Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

Chair, Division of Biblical Studies & Theology,

Bob Jones University

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On Stillness, Part 2: Thinking in the Silence

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Part 1: It’s a Good Thing

Years ago I read that the brain is not a bucket to be filled, but a muscle to be exercised. That is, your head is not limited in capacity in such a way that you need to save it for just the most important stuff. Rather, it can keep adding material forever; in fact, the more you exercise it, the more it can hold.

That concept has heavily influenced my thinking, my studying, and my teaching. Our minds don’t need rest; they want to be active. Oh, they do need change, or variety; I’m often encouraging my students to study in sprints rather than marathons, to stop and think about something else for a while. But even when we’re asleep, our minds are busy, making up stories, many of which make no sense at all. Thinking is what we do by nature.

The advantage to thinking in silence is raising the focus, and thus the quality, of how we’re thinking. I know it’s alleged that kids these days, I suppose largely because of Starbucks, need background noise in order to think—that sheer silence overwhelms them. I haven’t seen that demonstrated; in fact, I see indications that when my students think they’re “multi-tasking,” they’re really just doing several things poorly. (And I have the test scores to prove it.)

So what should we do with the silence that we find so rejuvenating?

The few biblical passages I noted in the previous post at least imply that we should be using the quiet time to think.

To think about what?

Again, the Scripture gives us some direction.

Think About God

The well-known passage cited earlier says simply, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Similarly, while hiding from King Saul in the Judean desert—where it gets really quiet, especially at night—David wrote,

5      My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,
and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
6      when I think of you on my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
7      for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy (Ps 63).

I suppose David had an advantage there, in that as he lay on the desert ground at night, with no light pollution, he had a spectacular display of God’s glory in the canopy of stars and planets and meteors and the bright ribbon of the Milky Way. Saul doesn’t seem like such a big deal out there.

There’s a lot to think about with reference to God. (Understatement of all time.) I find it highly profitable to list, organize, and meditate on God’s personality—his qualities, what theologians call his attributes. I’ve worked a list of them into my prayer life, meditating on a different one each day. I find that having such an attribute in your head at the beginning of the day tends to give greater clarity—and peace—when the day gets noisy.

There are lots of places you can get information on God’s attributes. Any systematic theology book will have a section, usually a whole chapter, devoted to them. Many people have been helped by J. I. Packer’s Knowing God; Arthur W. Pink and A. W. Tozer both have books on the topic as well. Tozer’s book Knowledge of the Holy is also helpful. If you want something more challenging, the Puritan Stephen Charnock’s work is the standard.

There are also several helpful websites—

Next time, we’ll get further guidance from the Bible on what to think about in the silence.

Part 3: Thinking on God’s Works | Part 4: Thinking On God’s Word | Part 5: In Your Heart

Photo by Sven Read on Unsplash

On Stillness, Part 1: It’s a Good Thing

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Over the past few days I’ve been watching the documentary The Wonderful, about several of the men and women who have completed missions on the International Space Station. It’s an excellent example of storytelling, against a background of really spectacular videography. Every interview is a feast for the eyes and a movement of the heart—especially to anyone who sees the hand of the Creator—and Father—in the startlingly clear and visually stunning sights.

One of the astronauts commented on the silence of space. Inside the station there’s plenty of sound from the instrumentation providing life support and the work to be done. But when you step outside, into the vacuum, the only sound is the soft hum of the fan just behind your head, circulating the air, and any communication that may come over the radios. And, I suppose, your own breathing. You can beat two pieces of metal together out there, and you won’t hear a thing.

Silence.

Silence is a gift, one we accept and delight in all too infrequently.

I remember camping sessions with my Dad in various wilderness areas in the Pacific Northwest, or in Maine’s Allagash, or in Ontario’s LaVerendrye Provincial Park: setting up the tent on a flat spot near the river, catching rainbow or brook trout, and cooking them over the fire, wrapped in foil with a strip of bacon on each side.

One of the best parts of that experience is just sitting quietly and listening. Sometimes there’s nothing but the flow of the river—where “a noise of many waters brims the night”—but if you listen carefully, you’ll hear bird calls—and be able to identify them with practice—and the rustling of leaves and the snapping of twigs by some life form or other off in the brush. Sometimes there’s wind—as I recall from an unforgettable experience on a ridge overlooking Hout Bay, South Africa, at Silvermine. (Thanks, Eric.)

