Gospel Translations - User contributions [en]

The Fatal Disobedience of Adam and the Triumphant Obedience of Christ

2012-03-27T18:57:49Z

Steffmahr:

{{info}}<blockquote>'''Romans 5:12-21'''</blockquote><blockquote>Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. </blockquote>
==== Jesus Is Supreme ====

One of the aims of this series is to impress on our minds the fact that Jesus Christ is the most important person in the universe—not more important than God the Father or God the Spirit. With them, he is equal in worth and beauty and wisdom and justice and love and power. But he is more important than all other persons—whether angels or demons or kings or commanders or scientists or artists or philosophers or athletes or musicians or actors—the ones who live now, or have ever lived, or ever will live. Jesus Christ is supreme.

==== All Things for Jesus—Even Evil ====

This series is also meant to show that everything that exists—including evil—is ordained by an infinitely holy and all-wise God to make the glory of Christ shine more brightly. Some of us just read this week in our Bible reading plan Proverbs 16:4: “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” God has done this in his own mysterious way that preserves the responsibility of the wicked and the sinlessness of his own heart. We saw two weeks ago that all things were made through Christ and''for'' Christ (Colossians 1:16). And that includes, Paul says, the “thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities” who were defeated by Christ at the cross. They were made “for the day of trouble.” And on that day the power and justice and wrath and love of Christ were displayed. Sooner or later, every rebellion against him comes to ruin.

==== The God Who Is There ====

This series also aims to solidify the conviction that Christianity is not merely a set of ideas and practices and feelings designed for our psychological well-being—whether designed by God or man. That’s not what Christianity is. Christianity begins with the conviction that God is an objective reality outside ourselves. We do not make him what he is by thinking a certain way about him. As Francis Schaeffer said, he is ''the God who is there''. We don’t make him. He makes us. We don’t decide what he is going to be like. He decides what we are going to be like. He created the universe, and it has the meaning he gives it, not the meaning ''we ''give it. If we give it a meaning different from his, we are fools. And our lives will be tragic in the end. Christianity is not a game; it’s not a therapy. All of its doctrines flow from what God is and what he has done in history. They correspond to hard facts. Christianity is more than facts. There is faith and hope and love. But these don’t float in the air. They grow like great cedar trees in the rock of God’s truth.

And the reason I make this one of our aims in this series is because I am deeply convinced from the Bible that your eternal joy and strength and holiness depend on the solidity of this worldview putting strong fiber into the spine of your faith. Wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians. And wimpy Christians won’t survive the days ahead. Rootless emotionalism that treats Christianity like a therapeutic option will be swept away in the Last Days. Those who will be left standing will be those who have built their house on the rock of great, objective truth with Jesus Christ as the origin, center, and goal of it all.

==== Jesus’ Glory Planned in Adam’s Sin ====

The focus today is on the spectacular sin of the first man, Adam, and how it set the stage for the more spectacular counter-thrust of Jesus Christ. Let’s turn to Romans 5:12-21. In the summer of 2000, we spent five weeks on these verses. Today the focus is different from anything we looked at in those weeks.

I want us to focus on the glory of Christ as the main purpose that God had in mind when he planned for and permitted Adam’s sin, and with him the fall of all humanity into sin. Remember what I said last week: Whatever God permits, he permits for a reason. And his reasons are always infinitely wise and purposeful. He did not have to let the Fall happen. He could have stopped it, just like he could have stopped the fall of Satan (as we saw last week). The fact that he did not stop it means he has a reason, a purpose for it. And he doesn’t make up his plans as he goes along. What he knows to be wise, he has always known to be wise. Therefore, Adam’s sin and the fall of the human race with him into sin and misery did not take God off guard and is part of his overarching plan to display the fullness of the glory of Jesus Christ.

One of the clearest ways to show this from the Bible—and we won’t go into it in detail here—is to look at those places where the sin-defeating sacrifice of Christ is shown to be in God’s mind before the creation of the world. (For more detail, see the message "''The Suffering of Christ and the Sovereignty of God.") ''For example, in Revelation 13:8, John writes about “everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.” So there was a book before the foundation of the world called “the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.” Before the world was created, God had already planned that his Son would be slain like a Lamb to save all those who are written in the book. We could go to numerous other texts like this (Ephesians 1:4-5; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:1-2; 1 Peter 1:20) to see the biblical view that the sufferings and death of Christ for sin are not planned after the sin of Adam but before. Therefore, when the sin of Adam happens, God is not surprised by it, but has already made it part of his plan—namely, a plan to display his amazing patience and grace and justice and wrath in the history of redemption, and then, climactically, to reveal the greatness of his Son as the second Adam superior in every way to the first Adam.

So we look at Romans 5:12-21, this time keeping in mind that Adam’s spectacular sin did not frustrate God’s Christ-exalting purposes, but instead served them. Here’s the way we will look at these verses. There are five explicit references to Christ. One of them sets up the way Paul is thinking about Christ and Adam. And the rest show how Christ is greater than Adam. Two of those are so similar we will lump them together. Which means we will look at three aspects of Christ’s superiority.

==== Jesus, “The Coming One” ====

So first let’s look at the way Christ is referred to in verse 14 and read verses 12-13 for the context: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.” There’s the reference to Christ: “the one who was to come.”

Verse 14 sets up the way Paul is thinking in the rest of the passage. Adam is called a “type” of the one who was to come, that is, a type of Christ. Notice the most obvious thing first: Christ “was to come.” From the beginning, Christ was “the coming one.” Paul shows that Christ is not an afterthought. Paul does not say that Christ was conceived as a copy of Adam. He says that Adam was a type of Christ. God dealt with Adam in a way that would make him a type of the way he planned to glorify his Son. A type is a foreshadowing of something that will come later and will be like the type—only greater. So God dealt with Adam in a way that would make him a type of Christ.

