systematic theology

Church Has a Purpose, Part 2: The Long Range

September 1, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

When you were learning to drive, you tended to focus on the road immediately in front of you—a tactic that made you basically a reactionary, jerking the wheel in response to whatever suddenly popped into your field of vision. As you gained experience, you began to look farther down the road, your peripheral vision taking in pretty much everything from here to the horizon. It’s much less jarring to make tiny corrections with long-range significance than to react to every little thing as if it’s a crisis.

So we start with the long view, the big map, with the little tiny star that says “You are here.”

That’s what Paul does in this passage.

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Ep 4.13).

God’s goal for us as his people is that by the end of the story we will be grown up—mature. That’s what “perfect” here means.

Mature in what?

In unity.

We need to be united, inseparable, fiercely attached to one another, a band of brothers.

What’s the basis of our unity? Some people are united by their love for motorcycles, or quilts, or cocker spaniels, or Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.

We’re united by our faith, and by our knowledge of the Son of God.

That statement needs some clarification, some delimitation.

In the Bible the term “the faith,” with the article, refers not so much to the fact that we believe as to the content of what we believe. To put it more bluntly, it refers to doctrine.

Isn’t that interesting. In Paul’s mind, doctrine isn’t something that divides. It’s something that unites. Because we believe the same things, we are pulled together and become inseparable.

I should note that this doesn’t mean that we agree on everything. The Scripture elsewhere urges each one to “be fully persuaded in his own mind” while extending grace to those with other convictions (Ro 14.5). No, “the faith” is the most important stuff, the doctrines that define Christianity, beginning with the gospel, which is “of first importance” (I Co 15.3-5).

That’s reinforced by the next phrase, “the knowledge of the Son of God.” The doctrines that are most central, our unifying principles, are those that have to do with the Son—who he is (person), what he is like (attributes), what he has done (work). It’s a truism that the easiest way to spot a false teacher is to ask him who he thinks Jesus is.

But I think Paul is saying more here than just that our Christology has to be right.

The word translated “knowledge” is epignosis, with a prepositional prefix that functions as an intensifier. Greek lexicons often render this word as “full knowledge,” “true knowledge,” “recognition.” I’d suggest that it means what we mean when we say, “Now I get it!”

A look at some other biblical passages that use the word reinforces this idea—

Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin (Ro 3.20).
They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (Ro 10.2).
… with knowledge and all discernment (Php 1.9)
That you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding (Co 1.9)
Ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth (2Ti 3.7).
… the full knowledge of everything that is in us for the sake of Christ (Phm 6)

So what is “unity of the knowledge of the Son of God”?

I’d suggest that when people know who Christ is, through his revelation of himself through the Word, and when through that knowledge they come to know him as Creator, Savior, Lord, Shepherd, Friend, they’re going to be drawn together into a unity that simply cannot be compromised.

And then they grow, united, as a single body, to a spiritual stature that is appropriate for the size of its head, who is Christ (Ep 1.22-23).

Now, how do we get there?

Paul has some very practical observations about that, which we’ll get to in the next post.

Part 3: The Short Range: Consistency | Part 4: The Short Range: Discernment | Part 5: The Short Range: Truth

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Church Has a Purpose, Part 1: And It’s No Secret

August 29, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Experts tell us that we can’t be productive or successful without goals. We should write down our daily, weekly, monthly, and annual goals, and check them off when they’re completed. We should constantly re-evaluate our goals to be sure that they match our priorities.

Makes sense. I make lists and check things off every day, and it works pretty well for me.

The principle works for organizations as well as individuals. My employer, an educational institution, has goals that they communicate constantly to the faculty, the staff, and the students. Right now, at the beginning of the school year, we’re in the season where a few chapel sessions are devoted to informing the new folks, and reminding everybody, of our institutional purpose, past, and plans.

We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that God has goals for his people. He’s communicated them repeatedly throughout history, even though it sometimes appeared that hardly anybody was listening. In the current slice of history, when the people of God bear the moniker of “church,” he has plans for us too—especially corporately.

