The Family of God (Series on the Church)

Posted on April 9, 2023 by salooper57
Viewing Time: Approximately 24 minutes (Text below)

You are a young man in first century Israel (though what I am about to say would have been true of men almost anywhere in the first century). You got married on Sunday. Your family, your bride’s family, your friends, and pretty much the entire village showed up. The celebration went on for a long time.

Now you have a wife. You have your own home, which is physically connected to your old home, where your parents and siblings live. Of course, the most important person in your world now is your wife. She is the apple of your eye. She has first place, top priority in your life.

Except … that is not how things worked in and around the Mediterranean in the first century – or the tenth. It was not how things have worked in most of the world. Even after a man was married, his highest priority relationships were with his brothers, not his wife. If a man had to choose between his brother and his wife, of course he would choose his brother. Everyone knew that.

Herod the Great was well-known, and perhaps even ridiculed, for being head-over-heels in love with his wife Mariamne. But after Herod had a falling out with Marc Antony that involved her brother Aristobulus, he had Mariamne executed. Herod understood that, when push came to shove, his wife’s loyalty to her brother would outweigh her loyalty to him. Loyalty to siblings came first.

This is hard for us to grasp. The idealization – even idolization – of Romantic Love is part of our culture. It was not part of theirs, or of any culture until medieval times, more than a millennium after Christ. We take it for granted that our spouse is (or at least should be) the most important person in our lives. Children grow up and move out. Friends retire and go to Florida. Our spouse comes first.

We assume that it was always this way, so when we read Scripture, we tend to miss the extraordinary nature of early Christian relationships. They called each other, and thought of each other, as brothers and sisters. That means they placed each other at the top of their relationship priority list.

We cannot imagine how topsy-turvy that must have seemed to onlookers. Everyone knew that a person’s family of origin, especially siblings, especially brothers, held the top spots on the priority list. It was scandalous to suggest otherwise. Yet here were followers of Jesus elevating outsiders to the status of family, of brothers and sisters. They would have thought a man absurd or henpecked who elevated his wife to that level, but to raise outsiders to that level was shocking.

Where did the Jesus-followers get this crazy notion that people outside their bloodline could be inside their family? They got it from Jesus. And this crazy notion turned the Roman empire upside down. People wanted to be part of a family that accepted them, loved them, and shared life with them. Much of the gospel’s appeal in the ancient world was sourced in how the church treated its members like family.

Mark 3 details a very busy time in Jesus’s ministry. His popularity was soaring. He was working long, jam-packed days. The crowds that gathered around him were so large that they nearly swallowed him up. As soon as people found out where Jesus was staying, they came to him in droves. In verse 20 we learn that there were days when he and his disciples didn’t even get a chance to eat.

Now look at verse 21. “When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’” Mark interrupts this story with a second narrative but comes back to it in verse 31. This is a technique he often employs. You can find the same kind of thing in chapters 5, 6, and 11. He starts a story, interrupts it, then returns to it. When he does that, you can be sure that the story on the inside is connected to the stories that sandwich it. We’ll come back and see what that connection is before we’re finished.

This first story is fascinating all by itself. Jesus’s family went to take charge of him. The Greek word for “take charge of” can mean “to seize” or “to arrest.” Do you know what is happening here? This is an intervention. Jesus’s family thinks that he “is out of his mind,” or, more literally, “is beside himself.”

This strange story supports the early biblical interpreters who claimed that Jesus had older stepsiblings. In this society, it would be unthinkable for younger brothers to attempt an “intervention” on their oldest brother – especially an older brother who enjoyed the social standing of Jesus. Those old interpreters held that Joseph had been married previously, that his first wife died, and that he brought older children into his marriage with Mary.

So, Jesus’s family thinks that he is out of his mind. They do not understand him. We see this misunderstanding replayed in John 7, where his brothers taunt, “You can’t become famous if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world!” (John 7:4 NLT) They didn’t get Jesus. They didn’t understand him at all.

Mark resumes the story down in verse 31: Jesus’s mother and brothers have arrived. I suspect it was the brothers, not his mother, who were behind the idea of an intervention. They want Jesus but cannot get into the house because of the crowd. One of the brothers, probably the oldest, is asking the crowd to tell Jesus that his family wants him, and the word is passed from person to person and finally to Jesus.

His surprising response is significant. He asks, verse 33, “Who are my mother and brothers?” I wonder what flashed through people’s minds at that moment. “His brothers are James, Joseph, Simon and Judas…” But Jesus pauses, perhaps gesturing to take in the crowd around him, and said: “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

What a remarkable thing to say! Who has top priority in the relationship hierarchy? Brothers in the family of origin. But Jesus looks past them to his new family. This would have sounded to James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas like it would sound to you if your brother was telling people that his family is the Heaven’s Gate cult or the Order of the Solar Temple.

Now take note of who Jesus’s family is. They are not those who attend church or those who read the Bible. They are not those who believe a particular doctrine regarding Christ’s atonement. They are those who do God’s will. They are the Brothers and Sisters of the Obedience of Faith.

Jesus’s followers were listening. They took him at his word when he told them, “You are all brothers” (Matthew 23:8), and they treated each other that way. The intimacy and commitment among the early church was well-known.

In the highly stratified society of the first century Mediterranean, the church was radically countercultural. Nowhere in the Roman Empire could a freedman call a patrician, “Brother”– except in the church. Slaves called their masters, “Brother,” and, more surprising still, masters called their slaves “Brother.” The church was startlingly different.

James, one of the family members who came to take charge of Jesus, eventually joined the brotherhood of faith. When he wrote to his fellow Christ-followers, “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food,” he knew that his readers would understand he was talking about the brotherhood and sisterhood of Jesus.

Listen to what the Apostle Paul wrote Pastor Timothy (from 1 Tim. 5:1-2): “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as a father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.” The church is a family.

Of course, in every family there are problems, and the church is no exception. The biblical writers were not naïve about this. They knew the “kids” would sometimes behave badly – and so would the “adults.” When that happened, a reprimand might be needed or even a time out. That is what 2 Thessalonians 3:15 is about: “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed.” But even this is done in the context of family, so Paul hastens to add: “Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.”

We see the family dynamic again in Romans 14. This time, the family is having an argument. Some in the family are eating – and think that everyone should eat – meat butchered in a pagan temple, ritually offered to its god, and then sold at a reduced price at the market. Their argument goes like this: “The ‘god’ of that temple is a fiction – Apollo is a myth. It is all a sham. So why not eat it – especially when you can get the meat on sale!”

Other family members – ones who until recently worshiped in the Temple of Apollo – are horrified: “Everyone knows that eating the meat of a sacrifice joins a person to the god to whom the sacrifice was made. I just came out of that life. I don’t want my friends to think I’ve gone back. Is getting a good price on meat so important to you that you are willing to destroy your testimony?”

Paul conceded that each side has a point. It is a “disputable matter,” he says, and insists there is room for disagreement. But, more importantly, it is a family matter. What they need to do is look out for each other and love each other. He tells them not “to put any stumbling block in [their] brother’s way” (Romans 14:13) and reminds them that everyone in the family answers to Father: “…why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat” (Romans 14:10).

There are many other examples. I’ll mention one more from 1 Corinthians 7. While answering questions about marriage, Paul addresses the husband who has become a Christian but whose wife has not. This is verse 12: “If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.”

Notice that the husband is a brother – he’s part of the family – but the wife is not yet a sister. She may be valued and much loved, but she is not part of the family since she does not share the family’s spiritual DNA. She does not have the Spirit of Jesus. She may go to church gatherings with her husband, but she will not be in the church until the Spirit of Christ is in her. She may critique the church, enjoy the church, have valued friends in the church, but she will not become a sister until she entrusts herself to God through faith in Jesus.

I’ve already mentioned how countercultural the family nature of the church was in the first century. It still is. But it is not only countercultural; it is also appealing. In different eras, various benefits of Christ’s atoning death have had special appeal. In Martin Luther’s time, the possibility of justification and forgiveness was powerful among people who were profoundly aware of their sins. In John Wesley’s time, the possibility of being redeemed from sin’s slavery – freed from its addictive power – was a great draw.

In contemporary society, the hope of reconciliation catches our attention. The idea that relationships can be restored – to God and to others – has immense appeal. We are living through the disintegration of embodied relationships on a massive scale. The growth of digital technology has hastened the breakdown of intimacy, even in families. 55 percent of married people in a recent survey said that their spouse spends too much time on their phone. 60 percent of parents believe that technology has interfered – it is called technoference – in their relationship with their kids.

According to the medical doctor and political philosopher Ronald Dworkin, the United States has seen a hundredfold increase in the number of professional caregivers since 1950. The U.S. has 77,000 clinical psychologists, 192,000 clinical social workers, 105,000 mental health counselors, 50,000 marriage and family therapists, 17,000 nurse psychotherapists, and 30,000 life coaches—not to mention hundreds of thousands of nonclinical social workers and substance abuse counselors. Dworkin writes that “under our very noses a revolution has occurred in the personal dimension of life, such that millions of Americans must now pay professionals to listen to their everyday life problems.”[1] That role used to be filled by family.

People – people we know – are primed for satisfying relationships. When the church is living as a family, as Jesus intended, they can find them here. We can be the portal through which people pass into relationships with God and his family.

But how? By intentionally nurturing our relationships in the church. By spending time with the family – certainly on Sunday mornings but at other times as well. There is no substitute for spending time together. This is a rule of thumb: people who have the most satisfying church experience are the ones who spend the most time with their church family. The person who attends a worship service once a month does not have a very satisfying church experience. The one who attends weekly will be more satisfied. The one who sees brother and sister Christians during the week, who does life with them, will be most satisfied.

That is not to say that their life is sourced in the church, or that they have to be on campus three times a week, or anything like that. Their life is in God, but they share that life with their church family. They go out to eat together. Play games together. Start businesses together. They help each other with projects, both at home and at church. They go to concerts and plays. They fish together. They waste time together.

If you are a Christian – you have come over to God by entrusting your life to Jesus – but you are not satisfied with church and you don’t have the kinds of relationships I have been describing, then the ball is in your court. Jesus wants us to live as family. Take steps to make it so. Invite someone out for lunch today. Come and celebrate the baptism. Join a project at church with a few others. Start a church golf league or bowling league. Have a game night at your house. Become part of the care ministry team. Invite people over to watch the college final four games. Join a D-Group. Do life together with Jesus’s family.

Now, back to Mark 3. Remember that Jesus’s family came to take charge of him, to stage an intervention. His family thought he was “out of his mind,” was “beside himself.” They didn’t understand Jesus at all.

In verses 22-30, Mark pivots from what Jesus’s family thought about him to what the teachers of the law were thinking. His family said he was out of his mind. The teachers of the law said that he was possessed by a demon. They did not understand Jesus at all.

In verse 31, Mark pivots back to Jesus’s family, and in verse 34 we hear these words: “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” They were the ones who “got” Jesus. You’ll never get Jesus just by attending church services. You’ll not get him by reading books. You’ll get him when you intend to obey God.

In St. Paul, we read (more than once) of the obedience that comes from faith. From Jesus we learn of the perception that comes from obedience. He said, “Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own” (John 7:17). The people who have resolved to do the will of God are the one who grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus. They get him. Will you be one of those people?

[1] Quoted by Ross Douthat in Bad Religion (Free Press, 2012), pp. 240-241

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Why Coming Near God Is Both Risky and Redemptive

Posted on April 8, 2023 by salooper57

People sometimes ask, “Why doesn’t God just show himself? Why doesn’t he come near?” In the Scripture, God promises to come near, but that coming near is always a kind of judgment. The presence of God is a spotlight, revealing not only our actions but our thoughts and motives. The truth about us, including truth we have not known, becomes clear when God comes near.

Even so, the prophet Isaiah pleaded with God to come near: “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!” But do we really want the one who causes mountains to tremble to come near? When he did so at Sinai, the mountain “was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire … and the whole mountain trembled violently.” People suddenly found they did not want God to be so close. They said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

Here lies the incredible tension under which we live—and not just us, but God too. According to Isaiah, people’s hearts are hard when God is far away, yet if he comes near while they are wrapped up in their sins, they will be hurt. If he does not come near, their hearts will become harder and even more entwined in sin. If he comes close, he might destroy us, but if he does not, we will destroy ourselves.

This is the disaster that Adam’s rebellion perpetrated on all his children. If God comes close, we are ruined. If he stays away, we are ruined. The Bible is the story of how God solved this most intractable problem. It tells how he made a way to come near without destroying people.

How did he do that? “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” The eternal God entered time. The infinite God was confined in space. God’s plan involved thousands of years of preparation. An entire people group was groomed for millennia. The right woman was selected through whom the Word would become flesh. Finally, God sent “his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, for sin…” Only in this way could God come among humans without undoing them.

And what happened? The humans killed him. This did not take God by surprise. He knew through all those thousands of years that this would happen, and he incorporated it into his plan. It was the way – perhaps the only way – the intractable problem could be solved. God also knew through all those thousands of years that he would raise Christ from the dead, which was how the problem of human mortality would be overcome.

According to the biblical story, Christ ascended to heaven following the resurrection. Doesn’t that mean that we are back where we were? Is God not once again far from us? Do we only get God for the 33 years that he lived among us in human form? No, God sent his Spirit, which was also the plan for thousands of years. Through his Spirit, his presence brings restoration and not ruin.

Long ago, the prophet asked: “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?” The answer is the person who has received God’s Spirit. The presence of this Spirit enables humans to endure God’s coming. And he imparts his Spirit to the person who believes in his Son.

God has not changed. He is still the same God who, when he came near, made Moses cry out, “I am trembling with fear.” God is not a toy for religious people to play with. Coming near him is risky. It can unmake a person—or remake him.

Because of what God did in Christ, and because of the ensuing gift of his Spirit, “we can come near to God” knowing that “he will come near” to us. We can do this with confidence, certain that his presence will heal, and not harm, us.

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Leaving Home (not knowing where we are going)

Posted on April 7, 2023 by salooper57

I will be finishing up the work that God gave me to do at Lockwood Community Church over the next few months. It has be a long, fruitful, and (for the most part) happy time. My wife and I have loved being here. Our three sons grew up at Lockwood and all three remain committed followers of Christ. We have made many friends here, friends who are dear to us, friends who have made us better people, friends we will cherish for the rest of our lives, in this age and in the age to come.

When I first told our elders that Karen and I would be finishing up here, one of them (a dear friend) told me that he thought COVID and the stress of the last couple of years was influencing our decision. I could see why he felt that way. COVID was a nightmare: making almost daily decisions, which we knew that half the congregation would support and the other half would oppose. We lost some people during COVID – people who were (and are) dear to us.

But COVID and stress had nothing to do with this decision. In fact, the post-COVID years (if there is such a thing) have been a time of contentment and joy. We were not wanting to leave Lockwood. We are happy here and, in fact, to stay would be easier.

But I believe that God has told me to finish up the work that he has given me to do here. This belief came directly out of my daily times of Bible reading and prayer. One day, over a year ago now, I was praying when two words flashed into my mind. That is a poor way of describing it. The two words were simply there, as if they had just been spoken from somewhere out of the blue. The two words were lake turnover.

It is hard to describe how odd this was. I was not thinking of lakes at all. I suppose I had come across the term at some point in my life, but I could not remember doing so, and I had never given the concept any thought. I stopped my prayers momentarily and wrote the words down so that I could google them later.

In my online search, I discovered that lakes in colder climates “turn over” – that is, as the air temps drop the surface water cools. As it cools, it become denser, heavier, and sinks, displacing the water beneath it. Eventually, the water on top sinks to the bottom and the water on the bottom rises to the surface.

When this happens, the oxygen trapped at the bottom is released and refreshes the lake. At the same time, though, other gasses (like methane) are also released, which are capable of causing a foul odor.

When I read this, I was immediately certain that our church was going through “lake turnover.” Many of her foundational members were leaving influential positions because of age, or because they were moving, or because of death. Others were gradually taking their place. This, I realized, was healthy for the church even though, in the short term, it might raise a stink.

I also realized with a feeling of certainty that Karen and I would be part of the lake turnover.

She and I talked, prayed, and prayed together about this. Some months later, during a time of prayer – how often my thoughts, my actions, my life have been changed by prayer – I read these words: “See to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord.” The words jumped off the page at me. I reread them in Greek. I felt certain that the message for Archippus was now being spoken to me by the Spirit.

That certainty has solidified as the months have gone by. So, after decades of fruitful ministry, we are finishing up the work God has given us to do. We are being obedient. Yet, it is sad, a little scary – what does God have for us next? – and a even exhilarating. Perhaps Abraham felt this way when he obeyed and went out, not knowing where he was going.

We, of course, are not Abraham.  Would you remember us to God today? Would you pray that God will help the church we love discern their next leader? And would you ask him to grace Karen and me to trust him completely as we go through this transition and into our next sphere of service?

Thanks for joining with us in this adventure!

Posted in Church, Church Life, Faith, Mission, Prayer | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Secular Creed (What the Bible Has to Say to American Culture)

Posted on April 5, 2023 by salooper57

Woke: is it good or bad – or both? Should Christians adopt, adapt, or wage war against what Rebecca McLaughlin calls “the secular creed”? In this class, we look at the Five Commandments of the secular creed (Black Lives Matter, Love is Love, Women’s Rights are Human Rights, We’re all Immigrants, Diversity Makes Us Stronger) and think through where Jesus’s followers should stand.

Viewing Time 41:07
Posted in Bible, In the News, What the Bible Has to Say to American Culture, Worldview and Culture | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Day You Came Into the Church (1 Corinthians 12:1-13)

Posted on April 2, 2023 by salooper57


Viewing Time: 24 minutes (approximate)

Last week, we looked at the day the church was born into the world. This week, we will look at the day you were born into the church. But first, we need to think a little further about what the church is.

In ordinary conversation, we use the word “church” in four different senses.[1] First, we use it to refer to the building or campus where worship services and corporate events are held. I frequently say to Karen, “I’ve got to go to church,” which is a kind of shorthand for saying that I am headed to the building that is situated at 41.8844529 degrees latitude and -85.0369717 degrees longitude. My wife knows that I can get pedantic about the details, so she appreciates the shorthand.

A second common way the word “church” is used is in reference to an event. Someone asks us to go golfing on Sunday and we reply, “Sorry, I’ve got church.” We mean that we have an event – usually a worship service – to attend. So “church” is an event that happens from 8:30 to 9:30 or from 11:00 to 12:00 on Sundays.

Third: we might be talking about an institution – in our setting, the one known as Lockwood Community Church, with its covenant partners, officers (like the pastors, elders and deacons), and administrative board. Usually when people are critical of the church, it is this institutional expression they have in mind. When they say, “The church needs to change,” they mean the institution needs to adapt or make corrections.

A fourth way of talking about the church is as the group of people who have been united to Jesus Christ as Lord and to each other as family by the Holy Spirit who lives in them. This is what the biblical writers mean when they speak of the church. A person can attend Sunday “events” and be joined to the institution by membership yet not be a part of the people who are united to Jesus and to each other by God’s Spirit.

It is in this last sense of people united to Jesus and to each other by the Holy Spirit that we are thinking of the church. As such, the church is comprised of believers from every part of the world. A believer in New Delhi and a believer in Coldwater are connected to each other by the Spirit and both are part of the church. And not just believers in every part of the world, but also in heaven, for they too are united to Jesus Christ and to his people on earth.

There is only one church, and it is comprised of all the people through all of time who have been united to Christ and to each other by the Spirit of God. There is one church, but it has many expressions. Lockwood Community Church is one.

An illustration may help. In the Malheur National Forest in Oregon lives the world’s largest living thing: a single specimen of Armillaria Ostoyae, a giant fungus that covers more than eight square miles. Over the space of those 8 square miles, it breaks the surface of the ground in many places, but under the surface this vast living thing is completely connected.

So with the church. Lockwood breaks the surface here as a local expression of the church of Jesus Christ. First Baptist does too. In Timbuktu, Mali the church is expressed as the Evangelical Christian Church, and in various other ways. But it is one church united across space and time, joined together by the one Spirit of God.

From my repeated use of the word, “Spirit,” you might get the idea that the Spirit is important to the church. You would not be wrong. There is no church apart from the presence of God’s Spirit. There is no member of the church who does not have the Spirit. Without the Spirit, you can still have a church building, a church event, and a church institution, but you cannot have the church. Sermons and sacraments do not a church make apart from the Spirit of God.

In First Corinthians 12, where Paul talks about how we come into the church, it is worth noting the preponderance of references to the Spirit: thirteen in the first thirteen verses. The essential difference between the Christian and non-Christian is not that one assents to certain beliefs and the other does not – though that is usually the case – but that one has the Spirit of the eternal God enlivening him and the other does not.

It is the Spirit’s presence in a person, which we cannot see but that God can, that marks the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. Back in chapter 2, Paul wrote: “What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God … The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:12, 14).

In Galatians 3:3, Paul marks the beginning of the Christian life with a person’s reception of the Spirit. In Romans we learn that it is the Spirit that makes a person a son of God and Paul says that if a person does not have the Spirit, he does not belong to Christ (Romans 8:9).[2]

It is the presence of the Spirit in a person that marks him or her out to be resurrected. God tags people with the Spirit – in biblical language, he seals them – and all those who are tagged will be resurrected. So, in Romans 8:11 we read: “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”

The same Spirit that transforms ordinary people into children of God, gives them spiritual understanding, and marks them out as “resurrectionable” also unites them in the church. Listen to First Corinthians 12:12-13: “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”

Paul uses an analogy here that was familiar to first century Roman citizens – like the people in Corinth. He compares the church to a body: it has many parts, but they serve the body, not themselves. It functions as a single unit, even though it is comprised of so many parts.

A few years ago, I read Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein for the first time. I had seen the movie with Boris Karloff when I was just a boy, but the book was quite unlike the movie. In the book, Victor Frankenstein robs graves and burial vaults to find body parts for the creature he is building. Can you imagine if the hand and the mouth, taken from different corpses, didn’t operate in sync – if the mouth kept biting the hand that tried to feed it? Or if the leg from one person did not keep time with the leg from another? What if each body part had its own spirit and operated independently of all the others? It would be chaos.

Paul wants us to know that God is not building some Frankenstinian monster. As he said a few verses earlier: “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7). It is “one and the same Spirit,” verse 11, that animates the body of Christ and each part within in it. Paul wants us to understand that in the church of Christ, which is his body on earth, there is great diversity (many parts) and yet true unity (just one body).

You, if you have the Spirit of God, are one of those parts. So am I. We need each other to function well.

This is one of the elements of God’s genius. He has designed us so that we can only reach our potential in company with others, when others depend on us, and we depend on them. You might think, But I don’t want anyone depending on me! Then you don’t want to grow spiritually.Eugene Peterson was right: “There can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life, apart from an immersion in, and embrace of, community. I am not myself by myself.”

Today, as never before, people are trying to go it alone in the spiritual life. They have been hurt by, or are angry at, or have just lost interest in the church, and so they walk away. According to Pew Research, about 167 million Americans say they are Christians, yet only 58 percent of Evangelicals, 39 percent of Catholics, and 33 percent of mainline Christians attend church on a weekly basis. Why don’t they gather with the church? Because they think it is optional.

