Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Love | Part 3: Joy | Part 4: Peace

The fourth character quality growing on the tree in the Spirit’s garden is—well, it depends on whom you ask. The KJV calls it “longsuffering”; the NIV, “forbearance”; and the other major English translations, “patience.”

Hardly anybody uses the word “longsuffering” anymore—at least, outside of church. Same with “forbearance.” But “patience” we understand.

It’s not losing your temper. It’s not letting the fact that you’re in a hurry turn you into a jerk. It’s taking a deep breath and just waiting your turn.

Interestingly, this word seems to be used particularly of how we interact with people. There’s a different word, “endurance,” for bearing up under difficult circumstances. This one’s about people.

In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew/Aramaic Old Testament, this word is reliably used to translate a Hebrew word that means, literally, “long of nostrils”—that is, someone whose nose is so long that it takes a long time for it to get red with anger.

And if the concept strikes us as a little comical, it really shouldn’t; God himself claims it as one of his central attributes:

“The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; ⁷ who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations” (Ex 34.6-7).

I’ve written a series of posts on this passage in the past. Spoiler alert: God controls himself perfectly and infinitely, allowing 4 generations of descendants to feel the natural consequences of their forebears’ sins, but extending mercy for 1,000 generations—in human terms, forever—because he is “slow to anger”: the end of his nose doesn’t quickly get red.

And as God enables us, through the work of his Spirit, to follow his example in this regard, we should consider what that looks like: God, who is, like us, an emotional being, is revulsed by the pervasive and persistent sins of his creatures, those who bear his image and wallow in his common grace, but does not lose his temper, does not strike out in frustration, does not become the servant rather than the master of his wrath. Though the anger is righteous, and deserved by those creatures, God persists in grace and mercy and forgiveness, for thousands of years, until the day—the right day, the perfect day—when all that anger is unleashed in the only place, and in the only way, and on the only person, by which righteousness and deliverance could be accomplished.

Our anger, such as it is, should look like that. It should be rightly motivated, controlled, and purposeful.

That’s hard for us, because we get frustrated.

Has it ever occurred to you why that is?

It’s because things are not perfectly under our control; we’re not sovereign.

God is sovereign. He never gets frustrated, because he has no meaningful obstacles.

Frustration is a sign and consequence of our limitations—limitations we’ll have until the day we die, and some of which we’ll have even after that.

But as we grow in the Spirit, he enables us to see past our limitations to God’s sovereignty—to trust the wisdom and goodness of his plans for us, and to learn to trust his time scale rather than imposing our own. He’s not in a hurry, because he doesn’t have to be.

If I have a choice between trusting somebody who’s calmly and purposefully moving pieces on a chessboard, or somebody who’s beating himself over the head with the same chessboard, I’m going with the calm one every time.

Personal confession.

For most of my life I’ve been a very aggressive driver—and I have the citations to prove it. (For a while I considered trying to get one in every state. I did get citations from two different countries in Africa; I’m an internationally renowned citationist.) As I age, I find that I’m getting less aggressive. It’s not that I’m not in a hurry anymore—my schedule nowadays is as busy as ever—but I’ve come to realize that in past years I’ve almost never needed to be in hurry; I just always was. There’s great joy in letting someone else go ahead of you and getting “the wave.” There’s joy in enjoying the ride and not having white knuckles when you get there.

Is that the Spirit’s work? Well, I’m not inclined to think that the tendency comes from inside me.

Part 6: Kindness | Part 7: Goodness | Part 8: Faithfulness | Part 9: Gentleness | Part 10: Self-Control

Photo by Gabriele Lässer on Unsplash

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Love | Part 3: Joy

The next item in this list of the identifying marks of people being changed by the Spirit is peace. I’ve written on the topic more than once, but this time I’d like to view it from a tighter perspective, the perspective that this passage calls for.

If you study the use of this word in the New Testament (the Greek word, by the way, is the basis of the name “Irene”), you’ll realize that it’s a common wish in first-century culture. Many of the epistles begin or end, or both, with a benediction that includes peace. Paul in particular likes to combine the standard Greek greeting (chairein, “greeting,” slightly altered to charis, “grace,” to suit his theological frame of reference) with the standard Hebrew greeting (shalom, “peace”); he begins every one of his epistles with the wish “Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ,” or something remarkably similar.

Of course we wish one another peace. And, as Paul notes, the source of that peace is God—specifically God the Father and the Son in his epistolary benedictions, and the Spirit here in Galatians 5.22.

