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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What Peter Learned in the High Priest’s Palace, Part 5: Witness

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Growth | Part 3: Sacrifice | Part 4: Praise

Peter has one more principle to share from his painful failure in the high priest’s palace.

11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; 12 Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation (1P 2.11-12).

If we’ve been altered so radically by God’s selection of us, it ought to make a difference in our thinking, our outlook (and thus even our facial expressions!), our decisions, our day-to-day behavior. Peter has already stated as much in verse 9. Moving from darkness to light certainly changes the way you see things.

But here he restates the contrast between the old and new life, and then he draws yet another consequence of that change.

His emphasis here turns from what God has done to and for us, to what we ought to do in response. Here comes an imperative: abstain. The object he chooses is “fleshly lusts,” which includes a lot more things than we typically envision. When we hear the word lusts, we immediately think of sexual lusts—which this term definitely includes—but really it envelops any of our inclinations that are primarily for our own benefit; fleshly doesn’t have to mean physical. Paul uses the word flesh frequently for anything related to “the old man,” the former way of life. I don’t think it unlikely that Peter might have picked up that use of the word as well.

In the old days, he says, we used to make our choices based simply on our own self-interest. (And here his mind could well have gone back to that fateful night in the high priest’s palace.) Now, he says, we act in God’s best interest.

And that means acting in the interest of others as well: we “have our conversation honest” (“conduct honorable” ESV) or live honestly in our interaction with others. We don’t take advantage of them; we don’t deceive them; we don’t speak critically of them; we don’t take actions that lower their value or interfere with their progress toward worthy goals. (Yeah, after I finish writing this post, I really, really need to go mow my lawn. It’s lowering the property values of the whole neighborhood.)

And what happens when we live out among our neighbors the changes that God has made in us?

They “behold.” They see. They notice. This word see is the word for an eyewitness in a legal case. The eyewitness reports what he has seen; he testifies to the validity of the evidence. Just as DNA evidence is proof positive of identification, so also God has placed in us his DNA, if I may say so, and the evidence of his work in us should be indisputable. We are evidence in the court of history. Are we convincing?

Note that others do notice, despite their predisposition to reject us; though “they speak evil against you as unbelievers,” they still notice. And Peter says that they will respond to the genuineness they see: they will “glorify God.”

Does this mean that they will come to Christ because of what they have seen? or merely that they will be forced, despite their unbelief, to bow the knee to him at the end of it all? I’m not sure; it could involve either. I would certainly prefer the former, but we know that final submission will come to all (Ro 14.11; Php 2.10-11).

Peter says that our observers will glorify God “in the day of visitation.” When is that? Well, the phrase literally means “the day of oversight [or overseeing],” and that could mean a lot of things. Maybe it’s the day when they come to conversion—that’s certainly a day when they would glorify God. Or maybe it’s the day of judgment, when every knee shall bow.

But in any case, God will be glorified, and some of that glorification will be the direct result of the good work he has done in us.

Peter learned a lot in that palace. He was changed, painfully, from someone who was interested only in promoting his own agenda and benefit to someone who called himself a “servant” of Jesus Christ (2P 1.1), the very one he had betrayed. May we be changed as well.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

What Peter Learned in the High Priest’s Palace, Part 4: Praise

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Growth | Part 3: Sacrifice

Peter turns now to a deeper meditation on what God has done to us, and for us. He writes,

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light (1P 2.9).

There’s a lot to consider here.

Peter has listed 4 different labels, we might say, delineating 4 statuses that God has bestowed on his people. Each one of them is worth a look.

