Pastors’ Motives: A Sermon based on 1 Peter 5:1-4

Posted on March 22, 2022 by salooper57
Viewing Time: Approximately 23 minutes.

Excerpt from Pastor’s Motives (1 Peter 5:1-4).

Peter operated from a mind that had been saturated with thoughts and ideas that had come from Jesus. You could say that he had (in the words of St. Paul) “the mind of Christ.”

Why take time to expound on this? Because I am afraid that some of us have the mind of Fox News or of MSNBC. We can (and do!) repeat their talking points but we cannot repeat Jesus’s talking points! Our minds are saturated with ideas that did not come from Jesus and, in some cases, conflict with his ideas. And we probably don’t even know it.

I mentioned the news shows, but the entertainment shows – the primetime sitcoms and dramas – can also fill our minds with ideas of what is normal and good. The mind forms around what it takes in. We will think the thoughts and take for granted the assumptions that have been filling our minds. That is how humans were designed. Why is that important? Let’s take Peter for an example. He had a mind that was saturated with the wisdom of Jesus. He looked at life through the lens of Jesus’s teaching and example. Because that was true, when the crisis came in his life, he acted like Jesus.

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Biblical Thology Class #10: A House for David

Posted on March 20, 2022 by salooper57

The Eden Project, renewed by God’s promises to Abraham moves forward. God promises a king who will rule forever. This class looks at 1 Samuel 8 and 2 Samuel 7, two very important chapters in the great story of the Bible.

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Don’t Let the Little Devils Sneak In: Staying Close to Christ

Posted on March 19, 2022 by salooper57

Reading time: 3-4 minutes

We lived in an old farmhouse for twenty-five years. It was built in the I-Style of architecture that was common for country homes in the late 19th century and was around a hundred years old when we moved into it.

Upon arriving, we were counseled to get a cat because “all these old farmhouses have mice.” The person who told us this was trying to get rid of a litter of cats at the time. We took one. It ran off, She gave us another.

For 17 years, we had few problems with rodents; then the cat died. We saw firsthand the meaning of the adage, “When the cat’s away, the mice play.”

The mice played. I caught twenty mice a week in some seasons and could have taken more, had I baited more traps. But it wasn’t just the mice. We encountered two snakes, many salamanders, and bats – oh, the bats. We once had bats in our bedroom on three consecutive nights. There were so many behind the wall near the disused chimney that you could hear them squeaking.

We eventually hired an amazing pest control professional – I nicknamed him “The Batman” – to get rid of them. When he came to the door, I noticed he was missing a finger or two, which aroused my curiosity, but I was afraid to ask him how it happened. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

I showed him around the exterior of the house and pointed out all the places where I thought the bats might gain entry. He dismissed my suggestions out of hand. In short order, he had identified and sealed all the real points of entry, except one. He left the bats an escape route through a one-way tunnel of sorts, which prevented them from gaining reentry. It was brilliant.

One year, toward the end of our time in that house, we had a red squirrel in our walls. Sitting at the desk in my study, I could hear it gnawing the wiring behind my paneled wall—or at least that is what I imagined it was doing when I heard that noise. I heard that noise every day.

I succeeded in trapping the squirrel once. Having sealed up the place where it was getting in, I released it from the cage. It was back in the house before I was. By the time I returned to my desk, it was again gnawing on the wiring.

After our success with The Batman, I called him to save us from the red squirrels. This time our hero was less optimistic. He trapped the squirrel and sealed the place where it was getting in, but he told me that he could put his hand through the sill plate, which connects the frame to the foundation, at almost any point around the house. Before he left, he warned me that the red squirrels would be back.

The foundation was strong, and we had tuckpointed where it was necessary. But the sill plate that rested on the foundation had rotted, allowing the critters into our home. The little devils could sneak in wherever there was a gap between the foundation and the frame.

Like houses, lives are also built on a foundation. According to St. Paul, Jesus is the foundation on which the lives of Christians (and the church they comprise) is built. That foundation is rock solid. There is no reason to worry that it will deteriorate or fail to provide support.

But the connection between the foundation and the lives that rise from it must be maintained. One way to do this is through scripture reading and prayer. I say “one way” because scripture and prayer work together in an integrated way that forms a seal between a person and God.  

Where that seal is rotted and broken, the rodents and gnawers enter and destroy. Rather than sealing the connection, some people spend their lives trying to trap and remove the pests, which are back before they know what has happened. They must either seal their connection to the foundation or come to accept the presence of these pests as unavoidable.

(First published by Gannett.)

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The Ascension: A Post-Resurrection Disappearance

Posted on March 16, 2022 by salooper57

Reading time: 4-5 minutes.

(This Wide Angle look comes from Acts 1. Verses not otherwise identified by book and chapter are taken from there.)

When Jesus was crucified, and his followers had despaired.  When he was raised, they were astounded.  They realized that something phenomenally important had happened, but they didn’t realize where it would lead. They did not understand that they were living in a period of transition. They assumed that their old dreams were still in play. So, they asked Jesus, verse 6, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

The lexicon defines the Greek word translated restore as “to change to a previous good state.”  The disciple expected Jesus to remain among them as he had before.  They could only suppose that he would take his rightful place as the king of Israel, drive out the foreigners, and restore Israel to a place of national sovereignty. They looked at the future through the lens of the past.

But God had something else, something they could not imagine, in mind.  The kingdom Jesus brought did not belong to Israel, but to God.  The king would sit on a throne, but it would be in heaven, not Jerusalem.  His royal attendants would not be known by titles like “lord” or “benefactor”, but by names like Peter, John, and Matthew.  The power at their disposal would not be arms and armies, but radical, death-defying, life-giving, enemy-conquering, Holy Spirit-originating love. Instead of casting the Romans out of their earthly kingdom, that love would sweep Rome into God’s heavenly kingdom. Instead of bringing the Gentiles to their knees, it would raise them up to the heavens.

Now they had just asked, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”, and it was not the first time they asked a question like that (Mark 10:35-37). But I think there was another question in their minds they did not articulate: “Are we about to get our promotions to positions of authority?”

Now look at verse 7: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

They wanted authority, but they would receive power (or ability, as the word could be translated).  And this isn’t what they were expecting.  It was authority, after all, that was important to them. They dreamed about sitting on thrones. In fact, just before Jesus’ arrest, they had argued about which of them would be placed in the highest positions of authority (Luke 22:24-25). But Jesus had a different idea: instead of sitting on thrones as rulers, they would go into all the world as witnesses; instead of exercising authority, they would be given power.

When we think of a witness, we usually think of someone who tries to persuade others to believe in Christ.  That is a very good thing, but it is not what Jesus had in mind here.  A witness is someone who has seen something and tells what he has seen.  In this case, a witness is someone who has seen Jesus, and tells about it.

That was not really what the disciples had in mind.  They wanted to be “lords” in Israel, not witnesses to the ends of the earth.  But remember, they were entering a period of great transition, a fact which became clear to them almost immediately. 

Verse 9: “After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.”  We read in verse three that Jesus had appeared to his people many times over a period of forty days in what are often called “post-resurrection appearances.”  But verse 9 is a transition verse: instead of a post-resurrection appearance, we have a post-resurrection disappearance.4 He was hidden from their sight.

The disciples had assumed that Jesus would continue with them in much the same way he had been with them before.  But it was clearly not so. The great transition was taking place, and he had been taken from their sight.  But he had given them work to do: they were to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. They were commissioned.

Verse 10: “They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.

‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven’.”

It’s as if they were saying, “What are you standing around for?  You’ve been given work to do, and it will be a good thing if he finds you doing it when he comes back.”  Like the disciples, we sometimes look for Jesus but cannot see him.  We strain our eyes toward heaven, and still miss see him. But when we reach our hands to earth to serve the least of his brothers, we suddenly spy him there.  That was his intention.

               4 I am indebted to William Larkin for this phrase and the title of this piece.

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5 Things to Do When You Suffer (1 Peter 4:12-19)

Posted on March 14, 2022 by salooper57

This sermon explores the five instructions the Apostle Peter gives to Christians who are suffering.

Approximately 25 minutes.
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Blessings and Cursings: Deuteronomy 28-30 (Biblical Theology Class 9)

Posted on March 13, 2022 by salooper57

The Blessings and Cursing of Deuteronomy 28-30 weighed heavily on the minds of Old Testament prophets, New Testament apostles, and Jesus’s contemporaries. St. Paul refers to this passage in Romans (in fact, Romans 9-11 is dependent on this section of Scripture. Though there are more than twice as many curses than blessings in this passage, they end on a note of hope in the covenant-keeping God.

Biblical Theology Class #9. Viewing Time: approximately 51 minutes.
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A Virtual Fingerprint for Identifying Christians

Posted on March 12, 2022 by salooper57

(Reading time: 3-4 minutes.)

I worked for the Ford Motor Company during my college years. One afternoon, I climbed the steps to the paint department, walked through the door into the smoldering heat, and was almost immediately met by another employee. Without any preliminary niceties, he asked me, “You are a Christian, aren’t you?”

I answered, “Yes,” and asked in turn, “Are you?” He answered yes. I don’t remember that we said anything else to each other. He turned toward his work area, and I continued toward mine.

I don’t remember ever having seen the man before that day, nor do I remember ever seeing him again. How did he know I was a Christian? I had long hair and a beard and listened to rock and roll. I didn’t go around whistling hymns or buttonholing potential converts. What gave me away?

I suppose it was that I didn’t use profanity, which filled the atmosphere there like smog filled the Los Angeles sky. Or perhaps it was because I had recently stood up for a non-English speaking Muslim man who was being verbally abused by a foreman. Whatever the reason, my questioner somehow recognized me as a Christian.

I have come to believe that Christians should be distinguishable from others. I base this not on personal experience – too seldom have I been so distinguished or distinguishable – but rather on the Scriptures. It seems that God always intended his people to be different.

After Israel was rescued from slavery in Egypt and even before they arrived in their Promised Land, God gave them instructions on how to live. If they followed these instructions, which they sometimes did and sometimes didn’t, they would be different from their neighbors. The instructions included dietary laws, observing religious festivals, Sabbath-keeping, and circumcision. Anyone who followed these instructions would be readily identifiable.

Another distinguishing mark of ancient Jews was their refusal to create images of their God for use in worship. Other ancient peoples thought Israel “godless” because they had no idols. The idea that people could worship a god without the help of some image was a radical departure from the norm.

At times, Israel’s people were virtually indistinguishable from their neighbors. Whenever this happened, their great mission – to be a source of God’s blessing to all the peoples of the earth – was seriously hampered. In 587 BCE, the mission seemed to terminate in failure: Israel lost its national identity and went into exile.

After 70 years, the exiles returned – though far fewer in number – with a determination to live by the instructions they were given and maintain their identity as a people of God. They focused especially on the distinguishing marks of circumcision and Sabbath-keeping.

The coming of Jesus as Israel’s messiah and the world’s savior did not fundamentally change the necessity of being different, though it deepened it beyond ethnic and ceremonial distinctives. Circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, and kosher food laws continued to distinguish ethnic Jews from others, but with the inclusion of Gentiles among God’s people, new and transcendent identity markers were needed.

The Bible recognizes two of these. The first is faith in Jesus, which the New Testament scholar James Dunn describes as “the primary identity marker” of God’s people. But people, as St. James pointed out, cannot see faith. They can only see how faith acts – what St. Paul referred to as “the obedience of faith.”

One aspect of this obedience, which serves as a second layer of Christian identity, is a love for Jesus’s people. These two layers, faith in Jesus as Lord and a loving commitment to his people, serve as a virtual fingerprint for all Christians.

Some groups have preferred to rely on negative markers. They place great emphasis on the absence of certain practices. Hence, the absence of alcohol and tobacco use becomes evidence of God’s acceptance. At different times in history, the absence of dancing, playing cards, listening to popular music, wearing beards, and the use of force have been sufficient evidence for Christian identification.

But there is no substitute for the presence of the biblical markers. Faith in Jesus and love for his people remain the principal indicators – and the biblical standard – of Christian identity.

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Up, Up and (yet not) Away! (A Wide Angle Look at the Ascencion)

Posted on March 9, 2022 by salooper57

(Reading Time: Approximately 3-4 minutes.)

When really big changes take place – the ones that are destined to transform the world we live in – they often go unnoticed. When the first Ford rolled off an assembly line in 1913, some people thought it ingenious, some thought it a novelty, but only a few recognized it as an era-changing event. The same could be said of the first mobile phone call made in 1973 by a Motorola engineer as he walked down the streets of New York City. Or one might mention the Internet Protocol Suite that was introduced in 1982. It transformed the computer networks of a few eggheads into the world wide web. These were transforming events, but their significance was largely overlooked.

A transition of even greater importance occurred during the days after the resurrection of Jesus. St. Luke chronicles the story in the first chapter of Acts. Look at verse 1: “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach.”

That former book, part one of Luke’s two-volume history of Jesus and the beginning of the Christian era, is in our Bibles. We know it as the Gospel According to Luke. It begins with the birth of John the Baptist and goes on to chronicle the entire life of Jesus on earth. But here in the opening page of volume two, Luke writes that his first volume only dealt with what Jesus “began to do and to teach.” By implication, this second volume (our book of Acts), is about what Jesus continued to do and teach after the ascension.

Jesus has not been dormant since the ascension. He has continued to do and to teach, but under a different paradigm (and it is important we recognize that). He is still doing and still teaching, even today, but the way he does so has undergone transition.

In verse three Luke says, “After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” The words, “he showed himself” translate a Greek word that means he “stood beside them.” After his resurrection he stood beside them even when they were unaware of his presence. Only occasionally did he (still verse 3), “appear to them.”

When he did appear to them, he spoke about the kingdom of God. Sometimes we get the idea that after the crucifixion the kingdom of God was no longer a relevant issue. But Jesus thought it was, even after his crucifixion and resurrection. The kingdom theme begins in the Old Testament and runs right through the New. Here in the very first paragraph of Acts we find Jesus talking about it, and if we skip ahead to the close of this history book, we will find the Apostle Paul talking about it in the very last sentence. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus opened the kingdom of God to us, and it remains open.

A great transition was taking place, and Jesus was preparing his people for it. So, he met with them and gave them necessary instructions (verse 4): “On one occasion, while he was eating with them (the Greek word translated “eating” means something like “taking salt together” – were they eating popcorn and potato chips?), he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised,” which was (verse 5) “the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the “Father’s promise.” The apostles would never be able to transition to the new era without the Father’s promise. In fact, without Him, there would be no new era. It was the arrival of the Holy Spirit in an unprecedented way that ushered in the new era.

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The End of All Things Is Near (a sermon on 1 Peter 4:7-11)

Posted on March 7, 2022 by salooper57

“The end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.” Peter does not say, “Be alert and of sober mind so that you” can outsmart the bad guys and save yourselves. He says, “Be alert and of sober mind” (when I translated the text, I paraphrased that as “keep your wits about you – no fuzzy thinking”) “so that you may pray.”

You may feel a let-down when you hear that. It is anticlimactic. “So that you may pray” – that’s it? We’d rather Peter said, “Keep your wits about you – no fuzzy thinking – so that you can fight!” But Peter had tried that, remember? Jesus had said to him, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Matthew 26:41). But Peter did neither. He didn’t watch and he didn’t pray. His thinking was fuzzy. When the temptation came, he lost his wits, found his sword, and tried to fight. It was a debacle

Viewing time: 26 minutes (approx.)
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On the Edge of the Promised Land – Numbers 13-14, with a look ahead to Joshua (Biblical Theology Class 9)

Posted on March 6, 2022 by salooper57
Viewing Time: 54:30

In this class we see how Israel’s refusal to enter the Promised Land put the “Eden Project” on hold for decades. But God remained faithful to his promise. This class fits the wilderness wanderings into the metanarrative of the Bible and finds practical lessons for Christians today.

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