But we find that God’s relationship with peace is … complicated. The Bible characterizes God as both “the God of peace” (Ro 15.33; 16.20; Php 4.9; 1Th 5.23; Heb 13.20) and “the Lord of Hosts,” or “Commander of armies”—the latter nearly 250 times in the Former and Latter Prophets of the Old Testament. In fact, the “very God of peace” is the one who crushes his enemies (Ro 16.20). Similarly Jesus says, on the one hand, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you” (Jn 14.27), but also, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Mt 10.34). At the end of it all, “the wrath of the Lamb” is a huge concern (Re 6.15-17). It turns out that whether you find God to be a source of peace or of terror depends directly on how you stand with him.

But it’s even more complicated than that. Sometimes God wants his people to be at peace, to be free from disruption and persecution (Ac 9.31). But at other times he allows—no, he sends—persecution that kills many of them and scatters the rest (Ac 8.1-3; 9.1-2). He does that not to punish them for their sins, which are many—because Jesus himself has fully exhausted the punishment for those sins—but to work endurance in their character (Ro 5.3) and to display that character to those who have yet to join the family. In doing that he’s building directly on the work Christ has already done (1P 2.20-25); Christ is our example of suffering unjustly without defense or complaint, and he calls us by that example to do the same.

So in some ways we’re not experiencing peace, but in other ways—the most important ones—we are. Because we have peace with God (Ro 5.1), we can experience peace from God (Ro 1.7); and that indwelling peace changes our character and then our outlook in a way that enables his people, who used to be enemies with him (Ep 2.1-6) and with one another (Ep 2.14-17), to have peace with one another (Ro 14.19; Ep 4.3), and even with those spiritually opposed to them (1Co 7.15; Heb 12.14), and to endure trials with confidence in a positive outcome (Ro 15.13; Php 4.7).

Do your words communicate calm and confidence, or turmoil, frustration, and rage? Jesus said that what comes out of us communicates what’s on the inside.

Maybe it’s time to think about the basis for powerful and lasting peace, the kind of deep-seated assurance and confident expectation that will radiate out from you, even in difficult times, with a force that prompts those around you to ask, “How do you do it?”

In these days, peace attracts attention by its contrast with the chaotic and violent background noise of our world.

Part 5: Patience | Part 6: Kindness | Part 7: Goodness | Part 8: Faithfulness | Part 9: Gentleness | Part 10: Self-Control

Photo by Gabriele Lässer on Unsplash

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Love

As the Spirit of God works on the character of his people, it should come as no surprise that right on the heels of love comes joy. Or maybe it might be surprising after all, if you consider the biblical definition of love rather than the common cultural one.

We all know that when people “fall in love,” there’s a lot of joy involved. But as we noted last time, love isn’t really about serendipity; it’s about a focus away from oneself and on others. And these days our culture takes it as axiomatic that you can’t love others until you first love yourself; that there’s nothing more joyous than “being true to yourself.”

Au contraire.

I’m not suggesting that we should be doormats or hypocrites, or that we should be obsessed with self-loathing. But I am confident that making yourself the center of the universe is no path to joy.

If we devote ourselves to acting in the best interests of those around us, though, the roadway is blossoming with joy.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We should start with definitions.

The word translated “joy” here occurs 60 times in the New Testament. It’s used to describe

• How a man feels when he learns that he’s finally, after decades of trying, going to be a father (Lk 1.14)
• How the wise men felt when the star they had seen back home reappeared just as they needed help finding the newborn king (Mt 2.10)
• How a man feels when he finds a hidden treasure (Mt 13.44)
• How a woman feels after she gives birth (Jn 16.21)
• How Jesus’ disciples felt when they found that they could cast out demons (Lk 10.17)
• How the women at the tomb felt when the angel told them that Jesus was risen (Mt 28.8)
• How the disciples felt when the risen Jesus appeared in the room with them (Lk 24.41)
• How Rhoda felt when she realized that the imprisoned Peter, for whom the church was praying, was free and standing at the gate (Ac 12.14)
• How a teacher feels when his students excel (Php 2.2; 4.1; 1Th 2.19-20; Heb 13.17; 1J 1.4; 3J 4)

I really get that last one.

If you scan through the uses of this word in the NT, you can’t help noticing something that you may find surprising—the frequent connection of joy with trials.

• When Paul and Barnabas were opposed and then thrown out of the first major city they visited in Asia Minor on their first missionary journey, “the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit” (Ac 13.52).
• To the church in Corinth Paul writes, “I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction” (2Co 7.4).
• To the same church he writes that for the churches of northern Greece, “in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality” (2Co 8.2).
• He tells the Thessalonians that they had “received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit” (1Th 1.6).
• The author of Hebrews writes that his audience “accepted joyfully the seizure of your property” (Heb 10.34).
• James writes, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials” (Jam 1.2).

