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 Devotions, Part 5: Bible Study

February 17, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Semper Gumby | Part 3: The Plan | Part 4: Bible Reading

I find maintenance reading to be important in keeping the Word of God—all of it—in my head. But I also find that it’s not enough. I need to study the Bible—to settle in, dig deep, find out what it means, and merge it with my thinking in a more substantial way than reading a passage once a year can do.

So I devote a section of my daily devotions to digging deeper. It’s the longest section of my devotional practice, and even then I’m just scratching the surface. I’ve tried to make it more productive by making it a daily progression, building each day on a process that takes several weeks.

There’s something to be said for topical studies, including word studies; I’ve done a lot of those over the years. But typically my study time is spent trying to get my head around an entire biblical book. The length of time I spend in it will depend on the length of the book. One year I spent a month each on the twelve shortest books of the Bible. Right now I’m in the middle of two months on 2 Timothy. Here’s how I’m spending those two months:

  • Day 1: Read & outline
  • 2: Identify and highlight key words (I use Logos’s “Important Words Guide”)
  • 3: Compare English versions to identify substantive differences (Logos “Text Comparison” tool enables me to do this quickly, but any parallel Bible will provide this information)
  • 4-5: Identify textual variants (the easiest way to find the substantive ones in English is here)
  • 6-43: Read commentaries and note key background and interpretive details (I have a lot of commentaries—about 50 that include 2 Timothy)
  • 44-49: Diagram the book on biblearc.com to comprehend its structure and flow of argument (here’s my diagram of 2 Peter)
  • 50-51: Note and evaluate instances of intertextuality (the book’s references to other biblical or extrabiblical writings—Logos’s “NT Use of the OT” tool is very helpful for this, but both NASB and CSB emphasize the NT citations of the OT typographically [NASB with ALL CAPS, and CSB with boldfaced type])
  • 52: Write a thesis statement for the book, reflecting the key themes in the wording, and the organization in the sentence structure
  • 53-56: Go through the file of notes I’ve been compiling, cleaning up the format and readability

I keep each month’s schedule to 28 days so it will work in February; the extra days in other months give me time to catch up or pursue things I’ve discovered that aren’t already given time in the schedule.

When I’m done, I have my own commentary on the book, with key features color-coded in highlighting. And the weeks immersed in the book reinforce its content in my mind in ways I wouldn’t be able to get from a century of annual readings.

This study takes about 25 or 30 minutes per day. The Logos tools I’ve mentioned—particularly the interlinear mode of the Text Comparison Tool—make some of it noticeably more efficient, and the time I save I invest in commentary study.

As to commentaries, let me make some recommendations—

  • The best source, by far, for evaluating biblical commentaries is bestcommentaries.com. The site has a ranked list of commentaries for each biblical book (e.g. John). The rightmost column in the list identifies the type of commentary with various tags. I would recommend avoiding the “devotional” commentaries, because they often don’t answer the questions you have when you’re trying to understand a passage. If you have some training in biblical languages, the “technical” commentaries are quite valuable; if not, the “pastoral” commentaries are probably the best investment for you.
  • I am quite fond of both the New American Commentary series and the Pillar NT Commentary series—they’re thorough and specific, and most of what they say is accessible to someone of average intelligence and without seminary training—if you’re willing to study. :-)
  • Electronic is better than hard copy. It takes up no space and weighs nothing—and you’ll really appreciate that every time you move. Further, it’s electronically searchable, which makes it far more useful than hard copy. You can highlight it just like a book—and even better, you can change the highlight later if you want to. And finally, it’s often less expensive than the hard copy, both in manufacturing and in shipping.

6 These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Dt 6.6-9).

Study.

Part 6: Christian Reading / Music | Part 7: Prayer | Part 8: Conclusion

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Filed Under: Bible, Worship Tagged With: means of grace, sanctification

On Devotions, Part 4: Bible Reading

February 13, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Semper Gumby | Part 3: The Plan

Since the first means of grace is the Scripture, ingesting the Bible should be a key part of our devotional plan. I’ve divided that into two phases. The first is simply reading the Bible—typically not taking notes or looking things up, but just reading. I like to call this “maintenance reading”—just keeping the whole Bible reasonably fresh in my head, so it will constantly inform and direct my thinking and decision-making.

