Showing posts with label Paul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul. Show all posts
Friday, July 31, 2020
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
How Conflicts Can Bring God's Blessings
[This is the journal entry from my morning quiet time with God today.]
Acts 15, which I read for my quiet time with God today, might be titled, The Tale of Two Conflicts.
The first conflict arises over whether Gentile converts to Christian faith need to be circumcised. In other words, did Gentiles have to be Jews in order to be Christians?
The question was answered by the Holy Spirit, in consultation with Scripture, at a council in Jerusalem. “ Now then,” Peter said to Judaizing Christians, “why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” (Acts 15:10-11) The council decided to ask Gentile Christians to refrain from a few things out of consideration of Jewish Christians’ sensibilities, but concluded that since the Holy Spirit had given the Gentile Christians faith in Christ and the Holy Spirit, the very gifts the Jewish Christians had received, they should not also have to become Jews also.
The second conflict occurred later at Antioch. Paul proposed a second missionary journey to Barnabas. Barnabas wanted to take John Mark as part of their team. Paul was still upset with the younger man for abandoning the earlier mission. Paul and Barnabas became so upset with one another that they decided to “agree to disagree” and go on separate missionary journeys. Paul took Silas. Barnabas took John Mark.
What’s interesting to note is that neither conflict harmed the Church or its witness for Christ. In fact, both conflicts helped the Church.
Through the first conflict, the Church was driven to Scripture and prayer. Both parties listened to each other and came to a resolution that was deemed acceptable “to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28).
The second conflict resulted in two mission journeys rather than the originally intended one journey. God multiplied the Church’s impact and the spread of the Gospel through division.
It’s thought that John Mark is Mark the Evangelist, author of the second of the New Testament’s four gospels. The tradition supporting this notion is very old. If true, it would seem to indicate that Barnabas’ invitation to the young disciple to go on this missionary journey was a gracious act that sustained John Mark’s faith. What would have happened had Barnabas gone on the second journey with Paul and left John Mark behind? We don’t know, of course. But I like to think that Barnabas was used by God to buttress the young man’s faith.
In any case, both conflicts ended with good results.
What this passage tells us is that not all conflict is bad.
Conflicts can send us back to God’s Word.
Conflicts can bring listening and new understanding.
Conflicts can also bring a healthy resolution of agreeing to disagree and pursuing different paths without acrimony.
As long as our aim is to honor God and love others and we pursue it prayerfully and with an eye to the ultimate source of authority, God’s Word, conflict need not be harmful.
This is good to remember in our homes, places of work, and churches. I have seen marriages strengthened through honest, loving conflict. I have seen the same thing in churches.
When the Church experienced conflict over what to do about Gentile converts to the faith and when two of the most prominent preacher/evangelists of the first century had a conflict, God brought blessings through the conflicts. Both conflicts brought great spiritual and numerical growth to Christ’s Church!
Conflict is neutral; whether it’s good or bad is in how it’s approached. Conflicts in which one or both parties are selfishly seeking their own ways can be deeply destructive. Conflicts in which one or both parties are seeking to understand the will of God and who desire to honor God can be healthy...and even result in growth of all kinds.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Acts 15, which I read for my quiet time with God today, might be titled, The Tale of Two Conflicts.
The first conflict arises over whether Gentile converts to Christian faith need to be circumcised. In other words, did Gentiles have to be Jews in order to be Christians?
The question was answered by the Holy Spirit, in consultation with Scripture, at a council in Jerusalem. “ Now then,” Peter said to Judaizing Christians, “why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” (Acts 15:10-11) The council decided to ask Gentile Christians to refrain from a few things out of consideration of Jewish Christians’ sensibilities, but concluded that since the Holy Spirit had given the Gentile Christians faith in Christ and the Holy Spirit, the very gifts the Jewish Christians had received, they should not also have to become Jews also.
The second conflict occurred later at Antioch. Paul proposed a second missionary journey to Barnabas. Barnabas wanted to take John Mark as part of their team. Paul was still upset with the younger man for abandoning the earlier mission. Paul and Barnabas became so upset with one another that they decided to “agree to disagree” and go on separate missionary journeys. Paul took Silas. Barnabas took John Mark.
What’s interesting to note is that neither conflict harmed the Church or its witness for Christ. In fact, both conflicts helped the Church.
Through the first conflict, the Church was driven to Scripture and prayer. Both parties listened to each other and came to a resolution that was deemed acceptable “to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28).
The second conflict resulted in two mission journeys rather than the originally intended one journey. God multiplied the Church’s impact and the spread of the Gospel through division.
It’s thought that John Mark is Mark the Evangelist, author of the second of the New Testament’s four gospels. The tradition supporting this notion is very old. If true, it would seem to indicate that Barnabas’ invitation to the young disciple to go on this missionary journey was a gracious act that sustained John Mark’s faith. What would have happened had Barnabas gone on the second journey with Paul and left John Mark behind? We don’t know, of course. But I like to think that Barnabas was used by God to buttress the young man’s faith.
In any case, both conflicts ended with good results.
What this passage tells us is that not all conflict is bad.
Conflicts can send us back to God’s Word.
Conflicts can bring listening and new understanding.
Conflicts can also bring a healthy resolution of agreeing to disagree and pursuing different paths without acrimony.
As long as our aim is to honor God and love others and we pursue it prayerfully and with an eye to the ultimate source of authority, God’s Word, conflict need not be harmful.
This is good to remember in our homes, places of work, and churches. I have seen marriages strengthened through honest, loving conflict. I have seen the same thing in churches.
When the Church experienced conflict over what to do about Gentile converts to the faith and when two of the most prominent preacher/evangelists of the first century had a conflict, God brought blessings through the conflicts. Both conflicts brought great spiritual and numerical growth to Christ’s Church!
Conflict is neutral; whether it’s good or bad is in how it’s approached. Conflicts in which one or both parties are selfishly seeking their own ways can be deeply destructive. Conflicts in which one or both parties are seeking to understand the will of God and who desire to honor God can be healthy...and even result in growth of all kinds.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
God has taught me a lot today
For my morning Quiet Time with God today, I read Acts 15. The New Testament book of Acts, of course, is Luke's account of the life of the early Church, from Jesus' ascension through about 60 AD.
One of the things I love about Acts is that Luke never sugar coats conflicts and controversies that existed in the early Church. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Luke "tells it like it is," assuring us that even among believers in Christ who love each other, disagreements and conflicts arise.