  • We’re a chosen generation.
    • Some modern translations ues the word race or people. I don’t much use the word race anymore, because it doesn’t have any agreed-upon meaning among sociologists and thus doesn’t typically contribute any clarity to a conversation. The Greek word here is genos, which speaks essentially of a group of relatives, large or small, or of beings with a shared characteristic or interest. It’s the word Moses uses in Genesis (in the Greek translation, at least) that’s translated “kind” in the creation account.
    • So what’s Peter saying? God has chosen us, His people, to be of a certain kind, distinct from others, but united by his choice. We know from elsewhere in Scripture that he didn’t choose us because we were inherently different from others; it is our relationship to him that has now distinguished us.
  • We’re a royal priesthood.
    • We should note here that in Israel it was impossible for one person to be both a king and a priest. The king had to be from the tribe of Judah, and the priests had to be from Levi, and specifically from Aaron. Even Jesus was not qualified to be an Aaronic priest—and so the author of Hebrews notes that he was appointed by the Father to be a priest in a different order, that of Melchizedek—which, as the author notes, is a superior order to that of Levi (He 7.1-17).
    • So it is a special privilege for us, like our elder brother Christ, to be both kings and priests.
  • We’re a peculiar people.
    • I’m using the familiar wording of the KJV here, but we all know that with the changes in the English language since 1611, peculiar doesn’t mean what it once did, with the result that this expression is, well, peculiar. The modern versions have mostly settled on the expression “a people for his own possession”; we might say “his own private property.”
    • So we belong especially to God. We are set aside for his enjoyment and use. He delights in us the way someone delights in his boat, say, or in his coin collection—but in fact far more than that, because his delights are greater than ours, and perfect.
  • We’re a holy nation.
    • This phrase combines a couple of earlier concepts. Holy speaks of the same kind of setting-apart that peculiar does, while nation speaks of the same kind of common identity that generation does.
    • But I think nation (ethnos) might carry a connotation a little different from genos. For one thing, I note that in Israel, the term was used for “the nations”—that is to say, the Gentiles. To Peter’s Jewish readers—and probably to Peter himself—this would have been a little uncomfortable at least. Is Peter saying that God is making a new nation, distinct from Israel? It would seem so. The ramifications of that concept have led to a good many theological arguments, which we won’t take time for here.

God has changed our status in all these ways—for what? Peter isolates a single purpose: “that we should show forth the praises of him.” NASB and ESV say “proclaim the excellencies.” Now, this isn’t saying that we ourselves should praise him, so much as that we should speak and live in such a way that others are moved to praise him. The excellencies of how he has changed us should incite wonder and worship in those who see us.

That’s a complete turnaround from the way Peter was thinking in the high priest’s palace. And it’s a radical change for us as well.

Part 5: Witness

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

What Peter Learned in the High Priest’s Palace, Part 3: Sacrifice

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Growth

Peter learned something else the night he betrayed his Master. He writes,

You also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ (1P 2.5).

The Scripture uses several metaphors for God’s people. We’re a body (Ro 12.4-5); we’re a kingdom (Re 1.6); we’re a bride (2Co 11.2). Here Peter says that we’re a temple. And individual believers are living stones who make up the temple, as well as being the priests who work in the temple. Peter’s point here isn’t that the stones are beautiful and that together they compose a beautiful building—though that is certainly true. His emphasis is more practical, purposeful, utilitarian than aesthetic. We are a temple, and priests in that temple, for the purpose of offering up sacrifices to God.

So, it turns out, following Jesus isn’t really about us.

Oh, there are benefits to us, of course: forgiveness, eternal life, love, joy, peace, fellowship—and on and on it goes. But it’s primarily about making sacrifices to the one who is ultimately great and good, to the one who planned and accomplished all those benefits that we have reaped. Our focus is on him, not our benefits.

Peter had bragged about his devotion and assured faithfulness. But when faced by public pressure—from a couple of servant girls—he collapsed. He was thinking entirely of his own felt needs—reputation and self-preservation, mostly—and abandoned “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16.16) in his Master’s time of much greater need.

The way someone acts in a crisis tells him what his most primal needs are. Peter demonstrated that he cared more about himself than anyone else.

As do we all.

But with this new birth, this discarding of the old life for the new, this utter reversal of focus, we are called to count “but dung” (Php 3.8) our former fascination with ourselves, our needs, and our desires, and to give what we have, to sacrifice, to God.

That raises a question.

What can we give him? Why should he want our junky stuff? Of what use to him is rifling through our yard sales?

Good question.

Peter speaks to that. Our sacrifices, he says, “are acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1P 2.5).

How about that.