There’s something healthy, re-energizing, rejuvenating, about sitting in silence.

We live in a noisy world. At baseball games, the DJ feels the need to fill the air with obnoxious music whenever there’s a break in the action. In stores and elevators, there’s Muzak constantly playing. Many people have developed the habit of having the radio, or some other noise-generating device, turned on all the time—at home, at the gym, in the car, in their earbuds.

If silence is rejuvenating, what do you suppose is the effect of constant noise?

I don’t spend a lot of the time in the car—my commute is 5 minutes—but I’ve developed the practice of leaving the radio off. Particularly talk radio. Those hosts make their living by intentionally stirring you up, making every meaningless thing a Crisis, driving, constantly driving, for response and thus ratings. Always angry, always bitter, always inciting fear by leaving out any facts that might interfere with their mission.

I’m not going to let them decide what I think.

I choose health. I choose peace. I choose silence.

I’ve found that in that brief silence I do some of my best thinking—second only to the shower. If I could figure out a way to have warm water rushing over me in the car, the quality of thinking there might be just as good.

The Bible confirms the benefits of silence.

  • The wisest man in the world, reflecting on the experiences of his life, wrote, “The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools” (Ec 9.17). Now, he’s commending the wisdom more than the quietness, but he makes a point. We all know—I hope—someone who speaks rarely and softly but to great profit, and often because he’s spent time thinking quietly before speaking.
  • David, who from his shepherding days knew a little something about sitting quietly for long periods of time, wrote, “When you are disturbed, do not sin; ponder it on your beds, and be silent” (Ps 4.4).
  • Perhaps the most well-known biblical comment on the subject comes from the Korahites, key contributors to the music program in Solomon’s Temple: “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth” (Ps 46.10).

So, what do we do with the silence? More to come.

Part 2: Thinking in the Silence | Part 3: Thinking on God’s Works | Part 4: Thinking On God’s Word | Part 5: In Your Heart

Photo by Sven Read on Unsplash

On Worship

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I’d like to share some thoughts on worship. This isn’t about the “worship wars”—what an oxymoron—but just some things that have occurred to me on the topic.

The English word worship comes from the early Modern English “worthship”; at its root it’s simply recognizing the worth of someone. These days we use it only in reference to God.

How do we recognize his worth? How do we demonstrate that he’s special? At the risk of sounding irreverent—that is most certainly not my intent—we do that in the same ways that we’d show respect for anyone else, but elevated, or exponentiated, because he’s exponentially more worthy than anyone else.

Believers are described as people who worship God (Php 3.3). Jesus said that God is seeking people to worship Him “in spirit and in truth” (Jn 4.23-24). That means that we’ll show our respect for him in the course of our living; our respect for him will be demonstrated by our attitudes (does your mind go to him during the day? Do you consider his will as you make your decisions?), our words (do you use his name emptily? Do you tell jokes about him?), and our actions (do you do what he wants?). In one sense, then, all of life should be worship: we base our priorities and decisions on His will, not ours. We worship him all the time; we thank him when things go well, recognizing those things as from his hand; and we thank him when things don’t go well, because those things, too, are from his hand, purposeful, for our growth and betterment (Ro 5.3-5).

But we also devote special times to worship. If we elevate God in our minds, then we’re going to worship him privately; we’re going to set aside time in our schedule to demonstrate that he is worthy of respect. (If he doesn’t get that time—if he’s crowded out by all the other things we devote time to—then how worthy is he?) The Psalmist spoke of seeking God every day (Ps 63.1; 86.3; 88.9; cf Isa 58.2).

That private time of worship springs from an inward attitude—“love the LORD your God”—that demonstrates itself outwardly in several ways. We give God attention by hearing his voice in the Scripture. We give him praise by speaking and/or singing about his worthiness. We seek his presence through prayer.

For the believer, private worship isn’t enough. We also gather for corporate worship with other believers. From the very beginning, God’s people have gathered every week for corporate worship (1Cor 16.2). If God is worthy of infinite respect, then he is worthy of creatures in his image, from every nation and era, praising him in unison (Re 7.9-12). (He’s certainly worthy of more than Hitler!) Our gatherings here are representative and anticipatory enactments of what will one day be at full scale.

Some cautions.