In Acts 15, Luke recounts two conflicts, one theological with implications for the whole Church, the other personal.
The first conflict was over the threat posed by the so-called "Judaizers," Jewish Christians who, unlike Paul, Barnabas, and others, insisted that Gentile converts to faith in Christ had to submit to Old Testament Jewish ritual law. Paul and Barnabas felt that this added legalistic requirements to salvation and discipleship. The good news the early Church proclaimed is that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone and not by works of any kind. (This is the central teaching of the Christian faith.)
Paul and Barnabas therefore went to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles and elders, the leaders of the Church, to seek a resolution of the matter. This triggered what we now call the council of Jerusalem. What emerged after prayer and discussion was the directive that Gentiles need not become practicing Jews to be part of the Church's fellowship. A request was also made to the Gentile believers that, out of consideration to Jewish believers in their fellowships, they refrain from a few behaviors.
The conflict was resolved.
Oddly enough, a second conflict arose later in Antioch between Paul and Barnabas. Paul wanted to go to the churches in the cities that he, Barnabas, and their team had gone earlier, places where they had established congregations. The purpose would be to see how the congregations were doing. Barnabas was evidently amenable to that, but wanted to take a young Christian named John, also called Mark, with them. But Paul recoiled at the notion, not forgetting that during an earlier mission, while in Pamphylia, John Mark had abandoned them. Paul deemed him unreliable.
Acts 5:39-41 tells us:
I think that it was.
They agreed to disagree and they parted ways.
Sometimes, brothers and sisters in Christ can affirm the faith of those with whom they have conflicts but decide that it's best if they not work directly together. That's OK. Someday in eternity, when God's sanctifying work in us will have been completed, we won't have any personality conflicts; we'll just love the diversity of personalities that all bear the image of God. But this isn't heaven and for now, we can sometimes rub each other the wrong way.
In fact, I think that the split of Paul and Barnabas at this point ended up being a good thing for the mission and future of the Church.
Why?
First of all, by splitting, they covered more territory, encouraged more Christians, and probably won more new converts to Christ than they would have had they stayed together, going to the same places.
Secondly, Barnabas, was able to fulfill his most important calling as a Christian.
Barnabas' real name was Joseph. But his nickname, Barnabas, meant, essentially, son of encouragement.
It had been Barnabas who had taken the new convert Paul (previously Saul, a persecutor of the Church) under his wing, encouraged him, and introduced the new convert to the skeptical apostles.
After taking John Mark under his wing, Barnabas was used by God to encourage another young Christian, one who would later, tradition says, pen the Gospel of Mark.
All in all, agreeing to disagree and the parting of ways by Paul and Barnabas to which the two agreed turned out to be a very good thing.
Conflicts get resolved in different ways.
What Acts 15 tells us then about conflict, I think, is that it's not intrinsically a bad thing.
Conflict is even an inevitable thing among people who are passionate about their faith.
Too many Christians operate with the false notion that Christians should never argue or disagree. The Bible repeatedly tells us, both overtly and by illustrative narration, that this isn't true.
When conflicts do arise among Christians though, there must be circumspection among the combatants. People need to ask themselves questions like:
One of the things I love about Acts is that Luke never sugar coats conflicts and controversies that existed in the early Church. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Luke "tells it like it is," assuring us that even among believers in Christ who love each other, disagreements and conflicts arise.
In Acts 15, Luke recounts two conflicts, one theological with implications for the whole Church, the other personal.
The first conflict was over the threat posed by the so-called "Judaizers," Jewish Christians who, unlike Paul, Barnabas, and others, insisted that Gentile converts to faith in Christ had to submit to Old Testament Jewish ritual law. Paul and Barnabas felt that this added legalistic requirements to salvation and discipleship. The good news the early Church proclaimed is that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone and not by works of any kind. (This is the central teaching of the Christian faith.)
Paul and Barnabas therefore went to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles and elders, the leaders of the Church, to seek a resolution of the matter. This triggered what we now call the council of Jerusalem. What emerged after prayer and discussion was the directive that Gentiles need not become practicing Jews to be part of the Church's fellowship. A request was also made to the Gentile believers that, out of consideration to Jewish believers in their fellowships, they refrain from a few behaviors.
The conflict was resolved.
Oddly enough, a second conflict arose later in Antioch between Paul and Barnabas. Paul wanted to go to the churches in the cities that he, Barnabas, and their team had gone earlier, places where they had established congregations. The purpose would be to see how the congregations were doing. Barnabas was evidently amenable to that, but wanted to take a young Christian named John, also called Mark, with them. But Paul recoiled at the notion, not forgetting that during an earlier mission, while in Pamphylia, John Mark had abandoned them. Paul deemed him unreliable.
Acts 5:39-41 tells us:
The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.The question this raises is this: Was the conflict between Paul and Barnabas resolved?
I think that it was.
They agreed to disagree and they parted ways.
Sometimes, brothers and sisters in Christ can affirm the faith of those with whom they have conflicts but decide that it's best if they not work directly together. That's OK. Someday in eternity, when God's sanctifying work in us will have been completed, we won't have any personality conflicts; we'll just love the diversity of personalities that all bear the image of God. But this isn't heaven and for now, we can sometimes rub each other the wrong way.
In fact, I think that the split of Paul and Barnabas at this point ended up being a good thing for the mission and future of the Church.
Why?
First of all, by splitting, they covered more territory, encouraged more Christians, and probably won more new converts to Christ than they would have had they stayed together, going to the same places.
Secondly, Barnabas, was able to fulfill his most important calling as a Christian.
Barnabas' real name was Joseph. But his nickname, Barnabas, meant, essentially, son of encouragement.
It had been Barnabas who had taken the new convert Paul (previously Saul, a persecutor of the Church) under his wing, encouraged him, and introduced the new convert to the skeptical apostles.
After taking John Mark under his wing, Barnabas was used by God to encourage another young Christian, one who would later, tradition says, pen the Gospel of Mark.
All in all, agreeing to disagree and the parting of ways by Paul and Barnabas to which the two agreed turned out to be a very good thing.
Conflicts get resolved in different ways.
What Acts 15 tells us then about conflict, I think, is that it's not intrinsically a bad thing.
Conflict is even an inevitable thing among people who are passionate about their faith.
Too many Christians operate with the false notion that Christians should never argue or disagree. The Bible repeatedly tells us, both overtly and by illustrative narration, that this isn't true.