A lot of Christians like to read through the Bible every year. That’s an excellent practice, and one I typically follow, but again I should note that doing it is not a biblical command. It does make sense, though, to keep as much of it in your head as you can, and I’ve found that an annual overview works well.

Some years I’ll do something else instead. Once I decided to read through the Greek New Testament, and I realized that I would need to take a couple of years to get through it successfully, so for those two years I read just the New Testament for my maintenance reading. But most years I read through the entire English Bible.

I’ve also made a practice of reading in different translations. For several years I read a different version every year; now I’m going back over ones I’ve already read. (This year it’s the NASB 1995, which is the version my church uses.) I’ve done this for three reasons.

  • First, as a Bible teacher, I often get asked
    about this translation or that one, and I felt the need to be in a position to
    give knowledgeable answers.
  • Second, I found that if I read the same version
    all the time, I’d get familiar with the words to the point that my mind was
    more likely to wander as I read—and I’d get to the bottom of a page and realize
    I’d been thinking of something else through the whole page. Reading the same
    ideas in different words has helped me focus more consistently.
  • Third, reading those different words often helps
    me notice different angles on various passages. Sometimes there are differences
    in meaning between the way different translations render the same verse. These
    differences usually come from one of two situations: 1) there’s a textual variant in
    the verse, or 2) there’s a word or phrase in the verse that is ambiguous and
    could legitimately mean two different things. In either case, I’m made aware
    that there’s an ambiguity, and I can look into it further using commentaries or
    other study tools.

I also like to vary the order in which I read the Bible. As you probably know, there are lots of Bible–reading plans available; they tend to get circulated on the internet every December, just in time for New Year’s resolutions. I’ve tried most of the ones that take you through the whole Bible in a year; in recent years I’ve read a passage each from the OT and NT every day; OT, NT, a Psalm, and chapter of Proverbs; through the Bible in chronological order; last year I used Trent Hunter’s Bible Eater plan; and this year I’m just reading straight through from Genesis to Revelation. Sometimes I plan a “day off” every so often, so I can catch up more easily if I get behind. I like all these approaches, and I like varying them. My regular Christmas present to myself is deciding what the next year’s plan will be.

This isn’t an ad, but I use Logos Bible software a lot—every day, throughout the day. It has a Bible reading plan generator that is infinitely customizable. I recently set up a plan to read through the “miscellaneous” sections of Proverbs one verse per day, so I could just focus and meditate on one proverb each day. Logos made it easy to do that.

You can get the Logos executable for free, along with a few free books to get started. What you pay for in Logos is adding books to your library. But they give away free books fairly frequently, and their catalog almost always has free items; it’s possible to get a reasonably useable program without spending any money at all if you’re patient, and if you have a few bucks, your library can be even bigger and more useful.

Another program, e-Sword, gives you a much more robust library for free; you might want to check that out as well.

Part 5: Bible Study | Part 6: Christian Reading / Music | Part 7: Prayer | Part 8: Conclusion

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Filed Under: Bible, Worship Tagged With: means of grace, sanctification

On Devotions, Part 3: The General Plan

February 10, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Semper Gumby

I’ve noted already that your devotional time should be purposeful. So what is its purpose?

I’d suggest that the purpose is pretty simple: to support and increase your intimate knowledge of God so that you can serve and represent him as he wishes, for the promotion of his glory.

As we’ve seen in an earlier series, that knowledge of God grows primarily through the means of grace: Scripture, prayer, and fellowship with other believers. Since your devotional time must involve some private activity, it will likely be focused on the first two of these; it will involve time in the Scripture and in prayer, and it should issue in private worship.

Over the years I’ve tried different ways of exercising these means of grace. For most believers it starts simply; you should take baby steps, lay out achievable goals, and build some momentum by seeing some consistency in those little victories.

So as a baby Christian, my first need was just to do something involving Scripture and prayer, and to develop a pattern of doing it regularly. Daily is great, but regularity of any kind is a step in the right direction.

Over the years, as your maturity and discipline increase, the pattern may grow more complex, or it may simply involve a bit more time. But it will develop and change.

I’ve found that a difficulty with regular devotions is keeping it fresh. When I was younger, I needed more variety in my life than I do now; in fact, I rather enjoy the familiarity of a regular system these days. But every day I need to keep my easily distracted mind focused, and I find that varying things one way or another helps with that. I’ll note some of those variations as we proceed through this series.

