Theology – Page 30

On Healthy Minds in Troubled Times, Part 3: Selflessness

January 28, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: This Has Happened Before | Part 2: Confidence

In troubled times, “looking out for Number One” is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Just as a threefold cord is not easily broken, so we as believers benefit by facing the certain troubles as a unified body, looking out for and supporting one another. Troubled times are the worst times to be fragmented or to go it alone.

Paul pleads with the Philippian believers to be

of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others (Php 2.2-4 NASB).

This verb “to be of [a] mind” occurs 10 times in this brief letter (Php 1.7; 2.2 [2x], 5; 3.15 [2x], 19; 4.2, 10 [2x]); it’s a major theme. How we think, how we set our attitude, has everything to do with how we fare in this world.

The kind of mind Paul describes here goes against our instincts. When we have problems, we’re inclined to give attention to them, not to the needs of others. But that’s illogical, even if natural. If we concentrate on our own problems, there’s just one person trying to take care of them—and that one person is limited in his creativity and strength. But if he takes that limited strength and creativity and applies it to the problems of others—many others—they will all benefit. And as they reciprocate and turn their attention to helping him with his troubles, he gets the input of exponentially more creativity and strength than he could ever have applied to his concerns by himself.

Paul spends the rest of this chapter giving examples—and he begins with the greatest of all. Christ himself provides the supreme example of selflessness by not clinging to his divine privileges, but adding to his person a genuinely human nature, living among us, and even dying in our place—and dying the most cruel and ignominious death ever conceived.

Because I’ve written elsewhere on this passage, I won’t develop it at length here. But Christ is certainly the ultimate example of selfless service in troubled times. And as we are “in him” (Php 3.9), we are certain to be empowered by him to live as he did (Php 2.13).

There are three more examples that fill out the chapter.

Paul encourages the Philippians to imitate him (Php 2.17-18). This is not an apostle holding himself up as some great one—that would make nonsense of the entire chapter—but a man who has learned to serve, and who counts all his earlier achievements, which are considerable (Php 3.4-6), as rubbish, in order to win Christ and be found in him (Php 3.7-8), inviting his friends to join him in this delightful and joyous exercise. “Come on in!” he shouts, “The water’s fine!”

Another example is Timothy. Amidst a school of fish “looking out for Number One” (Php 2.21), Timothy swims upstream; he “will genuinely be concerned with your welfare” (Php 2.20). When Timothy arrives, the church will do well to follow his example.

But in the meantime, Paul is sending Epaphroditus (Php 2.25). Everything we know about this man is in this verse and one more later in the epistle (Php 4.18). It’s intriguing that he’s named for the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite; his name literally means “On Aphrodite,” a term that gamblers would use as a wish for luck. From that pagan background he came to Christ and is probably a leader in the church at Philippi, who has come to Rome to serve Paul for an extended time and is now returning, carrying this letter.

Selfless service. Rapt attention to what others need, at the expense of your own assets.

This is how you deal with troubled times.

Part 4: Perspective | Part 5: Focus

Photo by André Ventura on Unsplash

On Healthy Minds in Troubled Times, Part 2: Confidence

January 25, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: This Has Happened Before

As we noted in the previous post, Paul writes his letter to the Philippian church from house arrest in Rome, probably toward the end of the two years he was confined there. And that two-year period follows another two-year stint in confinement in Caesarea, all on the same false charge.

Four years. Four years of sitting and waiting for justice—punctuated by a shipwreck in the middle.

How’s your day going?

We would expect Paul to do some complaining in this letter—life’s not fair; what’s going to happen to me now; nobody loves me; so this is the thanks I get. “Scary!”

Nope.

Right out of the gate Paul exudes confidence.

He offers “grace” (the Greek greeting) and “peace” (the Jewish greeting) to this little church, followed immediately by a word of thanksgiving (Php 1.2-3).
He tells them he prays for them with “joy” (Php 1.4) because they are sharing in his experiences—as will become clear later, with financial as well as other support (Php 4.18). Turns out it’s simply not true that “nobody loves me.”
He’s confident that God will finish the work he has started (Php 1.6).