When conflicts do arise among Christians though, there must be circumspection among the combatants. People need to ask themselves questions like:
- Why am I upset?
- What's really at stake?
- Is this conflict over a core theological issue (like the one raised by the Judaizers) or is this a personality clash (like the one over John Mark)?
- Would a compromise be faithful to God, Christ, and the Bible?
- Is this a conflict that requires the combatants to go their separate ways, even as they affirm each other's faith, and pray for personal reconciliation?
- Is this conflict great enough to warrant breaking the fellowship of the Church?
- Is this a time to invoke Jesus' formula for conflict resolution (Matthew 18:15-20) because you feel someone has sinned against you?
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Your Money or Your Life
[This was shared during worship this morning with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]
1 Timothy 6:6-19
It may be an example of holy coincidence, what someone has called God-incidence, that on the Sunday following the premiere of the movie, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, our Bible lessons for the day warn us of the dangers to our very souls represented by the love of money. Gordon Gekko, the main character played by Michael Douglas in this long-anticipated sequel, is known for his tagline in the first film: “Greed is good.” Jesus, in our Gospel lesson, the prophet Amos in the first lesson, and the apostle Paul in the second, all tell us today that “Greed is not good.”
But more than that, they say, “Greed for wealth can rob you of life for all eternity. Watch out for greed!”
The most tempting thing for us to do when we encounter Bible passages like these is to ignore them, thinking that they don’t apply to us. We’re not millionaires or billionaires, after all. There’s little chance of our getting trapped in the snare represented by the greed for wealth, right? Don’t be so sure!
There’s a number that development experts and even the CIA use called PPP. It stands for Purchasing Power Parity. It measures the median household incomes of every country in the world. This is the average income and purchasing power of all nations' homes, measured in US dollars. The United States ranks 11th in the world in median household income: $46,000. If that seems high, it may be because the median household income here in Hocking County is $40,000, about the same as Canada, which ranks 27th in the world.
All through the list, there are countries where people enjoy comfortable life-styles, yet don’t rank that high: the United Kingdom is 35th, Japan is 40th, Saudi Arabia is 61st. The point is this: By the standards of the world, many of us in this sanctuary this morning are incredibly wealthy. While impoverished people may fall prey to making gods of money, ignoring Paul’s warning in our second lesson that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” it’s far more likely that those of us who get regular paychecks will do so.
Like the addict who finds that he needs a little more today in order to get the same buzz he got yesterday, the love of money can become an absorbing passion that pushes God clear out of our lives. God forbid!
Please pull out your Celebrate inserts and look at our second lesson. Read along with me silently as I read the first five verses:
First Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. ”
All who are baptized and confess Jesus as their Lord have been bought out of sin and death through the death of Jesus on the cross. We belong to God. So does our money. In one of our hymns, we tell God that all that we have is “a trust, O God, from Thee.”
Last Sunday, during worship we prayed for those effected by the tornadoes that ripped through southeastern Ohio a week-and-a-half ago. As I greeted folks after worship, one of our members said to me, “Pastor, if you learn of anybody without a home, let me know. I have a place people could use if they need it.” When our desires are focused on God, greed is pushed from our minds in ways that cause a passion for God and God's will that supplants the greed for financial gain. God helps us then to use whatever wealth we do have for His purposes.
Verse 11 in our lesson says: “But as for you, man of God, shun all this [that is, shun greed]; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.” The apostle Paul wrote the letter of 1 Timothy to a young pastor named Timothy in about 64AD. Paul meant for his words to be a primer on how to be a pastor. Shun the love of money, Paul tells Timothy.
It’s a tragedy when pastors become obsessed with money, when they confess Jesus with their mouths, but declare a greater faith in money with their lives. Pastors ought to be treated fairly by their congregations, of course. Paul says elsewhere in 1 Timothy, “The laborer deserves to be paid.” But, there are some clergy who seem to think that because they took a four-year Master’s degree after graduating from college, they deserve big bucks and fine things. This appears to be a bigger problem in the United States than it is in other countries where people are maybe, less addicted to wealth.
The Lutheran churches in Australia long ago instituted what I think is a great policy: Every single pastor, no matter the size of the congregation, receives the same salary, with adjustments for expenses like having families, living in more expensive communities, or extraordinary medical expenses. Each time this has been proposed at the conventions of Lutheran bodies in North America, it’s met defeat. In twenty-six years, I’ve never asked for a raise and I never will. This isn’t because I’m so virtuous—I’m a sinner like everybody else. It’s because I don’t want to give greed or the devil footholds in my life. I want to rely on the provision of the God I know in Jesus Christ and not on my capacity to shrewdly negotiate for or "guilt" people out of more money, which may in the end, only cause me to wander away from God, making me useless to God or to the congregation I serve as pastor.
Verses 12 to 15 say:
This is the confession that Paul makes in a famous passage in Romans: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Keep this good confession not only with your mouth, but also with your life, Paul tells Timothy in today's lesson. His words are for us, too.
In verse 16, Paul says of Jesus: “It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”
Please notice: Only God is immortal; human beings die. Life is not our right, something God owes to us. Life comes only from the One immortal being in the universe. And new life only comes from Jesus Christ to those who believe in Him. "If anyone is in Christ Jesus," the Bible tells us, "there is a new creation: everything old has passed away…”
It’s our mission as people saved by the grace of God given to us through Jesus Christ to share this good confession with others. We are to be driven by love of God and love of others to tell everyone the truth about sin and grace, and to call them to make the same good confession God has used to save us from sin, death, and hell.
Finally, read along with me the final part of our lesson, verses 17 to 19. Paul is back to talking about money. But now he tells Timothy what he should teach the people of his congregation about the proper use of money:
In a very real sense, when it comes to being greedy for more than our daily bread, we face the choice given by villains in lots of old movies: “Your money or your life.” Today, our lesson from God’s Word tells us that whenever faced with that choice--our money or our life--God desperately wants us to choose life, the eternal life that only an immortal God Who has died for us and risen again for us can offer.
Money is nice to have, but money can’t give us life; Jesus can. Choose passion for Jesus over greed for financial gain.
Today—every day—choose Jesus.
1 Timothy 6:6-19
It may be an example of holy coincidence, what someone has called God-incidence, that on the Sunday following the premiere of the movie, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, our Bible lessons for the day warn us of the dangers to our very souls represented by the love of money. Gordon Gekko, the main character played by Michael Douglas in this long-anticipated sequel, is known for his tagline in the first film: “Greed is good.” Jesus, in our Gospel lesson, the prophet Amos in the first lesson, and the apostle Paul in the second, all tell us today that “Greed is not good.”
