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People are No Good

3.3

Read Romans 3:1-20

A few years back, there was a popular country music song called “People are Good.” It was a number one hit for Luke Bryan. I know it was a number one hit because I looked it up and also any country song that I become aware of when it was released is bound to have been in the top ten. I don’t pay much attention to country music. The chorus begins with the line “most people are good”. Overall, the song is fine.

Mr. Bryan said that what appealed to him about the song when he first heard it was that it communicated some good vibes for people rather than the humdrum of negativity that we are exposed to most of the time. The song was made for pick-up truck drivers in places like Texas, Tennessee, and Florida where complementing mothers, acknowledging high school football, and recognizing the dignity of hard-working folks will always play well. In other words, it hits all the feels. About the only thing that you can say against the song is that there is no mention of dogs. Well, that and it is crummy theology!

The Apostle Paul has a counter argument:

There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Romans 3:11-18)

With this litany of scripture verses, Paul completes the indictment of all of humanity that he began at Romans 1:18. Recall “for even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” Along the way he pointed out our preference for the Gods of our own making, the appeal of self-righteousness, and reminded his Jewish brethren that even though they had received the law they failed to follow it. All people are guilty before the Lord God and deserving of punishment. We are all in trouble when the wrath of God revealed (Rom 1:18) becomes the wrath unleashed at the final judgment.

Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

Mr Bryan’s lyric (wonderfully sung in an understated way) reflects the attitude of most people. I heard similar sentiments all the time in my days as a youth director and pastor. It is comforting to think that people are at their core are basically good but that is not what the Bible teaches, nor does it jive with reality.

Look back at the litany above and ponder the following:

How many times in the last week did you say something negative about a friend, a coworker, a family member, a celebrity, or an elected official? Did you gossip about others?

Did you lie? Even a small one. Something seemingly irrelevant like telling the officer that pulled you over for speeding that you didn’t know what the speed limit was or how fast you were going?

Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness…

Did you get angry at the people who voted differently from you in the last election? Did you watch the news and think this or that politician is “stupid” or “a threat to the country”? Did you wish someone were dead?

I know many people who wish the assassin who shot at Trump hadn’t missed. Others have applauded the death of the United Health Care CEO and lionized his murderer this year. People have set fire to Tesla dealerships because of Elon Musk’s government service. Just two weeks ago, I saw a Tesla with a bumper sticker that said the driver is anti-tariff presumably in an attempt to protect them from the vitriol and anger that is being directed their way.

… their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

I haven’t even mentioned the wars that are raging, drunk drivers, the people who are profiting from sex traffic, molesters, pedophiles, murders, abusers, drug dealers, and terrorists.

Where I live even people who “are good” fail to yield to folks entering the highway, speed through school zones, and cut in line at the Starbucks. They are some of the wealthiest people in the world in terms of money and time and give very little of it back to aid the poor and the needy. They are more likely to rescue a dog from a shelter than give a homeless person a meal.

Here is a non-hypothetical example. A few weeks ago, I swung by the local grocery store to pick up a couple of items. As I am walking up to the store, I heard a grown man screaming obscenities at someone. Come to find out he was berating a woman in a car for her driving. He was escalating to the point that several male patrons, me included, began moving closer in case there was need to intervene. Thankfully he allowed her to drive on.

People are not good. Even Jesus said so. See Mark 10:17-27.

When God made people, we read that he breathed into Adam and Adam became a living soul. At first glance you think so Adam began to breathe and live, but “living soul” comes from a Hebrew word, nefesh and it means bundle of desires. That is what we all are — a bundle of desires — our mishandling of those desires is what causes sin.

If we are honest, most of the time, we do what we want when we want. If it is something that we should not do, we justify it to ourselves and others. We have been like this from the start. Eve saw that the fruit was pleasing, looked tasty, and she wanted to be like God. She and Adam ate. When God confronts them, Adam blames God saying, “the woman you gave me gave it to me”. Eve says, “it was the serpent”. No one is taking responsibility. Eve at least points the finger at the serpent’s cunning. Adam blames God.

How is this any different today when someone is in a car wreck and looks for a way to blame the other driver? What about when a rapist blames the victim for dressing provocatively? In degree of villainy, sure, but in principle not so much. Any parent of two or more children knows how easily people take to blaming someone else or finding a way to avoid being punished. Elementary school teachers learn early on to ask, “why did you hit Johnny” rather than “did you hit Johnny?” if they want an honest response. Speaking of teachers, they also learn way too early that a disciplined child will report to their parents that they were punished because the teacher doesn’t like them rather than explain what they did wrong in the first place.

Some of you will say that all may be true, but I follow the rules most of the time and I am not guilty of any of those truly horrible things that you mentioned earlier. I would tend to agree, and neither am I, but an honest assessment of human nature would say people in general are capable of most of them. Someone is doing them. My wife loves to watch Law and Order SVU. That show only has stories to tell because there are lots of those crimes being committed every week.

Paul knew about self-justification. Several times in his writings and in the book of Acts, Paul shares that at one time he was blameless before the law. That is to say that he was blameless in the way that he interpreted the law. When we first encounter him in the Bible, he is holding the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen for the “crime” of believing Jesus was the promised messiah and doing acts of kindness to the poor in Christ’s name. As my Christian Ethics professor was fond of saying “never forget that the first great missionary of the Church was once a murderer”.

Perhaps this why the Old Testament records all these stories of broken, messed up families, and the repeated idolatry of Israel; to remind us that all of humanity is always just a breath or two away from living into their depravity. In just a few short verses from the passage above Paul will reiterate is point that we are all guilty. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And we have.

How depressing you might say to go through life with an attitude that everyone is a slave to depravity. that would be true if that was all the truth there was to hear. Thankfully, there is more to the story. People may be depraved but people are redeemable. That is a topic for next time.

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No Escape

Read Romans 2: 9-29

As it happens, I believe that the Bible is the word of God. I trust that the LORD of heaven and earth, the one who created the cosmos and all that we perceive throughout reality, is capable of the relatively minor miracle of ensuring that the 66 books that we have are the 66 books that we need. There are several other reasons that I believe the Bible is trustworthy and the word of God, but that is for another post on another day.

Saying that I believe that the Bible is the word of God does not mean that I like everything that the Bible says. Like most Christians there are portions of scripture that I like more than others. There are stories that I find distasteful; I am looking at you Lot’s daughters. There are long sections that can seem tedious. I mean really, we could all build our own at-home tabernacle if any of us had any idea about the length of a cubit. The more I mature as a Christian the more I come to understand that it is all in there for a reason and it is all beneficial.

I bring this up at this point in our journey through Romans because I do not want us to forget Paul’s driving force for his missionary work. There is a day of judgment coming. Obviously, it was not coming as quickly as Paul feared, but as he pointed out in Romans 2:4 that the fact that the final judgment tarries is a reflection of the kindness and patience of God. Our response to the delay should be repentance.

There will be tribulation and distress for every soul who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek.

The idea of the final judgment is prevalent in the Bible.

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12)

God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12)

It is appointed unto men once to die, after that the judgment. (Hebrews 9)

For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels and will then repay every man according to his deeds. (Matthew 16)

It is that last one that stings the most, that is, if you know that it is Jesus speaking. Jesus talks about the final judgment quite a bit. He has several parables (sheep and goats, wheat and tares, the rich fool, etc) that are centered around the final judgment.

As central as it is to the teachings of Jesus, I am not so sure that it is a frequent topic from American pulpits. There are times when I think that I failed when I was a preacher for not commenting on the judgment to come more often. There are many who do not want the old “fire and brimstone” messages, but shouldn’t we occasionally have the heat turned up on us?

In Paul’s day there were many Jews who took comfort in the fact that they were children of Abraham. They thought that having the law gave them a special status. They were confident that they had little to fear of the coming judgment because they were the children of God. For them sin was something that needed to be atoned for with the proper sacrifice according to the covenant. Not unlike a Catholic today who might think sin is not that big a deal. I can go to the priest, confess, do the rosary prayer or whatever else he tells me and move on with my life. Protestants sometimes think “oh well the grace of Jesus covers that one too”. The Apostle Paul took a much more dire view of sin.