Ah. There, my friend, is the basis of his confidence in troubled and trying times.

There is a God in heaven, and he is sovereignly and certainly working his plan.

Paul’s “trouble with the law” has advanced his calling, the spread of the gospel (Php 1.12). You see, he hasn’t just been sitting around for four years wishing he could be on the road founding churches. At least for the two years of Roman house arrest, he’s been tended by Roman guards, probably in 6-hour shifts, perhaps even chained to them. Four soldiers a day, a captive audience. Chained or not, they can’t leave; Paul is their military post. And apparently, some of them have listened to what their prisoner said; the “whole imperial guard” (Php 1.13) knows that he’s a prisoner for the cause of Christ. And they’re not just gossiping about the interesting prisoner; later in the same letter Paul sends greetings from “saints … of Caesar’s household” (Php 4.22). Caesar’s staff, his guard, maybe even his family include believers. It’s not likely Paul could have accomplished that by traipsing around the empire planting churches.
Fellow believers, Paul says, are emboldened by his example and are speaking the word without fear (Php 1.14). Scores, perhaps hundreds, of believers are more than making up for the loss of Paul’s public voice. Where there was one voice, there is now a throng. The word goes forth with more volume, more power, than it had while Paul was free.
Some people are even spreading the word in an attempt to supplant the now absent authority of the apostle (Php 1.15-17). Paul, not jealous for his personal position, simply rejoices that the word is going forth (Php 1.18).
Paul thinks it’s likely that he’s going to win his appeal and gain release to preach again (Php 1.19). (I’m pretty sure he’s right—there’s good indication in the Pastoral Epistles that Paul engaged in travels not recorded in Acts, and there’s a very strong early-church tradition that he went to Spain.)
But whether he wins or loses his case, Christ is exalted, and that’s been the real goal all along (Php 1.20).

Since God’s plan will be accomplished, and since the “worst” that can happen—death—is actually victory, what’s the reason for things to be “Scary!”?

But things look so … dark. We might face opposition, or deprivation, or suffering, or persecution.

Indeed. On the day Christ commissioned Saul as apostle to the Gentiles, he told him he would suffer. He told Ananias, the believer who healed Saul of his heaven-sent blindness,

“Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Ac 9.15-16).

And Saul, now Paul the apostle, tells the believers in the little church at Philippi that this is the common fate—no, the “privilege”—of all believers (Php 1.29). Persecution means you’re confronting successfully the lostness of the world and contrasting it with the grace and hope that is in Christ. It means you’re doing it right.

Confidence. Not fear.

Go, in this thy might.

Part 3: Selflessness | Part 4: Perspective | Part 5: Focus

Photo by André Ventura on Unsplash

On Healthy Minds in Troubled Times, Part 1: This Has Happened Before

January 21, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

One common human characteristic is to think that whatever you’re facing is new. One benefit of being an old codger like me is that 66 years is long enough to realize that that just ain’t so. Even within a single lifetime, history tends to run in cycles—I’ve written about that before—and Solomon has famously told us that there’s nothing new under the sun (Ec 1.9).

What the church is facing these days is not new or even unusual; in fact, it’s pretty tame by historical standards. The American church in particular has had an extraordinary run of good times, of perhaps unprecedented opportunity to “lead a quiet and peaceable life” (1Ti 2.2) for literally centuries. While anything could happen, even the most pessimistic and nightmarish predictions that I hear from the prophets of doom don’t come close to what the church experienced in its first two centuries, or during the Inquisition, or even under Communist rule in the last century.