Right now my devotional time has these primary sections, derived from the purpose stated above.

  • Bible reading
  • Bible study
  • Christian reading
  • Music
  • Prayer

I’ll describe each of these in further detail in future posts.

As to overall pattern, I’ve settled on a daily frequency, for the simple reason that I need the daily workout. Almost daily I tell myself, “Dan, you’ve been a Christian for 60 years. You ought to be better at it than this.” I regularly surprise myself by the ease with which I turn from the path; I am indeed “prone to wander.” So I return to my spiritual roots every day to drink from the fountain of God’s grace.

I’ve also settled on having devotions first thing in the morning. I wake up quickly and happy—something that irritates people, I know—and the fact that I have a clear mind and a spirit of energetic hopefulness for the day ahead means that it’s a good time to meet with God.

A word about that waking up business. I know that people are all different, and I really don’t think this is a moral issue. I’ve noticed over the years, however, that our culture puts a lot of pressure on us to stay up late enough that it’s not likely that those of us with 8 am commitments are going to get 8 hours of sleep, which is what most people need to function at their best level. A while back I decided to make that a priority, and I go to bed earlier than most people.

Sure, that means no more late-night TV, but there’s nothing much worth watching there anyway. And little to no late-night sports, but the highlights will be on YouTube first thing the next day (actually a lot sooner than that). And in return for those trivial sacrifices, I get a full night’s sleep and wake up energetic and happy.

For me, it’s a no-brainer.

I didn’t used to be a morning person. I wonder how many people think they’re not a morning person when they actually could be.

Again, not a moral issue. There’s no particular virtue in being like me. But the change has made a remarkable difference in my day-to-day experience—of devotions, and of a lot more.

Next time we’ll begin looking more closely at the components of one Christian’s devotional practice.

Part 4: Bible Reading | Part 5: Bible Study | Part 6: Christian Reading / Music | Part 7: Prayer | Part 8: Conclusion

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Filed Under: Bible, Worship Tagged With: means of grace, sanctification

On Devotions, Part 2: Semper Gumby

February 6, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

The fact that there are false ideas and legalism about our practice of personal time with God is no indication that we shouldn’t have such a time, or that we shouldn’t take it seriously.

What are some indications that you take it seriously?

  • You make it a priority. You engage in it even when there are other things that need doing, or when it’s inconvenient. It may even require you to sacrifice some other activity—or maybe it won’t. But you’re determined to get it done.
  • It’s not haphazard. It’s not going to happen just once in a blue moon, when you happen to think about it, or when some sermon or group Bible study makes you feel guilty. It’s probably regular—every x period of time, and lasting for y minutes, give or take—but maybe not, if your daily schedule is less predictable than average.
  • It’s purposeful. You have an end in mind—personal closeness with the Father, Son, and Spirit, and preparation for effective service to and for them—and you keep that goal in mind as you proceed.
  • It’s thoughtful. You put mental effort into planning and designing it; you seek input from other believers, whether in person or in writing, and you consider how those practices might or might not help you reach the goal.
  • It’s practical, flexible, and creative. You try new things to see whether they’ll move you toward the goal, and you cast off practices that don’t seem to do that. Continuous improvement. ISO 9000.
  • It’s personal. As I’ve noted earlier, it’s more like a date than a business meeting. You protect it from becoming routine or mechanical; you seek God’s presence, and you delight in it.
  • It’s real. As in a marriage, you have your good days and your bad days, but the relationship persists.

What this means is that the way you have devotions will probably change over time, as your life circumstances change—

  • I have a job with predictable responsibilities and hours; my schedule changes somewhat every semester, but for that semester it’s pretty much solid. Back when I was working in retail or in food service—boy, that was a long time ago—I had a different schedule every week, and I just had to pretty much figure life out a few days at a time.
  • Over the years my family circumstances have changed. When I was single, I had a lot more flexibility in my schedule; when my wife and I got married, we had to consider one another. Then when the kids came along, well, it was just chaos for a while, and parents have an obligation to prioritize the health, safety, and general well-being of the little progeny. Now our kids are both grown and taking care of their own responsibilities, and we have more schedule flexibility again. We can go to bed when we want, and nobody’s going to keep us up half the night. Probably.