In Ephesians 4, among other places, God gives His goals for the church. Church isn’t just something we go to as spectators, a place where we meet people and perform rituals. It’s a living organization with a specific mission. In this passage God lays out the goals for the organization of which He is chief executive officer.

He begins by noting that we can’t succeed without help—particularly his gifting (Ep 4.7). And that gifting, perhaps surprisingly, isn’t supernatural abilities or tricks. It’s people.

Here Paul lists 4 or 5 kinds of people—there are other lists in other places, specifically Romans 12, 1Corinthians 12, and 1Peter 4, as I’ve noted earlier. This list includes apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers (Ep 4.11). They have a job to do: to mature the believers to do the work of service and consequently build up the body of Christ (Ep 4.12)—the church (Ep 1.22-23).

So the church is a body-building enterprise; it’s there to bring people together so that they can build one another up into maturity.

And what, specifically, does it mean to be mature?

For the church, it’s not the color of its hair (assuming it has some), or its height, or its musculature. Paul lays out the specifics in verses 13 through 16. These verses lay out God’s goals for the church.

Why do you go to church? (And what does “go to church” even mean if the church is a fellowship of believers and not a building?)

If you go to church with no purpose, no plan, no goal, but just because that’s what you always do on Sunday mornings, then how likely is it that you’ll play a part in helping the institution accomplish its purpose?

How do you feel about someone who’s working on a group project with you and who isn’t pulling his share of the load?

We hear any number of people complaining about this church or that one.

I wonder what they’re doing to help.

I wonder if they’re focused on a specific goal, and if so, if their goal is the right one.

In this passage Paul is going to describe both the long-term and the short-term goals for the church—my church, your church and all the others—as well as some specific ways we can pursue those goals.

It might be good for us to spend some mental effort thinking through what he has to say.

Next time.

Part 2: The Long Range | Part 3: The Short Range: Consistency | Part 4: The Short Range: Discernment | Part 5: The Short Range: Truth

Photo by Nagesh Badu on Unsplash

Reasons to Celebrate in Hard Times (Psalm 103), Part 4: Let Us Thank Him

August 25, 2022 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: God Is Good to You and Me | Part 2: God Is Good to His People | Part 3: God Is Great

How do we respond to God’s goodness and greatness, to his utter commitment to seek and accomplish our welfare, forever?

Our response should be automatic, immediate, and immense.

We should be grateful.

We should all be grateful.

David makes that point with a crescendo of praise:

²⁰Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.

I teach systematic theology, with its 10 traditional doctrinal units. The unit on salvation—soteriology—is a lot longer than the unit on angels, for a simple reason: we don’t know much about angels, because we’re not told much.

We do know that we humans are “a little lower than the angels” (Ps 8.5), and that they serve both God (our verse here) and God’s people (He 1.14); that they have considerable, but not infinite, power (Da 10.13); and that some of them, at least, enter God’s throne room (Is 6.2). These are not personages to be trifled with.

But David calls them to praise God. And then he escalates.

²¹Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.

God often refers to himself as “the LORD of hosts,” a title we take to speak of his power to enforce his will, backed as he is by heavenly armies. (Of course, as omnipotent, he doesn’t need the backing, but it makes for powerful imagery [2K 6.17].)

All those hosts? The ones with the chariots of fire? They bow in humble corporate gratitude before him who is good, who is great.

²²Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion.

Remember how, during Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the Pharisees told him to hush the exuberant crowd? Do you remember what Jesus said to them?

“If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out” (Lk 19.40).

The inanimate creation itself knows its creator, and David calls it to do the obvious thing—to call out in praise to him.

Which, come to think of it, creation does, every day, and every night (Ps 19.1-6).

I’ve heard that song on the beach at 6.30 am, when I stand with a small band of strangers to watch the glowing orb first peek its beams over the clear horizon.

I’ve heard it while viewing the butterfly display at Chicago’s Field Museum, each creature a different color, some even changing colors as you walk by—even though they’re dead—and meditating on the size of heaven’s graphic design department, all their energies expended on creatures that are made of paper and live for just a week.