In the first century, even before Emperor Nero went cuckoo for cocoa puffs and blamed the fire in Rome on the Christians, there was violent opposition to the practitioners of The Way. Preaching the resurrection of Messiah—or anything else about him—was ruled illegal within a few days of its occurrence (Ac 4.18). Within a year or so the first preacher was violently killed by a mob (Ac 7.54-60), with the approval of the local government (Ac 8.1; 26.10). A decade later the first apostle was executed by Judea’s puppet “king,” Herod Agrippa I (Ac 12.1-2). And a little more than a decade after that, Paul returns to Jerusalem only to be attacked by a mob—in the very Temple precincts!—under the demonstrably false charge that he had brought a Gentile into the Court of the Women (Ac 21.27ff). He is jailed for more than two years, even though the Roman arresting officer believes him innocent (Ac 23.29), just on the off chance that the governor can squeeze a bribe out of him (Ac 24.26). To thwart an assassination conspiracy, Paul appeals to Caesar, gaining safe passage to Rome, where he waits under house arrest for another two years (Ac 28.30).

Keep in mind that Paul has been commissioned by the risen and ascended Christ himself as the apostle (“sent one”) to the Gentiles, a task that requires a lot of traveling around and talking to people, as Acts 13-21 make abundantly clear. Spending four years in jail for something you didn’t do—indeed, for a charge that every official along the way has pronounced unfounded (e.g. Ac 25.13-20)—puts a pretty significant crimp in your life’s calling.

Toward the end of those two years renting a house in Rome, waiting for his appeal to be heard, Paul writes a letter to the first church he founded in Europe, the one at Philippi, over in Macedonia (northern Greece). He wants to thank them for a generous gift they’d sent him (Php 4.15ff) and explain what’s been happening with one of their members, Epaphroditus, who’s been with him in Rome for some time (Php 2.25).

In the letter he takes the opportunity to catch them up on events in Rome, and to encourage them to stay faithful to Christ even though times are tough.

As I’ve been studying this epistle lately, it has occurred to me that its major points form a pretty good list of how we should react to troubled times—how we should think, how we should respond, how we should proceed.

It’s also occurred to me that hardly any Christians I know—at least, the ones I know who are making the most noise—are putting the list to work. Maybe it would do us all good to run the list through our heads and do a little introspection and self-evaluation.

Can’t hurt, right?

We’ll get started in the next post.

Part 2: Confidence | Part 3: Selflessness | Part 4: Perspective | Part 5: Focus

Photo by André Ventura on Unsplash

On Aspirations in the New Year

January 7, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In my previous post I noted the importance of paying attention to the little opportunities for compromise that our culture routinely sets before us. As Solomon noted, even the little foxes can plunder the vines (SS 2.15).

I’d like to extend that thought to the positive side.

With the New Year, most of us—for completely illogical reasons, since calendrically speaking there’s nothing particularly historically significant about the annual day we call “January 1”—give some thought to turning over a page of self-improvement, sometimes including resolutions for change in the new year.

We ought to do that continuously, but whatever. :-)

I recently came across an essay by the old Keswick pastor and devotional writer F. B. Meyer (incidentally, the man who introduced D. L. Moody to Great Britain), called “The Common Task,” that we might consider as we seek self-improvement.

Meyer notes that lots of people are convinced—and some of them rightly—that their station in life is beneath their abilities—as he put it, that one’s “life afford[s] no outlet for the adequate exercise of his powers.” He offers some mollifying and sharpening thoughts to those in that situation.

I should note that Meyer is clearly not suggesting apathy or lack of aspiration; his biography demonstrates the kind of productivity that evidences devotion, effort, and energy. By all means, take a survey of your gifts and abilities, and seek ways to steward them for the greatest good in the world.

Be all that you can be.

But most of us know that we can aspire to things that we will never reach. Only 45 people in history have ever been POTUS; millions of others haven’t, but not for lack of thinking about it. You’re probably not going to be a star athlete, and I’m most certainly never going to be a fighter pilot, thanks to a bum ear—and the grace of God.

What do you do with the Now, even as you aspire to the Then?

Meyer offers several observations, from which I’ve selected and reworded for the current century.

God has a plan for you, and it will happen. God is attentive to your situation, committed to your fulfillment, and able to bring it to pass. You are where and what you are by his benevolent plan, which includes an eternal future.
No matter what your circumstances are right now, you can fulfill your most important goal—Christlikeness—in the midst of them. In Meyer’s words, “We ought … to be very careful how we fulfill the common tasks of daily life. We are making the character in which we have to spend eternity.”
Doing anything well—even trivial things—makes a difference.
- The excellence you develop prepares you for doing greater things later. “You cannot be brave in a crisis if you are habitually a coward. You cannot be generous with a fortune if you are a miser with a limited income.”
- The way you handle small responsibilities is evidence of who you truly are. And God notices.

“There are great tasks to be fulfilled in eternity: angels to be judged; cities to be ruled; perhaps worlds to be evangelized. For these, suitable agents will be required: those who can rule, because they have served; those who can command, because they have obeyed; those who can save others, because they never saved themselves. Perhaps even now, our Heavenly Father is engaged in seeking those among us who can fill these posts. And he is seeking them, not amongst such as are filling high positions in the eyes of men, but in the ranks of such as are treading the trivial round and fulfilling the common task.”

In this New Year,

aspire;
plan;
steward your abilities;
and serve, with diligence and energy, wherever the Master places you.

Happy new year.

Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash

On Persecution, Revised

January 4, 2021 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Just over two years ago I wrote a couple of posts on the persecution of Christians. I said then, and I’ve thought for a long time, that for American Christians to speak of being “persecuted” was unbecoming. Americans haven’t suffered anything close to what saints in history have—read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs sometime—and there are plenty of Christians on the planet today who are suffering things that Americans can’t even imagine. Numerous times I’ve said something to the effect that “If you want to talk about suffering, I can take you places and show you suffering. You are not suffering. Stop whining; it’s a flesh wound.” Sticks and stones, and all that.

Yeah, I’ve got that whole bedside manner thing down just fine. Mr. Sympathy.

My thinking on this issue is changing.

First, because lack of sympathy is just wrong, because it’s not Christlike. There’s certainly a place for encouraging fellow believers to get back into the fight (Ep 6.10-18; 2Ti 2.3-4), but words—my words—should be filled with grace. Regardless of the issue being addressed, slapping people around is just uncalled for.

Well, maybe not completely regardless. TV “evangelist” shysters and child sexual abusers deserve whatever they get.

But that’s off the point here. :-)

Sympathy. Words of grace. Needed.

There’s a second, issue-related reason my thinking is changing. One of the books I’ve read over this longest-ever Christmas break is Paul Grimmond’s Suffering Well, from Matthias Media, an Australian publisher perhaps best known for its “Two Ways to Live” tract.

Grimmond has given me a lot to think about. He’s done the hard work of gathering and thinking carefully about pretty much all the biblical data on suffering. He’s not the first to have done that, but he has pointed out something that I’ve never noticed before.

On the question of persecution, which is just one type of suffering, Grimmond notes (in his Chapter 6) that the biblical passages on persecution focus more on verbal and attitudinal than physical assault—the very kinds of things that my thinking had been discounting.

Jesus emphasizes verbal abuse in the Beatitudes (Mt 5.11-12) and in his later teaching (Mt 10.24-25; Mk 8.34-38). Grimmond notes, “Jesus knew from the beginning that his followers would struggle as much with what we might now call mental and emotional abuse as they would with physical abuse.”
Paul does the same in Php 1.27-30; 1Th 1.4-7; 2Co 4.16-18.
As does Peter, in 1P 4.12-14.

Grimmond continues, “The great danger for Christians living in the West is not physical death at the hands of persecutors, but the slow, spiritual death of a thousand tiny compromises crouched at our door, waiting to devour our hearts. … At the moment we need it most, we have let go of a robust theology of belonging to Christ and suffering for him. … As a result, we fail to teach each other to live without shame in the face of the more subtle pressures in our culture.”

I’d recommend that you buy the book and read it thoughtfully.

What does the biblical emphasis mean to us in these days?

Persecution comes with the territory. It’s an unavoidable consequence of following Christ publicly. Don’t be surprised, and don’t assume that God’s not watching.
Lots of persecution comes in subtle forms, what Grimmond calls “a thousand tiny compromises.” We need to pay attention and live thoughtfully—or as Paul puts it, “walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise” (Ep 5.15).
Verbal abuse and exclusion offer opportunities to represent Christ well by displaying calmness under pressure and grace toward the adversaries, who genuinely think that they’re doing the right thing (Jn 16.2). When the whole world is reactionary, easily offended, and chaotic, grace stands out like a meteor trail in the night.
Every opportunity for compromise gives us a chance to exercise our spiritual muscles and thereby get stronger. It’s a joy to run up the stairs two at a time after years of getting winded at every exertion.

May I encourage you—graciously and sympathetically—to welcome these little oppositions without seeking them, and to use them calmly and graciously as opportunities to be more like your Master?

Happy new year.

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On Benedictions, Part 3: He Will Do It

December 28, 2020 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: He Who Is Able | Part 2: Every Good Thing

I think it makes sense to end the year—as many have noted, a broadly difficult one—with one more installment in the Benedictions series. This one, unlike the previous ones, is from Paul. (That statement indicates, for those of you keeping score at home, that I don’t think Paul wrote Hebrews.)

In one of his earliest letters, Paul writes to a church he planted on his second missionary journey, the second European church, in Thessalonica. The letter, which we call 1 Thessalonians, is a survey of their history with Paul (ch 1-3), and a directive for where they should go from here (ch 4-5). In the second part of the letter, he indicates his main points, or commands, by repeating their name—or more precisely, a noun of direct address: “brethren”—as if to be sure he has their attention.

Live a moral lifestyle (4.1-8).
Practice brotherly love (4.9-12).
Keep a forward perspective—live with the end in view (4.13-5.11).
Maintain a healthy life in the body (5.12-22).

There’s a sermon series in that list, certainly.

As he draws the letter to a close, he leaves them with a benediction:

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1Th 5.23).

Like many benedictions, this is phrased as a wish: may this thing happen.

But is it one wish, or two? Does the second half of the verse simply restate the first half in different words, or is it a distinct thought? That depends, I suppose, on the theological system you prefer.

Most Arminians—today most commonly identified as Methodists—hold to something called “entire sanctification,” the idea that you can reach a point in your spiritual growth—before you die—that you no longer sin. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists, said near the end of his life that he didn’t think he had reached that state, although he suspected that a friend of his, John Fletcher, had. It’s worth noting that Wesley narrowed his definition of sin to get to his belief in “perfection”:

“I believe, a person filled with the love of God is still liable to … involuntary transgressions. … Such transgressions you may call sins, if you please: I do not” (“A Plain Account of Christian Perfection”).

If you’re Wesleyan, then, this benediction may contain two wishes—one for perfection in this life, and a second for continuance of that perfection until death.

Other Christians, however, would see this as a single wish: that God would preserve us complete until the end, at which time we will be entirely sanctified, or glorified (cf Ro 8.30; 1Jn 3.2).

Since to “sanctify” something is to set it apart for special use—I often compare it to being in the fine china cabinet rather than in the cupboard over the sink—then it’s at least possible, even likely, that what Paul is wishing for here is that God would set us apart completely for himself, the act that theologians call “positional sanctification,” which happens to every believer (1Co 6.11). And thus the meat of his wish is the second part of the statement—that God would keep us in the fine china cabinet all the way to the end, the return of Christ.

Many Bible students have noted that the return of Christ is a key theme in this brief letter, appearing at the end of every chapter (1Th 1.10; 2.19; 3.13; 4.15-17; 5.23).

Now for the big question.

Is Paul just wishing into the wind, throwing coins into a well? Is God going to give him what he’s wishing for? And how do we know?

Paul’s next statement answers all these questions decisively.

He will do it (1Th 5.24b).

How do we know that?

Because the one who calls you is faithful (1Th 5.24a).

The answer to Paul’s wish—and to our fears—is rooted in the very character of God. God can no more fail to keep us than he can lie, or die, or live without loving. Such a thought is both illogical and blasphemous.

Of course he’ll preserve us and present us blameless when Christ returns. It’s the only possible outcome in a universe where God exists.

2020 or not.

Photo by Michael Maasen on Unsplash

On Joseph

December 24, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Christmas is tomorrow. Since my Christmas post for last year was about Mary, it makes sense that this year I should say something about Joseph.