So joy is how we feel when we get really good news—but it’s possible to feel the same way when the news is not at all good. It’s delight that isn’t based on our circumstances.

How does the Spirit work this in us? The “trials” passages give us a clue.

• God “comforts the depressed” (2Co 7.6). And, as Paul makes clear in this instance, the causes of sorrow are not permanent, and God brings good things out of hard times.
• In the case of the Hebrews, they accepted persecution “knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one” (Heb 10.34).
• And James, writing earlier than all the others—and before his execution by being thrown off “the pinnacle of the Temple” in Jerusalem, where his half-brother had refused Satan’s invitation to jump—notes that “the testing of your faith produces endurance” (Jam 1.3).

What’s the takeaway here?

When your perspective changes from the mud in the road to the eternal outcome of the beneficent divine plan—when we live “with eternity’s values in view,” as the gospel chorus says—we deal more joyously—more realistically!—with the instabilities of life. Like an experienced driver, who takes in the whole road and not just what’s happening right in front of his bumper, we’re much less likely to crash.

Joy.

It’s how we live.

Part 4: Peace | Part 5: Patience | Part 6: Kindness | Part 7: Goodness | Part 8: Faithfulness | Part 9: Gentleness | Part 10: Self-Control

Photo by Gabriele Lässer on Unsplash

Part 1: Introduction

Paul begins his list of Christ’s character qualities with love.

We all think we know what love is—it’s that tingling sensation we get when we “fall” for someone.

One of my seminary roommates used to call that “zing.”

Let me state for the record that zing is good. May we all experience zing, and may we rejoice in it.

But zing is not all there is to love.

If we study the word as it’s used in the New Testament, we find that while it certainly includes an emotional component, it’s much bigger than that. I think the best definition I’ve come across is from my friend and colleague Randy Leedy: “a disposition to sacrifice oneself in order to secure the benefit of the loved one.” (For a considerably deeper discussion of the complexities of the term, try this dissertation by a former student of mine, the kind webmaster of this blog.)

Love is more than just an emotion, or a choice, or an understanding. Love is a perspective and its consequences; love is the way you look at something or someone, and the decision to elevate the worth of that object above your own interests.

Once you realize this, you realize how toxic much of our culture’s view of love is. Many people, informed by the artistic expressions of the age, love people for what they can do for them—you make me feel good, you “complete” me, you make my life worth living. “I can’t live without you,” after all.

But that’s upside down and backwards. Love, genuine love, impels me to give, not to take. It impels me to think of someone else, not my own joy or pleasure or desire.

Sure, it’s complicated; there are lots of facets to genuine love. But if there’s not at its core a greater valuation of the object than of the self, then it’s not love.

What can we learn about love from the Bible? Perhaps it was J.R. Fausset who first observed that Paul is the apostle of faith; Peter is the apostle of hope; and John is the apostle of love.

In that case, let’s see what John says.

In his brief first epistle, he talks a lot about love—

• God is love (1J 4.8, 16).
• He expresses that love toward us (1J 3.1) by sending his Son (1J 4.9-10) to lay down his life for us (1J 3.16) even before we loved him (1J 4.9-10).
• We should love God in return (1J 4.19) and show that love by obeying him (1J 2.5; 5.2-3).
• We should love our brothers, because that’s one way we obey him (1J 3.23; 4.21). And we should love them genuinely, in action, not merely in words (1J 3.18).
• When we love our brothers, we demonstrate that we have passed from death to life (1J 3.14); that we know God (1J 4.7-8); that God is in us (1J 4.16-17); that we’re growing in our understanding of his love (1J 4.12); and that we’re walking in his light (1J 2.10).
• We should not love “the world” (1J 2.15), defined as desires that are fundamentally self-focused (“the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” 1J 2.16).
• And we learn that mature love “casts out fear” (1J 4.18).

There’s a lot of fear these days. And a lot of that fear is being expressed by Christians.

That doesn’t make any sense. If we’re in God, we exist—“abide in”—a state of love. And if we’re living with an external, loving focus, we have no business being afraid.

Perhaps you’ve seen the meme that says, “No one, in the history of ever, has ever calmed down after being told to calm down.”

Granted.

But calm down.

In this case, there’s supernatural power involved, which ought to make the impossible possible.

How do we walk in love?

• We think about others. First.
  • How will what I’m about to say affect this person? Will it build him up or tear him down? Will it draw him to Christ or push him away?
• We devalue our own rights and needs and wants.
  • Does the fact that I have a right to free speech mean that I have to exercise it at this moment? Is my winning this argument—or even just getting in a zinger as I walk away—more important to me than the value of my opponent—who is, by the way, in the image of God (Ge 1.27), and deeply loved by him (Jn 3.16)?

Jesus observed that in nature, you identify a tree by its fruit (Mt 7.16).

Who are you?

Part 3: Joy | Part 4: Peace | Part 5: Patience | Part 6: Kindness | Part 7: Goodness | Part 8: Faithfulness | Part 9: Gentleness | Part 10: Self-Control

Photo by Gabriele Lässer on Unsplash

In the current societal turmoil, there’s a lot of suspicion toward people we disagree with, and consequently there are a lot of charges being lobbed casually back and forth between opposing camps. Any historian will tell you that you should be suspicious of one group’s descriptions of a group they oppose—that principle has come into play notably in current skepticism about descriptions of historical people groups as cannibalistic, and it even played a role in our understanding of the Ecuadorian Huaorani (not “Auca”) who killed the 5 missionaries back in 1956.

So it shouldn’t surprise us when people on the other side of an issue from us describe us inaccurately. I see broad characterizations of Christians, for example, that are demonstrably, objectively inaccurate. No, Christians are not characterized by “hate”—an all too facile accusation these days—simply because they disagree with a policy decision or a view of morality. No, they’re not “phobic”—irrationally motivated by fear, another all too facile accusation that conveniently liberates the accuser from having to answer their rational statements rationally—when they allege that a given lifestyle will carry significant negative consequences, both culturally and individually. And no, they don’t believe—and this is my favorite—that they should read the Bible “literally”—they’re not knuckle-dragging troglodytes who wouldn’t recognize a metaphor or a synecdoche if it bit ‘em on the, um, kiester.

But.

On the other hand, I see many of my Christian fellow-travelers saying and doing things that make these accusations, well, credible.

My brethren, these things ought not so to be.

Christianity is not at root a cultural position (“this is just the way I was brought up!”), a pragmatic political position (“they’re destroying our country!”), or even a change of worldview (“I see it all so clearly now!”), whether due to significant rational, emotional, or circumstantial experiences.

Christianity—personal salvation—is a work of God in the heart of a human that spiritually resurrects him from the dead and sets him on a radically different course of life, empowering him to instantiate that lifestyle consistently and progressively. A Christian—a real one—should be significantly different from the kind of person he was before, and he should get progressively better over time at resembling the character qualities of Christ.

Now, we all start out life broken morally and in many other ways, and that brokenness is never perfectly mended in this life. But we ought to have something in the way of character improvement as an unavoidable consequence of our new birth, and we ought to be making progress.

Paul speaks of this contrast in Ephesians 4, where he exhorts believers to “walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called” (Ep 4.1). Earlier in the epistle he has spoken of having been “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ep 2.1) but then “resurrected together with Christ” (Ep 2.5) and “created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Ep 2.10).

Radical change.

For much of chapter 4, Paul contrasts the old way of life (“being alienated from the life of God,” Ep 4.18), characterized by “all uncleanness” (Ep 4.19), with the new way, “which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ep 4.24). He lists several specific examples of this new way:

• We quit lying and tell the truth (Ep 4.25).
• We control our anger (Ep 4.26).
• We fight temptation (Ep 4.27).
• We give instead of taking (Ep 4.28).
• We use our words to build up rather than tear down (Ep 4.29).

And the list goes on (Ep 4.30-32), ending with kindness, tenderness, and forgiveness (Ep 4.32).

That last verse is the first one I ever memorized, in Sunday school back in 1960. After 6 decades, I’ve still got work to do, and I suspect you do too.

Paul makes the same point in an earlier epistle, contrasting the “works of the flesh” (Ga 5.19-21) with the “fruit of the Spirit” (Ga 5.22-23). The latter list amounts to a description of the character of Jesus, to whom God is conforming our character over time (Ro 8.29).

Christians are different from their fellow citizens. We’re always going to be seen as different, strange (1P 4.4), odd, even contemptible, even dangerous. It’s happened before, and it will happen again.

But as Paul’s apostolic predecessor and colleague Peter reminds us, we shouldn’t be giving them legitimate reasons to think that way about us (1P 3.14-17; 4.14-16). Suffering for Jesus is one thing; suffering because you’re not like Jesus is another thing entirely.

So it will be helpful to spend some time thinking about the fruit of the Spirit and assessing our own needs in these areas.

Next time.

 Part 2: Love | Part 3: Joy | Part 4: Peace | Part 5: Patience | Part 6: Kindness | Part 7: Goodness | Part 8: Faithfulness | Part 9: Gentleness | Part 10: Self-Control

Photo by Gabriele Lässer on Unsplash