How to Get Caught Up (1 Thess. 4:13-18)

Posted on August 6, 2023 by salooper57

Writers have used lots of ink and preachers have spoken millions of words to talk about “the rapture.” This is the passage behind all that teaching. Paul did not write this to satisfy people’s curiosity about what will happen in the future, but to encourage people in the present.

Viewing time: 26 minutes (approx.)

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.

Back in the ’90s, a computer support tech had the following phone conversation that was recorded, so I can give it to you verbatim.

Tech: “How may I help you?”

Caller: “The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting it fixed?”

Tech: “I’m sorry, but did you say a cup holder?”

Caller: “Yes, it’s attached to the front of my computer.”

Tech: “Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped. Did you receive this as part of a promotional? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?”

The conversation continued for a couple of more minutes before the support person realized that the caller had been using his CD-ROM drive as a cup holder.[1]

People say that ignorance is bliss, but they’re wrong. Ignorance is usually just ignorance. It leads to broken computers, broken relationships, and broken hearts.

And yet everyone is ignorant – our ignorance always greatly exceeds our knowledge. That is not because we are stupid but because we are limited. Human beings have occupied a tiny recess in our universe for a fleeting moment of eternity, so our ignorance is understandable. It is not a sin, but there are times when it is a shame. That is especially true when it regards God and his plans for us.

The Thessalonians were ignorant about God’s plans for people who die. That wasn’t their fault. Paul, Silas, and Timothy had been run out of town in the middle of the night and simply hadn’t had time to teach them everything they needed to know.

When people lack accurate information, it is natural for them to fill in the blanks with their own ideas. The Thessalonians had apparently been doing that. The missionary team had taught them that Jesus was going to come again and that it was going to be a glorious and wonderful day. His people would be vindicated. Everything would be set right. They were eagerly looking forward to it and they expected that it would happen soon.

And then one of their fellow church members, perhaps more than one, died. Some biblical scholars think they might have died in some kind of anti-Christian persecution. And the church realized that they didn’t know what happens to people who die before Christ comes back. So, they did what people do when they are ignorant about a subject: they filled in the blanks.

They had learned from Paul and Silas that the day of Christ’s return would be a great day for Christians, a day of vindication, glory, and joy. Think of Christmas, the Cubs winning the world series, and Victory over Japan Day all rolled into one – and then some. But what about those who had the misfortune of dying beforehand, or of being martyred by their enemies? Would they miss out on that day? Maybe they would still take part in the resurrection, but what about the celebration, the victory?

And perhaps some wondered if those who died before Christ’s return were just gone for good. Until they had become Christians a few months earlier, the Thessalonians almost certainly shared their society’s understanding of death: it is the ultimate tragedy, the irredeemable loss, the end of everything that is good.

Before Paul’s time, the Greek poet Homer wrote of a dreamlike meeting between the hero Achilles and the ghost of his great friend Patroclus. In the dream Achilles reaches out to embrace his friend, but he vanishes in a puff of smoke and goes gibbering off like a madman to the underworld. Achilles awakes and says, “Then, it is true that something of us does survive even in … Hades, but with no intellect at all, only the ghost and semblance of a man.” Theocritus said that “hopes are for the living; the dead are without hope.”[2] Death was disaster and there was nothing anyone could do about it except face it with courage – and even that made no difference.

When Timothy returned from his emergency trip to Thessalonica, he reported that the church members were confused about all this. The unexpected deaths of their friends had thrown them into turmoil. So, Paul writes (verse 13) to supply the information they lacked and to save them from unnecessary grief.

Christians, unlike their neighbors and friends, have a reason to hope even in the face of death, a reason (verse 14) grounded in the good news about Jesus: “We believe that Jesus died and rose again.” The rest of the world believes no such thing. They agree with Aeschylus’s Apollo: “Once a man is dead, and the dust has soaked up his blood, you will not resurrect him.”

But the Christians could point to a time and place and, more importantly, to a real person who had died and rose again: Jesus. It was not only theoretically possible; it had happened. There were witnesses, hundreds of them. Hades’ impassable gates had been blown off their hinges. In Paul’s words elsewhere, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead,” – and not only that, he is – “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). In other words, Jesus was the first to rise, but he will not be the last. Those who belong to him will do the same.

Verse 14 again: “We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.” That is why we do not grieve like the rest of mankind. We know something they don’t know. Death is not the end. When Christ and Hades met, it was Hades who flinched. Hades cracked, cracked wide open. Jesus knows the way – is the way – out of death.

But that brings us back to what was worrying the Thessalonians. They would be relieved to know that their friends would be resurrected, but wouldn’t that happen later? They’d still be in the ground on the great day, Victory Day, the day of Jesus’s triumph.

Not at all, Paul assures them. “God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.” When Jesus arrives for that great day, our loved ones who have died will be with him. They get to be a part of it! In fact, as he will say in just a moment, they will be right in the middle of it!

But we need to go carefully here. It is not everyone who has died that God will bring with Jesus; it is only the ones who have fallen asleep in him. Or to be still more precise, those who have fallen asleep through him, as the Greek preposition is literally translated. But what could Paul mean by “fall asleep through Jesus”?

We need to think this through. First, it is important to know that when someone who was committed to Christ passed away, the early Christians would say that he or she had fallen asleep. They picked that up from Jesus himself who, when his friend Lazarus had succumbed to illness, told his disciples: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep” (John 11:11). The rest of the world feared death as the ultimate tragedy – and death is an ugly thing – but Jesus talked about it differently: it was like falling asleep.

Next, we need to know that nowhere in the New Testament is Jesus’s death ever described as falling asleep. Jesus did not fall asleep; he died. According to the author of Hebrews, “Jesus … for a little while was made lower than the angels, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone…” (Hebrews 2:9 Mounce).

Jesus experienced the horrors of death, which is the ultimate consequence of human rebellion against God, without any mitigation. Unlike us, his faculties were undiminished by sin’s rot, his emotions unblunted by alienation from God. Jesus felt death like no man since Adam has felt it. When Scripture says that Christ died for us, this is what it means. Because he died, we need only sleep, for our deaths have been swallowed up in his. By faith we have been, Paul says elsewhere, “united with Christ in the likeness of his death” (Romans 6:5). But again, this is not true of everyone, only of those who have been joined to Christ by faith.

In verse 15, Paul deals specifically with the Thessalonians’ concern that their deceased friends would miss out on the glory and celebration of the great day of Jesus’s return. He writes, “According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.” They are not only not going to miss out; they’re going to be there before us, according to the Lord’s own word.

We don’t know to what word Paul is referring. It may have been a special revelation to Paul or some other New Testament era prophet. Remember how in the Old Testament we frequently read that “the word of the Lord came to” this or that prophet. This might be that kind of thing. On the other hand, it might also be a word we already have in Scripture, but the closest parallel is Matthew 24:30-31, and it is not very exact. Or it might be a word the Lord spoke when he was on earth that was not written down. Surely, Jesus said many things, just as he did many deeds, that the Gospel writers did not record but that his followers remembered. For example, none of the Gospels mention that Jesus said, “It is better to give than to receive.” We only learn of that from the Apostle Paul who mentions it in a letter he wrote twenty years after Jesus’s resurrection.

According to Paul, we have Jesus’s own word that our Christian friends who have gone before us will be first in line for the party. Or perhaps for the fight, for the language of verse 16 is militaristic. The word for “loud command” is routinely used to describe military orders. The trumpet was often used in battle.

However, the trumpet was also used to gather God’s people for assemblies, for festivals, and for the Day of Atonement. The day Jesus returns will feature an assembly the likes of which no one has seen before. And this time it will be “the Lord himself” who calls the assembly and leads it.

Paul says that when the assembly is called, “the dead in Christ” will rise (that’s the verbal form of the word meaning resurrection) first. They have pride of place. The dead in Christ “rise,” while the living in Christ are “caught up.” This particular word has given rise to volumes of teaching about “the rapture.”

We get the word “rapture” from the latinized form of this verb, which means to “snatch away,” to “grasp,” or to “catch something up.” This same verb was used of Philip the Evangelist whom the Spirit of the Lord “suddenly took away.” You could say that Philip was raptured from the Gaza Road to Azotus. It’s the same word that is used in Jesus’s Parable of the Sower. The birds snatch away the seed that falls on the path. The birds rapture the seed. When Paul was rescued by soldiers and carried away from a murderous crowd, this is the word that was used. The soldiers raptured him.

For many of us, this word has come to refer exclusively to the rapid, perhaps imperceptible removal (disappearance?) of Christians at the beginning of a period of tribulation that will bring this age to an end, but as we’ve just seen, the word did not have this technical meaning in the first century. In fact, that didn’t develop until the 1830s.  

Paul says that all this will happen – the Lord will descend, the dead in Christ will rise, and the living in Christ will be caught up – at “the coming of the Lord.” The Greek word here, which has entered the vernacular of the American church, is “parousia.” It is commonly translated as “coming” but that is a secondary and derived meaning. It’s primary meaning is “presence,” as in Philippians 2:12: “[D]ear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence…” Not only in my parousia.

The word did have a technical meaning in the first century Mediterranean. It referred to the arrival of some famous person, like a king or even the Emperor. The emperor’s “parousia” was a pull-out-all-the-stops, pageant or gala that happened when the exalted ruler made a royal visit to one of the great cities in his empire.