We know precious little about him. If, as most scholars believe, the genealogy in Matthew 1 is that of Joseph, then he was the royal descendant of David in his generation—the heir to the throne of Israel. I suspect he knew that; the Jews kept track of such things, as is evidenced by the simple fact that the genealogy is produced in Matthew 1. If he was the heir, he certainly knew that he was.

But he also knew that he would never be king. First, because Rome. Caesar Augustus would never tolerate such a thing; he had installed a puppet, Herod, and called him “king,” but Herod wasn’t even really Jewish—he was Idumaean—and the Jews hated him as an interloper and collaborator with the hated Romans.

There was another reason Joseph knew he would never be king. God had cursed his ancestor, Jehoiachin (Jeconiah, or just Coniah), the last Davidic king of Judah (Jer 22.30), saying that none of his offspring would ever rule. Some scholars think that God reversed that curse with Zerubbabel (Hag 2.23), but Zerubbabel never ruled, nor did any of his offspring clear up to Joseph’s day.

So Joseph is a carpenter (Mt 13.55), or perhaps a mason. He works with his hands, in the village of Nazareth, in Israel’s backwater (Jn 1.46).

And that’s that.

Under circumstances we’re not told, he becomes engaged to a Jewish girl. She gives evidence of true godliness. He’ll be able to support her and their eventual children. This will be good.

And then.

She’s pregnant.

He didn’t do it.

It all comes crashing down. Yet another curse.

He can’t sensibly give his life to a woman who has so deeply and thoroughly deceived him. The Law gives him an out, however; he can “divorce” her for fornication. The legal penalty is stoning, but he doesn’t want a big scene, or even personal vengeance. We’ll just handle this quietly and move on.

Like Mary, as it turns out, Joseph doesn’t understand either. It’s not what he thinks.

After 400 years of silence, God steps in to ensure the success of the hinge point of all history.

Joseph is asleep—that’s surprising in itself—and God sends a messenger in his dreams.

It’s not what you think, Joseph. Mary is not unfaithful. God is doing a work, a great work, an epochal work. Her child will save his people from their sins.

You need to adopt him.

Like Mary, Joseph knows what the social consequences of that will be. There will be a community wink and nod—we thought that’s who the culprit was. Joseph’s reputation will be ruined. What of his business? How will he support his family?

Adopt the child.

Why is that so important?

Remember the curse?

No biological son of Jehoiachin—or of Joseph—will ever sit on David’s throne. But only a descendant of David—through Solomon—can sit there.

Mary, too, is descended from David, but through his son Nathan, not Solomon (Lk 3). Her son has no claim to the throne by bloodline.

But if Joseph … adopts … the boy …

everything changes.

And there, sitting on his mat, in the dark of night, in a backwater village, a carpenter makes his decision.

He’ll trust, and obey.

Like millions of others before and since.

But unlike any of those others, at the key hinge point of all salvation history.

Next to the obedience of the Son Himself, the most important act of obedience ever.

And hardly anybody even noticed.

Joseph shows up one more time in the Bible, when Jesus is twelve. But after that, he disappears. No one knows what else this critically important man did or how or where he died.

_____

I’m not much for statements about what I’ll do when I get to heaven. I think the Lamb will be the focus of all of it.

But I hope I’ll have a chance to find Joseph and say thanks.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

On Benedictions, Part 2: Every Good Thing

December 21, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: He Who Is Able

A second New Testament benediction that has long resonated with me is this one:

²⁰Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, ²¹equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen (He 13.20-21).

As you can see, this is the way the writer of Hebrews closes his letter. I don’t name him because nobody knows who he is; Hebrews is anonymous.

That fact has bothered some people over the years; a few in the early church resisted recognizing the book’s scriptural status because since it was anonymous, its apostolic authority could not be verified. But that objection wasn’t widespread and didn’t last long, mostly because much of the Old Testament (Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Esther, Job, Jonah, maybe Malachi, and portions of Psalms and Proverbs) is anonymous, and that doesn’t seem to be an obstacle to recognition. I sometimes tell my students, “Read any nonbiblical document at earlychristianwritings.com, and then read Hebrews. The difference is stark.”