Paul understood what too many of us ignore. We Christians spend a lot of time talking down the importance of this sin or that sin. Like the Jew who was overly confident in the status of the people of God to be concerned with the condition of their own heart, we rely on grace to cover a multitude of our sins. As such, we are at risk of being overconfident of grace towards those sins that we simply will not stop committing. Like a junior high boy relying on body spray instead of a shower we expect grace to hide the stench. We are cavalier because we have not truly fathomed the cost of sin. I am not speaking in our own lives, although that cost is high. I am talking about the cost to God.

Christ died because of sin.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Sin was such a big deal that Christ had to die.

What is your own life worth? For what are you willing to die?

Christ died because of sin.

Christ died because of your sin.

Many are fond of saying that “Christ died for my sins”, but that also means that “Christ died because of my sins.” I mentioned in the previous post that mercy only has meaning when there is a law that demands punishment. There is no mercy where there is no judgment. In a similar way grace has no meaning where there is no sin. Soon we will be spending several posts on grace and justification and other good theology words as we go through Romans 3-8, but right now we need to sit in the knowledge that there is a judgment coming for a sin-filled world and that our sins are part of the collective problem that cost the savior his life. As Taylor Swift sings “it’s me, I’m the problem, it’s me”

Recall that Paul says that he is not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom 1:16); but he wants to be sure that we understand that there is no other way to salvation. There is no partiality with God (Rom 2:11). Those who choose the path of self-justifying will suffer the same fate whether are familiar with the law of God or not. The path of self-justifying today looks like the person who wants to avoid faith and simply try and be a good enough person. They are not certain that there is a God or a judgment, but if there is, they intend to rely on the “T-Chart” method. Hopefully there is one more tick mark on the good side of the chart than the evil side of the chart. Poor things probably don’t even realize Jesus is serious when he says the “secret” stuff is going to be judged (Rom 2:16).

At first it seems that Paul gives this group hope when he says that the “doers of the Law will be justified” (v13), but Paul just spent several verses highlighting the sins that demonstrate the unrighteousness of humanity. Not only that but in the proceeding verse he says that all who sin outside of the Law will perish; and everyone who sins under the law are to be judged by the law meaning that they too will be deserving of capital punishment. Paul knows Psalm 24 too well to believe anyone can do the law perfectly enough to get into heaven.

No, there are no ways to justification with God through works. If there were then Jesus Christ would not have had to die.

The rest of Romans 2 relates to the Jew who is overly confident that his status as a Jew will result in his salvation. This first century Jew is in the synagogue (hearing the word but probably not being a doer of the word) and he is quick to correct and judge his neighbor. He knows the law, but he cannot be bothered to live a transformed life. Like a Christmas and Easter Christian, today; just need a little inoculation twice a year to keep up the effect of my baptism, but hey football, bass fishing, and travel ball are going to be more important most Sundays (or the rest of the week) than living a life guided by the Holy Spirit.

What Paul writes for the first century Jew (I fear may be true for the merely baptized) that circumcision is of value only if you are keeper of the law, as soon as you transgress the law your circumcision really amounts to very little. In a similar vein, you can be baptized, take communion, attend worship and be there every time the door is open, but if there is no transformation of the heart then it all comes down to nothing. Or as they use to say in East Texas “just being a church goer doesn’t make you a Christian any more than sitting in the garage once a week would make you a car.”

In summary, at the end of Romans 1, Paul explained how the wrath of God was being readied to be poured out on those who practice various idolatry and live fully into their decadence, depravity, and selfishness. At the beginning of chapter 2, he turned his gaze onto those who nodded approvingly at his list of vices and congratulated Paul for his apt condemnations. They forgot their own self-righteousness is a sin. Now, deeper into chapter 2, Paul has revealed that those who trust in their own innate goodness as one of God’s creations will also face the judgment. So too, anyone who seek to be deemed good enough on their own merit when the judgment comes will be found lacking. Those who are confident that they are among the elect (to borrow a phrase from the Presbyterians) and active in the church will not miss the guilty verdict either. Finally, he gets all the “good church people” who know what’s right and even remind others when they miss the target of righteousness. Those people who can quote scripture chapter and verse as they say but still also break the law on the regular will not escape the “tribulation and distress” of verse 9. This is because God is looking for those whose circumcision is of the heart by the Spirit. Jesus himself said the days were coming when people would worship God in Spirit and Truth for the Father is seeking such people to worship him (John 4).

All of this is building Paul’s case and soon enough he will reveal the gospel solution found in Christ Jesus. For now, it is Holy Week 2025, and we should all take our sin just a little more seriously.

Our sin is why Christ had to die.

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Idol Chatter

Read Romans 1:18-25

Trigger Warning: The next several posts may contain ideas that will offend some readers.

In the last post, we looked at the wrath of God and the call, since the beginning of creation, for us to honor God and give him thanks. Living this life of gratitude towards God is one part of how we can live out the calling to become “living and holy sacrifices acceptable to God” (Romans 12); and this life of grateful praise is also part of becoming transformed by the Spirit Sphere in our lives and not being conformed by the Flesh Sphere. (a description of the two spheres may be found in this post)

“Professing to be wise, they become fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” The Roman world when Paul is writing this letter was a land overflowing with idols. Cities had temples to various Gods. Homes had idols for household gods. The Imperial government itself was beginning to take on cult-like status elevating Augustus Caesar to a posthumous divinity. Good Roman citizens were expected to pay homage to these gods to maintain the peace and stability of society.

The Old Testament is replete with idolatry. We read of the “pillars in high places” that were idols of gods foreign to Israel. The Israelites fashion a golden calf when they get tired of waiting on Moses’ return. Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal. All this in a land that was instructed (commanded even!) that “I am YHWH your God… you shall have no other god before Me. you shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness… you shall not worship them or serve them…” (Deut 5)

Many people think that idolatry is a thing of the past. They are wrong. John Calvin called people “idol making factories”. He was spot on because, then and now, we are really good at constructing things to place our faith and trust in. Paul is very clear that we are to have our faith in and our obedience directed towards Christ. So, any of these other things that we place our hope and trust in are idols.

I live in the United States. The Fall in my country is the time of year when our modern idols are on full display. Not only is it football season, but it is also election season, and thanks to Black Friday it is shopping season. I started this post with a trigger warning because when you begin calling out the idols some people will become offended.

How do you determine an idol? There are a few simple ways. One it is where we invest our time, energy, and talents. Two is where we spend our money. Three is the outcome that the idol produces. Allow me to clarify. Psalm 1 instructs us that the blessed person loves the word of God and meditates on it day and night. It follows that those things that we spend more time on than God’s word are potential idols. In Luke 16, we are told that the pharisees were great lovers of money and that we cannot serve both God and mammon because people cannot serve two masters. We will always ultimately love and serve one master more than the other. So, where we spend our money can reveal a potential idol. Finally, the word of God is truth, and its outcome is love (agape) and the promotion of unity; therefore, idols promote the opposite of these: animosity and division.

Understand that idolatry is like gambling in that it what may be a problem for one person is not a problem for another. That being said, there are Idolatrous forces at work in the world that constitute the sphere of the flesh that seeks to separate people from their calling to know God and praise him. Over the next several posts we will break down the principal idols at work in my culture (Western Civilization /USA). I can only speak of my context; your results may vary. We begin with one of the most powerful and pervasive modern idols: politics. I invite you to read the rest of Romans 1.

Romans 1:18-32

The impact of an idol, according to Paul, is that the idol worshipper devolves into foolishness (v24). Fool is a technical term in the scriptures for it is the fool who has said in their heart that there is no God. The appeal of the idol is twofold. Idols are simultaneously a god that we have constructed in our own image and a god that we can control. But bowing down to the idol eventually leads to becoming a fool. Once someone enters into this foolishness, God decides to give them over to their own desires and unwise thoughts (v28-31).

Paul’s list of vices and sins in the last verses of Romans 1 provides us with a convenient guide to determining idolatry. If idol worship produces that fruit in the fool; then it follows that we can identify potential idols by how many of these vices the idol promotes.

Allow me a quick clarification. Politics in the sense I am referring is not the same as government. Government is the necessary ordering of people to allow for their peace, safety, and prosperity. Government is evident in the Bible and later in Romans we will learn that Christians are called to be good citizens in the communities that they inhabit. By contrast politics is the effort to wield the power of government and to influence the policy directives thereof.

I suggest to you that politics is the principal idol of America today. Americans increasingly look to government to solve all manner of problems large and small. Americans seek laws to legitimize behaviors and belief systems. Americans also are fond of labelling certain groups victims who deserve more of the attention and resources of government. Finally, any casual observer of the American political spectrum will recognize that much of it revolves around who will be allowed to wield the extensive power of the government; because, on every level (local, state, and federal) the right to wield such authority provides both the allure of making over society in one’s own image and to benefit financially as a result. Some of you will think that is all very true, but does that make it an idol?

Let’s look first at some of the criteria I listed above in determining idols. A quick google search reveals the following: Money? Experts estimate as a nation we will spend around $2 billion dollars on relief for Hurricane Helene. By contrast the total amount spend on the 2024 election will be $16 Billion. Time? CBS dedicated around 23 hours to coverage of Hurricane Helene; no doubt they surpassed that amount in election coverage on the day before, during, and after the recent election without considering all the hours spent on the campaign trail over the past 18 months. In terms of time there are now at least 5 television channels devoted to around the clock news reporting the vast majority of which is centered on politics. This tally doesn’t include the channels totally devoted to business news which also invariably covers a great deal of politics. There are also a multitude of national and local radio stations whose format is strictly devoted to politics. Americans spend a tremendous amount of time following and arguing politics on the airwaves. Finally, given the vitriolic responses recorded on Instagram, Tik Tok, and X (formerly known as Twitter) there is little doubt that the outcome of our political life is division rather than unity. If a space alien were to eavesdrop on us during an election year, they could not be faulted for thinking that we were dealing with life-or-death decisions constantly.

I could cite a myriad of examples of headlines that demonstrate the above but that would risk this post becoming pedantic. I want to be clear that none of this is to say that Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics. All I am suggesting is that all Christians should compare their commitment to politics to their commitment to scripture, prayer, and Christ. Again, I can only speak of the context in the USA. There are too many of us Americans who identify quickly as democrats or republicans rather than as Christians. We need to be involved but we would do well to remember these words of Jesus, “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God” (Luke 20).

Finally, let’s look at the list of vices that God’s word says idolatry renders and ask ourselves if an over emphasis on politics doesn’t produce wickedness, strife, deceit, and lack of mercy (Romans 1:29-31). If we are honest politics far too often results in people not only doing the same; “but also giving hearty approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:32).

The good news is that Christ’s sacrifice covers a multitude of sins. We are always able to break the hold of an idol through repentance and seeking God while he may be found. All who have placed their faith and trust in Christ are under the influence of the Spirit. We are to practice the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) and utilize the full armor of God in our political life as we do in our personal lives remembering Paul’s admonition that our struggle is not against flesh and blood.

Politics has a way of infiltrating every aspect of our lives and causing us to filter everything through the worldview of the political ideology (or party platforms) with which we are aligned. I began pondering these things while I was in seminary. I had been very invested in the politics of America most of my life. While in seminary the 2004 presidential election happened. The responses that I saw and some of what I felt myself caused me to question the issues of allegiance to Christ and political allegiance. I began to think that if Jesus cared at all about politics that his own views would never reflect one party platform over another. It was much more likely that his thoughts on the matter would be a blend of positions from across the spectrum. Out of this, for a time, I led talks about how Christians should engage in political discourse.

Around 2008, some minister friends of mine and I gathered for a continuing education event. We spent the evening with a good meal and some drinks. My friend Paul, who often saw things the opposite of me, and I began to argue strongly about the virtues of universal health care. We both had had a little too much to drink and the argument turned ugly. Some mean things were said to one another. Our evening ended with anger and animosity. Our friendship took a body blow that evening.

The next day, I approached my friend with a penitent spirit and a desire for reconciliation. To Paul’s credit he was willing to accept my apologies and be merciful towards me. Eventually, we added a maxim to the rules I was developing for Christian political dialogue: “never get liquored up and talk politics!” We still speak weekly, and we still discuss the important matters of the day. We have been friends now for 20 years, but we almost ended that friendship 16 years too soon. That would have been a tragedy. I credit Christ with seeing us through that time and growing our friendship ever sense.

Regardless of where you live (there are some international readers of Hypocritical Christian!) I encourage you to take a moment to assess how often politics consumes your thoughts. Are you spending more time in conversations about the latest outcomes than you do asking your neighbor about their lives? Do you find yourself anxious and worried about the outcome of elections and judiciary decisions? Do you find it hard to love the neighbor who disagrees with you politically? Have you allowed your political leanings to give you the permission to lose friendships and family members?

Politics tries to draw your thoughts and energies to it. The more time you give to it the less time you give to both love of God and love of neighbor. If you found yourself on the wrong side of the questions above, I encourage you to spend some time in prayer and scripture. Jesus is waiting especially if you are weary or heavy laden. He will give you rest. He will forgive.

Peace to you and blessings on your journey. Vaya con Dios!

As always, the above is freely given, and all are welcome to use it. If you do it would be nice if you mentioned where you got it. Finally, if you know someone who might benefit from reading these posts please share the URL or email with them.

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The Power of the Gospel

Read Romans 1: 16-17

Why is the Gospel so important? Paul says that it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Think about that for a moment. Paul says that it is not the power of salvation alone, but the very power of God!

The power of God? The greek word is dunamis; the root from which we get the words dynamic, dynamo, and dynamite. The power of God is something awesome and explosive. That should come as no surprise. The power of God created all that we perceive through his spoken word. The power of God parted the Red Sea. The power of God caused the Israelites to tremble in fear as God descended upon Sinai. That’s just a few instances from the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we see the power of God still storms, cleanse lepers, change water into wine, and raise Jesus from the dead. The power that did all of that, Paul says, is the same power that is inherent in the gospel.

Gospel means good news. Euangellion (where we get our word evangelism) is the singular form of the word. The plural form of the word was a common greeting in the Roman world. It was the equivalent of saying “good tidings” to a stranger or a friend upon meeting. The Christians used the singular form very early to express, in one word, the work and resurrection of Jesus.

They chose this word, because the singular form was used by Greek translators for Isaiah 61:1:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because YHWH has anointed me to bring good news (gospel) to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the LORD and the day of vengeance of our GOd…”

You may recall that this is the portion of the scroll that Jesus reads in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4) and when it comes time to provide the commentary on the passage he says, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” The work of Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of the prophecies of Isaiah about how YHWH would set the world to rights.

When the followers of John the Baptist come to Jesus and ask for confirmation that he is the one to come Jesus replies, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.” (Luke 7: 20-23). Essentially, Jesus says do you not see the prophecy of Isaiah playing out in my actions and words?

Paul says he is not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for salvation. When he says he is not ashamed he likely is referring to the above comment from Jesus and a similar sentiment expressed in Luke 9: 26. The stakes are high for those who choose not to believe the Gospel.

Isn’t it amazing to consider that the very power of creation is available to those of us who believe in Jesus Christ? Remarkably, that is what scripture teaches us. When we profess our belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior (another shorthand for the work and resurrection of Jesus Christ), we are empowered by the very same power that raised him from the dead! You might even say that we are given the power to be transformed (rather than conformed) into something new. We are given the power to live the life of the World to come in the here and now.

The gospel is available to all. This is precisely what Paul means when he says the gospel is for all who believe, to the Jew first and also the Greek. In Jewish though there were two broad groups of people. You were either a Jew (the people of God) or you were everyone else. Because the world in his day was dominated by the culture of Greeks, they were the ethnicity that was chosen to represent the gentiles, meaning all non-Jews. So Paul means the message and the power is meant for the benefit of all. It is universal.

