Dan Olinger

On Abundance, Part 3: We’re Rich!

July 5, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Needs and Wants | Part 2: Definition

So what does God give us in abundance? What does he pour out on us lavishly, without restraint?

The Scripture names several things, but one much more than the others.

Grace

Pail tells the Ephesians that God has lavished on us “the riches of his grace” (Ep 1.7-8). Since this context is specifically about forgiveness of sins, we can safely conclude here that “grace” is the gift of salvation and specifically forgiveness; God has lavished his forgiveness on us, without regard to the enormity of both the quantity and the quality of our sins. This idea is borne out in Romans 5, where Paul writes that the abundance of “grace and the free gift of righteousness” (Ro 5.17) far outweighs the effect, as deep and pervasive and intense as it is, of Adam’s sin and our acquiescence to it. Down in verse 20, he intensifies the verb by saying that where sin abounds, grace “hyperabounds.”

You can’t out-sin God’s grace. His grace floods and eradicates the stain of the darkest of your sin. No one is beyond the reach and power of that grace.

Good news.

But there’s even more to this grace. We’ve been looking at the grace that forgives; but it doesn’t stop there. God gives abundant grace to sanctify—to change us from sinners into saints, to empower us to live in a way that reflects his forgiveness. Paul says that “God is able to make all grace abound toward you” (2Co 9.8). Now, this is in the context of his urging the Corinthians to be generous in their offering for the poor saints in Jerusalem, so he may be saying simply that since God has given them much, they should be generous with others. But he doesn’t seem to limit the application in that way; he says that his readers “may abound to every good work.” Sure, by being generous in the offering; but if we have “all sufficiency in all things,” surely this extends to more than throwing a Hamilton into the offering plate, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t God’s people “abound” in good works? (1Th 4.1).

Throughout the centuries God’s people have found that their abilities to endure temptation and trial, to love the unlovable, to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with their God, far exceed what they thought they were capable of doing. They stand in wonder at what God does through them.

Ample grace to save, and ample grace to sanctify.

Love

Twice Paul speaks of abounding love—and not, as we might expect, God’s love for us, but our love for one another. He speaks of the Philippians’ love for him “overflow[ing] more and more” (Php 1.9); and he prays that the Thessalonians may “increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all” (1Th 3.12). In a day when Christians are finding themselves divided by politics—and by ecclesiastical politics—we find that we can do better; we can abound in love for one another, the kind of love that brings such natural enemies as Jews and Gentiles together into one body, who worship God together (Ep 3.10). Overflowing love can do this.

There are more things that God gives us in abundance. We’ll look at them next time.

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On Abundance, Part 2: Definition

July 1, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Needs and Wants

As we noted last time, a key word in the Bible for the generosity of God is the word abundance. It’s a fairly straightforward concept: an abundance is more than you need, a surplus. In the extreme, it’s an overflowing, even an effective lack of limitation—there’s always more, like bananas or mangoes or papayas in the tropics.

When I was a boy, we lived on a 2-acre farm in Greenacres (now part of Spokane Valley), Washington. We grew our own beef and vegetables, and a little fruit, and in retrospect I realize that we had a good supply of food, but we didn’t have much money. (As I recall, Dad made $75 a week in his job at the time.) I learned early on that when I poured syrup on the pancakes, Dad would intervene—forcefully—if I overdid it. “What, do you think we’re made of money?” As I watched the little dribble of syrup disappear into the pancake, I felt really, really poor. (Pun absolutely intended.)

A bit later we moved back East, and with Dad making a little more money, we would occasionally eat out in a restaurant. There was an International House of Pancakes nearby (they call it IHOP now, of course), and I noticed something when we ate there.

On the table they had not just a single bottle of syrup, but a whole rack of eight little pitchers, each of them a different flavor. And I noticed something else. Dad didn’t care how much syrup I used.

The reason is obvious—the syrup came with the meal, and you didn’t pay by the ounce, the way you did at home.

To a kid, being able to use all the syrup you want is the Millennium.

And you know what? If you like one flavor of syrup in particular, and you used up all that was in the little pitcher, you could just ask the waitress, and she’d fill the thing up again, all the way to the top!

The thing is bottomless!

No need to conserve. Use all you want. If you run out, there’s plenty more where that came from.

Abundance.

That’s how God gives to his people. He’s the kind of person who loves to pour out good things on his people, with complete abandon.

Now, while we’re defining the concept, we should recognize an abuse.

While God gives us lots of good things, he’s not primarily interested in the trivial stuff.

Sure, he knows about every sparrow that falls, and he’ll see to our tiniest needs (Mt 10.29-31). But his primary interest isn’t to make us rich, or powerful, or popular in temporal ways, and he doesn’t want that to be our primary interest either. Prosperity preachers claim to find support in biblical passages—Jos 1.7; Ps 1.3; Pr 10.22; Lk 6.38; 2Co 9.6; 3J 1.2—but in doing so they demonstrate that they’re focused on the temporal, the earthly, the comparatively trivial, and not on the heavenly treasure that God’s people are to be storing away (Mt 6.19-21). One can’t use such texts to encourage the very greed that the Scripture so roundly condemns (1S 2.29; Lk 12.15; Ep 4.19; 1Th 2.5; 1Ti 3.3). And it’s not difficult to see fruit in the lives of such preachers that undercuts the alleged biblical basis of their theology.

[Side note: there’s a lot of this kind of preaching in poor areas of the world, as you might expect. I see a lot of it in Africa. And I’m puzzled why it doesn’t seem to occur to all the thousands of people at those outdoor meetings that after all these years, they’re not getting any richer.]

In the Scripture, wealth is not proof of God’s blessing (Ps 73.12), nor is it a significant vehicle for God’s blessing (Lk 12.15). But Scripture says repeatedly that God gives abundantly (Jn 10.10).

Well then. If it’s not Bitcoin, what is it that God pours out so lavishly, so generously, so limitlessly and extravagantly, on his people?

Well, you’re going to have to wait a few days to find out. :-)

Next time.

Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash

On Abundance, Part 1: Needs and Wants

June 28, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

We humans need stuff. We need food, and clothing, and shelter, and we need a way to get those things. The past year has made us aware of how much we need other things, too: love, companionship, interaction, variety.

We also want stuff. We want money—always just a bit more than we have. We want better health—even if we live in ways that seem to contradict that. We want recognition, which these days comes most commonly by way of likes and shares and congratulatory comments.

In Western culture, our natural tendency to want what we don’t have is exacerbated by the advertisements that bombard us pretty much constantly, especially if we’re the kind of person who permanently stores his phone in his hand rather than his pocket. You need this app; you need these shoes; you need that car; you need a vacation in Cozumel.

We’re a needy bunch.

I’ve noticed that my students’ generation, while still inclined to neediness—or wantiness—is trending away from stuff. Minimalism is cool (see under “Marie Kondo”). Newlyweds don’t want fine china anymore.

Good for them. It’s easier to pick up and go when you don’t have to think about tons (literally) of stuff that will be worthless in the long run.

Similarly, my wife and I have reached a stage in life where we really don’t want more stuff for Christmas, or birthdays, or anniversaries. We have what we need, and, apart from the occasional jar of cashews or tub of ice cream, we have pretty much what we want in terms of physical things.

But for a great many people, the wish list on Amazon is still a Very Big Deal. I need. I want. I wish I had.

Now, you’re expecting a blog post excoriating acquisitiveness. There’s a place for that, but my thoughts are running in a different direction.

I’m thinking about wealth.

The Bible says that God is endlessly rich. The old chorus said that “he owns the cattle on a thousand hills,” a concept drawn from Psalm 50.10:

Every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills.

When the returnees from exile in Babylon are doing their best to rebuild Solomon’s Temple, and producing a recognizably inferior product (Hag 2.3), God encourages these faithful laborers by telling him that this temple isn’t going to be about the silver and gold; “If you needed silver and gold, I have plenty,” he says (Hag 2.8), but he’s going to make this temple great in other, more substantive and infinitely valuable ways (Hag 2.6-9). And indeed, it was this temple—specifically Herod’s renovation of it—that saw the baby Jesus presented for circumcision, and the boy Jesus astonish the rabbis, and the man Jesus clear out the merchants—and the veil torn open by the Father himself as his Son paid the price for the separation between God and his people.

God is rich in the earthly stuff, and he’s rich in the heavenly stuff as well.

And, as we wish for from the rich, he’s generous too. Over the years he’s blessed a lot of his people financially, starting with Job and continuing to Abraham and many, many others, down to this day. While I’m not rich in American statistical terms, I’m wildly wealthy in comparison with most of the rest of the world, and it’s pretty likely that you are too. I have all I need, as well as a lot of stuff I don’t need.

There’s a word in the Bible that embraces this concept. It’s the word abundance. I’d like to spend a few posts meditating on it—contrasting it with some of the nonsense being proposed by religious shysters these days, and laying out some specifics about the Father’s abundant blessing of his people.

Next time we’ll set out a definition.

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The Other Beatitudes, Part 4: Discipline

June 24, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Believing God | Part 3: Serving God

OK, it’s time now for the surprising part. Of the 90 or so places in the Bible that speak of someone as being “blessed” (Greek makarios), there are two that stop us in our tracks.

How happy is the one whom God reproves; therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty (Job 5.17).
Happy are those whom you discipline, O Lord, and whom you teach out of your law (Ps 94.12).

Wait, what? Blessed to be reproved by God? to be disciplined by him?

As always, we need to start by figuring out what these verses actually say, to ensure that we’re not getting a misimpression.

We notice immediately that the first of these verses is from Job, and if we check the context, we find that these are the words of Eliphaz the Temanite, one of Job’s friends (Jb 4.1). As I’ve noted elsewhere, we need to take these speeches with a grain of salt, because by the end of the book we find God rebuking all of Job’s friends for missing the truth (Jb 42.7-9). Indeed, even Job himself, though God calls him “right” (Jb 42.7), comes in for rebuke for missing the larger point of his experience (Jb 38.1ff).

The key word in the second passage is discipline, which in English calls to mind being taken out to the woodshed. The Hebrew word, yasar, can indeed mean to chasten or to punish, but it can also mean to admonish or warn, and even less threatening, to teach. (Teaching is, after all, the etymological root for discipline; we still use the word disciple to mean “student.”)

Now, we all know that a word doesn’t mean all of its meanings every time we use it; when I say “the sun set last night,” nobody thinks, “He’s saying that the sun is a collection of objects, like a chess set.” We decide which meaning of the word to apply by looking at the context; a “sunset” is very different from a “chess set,” which in turn is very different from “set concrete.”

So what’s the context here? This is Hebrew poetry, one key feature of which is parallelism; here, “those whom you discipline” is in parallel with “[those] whom you teach out of your law.” So I’m inclined to read this as saying simply that those whom the Lord teaches are blessed, by the simple virtue of divine instruction and care. This verse, then, should be included in Part 2 of this series, as an example of the many ways God’s people are described. And, for what it’s worth, I’m inclined to see the Job passage as truthful, based on the Psalms passage and other biblical context.

But it’s worth noting here that the Bible does speak of trials and even suffering in a positive sense. Paul compares such struggles to athletic training, noting that regular exertion builds stamina, and stamina brings the experience of success, which in turn builds confidence, which then extends our success (Ro 5.3-5). Paul even says that we “boast” in our suffering (Ro 5.3).

The author of Hebrews presents a different positive perspective on trials, noting that parental discipline is evidence that we have a Father who loves us (He 12.3-13).

When I was a boy, and inclined toward energetic distraction, my father would occasionally place his hand on the back of my head and turn it in the direction he wanted me to go.

I hated that.

I would shake my head out of his hand and seek to go my own way. But when it mattered, Dad would persist. He may have saved my life a time or two with that really irritating practice.

Our loving Heavenly Father disciplines us as well. He doesn’t “punish” us—the well-deserved punishment for our monstrous sins was inflicted not on us, the deserving, but on his blameless Son, by the Son’s own request. For the believer, hard times of testing are not punishment for anything, because all the punishment has been borne and exhausted.

But he disciplines, teaches us. He directs us through hard things to teach us the right way and to build our strength and fit us for greater victories. And he does it non-destructively, carefully, tenderly, lovingly.

It is indeed blessed to be disciplined, taught, by such a Father.

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The Other Beatitudes, Part 3: Serving God

June 21, 2021 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Believing God

The first pattern we noticed in the Bible’s statements of blessing (Greek makarios) is that God’s people, as described in any number of ways, are blessed. This is a matter of identity; whether or not you’re blessed depends on who you are. (And of course, that identity is in God, not in ourselves as deserving.)

The rest of the biblical beatitudes have to do with activity—what the person in question does.

Those who do righteousness are blessed: How blessed are those who keep justice, Who practice righteousness at all times! (Ps 106.3; cf Ps 112.1; 119.1-2; 128.1-2; Is 56.2; Jn 13.17; Rv 22.14). As in the previous section, this idea of good behavior is described in a variety of ways—

Those who hear and keep God’s Word (Lk 11.28; Jm 1.25; Rv 1.3; 22.7)
Those who delight in his commandments (Ps 112.1)
Those who have righteous parents—and presumably follow their upbringing (Pr 20.7)
Those who consider the poor (Ps 41.1-2; Lk 14.14)
Those who give (Ac 20.35)

A specific type of commended behavior is perseverance or persistence. It’s not enough to be good just every so often; the key is having a pattern of good behavior.

Those who persevere in stewardship (Mt 24.46 // Lk 12.37-38, 43; Rv 16.15)
Those who are not offended in Jesus—that is, they don’t fall away from him (Mt 11.6 // Lk 7.23)
Those who endure trials / temptation / suffering (Jm 1.12; 1P 3.14; 4.14)

And finally, good behavior of course involves rejecting sin: How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! (Ps 1.1; cf Ps 32.2; 40.4; Is 56.2)—and that in turn involves keeping a good conscience (Ro 14.22), stopping when and where your conscience tells you to stop.

Obviously we need to deal with the elephant in the room—do we keep our noses clean so that God will bless us? A few observations—

Scripture is very clear that we can’t be good enough to please God or to earn salvation (Is 64.6; Ti 3.5).
Similarly, God can’t be bribed, since he is no respecter of persons (Ro 2.11; Ep 6.9; Co 3.25).

So what’s going on in these verses? I’d suggest that there are two principles being asserted and illustrated here—

Many of these passages are from wisdom literature (Psalms, Proverbs, and James in particular). A common theme in such literature is that the world is designed so that things turn out better if you don’t do stupid things (as pretty much every teenaged boy, including yours truly back in the day, has demonstrated at one time or another). As John Wayne is reputed to have said, “Life is tough; it’s tougher if you’re stupid.” This isn’t about salvation; it’s about living in such a way that you minimize your risks in the here and now.
But there’s another principle here as well. Many of these passages are addressed to believers, those who have repented of their sin and placed their faith in Christ. Because such people are enlivened spiritually (Jn 3.5) and empowered by the indwelling Spirit of God (Ga 5.16; Ti 3.5), they are now capable of doing good, and in a persistent way; in fact, “good works” are a certain and unavoidable consequence of the change that God has worked in them (Ep 2.10; Ti 2.7, 3.8). So yes, people who do good works are blessed—not because God is unusually impressed with or bribed by them, but because they are living as they were designed to live, and such harmony with the will and plan of God brings blessing, the state that the Hebrew Scriptures call shalom, “peace,” when things are as they should be.

I said at the beginning of the series that there was a surprise in the biblical data. I don’t think we’ve seen anything surprising yet. That’s coming next time.

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The Other Beatitudes, Part 2: Believing God

June 17, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

Now that we’ve dealt with special uses of the Greek word for “blessed” (makarios), we can turn our attention to the passages that are true “beatitudes,” general blessings on various groups of people. There’s a fair amount of depth to the uses of the word, including a few surprises.

We should begin, I suppose, with an unsurprising group. Several passages speak of those whom God has chosen as blessed.

In his final blessing of the tribes of Israel just before his death, Moses sums up his prophecy with a general blessing on all Israel: Blessed are you, O Israel; Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, Who is the shield of your help And the sword of your majesty! So your enemies will cringe before you, And you will tread upon their high places (Dt 33.29).
In a familiar passage the Psalmist writes, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, The people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance (Ps 33.12; cf 144.15).
And in a focus on the individual, David writes, How blessed is the one whom You choose and bring near to You To dwell in Your courts. We will be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, Your holy temple (Ps 65.4).

Sometimes God’s (chosen) people are described in slightly different ways:

Those whose help is God: How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, Whose hope is in the Lord his God (Ps 146.5).
Those who are invited to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb: Then he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ ” And he said to me, “These are true words of God” (Re 19.9).
The one who has a part in the first resurrection: Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years (Re 20.6).

And often God’s people are identified in ways having to do with their trust or faith in him:

Those who trust in the Lord: How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood (Ps 40.4; cf 84.12).
Those who take refuge in him: Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him! (Ps 2.12).
Those whose hope is in God: How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, Whose hope is in the Lord his God (Ps 146.5)
Those who long for God: Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him! (Is 30.18).
Those who dwell in God’s house: How blessed are those who dwell in Your house! They are ever praising You (Ps 84.4).
Those whose strength is in God: How blessed is the man whose strength is in You, In whose heart are the highways to Zion! (Ps 84.5).
Those who find wisdom: How blessed is the man who finds wisdom And the man who gains understanding (Pr 3.13; cf 8.34).
Those who fear the Lord: Praise the Lord! How blessed is the man who fears the Lord, Who greatly delights in His commandments (Ps 112.1; cf 128.1; Pr 28.14).
Those who know the joyful sound: How blessed are the people who know the joyful sound! O Lord, they walk in the light of Your countenance (Ps 89.15).
Those whose sin is forgiven: How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit! (Ps 32.1-2).
Those whom God enables to understand: But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear (Mt 13.16 // Lk 10.23).
Those who believe without seeing: Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed” (Jn 20.29).

Next time: there’s more!

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The Other Beatitudes, Part 1: Introduction

June 14, 2021 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

We all know about the Beatitudes, the 9 statements at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5.3-11) in which Jesus identifies various kinds of people as “blessed.” That series of verses has inspired endless devotionals, sermons, articles, and books. It occurred to me recently that the Greek word translated blessed in the Beatitudes (makarios) is fairly common, occurring in lots of other places in the Bible—in all, 50 times in the New Testament, and 42 times in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Thus there must be lots of other biblical statements that are essentially “other Beatitudes.”

So why not go looking for them? Why not add to the list of attitudes and behaviors that put people into a condition of blessing?

I suppose we should start the way most of those sermons and books do, by defining the key term. What does it mean to be “blessed”?

The concept is really quite simple. The “blessed” person has received something that advantages him, and as a result, he’s happy. That’s pretty much the way we use the word today.

Now to take all these occurrences of the word, organize them, and draw some guiding principles about God’s blessing and our happiness.

To begin with, we should notice the “oddities” in a few uses.

First, there’s one “secular” use of the word: that is, it’s not speaking of spiritual blessing or God’s blessing. That’s in Acts 26.2, where Paul says that he’s “blessed” to have an opportunity to defend himself before Agrippa.

Second, there’s one instance where the word describes something impersonal. In Titus 2.13, Paul speaks of our “blessed hope,” which is Christ’s return. (There’s one other use that appears to be impersonal: “Blessed are you, O land, whose king is of nobility and whose princes eat at the appropriate time—for strength and not for drunkenness” (Ec 10.17). But as the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament notes (4.365), it’s really the people of the land, not the dirt itself, who benefit from a good ruler.)

Third, there are several uses that are limited in their application, that we shouldn’t consider as applying to us specifically—

Individuals: Leah, at Asher’s birth (Gn 30.13); Peter at his confession (Mt 16.17); and God (Is 31.9 LXX; 1Ti 1.11; 6.15) (who technically can’t be “advantaged” by something he receives; here the word means someone whom we praise as worthy)
Estimations: Solomon’s wives and servants, in the estimation of the Queen of Sheba (1K 10.8 // 2Ch 9.7); Mary, in the estimation of Elizabeth (Lk 1.45) and of “a certain woman” (Lk 11.27); he who eats bread in the kingdom of God, in the estimation of a man who was dining with Jesus (Lk 14.15)
Historical situations: those returning from exile in Babylon (Is 32.20); the childless during the fall of Jerusalem (Lk 23.29); those who endure (Dn 12.12) or die (Rv 14.13) during the Tribulation
Social situations: one who has a “quiver full” of children (Ps 127.5); those who carry out judgment on evildoers (Ps 137.8-9); people who have a good king (Ec 10.17); and, comparatively, the widow who does not remarry (1Co 7.40)

The rest of the uses of this word blessed or happy refer generally to certain kinds of people, particularly the people of God, and we can safely take them as applying to us. Since I’ve called this series “The Other Beatitudes,” I won’t be addressing the two passages in the Gospels (Mt 5.3-11; Lk 6.21-22) where the Sermon on the Mount is presented.

Next time, we’ll look at the remaining passages, telling us who is blessed, and why.

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One Body

June 10, 2021 by Dan Olinger 3 Comments

This post is going to be a little different. It’s about an experience I had this weekend. I just feel like telling somebody about it.

Every so often I do an internet search on my name, just to see if somebody’s saying something I ought to know about. Some years ago when I did that, I found a web page giving the history of a church. Well, I was interested right away, because I’m interested in churches, and it involved a fellow with my name, and surprisingly, it was a Black church in Hazard, Kentucky.

Apparently back in 1886 a preacher traveled from Virginia over the ridgeline into eastern Kentucky and did some circuit riding, accompanied by a teacher named Dan Olinger. A few years later some of the converts organized a church with 9 charter members, including a guy with my name, who I assume was the same person who had come from Virginia. (Perhaps he came up from Olinger, Virginia?)

Eventually a couple of former slaves gave the church a small piece of land just west of Hazard, up against the side of Town Mountain. The story on the web page stops in the 1990s, when one Dr. John Pray was the pastor. But that story resonates with me, not just because my family name is part of it, but because it tells of a handful of people who had experienced God’s gracious regeneration and who sought to gather regularly for worship in the face of considerable difficulty.

These are my people, in the most significant way possible.

Another family name that shows up repeatedly in the story is Combs. Back when I first encountered the web page, I emailed the address at the bottom of the page and asked about the history. The respondent gave me the name of a member of the Combs family and said, “He knows as much as anybody.” So I emailed him, and we began a brief exchange. My first question was whether the Dan Olinger mentioned in the story was Black. Mr. Combs said he was. I’ll admit to being a little worried at that point; I knew that some of my general line were substantial landowners in the area of Staunton, Virginia, before the Civil War, and I wondered if perhaps they had owned slaves. So I asked, “Do you know where the Black Olingers came from?” Mr. Combs said that he thought there had been an interracial relationship in North Carolina, and that Dan was descended from that.

I don’t know if there was any love involved—we all know that the rape of Black women by white men was not at all uncommon in those days—but it does seem to indicate that the relationship between the white and Black Olingers is biological, not just the legal fiction of a slave taking his owner’s last name.

Hazard isn’t a place you get to by accident; it’s not really on the way to anywhere. So I filed that story away in my memory, thinking, “Boy, I’d sure like to see that place someday.”

This past weekend I was asked to participate in the ordination of a former student in eastern Kentucky, about an hour or so from Hazard. I thought immediately of Town Mountain.

After the ordination service on Sunday morning, I got in the car and headed for Hazard. The trip was complicated by the fact that for most of the drive I had no cell service and thus no GPS; I had to stop at a convenience store and ask directions. (Yes, sometimes we men do that.) But around 2 pm, thanks to directions from a guy with an apricot-sized wad of tobacco in his cheek, I found US 451 heading west out of Hazard, crossed the steel bridge, and saw the road sign: “Dr. John Pray Memorial Highway.” This has to be the right road.

On about the 19^th bend in the road there was a yellow diamond sign: “Church.”

I hadn’t been this excited in a long while.