But more than that, they say, “Greed for wealth can rob you of life for all eternity. Watch out for greed!”
The most tempting thing for us to do when we encounter Bible passages like these is to ignore them, thinking that they don’t apply to us. We’re not millionaires or billionaires, after all. There’s little chance of our getting trapped in the snare represented by the greed for wealth, right? Don’t be so sure!
There’s a number that development experts and even the CIA use called PPP. It stands for Purchasing Power Parity. It measures the median household incomes of every country in the world. This is the average income and purchasing power of all nations' homes, measured in US dollars. The United States ranks 11th in the world in median household income: $46,000. If that seems high, it may be because the median household income here in Hocking County is $40,000, about the same as Canada, which ranks 27th in the world.
All through the list, there are countries where people enjoy comfortable life-styles, yet don’t rank that high: the United Kingdom is 35th, Japan is 40th, Saudi Arabia is 61st. The point is this: By the standards of the world, many of us in this sanctuary this morning are incredibly wealthy. While impoverished people may fall prey to making gods of money, ignoring Paul’s warning in our second lesson that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” it’s far more likely that those of us who get regular paychecks will do so.
Like the addict who finds that he needs a little more today in order to get the same buzz he got yesterday, the love of money can become an absorbing passion that pushes God clear out of our lives. God forbid!
Please pull out your Celebrate inserts and look at our second lesson. Read along with me silently as I read the first five verses:
Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.There is nothing wrong with wealth. The love of wealth though, can cause us to make money our god, even though it has no capacity to give us life beyond the grave. Greed for gain, rather than a consuming desire for God, can make us think that the money we have earned with the bodies and the minds God has given to us, is ours. But this isn’t true.
First Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. ”
All who are baptized and confess Jesus as their Lord have been bought out of sin and death through the death of Jesus on the cross. We belong to God. So does our money. In one of our hymns, we tell God that all that we have is “a trust, O God, from Thee.”
Last Sunday, during worship we prayed for those effected by the tornadoes that ripped through southeastern Ohio a week-and-a-half ago. As I greeted folks after worship, one of our members said to me, “Pastor, if you learn of anybody without a home, let me know. I have a place people could use if they need it.” When our desires are focused on God, greed is pushed from our minds in ways that cause a passion for God and God's will that supplants the greed for financial gain. God helps us then to use whatever wealth we do have for His purposes.
Verse 11 in our lesson says: “But as for you, man of God, shun all this [that is, shun greed]; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.” The apostle Paul wrote the letter of 1 Timothy to a young pastor named Timothy in about 64AD. Paul meant for his words to be a primer on how to be a pastor. Shun the love of money, Paul tells Timothy.
It’s a tragedy when pastors become obsessed with money, when they confess Jesus with their mouths, but declare a greater faith in money with their lives. Pastors ought to be treated fairly by their congregations, of course. Paul says elsewhere in 1 Timothy, “The laborer deserves to be paid.” But, there are some clergy who seem to think that because they took a four-year Master’s degree after graduating from college, they deserve big bucks and fine things. This appears to be a bigger problem in the United States than it is in other countries where people are maybe, less addicted to wealth.
The Lutheran churches in Australia long ago instituted what I think is a great policy: Every single pastor, no matter the size of the congregation, receives the same salary, with adjustments for expenses like having families, living in more expensive communities, or extraordinary medical expenses. Each time this has been proposed at the conventions of Lutheran bodies in North America, it’s met defeat. In twenty-six years, I’ve never asked for a raise and I never will. This isn’t because I’m so virtuous—I’m a sinner like everybody else. It’s because I don’t want to give greed or the devil footholds in my life. I want to rely on the provision of the God I know in Jesus Christ and not on my capacity to shrewdly negotiate for or "guilt" people out of more money, which may in the end, only cause me to wander away from God, making me useless to God or to the congregation I serve as pastor.
Verses 12 to 15 say:
Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords.Before Pilate, the Roman governor, Jesus confessed that He was the Lord and King of the world, God in the flesh, making no attempt to deny that He had made this confession before. If we were baptized as infants, our parents and sponsors made this same confession at the baptismal font. If we were baptized as adults, we made this confession ourselves before water was splashed on our heads. When we were confirmed, we made this confession. And Timothy, like all other pastors over the past 2000-plus years, reiterated that same confession. Paul is telling us today to fight the temptations that exist within all of us to betray Jesus by fudging on our confession that Jesus is the only Sovereign of the universe.
This is the confession that Paul makes in a famous passage in Romans: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Keep this good confession not only with your mouth, but also with your life, Paul tells Timothy in today's lesson. His words are for us, too.
In verse 16, Paul says of Jesus: “It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”
Please notice: Only God is immortal; human beings die. Life is not our right, something God owes to us. Life comes only from the One immortal being in the universe. And new life only comes from Jesus Christ to those who believe in Him. "If anyone is in Christ Jesus," the Bible tells us, "there is a new creation: everything old has passed away…”
It’s our mission as people saved by the grace of God given to us through Jesus Christ to share this good confession with others. We are to be driven by love of God and love of others to tell everyone the truth about sin and grace, and to call them to make the same good confession God has used to save us from sin, death, and hell.
Finally, read along with me the final part of our lesson, verses 17 to 19. Paul is back to talking about money. But now he tells Timothy what he should teach the people of his congregation about the proper use of money:
As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.The bottom line is simple, really. We can either be greedy for wealth or hungry for God. The dividends paid by wealth end at the cemetery, but those who “take hold” of the God we know in Christ, take hold of real life, a life of meaning here and a life with God in eternity.
In a very real sense, when it comes to being greedy for more than our daily bread, we face the choice given by villains in lots of old movies: “Your money or your life.” Today, our lesson from God’s Word tells us that whenever faced with that choice--our money or our life--God desperately wants us to choose life, the eternal life that only an immortal God Who has died for us and risen again for us can offer.
Money is nice to have, but money can’t give us life; Jesus can. Choose passion for Jesus over greed for financial gain.
Today—every day—choose Jesus.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Set Free!
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]
Galatians 4:1-7
A woman I worked with years ago, a Roman Catholic, was trying once at the end of a workday, to clarify what Lutherans believe about Mary, the mother of Jesus. “You don’t think she was a virgin, right?” she asked. I was surprised, but assured her, "No, we say that Jesus was 'conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary' when we worship on Sunday mornings, just like you do."