Too often Christians, particularly Western Christians raised in a culture that promotes the importance of the individual, limits this salvation and power simply to the gift of eternal life. Many Christians are only interested in getting into heaven. They want the equivalent of fire insurance! This salvation we experience certainly includes the gift of eternal life. It is also being able to bring all of our concerns (shelter, food, clothing, health, etc.) to the hearing of God. Salvation is the meeting of our needs and the peace that we can have during trials and tribulations. The thing that is often neglected though is that it is more than our individual concerns and needs being met, it is even more than the collection of all of our individual concerns, it is the victory of God over sin and death. The correction to the carnage that our collective sin has unleashed on the world throughout history.

A careful reading of the Old Testament reveals that the purpose of the calling of the Israelites out of Egypt, and the covenant made at Sinai that established them as the people of God, was for the faithfulness of God to continue the blessing promised to all the nations of the earth through Abraham. That’s not the end of the purpose though. As we saw in a previous post, it was also to eventually complete the promise made to Eve by bringing forth Jesus at the right time to achieve the solution to sin.

“He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The very righteousness that Paul says is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith. What does that mean?

Scholars agree that Paul quotes the prophet Habakkuk. The prophet says that he will stand at the rampart and await the word of YHWH. He is answered by God, “For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay. Behold as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him; but the righteous will live by his faith.”

The proud person is the one who relies not on the LORD but on their own strength. The proud ones are those who trust in their own righteousness. God says that the righteous though will live by faith.

Why faith to faith? Paul clearly indicates here that there are two faiths at work and that one faith is transferred or passed to another. There are different ways to understand this when taken in isolation. Later in Romans, Paul will ask how anyone can come to proclaim Christ as Lord without hearing the gospel? So, one understanding would be that faithful Christians must share gospel truth to others that they too might confess Christ and experience salvation.

There is little doubt that we are to tell others about our faith in Christ. This is a consistent message of the New Testament, one could even say that it is the mission statement of the Church given that Christ says to “go out into all the world making disciples of all nations…“; however, this is not the meaning that Paul intends. “From faith to faith” is the faith of Christ to the faith of us.

Look again at the verse from 2 Corinthians above. Christ was made sin that we might be made righteous. To this add what Paul wrote to the Philippians explaining the unsurpassable value of knowing Christ, “not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith…”. This interpretation is made only more likely when we consider that the Greek translation of Habakkuk reads “The righteous one will live by his faith.”

As we will see later in our journey through Romans, Christ is the righteous one, the only sinless one, and his faithful life has accomplished what neither Israel nor anyone else could have done. Through him there is a path to righteousness from God that also justifies us in the sight of the Lord. Sin separates us eternally from God. Christ’s death and resurrection reverses this reality for those who believe.

Won’t you choose today to believe in who Jesus is and what he has done? Now is the time to invite the power of the gospel to transform you forevermore.

A final thought for those who already have put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage in Habakkuk is also quoted in Hebrews. There it used to remind the faithful (those who live in the sphere of the Spirit) that they must persevere because of the promised return of Christ. Beginning in 10:36 we are told “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised ‘for yet in a little while, He who is coming will come, and not delay. But my Righteous One shall live by his faith; and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. We are not those who shrink back to destruction but those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.”

May it be so among us!

Vaya con Dios!

Feel free to use this Bible Study for your own groups or discussion.  It is freely given. If you do I merely ask that you acknowledge where you got it and if you find it useful that you encourage others to seek it out. It is freely given and written with fear, foreboding, and prayer by a fellow hypocrite who is simply trying to figure out the road ahead.

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Jesus Christ is Lord

Read Romans 1: 1-11

There are portions of the Bible that folks tend to read through quickly because they seem a little monotonous. The list of names in Chronicles or the dietary laws in Deuteronomy come to mind. Almost every letter Paul wrote to Churches begins with an introduction of himself that can seem “old hat” to the student of scripture. We allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of “heard this all many times before”.

When it comes to the Letter to the Romans, we would be wise to pay close attention.

Paul was last Apostle called directly by Jesus for the working of spreading the gospel. Not the last person called to this task only the last person whom Jesus spoke to directly. All the apostles before Paul had been called in a person-to-person conversation. Paul saw Jesus in a vision and heard him speaking to him directly. He begins this letter calling himself the bond-servant of Christ.

The real word is slave. Most modern English translations soften the language because of the long history of slavery in the Western World. While this is understandable something is lost even in this first verse because we do not understand the word the way Paul’s audience would have understood it. In the Roman Empire there were slaves of many types. The important thing was a slave was not thought of as property so much as the consequence of one group being dominated by another. Slaves were the people who had been conquered and now had to live out a life bound to the will of the family that they served. There was a Paterfamilias (the Parent of the Family) at the top that held the power of life or death over the slave. The Paterfamilias was also called by the title Dominus or the one whom had dominion. All of this and more can be read about in Wikipedia.

Reflect now on how the first listeners heard these words. In a few syllables, Paul communicates he was one who had been conquered by Christ Jesus, that Christ Jesus was the Paterfamilias, the Dominus, and Paul was slave to that household. Had they been aware that Paul was a Roman citizen the claimed status of slave would be even more striking. He goes on to say that his servitude was for the purposes of the gospel, to explain what that gospel message is about.

When was the last time you read the Old Testament? If it has been a while you may want to go back and dive in. Why? Because according to Paul the gospel is contained in the Old Testament. Check out the second verse (which in reality is a clause in a much longer run-on sentence that culminates at verse 7!): “which he promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures; concerning his son…“

Paul is not alone in saying that the message of the Gospel is found in what we today call the Old Testament. Twice, Jesus demonstrates this same truth. In Luke, the travelers to Emmaus encounter a stranger along the way who asks the question, “was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into His glory? Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the scriptures.” (Spoiler Alert! the stranger is Jesus.)

Later he appears to the first disciples and says “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things are written about me in Law of Moses and the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

Jesus read the Old Testament. So should we.

The writer of Hebrews begins his great letter with no introduction but with these words: “God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the world…“. We will get back to that last part soon enough, but there it is again that the Old Testament contains the truth of the Gospel.

It was the Old Testament that Paul went back and studied after he regained his sight (figuratively and literally) to understand how it was that the crucified Jesus of Nazareth could be alive and speaking to him when he had traveled to Damascus. Luckily for us Paul gives us the shorthand version in the salutation of this letter.

“...His son, born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection according to the Spirit of Holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Here we see that Jesus is the promised Messiah (heir to the throne of David) and that after the resurrection he has been empowered as the Lord. (Jesus, the Christ, our Lord would be an acceptable alternative translation.) This is the shortest way that you can summarize the story of Jesus found in the Old Testament. A little longer way to flesh it out would be to say that Jesus is the one promised to Eve who will defeat Satan. Jesus is the heir of Abraham through whom all the people of the world shall be blessed. He is the heir promised to David who shall sit on the throne for all eternity. He is the one Jeremiah spoke of who would bring about the new covenant in which the law would be written on the believer’s hearts and God would remember their sins no more. He is the Suffering servant of Isaiah by whose stripes we are healed. The one who would be YHWH returning to his temple promised in Ezekiel. The son of righteousness rising with healing in his wings according to Malachi. (The list is virtually endless!)

Still, there is more in this quick summary than meets the eye. A long running argument (controversy, even heresy depending on how one views these things) exists in the Christian world about the divinity of Christ. In the earliest centuries of Church history, the argument took the form of adoptionism. The idea being that Jesus was just a man like any other until God chose to adopt him as his son. When the adoption took place was argued both at the baptism and after the resurrection. In more recent times the argument centers around when did Christians decide that Jesus was God. This controversy reignited late in the last century over the idea that there were so called gnostic Christians who were shut out by the orthodox but who had the right idea all along about who Jesus really was. Our enemy, the eternal liar, wants people to question the divinity of Jesus. A Jesus who is nothing special is a Jesus who can be ignored.