Do you know what that means? They are thinking of church as an event – perhaps one you attend for extra credit. But the church is not an event. It is the community of God’s people, united to Christ and each other by God’s Spirit. That is not optional.

“I am not myself by myself.” Many of us have come to understand that we can’t be who we’re meant to be without God, but we haven’t yet grasped that we can’t be who we’re meant to be without each other. The most important thing about you, if you are a Christian, the thing that makes you “you” is that you are in Christ. But I am in Christ with you. We need each other.

In Corinth, there was a group of people who believed that the church couldn’t make it without them. They were the spiritual ones. They were the ones with something to offer. Sadly, other people in the church believed them, and concluded that they themselves had nothing to offer.

When the Spirit of God brings any person into the church, he gives him or her a gift to share with everyone else. Paul gives examples of what some of those gifts are in verses 8-10. This is not an exhaustive list, but it gives us an idea of the kinds of things he has in mind. Some people bring wisdom to the table, and some bring knowledge. Some inspire the rest of the church with their remarkable faith.

God works through others by bringing healing – emotional, physical, or both. Another is very discerning – he or she senses quickly whether something is good or bad. Another can speak God’s perspective into situations – delivering messages from God. Another can speak in tongues or interpret them.

In Corinth, the people who fancied themselves “spiritual” were enamored with the speaking gifts. They wanted to get up in front and talk. But Paul knew that Christ is not just a talking head – and neither is his church. Of course, the body of Christ needs a mouth, but it also needs eyes and hands and feet.

In 1 Corinthians 12:12, Paul said that a single body has many parts and added that Christ is like that. His body, the church, is one even though it has many parts – us. Now, listen again to verse 13: “For we were all baptized in one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”

The baptism Paul is talking about is not water baptism but the spiritual reality it represents. This baptism is immersion in God’s Spirit, which unites a person to Christ’s body, the church. Notice again the diversity: all of us, whether Jew or Greek, whether slave or free. And notice the unity: we are baptized in one Spirit into one body.

We often speak of people being baptized into Christ (which is biblical language, see Galatians 3:27; Romans 6:2) but overlook the fact that such a baptism is always and invariably into the body of Christ, the church. That is why, when we hold a water baptism (as we will next week), which is the physical expression of this spiritual baptism, we want the church to be present to welcome and receive the baptized. We not only recognize that they are in Christ but that they are with us. Christ not only justifies people, he “familifies” them, as Joe Hellerman says – he places them in his church.[3]

We are not only immersed in the Spirit and into the body of Christ, Paul says that we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Some Bible interpreters think Paul is referring to the wine at Holy Communion. They point to what St. John wrote: “For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood.” They see the Spirit’s activity in the water, which they take to be baptism, and in the blood, which they take to be the wine at communion.

But that does not seem to have been on Paul’s mind at all. He is talking about a two-fold experience of the Spirit. The believer is immersed in the Spirit and the Spirit enters into the believer. Because the believer is in the Spirit, he or she in a part of the body of Christ, and because the Spirit in the believer, he or she has something to offer to the body of Christ.

That “something” is not expendable; the body of Christ needs, for example, what you have to give – what God gave you to give us. A while back someone handed me $500 to give to someone in need. What kind of person would I be if I had held onto that money – even if I didn’t use it for myself but just left it on the shelf? And when God gifts us in some way the church needs and we don’t pass it on to the church, what kind of people are we? Christ’s church needs what you were given to give. Do you believe that?

Some of the church members in Corinth didn’t. That is why Paul continued: “Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body” (1 Cor. 12:15-16).

Paul goes on to imagine what a body would be like if it was all one big eye. What if the church were all one part, reproduced again and again? It would not be the body of Christ but the body of a monster.

Let’s pull this together. When you believed on Jesus Christ and received his Spirit, you were united to his body the church – and the church to you. You cannot have Christ and pass on his church; he won’t let you. John Wesley was wise to share what a “serious” Christ-follower once told him: “Sir, you wish to serve God and go to heaven. Remember you cannot serve Him alone. You must therefore find companions or make them. The Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.”

You not only received Christ; you received a gift to share. The church needs what God gave you to give it. More than that: your own spiritual health, the spiritual health of your family, and the people closest to you depend on you doing so.

Now here is the problem: you might not know what gift God gave you to share with us. It came wrapped and you only find out what it is when you give it away.

I challenge you to ask God what he wants to give to the church through you. Then listen for God to speak to you. Guidance may come from something said at church or at home, something you see being done or needing to be done. Get in there. That is the best way to find how God wants to bless the church through you.

As most of you know, Karen and I will be finishing up the work God has given us to do here sometime this year. After making that announcement, I learned that the average church’s attendance drops 11% when her pastor leaves. But Lockwood is not average. I want us to grow by 11% by the time I leave and then keep on growing.

The future God has planned for Lockwood is good but make no mistake, that plan includes you and the gift you have for, and are to, the church.

[1] I am indebted to Sky Jethani, What If Jesus Was Serious About the Church, Moody Publishers, for the four categories used.

[2] Gordon Fee: NICNT: 1 Corinthians. P. 668

[3] Joseph Hellerman, When the Church Was a Family, B&H.

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Doubts and Dissonance: How Jesus Responded to Doubting Thomas

Posted on April 1, 2023 by salooper57

My nephew and his wife began deconstructing their faith a couple of years ago. I like my nephew. He is a smart, thoughtful man. His parents are Christians. His grandfather was a Baptist pastor. Two of his uncles are in ministry. And now he, according to his mom (the pastor’s kid), is deconstructing his faith.

To deconstruct is not the same as to demolish. He still believes in Jesus. The last time I spoke to his mom, he was still involved in a church. From what I understand (and I hope I’m not misrepresenting him), his doubts have driven him to dismantle his belief system and discard some of its components. I don’t know when his doubts started, but I suspect it was years ago, maybe even decades.

Doubt is not a sin (though sin – ours or someone else’s – may cause it), but it is a terrible inconvenience, a painful experience, and a symptom that something is not right. Pretending we don’t have doubts is not helpful. Yet many people are – or have been taught to be – ashamed of their doubts, terrified to admit them, and thereby helpless to do anything to change them.

My nephew, if I understand correctly, realized that some of the things his parents and his church had taught him conflict with other things he now accepts as true. I suspect that realization took time, perhaps years. But it doesn’t always happen that way. Sometimes doubts do not grow within but assault us from without.

The Apostle Thomas’s doubts did not arise out of a growing dissonance of conflicting beliefs. One day he rested easy in faith. The next he was drowning in doubt. Whether doubts arise slowly or attack without warning, the way Jesus dealt with Thomas in his doubts can instruct and encourage us.

When Thomas heard that Jesus had risen from the dead, he did not believe it. I think that Thomas didn’t want – didn’t dare – to believe it. He had believed that Jesus was the Messiah and spent three years following him. He didn’t marry. He didn’t work a job. He left everything to follow Jesus and what had it gotten him? Anguish.

He wasn’t going to let that happen again. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!” Thomas was not going to be fooled twice. He held onto his skepticism, which was rooted in disappointment, to protect himself.

Here is what he said: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” “I will not believe” is emphatic because of a double negative in the original language: “I will not – will not – believe!”

Thomas had set his conditions for belief, and they were stringent. He required redundant proof. He must see; he must feel. He demanded both visual and tactile confirmation, and not just of Jesus hands but also of his side. Thomas would have made a good scientist, right at home with double-blind tests and repeatability of results requirements.

How must Jesus have felt about Thomas’s doubts? His personally chosen apostle refused to believe in him. His friend, for whom he died, continued to doubt him.

The Bible does not tell us how Jesus felt, but it does tell us how he responded. Instead of reproaching, demoting, or ousting Thomas from the Apostolic band, he accommodated him. He helped him.

Millions of people doubt Jesus today. Across the country, untold numbers are deconstructing their faith. They are doubting what they have been taught, sometimes with good reason. But some are also doubting the One about whom they have been taught; they are doubting Jesus. How does he feel about that? Does it make him angry?

People who get angry under such circumstances get angry because they are insecure. Jesus is not insecure. He does not get angry when people doubt and question him. He is ready to help anyone who genuinely wants to know the truth.

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God is Beautiful

Posted on March 28, 2023 by salooper57

(My good friend Michael Wickey, a computer programmer (who was raised Amish!) and a terrific guy, wrote this devotional and shared it with our church’s diaconate. I asked if I could share it with you. I hope you enjoy!)

I sometimes lose sight of or don’t think often enough about this idea; that God is beautiful. Not only is he beautiful, he himself loves beauty. Ubiquitous with the idea of beauty are, sunrises, sunsets, mountain landscapes, Caribbean beaches, clear blue water, massive glaciers, grazing herds of bison, or a cute and cuddly kitten, but I think, if God loves beautiful things, then he loves all these things too. But first, let me backup a little bit. How do I get to the conclusion that God loves beauty?

Well, there are many reasons, but one that just came to me this week was the sacrifice of Jesus, who died while still sinless, who took our just punishment, and rose again on the 3rd day. Yes, that alone is beautiful. Not much stacks up to the beauty of sacrifice. Jesus says in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” But how does that make me think God loves beauty? There is much more that could be explored here because Jesus died for those who persecuted him as well as his friends, but for now my point only concerns the beauty of sacrifice.

We were made in God’s image. He knows us inside and out, and even with the fall, we carry a lot of Him within us. He knew what could bring us back to him. Beauty, and namely his (this is only one aspect and I’m only covering this one, for my point.). Beautiful things are a source of gravity, though it is the type of gravity that can be denied, they pull and change the things they act upon. A real world example is playing with a kitten when in a sour mood, or being around people with overflowing joyfulness. It is really hard to stay the same while encountering beautiful things. Either we need to leave and possibly even hide from the beautiful thing, or we will be changed by it.

Beauty is somehow wrapped up in the essence of God and a sense of it was imparted on all His creation, and since we are made in His image, we can also do more and change more through it. By this I mean that we have the ability to actively foster beauty and to let ourselves be changed by it.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” – Psalm 19:1-4

The Gospel is beautiful, and it will change us if we recognize it (this does not negate us choosing), but it can also be denied which also changes us. Denying its beauty is only done if we use a different standard of beauty, namely our own, which is worthless (since we are mere fallen humans as opposed to the Creator God, our creations necessarily fall short)  in comparison and will lead us to nothing or rather nothingness.

Why and how does this particular beauty change us? My wife Jenny theorized that “it is our natural longing to become what we are meant to be, and we, who recognize the Gospel, know that this goal is to be like Jesus!”

“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” – Romans 8:29

“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” – 1 John 3:2

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” – Psalm 27:4 This connection didn’t seem like a lot at first, but it makes me feel closer to Jesus, though this is only a feeling because Jesus is never far, but it is not nothing. It is a feeling of confident peace. A good and confident feeling, a solid and steadfast heart are forces that carry a soldier into battle and fireman into a burning building. I need that feeling of closeness in order to overcome some obstacles and challenges, and I love the thought of standing there on my back porch, with steaming coffee in hand, watching the sunrise while the birds chirp, with Jesus!

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The Day the Church Was Born (Acts 2)

Posted on March 26, 2023 by salooper57
Approximately 23 minutes

We are looking today at Acts 2, which recounts the origins of the Church. When God poured out his Spirit on the 120 Jesus-followers who had gathered in Jerusalem, they went from being friends and associates with a shared history to being the church of Jesus Christ with a shared, eternal future.

The same Spirit that was in Peter was now in Mary Magdalene. The Spirit in John was in Cleopas. The Spirit in Matthew was in Mary the mother of Jesus. These people who had long known each other were suddenly together in a way they had never been before. They were united. The Spirit of God was coordinating their thoughts and actions. They had become the church.

This is one of the epoch-making moments in the history of the world. It marked the threshold of earth’s last era and triggered the transformation (or evolution, if you prefer) of humanity into a new kind of existence. To material beings of the animal kingdom, the homo sapiens sapiens, was added the divine Spirit. This would prepare humans for resurrection and life in the age to come, but it also connected them to each other in the present.

As I was exegeting this passage and preparing to preach it, I outlined it in five parts. We have: What Happened: The Event (vv. 1-4); What Was Going On: The Setting (vv. 5-13); What it Meant: The Sermon (vv. 14-35); What to Do About It: The Application (vv. 36-41); and What Resulted: The Church (vv. 42-47). That could be unpacked for hours, but since we don’t have that long, let’s get to it by looking at what happened.

It was the day of Pentecost, the celebration known as the Feast of Weeks. It was called Pentecost because it took place 50 days after the Feast of Firstfruits. (Pentecost is Greek for 50.) Jesus’s apostles, along with more than a hundred of his followers had been together much of those 50 days – ever since the resurrection.

On the day of the feast, they were together – perhaps in the same upper room where they had gathered on the night before Jesus was betrayed. The house where they stayed must have been near the temple because only houses in the temple district were large enough to accommodate so many people.

The giving of the Spirit was accompanied by three extraordinary phenomena. There was the unaccountable sound of a violent wind. There was the astonishing sight of something that looked like a flame of fire appearing above the head of every person present. And there was amazing testimony as the people began speaking in languages they did not know, enabled by the Spirit that was within them.

That is what happened. In verses 5-13, Luke pans out a little and gives us the setting in which this took place. When people came to find out what was making the strange wind-like sound, they heard a second strange sound: Jesus’s people were talking about God in fifteen different languages! They asked, “Aren’t these people all Galileans?” Galileans were known for their distinct way of speaking. We would say they had an accent. A linguist would say they dropped laryngeals and aspirates.[1] But the foreigners said, “They’re speaking my language!”

Notice what they spoke (v. 11): the wonders (or, as the Greek has it, the great things) of God. Very often in Scripture, and nearly always in Luke’s writings, the Holy Spirit is associated with the way people speak. Some bible students say the evidence that a person is filled with the Spirit is speaking in tongues. But the Bible goes beyond that: the evidence is speaking in love. Someone who speaks in tongues on Sunday and speaks with contempt on Monday is not someone who is filled with the Spirit.

Most of the people who heard the disciples were amazed. (In fact, Luke uses three different Greek words in this passage to indicate wonder or amazement.) But some just mocked them and said they’d had one too many. Perhaps they were, like the apostles, Galileans, who didn’t hear the dropped laryngeals and aspirates. It is the people who think they know you who frequently miss what you are saying.

Notice that the Spirit’s presence in the disciples led people to ask questions. Jesus’s people were different. They still are. People ought to be asking questions about us: our generosity, our fearlessness, our love for each other, our honesty, kindness, hopefulness.

There is something else to understand about what is happening here, but we will miss it if we are not familiar with the Old Testament. After God created human beings, he appointed them to rule the world as his regents. But humans (this is Genesis 3) turned away from God – theologians call it “the Fall” – and everything began falling apart (that is Genesis 4-11).

When we arrive at Genesis 11, we see how bad things have become. The people of the city of Babel are constructing a ziggurat – a kind of temple – to reach heaven. They are trying to force their way into God’s place – into authority and power – without God. At Babel, God brought that attempt to an end by scattering the people and confusing their languages. No longer would people be able to understand each other – a loss that has impoverished and divided humanity.

But at Pentecost, God began to reverse the scattering. People from fifteen different nations heard and understood each other. Many came to share the same Spirit. What was lost in the world was being reintroduced in the church, which from the beginning has been a multi-national, multi-lingual, ethnically diverse people—and yet united. The scattering of humanity is being undone within the church of Jesus Christ.

So, the disciples heard the surprising sound of a strong, rushing wind in the house where they were meeting. The sound was so loud that people outside the house heard it too. The Christians then saw what looked like a flame of fire resting above one another’s heads and, when they spoke, it was in languages they had never learned. This took place on Pentecost Sunday, fifty days after the Feast of Firstfruits. Visitors who were in town for the feast heard the disciples declaring the praises of God in their own languages.

That’s what happened. But what did it mean? The Apostle Peter answers that question. He begins by saying what it does not mean. It does not mean that we’re drunk. With good humor he adds, “It’s only nine in the morning!”

What it does mean is that the last days are upon us (v. 17). God is keeping his word through the prophet Joel and is pouring out his Spirit on all people, not just on kings, prophets, and judges. This, as Peter says down in verse 33, is what you now see and hear. The last days have begun.

But why now? Why didn’t it happen in the prophet Joel’s time? Why didn’t it happen in our time? Why now? Peter’s answer is: because of Jesus. Everything changed with the coming of Jesus. He is the hinge on which the door of history turns.

Peter says that “Jesus was a man accredited to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did … through him” (v. 22). In the ancient world, when teachers came to a new community, they brought with them letters of introduction from shared acquaintances or from well-known people. Jesus’s letter of introduction came from God himself, and was written in miracles, wonders, and signs.

And how, Peter asks boldly, did you receive him? You (v. 33), with the help of wicked men (literally lawless men, that is, gentiles), “put him to death by nailing him to a cross.” But God, Peter said, knew this would happen and incorporated your rejection into his plan. Then he raised Jesus from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him (v. 24). Peter uses a remarkable metaphor here. The word for agony is the common word for birth pangs. The agony of death turned out to be the birth pangs of the new humanity.

As proof that God raised Jesus from the dead, Peter quotes Psalm 16. It was written by Jesus’s great ancestor King David about a thousand years earlier. In the poem we have the line, “my body also will rest in hope, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead (“sheol” in Hebrew, “hades” in Greek) nor will you let your faithful one see decay” (vv. 26, 27; Ps. 16:9-10).

Peter goes on to argue that King David died a long time ago – everyone knows where his grave is – and his body did decay. David could not have been referring to himself in Psalm 16. No, he was speaking prophetically of the Messiah – a prophecy God fulfilled by raising Jesus from the dead.

And it was this Jesus, raised from the dead and exalted to the place of honor at God’s right hand, this Jesus who is both Lord of all and Messiah of the Jews (v. 36), who is responsible for the events on the day of Pentecost. He has sent the Holy Spirit on the church and launched the final epoch of earth’s history. Jesus is the key to everything.

So far, we have seen what happened (the event), what was going on at the time (the setting), what it meant (Peter’s sermon). In verses 37-40 we see what to do about it (the application).

When people realized what Peter was saying and understood that he was speaking truth, they were aghast. They had killed the Messiah God sent to rescue them. They had got rid of the only person who could help them. Luke says they were “cut to the heart” when they heard this and asked Peter and the apostles what they should do” (v. 37). Was it too late? Were they destined for ruin because they had not recognized their Messiah?

Peter holds out hope for them. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ” (v. 38). Now, hold on. I thought all you needed to do was believe, but Peter says, “Repent and be baptized.” Well, it is clear to me that Peter’s hearers did believe, otherwise they would not have asked what they should do. Repentance and baptism are not a substitute for, nor an add-on to, belief; they are the outworking of it.

In repentance, a person rethinks his life and makes changes so that he can align himself or herself with what is true. Repentance is that moment when I realize that the road I am on is not going the direction I need to go. Unless I am a fool, I will get off that road and find another. There is nothing meritorious about repentance. It is not some admirable achievement on my part. It is, in fact, a gift of God.

But what about baptism? Back in verse 21, Peter said (quoting Joel) that if people call on the Lord’s name they will be saved. Here he is telling them how to call: by being baptized in Jesus’ name. Ananias used very similar language when he said to Saul (who would later be Paul): “And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” (Acts 22:16).

Some of Peter’s hearers would have been upset. In Judaism, baptism was normally reserved for pagan Gentiles who were converting.  The idea that pious Jews needed to be baptized was offensive. What would people think?

But Peter offers no alternative. He requires, as Craig Keener put it, a “public, radical testimony of conversion, not a private, noncommittal request for salvation.”[2] It’s not that a person cannot be baptized privately – the Ethiopian in Acts 8 was – but never as a way of avoiding that public, radical testimony of faith in Christ.

This baptism is “in the name of Jesus Christ” (v. 38). Because of this verse, some churches do not baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as Jesus instructed in Matthew 28, but only in the name of Jesus. I think that is an error. When Peter tells them to be baptized in the name of Jesus, he is indicating what kind of baptism it is and differentiating it from other ancient ceremonial washings. He is not giving a ritual formula to be spoken over the person being baptized. If that were the case, he would have used the active, and not the passive, voice.[3]

We have seen what happened on the day the church was born, what was going on at the time, what it meant, and what to do about it. In verses 42-47 we see what resulted from it. United by God’s Spirit, people were hungry to know about God, and so they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching (v. 42). That happens when people are filled with God’s Spirit.

They were also hungry to be together. In verses 42-47, the NIV uses the word “together” three times. The disciples were devoted to the fellowship and its shared meals. They looked out for each other’s needs. Some people insist that the mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues (and that certainly happened in verse 4 and was wonderful), but the more definitive indicator is what we have in these verses: a longing to know God in Christ and a love and affection for his people.

Now, let’s put this all in context, and then we’ll look to see how it applies to us. Acts 2 describes the day the church was born. This is an historic, never to be repeated event, like the death and resurrection of Christ. We do not read again of the sound of a violent wind or the sight of flames of fire, and only once more in Acts do we read of people speaking in tongues, and that was when Gentiles were brought into the church.

This day was unique, but that does not mean that being filled with the Holy Spirit is unique. That happens repeatedly in the Book of Acts, though without the accompanying signs, and it can also happen repeatedly in our lives. When it does, things are always different.

For example (and we see this in our text), under the influence of the Spirit, a person will alter the way he or she speaks. There is a strong link in Scripture, and especially in the two books Luke wrote, between the presence of God’s Spirit and the way a person talks. Speaking in other tongues is the most obvious example (v. 4), but people filled with the Spirit also praise God (v. 11, and in Luke 1:67ff; 10:21) and prophesy (v. 16), and witness (4:8ff; Luke 12:11-12).

What they don’t do is gossip. Or grumble. Paul tells the Ephesians not to let unwholesome (literally, “rotten”) speech come out of their mouths (4:29), and in the very next verse warns them not to grieve the Holy Spirit. A few verses later, he unpacks what he means by rotten speech: shameful and foolish talk, obscenities, and coarse joking (Eph. 5:4). People who are filled with the Spirit don’t talk that way, but they do speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and they give thanks to God for everything (Eph. 5:18-20).

There is some disagreement in the church over whether speaking in tongues is the required proof of the presence of the Spirit. For various biblical reasons, I think it is not, but speech clearly is important. Just don’t limit it to “other tongues.” How you speak in your native tongue is an even more significant indicator of the Spirit’s fullness or absence in your life. At least, more space in the biblical writings is devoted to it.

There is something else here: The Lord poured out the Spirit on people who were all together (2:1). Divisions, animosity, and strife get in the way of what God wants to do in a church and in individuals’ lives. We must forgive each other and be reconciled to each other, or we will not experience the life God intends us to have. If there is something between you and another Christ-follower, do your best to be reconciled. God will honor you for it, whatever the other person does.

And ask God for the Holy Spirit for yourself and for our church. “How much more,” Jesus asked, “will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:13). Don’t ask so that you can have an experience, but so that you can be the person you were always meant to be.

[1] F.F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

[2] Keener, C. S. (1993). The IVP Bible background commentary: New Testament (Ac 2:37–38). InterVarsity Press.

[3] Ibid.

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Beyond Social Justice: The Call for Spiritual Wokeness

Posted on March 25, 2023 by salooper57

Blues singer and guitarist Lead Belly recorded a song titled, “Scottsboro Boys” in 1938. It told the story of nine young black men who were falsely accused of raping two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama. In a spoken afterward to the recording, Lead Belly advised his hearers to “Stay Woke” when they go through Scottsboro – that is, stay alert.

In 1962, the novelist William Melvin Kelly titled a column for the New York Times Magazine, “If You’re Woke, You Dig It.” The article, which is about the beatnik appropriation of African American slang, shows that “woke” had already been popularized sixty years ago. It also reveals an evolution in the word’s meaning.

In the twenty-first century, “woke” became loosely synonymous with awareness of systemic injustice in white-black relationships. After Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, activists revived Lead Belly’s “stay woke” slang to protest police violence against blacks.

Within a couple of years of the Ferguson protests, “woke” had broken out of its referent boundaries within racial injustice. The word ballooned to include awareness of discrimination against women and LGBTQ people as well as the environmental dangers that threaten the planet. Corporate America saw “wokeness” as a means to an end: profits. Progressive America saw it as an identity marker. Conservative American saw it as insanity.

Excesses have given that position some validity. To “protect students” – and cynics wonder if it was also to display its wokeness – Princeton University stopped requiring students of the Classics to study Greek and Latin. They now learn how Greek and Roman cultures were complicit in white supremacy.  

In its rush to show itself woke, Oberlin College assisted students in protesting racial profiling at a local bakery because the owner had stopped an underage student of color from shoplifting two bottles of wine. Students who took part in the protests were awarded extra credit. The dean of students joined them. The college suspended its contract with the bakery. The courts eventually found the college guilty of libel against the store’s owners, who were awarded many millions of dollars in damages.

To commit an injustice in the name of correcting an injustice is not wokeness. The only way to really be woke is to love, to love people not concepts, to love people whatever their race, ethnicity, sex, or social standing. Love does more than tilt at social justice windmills. It treats real people with respect and fairness.

There is another, and I would argue, more basic, kind of wokeness than the social type: spiritual wokeness. The concept is given considerable space in the biblical writings. More comprehensive than social wokeness, it includes an alertness to one’s place and responsibility in God’s creation as his child.

Jesus warned his followers to “stay awake at all times…” St. Peter said, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” St. Paul tells Romans Christians that “the time has come to wake up from your slumber.” After reminding the Ephesian church of the need to wake up, the apostle instructs them to “Be very careful then how you live … because the days are evil.”

That sounds a lot like Lead Belly’s “Stay Woke.” It is not enough to wake up spiritually; one needs to stay awake. And that is not a given.

In Revelation 3, Christ shouts to the sleeping the church in Sardis, “Wake Up! Strengthen the things that remain,” and warns them of what will happen if they continue in their slumber.

I think he is similarly telling the church in America to wake up. We have spent the past few decades daydreaming of political power and institutional success. We were too groggy to notice that our children were wandering away and that some were being “devoured.”

A church that is truly awake will set the standard for true social justice. It will not do so to win kudos or increase its market share, but simply because it loves. Such love is impossible apart from an alertness to God, his will, and his ways.

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Built on a Promise (Matthew 16:13-20)

Posted on March 19, 2023 by salooper57
Viewing time: 27 minutes (approx.)

When I was a boy and would put more food on my plate than I was able to eat, my mother would say, “Your eyes are bigger than your belly.” When a pastor puts Matthew 16:13-20 on his preaching plate – at least this pastor – his desire to preach might be bigger than his exegetical ability.

When Kevin asked what I was preaching this week and I told him, he said something like, “That passage is filled with interpretive landmines.” He was right. Everywhere the Bible student turns in this passage, there are difficulties. If scholars were given to violence, this passage would be the ground on which much blood was spilled. Fortunately, scholars are not these days given to violence, but I would hazard that there is not a passage in the Bible over which more ink has been spilled than this one.

Catholics have argued that this passage affirms the primacy of Peter which in turn validates the hierarchy of the Church of Rome, based as it is on apostolic succession. Protestants do their best to pull the rug of Peter’s primacy out from under Catholic feet by denying that Peter is given a special place. This passage has been a battleground since the early to mid-1500s.

So why am I preaching it? Because we are trying to understand and appreciate the church of Jesus Christ, and this passage marks the first time Jesus ever mentioned the church. Surely what he has to say about the church – even if it is difficult to understand – is important. It is not only important; it is profoundly encouraging.

Let’s read the passage, Matthew 16:13-20.  When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

 We read in verse 13 that Jesus came to the Gentile region of Caesarea Philippi. When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided into four regions, and this part, known as Paneas, was placed under the authority of his son Philip. Caesarea Philippi was its capitol, and Philip had built a temple there in honor of Caesar Augustus.

Before the temple to Caesar was built, there was an older kind of worship in this place. There was an ancient shrine to the Greek God Pan in a grotto near the source of the Jordan River. Pagans would offer prayers and sacrifices to the god. Caesarea Philippi was a center of idolatry, and yet Jesus took his disciples there.

The Bible does not tell us why Jesus brought them to this place, but we can hazard a guess. When Jesus was with his fellow Jews, people were constantly coming to him for help and for healing. In Mark’s gospel we learn that there were days when he and his disciples didn’t even have time to eat. Jesus had become, in spite of his best efforts, a celebrity. Had there been first century paparazzi, they would have been hounding his every step. Even without the paparazzi, it was hard for Jesus to get quality time with his disciples.

So, he brought them up here, 25 miles from the northern end of the Sea of Galilee. It was a different world here. Most people were Gentiles. There were no crowds, no people breaking in on their meals, or keeping them from his meals, or interrupting Jesus in the middle of a teaching session – all of which we read about in other places. He brought his disciples here to tell them something important.

Jesus began the conversation with a question: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” “Son of Man” was Jesus’s way of referring to himself. (It appears 88 times in the Gospels.) He chose this self-designation for a reason. “Son of Man” could refer simply to a human being – any human being. It is regularly used this was of Ezekiel.

But in the Book of Daniel, “Son of Man” referred to the messiah. By referring to himself as the “Son of Man,” Jesus kept people guessing. Was he saying that he was just an ordinary man? Or was he claiming to be the Messiah? At the conclusion of his earthly ministry, he clarified what he meant. Before the Jewish ruling council, he told the high priest, “…you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). That is straight out of Daniel 7. Jesus was claiming to be God’s messiah, the one to whom all authority in heaven and earth is given.

Here in Paneas, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” I suspect the question took the disciples by surprise. Jesus had never shown any interest in what people thought of him. I also suspect the question pleased the disciples, for they were deeply interested in what people thought. They stayed up to date on what people were saying, and they offered Jesus four representative answers.

Some people were saying that Jesus was John the Baptist. This seems like an odd answer – Jesus and John were contemporaries. Yet Philip’s brother Herod Antipas had murdered John the Baptist, and then feared that John had come back to life in the person of Jesus. Apparently, that belief had got around.

A second answer was that the Son of Man – Jesus – was Elijah returned to life. This idea was based in an odd prophecy from the last book of the Old Testament. Malachi wrote that God would: “…send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes (Malachi 4:5). Many Jews expected Elijah would come back and work some more miracles before the end—and here was Jesus working miracles. Could he be Elijah?

A third popular answer was that Jesus was a reincarnated Jeremiah. Like Jeremiah, Jesus was a man of sorrows. Like Jeremiah, he was in conflict with the religious rulers and wasn’t afraid to expose their corruption. And like Jeremiah, he foretold the downfall of Jerusalem.

The final answer is more generic: Jesus is “one of the prophets.” Whether John, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophetic corps, it seemed that popular opinion thought of Jesus as a prophet. In first century Israel, that was a very high estimate.

This complimentary assessment did not seem to impress Jesus. He really was not interested in who the general public took him to be. But he was interested in what his disciples thought. For them to misunderstand him might compromise the whole program. So, Jesus asks the twelve, “But what about you? Who do you say I am?”

Peter – impetuous, strong, bold Peter – answers on behalf of the other apostles: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” “Prophet” does not go far enough. You are the messiah, the Christ, the Son of God spoken of in Psalm 2 and elsewhere. Peter could not think of any higher appraisal of Jesus.

Jesus responds that Peter is blessed and tells him why. He is blessed because this insight into Jesus’s identity was revealed to him by the Father. Pause there for a moment. To have truth revealed to you from God is to have a God-encounter. That is not some trifling thing. If the God who created the universe reveals something directly to you, you are blessed. If the God of the universe has revealed truth to you, that is huge!

Notice again what Peter said to Jesus: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Now listen to the words Jesus spoke to Peter: “And I say you are Peter.” (Peter, petros in Greek, means “rock” or “stone.”) Peter says, “You are the Messiah.” Jesus says, “You are the Petros.” The repetition is intentional. Peter calls Jesus, “the son of God.” Jesus calls Peter, “The son of John” (or “Jonah”).

Peter made a declaration about Jesus’s identity, so Jesus made a declaration about Peter’s identity. “You are Petros” (“Rock,” like “Rock Hudson” or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), “and on this rock (petra) I will build my church.”

Some Protestant interpreters make a big deal of the difference between, “Peter” (“petros”) and “rock” (“petra”). They say that the rock on which Jesus builds his church cannot be Peter, who didn’t prove to be very rock-like. So, the rock must either be Peter’s faith or his confession of Jesus. This does not seem right to me. For one thing, Jesus could not have nicknamed Peter “Petra,” which has a feminine ending and would have been like calling him “Petrina” – a girl’s name. Besides that, if Jesus was speaking Aramaic, which is quite likely, he would have used the word Cephas both times.

I think those Protestants interpreters are wrong to try to deemphasize Peter’s importance. The “word-play,” as the very Protestant scholar R.T. France put it, “and the whole structure of the passage demands that this verse is every bit as much Jesus’s declaration about Peter as v. 16 was Peter’s declaration about Jesus.” Peter is the rock on which Jesus would build his church.

Of course, in Ephesians we learn that the other apostles – and not just Peter – are also rocks in the foundation of the church. Peter himself says that we are the “living stones” with which Christ’s church is being built. But we must admit that Peter did occupy an important place in the founding of the church. He preached the message on the Day of Pentecost when the church was born. He was Christ’s spokesmen before the religious leaders. He opened the door to take the gospel to the Gentiles. It was his voice that carried the day in the first church council.

While all that it true, it should be said that there is absolutely nothing here or anywhere else in Scripture that would suggest that Peter was the first in an unbroken succession of popes to lead the church. There is not so much as a hint about apostolic succession here or anywhere else in the Bible. Before 1560, not even Catholic interpreters felt it necessary to stress Peter’s primacy when exegeting this passage. They only began doing so in reaction to Martin Luther.

I think when the church turns these verses into a Catholic-Protestant debate, which has happened untold times, both Catholics and Protestants lose out. Every time we draw our exegetical swords, we are the ones who miss the point. Jesus the Messiah the Son of the Living God has promised to build his church! That promise is priceless.

What is his church that he promises to build? The word is used both in the Greek translation of the Old Testament and the New. It has the idea of an assembly of people that has gathered for a particular purpose: an assembly of the city’s citizens to conduct business; the assembly of fighting men to wage war; it is even used in Acts of the unlawful assembly of a riotous mob in Ephesus.

The word was often used to designate God’s people, the remnant that remained true to him, and that is the idea here. Jesus intends to build a people who are loyal to him. They will be, in Peter’s quotation from Exodus, a holy nation, a people who are God’s special possession.

Every time a child, a man, or a woman comes to believe in Jesus, it is because the Messiah, the Son of God has been at work building his church. We, if we are Christ’s, have been built into his special people, the holy nation, God’s special possession. And Christ will continue to build his church, and nothing will stop him.

There have been times in the history of the church when Jesus’s people have needed to know this. It’s something that Jesus’s people need to know now. From our perspective, the church is under threat. People outside the church are constantly criticizing. The church is portrayed in society as unloving, irrelevant, and outdated. Christian sexual ethics are attacked in courts of law and in the court of public opinion.

Inside the church it is worse. In the U.S. in 2019, 4,500 Protestant churches closed while only 3,000 churches were started. Only one out of four Gen-Z people attend church at least once a month. Over half of adults and teens say they have experienced doubts about their beliefs – that does not worry me – but 83% of those link their doubts to past experiences with a religious institution. Instead of saying that the church has helped them through their doubts, they say the church has caused their doubts!

The Methodist Church, which shaped the American frontier, has been engaged in a civil war over sexual ethics. The Roman Catholic church has lost about 3 million adults. In 2021 alone, the Episcopal church lost 60,000 members. Even before Covid, giving across denominational lines was decreasing. Only 10 to 25 percent of church members actually tithe.

I expect that the day is coming – perhaps sooner than we think – when the tax deduction for charitable giving will be withdrawn from churches. Will people then stop giving altogether? And before that happens, will the IRS be politically weaponized to punish churches that maintain their biblical convictions? Will there even be a church in fifty years? In twenty-five years?

Yes, there will be a church, for the Messiah Jesus, the Son of the Living God has promised. He will build his church. The IRS will not stop him. Gen Z won’t delay him. Neither will my Boomer generation. Christ will build his church and he will complete it. He is unstoppable!

A fanatical zealot named Saul tried to destroy the infant church in the mid-thirties of the first century. Jesus transformed him into the Apostle Paul. Claudius tried to wipe out the church a few years after that, then Nero. Jesus turned Rome into the center of world Christianity. Over and over, evil has fought against Christ’s church: Julian the Apostate banned Christians from all teaching positions. The Communists expelled or imprisoned all priests and ministers from Albania and turned churches into movie theaters and dance halls. In Russia, tens of thousands of churches were destroyed, and a half a million Christians were murdered. Under Chairman Mao, Christians were persecuted, churches closed, and clergy imprisoned. Christians are still being harassed in China today, yet the Protestant church there grew by 73 percent in one decade. Jesus always wins.

And he will win here! Neither government persecution, nor the apostasy of many, nor the apathy of others, nor the departure of a long-time pastor will not stop Jesus from building his church. Even the gates of hades, which speaks of the intractability of death, is no match for Jesus and his church. Think of it. Both Sts. Peter and Paul were executed around 67 AD. The church went on. With John’s death near the end of the first century, all the apostles were gone, but the church went on. The church’s foundation was buried but the construction carried on. A Polycarp arose. A Clement. A Cyprian. An Origen. An Augustine, and so it has been right on down to today.

Death has not and will not stop Jesus from building his church. Neither will the one who holds the power of death. Jesus says that the gates of hades will not overcome the church and that is a little hard to understand. Is the church on the offense or on the defense? Pastors will sometimes say that the church is attacking the gates of hades, but the original language is against it. When the verb is used in this way, it is always active, not passive. It means vanquish, not withstand.

Jesus knew that the threat of death would be used against his church – and it was from almost the first day. Stephen the deacon was martyred by stoning. The apostle James was martyred by beheading. The one who holds the power of death tried to drive the young church behind its unbreakable gates, or to coerce its members into silence by the threat of death.

That didn’t work for two reasons. First, for every Christian that was killed (and there were many), a dozen new ones took his or her place. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Second, and more importantly, Christians didn’t fear death. Even though they could never break it brass gates and iron bars, they knew they didn’t need to: their savior has the key!

In the first chapter of the Book of Revelation, the Jesus who said, “The gates of hades will not overcome my church,” also said, “I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades” (Revelation 1:18).

The nations may rage at the church and its king, they may harass and bluster, they may imprison and even kill, but the church will succeed—not because we are tough, or crafty, or clever, but because we are Christ’s, and nothing can stop him.

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