And this passage is just one example of that.

The writer prays that God may “equip [us] in every good thing to do his will.” In other words, whenever we are called upon to do anything good—which is, not coincidentally, God’s will—he will enable us to do it.

That’s a good prayer, and one that God will surely answer, because it’s a common promise in Scripture. Paul writes that we who “formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh” (Ep 2.3) are now “raised up” by God (Ep 2.6), “created … for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ep 2.10). Earlier Paul had written that even in difficulties and trials, “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1Co 10.13).

Years ago my Calvinist systematic theology professor said, “You don’t have to sin. In any given moment, a believer can choose to do the right thing.” I was afraid he was going to lose his Calvinism Card over that one. :-)

He got that idea from these passages, and many others, that tell us that through God’s grace, we can win in the daily battle with sin, and we can accomplish the good that God calls us to do.

How does God do that? The writer tells us: by “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight.” God does it by changing us, a little bit at a time, from the inside out. He uses many means to accomplish that change—most obviously, the indwelling Spirit, who is the agent of our sanctification (2Th 2.13; Ro 8.13; Ga 5.22-23). I’ve written before about some of the other means.

Can God accomplish what he’s promised? The writer gives us evidence. This is the God “who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep.” This is the God who raises the physically dead; it’s reasonable to think that he can raise the spiritually dead as well.

He raised him, the writer tells us, “though the blood of the eternal covenant.” This is a God who makes promises and then keeps them. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed since he made the promise; he will remember and respect and keep his promises forever. That’s the kind of person he is.

So he can keep his promises, and he will keep his promises, “until angels sing a funeral dirge over his grave”—which will never happen, because he will never die.

And now, may that God do that work for you.

Part 3: He Will Do It

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On Benedictions, Part 1: He Who Is Able

December 17, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In the series just concluded, I noted that biblical benedictions are sometimes suggested as representing early hymnic material. I’d like to take just a couple of posts to discuss a couple of the more well-loved biblical benedictions.

The one that comes first to my mind is the one my childhood pastor ended every Sunday morning service with. After the closing prayer there would be a musical interlude while the congregation stood with heads bowed. During that time he would walk to the back of the sanctuary in order to greet us as we left; and from there, with unamplified voice, he would call out over us,

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling
And to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
To the only wise God, our Saviour,
Be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.
Amen (Jude 24-25).

Decades later I still miss those words of blessing from the back of the room.

Those words are indeed strong and filled with grace, and they deserve a closer look.

We should begin by noting a couple of variants in wording—

Some manuscripts don’t have the word wise. Some have suggested that perhaps the idea came to a copyist’s mind from Romans 16.27.
Some manuscripts end with “before all time and now and ever.” Since Jude has a noteworthy fondness for groups of three, this would make sense.

This passage is an ascription of greatness to God; he is the one being “blessed” by the benediction. His greatness as described here is fourfold:

Glory
Majesty
Dominion
Power

He is a God of authority, whose authority manifests itself in brightness, in impressiveness, in ability to see that his will is done. His greatness is beyond all other; there is no second place.

And to what does he apply his sovereign power in this passage?

To us. To his people.

To keep us from stumbling, and then—consequently—to present us blameless at the end before his all-seeing eye.

But I do stumble. A lot.

So what does this mean?

Context.

Jude is writing about false teachers (Jude 4), who present an imminent danger (Jude 3) to the church. He is concerned that some will be led astray by these “clouds without water,” “trees without fruit,” “wandering stars” [planets]—lights that you can’t count on for purposes of navigation (Jude 12-13).

To strengthen the believers against this error, Jude urges them to remember what the apostles taught (Jude 17), to pray in the Spirit (Jude 20), to look ahead in anticipation of Christ’s return (Jude 21).

Will they succeed? Will they endure?

Oh, yes. God is able to prevent them from stumbling, and to present them blameless at the end.

This passage doesn’t promise that we’ll never stumble into sin. But it does promise that God’s grace can enable us to persevere to the end—to stand before his throne still blameless, still washed by the blood of Christ, still cleansed from the sin in which we all too readily engaged.

Yes, our obedience matters. Yes, we must resist sin. But in the end our victory comes not because we were strong enough to persist in resisting, but because God carried us through to the end.

He is able to do that.

And he will.

Because he is great, and he is good.

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom (Lk 12.32).

Part 2: Every Good Thing | Part 3: He Will Do It

Photo by Michael Maasen on Unsplash

On Biblical Hymns, Part 8: God and Us

December 14, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Let’s look at one more place where Paul may have quoted an early hymn. It’s earlier in Paul’s writings than any of the others we’ve examined.

There is but one God, the Father,
from whom are all things
and we exist for Him;

and one Lord, Jesus Christ,
by whom are all things,
and we exist through Him

(1Co 8.6)

The parallelism and stanza structure of these lines is apparent. Commentator Mark Taylor observes, “The grammatical structure, precision, and conscious parallelism of the formulation … indicates its traditional character. … Whether or not Paul is transmitting a pre-formed received tradition or whether he himself crafted the pithy statement, cannot be known for sure.”

I’ll observe that since Paul is never shy about quoting other writers (e.g. Ti 1.12), there’s no reason this passage, and the others we’ve examined, couldn’t be in that category.

Of the 6 passages we’ve looked at so far, 4 have been focused on the Son, and 1 on the Father. The first one, from Colossians 1, included both persons, presenting Christ as the agent of accomplishing the Father’s plan. Similarly, this one, from early in Paul’s writings, distinguishes the Father and the Son, contrasting the persons, interestingly, in parallel.

And here it gets a little tricky. The contrasts are in the prepositions: “from whom” vs. “by whom,” and “for Him” vs. “through Him.” The reason it’s tricky is that in Greek, as in most languages, prepositions are pretty flexible; they have a broad range of meaning. For example, these statements have very different meanings:

I eat ice cream with a spoon.
I eat ice cream with chocolate sauce.
I eat ice cream with my wife.
I eat ice cream with delight.

It’s a truism in New Testament studies that anybody who bases his theology on a Greek preposition is foolish.

But Paul has set this passage up so that the prepositions are doing the heavy lifting. So we’re going to have to let them carry some weight. Let’s think a little about the contrasts.

It will help us, as always, if we consider the context. Paul is discussing the controversy in the Corinthian church between those who think it’s OK to eat meat that’s been offered in sacrifice to idols, and those who think it’s wrong. He begins his lengthy discussion—it includes all of chapters 8, 9, and 10—by laying a theological foundation:

There are no gods besides God; there is no “god” behind any idol (1Co 8.4).
Thus everything in the world—including meat—is made by God.
Since everything God made is good, then meat is good.

His argument is going to get relatively complex, as we can deduce from its length. I’ve written on that before. But for our purposes here, we simply note that Paul is speaking of God’s creative work. And he’s going to distinguish the roles that the Father and the Son play in that work.

First, Paul notes that “all things” are “from God [the Father]” and “by Christ.” Traditionally, interpreters have taken this to refer to the Father’s “administrative oversight” of creation—envisioning, planning, designing, specifying—and the Son’s active agency in doing the creating. We might say that the Father is the architect of creation, while the Son is the contractor. Which one, then is the Creator?

Yes. :-)

Then Paul says that we exist “for” the Father and “through” the Son. Again, this seems to suggest the Father as administrator and the Son as agent.

But we face a danger here. There are not two Gods; God is one. And so Paul begins his comparison and contrast of the two persons with a clear statement that “there is but one God.” He identifies him as the Father here, but elsewhere (e.g. Ro 9.5) he makes it clear that he does not see the Son as anything less.

God is multiple in one sense, and singular in another. Here we have the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity.

There is more to this God than you will ever comprehend. But He invites us to know, love, and live with him forever.

Sing of him. Sing of his marvelous works. 

Sing it in private and in public. Sing it to those you love, and to those you don’t. Make it what everyone who knows you thinks of when they think of you. 

Sing.

Photo by Michael Maasen on Unsplash