Now notice more closely just where, in the flow of his thought, Paul chooses to say that Adam is a type of Christ. Verse 14: “Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.” He chooses to tell us that Adam is a type of Christ just after saying that even people who did not sin in the way he did still bore the punishment that Adam bore. Why did Paul, just at this point, say that Adam was a type of Christ?

==== Jesus, Our Representative Head ====

Because what he had just said gets at the very essence of how Christ and Adam are alike and different. Here’s the parallel: People whose transgression was not like Adam’s died like Adam. Why? Because they were connected to Adam. He was the representative head of their humanity, and his sin is counted as their sin because of their connection with him. That’s the essence of why Adam is called a type of Christ—because our obedience is not like Christ’s obedience and yet we have eternal life with Christ. Why? Because we are connected to Christ by faith. He is the representative head of the new humanity and his righteousness is counted as our righteousness because of our connection with him (cf. Romans 6:5).

There’s the parallel implied in calling Adam a type of Christ:
<blockquote>Adam > Adam’s sin > humanity condemned in him > eternal death Christ > Christ’s righteousness > new humanity justified in him > eternal life </blockquote>
The rest of the passage unpacks how much greater Christ and his saving work are than Adam and his destructive work. Keep in mind what I said at the beginning. What we are seeing here is God’s revelation of realities that define the world that every person on this planet lives in. Everybody on this planet is included in this text because Adam was the father of everybody. Therefore, every person you meet in America or any other country of any ethnicity is facing what this text talks about. Death in Adam or life in Christ. This is a global text. Don’t miss that. This is the defining reality for every single person you will ever meet. Wimpy worldviews produce wimpy Christians. This is not a wimpy worldview. It stretches over all of history and over all the earth. It profoundly affects every person in the world and every headline on the internet.

==== Celebrating the Superiority of Jesus ====

Now let’s look at three ways that Paul celebrates the superiority of Christ and his work over Adam and his work. They can be summed up under three phrases: 1) the abundance of grace, 2) the perfection of obedience, and 3) the reign of life.

==== 1) The Abundance of Grace ====

First, verse 15 and the abundance of grace. “But the free gift [namely, the free gift of righteousness, v. 17] is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.” The point here is that God’s grace is more powerful than Adam’s trespass. That’s what the words “much more” signify: “much more has the grace of God . . . abounded for many.” If man’s trespass brought death, how much will God’s grace bring life.

But Paul is more specific than that. God’s grace is specifically “the grace of that one man Jesus Christ.” “Much more have the grace of God and the free gift by ''the grace of that one man Jesus Christ ''abounded for many.” These are not two different graces. “The grace of that one man Jesus Christ” is the incarnation of the grace of God. That’s the way Paul talks about it, for example, in Titus 2:11: “The grace of God has appeared [namely, in Jesus], bringing salvation . . . .” And in 2 Tim. 1:9: “His own . . . grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus.” So the grace that is in Jesus is the grace of God.

This grace is sovereign grace. It conquers everything in its path. We will see in just a moment that it has the power of the king of the universe. It is reigning grace. That’s the first celebration of Christ’s superiority over Adam. When the trespass of the one man Adam and the grace of the one man Jesus Christ meet, Adam and his trespass lose. Christ and grace win. That is very good news for those who belong to Christ.

==== 2) The Perfection of Obedience ====

Second, Paul celebrates the way that the grace of Christ conquers Adam’s trespass and death, namely, the perfection of Christ’s obedience. Verse 19: “For as by the one man’s disobedience [namely, Adam’s] the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience [namely, Christ’s] the many will be made righteous.” So the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, keeps him from sinning—keeps him obedient unto death, even death on the cross (Philippians 2:8)—so that he offers flawless and complete obedience to the Father on behalf of those who are connected to him by faith. Adam failed in his obedience. Christ succeeded perfectly. Adam was the source of sin and death. Christ was the source of obedience and life.

Christ is like Adam, who was a type of Christ—both are the representative heads of an old and a new humanity. God imputes the failure of Adam to his humanity and God imputes the success of Christ to his humanity, because of how these two humanities are united to their respective heads. The great superiority of Christ is that he not only succeeds in obeying perfectly, but does so in such a way that millions of people are counted righteous because of his obedience. Are you only connected to Adam? Are you only a part of the first humanity bound for death? Or are you also a connected to Christ, and part of the new humanity bound for eternal life?

==== 3) The Reign of Life ====

Third, Paul celebrates not only the abounding grace of Christ and the perfect obedience of Christ, but finally, the reign of life. Grace leads through Christ’s obedience to the triumph of eternal life. Verse 21: “. . . so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Grace reigns through righteousness (that is, through the perfect righteousness of Christ) to the great climax of eternal life—and all of that is “through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Or, once more in verse 17, the same message: “For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” The same pattern: Grace through the free gift of righteousness leads to the triumph of life, and all of that through Jesus Christ.

I mentioned above that the grace of God in Christ that Paul mentions in these verses is sovereign grace. Here is where you see that, namely, in the word reign. Death has a kind of sovereignty over man and reigns over all. All die. But grace conquers sin and death. It reigns in life even over those who once were dead. That is sovereign grace.

==== Jesus’ Spectacular Obedience ====

This is the great glory of Christ—he vastly outshines the first man Adam. The spectacular sin of Adam is not as great as the spectacular grace and obedience of Christ and the gift of eternal life. Indeed, God’s plan from the beginning, in his perfect righteousness, was that Adam, as the representative head of humankind, would be a type of Christ as the representative head of a new humankind. His plan was that by this comparison and contrast, the glory of Christ would shine all the more brightly.

Verse 17 puts the matter to you very personally and very urgently. Where do you stand? “For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will ''those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness ''reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” Notice the words very carefully and personally: “those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness.”

==== Precious Words for Sinners ====

These are precious words for sinners: The grace is free, the gift is free, the righteousness of Christ is free. Will you receive it as the hope and treasure of your life? If you do, you will “reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” Receive it now. Bear witness to it in baptism. And become a living part of the people of Christ.

Brothers, Tell Them Not to Serve God!

2010-09-02T19:11:15Z

Steffmahr:

{{info}}We have all told our people to serve God. Scripture says to "serve the Lord with gladness." But now it may be time to tell them ''not'' to serve God. For Scripture also says: "The Son of Man . . . came not to be served."

The Bible is concerned to call us back from idolatry to serve the true and living God (1 Thess. 1:9). But it is also concerned to keep us from serving the true God in the wrong way. There is a way to serve God that belittles and dishonors Him. Therefore, we must take heed lest we recruit servants whose labor diminishes the glory of the all-powerful Master. If Jesus said that He came ''not'' to be served (Mark 10:45), service may constitute rebellion.

God wills not to be served: "The God who made the world and everything in it . . . [is not served] by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all men life and breath and everything" (Acts 17:24-25). Paul warns against any view of God which makes Him the beneficiary of our beneficence. He informs us that God cannot be served in any way that implies we are meeting His needs. It would be as though a stream should try to fill a spring that feeds it.

"He Himself gives to all men life and breath and everything."

What is the greatness of our God? What is His uniqueness in the world? Isaiah says, "From of old no one has heard or perceived by ear, no God has seen a God besides Thee, who works for those who wait for Him" (Isa. 64:4). All the other so-called gods make man work for them. Our God will not be put in the position of an employer who must depend on others to make his business go. Instead He magnifies His all-sufficiency by doing the work Himself. ''Man'' is the dependent partner in this affair. His job is to wait for the Lord.

'''"No Help Wanted"'''

What is God looking for in the world? Assistants? No. The gospel is not a "help wanted" ad. Neither is the call to Christian service. God is not looking for people to work for Him. "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show His might in behalf of those who heart is blameless toward Him" (2 Chron. 16:9).

God is not a scout looking for the first draft choices to help his team win. He is an unstoppable fullback ready to run touchdowns for anyone who will give him the ball.

What does God want from us? Not what we might expect. He rebukes Israel for bringing Him so many sacrifices: "I will accept no bull from your house. . . . For every beast of the forest is Mine. . . .If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world and all that is in it is Mine" (Ps. 50:9-12).

But isn't there something we can give to God that won't belittle Him to the status of beneficiary? Yes. Our anxieties. It's a command: "Cast all your anxieties on Him" (1 Peter 5:7). God will gladly receive anything from us that shows our dependence and His all-sufficiency.

The difference between Uncle Sam and Jesus Christ is that Uncle Sam won't enlist you in his service unless you are healthy and Jesus won't enlist you unless you are sick. "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17). Christianity is fundamentally convalescence. Patients do not serve their physicians. They trust them for good prescriptions. The Sermon on the Mount is our Doctor's medical advice, not our Employer's job description.

Our very lives hang on not working for God. "To one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. And to one who does not work but trust Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness" (Rom. 4:4-5). Workmen get no gifts. They get their due. If we would have the gift of justification, we dare not work. God is the workman in this affair. And what He gets is the glory of being the benefactor of grace, not the beneficiary of service.

Nor should we think that after justification our labor for God begins. Those who make a work out of sanctification cry down the glory of God. Jesus Christ is "our righteousness and sanctification" (1 Cor. 1:30). "Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?" (Gal. 3:2-3). God was the workman in our justification, and He will be the workman in our sanctification.

Religious "flesh" always wants to work for God. But "if you live according to the flesh you will die" (Rom. 8:13). That is why our very lives hang on ''not'' working for God, both in justification and sanctification.

'''Servants of the Heavenly Master'''

But shall we not then serve Christ? It is commanded: "Serve the Lord" (Rom. 12:11). Those who do not serve Christ are rebuked (Rom. 16:18). Yes, we will serve Him. But before we do, we will ponder what to avoid in this service. Surely all the warnings against serving God mean that in the idea of service lies something to be avoided. When we compare our relationship with God to the relationship between servant and master, the comparison is not perfect. Some things about servanthood should be avoided in relation to God. Some should be affirmed.

Who then shall we serve and not serve? Psalm 123:2 gives part of the answer: "Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till He have mercy upon us." The good way to serve God is to look to Him for mercy.

Any servant who tries to get off the divine role and strike up a manly partnership with his Heavenly Master is in revolt against the Creator. God does not barter. He gives ''mercy'' to servants who will have it, and the wages of death to those who won't. Good service is always and fundamentally receiving mercy, not rendering service.

But is not entirely passive. Matthew 6:24 gives another clue to good service: "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

How does a person serve money? He does not assist money. He is not the benefactor of money. How then do we serve money? Money exerts a certain control over us because it seems to hold out so much promise of happiness. It whispers with great force, "Think and acts so as to get into a position to enjoy my benefits." This may include stealing, borrowing or working.

Money promises happiness, and we serve it by believing the promise and walking by that faith. So we don't serve money by putting our power at is disposal for its good. We serve money by doing what is necessary so that money's power will be at our disposal for our good.

I think the same sort of service to God must be in view in Matthew 6:24, since Jesus puts the two side by side: "You cannot serve God and mammon." So if we are going to serve God and not money, then we are going to have to open our eyes to the vastly superior happiness which God offers. Then God will exert a greater control over us than money does.

We will serve by believing His promise of fullest joy and walking by that faith. We will not serve by trying to put our power at His disposal for His good, but by doing what is necessary so that His power will be ever at our disposal for our good.

'''Obedient Beneficiaries'''

Of course, this means obedience. A patient obeys his doctor in hopes of getting well. A convalescent sinner trusts the painful directions of his Therapist, and follows them. Only in this way do we keep ourselves in a position to benefit from what the divine Physician has to offer. In all this obedience it is we who are the beneficiaries. God is ever the giver. For it is the giver who gets the glory.

And that, perhaps, is the most important thing of all. The only right way to serve God is in a way that reserves for Him all the glory. One "who renders service [must do it] as one who renders it by the strength which God supplies; in order that God may be glorified" (1 Peter 4:11). How do we serve so God is glorified? We serve by the strength He supplies. When we are at our most active for God, we are still the recipients. God will not surrender the glory of the benefactor, ever!

So let us work hard, but never forget that it is not us but the grace of God which is with us (1 Cor. 15:10). Let us obey now, as always, but never forget that it is God who works in us both the will and the deed (Phil. 2:13). Let us spread the gospel far and wide and spend ourselves for the sake of the elect, but never venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought in us (Rom. 15:18). In all our serving may God be the giver and God get the glory.

And until the people understand this, brothers, tell them not to serve God!
[[Category:Top priority]]

Battling Unbelief Together

2010-04-09T19:49:01Z

Steffmahr:

{{info}}

'''Hebrews 10:19-25; 3:12-14'''

'''How I Thrive in the Ministry'''

I survive and thrive in the ministry because God has surrounded me with people who pray for me and exhort me to press on in the fight of faith. If you don't feel supported like this in your faith and work, we want to help change that. The Bible teaches that surviving and thriving in a life of faith and love depends on Christians intentionally building each other in faith and stirring each other up to love. Without intentional faith-building togetherness we lose our zeal, drift from God, become hardened in the deceitfulness of sin, and if someone doesn't snatch us (James 5:19; Jude 23), we make shipwreck of our so-called faith and perish in unbelief.

I got a post card from a brother in the ministry a week or so ago that built my faith and gave me hope and encouragement to press on. It was not addressed to me. It was addressed to Christ. It was prayer.

Dear Lord,

Glorify yourself, our Savior, by moving us as a family of believers to pray as never before. May we find delight and enrichment in new intimacy of conversation with you. May our churches experience new health and vitality. And grant to us, by a fuller liberation of your power through mighty, multiplied intercession, to capture the strongholds of darkness in our country and around the world. That your name will everywhere be esteemed and revered. Give special guidance to your servant, John, as he wrestles with the discernment of urgent issues for Bethlehem's future. Even in uncertainty provide such inner confidence of your ultimate leading that his peace will be unshakable.

Your servant Bill

It can happen through the mail. God means it to happen in person even more often. That's what we want to look at this morning.

'''Battling Unbelief and Fighting the Fight of Faith'''

Last week we saw from Romans 4:20 that belief—belief that glorifies God—is future-oriented. It is a banking on the promises of God. All the promises of God were purchased for believing sinners by an act that happened in the past, namely, by the death and resurrection of Jesus. But God-glorifying BELIEF doesn't merely stare at those acts; it stands on them, and then looks forward to all the promises Jesus bought for us, and banks its hope on the promises, and moves out in a life of faith. Faith is future-oriented. It is heartfelt hope in the promises of God.

Then we saw that this kind of belief is the root of love and righteousness. Galatians 5:6, "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love." The root of all love and goodness is belief in the promises of God.

And we saw the flip side of this truth: that UNBELIEF is the root of all sin.

Which led us to the conclusion that top priority in the Christian life is learning to battle unbelief and fight the fight of faith. We must be rid of the notion that before we were Christians, we were fighting for faith and battling unbelief, but now that we are Christians we can relax because the battle is over; I am a believer; I have won the battle. That's a wrong notion. It leaves you very vulnerable to the subtlety of unbelief. At the end of his life Paul looks back over several decades of being a Christian and says (in 2 Timothy 4:7), "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." He had fought the good fight to keep the faith all his Christian life.

'''The Role of Other Believers in the Fight of Faith '''

And one of the ways he had fought it was to surround himself with believers who would pray for him and exhort him. Did you know that Paul always traveled in a team? He was not a loner. There was Barnabas and Silas and Timothy and Luke and Aristarchus and Mark and Epaphras and others. The one time he was forced to go off by himself to Athens his spirit was almost broken by the overwhelming evil there and he sent immediately for Timothy to join him.

You might get the idea that Paul's faith (and the faith of other ministers) was never in need of human reinforcement. But listen to 2 Corinthians 7:5–7,

For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest but we were afflicted at every turn—fighting without and fear within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he told us of your longing.

Paul needed the partnership of close friends who could strengthen his faith when fear was beginning to get the upper hand in his life. We need that same partnership. That is what lies behind the 20:20 Vision. 

'''Five Points on Hebrews 10:24–25''' Now let's look at our text in Hebrews 10:24–25. I want to make five brief points from these two verses.

Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. 

'''1. Meeting Together'''

We are commanded to meet together.

The kind of meeting in view seems to be one that allows for some kind of mutual encouragement and stirring up of one another. It is not talking about merely sneaking into a big church service and sneaking out again. It's talking about the kind of meeting where you say something to someone that will help them be more loving and where someone can say something to you that will help you be more loving, and help you have strength to more good deeds.

This is why we believe so strongly in a ministry of small groups in the church. There is this "one another" principle that requires personal interaction with people at a pretty significant level. Coming to worship on Sunday morning—as important as that is—is not enough. God means for us to face each other so that we can exhort and encourage each other to press on.

The first point, then, is MEET together in smaller groups. '''2. Avoiding the Habit of Not Meeting'''

The second point is, don't get into the habit of not meeting.

This is almost the same as point #1, but verse 25 seems to give it a special stress. So I want to too. It says, "Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some." The warning here is that not meeting with other Christians in this way can become habitual. Ask yourself right now: Are you in the habit of only coming to more or less anonymous, bigger meetings of the church where there doesn't have to be much personal interaction or accountability? Does that pattern of life feel comfortable now?

Many of you would have to answer, Yes. Why? Because it is now a habit. It's what you are comfortable with. In fact it is so much your normal way of looking at the Christian life that what I am saying right now is threatening to you. You do not want to be told that the Bible insists that you are outside the Lord's will when you do not meet in some kind of smaller group intentionally designed to stir you up to love and good works.

So my second point is: Don't get into this habit of not meeting in this way. And if you are in that habit now, resolve to break it this year. We want to help you with the 20:20 Vision. 

'''3. Increasing Frequency and Seriousness'''

The third point is that the frequency and seriousness of your meetings should increase as the Day of Judgment draws near.

At the end of verse 25 it says, " . . . and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." That's the Day of Christ's coming and the end of the age. The stresses and troubles and dangers are going to increase as history comes to a close. There will be greater satanic activity, greater evil, greater threats to your faith and love.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:11–12, "Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold." That's why we better take this word of Hebrews 10:25 very seriously in our day. If your love is going to survive the onslaught of Satan and evil, you must meet with those who can stir you up to love and good works. Woe to the person who thinks they can be a lone wolf Christian as the last Day draws near.

Let's make our meeting for prayer and exhortation be more frequent and more serious and urgent as we see the gathering storm of tribulation and evil. 

'''4. Empowering to Love'''

Make your meeting together with believers a meeting specifically for the empowering to love. Empowering to love.

Don't be unintentional when you get together. Don't just say, Christian fellowship is good, so we are going to get together and talk. It is good. And talking is wonderful. But the stakes are too high these days to be that casual and lackadaisical about your gathering.

Verse 24 says, "Consider one another in order to stir each other up to love and good works" (literal translation). There is a clear goal. We are meeting so that when we leave, we will have more power to love, more resources to love, more motivation to love, more wisdom to love and do good works, so that people will see our good works, as Jesus said, and give glory to our Father in heaven. The visible glory of God is at stake.

And not only is there a clear goal, there is a kind of urgent intentionality. The word "Consider" suggests that we come on the look out for how we can specifically help other people get power to love. We don't just drift into a 20:20 meeting thinking about all kinds of worldly things. We come on a mission. We come "considering," on the look out, watching, listening. What does David need tonight? What would help Noël be stronger tonight?

So the fourth point is: Be intentional in your coming together. Aim at empowering each other to love and good works.

'''5. Strengthening Faith in the Promises of God'''

The last point is in answer to the question: How do you empower another person to love and good works? What is the root of love? What is the root of all righteousness and truly good deeds? The answer is belief in the promises of God. So the fifth point is: Make the main basic goal of every small group to strengthen faith in the promises of God.

This is implied in verse 23: "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love . . . " So these two things are very closely related: stirring each other up to love, and helping each other hold on to hope in the promises of God.

How do you empower someone to love and good deeds in spite of all the obstacles they will run into at home and work? Answer: build their hope in the promises of God. Love grows on the taproot of BELIEF in the promises of God.

'''The Target of Our Exhortation'''

Look finally at 3:12–13.

Take care, brethren, lest there be in you an evil unbelieving heart [literally: "an evil heart of unbelief"] leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Notice carefully: the target of our exhorting one another is twofold. First, in verse 12 it is the evil heart of unbelief. We should do all we can to help each other battle unbelief in our heart. It is evil and it can lead us to fall away from the living God. Second, in verse 13 the target of our exhorting is the deceitfulness of sin: " . . . that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

The relationship between these two is plain. A heart of unbelief gives rise to sin. And sin is the opposite of love. So our basic agenda in small groups is clear. We must help each other BATTLE UNBELIEF. We must help each other fight the fight of faith. None of us is above this need. I certainly need it.

And I would ask you to bow your head now and ask the Lord to reveal your need of it too, and how you should go about meeting that need.

[[Category:Top priority]]

Brothers, Pray for the Seminary

2010-02-08T15:40:21Z

Steffmahr:

{{info}}We cannot overemphasize the importance of our seminaries in shaping the theology and spirit of the churches and denominations and missionary enterprise. The tone of the classrooms and teachers exerts profound effect on the tone of our pulpits. What the teachers are passionate about will by and large be the passions of our younger pastors. What they neglect will likely be neglected in the pulpits.

When I was choosing a seminary, someone gave me good advice. “A seminary is one thing,” he told me. “Faculty. Do not choose a denomination or a library or a location. Choose a great faculty. Everything else is incidental.” By “great faculty” he, of course, did not mean mere charismatic personalities. He meant that wonderful combination of passion for God ,for truth,for the church and for the perishing, along with a deep understanding of God and his Word, a high esteem for doctrinal truth and careful interpretation and exposition of the infallible Bible.

I believe his advice was right: choose a seminary for its teachers. Which means that when we pray for our seminaries, we pray especially for the minds and hearts of faculty and those who assess and hire them.

When we stop to think for a while about what to pray, we start to clarify our own concept of ministry. We can’t pray without a goal. And we can’t have a goal for a seminary faculty unless we have a vision for what kind of pastors we want to see graduate. So the more we try to pray, the more we are forced to define what we value in the pastoral office. And once we clarify this, we begin to ponder what sort of person and pedagogy cultivates these values.

So the will to pray for the seminary presses us on to develop at least a rudimentary pastoral theology and philosophy of theological education. What follows is a baby step in this direction – a rough sketch of what I think we need from our seminaries. My petitions cluster in three groups. Each group echoes a biblical value at which I think we should aim, and toward which we should pray, in pastoral education.

Under the all-embracing goal of God’s glory (first petition), petitions 2-7 echo my goal that we cultivate a contrite and humble sense of human insufficiency. “I am the vine, you are the branches . . . apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves” (2 Corinthians 4:7). “Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Corinthians 2:16).

Petitions 8-11 echo my goal that we cultivate a great passion for Christ’s all-sufficiency; and that, for all our enthusiasm over contemporary trends in ministry, the overwhelming zeal of a pastor’s heart be for the changeless fundamentals of the faith. “Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:7-8).

Petitions 12-21 echo my goal that we cultivate strong allegiance to all of Scripture, and that what the apostles and prophets preached and taught in Scripture will be esteemed worthy of our careful and faithful exposition to God’s people. “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

You will want to supplement these prayers with the burdens of your own heart for the seminaries you care about most deeply. But these are essential, I think, to breed power and purity in our churches.

I pray:

#That the supreme, heartfelt and explicit goal of every faculty member might be to teach and live in such a way that his students come to admire the glory of God with white-hot intensity (1 Corinthians 10:31; Matthew 5:16).
#That, among the many ways this goal can be sought, the whole faculty will seek it by the means suggested in 1 Peter 4:11: Serve “in the strength which God supplies: in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”
#That the challenge of the ministry might be presented in such a way that the question rises authentically in students’ hearts: “Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Corinthians 2:16).
#That in every course the indispensable and precious enabling of the Holy Spirit will receive significant emphasis in comparison to other means of ministerial success (Galatians 3:5).
#That teachers will cultivate the pastoral attitude expressed in 1 Corinthians 15:10 and Romans 15:18: “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me. . . . I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought through me to win obedience from the Gentiles.”
#That the poverty of spirit commended in Matthew 5:3 and the lowliness and meekness commended in Colossians 3:12 and Ephesians 4:2 and 1 Peter 5:5-6 will be manifested through the administration, faculty, and student body.
#That the faculty might impress upon students by precept and example the immense pastoral need to pray without ceasing and to despair of all success without persevering prayer in reliance on God’s free mercy (Matthew 7:7-11; Ephesians 6:18).
#That the faculty will help the students feel what an unutterably precious thing it is to be treated mercifully by the holy God, even though we deserve to be punished in hell forever (Matthew 25:46; 18:23-35; Luke 7:42, 47).
#That, because of our seminary faculties, hundreds of pastors, 50 years from now, will repeat the words of John Newton on their death beds: “My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and that Jesus is a great Savior.”
#That the faculty will inspire students to unqualified and exultant joy in the venerable verities of Scripture. “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart” (Psalm 19:8).
#That every teacher will develop a pedagogical style based on James Denney’s maxim: “No man can give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save.”1
#That in the treatment of Scripture there will be no truncated estimation of what is valuable for preaching and for life.
#That students will develop a respect for and use of the awful warnings of Scripture as well as its precious promises; and that the command to “pursue holiness” (Hebrews 12:14) will not be blunted, but empowered, by the assurance of divine enablement. “Now the God of peace . . . equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom bethe glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21).
#That there might be a strong and evident conviction that the deep and constant study of Scripture is the best way to become wise in dealing with people’s problems. “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped ''for every good work''(2 Timothy 3:16-17).
#That the faculty may not represent the contemporary mood in critical studies which sees “minimal unity, wide-ranging diversity” in the Bible; but that they will pursue the unified “whole counsel of God” and help students see the way it all fits together. “For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God” (Acts 20:27).
#That ''explicit biblical''insights will permeate all class sessions, even when issues are treated with language and paradigms borrowed from contemporary sciences.
#That God and his Word will not be taken for granted as the tacit “foundation” that doesn’t get talked about or admired.
#That the faculty will mingle the “severe discipline” of textual analysis with an intense reverence for the truth and beauty of God’s Word.
#That fresh discoveries will be made in the study of Scripture and shared with the church through articles and books.
#That faculty, deans, and presidents will have wisdom and courage from God to make appointments which promote the fulfillment of these petitions.
#And that boards and all those charged with leadership will be vigilant over the moral and doctrinal faithfulness of the faculty and exercise whatever discipline is necessary to preserve the biblical faithfulness of all that is taught and done.

Brothers, let us not merely criticize or commend the seminaries. God loves his church and his truth. He ordains to do his work through the intercession of his people. Generations of faithfulness are at stake. Therefore, brothers, let us pray for the seminaries.

1 Quoted in John Stott, ''Between Two Worlds: The Art of Preaching in the Twentieth Century'' (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1982), p. 325. 

[[Category:Top_priority]]

Questa grande salvezza/Come usare il libro

2010-01-30T16:41:06Z

Steffmahr:

{{Info|This Great Salvation/How To Use This Book}}

Questa grande salvezza, come gli altri libri della serie La ricerca della divinità, è destinato all’uso di gruppo quanto individuale. La serie è la logica conseguente crescita di quattro profonde convinzioni:

• La Bibbia è il nostro infallibile paradigma di fede, dottrina, e pratica. Coloro che resistono alla sua autorità saranno fuorviati dai loro stessi sentimenti e dalle mode culturali.

• La conoscenza senza applicazione pratica è inerte. Per poter essere trasformati, dobbiamo applicare in pratica la verità della Parola di Dio nella vita quotidiana.

• L’applicazione di tali principii è impossibile al di fuori dello Spirito Santo. Pur essendo noi stessi partecipi al cambiamento, è esso la fonte del nostro potere.

• La chiesa è il contesto inteso da Dio per il cambiamento. Dio non ha mai voluto che vivessimo isolati o indipendenti dagli altri Cristiani. Tramite l’impegnata partecipazione nella chiesa locale, troviamo istruzione, incoraggiamento, correzione, e l’opportunità di avvicinarci a Cristo con maturità.

Man mano che vi addentrerete in queste pagine, confidiamo che ciascuna di queste convinzioni fondamentali verrà rinsaldata nel vostro cuore.

Con la possibile eccezione delle domande della “Discussione di gruppo”, il formato del libro è adatto sia ai piccoli gruppi, sia ai singoli. Si è acclusa una scelta di diversi elementi per rendere ciascun capitolo il più interessante e utile possibile. Per quelli di voi che vogliano approfondire un particolare argomento, abbiamo aggiunto alla fine di ogni capitolo uno o più libri che vi aiuteranno a crescere nel Signore.

Pur incoraggiandovi a sperimentare nell’uso di questo libro, la discussione di gruppo risulterà più proficua se i partecipanti esamineranno il materiale in anticipo. E ricordate che non siete soli nell’affrontare il libro: lo Spirito Santo è il vostro tutore. Con il suo aiuto, questo libro può potenzialmente cambiare la vostra vita.

Questa grande salvezza/Come usare il libro

2010-01-30T16:40:26Z

Steffmahr: Created page with '{{Info|This Great Salvation/How To Use This Book}} Questa grande salvezza, come gli altri libri della serie La ricerca della divinità, è destinato all’uso di gruppo quanto i...'

{{Info|This Great Salvation/How To Use This Book}}

Questa grande salvezza, come gli altri libri della serie La ricerca della divinità, è destinato all’uso di gruppo quanto individuale. La serie è la logica conseguente crescita di quattro profonde convinzioni:

• La Bibbia è il nostro infallibile paradigma di fede, dottrina, e pratica.
Coloro che resistono alla sua autorità saranno fuorviati dai loro stessi sentimenti e dalle mode culturali.

• La conoscenza senza applicazione pratica è inerte. Per poter essere trasformati, dobbiamo applicare in pratica la verità della Parola di Dio nella vita quotidiana.

• L’applicazione di tali principii è impossibile al di fuori dello Spirito Santo.
Pur essendo noi stessi partecipi al cambiamento, è esso la fonte del nostro potere.

• La chiesa è il contesto inteso da Dio per il cambiamento. Dio non ha mai voluto che vivessimo isolati o indipendenti dagli altri Cristiani. Tramite l’impegnata partecipazione nella chiesa locale, troviamo istruzione, incoraggiamento, correzione, e l’opportunità di avvicinarci a Cristo con maturità.

Man mano che vi addentrerete in queste pagine, confidiamo che ciascuna di queste convinzioni fondamentali verrà rinsaldata nel vostro cuore.

Con la possibile eccezione delle domande della “Discussione di gruppo”, il formato del libro è adatto sia ai piccoli gruppi, sia ai singoli. Si è acclusa una scelta di diversi elementi per rendere ciascun capitolo il più interessante e utile possibile. Per quelli di voi che vogliano approfondire un particolare argomento, abbiamo aggiunto alla fine di ogni capitolo uno o più libri che vi aiuteranno a crescere nel Signore.

Pur incoraggiandovi a sperimentare nell’uso di questo libro, la discussione di gruppo risulterà più proficua se i partecipanti esamineranno il materiale in anticipo.
E ricordate che non siete soli nell’affrontare il libro: lo Spirito Santo è il vostro tutore.
Con il suo aiuto, questo libro può potenzialmente cambiare la vostra vita.

Christian Courage

2010-01-25T18:54:36Z

Steffmahr:

{{info}}

Christian courage is the willingness to say and do the right thing regardless of the earthly cost, because God promises to help you and save you on account of Christ. An act takes courage if it will likely be painful. The pain may be physical, as in war and rescue operations. Or the pain may be mental as in confrontation and controversy.

Courage is indispensable for both spreading and preserving the truth of Christ. Jesus promised that spreading the gospel would meet resistance: "Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name" (Matthew 24:9). And Paul warned that, even in the church, faithfulness to the truth would be embattled: "I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them" (Acts 20:29-30; see also 2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Therefore, true evangelism and true teaching will take courage. Running from resistance in evangelism or teaching dishonors Christ. There is a kind of cowardice that tells only the truths that are safe to tell. Martin Luther put it like this:

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point. (Quoted in Parker T. Williamson, Standing Firm: Reclaiming Christian Faith in Times of Controversy [Springfield, PA: PLC Publications, 1996], p. 5)

Where then shall we get this courage? Consider these pointers.

'''FROM BEING FORGIVEN AND BEING RIGHTEOUS''' - "The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion" (Proverbs 28:1). "Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, 'Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven'" (Matthew 9:2).

'''FROM TRUSTING GOD AND HOPING IN HIM''' - "Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who hope in the LORD" (Psalm 31:24; see also 2 Corinthians 3:12).

'''FROM BEING FILLED WITH SPIRIT''' - "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness" (Acts 4:31).

'''FROM GOD'S PROMISE TO BE WITH YOU''' - "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1:9).

'''FROM KNOWING THAT THE ONE WITH YOU IS GREATER THAN THE ADVERSARY''': -"Be strong and courageous . . . for the one with us is greater than the one with him. With him is only an arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles" (2 Chronicles 32:7-8).

'''FROM BEING SURE THAT GOD IS SOVEREIGN OVER THE BATTLES''' - "Be strong, and let us show ourselves courageous for the sake of our people and for the cities of our God; and may the LORD do what is good in His sight" (2 Samuel 10:12).

'''THROUGH PRAYER''' - "On the day I called, You answered me; You made me bold with strength in my soul" (Psalm 138:3; see also Ephesians 6:19-20).

'''FROM THE EXAMPLE OF OTHERS''' - "Most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear" (Philippians 1:14).

Longing to stand firm with you,

Pastor John

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Brothers, Let Us Query the Text

2009-12-02T01:56:29Z

Steffmahr:

{{info}}If the Bible is coherent, then understanding the Bible means grasping how things fit together. Becoming a Biblical theologian means seeing more and more pieces fit together into a glorious mosaic of the divine will. And doing exegesis means querying the text about how its many propositions cohere in the author's mind.

If we are going to feed our people, we must ever advance in our grasp of biblical truth. And to advance in our grasp of biblical truth we must be troubled by biblical affirmations.

It must bother us that James and Paul don't seem to jibe. Only when we are troubled and bothered do we think hard. And if we don't think hard about how biblical affirmations fit together, we will never penetrate to their common root and discover the beauty of unified divine truth. The end result is that our Bible reading will become insipid, we will turn to fascinating "secondary literature," our sermons will be the lame work of "second-handers," and the people will go hungry.

"We never think until we have been confronted with a problem," said John Dewey. He was right. And that is why we will never think hard about biblical truth until we are troubled by its complexity.

We must form the habit of being systematically disturbed by things that at first glance don't make sense. Or to put it a different way, we must relentlessly query the text. One of the greatest honors I received while teaching at Bethel was when the teaching assistants in the Bible department gave me a T-shirt which had the initials of Jonathan Edwards on the front and on the back the words: "Asking questions is the key to understanding."

But there are several strong forces which oppose our relentless and systematic interrogating of biblical texts. One is that it consumes a great deal of time and energy on one small portion of Scripture. We have been schooled [quite erroneously] that there is a direct correlation between reading a lot and gaining insight. But in fact there is no positive correlation at all been quantity of pages read and quality of insight gained. Just the reverse. Except for a few geniuses, insight diminishes as we try to read more and more. Insight or understanding is the product of intensive, headache-producing meditation on two or three verses and how they fit together. This kind of reflection and rumination is provoked by asking questions of the text. And you cannot do it if you hurry. Therefore, we must resist the deceptive urge to carve notches in our bibliographic gun. Take two hours to ask ten questions of Galatians 2:20 and you will gain one hundred times the insight you would have attained by reading 30 pages of the New Testament or any other book. Slow down. Query. Ponder. Chew.

Another reason it is hard to spend hours probing for the roots of coherence is that it is fundamentally unfashionable today to systematize and seek for harmony and unity. This noble quest has fallen on hard times because so much artificial harmony has been discovered by impatient and nervous Bible defenders. But if God's mind is truly coherent and not confused, then exegesis must aim to see the coherence of biblical revelation and the profound unity of divine truth. Unless we are to dabble forever on the surface of things (content to turn up "tensions" and "difficulties") then we must resist the atomistic (and basically anti-intellectual) fashions in the contemporary theological establishment. There is far too much debunking of past failures and far too little construction going on.

A third force that opposes the effort to ask the Bible questions is this: Asking questions is the same as posing problems, and we have been discouraged all our lives from finding problems in God's Holy Book.

It is impossible to respect the Bible too highly, but it is very possible to respect it wrongly. If we do not ask seriously how differing texts fit together, then we are either superhuman (and glance all truth at a glance) or indifferent (and don't care about seeing more truth). But I don't see how anyone who is indifferent or superhuman can have a proper respect for the Bible. Therefore reverence for God's Word demands that we ask questions and pose problems ''and'' that we believe there are answers and solutions which will reward our labor with "treasures new and old" (Matt. 13:52).

We must train our people that it is not irreverent to see difficulties in the biblical text and to think hard about how they can be resolved.

I do not accuse my 6-year-old son, Benjamin, of irreverence when he cannot make sense out of a Bible verse and asks me about it. He is just learning to read. But have ''our'' abilities to read been perfected? Can any of us at one reading grasp the logic of a paragraph and see how every part relates to all the others and how they all fit together to make a unified point? How much less the thought of an entire epistle, the New Testament, the Bible! If we care about truth, we must relentlessly query the text and form the habit of being bothered by things we read.

This is just the opposite of irreverence. It is what we do if we crave the mind of Christ. Nothing sends us deeper into the counsels of God than seeing apparent theological discrepancies in the Bible and pondering them day and night until they fit into an emerging system of unified truth. For example, a year ago I struggled for days with how Paul could say on the one hand, "Have no anxiety about anything" (Phil. 4:6), but on the other hand say (with apparent impunity) that his "anxiety for all the churches" was a daily pressure on him (2 Cor. 11:28). How could he say, "Rejoice always" (1 Thess. 5:16), and "Weep with those who weep" (Rom. 12:15)? How would he say to give thanks "always and for everything" (Eph. 5:20) and then admit, "I have great sorrow and ''unceasing'' anguish in my heart" (Rom. (9:2)?

More recently I have asked, What does it mean that Jesus said in Matthew 5:39 to turn the other cheek when struck, but said in Matthew 10:23, "When they persecute you in one town, flee. . ."? When do you flee and when do endure hardship and turn the other cheek? I have also been pondering in what sense it is true that God is "slow to anger" (Ex. 34:6) and in what sense "His wrath is quickly kindled" (Ps. 2:12).

There are hundreds and hundreds of such seeming discrepancies in the Holy Scripture, and we dishonor the text not to see them and think them through. God is not a God of confusion. His tongue is not forked. There are profound and wonderful resolutions to all problems. He has called us to an eternity of discovery so that every morning for ages to come we might break forth in new songs of praise.

In 2 Timothy 2:7 Paul gave us a command and a promise. He commanded, "''Think'' over what I say." And he promised, "God will give you understanding in everything."

How do the command and promise fit together? The little "for" (''gar'') gives the answer. "Think . . . ''because'' God will reward you with understanding."

The promise is not made to all. It is made to those who ''think''. And we do not think until we are confronted with a problem. Therefore, brothers, let us query the text.

[[Category:Top_priority]]