I’ve heard it while meditating on flagellates, those tiny creatures that inhabit the digestive tract of termites and break down the indigestible cellulose—which is the only thing that termites eat—into substances that the termite can digest, all the while being protected by the termite from the surrounding oxygen, which is toxic to flagellates. (Which do you suppose evolved first—termites? or flagellates?)

I’ve heard it while threading between thunderheads while negotiating Bozeman Pass in a Cherokee Six.

I’ve heard it in the immense darkness of night in Death Valley or a Nebraska ranch or a Pacific or Caribbean island when I tip my head back toward the sky and stand awash in the light of millions of stars.

Creation’s praise continues all around us, 24 hours a day, despite the brokenness of the planet.

And so I conclude as David does—

Bless the LORD, O my soul.

How can I keep from singing?

I note that there’s more to come.

One day, soon enough in God’s eternal timetable, we all—all God’s people, all his servants, human and otherwise—will surround his throne and sing his praises, millions of voices, including my currently feeble one, raised in perfect praise to the one who is worthy, because he is good, and because he is great, and because he has loved and rescued us.

Even so.

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Reasons to Celebrate in Hard Times (Psalm 103), Part 3: God Is Great

August 22, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: God Is Good to You and Me | Part 2: God Is Good to His People

It’s often been said that if God is great but not good, we’re doomed to extinction; if he’s good but not great, then we’re doomed as well, because there’s nothing he can do about our needs. David has delighted us with his meditation on God’s goodness, but now he exponentiates that delight by noting that God can—and will—do all that his goodness motivates him to do.

To begin with, he knows (Ps 103.14)—specifically, he knows the weakness of our constitution (“our frame, … that we are dust,” as the KJV so lyrically puts it).

The fact that God knows all things is an immense assurance to us, his people. He knows who we are and what we are; he knows what’s coming down the highway at us; he knows what it will take to deliver us from the Enemy. He knows.

And because he is good—a point David has already established—he loves us and wills to deliver us.

Omniscience is one of the noncommunicable attributes of God, one of the ways he stands apart from, and above, all other beings and all the forces of his creation. When we face the complexities of life, there’s a lot we don’t know, and we find that ignorance frustrating—“What should I do?”—and sometimes even fear-inducing—“What’s going to happen to me?” But he knows.

There’s more.

He lives.

We have a few short years—as I approach age 70, I understand all the more how short they are—in which we can get done all those things we seek to accomplish, the bucket list and everything else. We’re constantly frustrated by the obvious fact that there just isn’t enough time.

¹⁵As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. ¹⁶For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

But God, God lives forever. He has always existed, and he always will. For him there is no deadline pressure, no crowded schedule, no ebbing of strength or mental focus.

And that means that his attributes, all of them, have always been and always will be. That goodness David told us about? Still good. Always will be.

Here David focuses on a single aspect of God’s goodness:

¹⁷But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children.

Here the KJV calls this attribute “mercy,” which in English is the withholding of deserved punishment. That in itself is a remarkable source of hope.

But the other English versions render this word differently:

NASB: “lovingkindness”
ESV: “steadfast love”
CSB: “faithful love”
NIV “love”

It should occur to us that these are much bigger ideas than just mercy, the withholding of punishment. And that’s a clue that there’s more to this underlying Hebrew word than we might expect.

This is the word hesed, which is one of the most theologically significant words in the entire Hebrew Scripture. It’s the focus of the most often-repeated verse in the Bible: “his mercy endureth forever.” When I was in Seminary, my Hebrew professor glossed it as “steadfast loving loyalty.”

This is covenantal commitment to an important relationship. It’s the fierce determination to see to the welfare of someone you are committed to in love. It’s how husbands ought to treat their wives, and wives their husbands, and parents their children, and children their parents.

Totally committed. Determined.

That’s how God sees his people. And he sees them that way forever. No matter what.

If you’re his child, he is committed to exercising his goodness on your behalf for as long as he lives—until, as the founder of my university put it, “the angels sing a funeral dirge over his grave.”

And that, my friends, will never happen.