Here’s how it worked. When the emperor’s cavalcade, which included governing officials and military troops, neared the city, the city’s luminaries would lead a parade of citizens, peasants, slaves – just about everybody – outside the city to meet the emperor. There was cheering and exuberant celebration, and then everyone would return with the emperor to the city – his city. This is certainly what the Thessalonians would have thought of when Paul mentioned Jesus’s parousia. Jesus’s cavalcade will include military troops – angels and perhaps the blessed dead, and we will go to meet them. This was what the Thessalonians worried their deceased friends would miss, but Paul assures them that they will be right in the middle of the action.

Notice (verse 17) that the living (Paul was expecting to be among them, though a few years later when he wrote the Corinthians, he thought he might be among those who had fallen asleep) will be together with the dead in Christ. This is the Great Reunion. In Greek, Paul could have used one preposition to convey that we will be together, but he used two, “together with,” to emphatically make his point.

This is reminiscent of Isaiah’s great prophecy: “But your dead” – he is speaking to God – “your dead will live, their bodies will rise.” Then he addresses the dead: “You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy! Earth will give birth to her dead” (Isaiah 26:19). When that happens, we will be together with our loved one who have died.

But even more importantly, we will be together with Christ. “And so we will be with the Lord forever.” We are not going to join the dead in the grave; we are joining them in the clouds. A literal translation could go, “caught up in clouds to the Lord’s meeting.”

As so often with Paul, the language he is using comes from the Old Testament. Clouds serve as a prophetic image of the day of God’s judgment in the Palms and in Ezekiel. In Daniel, the Son of Man come for his coronation with the clouds. To meet the Lord in the clouds is to be present when, in the words of Daniel, Christ will be “given authority, glory and sovereign power; [and] all peoples, nations and men of every language [will worship] him.” Victory Day.

We, whether we die in the Lord or live in him, will be there. And whether we die in the Lord or live in him, we will be together. No wonder Paul says (verse 18), “Therefore encourage each other with these words.”

There are a couple of things here that stand out. To “die through the Lord” guarantees that we will not miss out. But how terrible it will be to die outside the Lord. Who else knows the way out of Hades? He alone has turned the grave into an exit and not only an entrance. We need Jesus.

The Lord’s Meeting. The Great Reunion. The Day of Victory and Coronation. We are all invited. The way to accept the invitation is by entrusting yourself – that’s faith – to God by joining with Jesus. If you have not done that, or don’t know how to do that, I am going to invite you to do it today. We who have already done it can show you the way. If you have doubts but would like to explore this further, I or any of the pastors would enjoy meeting with you to answer questions and proved resources.

Finally, if you have Christian friends and family members who have died, do not grieve as those who have no hope. Our friends are fine! Better than fine. We have Jesus’s own word for it. And we will see them again. The Pauline phrases here are some of his most uplifting: “together with them … to meet the Lord …And so we will be with the Lord forever.”

Be encouraged by those words.

[1] “Strange World,” Campus Life, Vol. 56, no. 6.

[2] David J. Williams, New International Biblical Commentary: 1 & 2 Thessalonians, p. 81, citing Bruce.

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Why Have 40 Million Americans Stopped Attending Church?

Posted on August 5, 2023 by salooper57

According to Religion News Service, the median sized Christian church in America had 137 people attending in 2,000. By 2021, that number had shrunk to 65. According to Jake Meador, writing in The Atlantic, more than 40 million Americans have stopped attending church in the past 25 years.

Why is this happening? The pandemic has been a factor, but the trend began two decades earlier. The church’s failure to address abuse within the congregation has been another factor. But in a new book titled The Great Dechurching, authors Jim Davis and Michael Graham argue that there is a larger reason: contemporary American life simply does not make room for church. 

Referencing Davis and Graham, Meador concludes that “Contemporary America … is designed to maximize individual accomplishment as defined by professional and financial success.” This leaves “little time or energy for forms of community that don’t contribute to one’s own professional life or, as one ages, the professional prospects of one’s children.” The church has become superfluous.

There is yet another reason for the decline: Christian parents and grandparents have failed to pass on the faith to younger generations. Samantha Saad, writing for Christianity Today, reported on a recent Ipsos Global Advisor survey of nearly 2,000 adults that found “countries with more baby boomers who say they believe in God … are less likely to have members of Gen Z who do.” It works the other way too. Countries with fewer believing boomers are likely to have more members of Gen Z with faith.

Why would Gen Z belief be down where Boomer belief is up, and vice versa? Boomers have failed to pass on the faith and, in some cases, have become an obstacle to it. A former youth pastor once said to me: “I’ve seen kids do well” – in terms of faith – “whose parents were genuine Jesus-followers. I’ve seen kids do well with addicted, abusive parents who don’t know God. But I’ve never seen kids do well whose parents talk like they’re Christians but live like they’re not.”

In the Bible, God “commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know [what God had done], even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.” It is not the church but rather parents who are primarily responsible to teach their children about God and model his ways.

But how can parents go about that? They must rid their lives of hypocrisy, as my youth pastor friend pointed out. That is a given. But what else can parents do?

Biola University’s Dave Keehn writes that parents must be intentional about passing on the faith. While faith is more “caught than taught,” it still needs to be taught. Personal experiences of God’s faithfulness must be shared. We should not expect it to happen by osmosis.

Parents should also pray for their children. This might include praying for them to grow wise, experience the reality of their connection to God, and have positive spiritual influences. One such influence might be a believing spouse.

Keehn encourages parents to look for teaching moments. Since people learn best from experience, relationship challenges offer a wealth of opportunities to point out God’s character and commands. So do TV shows, movies, and news reports.

Parents can go beyond looking for teachable moments; they can create them. This can be done by talking about church at Sunday lunch. What did you like, or think was important in the pastor’s sermon? Was there anything in it that we can apply to life? What did you talk about at youth group this week?

In the Book of Judges, we read that “Israel served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the elders who outlived him….” Just one generation later, we read: “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done….”

We are living in a similar era. Parents should not wait for a national spiritual awakening to bring change. They should present a thought-provoking faith in the context of a joyful life. Nothing less will suffice.

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Mind Your Own Business (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12)

Posted on July 30, 2023 by salooper57
Viewing time: 25 minutes (approximate)

Today, we will be looking at and thinking about 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12. It is a short text, but it’s rich in insight and helpful instruction. Let’s read it:

 Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody [or “have need of anything”].

This passage continues Paul’s instructions on how to live to please God. He dealt with sexual integrity in verses 3-8, and now he broadens his scope to include relationships and work. And the first relationships he considers are those between Christ-followers.

Think about that for a moment. Paul does not turn first to biological family relationships, though he does address those in various letters. Nor does he turn first to work relationships or to relationships with non-Christians, though he speaks to those too. But the relationship that gets the most attention in the New Testament – by far – is the relationship between Christians.

Why so much emphasis on this relationship? For a couple of reasons. First, this relationship between Jesus’s followers was a new thing to these recent converts. They had navigated family and work relationships for years, with varying levels of success, but this was uncharted territory. They were trying to figure out what their relationships with other Christians should be like.

Second, the relationship between Christians is a first order relationship in God’s kingdom. It is enormously important to the church’s witness. Jesus had explained that it was through Christian’s love for one another that they would be recognized as his disciples (John 13:35). It was through their unity with each other that non-Christians would come to know that God had sent Jesus (John 17:23).

No wonder Paul applauds the Thessalonians’ love for each other. And no wonder he tells them to “do so more and more” – literally, “overflow more” in their love. There may be nothing more important to the church’s witness than its peoples’ love for each other. And there may be nothing more detrimental to the church’s witness than discord between its members. It is no wonder that our adversary’s chief tactic is to create conflict in the church.

Paul thinks it unnecessary (v. 9) to write about this since the Thessalonians themselves have been taught by God to love each other. “Taught by God” echoes Old Testament promises made in the new covenant and in Isaiah (54:13), where we read, “All your sons will be taught by the Lord.” Jesus affirms this promise in John 6:45. God himself undertakes the instruction of his people.

The phrase, “taught by God,” translates a rare Greek word (its only biblical use is here) that means, “God-taught.” If you believe in Jesus, you have been God-taught. Had not God spoken to your heart, you would not have believed in Jesus. It is God’s instruction that enables you to grow in your knowledge of Christ. Every Christian, whatever their age and however long they have believed, is a student and God is their instructor.

We will be calling a new pastor one of these days. Of course, we want him to be a capable teacher, but it is even more important that he is God-taught himself. No matter how knowledgeable or eloquent he is, his principal teaching role is to help other people be God-taught. A preacher’s best messages are not the most eloquent or inspiring; they are the ones that God himself can use to teach his people.

And one of the chief lessons God teaches his people to love each other. A church where people love each other is a light; a church where people are in discord is darkness. A loving church is a welcome sign. A cold church is a “Keep Out” notice. A united church is an apologetics masterwork. A divided church is an atheist manifesto.

The Thessalonians were loving their fellow Christians as brothers and sisters. They were committed to each other. Yet, Paul urges them to love even more. He doesn’t urge them to collect more money, or preach more evangelistic sermons, or to take their worship music to the next level. He urges them to love more and more.

And notice who they are loving: It is not just their local church members whom they know well; it is the other brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. These were people they did not know well, perhaps did not know at all. Yet when they found a Christian, they treated him or her with love and acceptance.

That was a striking testimony to the reality and power of Christ. This passage makes it clear that it is not enough for us to love the people who belong to Lockwood. God teaches us to love Jesus’s people at First Baptist, New Life, St. Charles, First Presbyterian, and Pine Ridge Bible Church. This is our duty. It is also our privilege and joy. And it is our most convincing witness to the power of God.

Too many times, the local church sees other churches as competitors for market share when they should see them as extended family, or perhaps as fellow soldiers in God’s kingdom. In the biblical picture, earth is occupied territory. God invaded through Jesus’s incarnation and, when he returned to heaven, he left operatives here to prepare for the second wave, the return of Christ. The true church, wherever it exists, is a base of kingdom operations. Whether this church or that, Jesus’s people belong to God’s kingdom and to each other, not merely allies but brothers.

During the Second World War, a battalion of the 141st Infantry was surrounded by the German army in the Vosges Mountains in Northern France. They dug in and waited for help against insurmountable odds. People referred to them as Lost Battalion.

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which included 3,000 Japanese American volunteers, was ordered to rescue Lost Battalion. The fighting was intense and often hand-to-hand. Of the 600 men of Companies K, L, and I who fought their way to Lost Battalion, only 60 were still on their feet when they reached them.

When the soldiers of Lost Battalion saw the 442nd coming, do you think they complained that the 442nd had no business getting involved in their mission? Did they criticize their ancestry and refuse to acknowledge them? No, these were their people. The same is true of Christians wherever they are from.

One more thing before we move on. We misunderstand this text if we think that the holiness Paul mentioned in verse 1 is only about the sexual integrity he describes in verses 3-8. It also involves the love we read about in verses 9 and 10. Love is the core of holiness and is the principal way that we please God. If you aren’t loving, you’re not holy.

But Paul doesn’t stop there. Though the NIV ’84 (and about half of the best known Bible translations) ends the sentence with verse 10, the NIV 2011 is right to continue it into verse 11. What difference does that make? Only this: it shows that Paul is still going over the instructions the Thessalonians had been given for living in a holy, God-pleasing way. We might think that little things like leading a quiet life and going to work every day have nothing to do with sanctification. We’d be wrong. They are part of a life that pleases God.

The first phrase in verse 11 is surprising. Some scholars suggest translating it as, “Be ambitious to be unambitious.”[1] The first verb comes from a compound word that means “to love honor.” It’s about what you would want to be known for, hence the translation, “be ambitious.” When we think of ambition, we think of being known for titles, or wealth, or power. So, when Paul says, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life,” it sounds like the opposite of ambition. That is not the American way.

But it is God’s way. He looks for people who make it their ambition to lead a quiet life and then employs them in accomplishing his purpose. Moses had escaped the political life and was quietly living as a shepherd on the edge of the wilderness when God gave him a world-changing role. Elijah the fire-bringer quietly resided in a guest room in the strategically unimportant town of Zarephath. Gideon, who was the least of his small clan, was quietly trying to stay out of sight when God tasked him with saving his country.

Jesus gave this advice: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast … take the lowest place… For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:8, 10, 11). God loves to find the person who is not trying – or has given up trying – to be the star of his own show.

The word translated “quiet life” is used elsewhere in the Bible of silence after speech, the end of an argument, and rest after labor.[2] It has the idea of tranquility and calmness. A couple of years ago, Greg Fowler shared with us his struggle with alcoholism and how he got and stayed sober. Nowadays, Greg is always alert to those times when the tranquility and calmness he has found is being threatened. He makes it his ambition to lead a quiet life, not a stressful life of selfish ambition. He knows from experience where that leads.

The ambition to be somebody does not lead to the quiet life. The ambition to be like somebody—Jesus – does. We would all be better off if we could say like David: “My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me” (Psalm 131:1). We can make ourselves too big to accomplish much. God prefers smaller tools.

I think Joel Belz, writing in the latest issue of World, is right: “…telling the truth, living chastely, paying our bills on time, living within our incomes, caring for the needy who are closest to us, worshipping faithfully. Little things, all of them. But if we really did them, instead of getting regularly sidetracked with impossible global visions, who knows what might happen? We might even take over the world!”[3] Or rather, Jesus might.

Paul tells believers to make it their ambition to lead a quiet life, but we won’t be able to do that (v. 11) until we learn to mind our own business. But we will not know what our own business is until we know who our boss is. If you are a Christian, your business is to do what your boss – the Lord Jesus – wants.

Does that mean you can never have any plans of your own? Not at all. God wants children, not robots, and he wants them to grow into capable, confident adults. For that to happen, we must use our brains, render decisions, and make plans. But we mustn’t hold those plans so tightly that we can’t change them when God makes it clear he wants us to do something else.

In the Battle of Copenhagen, the admiral in command signaled Vice-Admiral Nelson to retreat. Nelson didn’t want to retreat, so he raised his spyglass, pointed it at the signalman’s flags, but put it to his blind. That was the origin of the phrase, “turn a blind eye to.” Nelson’s problem was not that he had a blind eye, but that he didn’t acknowledge who the boss was. That can be our problem too.

When people start minding other people’s business – even the business God has given other people – they inevitably stop minding their own. God’s work doesn’t get done by busybodies.

Paul goes on in verse 11 to tell people to work with their hands. There is a background to this that we might not know. In Greek culture, slaves were expected to do manual labor. It was beneath his dignity for a free man to work with his hands. So, when Paul instructs these Greek culture believers to work with their own hands, he is telling them to act counterculturally.

This brings up something that is apparent throughout this passage and throughout the Bible. Christians do not take their cues from culture. They do not rely on cultural standards of right and wrong. We saw that clearly in verses 3-8, where Jesus’s standards for sexual integrity differed radically from the cultural standard. Most Greek people – at least most Greek men – would have thought Jesus’s instructions were far too restrictive.

It is easy to go along with what culture says. We are worried about what people will think of us. We are afraid that we’ll appear irrelevant. Over the past decade, there have been millions of people in the U.S. who have been rethinking their faith. They say they are “deconstructing” it. That may be necessary. It can be helpful. But if people who deconstruct their faith rebuild it using the blueprints that culture supplies, they have stopped deconstructing and are merely destroying.  

Paul told the Thessalonians to work with their hands. But the Thessalonians had grown up in a culture that regarded people who work with their hands as inferior. To a lesser extent, so have we. We must reject that belief as strenuously as Paul did.

Even churches can buy into the idea that manual labor is inferior. In some churches, to get on the board or join the leadership team requires a college education and a white collar job. It mustn’t be that way at Lockwood. What is required is a genuine, growing relationship with Jesus that acknowledges that he alone is Lord.

In verse 11, Paul gives two reasons for these instructions. The first is to win the respect of outsiders – that is, people who are outside the church and have not yet submitted to Jesus.

Paul clearly thought that church people should try to bring their neighbors, friends, family members, co-workers over to Jesus’s side. We should be thinking about how to talk to people about Christ, how to win them for Jesus. But that will never happen if we don’t have their respect.

A recent survey found that only 21% of non-Christians have a positive attitude about the church. We won’t win those people unless we win their respect, and we won’t win their respect by mocking them on the one hand or mimicking them on the other. We’ll win their respect by loving each other, leading quiet lives, minding our own business, and doing good work.

To win others for Christ, we think we need to be clever when we really need to be loving. We think we need to be important when we really need to be content. We think we need to fit in when we really need to be different.

The other reason behind these instructions is so that we won’t be dependent on anybody or, as it could be translated, so that we won’t need anything. Paul did not believe in a parasitic Christianity. He insisted that able-bodied Christians earn their own way. But he went further than that: he wanted Christians to be in a position to share with those in need. Christian generosity is one of the best ways to win the respect of outsiders.

Patrick Green is an atheist from San Antonio who threatened to sue the county for its nativity display at the courthouse. In an interview, he told the newspaper, “My wife and I … never had a Christian do anything nice for us.” Then he suffered a detached retina, lacked the money to pay for surgery, and had to quit his job driving taxi.

He was surprised when a local church called him to ask if there was anything they could do. He said, “If you really want to contribute something, we need groceries.” He thought they might bring a few bags or give him $50. They gave him $400. Then they gave him some more. Then they gave him some more.

He said, “I thought I was in the Twilight Zone. These people are acting like what the Bible says a Christian does.” I don’t know if Green ever became a Christian, but he stopped fighting the nativity display and even contributed a star to decorate it.

Those Christians who gave him money won his respect simply by doing what God told them to do. What is God telling you to do? Have you been God-taught this morning? Will you do what he is teaching you?

[1] See Morris.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Joel Belz, “Time to think smaller,” World, July 29, 2023.

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The Power of Selective Hearing: Timeless Advice from Jesus

Posted on July 29, 2023 by salooper57

In 2017, Wired.com ran a story titled, “Google’s New Feeds Show You the Internet You Want to See.” Google looks at what you search and “makes guesses” about what you would like to see in your feed. Based on your previous searches, Google will show you the news headlines, blog posts, recipes, and sports stories that are most likely to interest you.

If you have ever tried searching for the Beatles, or the Rolling Stones, or Buffalo Springfield, you know how this works. Stories about Ringo Starr, Keith Richards, and Neil Young begin to appear on your browser. Have you searched for fishing spots in Michigan’s upper peninsula? Ads for fishing camps and vacation rentals will show up in the sidebar.

It is convenient to have Google give me what I want before I ask, but it is also problematic. If I look at a couple of news stories with a conservative bias, my browser will offer me more. The same is true if I have a progressive bent. If I search the “stolen” election of 2022, I will find sufficient evidence to convince me of the theft. Contradictory evidence will be taken away and buried deep in the 57 million results. The internet is now an echo chamber.

Jesus’s two-thousand year-old advice seems timely in the internet age: “Consider carefully what you hear … With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more.  Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

Search engines algorithms will give you more of what you already have and take away the rest. Because this is true, we ought to be careful of what we hear, or rather, what we search.

But of course, Jesus was not speaking about internet search engines and algorithms. He was talking about what we hear, especially what we choose to listen to. A literal translation of Jesus’s words from the Gospel of Mark is, “Look at what you hear.” In other words, “Be aware of what you are listening to.”

What people choose to listen to determines what they will hear. For example, a few years ago I familiarized myself with the call of the Baltimore Oriole. Now that I have learned the timbre of its voice, I am aware of the orioles on our road and in our trees. I had never paid attention before, but now I hear them when they arrive in our area in early May.

Another, more serious example of how this works relates to gossip. People who listen to gossip will hear more and more of it. Those who refuse to listen will hear less and less. It is almost as if a search engine algorithm is at work. “Whoever has will be given more…”

I learned this when I served in my first pastorate. An older member of the church to which I had been called decided the new pastor should be given the low-down on everyone in the congregation. I was foolish enough to listen. That guaranteed that I would be on the receiving end of even more gossip.

The opposite happened when I came to my current church. I chose not to listen to gossip. When people would tell me something negative about someone else, I would say, “We should probably talk to him about this. Do you want to contact him or shall I?” Within a short time, I stopped hearing gossip.

But Jesus’s advice to look at what you hear was not only intended to protect people from hearing the wrong things but to help people hear the right things. The statement, “Whoever will be given more” is not just a warning; it is a promise. Selective hearing can be a good thing; it can unlock a world to us.

The person who actively listens for truth, will hear more truth. The one who listens for good news will hear it. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more.” The person who listens for God’s voice will not only begin to hear him speak but will hear him speak more often.

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God on the Shelf (1 Thessalonians 4:1-8)

Posted on July 23, 2023 by salooper57
Viewing Time: 25 Minutes (approx.)

In 1948, C. S. Lewis wrote “that Man is on the bench” – that is, humanity has taken the judge’s seat – “and God in the Dock” – God is the one on trial. Lewis’s line inspired the title for this sermon: God on the Shelf. If in the mid-twentieth century humanity placed God on trial, in the second decade of the twenty-first century he has been put on the shelf.

Someone once wrote me after reading a column of mine and said simply, “People like you don’t matter anymore.” That’s how many people feel about God: He just doesn’t matter. We can run our own lives. Whether we believe in God or not is a moot point; he’s on the shelf.

Society at large has put God on the shelf. My concern is that we don’t do the same by setting God aside when his instructions are inconvenient or out of step with culture. We may not be able to do much about society at large, but we can and must do something about our own lives. Putting God on the shelf is blasphemous and even churchgoing people can be guilty of it.  

In verse 8, Paul writes, “Therefore whoever disregards this” (literally, sets this aside) “disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.” If you set this aside, you set God aside. But what is this? This is the instruction that Paul has just given the Thessalonians, which he says comes from God himself.

Clearly, this instruction is important, so let’s see what it is about. We will read verses 1 and 2, which introduce this section, and then we’ll read verses 3-8, which contain the instruction. I will warn you that this instruction, which is about the Christian way to live as sexual beings, goes against the cultural grain and possibly against decisions some of us have already made. I am not condemning anyone; I just want us to know there is another way.

We will start with verses 1 and 2, and I will be reading out of the Revised Standard Version. “Finally, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.” 

The first thing to notice, often overlooked, is that Jesus’s people have a distinctive way of life. Paul reminds the Thessalonians that he, Titus, and Timothy had taught them how they ought to live and to please God. Living the Christian way was not natural. It needed to be learned. When Paul first came to Thessalonica, he didn’t expect that people there would know how to live the Jesus-way. They would need to be taught. The same is true of people today. The Jesus-way is not self-evident.

Paul isn’t acting like he is God, telling people what to do. He beseeches (literally, asks) and exhorts them in the Lord Jesus. Paul knew that Jesus, not Paul, is the boss, yet he speaks with authority as Jesus’s apostle. He says in verse 2, “For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.” The word “instructions” is routinely used for the orders a commanding officer issues to his soldiers. Paul is not sharing advice; he is relaying orders that come from Jesus himself.

Now, let’s read these orders that Paul considers so important. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from unchastity;that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God; that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you. For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”

Karen and I are finishing up our work at Lockwood after 35 years. We love Lockwood and her people. We pray earnestly and, I think, daily, for God to reveal his will to the church regarding our next pastor.

But it’s not just Lockwood’s future we are thinking about; it is also our own. We don’t know what God wants us to do next, or where we will live, or how things will go, so we are seeking to know his will about that too. For the first time in years, I am in the place of all those people who have come to me, asking, “Should I do this? Should I do that? What if I make a mistake? How can I know if this is God’s will?”

They desperate want to know God’s future will for them. I usually ask if they are doing God’s present will for them – the part they already know. I’ve had people admit to me that they are not, and I have told them that they shouldn’t expect God to reveal his will for their future until they are doing his will for their present.

But how can we know what God’s will is for the present? That’s easy; he tells us. This passage is one example. Paul writes, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” God’s will is your sanctification. What does that mean?

“Sanctification” describes the process by which our status as God’s holy people becomes our practice in daily life.  Sanctification is the process; holiness is the result. God’s will is that each of his people – you, me, all of us, be in the process of becoming holy. Christians who ignore this clear statement of God’s will cannot expect God to disclose the less clear parts of his will. Sanctification is God’s will and is central to his plan for us. Where Karen and I will live and what we will do is on the periphery of God’s will for us; sanctification is at its heart.

Sanctification takes in all of life, including our sexuality. So, Paul writes, “Abstain from unchastity,” or as we might translate, “Hold yourself apart from sexual immorality.” Now this gets complicated because each culture, each generation nowadays, defines sexual immorality in its own way. For many people today, sexual immorality means only one thing: taking sexual advantage of someone – usually a woman or a minor in a dependent position. As long as both parties consent, any sex is moral.

It’s strange that nearly 2,000 years have passed, and we are almost in the same place that Thessalonian culture was when Paul was writing. In those days, it was expected that men would go to prostitutes, have sex with slaves, and occasionally with other men. There was nothing in the Thessalonian’s religious instruction, unless they were Jews or Christians, that even spoke to the issue. You could sleep around, demand sex from subordinates (there was no ME TOO movement in those days), and then go to religious services without giving it a second thought.

In our day, it has become common to hear or read something like this: “The only sin the church ever talks about is sex! Like ecological injustice, child labor, economic inequality, and human trafficking are not far worse!” Perhaps a biblical case could be made in each of those areas, but that in no way lessens the sinfulness of sexual immorality, which usually causes children and women to suffer most. Part of sanctification involves learning to live within the framework of godly sexuality.

That, verse 5, will include acquiring (or living with) a spouse in holiness and honor. This verse is notoriously difficult to interpret. It might be about acquiring (or living with) a wife, as the RSV takes it, or possibly (as the NIV and some other versions take it) about controlling one’s own body. There has been debate about how to take this verse for the better part of 2,000 years. This week, I got lost in the weeds of detailed linguistic research into this, but either way we take it, the larger point is that Christians must follow Christ, not culture. Our standards of sexual morality are not defined by culture but by the Creator. That means that we will live differently from the people around us.

We can do that without judging, belittling, or looking down on others. We must do that without judging, belittling, or looking down on others. Paul was not telling the Thessalonian church to reform the culture around it but to stand out from that culture by following the way of Christ. Now, I say we can do this without judging, belittling, or looking down on others, but that does not mean we can do this without being judged, belittled, and looked down on. It was that way in the first century and it is that way today. There was a reason Jesus told people to count the cost before they set out to follow him.

Paul says that we should know how to take a wife / control our own bodies in holiness (better, sanctification) and honor. The first word implies that we take God’s concerns into account in how we live as sexual beings. We consider what he wants and what will glorify him. The second word implies that we take the other person’s concerns into account. How will I treat my wife (girlfriend or fiancé) with honor, acknowledge her value, and hold her in high esteem? We will come back to those two ideas – God’s glory and the other person’s honor – in a few minutes, because it is at the heart of this instruction.

But first, notice that the “heathen” – the word is simply “Gentiles,” meaning all the ordinary people around us – don’t live this way. They live in what Paul calls “the passion of lust.” Their desires, not God’s glory or the other person’s worth, is what drives them. The “passion” Paul speaks of is an overpowering feeling. “Lust” describes the thoughts that feeling sparks. The feeling controls us; the thoughts are our own.

Many people live under the control of the “passion of lust.” They are slaves – and some know it – and it is soul-numbing. Paul says here and elsewhere (e.g., Eph. 4:17-19) that this is what routinely happens in the lives of people who don’t know God.

Now, we need to think through this a little further. People who don’t know God are driven by the passion of lust. That means that freedom from the passion of lust (which can be a passion for money, or respect, or possessions – it is not always about sex) comes with knowing God. The better we know God, the more free we are from the slavery of compulsion.

Now we need to ask a question. Does the Bible suggest that all sexual feelings and thoughts are bad and harmful? Not at all. The Bible celebrates sexual desire as part of God’s good plan for human beings. If you find that hard to believe, read The Song of Solomon and you’ll be convinced. No, the problem, as John Piper points out, are those particular feelings and thoughts that disregard God and dishonor the person on whom they are focused.[1]

How might sexual desire, which our culture intentionally and even scientifically cultivates, dishonor a person? Here’s an example: A man says to a woman, “Let’s live together. We won’t be lonely, we can save money on rent, and satisfy our sexual desire.” What he doesn’t say is, “But I don’t value you enough as a person to enter a marriage covenant with you.” That is dishonoring. The woman (though in many cases the exploitation is mutual) is being used.

More importantly, God is being disregarded. “Whatever God says, everyone else says it’s okay. So, I’ll just set God aside … for a while. I won’t leave him on the shelf … but right now, he’s kind of in the way.”

When God has been set aside, which is happening on a societal scale, people find his instructions unworkable. That’s because his instruction don’t work without him. If we hold ourselves apart from God, we will embrace sexual immorality in one or other of its many forms. But if we embrace God, we can hold ourselves apart from it. Did you get that? Embrace sexual immorality and you will hold yourself apart from God. Embrace God and you will hold yourself apart from sexual immorality.

Many people go about this the wrong way. They try to hold themselves apart from sexual immorality so that they can embrace God, but it doesn’t work. Of course, it doesn’t work! We live in a highly sexualized culture, our children attend sexualized schools, and come home to sexualized websites and TV shows. Even elementary children are exposed to sexualized storytelling, sexualized advertisements, and sexualized educational programs.

As parents, we may think the first order of business is to put a stop to all this. We would be mistaken. That may be the second order of business, I don’t know. The first order of business is to draw close to God, embrace him in adoration, and serve him in love. The way forward is not to God or for God, but with God.

Parents and grandparents: do you want to protect your children from the confusion and misery of distorted sexuality? Show them how to trust God, how to seek him with all their heart, and glorify him with their life. There is no other protection. The opposite of the passionate lust of verse 5, which dominates the lives of so many people, is knowing God. Passionate lust is a bully; when we don’t know God, we will always be at its mercy.

The Nobel prize winning novelist Francois Mauriac had heard all the arguments against lust – you will feel guilty, your marriage will have trouble, God will punish you – but none of the arguments changed his behavior. In his book What I Believe, he wrote: “… none of the scary, negative arguments against lust had succeeded in keeping me from it . . . But here [in the promise of Jesus that the pure in heart will see God] was a description of what I was missing by continuing to harbor lust: I was limiting my own intimacy with God. The love he offers is so transcendent and possessing that it requires our faculties to be purified and cleansed before we can possibly contain it. Could he, in fact, substitute another thirst and another hunger for the one I had never filled? Would Living Water somehow quench lust?”[2]

Mauriac discovered that it does. It is the only thing that can. The passion of lust will either quench your desire to know God or your desire for God will quench the passion of lust.

Now, let’s think through what we’ve seen and apply it to ourselves. First, we have seen that Christians can be captured by their culture and this can happen without them even knowing it. Some years ago, I met with a couple who wanted to be married. They both came from churched families. The bride-to-be told me that her church-attending mom had urged her to move in with her fiancé before getting married to see if they were compatible. That mom had been captured by the culture.

She didn’t know that 80% of people who live together do not stay together throughout life. A high percentage never get married. Yet culture says this is wise, even though it goes against the way of Jesus.

In some parts of the church, arguments are being made against the biblical prohibitions on same-sex sexual relationships. They are popular enough that a story about them popped up on my internet browser a couple of days ago. These arguments are not so much about biblical scholarship as they are about cultural accommodation by people who already have been captured.

Don’t make it your goal to stand against culture. Make it your goal to stand with Christ and his apostles. It may be hard to stand with Christ on issues of sexuality, but there is no other solid ground to stand on.

Then there is this, especially for those of us who are seeking God’s will and guidance. Our sanctification is his will. Our guidance, at least a great deal of it, is in the Bible. That is the place to start. If you are doing what God has already revealed, you can be confident that he will guide you in everything else. If you’re not, then that is the place to start.

[1] See, Battling the Unbelief of Lust, (Battling the Unbelief of Lust | Desiring God).

[2] Francois Mauriac, What I Believe, Quoted by DJ Pace on Our arguments against sin are too negative. : r/NoFapChristians (reddit.com).

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Teen Mental Health: A National Emergency that Requires Local Action

Posted on July 22, 2023 by salooper57

The New York Times published an article on teen mental health titled, “It’s Life or Death: The Mental Health Crisis Among U.S. Teens.” Does that seem a little melodramatic? Not according to the Surgeon General of the United States, who issued an advisory warning on mental health among teens. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association issued a joint statement declaring teen mental health “a national emergency.”

In a recent study, more than four out of ten high school students reported feelings of hopelessness and sadness. That number soared to almost sixty percent among female students and seventy percent among LGBTQ+ students. In 2021, about 1 out of 8 female students and 1 out of 5 LGBTQ+ students reportedly attempted suicide.

According to Matt Richtel, a reporter for the New York Times, major depressive episodes have risen 60 percent since 2007. The suicide rate, which had been stable for most of the previous decade, jumped by 60 percent from 2007 to 2018. The number of teens admitted to hospitals for mental health issues rose by 8.4 percent in just eleven months, beginning in March of 2021.

The CDC believes other factors besides the pandemic contribute to the teen mental health crisis. For example, they suggest that unstable housing conditions contribute to hopelessness. Sexual orientation and gender identity also play a role.

Another factor, according to Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, is the use of social media. The Health and Human Services advisory on teen mental health states, “We cannot conclude that social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents.” A 2019 study concluded that it is not, finding that teens who spend more than three hours a day on social media “faced double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, including symptoms of depression and anxiety.”

That is cause for concern since a recent survey found that the average student in grades eight and 10 spends more than three hours a day on social media platforms. According to Health Matters, high levels of social media use over four years are associated with increased depression rates. The average age at which an American child opens a social media account is twelve-a-half-years.

What can be done? The Surgeon General advises teens to build strong relationships with peers and supportive adults, practice emotion management techniques, and limit social media and technology use. Adults are encouraged to create safe and affirming educational environments, improve access to mental health services, and provide positive role models.

While the Surgeon General’s work in this area should be applauded, does anyone think his suggestions will be followed? How many students will think, “I should follow the Surgeon General’s advice and find a supportive adult with whom I can build a relationship”? How likely is Congress to adequately budget for mental health care or limit access to social media by minors?

If real change is going to happen, this national emergency will require local action. Individuals and individual families must change their praxis. Parents must decide while their children are still young, or before they are born, to delay access to smartphones and social media. That will be hard for parents and children in this social climate, but it must be done.

The rest of us must do our part too. When I was a awkward high school senior – as opposed to the awkward adult I became – an older man, he must have been at least 35, spoke a few words to me that encouraged and sustained me. I remember it still with gratitude.

We were at a social gathering. During an awkward silence – everyone was waiting for someone to say something – I spoke up, and the tension eased. Afterward, he stood beside me and said quietly, “You did well.” He added that in the future, God would use me for good. Those simple words bolstered me.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” So much social media exercises the power of death. We have at least a little of the power of life. We must put it to use.

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The Good News Church (1 Thessalonians 3:6-13)

Posted on July 16, 2023 by salooper57
Approx. 25 minutes

Some of the key themes in today’s text have to do with the prominence of faith in the Christian life, the place of love in evangelism, and the relationship between love and holiness. I encourage you to listen for these themes and reflect on them during the week. The passage can be divided into two main sections: Timothy’s Report from Thessalonica (v. 6) and Paul’s Response to the Report (vv. 7-13). His response includes encouragement, thanksgiving, and prayer.

In verse 6, Paul says that Timothy had only just arrived with good news about the Thessalonians’ faith and love. The verb the NIV translates “brought good news” is a common one in the New Testament, but this is the only time it is used to describe the condition of a church family. Everywhere else, it describes the proclamation of the gospel of God, the sacrificial death and resurrection of his Son and the good news of his kingdom. Our word “evangelize” is an anglicized version of this word.

But here it is used of the Thessalonians’ faith and love, and of their attitude toward Paul.[1] Some scholars go out of their way to say this usage is an aberration. Timothy’s news so delighted Paul that he let slip the word he otherwise reserved for announcing God’s rescue plan for the world.

But I think Paul used this word intentionally. In his mind, there is a connection between the Thessalonians’ faith and love and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Their transformed lives, full of faith and overflowing with love, proclaimed the good news more persuasively than a sermon ever could.

There is nothing more effective in reaching people for Christ than a church family that is filled with faith and overflowing with love. Having faith-filled, loving people in the church is more important than having a gifted evangelist in the pulpit. A church family that is full of faith and love is an irrefutable witness to the truth of Christ and it possesses magnetic appeal.

We can tell someone the good news of Jesus – he died for our sins, rose again, and opened the kingdom of God for us – but if the good news is told by bad news (or even ho-hum) people, the truth of the gospel will be called into called into question.

Timothy’s report about the Thessalonians related three good news items. The first was that their faith was solid. Paul had been afraid that the Thessalonians’ faith might have failed. That was clearly in the forefront of his mind. It is not much of a stretch to say he was worried sick about it. When he heard that their faith had survived and even flourished, it was like a heavy weight had been lifted off him. He says in verse 8: “Now,” in contrast to before Timothy had returned, “we really live.”

It was not just the Thessalonian’s faith that was gospel news; it was also their love. This is one of ten times that Paul uses the verb or noun for love in this letter. As we saw earlier, when faith and love are present in a church, they act like a giant, lighted billboard announcing that God has been (and is still) there.

Love is the attitude toward another person that motivates us to seek his or her good. As such, love is more than a feeling. It is never mere sentimentality. Love is ready to act, even if that means sacrifice, to promote another person’s welfare.

Love is more than a feeling, but that doesn’t mean it lacks feeling. Love leads to enjoyment, friendship, intimacy, and affection. We see that repeatedly in this letter, for Paul isn’t afraid to let his feelings show. In chapter 2 he writes, “… out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you” (2:17). He calls the Thessalonians his “glory and joy” (2:20). In chapter 3 he writes, “How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again” (3:9-10). Verbalizing affection is difficult for some of us who were not raised in a home where that happened. If we didn’t have someone to model this for us, we would do well to take Paul for our mentor.

Timothy’s report first mentioned the Thessalonian’s faith, then their love, and finally their feelings about Paul and the missionary team. Reading this chapter, one gets the sense that Paul had been worried that his enemies’ smear campaign against him might have been effective. Maybe the Thessalonians believed the lies people were telling about him: that he was a womanizer whose goal was to separate the Thessalonians from their money.

But in Timothy’s report he learned (v. 6) that the Thessalonians always had good memories of Paul and the team, and that they were as anxious to see him as he was to see them. They not only looked back at his visit with joy, they looked forward to his next visit with eager anticipation.

Paul was elated by Timothy’s good report and his joy found expression in three ways: He was, despite his dangerous circumstances, deeply encouraged. The good news about the Thessalonians fortified Paul. It gave him a huge boost.

Secondly, his joy expressed itself in thanksgiving. Paul uses the noun “thanksgiving” 13 times in his letters, and the verb is used by Paul (or concerning Paul) 27 more times. Thanksgiving is the normal, healthy expression of the life in Christ.

This is so much the case that gratitude serves as a key indicator of spiritual health. What a white blood cell count is to physical health, gratitude is to spiritual health. When it is low, spiritual health cannot be high. When it is absent, the glory for accomplishments inevitably rests with gifted people, not with their gracious God.

The grateful person sees God at work in his life. The ungrateful person does not. This, of course, makes the grateful person more grateful and the ungrateful person even less grateful. Newton’s first law of motion – In the absence of an outside force, a spirit in motion remains in motion indefinitely along the same line – has a spiritual counterpart: a grateful person will continue to be grateful and will grow more grateful; an ungrateful person will grow less grateful – apart from an outside force.

Thankfully, we are not apart from such a force. Knowing that filled Paul with gratitude (verse 9): “How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have?” Paul responded to Timothy’s report first with encouragement and then with thanksgiving. But he didn’t stop there. He turned his feelings, as he had turned his fears, into prayers. That is something we need to learn to do. This is verse 10. “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.”

Though Timothy’s report had been remarkably encouraging, it had not been entirely positive. There were gaps in the Thessalonians’ experience of God’s grace. For example, they had not yet worked out the implications of Jesus’ lordship for their own sexuality. (Paul will address that in the next chapter.) Instead of Jesus’s return being a source of hope and joy to them, it caused them confusion and fear. There were still things lacking in their faith.

To have something lacking in our faith is not an unusual or a terrible thing. None of us are finished yet (James 1:4). We all have holes in our faith. Dallas Willard says, “Perhaps the hardest things for sincere Christians to come to grips with is the level of real unbelief in their own life…”[2] People can really believe and yet have gaps in their faith, gaps that “undermine [their] efforts” to live as God intends. These gaps are not always apparent – especially to the people who have them – though they are often visible to others.

The word translated “supply” (v. 10) is elsewhere rendered as “equip,” “restore,” and “prepare”. It is used in the gospels of the commercial fisherman who were restoring their nets, cleaning them, and mending the holes that had opened during their time on the water. Can you imagine having a hole in a fishing net? I can. I once netted a 54” fish with a brand new net when a hole opened in the bottom of it and the fish slipped right through the hole. (Fortunately, it landed in the bottom of the boat.)

The nets that were being repaired in the Gospel story were pulled behind the boat to capture fish. The net would swell behind them, elongated by the force of the water, swallowing fish as the boat moved. If there were holes in the net, the prized fish would pass right through it.

If there are holes in our faith, caused by the strain of everyday life, the friction of doubt and misunderstanding, the repeated exposure to sharp-edged circumstances and people, God’s blessing can pass through our lives and escape us. Our faith regularly needs to be restored or repaired.

It is for that reason, in part at least, that God gives the church gifted people. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service…” The verb “equip” is the same one translated as “supply” in our text – “supply what is lacking in your faith” – and translated as “preparing their nets” in the Gospel.

This leads to a question that each of us must answer for ourselves: Does my faith have holes in it? I think the answer is almost certainly, “Yes, it does.” But then we must discover where those holes are and what is causing them. Perhaps weeks or months of distress, with no end in sight, had opened a hole in your faith. You may need the assistance of a brother or sister in the church – one of those gifted people – to close that hole.

Perhaps you have suffered doubts about God caused by things you’ve read or seen on YouTube or instilled by parents who claimed to believe the good news but were themselves bad news. These doubts may have opened a hole in your faith that is hindering you from the meaningful life God has planned for you.

Sometimes, the sharp edges of circumstances (job loss, relationship trouble, or health concerns) or the sharp edges of people (criticism and rejection) can wear a hole in our faith. Again, we may need the assistance of other Christ-followers to close that hole.

Did you notice that Paul does not say, “I most earnestly pray to see you again so that we can ease your poverty” or “console you,” or “provide you better biblical training.” Like a parent who loves his children, he ached for them to have a faith that was strong, firm, and steadfast.

Do we love our fellow Christians in this way? Do we rejoice over their faith? Do we plead with God to strengthen their faith because we believe that it (rather than comfort, ease or prosperity) is the key to their fulfillment?

Paul mentions that he prays for the Thessalonians night and day. But he isn’t satisfied with telling them that. He prays for them on the spot and includes his prayer in the letter. It is a good thing to tell people that you are praying for them. It is an even better thing to pray for them right then and there.

The gist of his prayer is recorded in verses 12 and 13: “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.”

He prays for the Thessalonians to increase and overflow in love for each other and for all. This is not just a saccharine “What the world needs now is love, sweet love” sentiment. There is a reason behind Paul’s prayer. Love is the medicine that strengthens hearts. It is the prophylactic that protects from blame and sin. Love is not an add-on to the Christian life. It is the essence of the Christian life. Without love, life is not Christian.

It is impossible to separate love and holiness, though many have tried. If you remove holiness from love, love grows sickly and weak and eventually ceases to be loving. Remove love from holiness – some people don’t know that the two have anything to do with each other – and what’s left is a cold, repellant legalism.

Jonathon Edwards, arguably America’s most influential theologian, wrote that “The holiness of God consist[s] in his love, especially in the perfect and intimate union and love there is between the Father and Son.”[3] It is equally true that the holiness of God’s people consists in their love, especially their love for God but also their love for each other.

Notice that Paul does not only pray about the Thessalonians’ love for each other. He also prays about their love for everyone else. Everyone else? Yes. Biological family members, in-laws, co-workers, the impoverished, the hostile, the acquaintance, the stranger – everyone!

Back in the 1970s, a movement began in California that went by the name “power evangelism.” The idea was that effective evangelism requires a display of God’s power through signs and wonders. That idea was based in part on the early church’s prayer in Acts 4:30 that God would stretch out his hand to heal and perform miraculous signs. In the next verse we read that the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

I don’t want to speak against the power evangelism movement. I think it accomplished many good things and I appreciate its leaders’ regard for Scripture. But I think they missed, or at least did not emphasize enough, the remarkable evangelistic power of Christian love. Without power, love attracts self-centered seekers, not God-glorifying disciples. Love is the power in power evangelism – God’s love for people and our love for God, for each other, and for everyone.

D. L. Moody, one of the church’s greatest evangelists, said: “If you can really make a man believe you love him, you have won him; and if I could only make people really believe that God loves them, what a rush we would see for the kingdom of God!”

Notice that Paul not only prays that the Thessalonians will love each other but that their love will increase and overflow. It is impossible to overstate the importance of love. It is not only crucial to evangelism; it is crucial to spiritual health and growth. When people don’t grow spiritually, when they get stuck, experience persistent doubt, and even go backward, they often suffer from a love deficiency.

The period at the end of verse 13, which the NIV inserts in the middle of a sentence, might cause us to miss the point that Paul is making. A more literal rendering of the original language could go like this: “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you, leading to a strengthening of your hearts…”

Love, giving it, absorbing it, and receiving it, is necessary for Christian health and strength. If there was some infallible way to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy Christians, we would find that heealthy Christians had received love while unhealthy ones, for whatever reason, had not.

This chapter, like every chapter in the letter, ends with a reference to the return of the One who is the embodiment of love. When love himself, love divine, all loves excelling, comes for his own, his love will be answered by their love, and the result will be nothing short of a new creation.

There is much to apply here. I encourage you to use the Go Deep sheets to think through the text and find ways to apply it to your life. I will mention only one thing. We would do well to follow Paul’s example of expressing love and affection for each other.

There were two guys, Dave Brown and Don Ankney, who visited church family with me almost every week, one on Tuesday and one on Friday. I was dropping Dave off after an afternoon of visiting, and we were praying in the car for the people we had just visited. After we prayed and before he got out of the car, he told me he loved me.

I had never had a man tell me that before and it took me by surprise. I have had friends whom I have loved deeply, but I never told them so, just as my dad never told me. It became a regular thing for Dave to express his love. And then Don started doing it too. At first, I would stammer a little and murmur something back.

Expressing love and affection to our Christian family is important. If you can’t say, “I love you,” try, “I really appreciate you,” or “I’m glad that you’re here,” or “Our time together is important to me.” Words cannot take the place of actions, but they are nevertheless important. Let’s follow Paul’s example and be freer in expressing them.

[1] Morris.

[2] Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, p. 88. ©2002

[3] Quoted by Jonathan Leeman, https://www.9marks.org/article/how-do-love-and-holiness-relate/

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Chatbots: Coming to a Pulpit Near You?

Posted on July 15, 2023 by salooper57

In June, hundreds of people attended a service at St. Paul’s Church in Fuerth, Germany. Curiosity was high as people joined in a worship time planned almost entirely by artificial intelligence. Four young-looking avatars, two females and two males, directed music, read Scripture, led prayers, and preached.

Attendees videoed the service, as if a celebrity were in the pulpit. Many spoke positively of the experience. Others were not so pleased. Some refused to join in the Lord’s prayer. U.S. News and World Report interviewed a young pastor who expressed surprise at the overall quality of the service yet felt that it lacked emotion and spirituality. Others reported that the sermon had “no soul.”

Jonas Simmerlein, a theologian and philosopher from the University of Vienna, conceived of the idea of an AI planned and led service. Though he does not foresee AI taking the place of pastors and worship leaders, he does believe it can help in structuring services and preparing sermons. “Artificial intelligence will increasingly take over our lives, in all its facets, and that’s why it’s useful to learn to deal with it,” he said.

The role of AI in religion, something at least one Christian publisher is currently exploring, remains unclear. I do not believe an AI can do theology. However, a chatbot may be helpful to pastors looking for illustrations, literary quotes, or sermon titles. I suspect that AI will be useful in providing insights into raw linguistic data from the biblical texts. But can a chatbot preach a good sermon?

That all depends on how one defines a good sermon. AI, I suspect, is capable of fashioning a sermon in the style of Martin Luther King, Jr. It might mimic Dr. King’s cadence, his use of metaphors, and lyrical phrases. But a computer program cannot feel moral indignation. It cannot empathize with its hearers. It cannot hope.

Good sermons are always incarnational. The word of God comes through flesh and blood people to flesh and blood people, people who experience love and rejection, hope and fear. The eternal word of God becomes timely and relevant in the lives of real people with real problems, some who are happy, others who are sad, or shamed, or angry.

A chatbot does not experience sadness or joy, nor does it feel shame. It does not feel anything, Perhaps the word of God can be encoded in a chatbot, but it cannot be incarnated. For that, a human being is necessary.

Chatbots do not communicate with humans; they compile and present data. Communication requires communion, a sharing of life and of mind. Since a chatbot is not alive and is not rational, the kind of sharing humans experience is not possible, though it may be mimicked.

A good sermon comes from a preacher who has been personally impacted by the Scriptures. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The Word of God is the sole foundation of all Christian proclamation.” Similarly, Karl Barth, arguably the 20th century’s most influential theologian, claimed, “The Word of God is not a human invention but a divine revelation. It breaks into our human existence and calls us to respond in faith and obedience.” The best sermons always come from a preacher whose existence has been broken into by God’s word.

A good sermon is not gauged by its entertainment value, though it may thoroughly capture a hearer’s attention. It does not depend on emotional appeal, though it may bring tears or laughter. It does not merely instruct; a lecture will do that just as well. A good sermon speaks.

Or rather, God speaks. He tells his good news through the preacher to his people. In a good sermon, the hearer encounters God himself for it is His voice he hears in, with, and under the words of the preacher.

Can God speak his word through a chatbot? The Bible records God speaking through a donkey, through dreams, and through angels. He could certainly speak through an AI. But I believe he prefers embodied persons to embedded codes, for “God, the Scriptures say, “was manifested in the flesh.” He was not displayed on a monitor.

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The Working Word (1 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5)

Posted on July 9, 2023 by salooper57

In this part of 1 Thessalonians, Paul thanks God for how the Thessalonians received the word of God and how that word has gone to work in them. How does God’s word “work”? We’ll explore that in this message.

Viewing time approximately 23 minutes

Our text today is a difficult one to sort. It is full of complex sentences, parenthetical statements, explanatory notes, and changes of subject. That makes it hard to outline, but there are a couple of themes that emerge that we will be looking at this morning. They are: The Working of the Word (that is, the word of God); and the Persecution of the Church. We’ll look at these in turn, but first let’s read part of our text.

(1 Thess. 2:13-14; 3:1-4) And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.  For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews …

So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent Timothy, who is our brother and co-worker in God’s service in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we are destined for them. in fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know.

Let’s read verse 13 again: “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.” A very wooden, literal translation would go, “When you received God’s word of hearing from us…” The New Testament places great emphasis on the importance of hearing.[1]

Jesus regular refrain was, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear” (Luke 8:8). In other words, be careful that you hear. It is possible to go through life with our ears stopped up. God may speak to us, but we might not hear him. I suspect this happens more often than any of us realize, and the results are more tragic than we know.

In Mark 4:24, Jesus says literally, “Be careful what you hear.” We can hear the wrong things. While the orchestra is playing, we can tune our ears to the gossip the couple in the seats in front of us is sharing. We can form our lives around what the news media says rather than around the word God has spoken. The racket around us, some of which we make, can drown out the quiet voice of God. That’s the way some people want it.

Jesus also said (literal translation again), “Be careful how you hear” (Luke 8:18).[2] We can go to church, listen to the word of God, even take notes, and yet listen in a way that is unhelpful. We can listen with what Paul called “itching ears,” only tuning in to the things that entertain us. We can turn God’s church into an echo chamber where all that comes back to us are our own political or theological views.

We can be “forgetful hearers,” to borrow a line from St. James. That is, we can listen, register facts, and even think about how it might apply to our lives. But then we walk out of church and forget what we heard, thought, and felt. Then we come back next week and do it all over again.

The words can enter our brains but not reach our hearts. Neurotransmitters fire, but our wills remain in neutral. People are not transformed by what passes through their minds but by what lodges in their hearts. That means we must listen to God’s word with our heart as well as our ears.

When the Thessalonians received God’s word, they received it with their ears and their hearts. They received it, Paul says, for what it is: the word of God. If you find a word written on a piece of paper but don’t know whose wrote it, you won’t know who it’s for and probably won’t do anything about it. Perhaps it spells, “Run,” but if you do not know who is saying it, you won’t run. The power of a word, as Dallas Willard said, always lies in the personality that word conveys.

Tomorrow, if your mail includes a glossy investment opportunity in Micron Technologies, it will probably go in the trash. But if you receive a personal letter from Warren Buffet urging you to buy Micron, you’d own stock in Micron before the closing bell. The Thessalonians recognized whose word it was that Paul and Silas shared. It was God’s, and so they acted on it.

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her older brother was Hector, the famous Trojan hero. In the story, the god Apollo tried to win Cassandra’s love by giving her a special gift: the ability to see the future.

In Aeschylus’s version of the story, Cassandra promised herself to Apollo, but after receiving the gift, went back on her word. Apollo was incensed but was powerless to revoke the divine gift. So, he added a curse to it. Though she could foresee the future, he made sure that no one would ever believe what she said. She knew the truth and spoke it, but no one accepted it.

I suppose that Paul sometimes felt like Cassandra. When he told people the good news of Christ, he knew he was sharing a word from God, but people often did not believe him. When he and Barnabas spoke at a synagogue in Pisidian Antioch and people scoffed at them, a Cassandra-like Paul said, “Since you reject [the word of God] and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). It’s no wonder Paul was thankful when he arrived in Thessalonica and people received the word as coming from God.  

The Thessalonians didn’t merely receive the word as God’s, they welcomed it. The verb the NIV translates as “accepted” is the same word that is used of welcoming someone into your home. I might receive a notice of jury duty, but I probably wouldn’t welcome it. I might receive a cold virus, but I won’t welcome it either. The Thessalonians received God’s word and they welcomed it. They were eager to hear it, know it, and live according to it. They were enthusiastic about hearing the word of God.

In our church, and in many churches, people stand when the Gospel of our Lord Jesus is read. This is a small way that we convey our welcome of the word of God. We are eager to hear and receive it.

Notice that the word of God works. Paul speaks of “the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.” There is something here we need to understand about how God interacts with his creation: he works through his word. He created the universe by speaking it into existence. The Big Bang was but the echo of his voice. “…the universe was formed,” writes the author of Hebrews, “at God’s command” (Hebrews 11:3). The refrain of the opening chapter of the Bible, repeated 8 times, is, “God said.” When God speaks, things happen. The psalmist wrote, “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps. 33:9).

If I want to create something, let’s say a raspberry pie, I cannot say, “Let there be raspberry pie.” Perhaps I could say that, and my wife would bake a raspberry pie, but she would need to pick the raspberries, clean them, combine them with sugar, cornstarch, and tapioca. She’d add some butter, and put it into a crust made of flower, salt, and shortening. My word might result in the creation of a raspberry pie, but it would not be instantaneous, and would need to be effected in steps.

God’s word sometimes works through others over time, but he is not limited to that approach. If he works through others, it is for their sake, that they have the honor and joy of being his co-workers. He does not work this way from necessity but from compassion. Unlike our words, his words can bring immediate results.

There is, however, one instance in which our word or thought (the Greek term λόγος covers both) brings the same kind of immediate results. When we think, “Raise hand,” our hand raises. We do not need to go through a series of steps or involve others (under normal circumstances). We simply think, and it is so.

As your body is wired to your thoughts, your interior words, the universe is wired to God’s thought and word. So, the psalmist says, “…lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds … do his bidding (Psalm 148:8). God not only created the cosmos by his word, he also sustains it by his word: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”

Understanding that God creates and maintains his universe by his word is a great help to faith. If we assume the universe runs on its own, like a watch that the watchmaker wound long ago, but has ignored ever since, we won’t be able to trust God. If we believe the universe is merely the result of interactions between the four forces of nature (the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity) as they mindlessly bump into each other, faith will be impossible. But if we believe that those four forces of nature are the expressions of God’s thought, his word, which he still speaks, faith becomes possible.

So, the word of God works. It is at work in the universe around us and, according to Paul, it is at work in us who believe (verse 13). If his powerful word created and sustains the vast universe, what might it do inside a person? The Bible mentions various things.

It is God’s word that gives us new life: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). The word of the faithful God inspires faith. St. Paul says that “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). James says that God’s word implanted in people is able to save their souls (James 1:21).

According to the author of Hebrews, God’s word goes deep into our being and is able to judge our most intimate thoughts (Hebrews 4:12). That is a wonderful thing. We are incapable of judging the truth or justice of our own deepest thoughts. Indeed, we can rarely even access them, but God’s word can. A wise person will take advantage of that and regularly open his thoughts to the living and active word of God.

There are other important consequences of hearing God’s word, one of which we find in our text. Immediately after Paul writes that the word of God is at work in the Thessalonians, he explains, “For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered…” (1 Thess. 2:14). God’s powerful word worked in them so that they would suffer rather than deny their Lord.

We like to hear how God’s word heals us and satisfies our needs, but this is not so welcome. This is not what we want to hear.

But Paul knew it is what we need to hear. The question is not whether we will suffer; God’s people have suffered throughout history. Paul and Barnabas encouraged the believers in the churches they started to remain true to the faith. They told them, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 13:22).

The question is not whether we will suffer but whether we will stay true to God when we do. Many of us – most of us – will suffer from illness and disease or at least old age and we will die. Will we remain true to God when that happens? We will—if his word is at work in us. Some of us – who knows – may suffer a persecution in our lifetimes that rivals or exceeds the persecution the Thessalonians experienced. Will we endure it with faith in God or will the earthquake of trials shake our faith loose? We will endure—if God’s word is at work in us.

How can we make sure it is? We can begin by making room in our lives for his word. Jesus once said to the people “…you have no room for my word” (John 8:37). Might he say the same to us? We fill our lives so full of activities and worries that we leave no room for God to speak to us. I sometimes wonder if that is not intentional. Hearing God speak might be inconvenient. We might need to change, to surrender control. So, like the inn at Bethlehem, we keep every spot filled and leave no room for the inconvenient God.

We can experience the word of God at work in us by regularly engaging the Scriptures. What does the word of God have to do with the Bible? The answer to that question is long and involved, too long and too involved to go into in any depth in this setting, but I will say this: The Bible resulted from God speaking. It is God’s word to us in written form, unique, reliable, and priceless. Anyone who wants to encounter the word of God, can do so in the Bible.

It is true that God doesn’t need the Bible to speak to us. He has spoken to countless people directly, as the Bible testifies. But anyone who wants to hear God speak cannot afford to ignore what God has already spoken. It is no coincidence that the people who genuinely hear God speak to their hearts are the one who consistently hear God speak through the Bible. Listening to God speak through the Bible trains our ears to recognize his voice when he speaks to our hearts. People who say they want to hear God speak but who don’t make room in their busy lives to read or listen to the Bible, do not want to hear God speak very badly.

The application today is simple: Start reading the Bible and think and pray about what you read. Ask the God who spoke his word to give you ears to hear his voice. Doing this daily has had a more profound effect on my life than any other practice. I treasure the Bible not because of the doctrine of biblical inspiration I’ve been taught but because of the God I’ve encountered in its pages. Those encounters have yielded guidance, brought me peace, given me hope, and changed me for the better.

When I first started reading the Bible, I went in fits and starts. Bible reading felt like a chore. It was a chore. I didn’t know if I was doing it right. My mind wandered. I frequently felt like I got nothing out of it. That still happens sometimes. But I would not trade my time in the Bible for anything, for it is there, again and again, that God meets me.

I urge you to read the Bible, not trusting in the Bible, which is a kind of idolatry, or in the ritual, which is a kind of legalism, but in the God who spoke it and still speaks through it. Spend 90 days (that’s about how long it takes to develop a habit) reading, thinking about, and praying about what you see in the Bible.

If reading the Bible intimidates you, or if you just don’t know where to begin, or if you’ve tried it already and failed, take heart. Many of us have had the same experience. Talk with me. We’ll set up a reading plan that is doable and I’ll give you some pointers on how to start. You can do this. You really can’t afford not to.

[1] Kittel, G. (1964–). ἀκούω, ἀκοή, εἰσ-, ἐπ-, παρακούω, παρακοή, ὑπακούω, ὑπακοή, ὑπήκοος. In G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley, & G. Friedrich (Eds.), Theological dictionary of the New Testament (electronic ed., Vol. 1, p. 219). Eerdmans.

[2] Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary: 1 Thessalonians.

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A Life-Changing Principle for a Better World

Posted on July 8, 2023 by salooper57

Some biblical passages have become so much a part of popular culture that they have been given their own titles. Examples include, “The Prodigal Son,” “The Great Commission,” and “The Lord’s Prayer.” None of these titles appear in the actual text.

Perhaps the best known passage of this type, both inside and outside the church, comes from “The Sermon on the Mount” (which is itself another post-biblical designation). As Jesus was preparing to wrap up the sermon, he told his hearers to “… do to others what you would have them do to you…” It was in the 17th century that this instruction was first known as “The Golden Rule.”

Some scholars are quick to say that the Golden Rule was not original to Jesus but had been a staple in moral instruction for generations. For proof of this, they cite the Chinese philosopher Confucious, who lived approximately 500 years before Christ. He said, “What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men.” The ancient Indian sage Brihaspati similarly said, “One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one’s own self.”

There are many other versions of the rule of reciprocity, some of which were known in Judaism when Jesus was on earth. However, unlike Jesus’s instruction, these are negative injunctions. They direct people not to do to others what they would not want someone to do to them. Jesus, however, takes a different and more demanding approach.

Jesus phrases his directive positively: “Do to others what you would have them do to you,” and then adds that this sums up the law and the prophets, what we now call the Old Testament. Obeying the negative command is a good thing – just think how much better the world would be if people simply followed Confucious’s example. But following Jesus’s instruction is nothing short of life changing.

If people followed Confucious’s instruction, they would not steal from other people. But if they followed Jesus’s instruction, they would not only not steal from people, they would also give to people when they were in need, and help them when they were able. Instead of not talking badly about people, they would speak well of them whenever possible. In the negative version of the rule of reciprocity, we are taught not to harm. In the positive version, we are taught to love.

This makes sense when we consider a chief theme of the Sermon on the Mount: that the righteousness needed to enter the kingdom of God is expressed in love. Those who follow the Golden Rule will convey love to the people they encounter.

The Golden Rule is not a moral instruction that can be followed thoughtlessly or, in most cases, acted on spontaneously. To follow the Rule, I need to put myself in someone else’s shoes and this requires thought, intelligence, and imagination. It will frequently take time to work through how I would want people to act toward me if I were in their position.

Imagine that a relative asks you for help. His girlfriend is pregnant, and neither set of parents is speaking to them. They have no money to pay rent. Before you can act on his behalf, you need to place yourself, as best you can, in his situation. What would you want people to tell you if you were him? What would you want them to do for you? The Rule is more involved than most people realize.

Anyone who sets out to keep the Golden Rule will quickly discover they need to think. It is not a compendium of laws with detailed instructions on every situation we might encounter. It is rather, as John Stott put it, a “remarkably flexible” and powerful principle. Thinking, however, is not enough. They will also need to pray, for following the Rule demands more than intelligence and imagination. It requires divine assistance.

The world would be a better place if we all followed Confucious’s example. It would be heaven if we followed Jesus’s.

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