Paul does not neglect this past-aspect of the gospel. At verse 19 he says, “For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, making peace by the blood of the cross.” But this past-aspect, as I call it, has a regenerative impact on the present, and a magnificent fulfillment in the future. All three temporal aspects of the gospel–past, present, and future–are on display in Colossians 1.
Let’s sort out Paul’s references to things past, things present, and things future.
In the past the Colossians had been alienated from God and “hostile in mind” toward him. Later, in this same letter Paul will describe them as a people who once walked in “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness” (3:5-7). I don’t suppose the Colossians were especially immoral people, far worse than the people in, say, Ephesus or Corinth. They were simply members of a fallen and sinful race, sliding toward death. Just like the rest of us.
But something happened. A fellow named Epaphras came along, and shared with the Colossians a message about Jesus (he ministered Christ to them, v7). The message included, no doubt, the story of Christ's finished work (see verses 13-14 and 19-21), but it also featured prominently the future hope that Christ’s finished work had made available to them. In other words, what Christ had done in the past secured for them, if they would only accept it, a bright future. And they did accept it. They heard it, understood it, and believed it (v6), and that was the beginning of their new lives.
But life is lived, of course, in the present. What does Paul have to say about the present-aspect of the gospel? Is their new life in Christ a matter only of the hereafter, of a pie-in-the-sky in the great by-and-by?
Not hardly. The gospel, Paul says, is–in the present–bearing fruit and growing. It is doing so among the Colossians, as well as “in the whole world,” wherever the gospel has been preached (v6). What does he mean by this? What sort of fruit does the gospel produce in people? The answer, at least in part, is love. Just look at verse 4, where Paul commends the Colossians first for their faith, then for their love “for all the saints,” which they possess “because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.”
Now, the hope laid up in heaven is a reference to the future-aspect of the gospel message. They heard the gospel, understood it, were born again or regenerated, and the fruit of their trust in the gospel guarantees of a future inheritance was an abiding “love for all the saints.” [Note: the gospel makes us lovers.] Epaphras later told Paul about this love. That’s how noteworthy it was. It was the kind of love that people told their friends about it. The Colossians had such love for the saints that it was something far more than natural. It was “love in the Spirit” (v8).
So here we have a vibrant assembly of believers, full of faith and love. What more do they need? In answer, Paul says they will need to increase in the knowledge of God and of his will, and so that is the burden of his prayer for them. Why so? Paul quickly answers, “so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (v10).
So, between the new birth and the inheritance “in light,” there is a worthy walking. Back before their new birth they had done “evil deeds” (v22), but now they will bear fruit in the form of “every good work.” And yet it is not something that comes with ease. We know this because Paul adds to his prayer for knowledge a prayer for the power of God to work in their lives for the purpose of providing them with “all endurance and patience with joy” (v11).
All endurance! The words are laden with ominous implications. The question I ask myself is, what is the cost of not enduring? What is lost when we don’t endure? Or to put it another way, what exactly are we to endure in? One might say, good works, and not be far wrong. But the real answer comes clear a few verses later. Let’s follow Paul’s reasoning.
After praying for power to endure for the Colossians, Paul then composes one of the mightiest hymns to Jesus Christ as God the any man has ever penned. This comes in verses 15 to 20. It is a brief but awesome perspective on the “preeminence” of Jesus in “all things.” Then, returning our focus from the Godhead to the Colossians, Paul says this:
And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has reconciled in his body of flesh by his death [past-aspect], in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him [future-aspect], if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast [present-aspect].So what is at stake where “endurance” is concerned? Our faith. We need to endure in our faith, continue in it, “stable and steadfast,” because there are things that will seek to undermine it, or perhaps to wear it away by slow and imperceptible degrees. The endurance that Paul prays for is not primarily physical endurance, but endurance in faith.
Paul knows their faith will come under attack. There will come people who will try to delude the Colossians “with plausible arguments” (2:4). People who will try to capture their minds with “philosophy and empty deceit” (2:8). Or recall what Paul described in a similar passage in his letter to the Ephesians: he says that God gives us teachers in order to help us grow to maturity in Christ, “so that we may longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes” (Eph. 4:14).
