Dan Olinger

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Accessing the Enablement | Part 3: The Offices | Part 4: The Qualities | Part 5: Case Studies | Part 6: Contentment

Paul writes a second letter to our Thessalonian church.

Actually, we’re not sure that 2 Thessalonians is the second letter rather than the first; in the early days the book-order people put it second because it was shorter. We know the two letters belong together, but we’re not entirely sure of the order. And for our purposes in teasing out the characteristics of ministry, it really doesn’t matter.

At any rate, this shorter epistle begins with the standard epistolary opening–authors, recipients, benediction–and then an opening prayer of thanksgiving, which Paul includes in most but not all of his epistles. (Take a look at Galatians for a stark contrast.)

This prayer takes up the entire first chapter, and it carries a pretty clear theme: their faith toward God (2Th 1.3) and their love toward one another (2Th 1.3) is growing over time, with the result that they endure faithfully (2Th 1.4) even through difficult circumstances–specifically, “persecutions and tribulations” (2Th 1.4).

What empowers that? Why do they put up with such difficulties?

Paul’s words seem surprising to us: those trials are “a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God” (2Th 1.5).

What?! What kind of nonsensical talk is this? How does persecution, which is by definition unjust, demonstrate God’s justice? How does that make any sense at all?

Well, for several reasons. First. these difficulties are not purposeless or random. God sends them, carefully, filtered analytically to ensure that they are not–for us–beyond the limits of God’s grace to enable us to endure and therefore defeat (1Co 10.13).

And second, these difficulties are designed to be exercises, challenging exercises, the kind that build spiritual muscles when we persist in them. Every athlete knows from experience how this works; you work out, sweating and pushing and straining even beyond what you think you can possibly do, and you build muscle, you gain skill, so that eventually you will win the state championship.

“But it’s so hard!”

Yes, it is. No denying that. But that’s precisely the point. Defeating a fourth-grade wrestler isn’t any kind of achievement; it’s nothing to be proud of. In fact, it’s kind of embarrassing.

He’s nine years old, for cryin’ out loud.

But pinning a heavyweight, one with experience–now that’s a win. That calls for shouting and jumping on the mat, and for a trophy that’s four feet tall.

Trials and persecutions–big ones, hard ones–are an opportunity to experience victory, to celebrate.

The God who sends you those is good. Kind. Gracious. Just.

There’s a third reason.

In these battles he sends us, he watches, and he defends us his children. He brings us to overwhelming victory (2Th 1.6-9).

The battle is not close.

Our God is loyal to us in this battle, and he graciously enables us to be loyal to him at the same time (2Th 1.11-12).

How great and good he is! And how great a cause for celebration is the victory, even in the light of the trial!

Especially in the light of the trial.

This isn’t about being Pollyanna.

It’s about realism.

A good servant obeys his master loyally, faithfully.

And, at the end, without regret.

Photo by Mélyna Côté on Unsplash

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Accessing the Enablement | Part 3: The Offices | Part 4: The Qualities | Part 5: Case Studies

Paul finishes his first epistle to Timothy by focusing on another characteristic of servants, or ministers: contentment. He begins the final chapter by speaking to actual physical servants, those who are owned by their masters.

The intervening years have left us with a deep distaste for slavery, and for good reason; the American institution of slavery violated at least three direct biblical commands in that it was commercial (buying and selling the image of God, 1Ti 1.10), permanent (Lev 25.10), and violently abusive (Ep 6.9)–if not 100% of the time, certainly enough to merit the wrath of God. No excuses; no justification.

These characteristics existed in biblical times as well. But slavery in those days was most likely either the result of war or a mechanism for the payment of debt, and in the latter case the institution need not have been violating biblical principles of love for one’s neighbor.

And so Paul addresses servants. They are to cooperate with and even honor their masters, contributing to a healthy and peaceable relationship (1Ti 6.1-2). Those who teach otherwise, Paul says, are in fact violating the teachings of Christ (1Ti 6.3) and causing friction (1Ti 6.4-5).

People who teach such things are making an invalid assumption: their priorities are economic. They assume that wealth will solve interpersonal problems (1Ti 6.5-10).

The solution to such turmoil, Paul says, is contentment (1Ti 6.6, 8). Some would see this as weakness or passivity, but it is nothing of the sort. Contentment is based on the fundamental premise that God is great, he is good, and he is in charge. There’s nothing weak or passive about that.