Our new life isn’t just a chance to start the same kind of life over again; it’s a different kind of life, and it’s a change of both nature and location.

We are, as Paul repeatedly says, “in Christ” (Ro 8.1; 12.5; 1Co 1.30; 2Co 5.17; Ga 3.28; Ep 2.13; Php 1.1; Co 1.2; 1Th 2.14; and elsewhere). And in Christ, the Father is well pleased (Mt 3.17). When we offer sacrifices to God, he sees them as coming from his Son, and he is delighted with them. When we “present [our] bodies a living sacrifice” (Ro 12.1), God accepts and treasures them.

The key here is not what is offered; Peter says we offer sacrifices (1P 2.5), but he doesn’t seem to have any interest in specifying what it is that we offer. The key, I think, is that we offer at all. In the high priest’s palace, Peter wasn’t thinking about Jesus’ benefit; he was thinking merely of himself. That night he learned that our decisions, because we are followers of Christ, need to be focused on him. What will please him? What will advance his kingdom? What will further his purposes? What will enhance his reputation?

In human relationships, we know that the real value of a gift is not in the gift itself; it’s in the fact that it’s given. It indicates that we were thinking about the person to whom we gave it. Our thinking is oriented toward that person.

There you have it. In this new life, Peter says, we live as oriented toward God and not toward ourselves.

So, unlike Peter, we make sacrifices. In the face of public scorn, we point to heaven and say, “I’m with Him.” We take a stand.

No waffling. No hesitation. No regrets.

Part 4: Praise | Part 5: Witness

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

What Peter Learned in the High Priest’s Palace, Part 2: Growth

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Part 1: Introduction

Peter begins his second chapter by describing his audience as babies (1P 2.2).

That’s not normally a compliment; nowadays, when you call somebody a baby, you’re saying that he’s acting immaturely, selfishly. You’re saying he needs to grow up.

In some places, them’s fightin’ words.

Peter’s point, however, is not at all hostile or demeaning. He’s telling us something he learned through his failure.

When you come to Christ, you’re not just getting your sins forgiven and escaping from judgment; you’re starting a whole new life. This is happening in the spiritual sphere rather than the physical, but there are significant points of comparison between the two. When you first come to Jesus, you’re a spiritual baby, and like a physical baby, you desperately need to grow up spiritually. This isn’t an accusation; it’s a fact. We don’t denigrate babies for being babies; we nurture and protect them—and we feed them like crazy: all they want, whenever they want. We rearrange our lives around the baby’s hunger pangs.

If babies don’t grow, they die.

That’s true in botany as well as human development. Some people—we say they have a “green thumb”—can make plants grow seemingly without effort. Others—including yours truly—kill everything they touch. I once killed a barrel cactus.

Do you know how hard it is to kill a barrel cactus?

The growth principle is true in business too. You can’t just create a system and cash checks while the system hums along smoothly; you need to grow, constantly adapting to new market conditions. If you don’t, your competitors will eat you alive. (See under “Howard Johnson’s Restaurants.”)

Children know that they need to grow. They follow their advancing age a half a year at a time: “I’m not five; I’m five and a half.” They mark their advancing height on the closet door frame. They talk about what they’re going to do when they’re whatever age.

I recall when my daughter turned 6 and was allowed to go to the stage productions on campus. Her first one was an opera—Barber of Seville if I remember correctly—and when the overture started, she slid forward in her seat and hardly moved for the rest of the night. What a delight it was for her to experience growing up.

Children talk about it all the time: “When I grow up, I’m gonna … “ I’ve never gotten over that; I’ve enjoyed every year more than the one before.

We love to grow, to mature, to get better at things we enjoy. Growth is good.

One dark night Peter learned that in his life in Christ, he was a baby; he had a lot of growing to do.

What makes a baby grow?

Nutrition. Lots of it. He eats and eats and eats, and eats some more.

That’s how we grow spiritually as well; we need to eat spiritual food, as much as we can hold. So Peter says, “As newborn babies, crave the unadulterated milk of the Word” (1P 2.2). He has just observed that “the Word of the Lord endures forever” (1P 1.25); there’s no better or more powerful source of spiritual nutrition than that.

We need to feed hungrily on the Word, filling our minds and hearts with it, building spiritual muscle, gaining wisdom and experience, so we’re not likely to do the spiritual equivalent of running out into the street and getting hit by a car.

That’s pretty much what Peter did in the high priest’s palace.

But by the power of the Word, and the Spirit, Peter began a new life. Not a perfect one, by any means (see Galatians 2), but a generally healthy and productive one.

So how’s your growth going? How do those little pencil marks on the closet door frame look?

Part 3: Sacrifice | Part 4: Praise | Part 5: Witness

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

What Peter Learned in the High Priest’s Palace, Part 1: Introduction

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Among Bible students, Peter has become almost a stereotype of himself. We all feel like we know him: outspoken, impetuous, the bull in the china shop, lots of braggadocio with comparatively little accomplishment.

Some would say that’s the early Peter, before the Lord changed him at Pentecost. He famously went from “the fear of the Jews” (Jn 20.19) to facing down the Sanhedrin’s threats (Ac 4.5-20) and even to being soundly asleep in prison the night before his scheduled execution (Ac 12.1-7). That’s an astonishing change, not one to be sniffed at.

But then he disappoints us again, allowing the presence of Judaizers in Antioch to intimidate him into withdrawing fellowship from Gentile believers and apparently returning to Mosaic dietary restrictions (Ga 2.11-12)—and this after a vision from God (Ac 10.9-16) affirming what Jesus had taught during his earthly ministry: that all foods were now clean (Mk 7.19).

We can say confidently at least that during Jesus’ earthly ministry, Peter the coarse, tough fisherman indeed fit the stereotype. He was brimming with confidence, speaking out of turn (Mt 17.4), boasting of what he would accomplish (Mt 26.35), even rebuking his Master for a solemn pronouncement (Mt 16.22), and earning a greater rebuke in return (Mt 16.23)—and that shortly after proclaiming him “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Mt 16.16).

But as we know, his world came crashing down one dark night in Jerusalem. Despite his boasting (Mt 26.35), he did indeed deny his Master, not once, but three times (Mt 26.69-74)—and a threefold cord, the Preacher tells us, is not quickly broken (Ec 4.12). His denial of Jesus came from fear of a couple of servant girls (Mt 26.69-71). Crashing down, indeed; “he went out,” Matthew tells us, “and wept bitterly” (Mt 26.75).

A hard lesson in the high priest’s palace.

But the Lord has plans for Peter. After the resurrection the angel at the tomb makes special mention of Peter to the women: “Go your way, tell his disciples—and Peter—that he’s going before you into Galilee” (Mk 16.7). And in Galilee, while several of the disciples are fishing on the lake, the resurrected Jesus invites them to come join him for breakfast on the beach (Jn 21.12). After they eat, he invites Peter, and apparently only Peter (Jn 21.20), to go for a walk on the beach. In a tender conversation, he gently reminds Peter of his threefold failure of love (Jn 21.15-17), each time calling his failed disciple to return to service: “Feed my sheep.” And with a stronger threefold cord, not breakable at all, he binds up Peter’s spiritual wounds.

And then he tells him the greatest news of all: Peter is going to serve Jesus until the day he dies (Jn 21.18-19).

And he does. That service lasts a long time, more than three decades according to well-attested tradition. He stays in Jerusalem for some time, during which he faces down the Sanhedrin, as we’ve noted already (Ac 4.8ff); he miraculously establishes order in the Jerusalem church by exposing a lie (Ac 5.1-9); he exposes a false convert in Samaria, while also serving as the vehicle by which the Holy Spirit is given to the Samaritans (Ac 8.14-25); he raises a saint from the dead at Lydda (Ac 9.32-43); he brings the gospel to the first Gentile to believe (Ac 10.44-48); he survives an attempted execution (Ac 12.1-16); and he helps lay a solid foundation for the unification of Jews and Gentiles in the body of Christ by his biblical and theological contribution at the Council of Jerusalem (Ac 15.7ff). According to tradition, he helps start the church at Rome and ministers there.[1]

And later yet, after long service, he writes two letters to believers in what is today Turkey, to encourage them during persecution and to urge them to be faithful until the return of Christ.

In those letters, he leaves a written record of what he learned in the high priest’s palace.

For a few posts we’ll look at just a portion of one of those letters.

[1] Irenaeus (Against Heresies 3.1.1, 3.3.2, and 3.3.3), as well as several citations in Eusebius’s Church History, report this, along with others.

Part 2: Growth | Part 3: Sacrifice | Part 4: Praise | Part 5: Witness

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

On Thinking Like Christ, Part 1: The Most Important Thing

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Here we are at another New Year. And as is the routine, we’re thinking about resolutions, bettering ourselves. And that task has us thinking about priorities: what’s most important? What’s the best use of our limited time and resources?

It’s good to do this kind of thinking.

For Christians, the Most Important Thing is to be on God’s side, to be devoted to his plan(s) for us. And that involves a lot of things.

But most especially it involves God’s work of sanctifying us, making us to be more like His Son.

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren (Ro 8.29).

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2Co 3.18).

In the process called sanctification, God is changing us, over time, to be more like his Son.

That ought to be our Most Important Thing.

New Year or not.

In light of that, I’d like to spend a few posts meditating on that classic Christological passage in Philippians 2:

5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Php 2.5-11).

The passage begins by telling us—that’s who Paul is addressing—that we ought to be thinking the way Jesus is thinking here. And that thought pattern, as we shall see, ought to be surprising, given who he is.

The paragraph has a very clear two-part structure. Verses 5 through 8 describe the way Jesus thought, and how he acted as a result. We can call that his humbling, or his humility, or perhaps his humiliation.

The rest of the passage, verses 9 through 11, describes the Father’s action in response to Jesus’ humble way of thinking: his exaltation.

It’s worth noting at the outset that Jesus did not humble himself in order to be exalted; he was already exalted, as verse 6 makes clear. He humbled himself, first, in obedience to the Father’s plan, and second, to rescue those he loved as his creatures in his image. The exaltation unavoidably followed.

So when Paul tells us that we ought to think like Jesus, he’s not saying that we should be all about the exaltation; the command is focused on verses 5 through 8.

We’ll spend several posts considering this passage. Perhaps these thoughts can inform and animate your resolutions, whatever they may be.

Part 2: Moving to the Dump | Part 3: It Gets Worse | Part 4: And Worse | Part 5: Reversal | Part 6: Risen | Part 7: Ascended | Part 8: Enthroned | Part 9: Coming Again | Part 10: Final Thoughts

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

The Myth of the Super Christian, Part 6: Pray. Hard.

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Part 1: No Such Thing | Part 2: Eternal Values | Part 3: Healthy Distrust of Self | Part 4: A Clear and Uncontested Goal | Part 5: All In. Every Day.

There’s one more element in Paul’s description of his spiritual walk that tells us volumes about his success as a believer.

In the last letter he wrote that’s been preserved, Paul is in prison in Rome. This is the second time for him. Last time, he was upbeat about his prospects—

  • In his letter to Philemon, likely written early in that 2-year imprisonment, he expects to prevail in his appeal to Caesar (Ac 25.10-11) and thus to be released; he tells Philemon to prepare him a place to stay when he comes to visit (Phm 1.22).
  • When he writes to the Philippians, likely toward the end of the imprisonment, he still expects to visit the church there in Philippi (Php 1.25; 2.24).

But this time is different. Rather than being under house arrest in rented, and relatively comfortable, residential quarters (Ac 28.30), Paul is now in a prison—traditionally the Mamartine prison, a dungeon—and is clearly not expecting to be released (2Ti 4.6-8). He is largely alone (2Ti 4.9-11) and in need of supplies (2Ti 4.13). He is settling his affairs (2Ti 4.14-15).

But he is not discouraged or depressed. He expects the Lord’s work on his behalf (2Ti 4.18) and eventual eternal reward, in the Lord’s timing (2Ti 4.8).

Victorious to the end, regardless of the challenging circumstances.

And in this context, in this epistle, in these circumstances, we find one more clue.

I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day (2Ti 1.3).

He prays.