Worship is an act of love and respect, not guilt. It flows freely and naturally from the heart. If you’re not a morning person like David (Ps 5.3), nothing in the Bible says that we all have to follow his practice. If you’re taking care of a houseful of children, your time management choices are going to be limited—if you have any choices at all. You can demonstrate your respect for God—glorify him—in the ways you interact with your children, in telling them Bible stories, in praying with them. There may well be a season of your life where you have to express your worship in ways limited by your responsibilities at the time. Get creative; don’t feel the need to imitate some other believer’s practice, even if it works really well for him.

But we all know that we fall short in this area, as in others. Typically we fail to worship God because we’re focused on ourselves rather than Him. If worship is about recognizing someone’s worth, then you can conclude that the one you’re always thinking about is the one you’re worshiping. And for most of us, that’s ourselves.

We will never be satisfied worshiping ourselves. We’re not designed that way.

And if we fail to join with others in corporate worship, then we are depriving those others of the benefit of our presence. When we fail to tell others of God’s goodness to us, they don’t receive the encouragement from those stories that they would have.

Worshiping God is what we’re designed to do. Screwdrivers aren’t happy pounding nails. Worship points us to the truth of God’s greatness—it’s better to live for the truth than for a lie. And worshiping with others benefits them by pointing them toward God as well.

Worship may not be something you do much. Would you reconsider that?

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

On Prayer As Relationship

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Back in 2003 my family and I went to China for a month. While we were there, we took a weekend to visit Wuyi Shan, or Wuyi Mountain. It’s a popular tourist site, with the biggest attraction being hiking up the mountain itself. I was amused by the fact that bottled water cost 2 yuan at the bottom of the mountain, and 10 yuan at the top. Looks like capitalism to me. :-)

We hired a local guide while we were there, and one of the many places she took us was a Buddhist monastery in the area. She showed us the various sections of the place, and the highlight of course was the room with a large statue of the Buddha. Unsurprisingly, there was a small shrine there, with some incense sticks that devotees could light for a small payment. Our guide lit one, placed it in the sandbox that served as a container, and paused for a few moments to fold her hands, bow her head, close her eyes, and offer a prayer. We stood quietly as she did so.

As we continued our tour, I asked her what she prayed for when she prayed to the Buddha. She seemed surprised at the question, as if there were only one possible answer. “We pray for luck,” she said. “What do you Christians pray for?”

“We pray for one another,” I said.

I know my answer was simplistic. And that’s the point of today’s post.

Prayer involves a lot of things. In a post awhile back I noted that like many other Christians I usually follow the prayer pattern ACTS, for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. There are other patterns as well, and it’s perfectly fine to follow no pattern at all.

Which brings me to my point.

I think we often miss the whole point of prayer.

I’ve seen sermons and books about “how to get your prayers answered.” A colleague of mine and I were talking about prayer once, and she satirically referred to prayer chains as “adding your vote to the luck bucket.”

Prayer is not an election. (Election in theology is a different thing entirely. :-) ) It’s not a democratic process in which we all get together and try to talk an inattentive or uninterested or skeptical God into being convinced that this particular thing is really, really important to us, and would he please, please do the thing so we’ll be happier, or more comfortable, or less anxious?

Prayer includes requests, things we want “answered,” of course. In fact, God himself tells us to come boldly into his presence in prayer (He 4.16) and to let our “requests be made known to” him (Php 4.6). As a father—even a deeply imperfect one—I know how much more I would have given my children if they had just asked.

Ask. Yes.

But seeing prayer as primarily or essentially a shopping list is to miss the whole point of the thing.

Prayer is not a sacrament or a rite. It’s a natural consequence of being in a relationship.

For 37 years this month I’ve been in a formal, legal relationship with my wife. But it’s far more than just formal or legal. It’s personal. And because it’s personal, we communicate. We communicate because we like to, but more essentially we communicate because that’s what people in a relationship do; you can’t have a relationship without communicating, and communicating is pretty much the central way in which you conduct a relationship.

God and I have a relationship. So we talk. As you’ve often heard, he talks to us through his word, and we talk to him through prayer.

What do we talk about?

Whatever; whatever we have to say. I talk to him about what he’s said to me in his word. I talk to him about our relationship; what I’ve experienced since the last time we talked; how I feel about those experiences; what questions I have (and there are many).

We just talk.

And that’s why prayer is more than just asking for stuff, putting my vote in the luck bucket. It will include adoration—love talk, if you will—and confession and thanksgiving and yes, supplication.

And anything else.