So, a key descriptor of the present-aspect of the faithful life is endurance in faith. And one of the lessons of Colossians is that our faith is strengthened when we set our minds on the future-aspect of the gospel. On "the hope laid up in heaven" for us. On "the inheritance of the saints in light." If that future hope falters, so does their present walk. Their present walk, in other words, depends on their clinging to (“not shifting from”) the gospel, but not only the glorious past-aspect of the gospel, but the wondrous inheritance that it guarantees to our future. The critical nature of this future-aspect of the gospel is captured in a nutshell when Paul describes the wondrous riches of God's grace as, "Christ in you, the hope [sure expectation] of glory." Let not this hope be eroded, downplayed, or shuffled aside in favor or lesser things. In chapter 3 Paul will put it this way:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.The single imperative we can draw from all this is: guard the trust you’ve been given, a faith by which you were born anew, by which you are able now to love in the Spirit, able walk in a manner worthy of the very one who died for you, so that you might one day be presented before him “holy and blameless and above reproach” (v22). That day is coming, and itwill be glorious. In the meantime, stand firm in your faith.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Faith is nothing!
If you're accustomed to talk about your faith as if it were a kind of glittering jewel, a cherished possession that seems to impress God as well as others, well, maybe you ought to read Matt Jenson's, Faith is Nothing.
And if you like to urge people to have faith, as if it is something that can be achieved simply by repetitious exhortation, again, read Faith is Nothing.
HT: Daniel Hames.
And if you like to urge people to have faith, as if it is something that can be achieved simply by repetitious exhortation, again, read Faith is Nothing.
Trouble is, we ever so subtly undermine the logic of faith when we too glibly exhort a person to ‘have faith’.... We pay lip service to grace and then call people to drum up faith, to work with all their might to squeeze out enough of it to make their lives worth saving. We convert faith, in other words, into a work.That's good, but now check this out:
If one were to ask Luther how she ought judge her faith, he would flatly reply that she should do no such thing, instead looking to the one judged in her place. Rather than getting caught up in diagnostics of faith (note the clinical expertise with which we can say ‘you don’t have enough faith!’), Luther would have us simply re-direct our attention to the object of faith, Jesus. Jesus is the mirror in which, by faith, we see ourselves, those women and men dead and raised to new life by the power of the Spirit.Read the whole thing for more of same.
HT: Daniel Hames.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
What do you believe about yourself that is a flat-out lie?
So much of what the Holy Spirit is working in us as believers begins with how we identify ourselves, and how we understand ourselves as persons. The Spirit works to impress on us our new identity in the eyes of God. There are so many facets to this that we never do receive the full understanding. Our minds would simply explode! We receive it piecemeal, little by little.
On the other hand, a self-identity fostered in us by the world . . . that is, a pattern of self-understanding that is accepted as an unquestioned and unquestionable fact, but which in truth is a product of the lie spoken by the serpent long ago and repeated in various forms to every person in every generation since . . . that pattern of self-understanding is something that does not go down without a fight. This battle between lies that we have long believed and truths that are new and in fact don't really seem to fit the evidence, this battle is waged in our very minds and hearts, day in and day out.
Here's the point. We who are in Christ are being renewed and reformed, quite shockingly, into the likeness of Christ. And here's the other point. Most of the time, we do not believe it. Oh, we accept it as a theoretical matter, as something that always remains conveniently "spiritual," but not as something that can be experienced in our own bodies and minds. This is how I understand that faith can grow. By a growing faith I do not mean a growth in intensity or passion, but an application of faith to more and more areas of our lives, and in part that means to more and more areas of our own self-identity. Believing, in the midst of the brutal scrum that is life, that God is working in us what he said in his word he would work in us by the Holy Spirit, and walking that out, by faith, in specific areas of our lives.
An example: learning, the ability to learn and grow, is a heavenly reality that is only experienced in shadowy way in the here and now. In the new heaven and earth, when God's will is done throughout the creation, we will be full-time learners, always delightfully growing in the knowledge of God, forever. So, our foretaste of that as believers, our downpayment, is the experience of renewed minds even now through faith.
A friend of mine is struggling to learn some new and very complex matters in the course of training for a new job. Part of his struggle to learn is in trusting that in Christ he can do this thing. That, in fact, this matter to which he has set his mind is one of the "all things" that are now possible for those who are in Christ Jesus. And also that, however much he has in the past accepted a self-identity as one who is "a slow learner," the truth is that even now, in this training situation, as he faces these grueling tests of the mind, The Holy Spirit is equipping him to leap these hurdles, to overcome these obstacles, and to win this victory!
On the other hand, a self-identity fostered in us by the world . . . that is, a pattern of self-understanding that is accepted as an unquestioned and unquestionable fact, but which in truth is a product of the lie spoken by the serpent long ago and repeated in various forms to every person in every generation since . . . that pattern of self-understanding is something that does not go down without a fight. This battle between lies that we have long believed and truths that are new and in fact don't really seem to fit the evidence, this battle is waged in our very minds and hearts, day in and day out.
Here's the point. We who are in Christ are being renewed and reformed, quite shockingly, into the likeness of Christ. And here's the other point. Most of the time, we do not believe it. Oh, we accept it as a theoretical matter, as something that always remains conveniently "spiritual," but not as something that can be experienced in our own bodies and minds. This is how I understand that faith can grow. By a growing faith I do not mean a growth in intensity or passion, but an application of faith to more and more areas of our lives, and in part that means to more and more areas of our own self-identity. Believing, in the midst of the brutal scrum that is life, that God is working in us what he said in his word he would work in us by the Holy Spirit, and walking that out, by faith, in specific areas of our lives.
An example: learning, the ability to learn and grow, is a heavenly reality that is only experienced in shadowy way in the here and now. In the new heaven and earth, when God's will is done throughout the creation, we will be full-time learners, always delightfully growing in the knowledge of God, forever. So, our foretaste of that as believers, our downpayment, is the experience of renewed minds even now through faith.
A friend of mine is struggling to learn some new and very complex matters in the course of training for a new job. Part of his struggle to learn is in trusting that in Christ he can do this thing. That, in fact, this matter to which he has set his mind is one of the "all things" that are now possible for those who are in Christ Jesus. And also that, however much he has in the past accepted a self-identity as one who is "a slow learner," the truth is that even now, in this training situation, as he faces these grueling tests of the mind, The Holy Spirit is equipping him to leap these hurdles, to overcome these obstacles, and to win this victory!
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Believing (again)
So where do I stand? I have over the last few months journaled right through the Gospel of John, only to find myself, it seems, merely at the threshold of something, rather than "further up and further in." Looking back along the path I’ve come, I can see that I’ve wandered off on many side-tracks and deceitful detours, following will-o-the-wisps in the name of faith. But reading the Gospel of John again and again in the past few months, I come away humbled by the disciplined simplicity of Jesus’ message. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. Believe in me."
Believing, believing in Jesus, that is the hard nugget I come away with after all this mining. You dig it up, brush the dirt off, and realize it was something you once possessed, but somehow it had gotten lost in all the craziness and turbulence. Faith is the other word for it. Do I know what it means? Do I know what it entails? Do I see and understand where the journey of believing in Him will take me? Undoubtedly not. That's what it means, I suppose, to be a fool for Christ. To follow, though you know not where.
I was thinking to blog about loving Jesus, and about abiding in him, but I find myself daunted for the moment. I have no wisdom to impart but this: Go to Jesus. For one man who did (John, the son of Zebedee) Jesus came to be the hard core center of his long life (see here, for example).
Everything important begins right here: believing in Jesus. Do you yearn for holiness? Long for joy? Wish dreamily for peace? Go to Jesus. That's all I can say. All these thing and more are found in him, and only in him.
Believing, believing in Jesus, that is the hard nugget I come away with after all this mining. You dig it up, brush the dirt off, and realize it was something you once possessed, but somehow it had gotten lost in all the craziness and turbulence. Faith is the other word for it. Do I know what it means? Do I know what it entails? Do I see and understand where the journey of believing in Him will take me? Undoubtedly not. That's what it means, I suppose, to be a fool for Christ. To follow, though you know not where.
I was thinking to blog about loving Jesus, and about abiding in him, but I find myself daunted for the moment. I have no wisdom to impart but this: Go to Jesus. For one man who did (John, the son of Zebedee) Jesus came to be the hard core center of his long life (see here, for example).
Everything important begins right here: believing in Jesus. Do you yearn for holiness? Long for joy? Wish dreamily for peace? Go to Jesus. That's all I can say. All these thing and more are found in him, and only in him.
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