He is infinitely good, and he is infinitely great. He wants to protect, direct, and empower his people; he is able to do that; and he is committed to do it.

So how should we respond?

Next time.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Reasons to Celebrate in Hard Times (Psalm 103), Part 2: God Is Good to His People

August 18, 2022 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: God Is Good to You and Me

David—or whoever wrote this Psalm—has begun with a call to praise God, and he’s given as his first reason a series of good things God has done for him—and you, and me; the recipients there are all singular. In the next section he changes to the plural; he talking about things that God has done not just for “me,” but for “us”—for his people corporately. Throughout history, God has consistently intervened to meet the greatest needs of his people.

At Israel’s birth as a nation, God revealed himself to them in multiple ways: at the burning bush (Ex 3.1-6), through the plagues in Egypt (Ex 5-12), at the parting of the Red Sea (Ex 14.21-31), and at Sinai (Ex 20). In fact, verse 8 of our Psalm is essentially a direct quotation of Exodus 20.6.

And what is the characteristic of God—what is the good thing about him—that the Psalmist chooses to highlight in this section?

Mercy.

In his dealings with his people, God is the sort of person who doesn’t give them the punishment that they deserve. Despite our sin, despite our selfishness, despite our arrogance and disrespect toward him, he shows mercy.

Specifically,

He is slow to anger (Ps. 103.8). He doesn’t lose his temper or lash out in uncontrolled rage. He puts up with a lot from us and doesn’t crush us like a bug—which, as omnipotent, he certainly could. He deals with us carefully, tenderly, reasonably, patiently.
When he does get angry—and when he should get angry,* he does—he doesn’t stay that way forever (Ps 103.9). When his justified anger has accomplished his purpose, he calmly sets it aside.
His dealings with us are underproportioned (Ps 103.10). He doesn’t give us the negative things we deserve.

He is merciful—filled with mercy, the attribute that stops punishment or consequence well short of what is truly called for.

And why is that?

Well, for starters, that’s who he is, and he always acts consistently with his nature.

But the Psalmist highlights another reason: he has a relationship with us; we are his people (Ps 103.11-13).

We fear him, reverence him, recognize his fatherhood over us (Ps 103.11).
He has removed our transgressions from us (Ps 103.12), as far as the east is from the west. I’ve traveled to the other side of the world both by going east and by going west, and I can tell you that they never meet. Why has he done this remarkable thing? Why has he unburdened us of the guilt of our sin? From the Psalmist’s perspective, he’s done so because Israel is his people, his special flock, and he’s given them the grace of forgiving their sins when they offer the specified sacrifices at the specified place. We who are not physical Israel know that those sacrifices prefigured another sacrifice, a greater, perfect sacrifice, offered by God the Son through the eternal Spirit unto God the Father. God has forgiven us because our sin debt has been paid, and we are now cloaked in the righteousness of Christ.
He is our Father, and we are his children (Ps 103.13). That’s a significant relationship, a permanent one, one that calls for love and patience and loyalty and provision and protection.

So it’s not just that God’s a nice person, nice to all the human persons in a beneficent sort of way. No, we his people are corporeal, a body, a flock, and we have a relationship with the God who created and redeemed us. He’s good to us for reasons far deeper than the need to help a beggar on the street or an accident victim on the highway.

We’re family.

And we’ll always be family.

* There are times when anger is the only appropriate response. If you see a child being sexually abused, you should get angry, and you should put a stop to it. Injustice should make us angry and spur us to action. Imminent threats to the well-being of those we love should make us angry. They make God angry, and that is a virtue, not a weakness or a flaw.

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Reasons to Celebrate in Hard Times (Psalm 103), Part 1: God Is Good to You and Me

August 15, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

We live in unstable and unhappy times. Lots of people are complaining—and there’s a lot to complain about. But we all know that living in a spirit of complaint isn’t good for us, and we also know that we tend to magnify our difficulties and minimize our joys.

I’ve been spending extra time in the Psalms lately, and I’ve found that time to be well invested. It’s good to be around happy people—though not all the Psalms are happy, certainly—and it’s good to be reminded that our time is not substantially different from what lots of other people have endured, and over which they have triumphed.

Psalm 103 is a simple meditation on good things, encouraging things—and better yet, eternal things. According to its superscription, it’s Davidic—by David, or perhaps for him or in his style; the Hebrew preposition can mean a lot of things. It begins and ends with a call to praise, first by the author himself (Ps 103.1-2) and at the last by all of creation (Ps 103.20-22). In between, the Psalmist considers some of the reasons why we should praise God—and along the way there’s a hint that his life hasn’t been all sunshine and roses.

We’ve all heard the children’s prayer at mealtime:

God is great,
God is good;
Let us thank him
For our food.

This psalm appears to pray that prayer on a much grander scale.

The Psalmist begins—after the initial call to praise—with God’s goodness (“his benefits,” Ps 103.2), and specifically his goodness to the Psalmist himself as an individual. He lists those benefits in two categories.

First, God has delivered him (and you, and me) from many of the negative things about life:

He forgives all your sins (Ps 103.3).
- We’re defeated by an enemy far greater than we are; we’re at the mercy of sin, and we even find ourselves being attracted by it. We’ve sinned ourselves so deeply into slavery and brokenness that there seems to be no hope for us.
- But God has stepped into our misery and has rescued us, applying Christ’s righteousness to us and forgiving the depraved things we’ve done. Further, he’s cast them into the sea (Mic 7.19), as far from us as the east is from the west (as we’ll see later in the psalm).
He heals all your diseases (Ps 103.3).
- Is this line an indication that the Psalmist has just come through hard times? He seems to speak from experience.
- We find that often physical healing is available to us in answer to our prayers; but I think, given the close reference to forgiveness of sins, that we should consider our healing from spiritual sickness and death (Ep 2.1-7) here.
- And further, we anticipate the day when there will be no more disease—physical or spiritual—because God has brought history full circle and returned us to the “very good” state in which we began (Re 21.4).
He redeems us from destruction (Ps 103.4)—that is, he sets us on a path to life instead of death.

Then the Psalmist considers how he has replaced those negative things with positive ones:

He crowns us with lovingkindness and tender mercies (Ps 103.4)—that is, he pours out his loving loyalty and his compassion on us. He is a gentle and committed shepherd.
He feeds us well, nourishing us for strength (Ps 103.5). I think it’s interesting that God made food taste good. He could have made it all a tasteless grey paste, just something we have to choke down every so often to keep our strength up. But he didn’t do that; he made food really good. Salty, sweet, sour, bitter, meaty. Cold, hot, and in between. Crunchy, smooth, creamy, crispy. It’s all good.

There’s a lot more that God does for each of us that demonstrates his goodness; the Psalmist has given us just a sampling. We can profitably meditate on the much longer list. And as we’ll see, the Psalmist is just getting started.

Next time.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

No Ordinary Servant, Part 8: Lord over Death

August 11, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Mark climaxes his presentation of Jesus the servant with his resurrection from the dead. Jesus displayed his power over death even during his earthly ministry, of course; Mark records his raising of Jairus’s daughter during the Galilean ministry (Mk 5.21-43).

But the exclamation point on Jesus’ power over death is his own resurrection. Repeatedly in his teaching Jesus predicts his coming death and resurrection:

He says he’ll be killed by the religious leaders and that his resurrection will occur after 3 days (Mk 8.31); and he insists that he will accomplish this goal even though his disciples—particularly Peter—can’t make sense of it (Mk 8.32-33).
Soon after that, he repeats the prediction of his death and of the fact that the resurrection will occur after 3 days (Mk 9.30-32).
As he and the disciples are approaching Jerusalem for the last time, he gives more details about the circumstances of his death and repeats the timeline (Mk 10.32-34).

Jesus not only sees this event coming, but he takes charge of it, willing it despite the confusion and opposition of his disciples. In fact, shortly after this third prediction, he insists that the giving of his life was the very reason that he came in human form (Mk 10.45).