That’s how relationships work.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

On Rejoicing

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In the recent series on the fruit of the Spirit, we spent a post on joy, because, well, joy is a fruit of the Spirit. While I was writing those posts, I also came across a New Testament synonym for joy that I think helps enrich the overall concept. It’s the Greek word agalliao, a verb usually translated “rejoice.” It’s not the word used in the fruit list (chara), but it’s in the same semantic domain. It’s a more intense emotion, involving exulting, perhaps jumping and dancing.

The places it shows up in the Scripture tell us something about what should press our buttons. These instances should help us evaluate the appropriateness of our affections.

  • It’s Abraham’s response to God’s promise that in him all nations of the earth would be blessed (Jn 8.56).
  • It’s Mary’s response at learning that she has been chosen to bear the Messiah (Lk 1.47).
  • It’s the initial response of the Jews to the announcement by John the Baptist that Messiah is about to come (Jn 5.35).
  • In David’s psalm, it’s Jesus’ response to the Father’s promise that he would not leave his corpse in the grave, but would raise him from the dead (Ac 2.26, citing Ps 16.9).
  • It’s the Philippian jailer’s response to going from certain Roman execution to forgiveness of sin, relief from hell, and a position as God’s son in the span of just a few minutes (Ac 16.34).
  • It’s the believer’s predicted response to Christ’s glorious return (1P 4.13).
  • It’s the response of the residents of heaven at the arrival of the marriage of the Lamb (Re 19.7).

These are not little joys, like winning a game or making it to the gas station or learning how to ride a bike.

These are once-in-a-lifetime, or even once-in-an-epoch events. These are the grandest events in the history of all the world. This is the kind of joy and rejoicing and exultation that you might experience once. Maybe.

All-out abandonment to unmitigated, high-octane delight, screaming and crying and jumping and dancing like nobody’s watching.

I’ve had a blessed and happy life, with many joys, all of them undeserved, but I’ve never had crazy joy like this.

So how does this serve as a check on our priorities?

The Bible identifies another time we should respond this way.

  • When we’re persecuted for identifying with Jesus (Mt 5.12)—”when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of” him.
  • Because those very persecutions are purifying us even as gold is purified in a smelter’s furnace, and we value the purification as worth every bit of the pain and then some (1P 1.6-8).

I find that doesn’t seem to be my first thought.

Slander. Insult. Rejection. Verbal abuse. And undeserved.

Yippee!

Now, Peter notes in this context that if you’re suffering because you’ve done wrong, then there’s no joy or reward in that (1P 4.15-16). If you’ve been a jerk in a political confrontation, you can hardly rejoice in suffering for Jesus; there’s no joy in giving “the enemies of God reason to blaspheme” (2S 12.14).

But if you face rejection and others forms of hardship because of your faithfulness to Christ, then that workout is going to make you a better athlete and lead you inexorably to victory, and that’s something to jump around about.

And you know what?

It seems that Jesus himself jumps and shouts and dances with you during those times.

Why do I say that?

Because that’s what he did when his disciples did something similar.

He gave them careful instruction and then sent them out in pairs on a preaching tour (Lk 10.1-16). When they came back, they reported considerable success (Lk 10.17).

And how did Jesus respond?

At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight (Lk 10.21).

Is there any reason he wouldn’t have a similar response to our spiritual growth and success?

Persecution. Slander. Perseverance. Growth. Victory.

Rejoice.

Photo by Dorian Hurst on Unsplash

Beyond All Praising

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A favorite hymn of mine is “O God Beyond All Praising.” It’s a relatively recent work, written in 1982 by Michael Perry (d 1996), an Anglican priest. He wrote the text specifically to be used to the stately tune “Thaxted,” originally from the “Jupiter” section of The Planets by Gustav Holst. In 1908 Holst adapted it for use with a patriotic poem in the UK, “I Vow to Thee, My Country.” There are multiple arrangements of the hymn, including one by Dan Forrest.

I think the worship lyrics are wonderfully reinforced by Holst’s stately, serious, elevated tune and by Forrest’s arrangement of it. It draws you in and raises your soul to want to be a part of the worshiping throng, in a kind of foretaste of the ultimate choral worship (Rev 5.9-14).

Though God has not (yet) granted me a voice to sing these words as they deserve to be sung, I’ve committed the words to memory—

O God beyond all praising,
we worship you today
and sing the love amazing
that songs cannot repay;
for we can only wonder
at every gift you send,
at blessings without number
and mercies without end:
we lift our hearts before you
and wait upon your word,
we honour and adore you,
our great and mighty Lord.