Some of those who argued for adoptionism pointed to this verse in Romans. To them, even Paul is suggesting that Jesus is appointed to his special role after the resurrection. This is a poor understanding of Paul and the early Christians. So as not to get bogged down into translation issues I will remind you of four different voices of the first generation of Christians who suggest otherwise.

We will start with Paul. To the Philippians he writes of Jesus, “Although he existed in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of a slave being made in the likeness of man.”

Luke writes that the angel Gabriel told Mary, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you; and for that reason, the holy child shall be called the Son of God.“

In Hebrews (continuing the passage quoted above), “and He is the radiance of His Glory and the exact representation of His nature and upholds all things by the word of His power. When he made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High...”.

And our fourth witness is the Gospel of John where we read “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The Bible is quite clear that Jesus is God.

Paul is not saying that Jesus became the Lord after the resurrection but rather in the same way that a prince is always the king even before the coronation, Jesus is declared the Lord after the resurrection. He does not become it in that moment but is revealed as always having been that from the beginning. One needs to look no further, in my estimation, than the repeated use of Lord as a title for Jesus. Paul was a good Jew. A faithful well-educated rabbi. He knew that the word Lord was the word that the Jews had used for centuries to avoid saying the sacred name (YHWH) aloud. He would never have used the title lightly for Jesus.

Many scholars like to side-step this reality by saying that the use of Lord for Jesus was a political statement to draw the distinction between Jesus and Ceasar (the emperor cult in Rome was already, at this point, beginning to deify Caesar) who was known as Lord of the Earth. It is true that declaring Jesus as Lord was a political statement in that day (as it is in our own context), but that fact does not diminish the truth of who the first century Christians understood Jesus to be.

And if he is Lord, then he is worthy of our faith and obedience, which is what Paul says is the purpose of the preaching of the gospel. “Through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the gentiles for His name’s sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ.”

So, we can draw 3 conclusions from this short passage. First, that Jesus is the promised one of the Old Testament. Two, that Jesus is the Lord God. Three, he is worthy of our faith and obedience.

Wow. Isn’t scripture amazing?

If this is your first time to The Hypocritical Christian, welcome, I am glad that you are here. Honored that you would consider reading at all. Thank you for reading to this point in the post. We are in the midst of a journey through Romans, where we are seeking to understand how we are to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Rom 12:2). Along the way we are going to incorporate other portions of scripture from throughout the Bible but principally from Luke, Philippians, and Hebrews.

At the risk of going too long, I want to highlight briefly two words that will be essential to our understanding of Romans and Paul’s desire that we are not conformed but transformed (this I believe is the spiritual gift that Paul wishes to impart mentioned in Romans 1:11); flesh and spirit.

Paul, a good student of the Old Testament, believes that with Christ’s resurrection a new age has begun. This new age is the age of the Spirit. The Age of the Spirit (wherein believers exist in the power of the Holy Spirit) continues until the return of Jesus and the world is finally set to right again as described in Revelation 21-22. The age of the Flesh is how the world operated until the advent of Jesus and continues to operate for non-believers until the second coming of Christ.

For now, think of it this way. All of us exist in the sphere of the Flesh. We will spend the next several posts discussing the sphere of the flesh and the ways in which it manifests itself individually and collectively all around us. Then we will begin discussing how the age of Spirit, which has broken in, changes us as we become believers (or continue on as believers) and how the influence of that Age should impact our thoughts and behaviors.

This image can help us understand:

As believers we currently exist in a bifurcated world. We are perpetually influenced by both the world (Age of the Flesh) and the presence of the Holy Spirit (Age of the Spirit). To put it simply these two spheres are the influence which seeks to conform us and the influence that has the power to transform us.

But all of that is for future posts.

Peace to you on your journey. Vaya Con Dios!

Feel free to use this Bible Study for your own groups or discussion.  It is freely given. If you do I merely ask that you acknowledge where you got it and if you find it useful that you encourage others to seek it out. It is freely given and written with fear, foreboding, and prayer by a fellow hypocrite who is simply trying to figure out the road ahead.

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Mercy, Mercy Me

The previous post began our journey through Romans. You can read it here. If you are up to date, you know that we ended that post by saying that “it all begins with mercy.”

“Therefore, I urge all of you because of the mercies of God” Paul writes in Romans 12:1. The therefore at the start of 12 is the culmination of all that Paul has written to the church in Rome up to that point; so, if this is the culmination of his argument, then mercy is a key thing to understand.

Mercy is everywhere in the scriptures. These posts on Romans are an effort to synthesize a three-year bible study that I led. The first year we walked through the Gospel of Luke. We encountered mercy over and over again. For Example: when Mary begins to prophesize after the angel Gabriel has come, she recites Psalm 103: “His mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear Him.” Likewise, Zacharias says “because of the tender mercy of our God with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us” referring to the promised messiah. Perhaps most importantly though Jesus himself highlights mercy to his followers.

Jesus in the midst of the beatitudes and preaching in Luke says “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” This is not just a suggestion; it is something that is to be true of those who follow God. We are to be merciful. The parallel passage in Matthew expresses the same point differently. There the word is perfect. “Study to be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” Now that can cause a lot of grief for a person, because I don’t know about you, but I fail at perfection usually in the first hour of my day. Perfection is an ideal. But Luke helps us to understand that being perfect like God means being merciful!

We will come back to that thought in a minute but first we need to consider another place where Jesus highlights mercy. One day, a lawyer challenges Jesus to explain what it means to love your neighbor by asking “who is my neighbor?”. Jesus replies with a parable (the story of the good Samaritan) that culminates in this question, “Whom do you suppose was the neighbor to the man who was left for dead?”; the answer given “the one who showed mercy to him” is met with the response “go and do the same.”

The underlying Greek word for mercy is eleos. It is a word with a rich and deep meaning. In the New Testament the word means more than forgiveness, although it does mean forgiving a debt or providing pardon. Eleos also means compassion, generosity, and provision. The Samaritan did all of this in the story. In that manner he acted like his Father, God.

In Exodus 34, God offers a self-description to Moses: “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness (hesed) and truth…“. Mercy is so important to the character of YHWH that it is the first adjective used in his self-description!

Hebrew scholars note that the word for mercy and the word for womb have the same trilateral root. In Biblical Hebrew, all words are built outward from three core consonants. These “roots” provide insight into the meaning behind the word. We do something similar in English. You can understand the English word enlightenment if you know the meaning of light as to illumine or make something easier to see. The womb is a place of love, safety, and provision for the baby. It is in the womb that the strong bonds of love are first formed between mother and child. The womb is a place where the growing child is kept safe and where all that is needed is provided.

Saying God is merciful is to say that he loves unconditionally, that God forms us, and we grow when connected to him. Saying God is merciful means that he provides everything that we need. We see aspects of this mercy throughout Luke, not only with the Samaritan, but also when Jesus feeds the 5000, heals the demoniacs, and when he promises the thief on the cross that that very day, he would join him in Paradise. Mercy all around!

The writer of Hebrews shares “we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God… therefore lets us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.“

What does this have to do with Paul and his Letter to the Romans?

Paul grew up learning all that we know as the Old Testament. Early in his life, he felt that he understood all of who God was, what it meant that he was merciful and gracious; righteous and just. Paul was so certain of his understanding he persecuted the Christians in Jerusalem and other places because he was certain that they were heretics sharing falsehoods about God. Then it all changed. After encountering Jesus in a vision, he rededicated his understanding of those scriptures to comprehend what it meant for someone to have risen from the dead. By the time Paul is writing to Rome, and by the grace of God to us as well, he is able to say because of the mercies of God (his provision, his protection, his transforming spirit, and his salvation) we are to provide ourselves as living sacrifices.

Our forgiveness and justification in Christ Jesus are just the starting point. Now we are to live out mercy-filled lives in response to what God has done for us. This is our “rightful worship”. The path of your transformation follows opportunities of mercy, and it means so much more than just being more forgiving.

Some will recognize a Marvin Gaye song from the title of this post. Not particularly theological, but the song begins “oh mercy, mercy me, things aren’t what they seem to be, no.” In our next post we will start at the beginning of Romans and start seeing that the world isn’t what it seems. Until then the title of this post is a prayer you can live this week.

In Exodus when God describes himself it is written that he descended from the cloud and proclaimed the Name of the Lord. “YHWH, YHWH ELOHIM, a god of Mercy…” mercy is not just what God does but it is who God is! So, the title is a prayer best read this way: “MERCY, mercy me.”

Thank you for reading. If this post blessed you, please share it with someone else. As always it is freely given. You are welcome to use it although it would be nice if you credited where it came from.

Peace to you on your own journey, Vaya con Dios!

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The Most Significant Day Ever

What is the most significant day in history?

For Americans, there are lots of contenders whether it be the day the towers fell or the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Other Americans might choose the moon landing or the day the Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan show. July 4th,1776, makes a strong case for the most significant day in history.

Other countries and nationalities would have their own days of significance. Days of foundings, of significant battles fought, of independence from colonial powers, all special days awash with extra meaning for those peoples.

Then there are the individual days people might choose when asked the question. The day they were married. The day a loved one died. Maybe even the day that they won the lottery. The least humble among us might suggest their own birthday!

There is only one day in all of human history that is so significant that it is literally celebrated around the world on every continent not just annually but every single week. That is the day Jesus rose from the dead.

Read Mark 16: 1-8

We do not know the exact date with any certainty. We can do a little historical triangulation and narrow it down to a year within the range of 30-34 CE (the renamed A.D.) and we know that because it was around the celebration of Passover we are in the Springtime of year in Jerusalem.

Ancient burial practices being what they were it was common for a body to be buried in a cave in those days and for loved ones and family members to bring spices and anoint the body. This was done to help cover the smells associated with decomposition. Eventually, the bones of the person would be collected and stored in a stone box called an ossuary. This is precisely what Mark says the women were heading out to the tomb to do in the early hours of the morning.

This is one of the ways in which this story with an incredible ending rings true. First, the suggested task of the women is precisely what we would expect to be going on based on what we know about 1 century burial practices in Jerusalem. Secondly, it rings more than a bit true, that none of the men are there because they have left this important yet menial task to the women. No doubt this anointing would have been followed up by going to the well for the daily water supply, getting the “kitchen” fire started for the days cooking and all the other never-ending tasks that fell on their shoulders.

They must have been experiencing a swirl of emotions. Jesus was dead. They had followed him and hung on his words, wondered what it might all mean, worried that they or their husbands, brothers, and friends might also experience retribution at the hands of the Sanhedrin or the Romans. Maybe they felt some resentment that they were having to “fit” this task into the rest of an always busy day. The only thing we do know for certain is that they wondered about how they were going to get into the tomb because there was the matter of the large stone that sealed the entrance.

This is when the story turns to the unexpected.

The stone is already moved away from the entrance! Mark notes that it was extremely large. Now, the ladies are probably thinking that someone else has come to anoint the body. They may have reasoned that one of the disciples had come to pay respects. They may even have considered the possibility that someone was coming to take the body away.

They mustered up the courage to go into the cave without knowing who was in there ahead of them. They were unprepared for what they found.

In our day, the idea that the tomb is empty that Jesus rose is so ingrained in us that we are inoculated from the sense of fear, trembling, and awestruck wonder those women experienced.

“Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right wearing a white robe and they were amazed. He said to them ‘do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here; behold, the place where they laid him.’“

The word translated as amazed gives the sense of awestruck wonder or befuddlement. It is like the time my son came home from school around the age of 8 to learn that we now had a Wii. His young brain could not wrap itself around what was happening at all. He had gone to school like any other day and when he came home it was now a home with a Wii. What was this new world he was in that something like this could happen.

That is the befuddlement of joy. I think you will agree with me that there was a not inconsiderable amount of fear wrapped up in the astonishment that the two Marys and Salome were experiencing. Angels have this effect on people. American culture pictures angels as beautiful, serene women, who are dressed in white and gold. Oh! and they have wings. Angels, based on scripture, may resemble humans but there must be something fearsome about them because everyone is either astonished or scared in their presence. It must be that they are obviously other-worldly at the sight. We know this because the Angel always has to remind the persons that they manifest before to not be afraid.

Angels do a great many things in the scripture, but when the Angel appears as a herald it is always to clarify that God is acting in the current event. The Angel is there to assure the witnesses that any other “rational” explanation will not do. The Lord God has raised Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified from the dead.

In Greek, like English, the verb to rise has many meanings and connotations. It is used for a person getting up in the morning or for the sun at dawn. It is used for the bringing forth of something new. Just as we might say a new generation is rising. Or in our culture we speak of rising freshman or rising seniors as the students of one year of school matriculate to the next year. Normally in the New Testament the verb is coupled with the word for dead body to indicate someone being raised from the dead, like the times Jesus brought a dead people back to life. The word for dead body is not present here. Not to get too far into the weeds the verb tense is Aorist Passive. That’s fancy talk for something was done to Jesus between the Crucifixion and the Empty Tomb. The one whom Jesus referred to as Father raised him from the dead.

In terms of the meanings of the word Jesus is risen and something new is afoot in the world. Later Christians would come to understand that a new Age was also rising with Jesus. An Age that included Jesus as Lord and Savior for all who would put their faith and trust in him. An Age where salvation is promised to all who profess with their mouth and believe in their hearts that Jesus Christ is Lord. This Age lasts until the God appointed time when Christ returns and the “Age of the World to come” begins. You can read all about the future glories of that Age in Revelation 21 and 22.

The women are told to go and tell Peter and the others to meet Jesus in Galilee. Mark records that they fled with fear and trembling and told no one because they were so afraid and astonished. An empty tomb will do that to you.

They eventually told someone. No doubt later the same day. Maybe it was the second person that asked them what was wrong, maybe the third. Most likely they talked it over amongst themselves and decided that they best do what the Angel told them to do!

The most significant day in the History of the world. Why you say? Two reasons really. One, it is the only day that is both significant for the entire world. If Jesus Christ walked out of the grave then everything that he said about himself is true. It means that when he says that “all power and authority on heaven and earth have been given to me” that that is true. It means that he is the only true Lord and Savior. It means he reigns as the true ruler of every nation and all peoples. It means that there is no other God besides the One.

Two, it means that the day is significant for every single person who hears the story. For if Jesus Christ walked out of the grave then you have a decision to make. Do you believe the story? If so, then there exists roadmap on how to live in the teachings of Jesus. It means you can experience the fruits of the Spirit and life in the Kingdom of God. You can live in the sure and certain hope of the life of the world to come. If you believe, you can trust in the promise of Jesus that he is “the resurrection and the life, those who believe in me though they die yet shall they live.”

But it is a truth that demands a choice. And that makes the day even more significant. Anyone can ponder the day that Battle of Hastings was fought and go on about their lives without making a decision. It matters not what I think about the day Julius Ceasar crossed the Rubicon. The day that Salk perfected is vaccine has no claim upon me to make a decision. The Resurrection does demand a decision.

There is no half-way here. Its either true or it is not. If it is true then time is short for you to decide if you will proclaim Christ as Lord and experience renewal in this life and everlasting life one day. If you choose not to then this life is all there is and to paraphrase the Apostle Paul you will be the most to be pitied.

There is no halfhearted believing either. You cannot simply rely on the historical record and go to Church on the regular and try and be a good person and hope for the best. It is not enough to understand the faith and its ways. It has to be believed. The faith must be lived.

The Christian life is not about knowledge it is about a relationship with a living savior. “He is going ahead of you to Galilee there you will see Him.” Christ is always and forever on the move. God is waiting for you to find him.

Just as there are 2 possible lives (the present one and the prooffered eternal one) there are 2 deaths. The one that ends this life and in the last day the one that is everlasting separation from God.

If you have never called upon the Name of the Lord, do it today. Do it now.

Feel free to use this Bible Study for your own groups or discussion.  It is freely given. If you do I merely ask that you acknowledge where you got it and if you find it useful that you encourage others to seek it out. It is freely given and written with fear, foreboding, and prayer by a fellow hypocrite who is simply trying to figure out the road ahead.