With the arrival in Jerusalem, things start to happen very quickly. At the Last Supper he predicts his betrayal and identifies the betrayer (Mk 14.17-20). He notes the fulfillment of prophecy (Mk 14.21): things are proceeding exactly according to plan. He then predicts his abandonment (Mk 14.27) and denial—and again, by whom (Mk 14.30). He is acting not like a victim, but like a champion, executing his plan perfectly.

Then, as he had predicted, a string of his prophecies is fulfilled. He is betrayed (Mk 14.45), and abandoned (Mk 14.50), and denied (Mk 14.66-72). Just as he said, despite the protestations.

He goes to trial—every step of it illegal before both Jewish and Roman law—and still he is not a victim. Confronted by the high priest, he initially refuses to answer a direct question (Mk 14.60-61)—he’ll answer in his own time and on his own terms—and then, in a moment, he throws a verbal bomb right into the middle of the whole proceeding.

“Are you the Christ?” the high priest asks (Mk 14.61).

Wait for it …

“I am!” he says. And then he quotes the prophet Daniel:

And ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven! (Mk 14.62, citing Da 7.13).

He’s appearing before the Sanhedrin, the religious authorities of Israel, effectively the Supreme Court. They could not possibly have failed to recognize the source of his quotation or to know the words that come next in Daniel’s prophecy:

And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed (Da 7.14).

This is an apocalyptic claim. He is grasping, and wielding, the offices of Messiah, the stem of Jesse, the Son of David, the King of all creation. And he wields it all with his hands tied behind his back and himself about to face torture (Mk 14.65; 15.15-19) and then the ultimate torture of crucifixion (Mk 15.25).

And when he dies, Mark tells us, two significant things happen:

The veil of the Temple is torn, opening the way for all to enter the very presence of God (Mk 15.38).
The centurion, the immediate representative of Roman and thus, effectively, world authority, proclaims, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mk 15.39).

This servant is king, of this world and the next.

What a servant.

What a Savior.

What a Lord.

This is a Servant worth serving. Give him all you have for his service.

You will not be disappointed.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

No Ordinary Servant, Part 7: Lord over Creation

August 8, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In describing this humble servant of God, Mark is not yet finished surprising us. In the middle of his book—at the core of it, we might say—he recounts several interactions Jesus had with natural forces, or the created order. I could say that each of these surprises us, but if we’re still being surprised by now, we simply haven’t been paying attention.

I’m going to present them outside the order in which Mark places them, because 4 of the 5 make sensible thematic or logical pairs.

The first such interaction Mark presents is with a storm on the Sea of Galilee. We’re all familiar with this story, of course; it appears in 3 of the 4 Gospels, and we’ve heard about it since childhood—and some of us, of a certain age, even had the help of little flannelgraph cutouts.

Jesus and his disciples are crossing the lake on a fishing boat—most likely owned by Peter and Andrew or by James and John, since both of those sets of brothers had fishing businesses. A storm arises—as storms often do on this lake—but this storm is so extreme that the disciples think they’re all about to die (Mk 4.38). Now, considering that 4 of them are professional fishermen based on this lake, men who have seen scores of storms here, we can only imagine how violent this storm must have been to convince them that they were done for.

And Jesus is asleep (Mk 4.38).

Have you ever been on a boat in a violent storm? Me neither. But I’m given to believe that a fishing boat is going to be doing quite the do-si-do on the waves in that circumstance. This is not the kind of environment where you just doze off.

I take from this fact that Jesus was exhausted. He was completely wrung out, unable to stay awake under the most anti-soporific of conditions.

He was likely as low, as weak, as he had been since the fasting and temptation in the wilderness of Judea.

With some effort, apparently, they wake him up.

What are you like when you’ve been violently shaken out of a sound sleep and are surrounded by multisensory chaos?

He stands up—in a violently rocking boat—and says simply, “Calm down” (Mk 4.39).

And he says it not to the disciples, but to the lake. Who talks to natural forces with that kind of directness and expects to be obeyed? And is obeyed?

The disciples are apparently more frightened now than they were during the storm (Mk 4.41). Just who have they gotten themselves involved with?