Then hear, O gracious Saviour,
accept the love we bring,
that we who know your favour
may serve you as our king;
and whether our tomorrows
be filled with good or ill,
we’ll triumph through our sorrows
and rise to bless you still:
to marvel at your beauty
and glory in your ways,
and make a joyful duty
our sacrifice of praise.

I joy in the simple gratitude expressed here, and the firm determination to leverage that gratitude into trusting endurance, particularly as expressed in the words

Whether our tomorrows
be filled with good or ill,
we’ll triumph through our sorrows
and rise to bless you still.

I can imagine a glint in the eyes and a steely set to the jaw of the person speaking: I will trust you. No matter what. We’ll get through this.

Good words in fearsome days.

Incidentally, a Catholic lyricist wrote a new second (and thus middle) stanza—

The flower of earthly splendor
in time must surely die,
its fragile bloom surrender to you,
the Lord most high;
but hidden from all nature
the eternal seed is sown–
though small in mortal stature,
to heaven’s garden grown;
for Christ the man from heaven
from death has set us free,
and we through him
are given the final victory.

It’s good to be reminded—regularly—that God is great, and God is good, and that his ways are perfect. I know people today who are struggling under burdens of bereavement, abandonment, disease, fear, their own weakness. We can all be strengthened in the knowledge that Someone is greater than all these things, so great that he can use them for our benefit.

And he loves us.

Photo by Gabriel Lamza on Unsplash

On God’s Ongoing Speech

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The Reformers were well known for their battle-cry, “Sola Scriptura!”—“The Scripture alone!” They were battling the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that Scripture and tradition—as defined in the statements of the ecumenical councils and the papal encyclicals—were equally authoritative.

I’m a sola scriptura guy too. And so is everybody I work with at my school.

So my students are sometimes surprised when I tell them that the Bible isn’t the only place where God speaks—and that the Bible itself tells us that.

God speaks to us through his Word, most certainly. But he also speaks in other ways.

Theologians have long recognized two classes of revelation: special revelation, or divinely inspired prophecy, which used to happen in different times and different ways (Heb 1.1) but today is confined to his Word (Heb 1.2); and general revelation, or what he shows us through his works—most notably in creation (Ps 19.1ff); in his direction of human affairs, or providence (Dan 2.21); and in human conscience (Gn 1.26-27). God is still speaking today in those ways.

We should note, as we always do when teaching this principle, that general revelation is not authoritative or inerrant in the way special revelation is, because the world and everything in it is broken by sin; what we’re seeing today is not exactly what God created. But the heavens still declare the glory of God, and humans at their worst are able to be informed and moved by what they see all around them.

Paul is a good example of someone putting this to work in ministry. When he’s introducing the gospel to members of a Jewish synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, he references primarily the Scripture, because they know and recognize it. His sermon (Ac 13.14-41) focuses on the metanarrative of Scripture and Jesus’ fulfillment of the messianic prophecies. But shortly later, when he’s addressing pagan Greeks in Athens, he takes an entirely different approach. Rather than quoting the Hebrew Scriptures, which would mean nothing to this audience, he cites their own poets—Epimenides and then Aratus (Ac 17.28)—because anyone in the image of God is eventually going to say something worthwhile. And he argues not from biblical authority but from logic—because even imperfect images of God can be logical.

Throughout history people have found spiritual meaning in the beauties of nature. One of my favorite examples of this, because it’s both observant and deftly rendered, is a poem written by Odell Shepard in 1917. Shepard was a professor of literature at Trinity College in Connecticut and then served a term as Lieutenant Governor. In 1938 he won the Pulitzer prize for biography for his work on Bronson Alcott, Louisa May’s father.

“Whence Cometh My Help”

Let me sleep among the shadows of the mountains when I die,
In the murmur of the pines and sliding streams,
Where the long day loiters by
Like a cloud across the sky
And the moon-drenched night is musical with dreams.

Lay me down within a canyon of the mountains, far away,
In a valley filled with dim and rosy light,
Where the flashing rivers play
Out across the golden day
And a noise of many waters brims the night.

Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the slanted glade
Under bending alders garrulous and cool,
Where they gather in the shade
To the dazzling, sheer cascade,
Where they plunge and sleep within the pebbled pool.

All the wisdom , all the beauty, I have lived for unaware
Came upon me by the rote of highland rills;
I have seen God walking there
In the solemn soundless air
When the morning wakened wonder in the hills.

I am what the mountains made me of their green and gold and gray,
Of the dawnlight and the moonlight and the foam.
Mighty mothers far away,
Ye who washed my soul in spray,
I am coming, mother mountains, coming home.

When I draw my dreams about me, when I leave the darkling plain
Where my soul forgets to soar and learns to plod,
I shall go back home again
To the kingdoms of the rain,
To the blue purlieus of heaven, nearer God.

Where the rose of dawn blooms earlier across the miles of mist,
Between the tides of sundown and moonrise,
I shall keep a lover’s tryst
With the gold and amethyst,
With the stars for my companions in the skies.

Photo by Steve Carter on Unsplash

On Personal Diversity

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This probably isn’t about what you think.

I’m not talking about quotas, or intersectionality, or affirmative action.

I’m not talking about labels and classes of people.

I’m talking about individuals.

I’ve been thinking lately about how diverse human beings are. We teachers have to take some of these differences into account when we teach. Students have different academic levels, of course. They have different backgrounds that can significantly affect their readiness for the material and their ability to process it. Teachers famously think about learning modalities; I’m inclined to think that the traditional list of “visual, auditory, and kinesthetic” is far from exhaustive. I remember how revelatory it was for me when I realized that I just don’t process things auditorily, that I have to see things to remember them.

The school where I teach has a fairly large department devoted to helping students succeed by finding their strengths and making reasonable accommodations for their weaknesses. I’ve grown to appreciate the fact that as a teacher I’m responsible to make these accommodations so that each of my students—all of them created in the image of God himself—can be the best he or she can be.

Our diversity extends far beyond our academic pursuits. People have different personalities—what in theology we call “natures.” Some people, like me, like to be on stage and presenting things we believe strongly. Others literally fear public speaking worse than death. Some people are introverted; some are extroverted. (And most, I suspect, are a complicated mixture of the two.)

Our families make us different. Our cultures make us different. Our place in time makes us different. And on and on it goes.

The Bible makes all this diversity unsurprising—first, because we’re created by a God who demonstrates the richness and complexity of his creative inclinations at every hand, and second, because a major emphasis of the New Testament is the diversity of believers in the church, both because of the breadth of God’s plan for his people—they will be from every kingdom, tribe, tongue, and nation (Re 7.9)—and because of the work of the Spirit in gifting his people for a wide range of ministry. On more than one occasion (Ro 12.4-8; 1Co 12.4-31; Ep 4.11-16) Paul compares the church to a body with one essential purpose but a wide variety of parts, each of them excellent at something, able to do things for the body that other parts cannot.

And that means that while there will be similarities in how we live out the Christian life—we will reverence God, and trust and obey him, and experience the Spirit’s conviction when we sin, and respond to that conviction with repentance—there will also be significant dissimilarities.

  • We’ll have differing salvation experiences. Some of us will experience great emotion, and others not so much. This is not an indication of the genuineness of our experience; it is simply a manifestation of our way of responding to even the most significant of life experiences.
  • We’ll have differing experiences of the means of grace.
    • We’ll apprehend Scripture differently, depending on our learning modalities and a thousand other differences. Sure, we should embrace a careful and defensible hermeneutic, and not engage in exegetical fallacies; but the experience of reading, absorbing, and implementing is not going to be the same for everyone. We’re going to see things differently, and we should share those insights to add to the richness of the biblical tradition.
    • We’ll pray, and experience prayer, differently. Some will be more conversational; others will work a list, and some lists will be more complicated than others—pray for these people on Monday, these on Tuesday. Some will pray with deep emotion; others will matter-of-factly present their requests to God and with relative ease will trust him to do the best thing. The Scripture doesn’t bind us as to prayer technique, and we should be free to express ourselves to our heavenly Father in ways—loving, reverential ways—that are most effective and genuine for us.
    • We’ll worship differently. Some will be inclined toward more formal, even liturgical services, while others will flourish in the environment of the old-time camp meetin’. More power to all of you.

Recognizing the creative complexity of our God, and of his image in us, liberates us to be genuine—within the bounds of morality, of course—and to make our unique contribution to the larger body.

It’s good for us. All.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

On Benedictions, Part 2: Every Good Thing

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Part 1: He Who Is Able

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

20 Now 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, 21 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 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

Photo by Michael Maasen on Unsplash

On Benedictions, Part 1: He Who Is Able

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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