Devotions for a young mom are going to look very different from what I do, and there ought to be no guilt for either of us regarding those differences. You evaluate your circumstances, you calculate what you need, you lay out a plan to meet those needs given the circumstances, and you do the best you can. You try to be consistent, but exigencies happen, and God knew they were going to happen—in fact, ordained that they would happen—so you go with the flow and keep your thoughts Godward even in the middle of the maelstrom.

It’s about the relationship, not the details of your carefully designed process.

Now, I’m about to appear to contradict myself.

I’d like to take a few posts to lay out what my devotional life looks like at the moment.

It’s not a pattern for anybody else; in fact it’s not even a pattern for me, in the sense that it changes all the time, as needs require and as insights provoke. But it’s an opportunity to demonstrate how and why those changes occur, and how I’ve adjusted the process over the years. And since we’re supposed to “stir up one another to love and good works” (Heb 10.24), perhaps something I share might stimulate your creativity and inclination to try something a little different.

Might make a difference for you, or you might try one of my ideas for a while and decide to go back to what you’ve done before. But we’re all in this together.

Part 3: The Plan | Part 4: Bible Reading | Part 5: Bible Study | Part 6: Christian Reading / Music | Part 7: Prayer | Part 8: Conclusion

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Filed Under: Bible, Worship Tagged With: means of grace, sanctification

On Devotions, Part 1: Introduction

February 3, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In the series just concluded we’ve seen the importance the Scripture places on its own role in a successful life with Christ. If a believer’s life is all about walking with God and serving as his ambassador (2Co 5.20), and if God reveals his personality and his ways and wishes in the Word, both living (Jn 1.1ff) and written (2Ti 2.15; 3.15-16), then we need to know what the Scripture says. And the only effective way to do that is to read and study it.

That obvious truth has led to the common practice among Christians of “having devotions”: spending time, usually daily, reading the Bible and praying. The practice has different names; some call it “personal Bible study”; a camp I know of calls it “God and I Time.” I like the term “devotions” because it’s concise and simple; because it enfolds multiple practices, beyond just Bible reading; and because it points to the primary purpose of the exercise.

I’d like to share some thoughts and experiences about the practice, both to motivate my fellow believers and to stimulate creativity in their choices.

I think it’s important to start by casting down some idols.

Most Christians have difficulty distinguishing their religious heritage from biblical command. By that I mean that if we’ve practiced our Christianity in certain ways for a long time, we’re prone to think of that practice as a biblical requirement. It may be, but not necessarily.

For example, the Bible does clearly command obedience and the knowledge of the Scripture that informs that obedience. There are many self-described Christians today who don’t know what the Bible says and don’t seem to feel any compulsion to evaluate their thoughts and actions by any sort of direct biblical standard.

That’s wrong.

On the other hand, there are common devotional practices that are well and good, and appropriate for many Christians—that’s why they’ve become common practices—that the Bible doesn’t specifically command. And we shouldn’t burden believers with unbiblical yokes (Ac 15.10). God doesn’t like it when we say he commanded things that he didn’t (Mt 15.9; Ti 1.14; Rev 22.18), even if we have the best of intentions.

Over the years I’ve heard “commandments of men” such as these:

  • You have to have devotions every day.

Granted, knowing what the Bible says, and integrating it into your life, and applying it every day, is going to take some time and effort, and daily interaction with the Word is a great way to do that. Excellent practice. But your life circumstances may not allow that—I’m thinking of the mother of newborn quintuplets—and nothing in the Scripture suggests that missing a day is going to bring God’s judgment by way of bad Christian “luck” today.

  • You have to have devotions in the morning.

It’s true that David often had prayer time in the morning (Ps 5.3)—in fact, he sometimes had it three times a day (Ps 55.17)—but the fact that a person in the Bible did something a certain way doesn’t necessarily constitute a biblical command for all believers. It certainly makes sense to start your day—every day—in the Word, but some people just don’t function well in the morning, and God knows that (Ps 103.14). I suspect he’d prefer to spend time with us when we’re functional. (Similarly, I’ve heard it taught that “you ought to give God the best time of your day”—again, excellent advice, but not biblical mandate. In fact, you ought to give God your whole day, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

  • You should do devotions the way this really spiritual person does.