At the nadir of his servanthood, he speaks to the wind and the sea—the storm gods, if you will—and is immediately and visibly and unquestionably obeyed.

Some servant.

Mark gives us other examples (as if he needs to):

When his disciples are in contrary winds later on the same lake, he walks out to them on the water and joins them in the boat (Mk 6.45-53). (Critics trying to “explain” this obvious miracle have suggested, among other things, that there were giant lily pads out there, which the experienced fishermen on the boat were unaware of. Do I even need to refute that idea?)
Just before that event, he feeds 5000 men, plus women and children, with 5 buns and a couple of tilapia (Mk 6.30-44).
Later he does it again, but this time with 4000 men, 7 buns, and “a few” fish (Mk 8.1-10).
And just before his arrest, he curses a fig tree for being fruitless, and 24 hours later (Mk 11.12-14) the tree is morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably dead. (For those who aren’t paying attention, I got those adverbs from another source.)

Who has this kind of authority over powerful natural forces?

Why, their Creator, of course.

Some servant.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

No Ordinary Servant, Part 6: Lord over the Law

August 4, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God | Part 3: God Himself | Part 4: Lord over Evil | Part 5: Lord over Disease

In Mark 2 we find a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees which ends with Jesus declaring himself to be “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mk 2.28). This is quite a statement. We, who have heard it since our Sunday school days, simply cannot grasp the megatonnage with which these words would have hit the Pharisees.

But before we can discuss that, we ought to look further back in the chapter to note the context in which Mark places this confrontation.

In an (apparently) earlier conversation, some of the Pharisees’ fanboys ask Jesus why his disciples don’t fast the way the Pharisees and John’s disciples do. Now this context is important; while the Law does not mention fasting, the Bible does command “afflicting your souls” on one holy day, the Day of Atonement (Le 16.29-31; 23.27-32; Nu 29.7)—which might well be an oblique reference to fasting. If Jesus kept the Law perfectly (and he did [Jn 8.46; 1P 2.22]), he would certainly have fasted at times when the Law required it.

We know that the Jews later developed fasting practices apart from biblical mandates. After the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, the Jews began fasting on key anniversaries connected with that event (Zec 7.5; 8.19). In particular, the Pharisees developed the practice of fasting every Monday and Thursday (Didache 8:1; cf Lk 18.12).

Jesus’ response to the question indicates that he has no need to follow extrabiblical traditions, even those recommended by significant religious authorities. But in that conversation he hints at something far deeper; he says that he is putting “new wine” into “new wineskins” (Mk 2.22). What could that mean?

Mark shows us in the next paragraph. Jesus and his disciples are walking through a grainfield one Sabbath, and they take some heads of grain, rubbing them between their hands to separate the kernels to eat. Ah, but the Pharisees, the religious leaders, have decided that such an action is harvesting—work. And this is the Sabbath. Clear violation of the 4^th Commandment (Ex 20.8-11). This rogue rabbi is a danger to the social order.

At this point Jesus does not argue that he has a right to ignore the Law, because he’s God. Indeed, as we’ve noted, part of the purpose of his incarnation is to keep the Law perfectly, as a man, in the place of sinful men and women. Rather, he claims for himself the right to pronounce the true meaning of the Law, implying that he has perfect knowledge of the mind of the Law’s Author. There’s no denial of his humanity, or of his submission to the will of his Father, or of his submission to the Law as intended. He simply asserts that they, the experts in the Law (the Pharisees were a subset of the scribes), didn’t know what they were talking about.

He gives an illustration from the life of David, who ate the showbread from the Tabernacle—with the high priest’s assent—when he and his men were weak with hunger. You see, the Law was not intended to starve people, or to cause them harm; its purpose is their salvation, their rescue, their shalom. “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2.27).

Jesus implies that David did not in fact break the Law, though in principle the showbread was limited to the priests. How did Jesus know that? He knows the mind of the Author—or more bluntly, he is the Author.

And so he concludes by stating how he knows these things:

The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath (Mk 2.28).

Mark gives us other indications. He records the Transfiguration, where Jesus takes precedence over Moses (Mk 9.2-8). He records Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple (Mk 11.15-18), where he not only drives out the merchants but changes Temple policy on the spot (Mk 11.16).

He is in charge of the holiest precinct in all of Judaism.

He’s no ordinary servant.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

No Ordinary Servant, Part 5: Lord over Disease

August 1, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God | Part 3: God Himself | Part 4: Lord over Evil

After Jesus returns from his temptation in the wilderness, he continues to demonstrate authority. He begins to preach, calling the people to repentance (Mk 1.14-15). He calls his disciples, and they leave what they’re doing to follow him (Mk 1.16-20). He teaches in the synagogue at Capernaum, “and they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes” (Mk 1.21-22).

And then, as if to put an exclamation point on his defeat of Satan in the wilderness, he confronts one of Satan’s servants, “an unclean spirit” (Mk 1.23) who, it turns out, speaks of himself in the plural (Mk 1.24)—maybe there’s a whole legion of them in there—and who confesses freely, “We know who you are: the holy one from God.” Jesus wastes no time or words (this is my rendering): “Shut up and get out” (Mk 1.25).

Which the spirit does.

There are other such occasions that Mark recounts: Jesus exorcises a madman in Gadara (Mk 5.1-20) of what is confessedly an entire legion of demons, and he casts a spirit out of a young boy who had seemed beyond hope (Mk 9.14-27).

Incidentally, the first of these exorcisms is at the beginning of his ministry; the second is in the middle; and the third is at the end. His authority never wavers or wanes.

Are these examples of lordship over evil, which should have gone in the previous post, or of lordship over disease, which is the subject of this post?

Yes, they are.

But Jesus’ lordship is not limited to spiritual disease; he takes authority over physical ones as well:

He heals Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever in Capernaum, just after casting out the demon (Mk 1.29-31). And not only does the fever leave immediately (which is odd, given that a fever is typically an indication that the body is battling an infection), but she is immediately restored to full strength (Mk 1.31).
That evening he holds a healing service—a real one—and heals all comers, whether of physical or demonic conditions (Mk 1.32-34). Note that everything we’ve mentioned in this series so far, with the exception of the two later exorcisms, occurs in Mark’s first chapter. Jesus is spectacularly busy, “about [his] father’s business,” as he had put it all those years ago (Lk 2.49). Again, he’s a dutifully obedient servant even as he takes authority over all he meets.
Soon after, he heals a leper (Mk 1.40-45). There’s a lot of discussion about just what biblical leprosy was; I’m not inclined to think that it was Hansen’s disease, but rather some sort of skin condition similar to eczema or psoriasis. But whatever it was, it wasn’t curable; if you had it, you had to isolate yourself and just wait it out, and for some (e.g. 2Ch 26.21) it never went away. Jesus healed it on the spot.
A few days later he heals a paralytic (Mk 2.1-12)—and forgives his sins for good measure. Even today much paralysis is incurable, despite considerable research. So it’s no surprise to us that the onlookers say, as we would today, “We’ve never seen anything like this!” (Mk 2.12).
A few days later he does it again—this time paralysis of just one arm (Mk 3.1-6). He does it with a word; he doesn’t even need to touch him. And—this is important—he does it on the Sabbath. The Lord over disease is also Lord of the Sabbath, a point he takes time to make here. And it goes a step further; he is angered—angered!—by the onlookers’ professed piety, by the fact that they’re more concerned with process than with people, more concerned with letter than with spirit. There seems to be no arena of life into which he does not step with authority.
He heals a nobleman’s daughter and a woman with a hemorrhage (Mk 5.21-43).
He heals a Gentile woman’s daughter (Mk 7.24-30).
He heals a deaf-mute (Mk 7.31-37).
He heals a blind man (Mk 8.22-26).
And he heals another blind man, Bartimaeus (Mk 10.46-52). This man, this time, calls him “Son of David!” (Mk 10.47). We should recall what that title means. King. Lord. Absolute and eternal authority (2S 7.16).

No ordinary servant.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash