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Shape and Cadence
In perhaps the most well-known passage about salvation by grace through faith, one word is used three times. It isn’t grace, it isn’t faith, it isn’t saved, it isn’t Christ or God. The word is works.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
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Differences Are Assumed
It’s proverbial that everyone puts their pants on the same way: one leg at a time. And, not everyone wears the same size, type, or color of pants. Also, not everyone does the same work in their pants once they’ve got them on. This is not a deep parable.
We who come to the communion table hold something precious in common: our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. “The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
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Broccoli for Dinner
The sage preacher once said, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11). Sinners can be teachable, especially when others are getting caught. They’re not concerned about violating a principle but about avoiding punishment. In Solomon’s day a delay could occur between the sentence being sorted out and carried out. How much more license in our day when judges can’t even define an “evil deed.
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A Long Session in the Same Direction
The sign of the old covenant was circumcision. There were other signs and symbols given by God to Israel to designate them as His own, but circumcision was the specific covenant mark. The sign of the new covenant is not baptism, at least it isn’t ever connected as such in the New Testament. While there are some similarities between the two initiating rites, especially that both happen at the beginning and ideally only once, nowhere do we read in the Bible about Christian baptism and a covenant.
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Bleeding Forgivness
Why does God forgive anyone? We come near the beginning of our worship service to confess our sins and seek His cleansing and forgiveness. God says that He will forgive those who repent and believe. He sent His Son as a substitute so that He could grant forgiveness without undermining justice. There is no question that He does forgive, but why does He do it?
He forgives because we need it.
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Even More Personal
In Luke’s account of Jesus instituting the Lord’s Supper, he chases the eating and drinking with two surprising things.
The first thing that Luke relates after the New Covenant meal is that “a dispute arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest” (Luke 22:24). This may not be the correct chronology, as both Matthew’s account and John’s account of the night of Jesus’ betrayal do not mention this argument between the disciples as happening between the Last Supper and Gethsemane.
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What Is Earthly
There is a way that we must hate the things of earth so that we can also love the things of earth in a different way. In order to change the world we must not be slaves to the world; we cannot worship the world and offer that to God. That’s idolatry, and the Lord is jealous for His own glory.
So let us take very seriously our responsibility to hate the things of earth as God defines the things of earth.
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By Faith We Do Stuff
Our fellowship around the communion table is in faith. What we have in common is Christ, and how we hold onto Him is also the same: by faith.
Because we rely on Jesus, when we gather around the table we like to tell stories about those who lived (and died) by faith.
I love how tired the author of Hebrews got when giving history to his readers about those “of whom the world was not worthy.
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Wings to a Bird
One word Christians don’t seem to use as much as they once did is the word “godliness.” It’s a biblical word, one used frequently in the pastoral epistles. When Paul wrote to Titus he identified himself as a servant and an apostle, and the reason for those roles was “the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.”
The Greek word for godliness is eusebia and it means “a life devoted to revering God.
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Brains and Bread
If you were God and wanted a way for people to remember the most important event in human history, what program would you use? More than a watershed event, this is the Son of Your love, Your eternal glory, who enfleshed obedience and sacrifice to purchase a people for life. How will you move the redeemed to remember and rejoice?
We might be tempted to focus on the mental aspect. After all, memory is the brain’s territory.
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Serious Bible Studiers
The disciples on the road to Emmaus listened as Jesus interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself, and their hearts burned. Earlier in His ministry Jesus had talked with some other Jews who were serious Bible studiers. They searched the Scriptures. They didn’t do it to disprove God’s Word, they did it with confidence that they would find eternal life in there.
Yet Jesus claimed that while they knew some of the finer points they had missed the entire point.
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Life in the Body
The Christian life is a life in the body. Paul told the Roman church to present their bodies as living sacrifices as part of their spiritual worship (Romans 12). He warned the Corinthians about sexual sins against the body, because “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you. You are not your own, for you have been bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
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Freedom from Confusion Is a Gift
Those who believe in the sovereignty of God ought to be the most kind instead of belligerent, and the most patient instead of panicked, in discussions with those who disagree. This is true logically; it is inconsistent to act as if you make the difference while saying that God makes the difference. So it is an issue of being consistent. It is also an issue of obeying God’s command.
the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.
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Get You Out of Bed Truths
After a paragraph of imperatives and illustrations about the generational work Timothy was called to (1 Timothy 3:1-7), Paul added another imperative, a turn of the head to the Savior.
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel (1 Timothy 2:8)
Think on Jesus, keep Him in your mind. And in particular, remember that He died, was buried, and on the third day rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.
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Spiritual Shapeshifters
Whatever your preferred system of eschatology, there is no doubt according to Paul’s definition that we are living in the “last days.” He told Timothy that the last days would include “times of difficulty” (1 Timothy 3:1), and he described the people who would make it difficult. Such persons “will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (verses 2-4).
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Divine Smack Talk
Even though He offers them no redemption, God is, perhaps surprisingly to us, interested in teaching the angels.
For much of the Old Testament, prophets searched and inquired their own prophecies about the grace that would come through the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. All of this good news, which Peter said had been preached to his elect readers, were “things into which angels long to look” (1 Peter 1:10-12).
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Pots Throwing Pieces
I bit the bait and clicked an inflammatory link a while back that permanently burned my brain. A straightforward tweet asked: What is the most offensive verse in the Bible? and promised an answer behind a click. The answer surprised me, stirred me, and settled for me so much of our cultural, and even Christian and Christian cultural, woes.
The most offensive verse in the Bible is Genesis 1:1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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Boy, Was I Bored
I read the following short story at our school’s year-end assembly last Friday. It was inspired by three things:
The start of summer break This quote from Robert Capon: “boredom is not neutral—it is the fertilizing principle of unloveliness.” My favorite kids’ book: Boy, Was I Mad
Now here’s my version.
It was late one Wednesday morning, and boy, was I bored.
Summer break had started out fun.
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No More Intended Evil
The sovereignty of God and the suffering of men is not an academic exercise. Theodicy—a good God’s control over man’s evil (and nature’s destructive force that hurts men)—confronts us every day. If we say He can stop it, why doesn’t He? If we say He can not stop it, where can we go for help?
I’ve always found it helpful to remember that the most evil thing that has ever happened in the world was planned by God before He created the world.
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Calvinist Excuses
If God is sovereign, should we confess our sin?
In other words, if God planned that we were going to sin, then isn’t our sin His responsibility? If He willed our sin to bring about His glory, and, in some cases, to bring about good for us, then what is really wrong with it? It is not a new question.
But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say?