It makes perfect sense that the servant of God should be placed in the life position that God has planned for him–and that this position is the perfect fit for his character, his skills, and his inclinations.

For most people that life position will change and grow over the years. Your first calling might take advantage of the strength and idealism of the young adult, while with the experience of aging you might gain greater responsibilities and commensurate authority. God knows these things about us, and he prepares us providentially through our life experiences, and he plans for our good in all these things.

The only sensible response to all this is contentment.

Such an outlook, Paul says, yields “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness” (1Ti 6.11). And, I might add, fulfillment and the resultant peace and joy.

That is exponentially better than a life of frustration and discontent. The comparison is not difficult.

And to demonstrate that this kind of life is not weak or passive. Paul writes,

“Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life” (1Ti 6.12).

This is a battle, but one for which we are equipped, armed, and thereby prepared to win.

To do this is to emulate the example of Christ himself (1Ti 6.13) until he returns for his people (1Ti 6.14), at which time the victory will be complete, final, and joyous (1Ti 6.15-16).

So what about those who are rich, in the good providence of God?

That happens. Wealth is not necessarily evidence of greed, theft, or abuse. But again, in the providence of God, wealth is designed not to be flaunted, but to be used for good (1Ti 6.17-18), invested in eternal values (1Ti 6.19).

Service, it turns out, goes hand in hand with contentment, which is the empowerment for effective ministry.

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Accessing the Enablement | Part 3: The Offices | Part 4: The Qualities

In chapter 5 Paul applies what he’s taught so far by laying out a couple of case studies; and here, as I’ve noted, we need to apply some discernment as to how much of his instruction should be considered as authoritative over all Christians, or intended specifically for pastors. We’ll try to do that sensibly as we proceed.

Paul’s first case study is widows in the church (1Ti 5.1-16). He begins (1Ti 5.1-2) by noting that every church body includes different “demographics,” if you will; at a minimum, a healthy church will have both males and females, and both older and younger. These groups have different needs, which we should recognize as we serve one another. The pastor, as overseer, will need to adapt church structure and ministries to maximize the benefit to all, but we as regular ol’ members should be thinking in that way as well, watching for and discerning even individual needs and seeking to serve in appropriate ways.

Paul chooses to focus here specifically on widows. You’ll recall that the first deacons (if that’s what they were) were appointed for the specific purpose of seeing to it that the widows were fed (Ac 6.1-7). In different cultures the needs of widows will vary. Some years ago I was an elder in a church that begn a focused ministry to widows. Our first step was to interview each of them and ask them frankly what their needs were. We were surprised to find that there were very few financial needs; in most cases their husbands had appropriate life insurance. Their greatest need, in most cases, was for a sense of belonging: opportunities for fellowship, inclusion in broader church activities, a general sensitivity to their new station in life. One widow suggested we have them take care of new moms: relationship, advice, even helping clean their houses and prepare meals. That worked well.

Now, if there are widows who do have financial difficulty, we need to serve them. Perhaps that’s by giving them financial assistance; or perhaps it’s by meeting with extended family and challenging them to fulfill their responsibility to their loved one (1Ti 5.8)–even if they’re not part of the church. I had to do that once; and while it was initially awkward, they did step up.

I suppose that these cultural differences might call for sensibly adapting Paul’s specific instructions to Timothy to ensure that we’re taking care of legitimate present-day needs and not merely first-century ones. As always, it comes down to attentiveness, love, and good sense.

Paul then turns to the issue of caring for elders. Again, Timothy, as an apostolic legate, is in a different position from us; but in practice the specifics are not that different–especially for baptists. :-) As an overseer, Timothy was responsible for seeing that the pastors under his care were appropriately cared for financially, as well as in other ways.

What about us? Well, if you’re baptist, your church governance puts you in charge; you hire and fire pastors as a congregation, and you participate in salary decisions through the budgeting process. And if you’re not baptist, you are certainly free to speak up if you see financial abuse going on.

So Paul says the elders who “rule well be counted worthy of double honor” (1Ti 5.17). The word translated “honor” in the KJV is financial; literally it means “pay ’em twice as much.” Certainly it means at least that pastors should be paid appropriately, based on their overall responsibilities and performance. In the US it’s common to pay pastors of large churches more than pastors of small ones, under the assumption that they have more work to do; I see no conflict with Paul’s teaching here.

Of course, pastors have needs beyond the financial ones. How often do you ask your pastor, in private, how he’s doing–if there’s anything you can do to help carry his burdens? Years ago I asked my pastor at the time how he was doing, and he said, “Oh, you know, the typical things–life and death, heaven and hell …” That spoke to me of the weighty load he was carrying, and it prompted me to pray for him more earnestly. And to tell him so.

There’s an ongoing theme here, is there? We serve by persistence in the non-glamorous things: paying attention, watching intentionally, asking questions, discerning needs, and acting lovingly in the ways we can. And, I would suggest, acting to encourage others to serve in the ways we can’t.

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Accessing the Enablement | Part 3: The Offices

Having laid out the qualifications for the church ministry offices, Paul now turns to Timothy himself, the overseer of the whole process, to specify to him what qualities he must have as he carries his responsibilities.

Now, we readers can’t assume that everything Paul requires of Timothy should be required of all believers two millennia later–I don’t “use a little wine for [my] stomach’s sake” (1Ti 5.23)–but as we’ve noted before, the characteristics of effective ministers (servants) in the church in the first century can legitimately be extrapolated to all of us who believe. We’ll need to maintain a careful interpretive balance as we proceed.

As I read chapter 4, the first thing that strikes me is Paul’s heavy emphasis on doctrine; it appears in verses 1, 6, 13, and 16. One might expect the focus of someone who is “serving” others in the church to be on interpersonal skills such as empathy, listening, compassion, and so forth. I’m not suggesting that those things aren’t important; they are inherent elements in love, which is the second great commandment.

But the greatest commandment is to love God, and thus listening to him, and obeying him, are at least as important as being moved by the pleas of others. Of course the two are not in opposition; we can love God well and love others well too. But disregarding love for God, which is manifested by obedience, will render us unable to “serve” others well.

Hence, doctrine. Effective ministers, all of us, must know, understand, and apply the Word with skill. If your pastor exposits the Scripture well, your attentiveness, review, and later interaction will get you well on the way, and eventually you’ll be in a position to feed yourself from the Word at some reasonable level.

And if your pastor doesn’t exposit the Scripture, get a new pastor.

Against that doctrinal background, Paul expects other qualities.

A solid doctrinal foundation should enable us to recognize, refute, and reject false teachers (1Ti 4.1-6). That matters.

As our pastors exemplify godliness, we can reinforce their examples by our own (1Ti 4.12):

in our words
in our lifestyles
in our love
in our spirits, genuinely from the inside out
in our faith–and our faithfulness
and in our purity, rejecting all the defilements of the culture around us.

That way we won’t be a defiling influence on those we serve.

Paul closes the chapter, and his focus on our personal qualities, by reminding us of our spiritual gifts (1Ti 4.14). As he’s emphasized repeatedly elsewhere, these gifts are not for us; they’re for everybody except us. Our task is to serve those alongside us by doing well what we can do in order to strengthen them in their faith and in their walk.

We’re here for them.

Now, none of this happens accidentally or routinely. It happens on purpose. When we gather with the body, or when we fellowship with another believer over a beverage of choice (that’s a decaf breve for me), we’re focused on how we can serve one another. That might involve an encouraging word–or a challenging one. It might involve an intentional, if silent, example. It might involve a personal sacrifice for someone else’s benefit, or keeping a promise, or turning the conversation in a healthier direction, or teaching a Sunday school class.

The possibilities are literally endless.

Brainstorm, evaluate, plan, execute. On purpose.

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Accessing the Enablement

Paul now turns to a discussion of ministry as it is evidenced in church offices. Because we’re pursuing the way “ministry” works for all believers, this is not our primary point, but before delving into that more deeply, we can benefit by seeing how it works for those in ministry offices in the church.

We’ve noted earlier that in Acts 6 both the apostles and the presumed first deacons were described as “ministering,” or serving. It’s certainly no stretch, then, to expect that pastors, who initially served under apostolic authority, should be ministers, or servants, as well.

The New Testament uses three different terms for the pastoral office, reflecting their key spheres of service. They are called “pastors,” or shepherds, because they feed and protect the sheep, the members of the body, primarily through their preaching from the Scripture. They’re also called “elders” because they offer wisdom to their flock through their counsel. And finally they’re called “overseers” (KJV sometimes “bishops”) because they administer the church’s affairs and see that everything gets done, primarily through the Spirit’s gifting of the members of the body.

Here Paul uses the third term, “overseer,” to list the requirements for one serving in the office (1Ti 3.1-7). We note immediately the emphasis we’ve already seen on selflessness; the overseer is focused not on his own benefit, but on others. He must control his own behavior and be able to host and teach others (1Ti 3.2); he must not be focused on his own profit (1Ti 3.3); he must care appropriately for his family (1Ti 3.4-5); he must exhibit the wisdom of experience (1Ti 3.5); he must have a good reputation (1Ti 3.7). All of this focuses not on his own worth, but on his ability to interact effectively with others–those he is serving.

Next Paul turns to the other church office, the one labeled by our word, diakonos (servant). Not surprisingly, the deacons are held to the same standards as the pastors, all of which focus on his ability to serve others (1Ti 3.7-13). The key difference in these two lists of qualifications is that the pastor must be “apt to teach” (1Ti 3.2); the deacon’s responsibilities do not necessarily call for that.

A quick consideration of an oddity here. One verse lists requirements for deacons’ “wives” (1Ti 3.11). I say it’s odd because there are no such requirements listed for elders’ wives: wouldn’t their character be important too?

I note that Greek has no distinct word for “wife” or “husband”; they just say “woman” or “man,” and the reader is expected to understand from context which of the two possible translations to use. So is Paul talking here about the deacons’ “wives” or about the “women [deacons]”? Given the fact the he doesn’t speak of elders’ “wives,” I think the latter is more likely. I’m a complementarian, but I see no reason why Paul would restrict deacons to men as he does elders.

As I noted earlier in the series, a great many Baptist churches in the US have a deacon board that is actually an elder board; they have governing authority over the church. If the Scripture teaches that women are not to hold the pastoral office, then no, women shouldn’t be “deacons” in such churches, in my opinion. But I think a better approach is to call offices by their appropriate names and open them to as broad a range as is biblically appropriate.

Paul closes this chapter by reasserting the importance of proper behavior in the church because of the importance of the church itself. The church is “the house of God,” “the church of the living God,” “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1Ti 3.15). It is the body of God himself, incarnate and now forever glorified (1Ti 3.16).

This is serious, serious business. And ministry in and to this body is so centrally important that both of church’s offices are focused on it, and it is the primary task of every single one of its members.

So let’s dig as deeply as we can into what ministry looks like.

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Part 1: Introduction

Since Timothy is Paul’s protege, having accompanied him in ministry (e.g. Ac 20.4) and having been sent by him to take care of matters in various churches (e.g. 1Ti 1.3), Paul begins his first epistle with some ministry overview. His first point—a fundamental one—is that the ministry is not about the minister, but about those being served

The minister is not looking to promote himself and gain followers; he doesn’t depart from the old doctrinal standard (“teach no other doctrine,” 1Ti 1.3) or come up with creative new takes (1Ti 1.4), stirring up believers to discontent with what they’ve learned so far. His goal is to edify, or build up, the believers he interacts with.

My primary goal in this series, as I noted last time, is to encourage and equip believers who have never thought of themselves as “ministers” to reorient their thinking, to embrace their opportunity to serve others in the body. Paul notes that all believers are to “edify” one another by what proceeds out of their mouth (Ep 4.29).

Get on board.

Make your communication about serving and strengthening other people, not promoting yourself. A braggart, or a manipulator, has not evidenced the first thing about living as a follower of Christ.

Paul provides here two separate lists of the characteristics of such people (1Ti 1.9-10, 13); he makes the contrast stark.

So is this a matter of simply choosing to do better, turning over a new leaf?

Not at all.

God is the one who has chosen Paul and “[put him] into the ministry” (1Ti 1.12), and he is the one who has chosen every believer in the same way (Ep 1.4). Paul, and we, have received the abundant grace of God to empower us to accomplish this astonishing ministry (1Ti 1.14). We do it with his help and empowerment, and despite the fact that as sinners we are utterly undeserving (1Ti 1.15-16).

What a magnificent thing it is to serve such a merciful and powerful and gracious God! (1Ti 1.17). Beginning with praise will set us on the path to effective service.

In chapter 2 Paul extends his teaching. Once God has called us into his service, he gives us access to himself and all that he provides. He does this, Paul says, through a specific avenue: he has appointed a mediator, his Son, by whom we have free access to him (1Ti 2.5). And this makes sense; since Christ is God the Son, he of course has full access to the Father; and since he is the Son of Man, everlastingly incarnate, he can “be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” having been “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (He 4.15).

This is not to say, of course, that the omniscient Father is somehow limited in his understanding of us due to lack of shared experience, but creatures like us are reassured when someone has walked in our shoes.

So we all have a calling to serve, and we all have access to the one who has called us. What’s the next logical step?

Paul devotes much of this second chapter to the logical follow-up: prayer. Prayer, what the author of Hebrews calls “the throne of grace” (He 4.16), is the avenue by which we access that heavenly power through the mediation of Christ. And this prayer is comprehensive; we pray for “all men” (1Ti 2.1). I should note that the word “men” in this verse is not gender-specific; it’s anthropos, “human being,” rather than andros, “male.”

The structure of this passage is tight. He gives the responsibility of intercessory prayer to the men (the word in 1Ti 2.8 is gender-specific). This is not to say, of course, that female access to the power of prayer is somehow limited. The Scripture is replete with examples of women praying powerfully; for particularly noteworthy examples, see the prayers of Hannah (1S 2), Mary (Lk 1.46-56), and Anna (Lk 2.36-40). But here men are specifically instructed to pray; and it reflects badly on our “Christian” culture that so few do.

Keep in mind the focus of “ministry.” The term is not so much an honorific as a call to servanthood. It calls for humility. When men pray, they are recognizing their own need and inability and begging for help from one far greater than they. Men are to humble themselves (1Ti 2.8).

And so are women (1Ti 2.9-15).

There’s much controversy about this passage these days. I’m convinced that the statements are clear and without need of explanation or apology. I’m not going to spend time on any of that here because it is outside my purpose.

Believers are to serve. With humility. All of us—men and women.

Let’s start there.

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Sometimes people do funny things with words. My current example is the word “minister.”

In many regions of English-speaking Christendom, the label is elevated; it’s used of a pastor, someone who has professional-level training and official ordination to “the ministry.” It’s an honorific.

But that’s not what it means at all.

It means “servant.”

This is the guy who opens the car door, shines the shoes, prepares and serves the meal. The one who “ministers” to a group of people by serving them.

The New Testament Greek word is diakonos, which is the root of the English word “deacon.” That is of course an office in the church, but it’s not intended to be an elevated one. The deacons are different from the elders (Php 1.1).

What’s the difference?

Well, traditionally, churches have seen the deacons as introduced in Acts 6, when the Jerusalem apostles called for the appointment of seven men to see to the administration of food delivery to the older widows in the church. The passage sounds as if they were table waiters, but there were likely administrative tasks involved in the effort as well. Maybe acquiring the food, maybe cooking it, apportioning it, and then delivering it.

Now, the Acts 6 passage doesn’t actually say that the seven men were the first deacons; forms of the word do appear in the description of their work (Ac 6.1, KJV “ministration”; Ac 6.2 “serve tables”), but the apostles used the same word to describe their own work of “prayer and … the ministry [diakonia] of the Word” (Ac 6.4). Even so, pretty much everybody sees this passage as the birth of the diaconate.

Among American Baptist churches, the deacon board is often actually an elder board; it’s the governing board of the church. But it appears as though that’s not their proper role; as I’ve noted, deacons are not elders.

Now, it appears that appointment as a deacon should indeed involve some honor and respect; the job specification laid out by the apostles included “honest report” and “full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom” (Ac 6.3). But the Scripture uses this term much more broadly than just of the church office; Peter ties it to the exercise of spiritual gifts by everyone in the church (1P 4.10-11; cf. 1Co 12.5).

It appears, then, that a healthy Christian is going to be “serving” others in the church; he’s going to be “ministering” to them. That’s not merely the job of the “minister.”

What should that look like?

Late in his life, Paul wrote a couple of letters to his protege Timothy, who was serving in Ephesus as an apostolic delegate. It appears that Timothy carried more authority than a parish pastor; he was sent to act on Paul’s behalf in churches in the region. But Paul’s words to him focus on what’s expected of a “minister”; and I suspect that his teaching here would often be educational for all the “ministers” in the church, at every level.

I’d like to give some thought to that for a few posts.

Photo by Mélyna Côté on Unsplash

I had an outpatient surgical procedure last week, and I’m still very much in recovery mode, taking it easy. Rather than doing a lot of original research and composition for this post, I thought I’d reference some earlier work to share an encouraging point.

A couple of years ago I posted some thoughts on death, which included some thinking on the intermediate state–that period of time between our death and our resurrection. I noted the joy we’ll experience at being delivered from the brokenness of life in this world.

That thought takes me back to earlier work, some narration I did for a video directed by Rich Streeter, part of the stage production crew at BJU. It’s a story of the construction and subsequent history of BJU’s Rodeheaver Auditorium, the school’s primary venue for opera and theatrical productions. I thought Rich’s vision for the project was excellent, and I was happy to be given a chance to participate.

The core message of the half-hour video is summed up in the final 2 minutes. It’s greatly encouraging.

But the whole thing is very much worth watching.

Photo by Peter Lewicki on Unsplash

Lots of ET talk these days.

SpaceX thinks they’re going to Mars, and their recent IPO is, um, out of this world. The US government has been releasing, a few at a time, records of UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena, formerly called unidentified flying objects, or UFOs). Part of the cachet around that subject is that despite the formal meaning of the acronym “UFO,” in the popular imagination the term means “flying saucer,” so when a government spokesman speaks casually about a UFO, some people think he just said there are flying saucers, and awaaaaay we go.

And now Stephen Spielberg has released the movie “Disclosure Day,” which he says is going to shake the faith of some religious people.

No need for that to happen. The shaking, not the movie.

Proof of life on other planets I would find highly interesting but not at all troubling. Here’s why.

The Bible says nothing about life on other planets, despite John 10.16 (Jesus is talking about Gentiles) or the fevered imaginings of Joseph Smith or L. Ron Hubbard. Of course, humans are not the only intelligent created beings; there are various classes of angels, both good and bad, and have been, apparently, since before Adam arrived on earth.

But as to other forms of life elsewhere in the universe, I think it’s pretty obvious that the God who made this planet and all the forms of life it contains could have created any number of other planets and populated them as well.

Interesting theological questions show up when we start to speculate on the possibilities.

Could planets be populated with just plants, or animals, or both? Sure. Of course, the way that works here there are symbiotic dependencies, so if there’s a planet with just plants, there would need to be some mechanism for pollination and related matters. And if there were just animals and no plants, I assume they’d all have to be carnivorous. But I see no biblical or theological problems with the idea.

What about human life? Well, a whole bunch of questions follow in rapid succession:

Are these beings in the image of God? They don’t have to be, of course; angels and demons are not said to be in the image of God, and God could certainly create a human-like race without imbuing it with his image.

If they are in God’s image, are they fallen? They need not be; Adam and Eve weren’t fallen initially, and of course God can create humans who would not fall. Kinda wish he’d done that here. :-)

If they are fallen, are they redeemed? God has chosen not to redeem the fallen angels, but it appears that the presence of his image in humans has been a significant factor in his redeeming work for us. The God who is loving and merciful here on earth is loving and merciful on every other planet in the universe, and it would seem uncharacteristic of him to leave creatures in his image in an irredeemable state.

And this brings us to the million-dollar question: if they are redeemed, how? Is the vicarious death of the Son the only means by which God might redeem his image anywhere in the universe? And if so, would God repeat that redemptive act on another planet, or would he simply reveal to that race the good news of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice without their having witnessed it, as he has done for the great majority of the redeemed here on earth?

Whew. That’s a lot of questions. And no answers–because we could determine the answers only by authoritative revelation, and we simply don’t have any.

But this is an opportunity for us to remind ourselves of a few indisputable truths:

• God can do anything that is not contrary to his nature.
• He will act in ways that are perfectly consistent with his nature, in any times and places.
• He has done much that he has not revealed to us (Dt 29.29), which means that we don’t know the half of it.
• We must not put limits on God that he does not place on himself. I’ve been told that Bob Jones Sr., the founder of Bob Jones University, believed that humans would never land on the moon, because God told Adam and Eve to take dominion over the earth, not the heavens. Well, he was mistaken, and the Lord kindly took him home a year and a half before he would have found out.

When the time comes, we’ll find out that God was doing all sorts of things far beyond our imaginations. If, in the meantime, we meet life forms from other planets, that’ll be great. We’ll need to ask them how they solved the distance / speed problem. Ion engines? Wormholes? Warp speed? We’re all eager to find out.

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Part 1: The Call | Part 2: The Commitment | Part 3: Delight in God’s Care | Part 4: Delight in God’s Instruction

The fifth stanza of Psalm 16 (vv 9-11) speaks of the confidence that David has in God and the consequent joyous expectation he has regarding the future.

9 Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely.

We think of the heart as metaphorically the seat of emotions. The Bible has a much larger picture of it. The Bible doesn’t contain a “psychological map” of the human; it speaks rather of a body and a non-body, which survives the death of the body. It uses many different words for that immaterial part: soul, spirit, heart, mind, conscience, will. It’s fruitless to try to tease out detailed distinctives among those terms. Here the “heart” is distinguished from the “flesh,” or body, and that’s David’s point.

“My glory,” I think, is a reference to the image of God that imbues all of us. We have a special relationship with God, and for believers that relationship is just icing on the cake; we have a joy that outlives death, and even our corpse will be secure, awaiting the day of resurrection.

10 For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.

This is a controversial passage, but I think its meaning is unambiguous.

To begin with, we know that David is prophesying here; his words apply not so much to himself as to his Greater Son, the Christ. At Pentecost, Peter cites this passage (Ac 2.25-31), as does Paul in his sermon at Pisidian Antioch on his first missionary journey (Ac 13.35), with a later allusion in 1Co 15.4). In every case these authoritative interpreters (Jn 16.13) see these words as messianic. It is the crucified and buried Jesus who is not abandoned to sheol. At Pentecost Peter even says specifically that this prophecy cannot apply to David, because his body has decayed in the grave (Ac 2.29).

Now, these words have occasioned some dramatic interpretations, especially based on the wording of the KJV, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.” There a vigorous discussion about whether Jesus’ soul went to hell while his body was in the tomb, and for what purpose. I think all that discussion is a complete misunderstanding of this text. I’ve written at more length about that earlier.

Here I’ll just say that the operative word, sheol, has a broad range of meaning. It can and often does refer to the place of departed spirits, but I don’t think the context allows that meaning here. The next line speaks of “undergo[ing] decay,” and that does not happen in hell; there “the worm dieth not” (Mk 9.48). But our word sheol can also mean a pit (Ps 30.3), or more specifically, a grave (Ps 88.4).

Similarly, the word soul also has a broad range of meaning. It is used once elsewhere of a corpse (Hag 2.13)—which we would call a body without a soul. Such is the breadth of the Hebrew word.

Now, these two nuances juxtapose to give use a clear passage. “You will not abandon my corpse to the grave; my body will not see decay.” This is a clear statement that the body of Jesus would not be in the tomb long enough for putrefaction to set in.

You may recall that just before the resurrection of Lazarus, his sister Martha indelicately observed that after four days his body would smell bad (Jn 11.39). Jesus’ body, on the other hand, was revivified early Sunday morning, just about 36 hours after his death at 3pm Friday.

(That’s not a typo. While 36 hours is just 1.5 days, not 3, by our reckoning, in the Jewish mind these 36 hours included Friday afternoon, Saturday, and part of Sunday morning, which they would reckon as “three days and three nights,” as odd as that feels to us.)

11 You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

Warren Wiersbe took this verse as his life verse. Was that a mistake? Since this is a messianic prophecy, was it inappropriate to take God’s promise to Christ as applying to him too?

I don’t think so. Many of the Son’s joys belong as well to those who are in him.

In his Tyndale Series commentary, Derek Kidner writes, “The refugee of verse 1 finds himself an heir, and his inheritance beyond all imagining and all exploring.”

While David doesn’t know what will happen in the short term, his confidence in the long term is airtight. He knows God; he knows that he is God’s child; and he knows how God works. He is filled with joyous anticipation.

Me too.

Photo by Hari Perisetla on Unsplash