He communes with his Father, drawing spiritual strength to thrive in all those challenging circumstances, ones that would very likely do us in.

He’s really serious about this; he prays “without ceasing … night and day.”

I’d have trouble with that—especially the night part. In those times, I fall asleep.

I’m not the only one—right?

And I note something further here, something that sheds more light on his outlook.

He doesn’t speak of praying for himself; he asks others to do that (Co 4.3; 1Th 5.25; 2Th 3.1). He prays for others, for Timothy, his “dearly beloved son” in the faith (2Ti 1.2). Even in extremity, his thoughts, his concerns, are for others.

He follows his Lord’s example in this. Jesus prayed for long sessions (Mt 14.23), sometimes all night (Lk 6.12); and in his greatest extremity, he prayed for others, for those who believed in him (Jn 17.6-26).

This kind of prayer is hard work, both because it is lengthy and because it is on behalf of others. Paul describes such prayer—in this case the prayer offered by his coworker Epaphras—as “labor”—

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God (Co 4.12).

The Greek word rendered “laboring” here is agonizomai, which we all recognize as the etymological origin of our word agonize. It’s used of athletes in competition, on Game Day, who are leaving it all on the field (1Co 9.25). Specifically it’s used of boxers (1Ti 6.12, 2Ti 4.7). And more significantly, it’s used of soldiers (Jn 18.36), who are fighting for their lives.

We’re not often called up to fight like that. And we don’t often pray like that.

Paul prayed “without ceasing … night and day.”

This was not formal prayer, grace before dinner, after which someone at the table asks, “Did we pray?” It’s constant, mindful, effortful communication with God.

The Christian life is not easy for anyone; there are no “naturally gifted athletes” in the Christian race. It means rejecting your natural self and renewing the battle every day. It means staying in constant communication with “headquarters.” It’s a tough battle.

There are no Super Christians. There are just people who fight the battle every day.

Re-enlist.

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The Myth of the Super Christian, Part 5: All In. Every Day.

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Part 1: No Such Thing | Part 2: Eternal Values | Part 3: Healthy Distrust of Self | Part 4: A Clear and Uncontested Goal

There’s another element in Paul’s spiritual life that we non-super Christians should seek to emulate.

Paul was into his relationship with Christ for the long haul, and he knew that reaching the end of that road meant staying on it every day, every mile.

He was all in.

That shouldn’t surprise us. Jesus made it clear that following him is no casual commitment. After he had fed the 5000 men and their families—something that brought out of the woodwork a whole lot of uncommitted hangers-on (Jn 6.22-66)—Jesus warned his disciples that hard times were coming, including official rejection and even execution (Lk 9.22), things that were not for the faint of heart. It was at this moment that he told them,

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me (Lk 9.23).

Following Jesus means dying to self—that’s what “taking up a cross” means—and doing that every day. Commitment. Discipline. Reliability. Without fail.

This daily faithfulness is hard.

I teach an undergraduate systematic theology class that requires a lot of Bible memorization. I tell my students on the first day that I know they’re intimidated, but that pretty much anybody can do the memorization—but there’s only one way to do it, and cramming is not it.

Memorization requires Regular. Spaced. Repetition.

You go over the material every day. Doesn’t have to take long—just a few minutes—but it has to be every day. Over time, as you pull the material out of your brain at constant intervals, it becomes yours. In the end, it’s not really an intellectual or intelligence problem; it’s a character problem.

Every day.

When a student is doing significantly worse on his verse quizzes than the other material, I ask him to tell me how he’s studying for those quizzes. Are you doing what I told you on day one? Well, no, but I’m really busy.

Well, this is how cramming turns out. You have the time—just 5 minutes a day. But every day. It works.

Right now I’m memorizing lines for a play. I was hesitant to accept the role, frankly, because I’m 68, and the old brain ain’t what it used to be, and I’ve blanked out on stage before, and that’s a really unpleasant experience for me and all the other actors trying to work with me to present something intelligible and esthetically pleasing.

So I know I need to go over the lines. Every day. If I miss a day, I’ve set myself back more than just a day.

Thinking about that feeling of blanking out in front of an audience is a powerful incentive to be faithful.

Now, this play is a farce, and its long-term value is negligible.

How much more seriously should my students take the task of memorizing God’s Word in a way that will plant that theological database in their heads for the rest of their lives?

And how much more seriously even than that should Christ’s followers, all of them, take the daily task of taking up our cross and following him?

Jesus didn’t say this just once.

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. 27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple (Lk 14.26-27).

Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple (Lk 14.33).

No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God (Lk 9.62).

Nor did Paul.

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward [man] is renewed day by day (2Co 4.16).

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me (Ga 2.20).

Reenter the battle. Every day. All in.

Follow Jesus.

Part 6: Pray. Hard.

Photo by James on Unsplash

The Myth of the Super Christian, Part 4: A Clear and Uncontested Goal

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Part 1: No Such Thing | Part 2: Eternal Values | Part 3: Healthy Distrust of Self

We’ve seen two characteristics of the spiritual life of Paul, who was not a super Christian, that led to his spiritual success. As we read his personal reflections, we find another, one that shouldn’t surprise us: he was going somewhere, and he knew where that was.

In his brief autobiography in Philippians 3, we find that Paul had accomplishments that many people would be proud of:

  • He had observant Jewish parents, who had him circumcised on the 8th day after his birth, in accordance with the Mosaic Law (Php 3.5; cf Le 12.1-3). He was “an eighth-day one,” as the Greek literally says. He was no late-blooming proselyte with wasted early years. From his very birth, he was in a God-fearing home, with both parents cooperating for his spiritual benefit. He had the most auspicious of beginnings.
  • He was “of the stock of Israel” (Php 3.5)—no Gentile blood in him. His people were God’s chosen, the ones God held close to his heart.
  • He was of the tribe of Benjamin (Php 3.5). He knew his ancestry, all the way back to the patriarchs. And he was related to Israel’s first king, the tall one, the one God’s people had chosen from among all their people. Indeed, he was most likely named for him. During the civil war following the death of King David, Benjamin was the only tribe to join with Judah on Rehoboam’s side (2Ch 11.1). He had an enviable pedigree.
  • He was “a Hebrew of the Hebrews” (Php 3.5). Commentators suggest a couple of things that this phrase might mean:
    • He was not a Hellenist, one open to the customs of the Greek culture that surrounded Israel; he was no compromiser. (I’m not inclined to this view; Paul seems familiar with Hellenistic thinking in his writing.)
    • He was able to read the Hebrew Scriptures in the original Hebrew—without vowels, which meant essentially memorizing the text—and to speak the related language of Aramaic; he didn’t need to read it in the Greek of the Septuagint. He had access to all the sources available, including the original Hebrew words of God himself.
  • He was a Pharisee (Php 3.5), the strictest of the Jewish sects, absolutely devoted to the keeping of the Law in the minutest detail. The Pharisees even tithed their herbs (Mt 23.23; Lk 11.42). No one was more pious than Saul and his friends. Indeed he was so zealous a Pharisee that he set out to arrest and kill the followers of the lunatic heretic Jesus, who had been executed as a criminal.
  • He was, by his own testimony, blameless before the Law (Php 3.6). That’s an astonishing claim; it had to involve endless washings, endless sacrifices, endless arduous journeys from Tarsus to Jerusalem, endless climbing to the Temple Mount to present his offering to the priest whose course was on duty that month. He was focused like a laser on the endless picayune requirements.

And then, in blinding flash of heavenly light, he abandoned it all (Php 3.7). He viewed it as sewage, reeking of corruption (Php 3.8).

What could possibly cause that kind of turnaround? What would it take for you, or me, to toss aside our most cherished goals and accomplishments?

For Paul, it was a vision of Christ (Ac 9.1-9).

Decades later, writing to the Philippian church, he speaks of “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” (Php 3.8)—that’s the same sentence where he speaks of his former accomplishments as sewage. A sentence or two later he says, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Php 3.10).

Paul’s goal was to know Jesus. It drove everything else out of his mind and off his radar.

As he meditated on this idea, he realized that knowing Christ came with other infinitely valuable benefits—

  • Unity with Christ, being “in Him” (Php 3.9)
  • The righteousness that comes from God through faith (Php 3.9)
  • Having the kind of power that Christ displayed in his resurrection (Php 3.10)
  • Being like him (Php 3.10)
  • Being resurrected when the time comes (Php 3.11)
  • And the prize: the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Php 3.14).

We live in a day when some of those who profess to follow Christ have much lower goals: personal recognition, or temporary political power, or rhetorical victory over those who disagree with them—who are, incidentally, the very people that their professed Master has sent them to reach.

What sewage.

We can know Christ.

Nothing else matters.

Part 5: All In. Every Day. | Part 6: Pray. Hard.

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The Myth of the Super Christian, Part 3: Healthy Distrust of Self

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Part 1: No Such Thing | Part 2: Eternal Values

So Paul begins his walk with God by reorienting his values away from those of the world—what we might call his culture—and toward things of eternal value, specifically the kingdom of God and his own calling to devote himself to it.

What’s next?

I began the previous post with a list of passages in which Paul confesses his own sinfulness. Bible students have often noted that these statements span almost the entire length of Paul’s ministry: 1 Corinthians is written relatively early during his traveling ministry, while Ephesians is written from prison, and 1 Timothy is written after his release from prison, during his later travels. The same students have noted that these statements seem to crescendo—that Paul’s estimation of himself early in his ministry (“I am the least of the apostles”) is less severe an indictment than his estimation years later (“I am chief of sinners”).

Paul began his ministry with a distrustful view of himself, informed by the kind of person he had been before he met Christ; and as he served, he seems to have grown increasingly distrustful of himself, despite the fact that the Spirit of God was working in him, through time, to conform him more and more to the image of Christ (2Co 3.18).

Someone has said that the closer the Christian comes to Christ, the more he is illuminated by Christ’s glory, and consequently the more easily and clearly he can see his own sins. If you think you’re doing pretty well, then you probably need to turn on the light.

I’m amused when I hear someone on the news say that their friend simply isn’t capable of whatever disgusting thing he’s been accused of. Of course it’s appropriate to consider evidence of a person’s good character and reputation when deciding whether an accusation is credible or not, but the fact is that under the right set of circumstances, pretty much anybody is capable of pretty much anything. I’ve found myself surprised—shocked—by my own reaction to various kinds of stress, and I suspect you have too. This human condition is the stuff of all sorts of literary plots. As the prophet Jeremiah observed more than 2500 years ago,

The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jer 17.9).

Paul was not self-focused; he didn’t spend his days beating himself up mentally for his failures and shortcomings. But he did have a healthy distrust of his own inclinations, and he saw to it that the circumstantial doors to those inclinations were kept closed.

If you think about it, this kind of healthy distrust is liberating. It destroys frustration, for we realize that any expectations we have of ourselves are overblown. We’re no longer puzzled by our failure.

And more importantly, we’re driven by this distrust to the things that lead to our prospering. When we stumble into sin, we seek forgiveness, cleansing, restoration, and empowerment from the One who loves to give it, thereby restoring and refreshing our relationship with a loving heavenly Father. And when we face ministry challenges, we don’t waste time trying to proceed on the strength of our own ability and wisdom; we take time to seek strength and wisdom from the Father, who pours it out abundantly, thereby delivering ourselves of the wasted time and effort that would yield, at best, only mediocrity.

Paul describes times in his life when he was under the burden of his own mediocrity. He tells the Corinthian church of a time during his ministry that “we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life” (2Co 1.8). His response? “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead” (2Co 1.9). Another time he pleaded with God to remove a “thorn in the flesh” from him, and heard Jesus say, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2Co 12.9).

We’re broken and unreliable. We don’t solve that problem by patting ourselves on the back and repeating positive affirmations about how good and strong we are. We solve it by recognizing the truth and then going to the One who is unbroken and infinitely reliable, relying on his wisdom, strength, and grace to bring us through to ministry success.

Part 4: A Clear and Uncontested Goal | Part 5: All In. Every Day. | Part 6: Pray. Hard.

Photo by James on Unsplash