I guess that I shouldn't have been too surprised though, because, oddly enough, there’s always been a lot of misunderstanding and disagreements among Christians over Mary.
Today, August 15, is a special day on church calendars all over the world. For our Roman Catholic friends, this is the Feast of the Assumption, commemorating the day that they say that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven at her death. Lutherans find no reason to believe that's what happened.
Be that as it may, we Lutherans believe that Mary has a lot to teach us about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
We also are amazed by the way in which God used this young teenager from an obscure village to bring the Messiah into the world. Mary herself was amazed by that and amazed too, that, based on her own experience, God so obviously cares about the eternal destinies of all the world’s "ordinary" people. (One thing we know for sure, though, is that while we all may be "ordinary" people, God's love for each of us is extraordinary!)
In today’s Gospel lesson, composed of the Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise which comes during her visit with Elizabeth, Mary sees God reversing the fortunes of both those who trust in God’s grace and of those who trust in the "gods" favored by most in the world. God, she says, “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.”
Mary understood that in Jesus, God was turning the world on its head, ensuring that eternity will belong not to those who claw and take and scheme and reason their way to power or prominence or influence or other worldly advantages, but to those who trust totally in Christ.
Our Gospel lesson came up this past Advent Season. So, I want to turn our attention away from it and, in a move of which I think Mary would approv, away from Mary, toward the Lord she served.
Pull our your bulletins, please. In the very middle, you’ll find the text of our second lesson, expanded by three verses from what’s officially appointed for today. It’s Galatians 4:1-7.
Galatians, you’ll remember from our sermon series based on that book earlier this year, is a letter written by preacher and evangelist Paul to a church in an area that we know today as Turkey. The letter was written back around 50AD. The church in the city of Galatia was composed of Gentiles, that is non-Jews. Paul was anxious to refute false teachers who told the Galatian believers in Jesus that in order to be truly saved from sin and death, they not only needed to believe in Jesus, but also had to adopt Jewish religious law, like circumcision for men and certain food and feast days for all.
In Galatians, chapter 3, which immediately precedes our lesson, Paul has asserted that we justified in God’s eyes not by what we do, but by our faith in Christ; that all who are baptized in Christ are clothed in His forgiveness and the righteousness—or rightness with God—that Jesus came to give those who trust in Him; and that in Christ, all who repent and believe in Him, have the same status before God.
Then, at the start of chapter four where our lesson begins, Paul comes up with a great way to illustrate what religious law, even the Ten Commandments, can and, most importantly, cannot do toward securing a right relationship with God for we sinful human beings. Read those first two sentences from Galatians—verses 1 and 2--with me out loud now.
Anglican bishop and New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says that this passage shows how the story of the human race before the arrival of Jesus was one of “people who stand to inherit a fortune (of sorts) but who are quite unaware of the fact.”
In the meantime, like a parent hemming in toddlers who are bound to get themselves into trouble otherwise, God gave His law as a way of keeping things under control until the time was right.
This was true even of non-Jews who had never heard of Moses or the Ten Commandments because, as the Bible reminds us elsewhere, God has written His law on our hearts. No matter how much we may try to deny it, violate it, or excuse our breaching of it, the whole human race knows that there is a law of right and wrong.
One evidence of this may be that while human laws may be unjust or designed to serve the interests of certain groups, even the most corrupt of dictators will claim that his law conforms to a notion of right and wrong that all his citizens would agree on without having ever discussed it. That's because our notions of what's right and what's wrong come from God; it’s the law of right and wrong we all seem to know that hems our world in, at times just barely, from total chaos.
This is exactly what Paul is talking about when he writes in the next verse—read along with me silently:
But none of those things, however faithfully or impeccably executed, will transform you and me from minors or slaves in need of constant goading or hemming in by the law of God into the free inheritors of all that God wants to give to us. As Martin Luther writes in his commentary on this passage, “…mere outward decency does not constitute Christianity.” He goes on to explain, “The heathen observe the same restraints to avoid punishment or to secure the advantages of a good reputation. [But in] the last analysis such restraint is simple hypocrisy.”
It’s in the next two sentences, verses 4 and 5, that Paul gets into what can move us from slavery to becoming children of God, from minors hemmed in by God's law to heirs set free by God, inheritors of forgiveness and everlasting life with God. Read those next two sentences with me aloud, please.
And how did God do that? He sent the Son, Jesus. Jesus came from God and was God. But, He was also born of a woman, voluntarily born subject to the same law to which you and I are subject. Only Jesus perfectly kept the law so that when the law accused Him and put Him on a cross, it had the wrong guy. When Jesus was executed for our sins, Jesus redeemed—that is bought out of slavery all of us who live under the law. The result is that we are God’s children no matter what!
Paul does some celebrating in the last two verses of our lesson. Read along with me—with all the enthusiasm the words deserve, please:
Your conscience need never accuse you for sins you committed and for which you already repented!
You need never think that because you aren’t perfect, God doesn’t care about you!
The Savior you somehow just know can reach out to in your times of desperation, Whose Spirit prompts you to do just that, will stand by you and love you now and always!
The Savior Who came into the world to share our lives and deaths so that all with faith in Him can also share in His victory, His life, and His eternity with God, wants you to know that you are no longer hemmed in, no longer a slave to sin, no longer a minor pining for the day when you will be acceptable to God.
If you are baptized and trust in Christ alone, you are absolutely acceptable to God! And no one can take you from your Father's hands! In Christ, we are free to be God’s people, free to look forward with confidence to the certainty of eternity with God.
In his commentary on Galatians, Martin Luther quotes Saint Augustine, a great Catholic theologian revered as much by Lutherans as Catholics: “every [person] is certain of [their] faith, if [they have] faith.” Luther goes on to write, “We ought to feel sure that we stand in the grace of God, not in view of our own worthiness, but through [what Christ has done for us]. As certain as we are that Christ pleases God, so sure ought [the believer in Christ] be that we also please God, because Christ is in us.”
This was the faith that sustained Mary: faith in Christ and the good will of God for those who trust in Him. May that be our faith too!
Galatians 4:1-7
A woman I worked with years ago, a Roman Catholic, was trying once at the end of a workday, to clarify what Lutherans believe about Mary, the mother of Jesus. “You don’t think she was a virgin, right?” she asked. I was surprised, but assured her, "No, we say that Jesus was 'conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary' when we worship on Sunday mornings, just like you do."
I guess that I shouldn't have been too surprised though, because, oddly enough, there’s always been a lot of misunderstanding and disagreements among Christians over Mary.
Today, August 15, is a special day on church calendars all over the world. For our Roman Catholic friends, this is the Feast of the Assumption, commemorating the day that they say that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven at her death. Lutherans find no reason to believe that's what happened.
Be that as it may, we Lutherans believe that Mary has a lot to teach us about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
We also are amazed by the way in which God used this young teenager from an obscure village to bring the Messiah into the world. Mary herself was amazed by that and amazed too, that, based on her own experience, God so obviously cares about the eternal destinies of all the world’s "ordinary" people. (One thing we know for sure, though, is that while we all may be "ordinary" people, God's love for each of us is extraordinary!)
In today’s Gospel lesson, composed of the Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise which comes during her visit with Elizabeth, Mary sees God reversing the fortunes of both those who trust in God’s grace and of those who trust in the "gods" favored by most in the world. God, she says, “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.”
Mary understood that in Jesus, God was turning the world on its head, ensuring that eternity will belong not to those who claw and take and scheme and reason their way to power or prominence or influence or other worldly advantages, but to those who trust totally in Christ.
Our Gospel lesson came up this past Advent Season. So, I want to turn our attention away from it and, in a move of which I think Mary would approv, away from Mary, toward the Lord she served.
Pull our your bulletins, please. In the very middle, you’ll find the text of our second lesson, expanded by three verses from what’s officially appointed for today. It’s Galatians 4:1-7.
Galatians, you’ll remember from our sermon series based on that book earlier this year, is a letter written by preacher and evangelist Paul to a church in an area that we know today as Turkey. The letter was written back around 50AD. The church in the city of Galatia was composed of Gentiles, that is non-Jews. Paul was anxious to refute false teachers who told the Galatian believers in Jesus that in order to be truly saved from sin and death, they not only needed to believe in Jesus, but also had to adopt Jewish religious law, like circumcision for men and certain food and feast days for all.
In Galatians, chapter 3, which immediately precedes our lesson, Paul has asserted that we justified in God’s eyes not by what we do, but by our faith in Christ; that all who are baptized in Christ are clothed in His forgiveness and the righteousness—or rightness with God—that Jesus came to give those who trust in Him; and that in Christ, all who repent and believe in Him, have the same status before God.
Then, at the start of chapter four where our lesson begins, Paul comes up with a great way to illustrate what religious law, even the Ten Commandments, can and, most importantly, cannot do toward securing a right relationship with God for we sinful human beings. Read those first two sentences from Galatians—verses 1 and 2--with me out loud now.
“My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father.”What Paul is saying is that before God acted decisively by sending Jesus to the cross to take our punishment for sin, paying the debt we owe, our world was kept under control by the laws of God. The law acted as guardian and trustee over people too immature and too imprisoned by sin to live life the way God designed it to be lived.
Anglican bishop and New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says that this passage shows how the story of the human race before the arrival of Jesus was one of “people who stand to inherit a fortune (of sorts) but who are quite unaware of the fact.”
In the meantime, like a parent hemming in toddlers who are bound to get themselves into trouble otherwise, God gave His law as a way of keeping things under control until the time was right.
This was true even of non-Jews who had never heard of Moses or the Ten Commandments because, as the Bible reminds us elsewhere, God has written His law on our hearts. No matter how much we may try to deny it, violate it, or excuse our breaching of it, the whole human race knows that there is a law of right and wrong.
One evidence of this may be that while human laws may be unjust or designed to serve the interests of certain groups, even the most corrupt of dictators will claim that his law conforms to a notion of right and wrong that all his citizens would agree on without having ever discussed it. That's because our notions of what's right and what's wrong come from God; it’s the law of right and wrong we all seem to know that hems our world in, at times just barely, from total chaos.
This is exactly what Paul is talking about when he writes in the next verse—read along with me silently:
“So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world.”Now, for some people, that’s the end of the Christian story. They think that being Christian is about trying to live according to some rules, or trying to be nice people, or working to never make anybody upset or mad, or to fighting injustice. All of those things should be part of daily living for Christians. We should try to obey the law of God and, to glorify God and make the lives of our neighbors bearable, abide by the rules of society. We shouldn’t go out of our ways to cause strife or arguments and we should by all means fight injustice.
But none of those things, however faithfully or impeccably executed, will transform you and me from minors or slaves in need of constant goading or hemming in by the law of God into the free inheritors of all that God wants to give to us. As Martin Luther writes in his commentary on this passage, “…mere outward decency does not constitute Christianity.” He goes on to explain, “The heathen observe the same restraints to avoid punishment or to secure the advantages of a good reputation. [But in] the last analysis such restraint is simple hypocrisy.”
It’s in the next two sentences, verses 4 and 5, that Paul gets into what can move us from slavery to becoming children of God, from minors hemmed in by God's law to heirs set free by God, inheritors of forgiveness and everlasting life with God. Read those next two sentences with me aloud, please.
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”That phrase, “the fullness of time,” is important. The New Testament, including Philippians, was written in Greek, as you know. In Greek, there are two main words for time. The first is chronos, which refers to chronological time. The other word is kairos, which means God’s time. Paul is saying that at the right time, at the precise moment chosen by God, after everything had happened that needed to happen, God acted to free us, to give us our inheritance.
And how did God do that? He sent the Son, Jesus. Jesus came from God and was God. But, He was also born of a woman, voluntarily born subject to the same law to which you and I are subject. Only Jesus perfectly kept the law so that when the law accused Him and put Him on a cross, it had the wrong guy. When Jesus was executed for our sins, Jesus redeemed—that is bought out of slavery all of us who live under the law. The result is that we are God’s children no matter what!
Paul does some celebrating in the last two verses of our lesson. Read along with me—with all the enthusiasm the words deserve, please:
“And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.”Ever been desperate enough to cry out to the God you know in Jesus, but not been sure what to say? Then know this: In those moments...in those moments when you knew that there was no one and nothing else you could turn to...that God’s Holy Spirit was telling you something. The mere impulse to pray demonstrates that you belong to Christ! Your desperation proves it because it's only in desperation that any of us are truly open enough and humble enough to admit our need of the God Who loved you so much that He went to a cross, open enough and humble enough to receive the inheritance of life and forgiveness we can't earn, but that God gives to all who trust in Christ. May we always be that desperate!
Your conscience need never accuse you for sins you committed and for which you already repented!
You need never think that because you aren’t perfect, God doesn’t care about you!
The Savior you somehow just know can reach out to in your times of desperation, Whose Spirit prompts you to do just that, will stand by you and love you now and always!
The Savior Who came into the world to share our lives and deaths so that all with faith in Him can also share in His victory, His life, and His eternity with God, wants you to know that you are no longer hemmed in, no longer a slave to sin, no longer a minor pining for the day when you will be acceptable to God.
If you are baptized and trust in Christ alone, you are absolutely acceptable to God! And no one can take you from your Father's hands! In Christ, we are free to be God’s people, free to look forward with confidence to the certainty of eternity with God.
In his commentary on Galatians, Martin Luther quotes Saint Augustine, a great Catholic theologian revered as much by Lutherans as Catholics: “every [person] is certain of [their] faith, if [they have] faith.” Luther goes on to write, “We ought to feel sure that we stand in the grace of God, not in view of our own worthiness, but through [what Christ has done for us]. As certain as we are that Christ pleases God, so sure ought [the believer in Christ] be that we also please God, because Christ is in us.”
This was the faith that sustained Mary: faith in Christ and the good will of God for those who trust in Him. May that be our faith too!
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Preacher, the Church, and Justice
The Christian preacher has a responsibility to speak for justice.
Pastor John Ortberg underscores this in a challenging article in the latest issue of Leadership Journal, Preaching Like the Prophets. There, he looks to the prophets of Old Testament times to show how important the quest for justice is for followers of the God Who revealed Himself to Israel and ultimately, in Jesus of Nazareth.
Writes Ortberg:
Most importantly maybe, Ortberg in this very good article, says that in preaching about justice, church leaders "will have to explain that the values embedded in the Bible do not necessarily have a straight-line translation into legislation." He writes:
Justice is an important element of the Christian's relationship with Jesus Christ. This is something we acknowledge in our Lutheran tradition, among other times, on the occasion of Confirmation, or Affirmation of Baptism, when adolescents or adult converts who have been baptized and trained in the faith publicly affirm their intention of living as faithful followers of Jesus Christ in their daily lives. Toward the end of the rite for Affirmation of Baptism, each individual is addressed and challenged to do just that:
The message of the prophets was, in a nutshell, "Turn from sin, including injustice, and turn to God." None of them laid out specific political programs, recommended particular outlays of money to address specific issues, or commended particular laws. They trusted that if they shared God's Word, including the call and the command to seek justice, God would help the people see what they needed to do.
Today, preachers (and denominational groups) are called to preach justice and trust God to do the rest.
*Shalom is a Hebrew term. It means more than peace. It has the idea of our enjoyment of peace with God and all the good things--including justice and love--that flow from it in our relationships with others. Such peace begins in a relationship with Jesus Christ in which Jesus is our Lord, God, and Savior. As Paul writes in Romans 5:1, "...since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ..."
[UPDATE: Just today, Bishop Mark Hanson of the ELCA, released the text of a letter in which he got deep into the weeds of immigration reform, not my idea of what the bishop is best at or called to do.]
Pastor John Ortberg underscores this in a challenging article in the latest issue of Leadership Journal, Preaching Like the Prophets. There, he looks to the prophets of Old Testament times to show how important the quest for justice is for followers of the God Who revealed Himself to Israel and ultimately, in Jesus of Nazareth.
Writes Ortberg:
Events that horrified the prophets go on every day in our world, but we just get used to it--like you get used to wearing your watch. After awhile--we don't notice any more.Ortberg goes on to say that there are certain perils associated with preaching about justice, particularly in these times. "Our society has become so politicized," he points out, "that people often hear words like justice or life or the poor or compassion as code words for a partisan political allegiance in one direction or another." Also, he notes that preaching about justice can devolve into "self-righteous moralism" on the part of the preacher. But for all the perils it may entail, the preacher is still called to talk about justice as an outgrowth of Christian discipleship.
The prophets noticed. The prophets never got desensitized to sin. Injustice is sin. Justice is central to shalom.* We omit justice from our preaching at peril of our calling, and of our congregation's health and ability to see the reality around them.
Most importantly maybe, Ortberg in this very good article, says that in preaching about justice, church leaders "will have to explain that the values embedded in the Bible do not necessarily have a straight-line translation into legislation." He writes:
For instance, all followers of Jesus are obligated to be concerned for the poor. But that does not mean that they should all be committed to passing a higher minimum wage law. Very bright economists disagree about whether such legislation actually results in helping the poor. As preachers, we do not further the cause of the authority of Scripture when we pretend to be experts over fields we have not mastered.Amen!
Justice is an important element of the Christian's relationship with Jesus Christ. This is something we acknowledge in our Lutheran tradition, among other times, on the occasion of Confirmation, or Affirmation of Baptism, when adolescents or adult converts who have been baptized and trained in the faith publicly affirm their intention of living as faithful followers of Jesus Christ in their daily lives. Toward the end of the rite for Affirmation of Baptism, each individual is addressed and challenged to do just that:
You have made public profession of your faith. Do you intend to continue in the covenant God made with you in Holy Baptism: to live among God's faithful people, to hear His Word and share in His supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of our Lord Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth?The confirmand is then asked to respond with the words, "I do, and I ask God to help and guide me."
The message of the prophets was, in a nutshell, "Turn from sin, including injustice, and turn to God." None of them laid out specific political programs, recommended particular outlays of money to address specific issues, or commended particular laws. They trusted that if they shared God's Word, including the call and the command to seek justice, God would help the people see what they needed to do.
Today, preachers (and denominational groups) are called to preach justice and trust God to do the rest.
*Shalom is a Hebrew term. It means more than peace. It has the idea of our enjoyment of peace with God and all the good things--including justice and love--that flow from it in our relationships with others. Such peace begins in a relationship with Jesus Christ in which Jesus is our Lord, God, and Savior. As Paul writes in Romans 5:1, "...since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ..."
[UPDATE: Just today, Bishop Mark Hanson of the ELCA, released the text of a letter in which he got deep into the weeds of immigration reform, not my idea of what the bishop is best at or called to do.]
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
This Book Looks Really Promising!
Tonight, I started reading the second edition of a book called Roman House Churches for Today: A Practical Guide for Small Groups.
Don't be put off by what may seem like a sleepy title!
Roman House Churches can be read simply as a fascinating and sometimes, startling, look at the lives of the people to whom the apostle Paul wrote the letter which has come down to us in our New Testament as Romans.
But author Reta Halteman Finger also wrote the book to be the foundation for a fascinating role-play approach for modern adult students to get at how Paul's letter would have been heard and experienced by its first recipients, what the social, political, and economic conditions of their lives were, and what Paul's motives may have been--beyond finances, which Finger seems to believe wasn't a primary focus of the apostle--for enlisting the help of the Roman Christians in his planned evangelistic mission to Spain.
Finger insists that Romans should be seen as more than a musty book of doctrines or a source of proof-texts. Still less, she seems to say, should it be seen as lofty theology without reference to the specifics of history. So far, Finger has me convinced and I'm reading her book with rapt attention!
I'm not far into the book yet. But it looks promising.
So, watch out, Saint Matthew folks, this may be our next adult evening discussion/study group resource!
Don't be put off by what may seem like a sleepy title!
Roman House Churches can be read simply as a fascinating and sometimes, startling, look at the lives of the people to whom the apostle Paul wrote the letter which has come down to us in our New Testament as Romans.
But author Reta Halteman Finger also wrote the book to be the foundation for a fascinating role-play approach for modern adult students to get at how Paul's letter would have been heard and experienced by its first recipients, what the social, political, and economic conditions of their lives were, and what Paul's motives may have been--beyond finances, which Finger seems to believe wasn't a primary focus of the apostle--for enlisting the help of the Roman Christians in his planned evangelistic mission to Spain.
Finger insists that Romans should be seen as more than a musty book of doctrines or a source of proof-texts. Still less, she seems to say, should it be seen as lofty theology without reference to the specifics of history. So far, Finger has me convinced and I'm reading her book with rapt attention!
I'm not far into the book yet. But it looks promising.
So, watch out, Saint Matthew folks, this may be our next adult evening discussion/study group resource!
Friday, May 14, 2010
Faith Tidbit #51
Anyone who has been to a Christian wedding has likely heard a reading from what's known as the Bible's "love chapter." Actually, the words usually read at weddings encompass the final verse of one chapter and all thirteen verses of the next one, 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13. This passage, which should be seen as a unit, is probably most famous for its final line: "And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love"
There's nothing wrong with the love chapter being read at weddings. Its portrait of love as self-giving, forgiving, and forbearing is a good reminder for people in all their relationships.
But the original situation to which the apostle Paul sent these words in about 55AD, had nothing to do with wedding days. The first-century church in the Greek city of Corinth was, to put it mildly, deeply dysfunctional. I'll skip the bill of particulars for now. But one favorite dysfunctionality among them was the prideful elevation of some spiritual gifts over others. The "in crowd" among the Corinthian Christians insisted, for example, that the gift of tongues, that special prayer and praise language which God's Holy Spirit still gives to some people today, was the ultimate sign of God's approval and presence. Absent that, these "tongue snobs" said, Corinthians church members were only playacting at being Christians.
That's where the love chapter comes in. Paul himself possessed the gift of tongues.* But it is just one spiritual gift, he told the Corinthians. It's better, Paul said, to "strive for the higher gifts." The greatest gift of all, as Paul tells it, is love, not the mushy, indulgent, spineless stuff that passes for love in today's world, but love that comes straight from the Holy Spirit to all who believe in Jesus. It's love like that of Jesus, a love that we can't muster on our own, but which God will supply to those who truly trust in Jesus: love so great that is willing to die for the other.
And "the other" for whom such love is willing to die isn't just a family member or a friend. It may even be a stranger. It could be those who hate us.
This is the kind of love we need to make our relationships and lives work. Yet if we try to manufacture that sort of love on our own, we will always come up short. That's why Paul names it not only as one of the greater gifts (1 Corinthians 12:31), but also as the greatest of gifts (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Gifts cannot be earned. They come from God to those who open themselves to trust--or faith--in Jesus. "And the greatest of these is love."
*Later, in 1 Corinthians 14:18-19, Paul says, "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you; nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue" 19
There's nothing wrong with the love chapter being read at weddings. Its portrait of love as self-giving, forgiving, and forbearing is a good reminder for people in all their relationships.
But the original situation to which the apostle Paul sent these words in about 55AD, had nothing to do with wedding days. The first-century church in the Greek city of Corinth was, to put it mildly, deeply dysfunctional. I'll skip the bill of particulars for now. But one favorite dysfunctionality among them was the prideful elevation of some spiritual gifts over others. The "in crowd" among the Corinthian Christians insisted, for example, that the gift of tongues, that special prayer and praise language which God's Holy Spirit still gives to some people today, was the ultimate sign of God's approval and presence. Absent that, these "tongue snobs" said, Corinthians church members were only playacting at being Christians.
That's where the love chapter comes in. Paul himself possessed the gift of tongues.* But it is just one spiritual gift, he told the Corinthians. It's better, Paul said, to "strive for the higher gifts." The greatest gift of all, as Paul tells it, is love, not the mushy, indulgent, spineless stuff that passes for love in today's world, but love that comes straight from the Holy Spirit to all who believe in Jesus. It's love like that of Jesus, a love that we can't muster on our own, but which God will supply to those who truly trust in Jesus: love so great that is willing to die for the other.
And "the other" for whom such love is willing to die isn't just a family member or a friend. It may even be a stranger. It could be those who hate us.
This is the kind of love we need to make our relationships and lives work. Yet if we try to manufacture that sort of love on our own, we will always come up short. That's why Paul names it not only as one of the greater gifts (1 Corinthians 12:31), but also as the greatest of gifts (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Gifts cannot be earned. They come from God to those who open themselves to trust--or faith--in Jesus. "And the greatest of these is love."
*Later, in 1 Corinthians 14:18-19, Paul says, "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you; nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue" 19
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Breathing for the Christian
[This is my friend Glen VanderKloot's daily emailed inspiration for today.]
To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. (Martin Luther King Jr.)
Scripture: Romans 12:12 NCV
“Be joyful because you have hope. Be patient when trouble comes, and pray at all times.”
Prayer:
Lord, help me to make prayer a priority in my life. Amen
Thought for the Day
To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. (Martin Luther King Jr.)
Scripture: Romans 12:12 NCV
“Be joyful because you have hope. Be patient when trouble comes, and pray at all times.”
Prayer:
Lord, help me to make prayer a priority in my life. Amen
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