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The Fear of the Disciples

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Read Mark 4:35-41

Jesus has just finished a long day of teaching near the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The time has come for them to head to the opposite side of the lake and begin healing and teaching in the communities there.  We are told a couple of pertinent details about the journey.  A significant storm began as they were making there way across the 7 mile span and Jesus was taking a well deserved nap.

I grew up around lakes in Texas and I can tell you that storms on a lake are no small thing.  Apparently, this is particularly true of the Sea of Galilee because of the unique topography around it.  All of Isarel, west to east, is a series of radical changes in elevations in a comparatively short distance.  As a result the Sea of Galilee is in a basin of sorts that channels the wind across the water when a storm rages through the region.  A similar dynamic can be experienced when the wind is channeled through office buildings in a modern city or even apartment complexes in a smaller town.  The point is that the storms on the Sea of Galilee can be nasty and we need to remember that these guys are not in some modern style watercraft, but a homemade boat designed for fishing and not much else.

Have you ever napped on a boat?  It’s glorious! The boat rocks back and forth and if you are sleeping directly on centerline it is the closest thing to being in a cradle that you can experience.  When you consider the crazy compacted schedule that Jesus has been keeping and the incredible amounts of physical and mental energy he has exerted it is no wonder that he is “dead to the world” in the back of the boat.

We are told that when the disciples, all of whom are experienced fishermen, decide to wake Jesus. They are worried about dying because the boat was already taking on water.  I think it is important to pause here and really put yourself in the moment.  The storm is wicked, perhaps there was rain and perhaps there was just wind and waves.  Even without rain the waves alone could be devastating and frightening.  The image above is described as one of the “mountains of water” that form on Lake Erie during a storm.  A fishing boat in those days would have had a very low side to make it easier to haul a net of fish onto the boat.  It wouldn’t take much for a series of significant waves to begin filling the hull up.  Water is coming into the vessel, each wave striking the boat would have begun to feel like invisible fists pounding the side threatening to capsize her or worse break her apart. If the worst happens it is several miles to shore in storm driven waters.  Every one of these men grew up around these waters and every one of them likely has known someone who has drowned there. No wonder they were afraid!

That last point about the deadliness of the sea is pretty crucial for really understanding this story.  In the ancient Jewish tradition, the sea represents evil and chaos.  The sea is unpredictable and kills.  You see this in the very first verses of the scriptures.  God’s spirit hovers over the waters of the void and begins to bring order out of chaos.  The sea is given its limits but is always there as a symbol of the forces that are opposed to God.  You see it in the final pages of scripture when the beast rises up from the sea in Revelation and when the new creation is finalized, we are told that the sea is no more.  So, while the story is about the day that the disciples nearly died on a boat trip across the Sea of Galilee it metaphorically means so much more.

The disciples rouse Jesus from his deep sleep and level an accusation against him, “Do you not care that we are perishing!”

Jesus stood and rebuked the wind and commanded the sea, ” Be silent” and the lake became calm.

calm lake

Take a moment and meditate on the two images.

How would you feel?

Try to imagine the feelings of fear and dread of the waves and the storm replaced with the feelings of relief and dread at what just happened.  The fellow next to you in the boat just told the weather to stop and it did.  Not impressed? Try it yourself sometime.  You won’t get very far.   As I write this it is 80 degrees Fahrenheit before 10 AM in Texas.  You don’t think I want to make it cooler with the sheer power of my will?  How many brides would kill to be able to control the weather before their outdoor wedding?  Each of us is powerless against the forces of heat, cold, wind and rain.  Each of us except Jesus.  That is by the way I think Mark’s point in his retelling.  Recall that Mark is a gospel bent on guiding every reader / hearer into making a decision about who Jesus is and in this moment he wants you to realize that Jesus commands the forces of nature and they obey.

In verse 41, the disciples ask “who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?”  They would have had the benefit of growing up hearing the dozens of references in the psalms, proverbs, Job and prophets that YHWH does this very thing.  They would have grown up being told to remember how YHWH had delivered their people from Egypt by commanding the sea to part and allowing them to cross over on dry land.  This is what they were dealing with and why we are told a great fear (literally a mega phobia) gripped them in the wake of Jesus action.

“Who is this guy?”

That is the question with which we must wrestle.

Now some of you will respond to this with a ho-hum.  Maybe you are a life-long Christian and you settled on the answer “who is this guy?” a long time ago.  You may ask, what about the storms of my life?  My boat is floundering.  Where is the word for me, the reassurance that Jesus will calm my storms?  I have come to this post wanting to know that Jesus can stop the storms in my life.  I have job trouble.  I have debts.  I have addictions.  I have marital strife.  I have cancer.  What about me?  Doesn’t Jesus care that I am perishing?

The very same accusation that the disciples leveled against Jesus is on our own lips many times.

And Jesus said to them, “Why are you so cowardly; do you still have no faith?”

It is not two questions as most translations put it but a single question.  The nature of Jesus question, condemnation really, is to link the fear with the faith.  In other words, if you had faith, you would not fear but rather trust.  I know this because the Greek word used is particular.  It is not, phobos, from which we get the word phobia.  Phobos is the word used in verse 41 to describe the awe-struck fear that has overcome them.  Phobos is the word used throughout the New Testament (Phillipians 2 for example) to render the “fear of the Lord” that is the beginning of wisdom as the Old Testament (proverbs 1) so succinctly summarized the journey of faith in YHWH.  Here though, in verse 40, the word is deilos, a word that used in ancient Greek to describe the cowardice of soldiers who desert in battle and the inaction of the farmer who is paralyzed by fear of the future.  Deilos is always used negatively and connotes a paralyzing fear.  This seems backwards for English speakers because the word phobia was picked up in psychology to describe the rational and irrational fears that affect us.

We are also used to thinking of faith as a matter of the mind alone.  To many of us, having faith is having the correct belief.  In linking faith and cowardice Jesus is linking faith with action.  The person who has faith is the person who trusts.  The person who does not have faith is the person who is paralyzed by fear.  It is not simply understanding (mind) who Jesus is but knowing (heart and mind) who he is and allowing that deeper knowledge to guide our actions and our responses.  Jesus is surprised that after watching him cast out demons and healing people that the disciples are still so timid when the storm comes.

Think back on your life and recall the times that God has provided for you what you needed: the doors that have opened, the healings that have occurred, the resources that were given. The life of faith is not simply understanding who God is but allowing that understanding to put you in a place of trust where you can live in a relationship towards God that is a life marked by the expectation that God will provide.

The accusation was “Do you not care that we are perishing?”  The answer is if you trust me then you know that I care and that you matter.

I do not think that the life of faith means that there is never a reason to fear.  There are scary things out there: violence, war, famine, disease, divorce, unemployment, snakes… it is a long list.  There is nothing wrong with the instinct to fear but faith calls us to get past the fear to trust that the Lord will carry us through all things, even death, when that day comes.

So how do we live it?

Be assured.  Fear not.  The Lord knows your circumstance and your need before you ever vocalize it.  Use the Lord’s prayer as your guide and pray that pattern daily: Praise God, ask for your needs, seek forgiveness and grant forgiveness, ask for deliverance from the evil that is out there, expect and look for the will of God to be done more than your own solutions, and finish reminding yourself that all glory and honor will forever belong to God.  Doing so will train your heart and mind to trust in God’s provision and in God’s timing. When in doubt recall what God has done and know that God will do what is necessary.

Amen.

Questions:

  • What makes you afraid?
  • Are there areas of your life where you are not acting because of fear?
  • When was the last time you prayed the Lord’s prayer?
  • What is one thing you could do today to trust God more?

Are you enjoying the Hypocritical Christian? If you are then share the website with someone else and encourage them to try it out. If you receive it through email and choose to share it with some else let them know where they can find new posts for themselves. Also note that you are welcome to ask questions or even “argue” back through the comments.  Dialogue is always encouraged.  I ask that you suggest the website to others because knowing that people are going to the website encourages me to keep posting.

As always, the above reflection is given freely. If you choose to share it in a group bible study of your own or as a devotional before a small group meeting, etc. please let folks know where you got it.  It is written with fear, foreboding, and prayer by a fellow hypocrite who is just trying to figure out the road ahead.

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The Parable of the Sower

Read Mark 4:1-20

James_Tissot_The_Parable_of_the_Sower_300

“Behold a Sower went out to sow…”  thus begins one of the more famous parables of Jesus and the only one that is given a full explanation by the man himself.  Ironically, this parable is often interpreted by theologians and preachers independently of the explanation Jesus gives when the most complete explanation that we can give someone is read verses 13-20 if you have any questions.

Instead we are given sermons where people are asked “what kind of soil are you?”  We get messages about not worrying about those who are yet to believe because they are just not as fertile a soil as you the faithful listener here this Sunday morning. I almost fell back into that trap myself by very nearly writing a blog post where I intended to ask myself and you how our actions and decisions were impacting the soil of other people’s hearts.

Why are we so quick to try and add to or change the meaning Jesus gives this parable? The cynic in me says that some people want to avoid the fact that Jesus flat out mentions Satan in the explanation.  While I do think that the notion of Satan is disturbing to a great many “modern-minded” Christians, I suspect that the real reason efforts are made to come up with clever extensions of the parable or outright changes in the meaning is because we want the parable to be about us.

The parable is not about us.

The sower sows the word.  The word is the gospel and the gospel is thus: in the person of Jesus, God has initiated the Kingdom of God.  If you are still struggling with that being the fundamental truth of the gospel please reread the first three chapters of Mark, or review this blog post.

In this point in Mark, Jesus is sharing this parable to explain to those who believe in him (presumably the disciples) why some folks, like the pharisees, are so unbelieving that they wish to have him eliminated and other folks, like his immediate family, think that he is bonkers.  “Bonkers” is a technical term in this instance that theologians use so we don’t have to conjure up a confusing word like egotheistical.

There are a lot of reasons why people fail to believe in Jesus. Some are hard soil and there is no way for the truth to take root before the birds and such eat it. Some are rocky and there is an initial taking hold but the plant doesn’t survive the heat and the wind, like the flowers that I put on my west facing apartment balcony. Others get choked out by the weeds. Finally there are those who are the good soil and the gospel takes root in the heart and grows strong and true and yields fruit.

That’s the meaning plain and simple.

sower images

I am not going to try and change that interpretation, but I am going to try and draw a couple of interpretative lessons out of that explanation.  Personally, I come from a family of farmers although I admit I know more or less nothing about farming.  I only know a little about gardening.  When I was a kid I wanted to help my mother plant a garden so she showed me how. We bought some seeds and we created a pretty good sized garden in the land next to our house. It had several rows that we had created with a tiller that mom borrowed for the purpose.  By the time we were done it was that classic Norman Rockwell style garden with little posts on the end to mark the rows and the seed packet stapled to them so we could remember whether that row was radishes or corn.  What I learned over that weekend was that gardening is hard work.

The first lesson that I would point out to from this sower story is this: the Word is not an annual. This gospel is not a one time yield sort of crop here today and gone tomorrow.  You will note that most of the times that Jesus gets all horticultural on us it is about vineyards or trees.  The Gospel when it takes root is going to be a perennial plant.  This is important because whenever we try to make the parable about us (focusing on the soil rather than the sower /seed) we can become fixated on whether or not we are good soil.  If we are good soil, then the yield can become a way for us to qualify ourselves among the other good soil out there i.e. am I yielding 30 times or 60 times? We can either compare ourselves this way to make ourselves feel like we are better Christians or we can get down on ourselves because we aren’t bearing as much fruit as someone else.

Stop it.

Sometimes the vineyard has a bumper crop.  Some years are lean.  Some years a fruit tree will produce more fruit than you know what to do with and some years there aren’t any fruits at all.  When I lived in Corpus there was a grapefruit tree in the backyard that produced far more grapefruit than I could have ever consumed.  Truth be told, even one grapefruit is generally more than I want to consume. Right across the fence in the neighbors yard, not even 10 feet away there was a grapefruit tree that was a perennial disappointment.  So much so that the neighbor always made sure I knew that he didn’t want me to prune the limbs that stretched over the fence from the superstar tree because he wanted to harvest those grapefruits.

It is like that with Christians.  We have seasons when we produce much fruit in our own lives or in the lives of others and there are seasons when the pickings are slim.  Both are OK.  Both bring glory to the Father because throughout it all we are good soil.   Jesus says, “they are the ones that hear the word and accept it” meaning that the good soil are those who have begun to orient themselves around the truth of Jesus Christ.  What does that mean?  Read Romans 12.  Most people think that the gospel is doing all those things, but those things flow out of understanding the truth about Jesus (Romans 1-11) not the other way around.

In short, if you want to be bear more fruit, then double down on your understanding of who Christ is and the fruit will follow.

Why is that? Because the word is being sown haphazardly all the time.  I mentioned earlier that when it came time to plant the garden my mother and I prepped the plot of land.  We tilled and readied the soil for the seed.  Not this sower named Jesus, this guy is chunking that seed all over the place. I once thought that this was really silly and not the most effective way to plant anything but I recently learned that this was common practice in his day.  A sower would sow the seed and then go back and till the ground turning over the dirt, rocks, weeds, etc whatever with the seed.  They did this for two reasons.  One, they didn’t always have the best soil to work with in the first place.  Let’s face it, Israel ain’t Kansas.  Two, there wasn’t a place down the road to buy potting soil and fertilizer and Weed-B-Gone.  You turned over the dirt and everything in it good and bad to have whatever nutrients you could get in the soil for the plant and you hoped that the Lord would bless you with rain and the right combination of stuff to find out where the good soil was and grow you some produce.

And therein lies the second take away from the parable for the believer: you WILL BE tilled.

Far too many Christians think that the after accepting Christ into their hearts life is going to be a long period of perfect.  When the tough stuff happens they ask themselves “Why is the Lord doing this to me?”  They ask themselves why God is punishing them.

“We rejoice in our suffering because we know that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint because God has poured out His love for us through the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 5:4)   

 

parable-of-soils

Ignore every preacher you hear (most of them are on TV) that try to sell you this Pollyana notion that the life of the Christian is smooth sailing.  Do your best to ignore your well-meaning Christian friends who try to tell you the same.  As my good buddy Sam used to say “It is hard to be a Christian”.  But when the stuff happens keep in mind that you are being tilled, the Sower is working His soil to make you produce fruit.

I will speak for myself.  Too often I have asked myself what does God want me to learn from this experience.  Too often I have listened to other people ask me that same question to which I have had very little in the way of answer.  What if our question became “God, how do I bear fruit in this moment?”   Don’t hear what I am not saying.  I am not suggesting that there is never a lesson or a pruning of the vine where we need to get ourselves aligned with God more closely.  What I am saying is that always asking the the first questions is putting the focus on us and our experience, pain, and hurt rather than putting the focus on God and asking how we can grow and bloom.

Questions:

  1. Have you found yourself focused more on the soils (you) in the story than on the seed (word)?
  2. Have you ever judged yourself for the amount of fruit your life is yielding for the Lord?
  3. Have you asked yourself recently “Why me Lord?”
  4. How would your walk of faith be different if you asked God to help you bear fruit in times of trial and suffering?
  5. What can you do to focus more on the word during this season of your life?

Are you enjoying the Hypocritical Christian? If you are please share the website with someone else and encourage them to try it out. If you receive it through email and choose to share it with some else let them know where they can find new posts for themselves. Also note that you are welcome to ask questions or even “argue” back through the comments.  Dialogue is always encouraged.  I ask that you suggest the website to others because knowing that people are going to the website encourages me to keep posting.

As always this is given freely and if you choose to use it in a bible study of your own or as a devotional before a small group meeting, etc. please let folks know where you got it.  It is written with fear, foreboding, and prayer by a fellow hypocrite who is just trying to figure out the road ahead.

 

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