It is a biblical mandate to encourage one another to love and good works (Heb 10.24), and Paul does tell the Corinthians to follow his example (1Co 11.1), and mutual encouragement within the body is a thing (Eph 4.29). But the Bible also says that God has made us all different—the first thing the Bible tells us about God is that he’s creative (Gen 1.1)—and gifted us individually in different ways (Rom 12.4-8; 1Co 12.4-31). It’s also true that your walk with God needs to be personal to you and not just corporate, though there is certainly a corporate aspect—the church—to our relationship with God. I’d suggest that the way you do devotions might be unique to you, though you might well profit from the examples of others in various respects.

We’ll continue these thoughts next time.

Part 2: Semper Gumby | Part 3: The Plan | Part 4: Bible Reading | Part 5: Bible Study | Part 6: Christian Reading / Music | Part 7: Prayer | Part 8: Conclusion

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Filed Under: Bible, Worship Tagged With: means of grace, sanctification

On Building Spiritual Muscle, Part 6 

January 30, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

We’ve discovered three different spiritual exercises that will help us build spiritual muscle, thereby gaining spiritual strength so that we can be what we’re supposed to be, so that we can do what we’re supposed to do—to fulfill our part of this joint effort between us and God to conform us, over time, to the image of Christ (2Co 3.18). (Notice, by the way, that the “being” comes before the “doing.” That’s how it works; that how it has to work. Maybe that’s worth a blog post all by itself.)

It’s worth noting that if you’re a sacramentarian—Presbyterian, Anglican / Episcopalian, some others—you believe that there are two more exercises to add to the list: the sacraments, or what Baptists call “ordinances”—baptism and the Lord’s Supper. As a Baptist, I’m not necessarily opposed to the idea that the ordinances might be means of grace, but since I don’t find any passage in Scripture that either says so or strongly implies it, I think it’s safer to hold back on the question. But for you sacramentarians, you have two more exercises, one of which you can do as often as you like (1Co 11.25). Enjoy building some extra muscle.

As we set off on this exercise program, I think we can learn some principles for success from what we know about physical exercise—

  • Start slow and work your way up.

Just as you can’t lift heavy weights when you haven’t developed any muscles, so you’re setting yourself up for failure and discouragement when you expect more than is reasonable. Start out by reading a few verses from your Bible and answering one or more of the following questions:

  1. What does this passage tell me about God?
  2. What does it tell me about myself?
  3. How can I put these ideas into practice today, in a concrete, specific way?

Then offer a short prayer to your Father, thanking him for what you’ve learned and asking for his help in putting it into practice.

And the evening and the morning were the first day. Three to five minutes, with something clearly accomplished. You can do this.

As time progresses, add some more weights—write down what you’ve learned so you can go back over it when times are tough; add the third exercise by finding another believer with whom you can discuss briefly what you’re learning. Then work on adding reps—reading more, praying about more things, interacting with more believers.

  • Work at a pace that is achievable for you: aim for consistency to begin with, and you can get fancier later. As you add weight and reps, back off if you find that you can’t keep up.
  • Remember the primary goal: getting stronger. A physical exercise program isn’t about the machines or the weights or the mirrors; the process is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

And here we find a principle that doesn’t have an analog in the physical gym. The goal of getting stronger is in itself the means to another, even more important goal: knowing God. Spend time with him; give him your heart; nurture the relationship and the love that goes with it. Don’t obsess about how many verses you’ve read or how many minutes you’ve prayed or how many ideas you’ve written down in your journal. This is a date, not a business meeting driven by a nine-point agenda. Keep it heartfelt and real; don’t let it become mechanical.

As you experience the joy of daily fellowship with the lover of your soul, I suspect you’ll find that the time commitment and the process pretty much work themselves out. Love is like that.

Well, I’ve certainly mixed a lot of metaphors here, haven’t I?

Fair enough.

Don’t let that distract you from answering well the Second Most Important Question in the World.

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Filed Under: Bible, Theology Tagged With: means of grace, sanctification

On Building Spiritual Muscle, Part 5

January 27, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

We’ve looked at two of the exercise machines that build spiritual muscle. There’s one more.

We find our key word—grace—over in Ephesians. In chapter 4 Paul talks about putting off the “old man” and his “deeds” (Eph 4.22), and conversely “putting on”—like a new suit—the “new man” (Eph 4.24). He lists several behavioral changes that will follow—you’ll quit lying and start telling the truth (Eph 4.25); you’ll control your anger (Eph 4.26-27); you’ll stop stealing and start giving (Eph 4.28); you’ll start speaking in ways that build people up instead of tearing them down (Eph 4.29).

And as part of this last item, Paul throws in an off-handed comment that introduces us to our third exercise machine. Words “that are good for edification,” he says, will “give grace to those who hear.”

There’s our word grace. We ask our two exegetical questions:

  • Is the word grace here used in the narrower, technical sense, of spiritual strength? Since the immediate context speaks of “edification,” we can reasonably say yes.
  • Does the context identify a practice, an “exercise,” that results in this spiritual strength? It does; the exercise is our words—our conversation.

In a sense this passage is backwards from the other two. It’s not speaking of something that makes us stronger; it’s speaking rather of something we do that makes others stronger. But since this is a reciprocal activity, based in relationship, it’s reasonable to conclude that the words that others speak to us will similarly strengthen us, since they’re “good for edification.”

So the third exercise machine is conversation with other believers that strengthens us to live biblically in an antibiblical world.

We have a word for that, one that we get from the Scripture itself:

Fellowship.

We talk about fellowship a lot in our churches. We even have a room named for it: the Fellowship Hall.

How do we know which room in the church is the Fellowship Hall?

It’s the one with a kitchen.

And as a body we’ll frequently adjourn to the Fellowship Hall, where we’ll all eat casseroles and talk about sports and politics and who’s dating whom.

And when it’s done, we’ll leave and say that we had such good “fellowship” today.

No, we didn’t.

I’m not suggesting that it’s wrong to talk about sports or politics, or even who’s dating whom—provided we’re not gossiping.

But that’s not fellowship. It’s just conversation.

Fellowship is talking to one another about our relationships with Christ, and our struggles, and our victories, and our experiences. It’s encouraging one another as we walk the path of discipleship together. It’s building spiritual muscle in others by spotting them when they’re bench pressing and by telling them that they can do 10 more reps.

And it’s not just talk. It’s taking action to make things better. It’s intervening on behalf of “widows and orphans in their distress” (Jam 1.27) and going to someone’s house when he’s depressed and mowing an elderly couple’s lawn and telling an inattentive adult son that his Mom needs his financial help.

We can work on the other exercise machines alone. Bible study and prayer can be corporate, of course, but we actually need to have a significant portion of our time on those machines by ourselves.

But fellowship is a team sport. That’s the whole point.

A further thought.

You can’t knowingly encourage a fellow believer in his struggle if you don’t know he’s struggling. The church needs to be a place where we know that we can share those struggles safely and where we know that those who hear will care and respond with encouraging words and with selfless actions.

The church ought to be a safe space.

And we ought to measure our words, directing them as carefully as if they were bullets, able to stop the attacker but able also to hurt the good guys if they’re sent out carelessly, without possibility of recall.

We ought to engage one another in the body with care, and thought, and intent, and purpose.

We ought to put weights on that machine, too.

Part 6

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Filed Under: Bible, Theology Tagged With: means of grace, sanctification

On Building Spiritual Muscle, Part 4

January 23, 2020 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

You’ve had a few days on the first exercise machine—the Scripture—and if you’ve been diligent, you may have some sore muscles, ones you haven’t exercised in a while. Good for you.

What’s the next exercise machine?

Recall that we’re finding New Testament uses of the word grace where the context indicates that the word is speaking of spiritual strength, and where there’s some sort of practice indicated that builds up the grace.

Our second passage is probably familiar to you; it’s commonly included in Bible memory programs.

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4.16).

We see the word grace there. Is it a reference to spiritual strength? Since the verse ends with a reference to “help in time of need,” it seems to be in the neighborhood.

Is there an associated exercise? Well, we all know what “the throne of grace” is; perhaps your pastor begins his public prayer with the phrase, “Let’s all go before the throne of grace.” If he does, he’s getting the phrase from this verse. The context confirms that he’s right to see the phrase as a reference to prayer—we have a great high priest (Heb 4.14) who is sympathetic to our needs (Heb 4.15), so we ought to bring our requests to him in confidence (Heb 4.16).

Prayer.

I’ve noticed something over the years.

In my travels, particularly in developing countries, I’ve noticed that believers there seem to have a vibrancy and urgency and passion in their prayers that just doesn’t seem to happen much here in the States.

Why do you suppose that is?

Are Americans just not as emotional as other cultures?

The Super Bowl is a week from Sunday. I don’t think emotional coldness in the culture is the problem.

This is just my opinion, but I suspect that there are two characteristics of American culture that suppress our prayer life—

First, we’re rich.

You may not think you’re rich, but you are, comparatively speaking. If you have a place to live, and food to eat every day, you’re in better shape financially than a great swath of others on this planet.

And when your needs are not urgent for the continuation of your life—today—you don’t feel the kind of urgency in prayer that a great many people do. For most of us, if we really need something, we can just go out and buy it. A can of beans. A box of rice. Something to drink.

We may not be satisfied or content, but we’re not desperate either.

If your church still has Wednesday night prayer meeting, I suspect there’s a pattern there. What are most of the requests about?

Health. And especially cancer.

Why? Because we can handle most of the other stuff—or we think we can.

I’m not criticizing prayer for healing; I’m observing that in our culture, there’s relatively little that we really feel the need to pray about.

The second characteristic of American culture that suppresses our prayer fervency is one that might surprise you.

We’re free.

We talk about persecution of Christians in the US, but relatively speaking, we have it remarkably easy. When we gather, we don’t have to fear that the cops are going to show up, bust up the place, and ship us all off to the gulag.

I’ve been in places where that was a real possibility. It’ll change the way you pray.

So what do we do about all this? Seek poverty? Give up our freedom?

Of course not. For one thing, that would violate the biblical principle of stewardship, and for another, our freedom was purchased at great cost by brave men and women over the centuries; I’m not going to squander it.

But we do need to rise above our culture to see our genuine need, and to bring those needs humbly but confidently before the throne of grace. We need to pray as though it matters, because it does.

We need to put some weights on the machine.

Part 5 | Part 6

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Filed Under: Bible, Theology Tagged With: means of grace, sanctification

On Building Spiritual Muscle, Part 3

January 20, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 | Part 2

So welcome to the gym. You’ll notice the mirrors on the walls (Jam 1.22-25), as well as several exercise machines scattered around the room. Let’s talk a little about what they are and how they work.

The first exercise machine we find described in Acts 20. Paul is returning to Jerusalem from one of his mission trips, and he stops in Miletus, the port nearest Ephesus, where’s he spent two years ministering in the recent past (Ac 19.10). Because he’s in a hurry to get back to Jerusalem for one of the annual assembly feasts (Ac 20.16), he saves some time by sending for the elders of the church in Ephesus. They gather there on the dock beside the ship, and he gives them a farewell address; he knows there’s trouble ahead in Jerusalem (Ac 20.22-23), and he knows he may never see them again (Ac 20.25). (I think he did see them again [1Ti 1.3], after he was acquitted on his appeal to Caesar [2 Ti 4.16-17] just after the end of Acts, but that’s not an issue here.)

He charges them to lead the church well. He closes by saying,

And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified (Ac 20.32).

We see our word grace here. To confirm that this verse is relevant to our study, we need to ask two questions:

  • Does the context indicate that the word grace is being used in a narrower sense, of spiritual strength?
  • Is there some sort of means indicated here that tells us how to receive the spiritual strength?

In answer to the first question, Paul says that this grace “is able to build you up,” which is a pretty clear reference to spiritual strength. And in answer to the second question, he ties the grace to “the word”—the “word of his grace,” the “grace-giving word,” if you will.

So the first exercise machine is the Word, the Scripture. If you exercise on it, it will make you stronger.

Now I suppose I need to press the metaphor a little further.

If you go to the gym—the physical one—and sit at an exercise machine and pump away, but without engaging any weights on the cable, will that be any benefit?

Technically, yes; depending on how fast you pump, you might get some cardio benefit, and depending on the range of motion, you might get some improved flexibility out of it.

But will you build any muscle?

Nope.

You build muscle by tearing muscle fiber, and you do that by engaging resistance against the muscle.

You need to put weights on the machine.

How do you put weights on the Bible machine?

May I suggest some possibilities?

  • You do more than just read a verse or two and then get on with your day.
  • You read it extensively. It’s common among believers to read through the Bible each year. That’s certainly a great place to start.
  • You read it intensively. You read slowly, attentively, thoughtfully. You turn it over in your head. You draw conclusions and applications from it.
  • You reach beyond your grasp. You read what others have written about the passage, especially others with study tools that you may not have for yourself.
  • You memorize it, so you can turn it over in your mind anytime you have a spare minute.
  • You write down what you’ve learned, so it will be cemented more solidly in your mind.
  • You talk to others about it, both to hold yourself accountable and to benefit from their insights.
  • You find opportunities to teach it, because the best way to learn anything is to teach it.

I’m not suggesting that you need to study your Bible for hours every day; you don’t spend hours on any exercise machine, because life calls. But you put weights on the machine, to increase the benefit of the time you spend there.

And you build muscle.

Next time, a different exercise machine.

Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

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Filed Under: Bible, Theology Tagged With: means of grace, sanctification

On Building Spiritual Muscle, Part 2

January 16, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

I’ve suggested that our lives ought to be oriented around the work God is doing in his people to make them—us—more like his Son. I’ve also suggested that this work can be compared to an exercise program.

Although I think the analogy is helpful, I also recognize that it isn’t really useful unless the Scripture gives us reason to think that the sanctification process is in some ways similar to physical exercise.

Is there any evidence of that? Is there a biblical word for spiritual strength? And are there “exercises” attached to it?

There are of course words in the Bible that are translated “might” or “power” or “strength.” The most well-known one, I suppose, is the Greek dunamis; I suspect you’ve heard a preacher somewhere say that “this is the Greek word from which we get our word dynamite.” It’s used often in the New Testament in reference to the “power of God,” and once we’re told that it “works in us” (Ep 3.20). So that might be a profitable study for us.

I’d like to direct your thinking, though, to a different word, one that might not come to mind in this connection. It’s the word grace.

I suspect you’re thinking that you know what grace means, and it’s not “strength.” You learned in Sunday school that it means “unmerited favor”—“God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.”

And indeed it does. It refers to anything you’ve received that you don’t deserve.

But you also know that words have multiple meanings. If you look up pretty much any word, in pretty much any language, the dictionary will list several definitions, or nuances, for it. Humans are creative—because they’re in the image of God, who is creative—and we make up new meanings for our words all the time. (Teenagers are especially good at this.)

Thus one of the basic steps in studying any word is to determine the various meanings it has. In the case of grace (charis in Greek), it can have several meanings—for example, a present or gift (Ac 24.27; 25.9); credit (Lk 6.32-34); honor (Ac 2.47); and, yes, unmerited favor (Ac 15.11). But occasionally it’s used in a more specific, perhaps even technical, sense, of a particular thing you don’t deserve—namely, spiritual strength. You can see this especially in 2Co 12.9, where Jesus says to Paul,

“My grace is sufficient for you,
for power is perfected in weakness.”

Note the parallelism between these two clauses; grace is in parallel with power (Greek dunamis). It’s no surprise that this verse is often used in theology as a proof text for the omnipotence of Christ and therefore for his deity.

Grace is strength. So Paul tells young Timothy, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2Ti 2.1).

So here’s our biblical question: does the Scripture ever use the word grace in the sense of spiritual strength, where the context indicates a mechanism for building that strength—a spiritual exercise, if you will?

Does the Bible tell us how we can “exercise [Greek gumnazo, as in gymnasium] ourselves unto godliness” (1Ti 4.7)?

Well, the Greek word charis, “grace,” occurs 160 times in the New Testament; that’s quite a list of verses to go through. From those 160 occurrences, we need to select those that are speaking of spiritual strength; then from that smaller list, we need to select any occurrences that specify an exercise for building spiritual strength.

That’s gonna take some time.

Fortunately, there are people who have already done that work, and we can benefit from their labors.

There are three passages in the Scripture that seem to have what we’re looking for, and each of those passages specifies a different spiritual exercise.

The great thing about this exercise program is that it doesn’t matter what kind of shape you’re in at the moment; you can get started right away, and you don’t have to pace yourself to prevent a cardiac event.

Oh, and you have a Trainer who has the supernatural ability to impart his infinite strength to you whenever you need it, so you can keep making progress. “Just 10 more reps,” indeed.

Best fitness program ever.

Next time, we’ll drop by the gym and begin examining the exercise machines.

Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Photo by Jelmer Assink on Unsplash

Filed Under: Bible, Theology Tagged With: means of grace, sanctification

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