Rounded the bend, and just past Fred Combs Road (paved) and Olinger Lane (not so much), there she was—a little red-brick church building, with two small white-sided extensions, and a parking lot and picnic area just beyond. She’s snuggled up alongside the road, the drop-off so steep that the entry door is six feet down from the road. Beside the front door is a plaque:

I’ll confess that I was hoping they had scheduled a dinner on the grounds for that day, so someone would be there to talk to. Afraid not. I left a business card and a brief note on the back.

The globe is covered with little groups of believers who gather and worship, who laugh and weep together, who care for one another through hard times, who celebrate weddings and mourn at funerals.

And we are all one. Often biologically, which should be expected in social communities, but more importantly, because we are united in a single body in Christ Jesus.

May it be so for as long as earth endures.

On Rejoicing

June 7, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

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

On Divine Down Payment

June 3, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

There’s a Christian song that begins with the following lines—

“What gift of grace is Jesus my redeemer;
There is no more for heaven now to give.”

I appreciate the sentiment expressed here. The Bible reminds us that Christ is indeed all (Col 3.11) and that his sacrifice and grace are infinite. This is the theme of entire books of the Bible—Colossians, Ephesians, and Hebrews come immediately to mind, but others could be named as well—and multiple songs of multiple styles have been written on the theme.

But for some time I’ve been impressed with a surprising statement in the classic list of the elements of salvation in Ephesians 1. The passage lays out a partial list of what God has done for us—from what Paul calls “all spiritual blessings” (Ep 1.3)—and organizes those elements under the rubric of the Trinity. He begins with the work of the Father (Ep 1.4-6) in choosing and predestinating us to adoption; he then moves to the Son’s work (Ep 1.7-13a) in redeeming us, earning our forgiveness and accomplishing our unification in him. But in this latter section he also speaks of more to come—an “inheritance” (Ep 1.11).

And here is where he says something I find surprising, perhaps even shocking. Moving to the role of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, who “seals” us (Ep 1.13), confirming our genuineness and accomplishing our security, Paul describes the Spirit as “the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (Ep 1.14).

The KJV, which I’ve quoted here, has the word “earnest,” which we don’t use much in this sense these days except in real estate transactions, when we speak of “earnest money” paid by a buyer as a demonstration that he’s serious about buying and will show up for the closing. Other English versions use a variety of terms here—“guarantee” (NKJV ESV), “pledge” (NASB), “down payment” (CSB), “deposit” (NIV). You get the idea.

I’ve heard lots of teaching on this concept, but one day, well into adulthood, it struck me what a surprising metaphor this is. If I were evaluating a student’s sermon, and he used this metaphor, and it weren’t in the Bible, I’d take him aside afterwards and say to him, very paternally and condescendingly, “Now, young man, the Holy Spirit is a personal member of the Godhead, equal in every way to the Father and the Son, and it’s really not appropriate to speak of him as a ‘partial’ payment for anything. That’s irreverent.”

And I would be wrong, because the Bible does indeed use this metaphor, demonstrating that it is appropriate. And further, the person of the Godhead who uses this metaphor is the Spirit himself, who inspired Paul to write it (2P 1.20-21).

The Trinity, the Godhead, gives us the Spirit himself, who indwells us, teaching and convicting and directing us through this life, and he himself says that he’s just a portion of what God has in store for us—there’s more to come.

This is astonishing.

There is, indeed, more for heaven to give.

Now, I’m not criticizing the song. The lyricists, Australian Anglicans Richard Thompson and Jonny Robinson, have very precisely, and I think correctly, written, “There is no more for heaven now to give.” Good for them.

But it does us good to remind ourselves of the limitation of that key word now. There is, indeed, more—much more, infinitely more, in store for God’s people from the abundant storehouses of heaven.

Though we have eternal and abundant life now (Jn 10.10; 1J 5.13), there is a level of life awaiting us that we cannot imagine (2Co 12.4).
Though we know Christ now, we shall see and know him in unprecedented ways then (Mt 25.34; Rv 22.17).
Though we fellowship with the indwelling Spirit now, we shall know him much more intimately then (Re 22.17).

God has given us a down payment of his very person in the Holy Spirit. He’s really serious about his relationship with us. Let us embrace him and anticipate all that is to come.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash