Persecution, anyone?

     Isn't it incredible when you see God's promises come true?  The wonder and renewed certainty of the truth of God in Scripture is one of the many ways He upholds us and nurtures us in the middle of this "la vida loca".  Less than an hour ago, a notable verse came true for me...

 

"Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,..."  (1 Tim 3:12)

 

Our suffering is nothing compared to His...

    No, I wasn't crucified or flogged, nothing that would merit inclusion in Foxe's Book of Martyrs.  But according to our verse, the hatred of the world against God must find expression in some way, so I got a tiny dose of civilized Western persecution today.  Yesterday, I had an extended conversation with a JW at work, the most recent of many.  The last point he made was to ask for one instance in the Bible where Jesus was called Jehovah (or Yahweh).  So I walked him through Isa 6 and its N.T. exposition, Jn 12:41:  in Isa, the glory is explicitly emanating from Jehovah, and John just as explicitly tells us that the Person Isaiah saw was Jesus and he prophesied about Him for us.  My coworker had never seen this connection before, and was a little speechless (he usually gets mad when I stump him).  So today, he asked where I had gone to school (he meant my religious education).  I held up my hand in a big, fat zero, and told him that I had no formal training in theology.  He asked about my mentor, where did he study?  I was able to repeat my gesture, and his response was classic:

 

"Well, that would explain why you're so confused!"

 

     I said nothing, and he quickly told me he was just joking, and so I goodnaturedly chuckled and mentioned that's exactly what they said about someone else:  "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus."  (Acts 4:13)  I too am a common, uneducated man.  But I know Jesus, and His words about the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant ring true:

 

"It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me..." (John 6:45)

 

"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you."  (John 16:13-14)

 

     We live in an unparalleled age of information, and we must avail ourselves of this incredible access and bounteous documentation.  But no education, formal or informal, can replace the supernatural Presence of God in His people.  The Holy Spirit is our divine Expositor, so learn to listen to Him as you preach the One who sent Him.

Photo courtesy of Bo Insogna

Caution! Well-known Verses Ahead!

     I had an epiphany of context today... an insight on a familiar verse.  Any sound bible teacher will

I wonder if they mean works-righteousness?

tell you those verses are the most dangerous:  the ones you know by heart, that you've heard quoted over and over again in a variety of settings.  Every Christian knows them, if not by reference, then by content.  And thus they're often the most misunderstood... this danger is likely the reason America's professing Christians are:

1.  by majority Arminian ("...that WHO-SO-EVER (!) believeth in Him...";  Jn 3:16), 
2.  non-confrontational ("Judge not, lest ye be judged.";  Mt 7:1),
3.  and are beginning to doubt if hell even exists ("...because God is love.";  1 Jn 4:10).  

So obviously, the best way to approach these potential pitfalls is with one eye on the text and the other on our own misconceptions.  I've been reading in Jeremiah and came across the best known verse in the book.  No, it's not 17:9 ("the heart is deceitful above all things..."), or 6:14 ("Peace, peace when there is no peace"), or even 31:31ff ("Behold the days are coming... when I will make a new covenant...").  I am utterly confident that the most famous verse in Jer. is 29:11:

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."

     And taking my own advice, I paused and studied the immediate context.   Backing up one verse, I was devastated by the implications of 29:10:

"For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place."

This beautiful scenery looks little different from behind bars...

     This has happened to me before (like when one reads the 2nd verse after Jn 3:16, or the 5th verse after Mt 7:1);  and in the grand scheme of things, with a "big picture" perspective, vs. 10 fits perfectly with vs. 11:  it's great news that the exiles would return to the Promised Land and the enjoyment of God's favor.  But look at it again, highlighting one little detail:  this would happen after 70 years.  Put yourself in their shoes...  29:1 says Jeremiah is writing to those exiled with King Jeconiah (or Jehoiachin) which occurred around 597 B.C.  Jerusalem was destroyed in 586, so these expatriates could have been in Babylon a couple years, but not more than 10.  It's safe to say the Jews were not enjoying the warm hospitality of Babylon (Ps. 137:3) or the benefits package of slavery (not exactly that of a CEO).  So a rough paraphrase of Jeremiah's message could be understood like this:

"You're not liking Babylon?  You wanna go back home to your own land?  Too bad!!!  You and your families will be here 60 more years!  You'll probably be cold and dead by the time God has mercy on Israel and restores your people to Canaan (Ezr 3:12)!  Only after decades of toil and heartache and misery will your children return to the homeland... and God is letting you off easy!"

     So do you see how the context of 29:11 should shape our understanding of it today?  Instead of a magic wand waved over our problems to make them disappear instantly, often God's promises have wonderful and beautiful fulfillments that we will not see in our physical lifetimes.  We must apprehend (one of my favorite words... "to grab hold of") these truths and God's hope by faith and trust Him in the dark, depressing (yet temporary) times of our lives.  Only then will we know the power of "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb 11:1).

Photos courtesy of williamcho, Fernando Silveira

It's just a "flesh" wound...

     "I'm getting better!"  I write this as I sit at home with strep throat... 3/4 of my family has been stricken with this dreadful affliction (to emphasize the melodramatic).  So we proceed with a healthy (pun intended) sense of comedic irony...
     I've noticed I have a tendency, both in living and writing, to be pessimistic and negative (or as I put it, realistic and rational!);  so it is my pleasure in our jaunt through 2 Corinthians to zoom in on a passage that holds great encouragement for us in the suffering this life holds for us, both unintentional (general pain common to all people) and intentional (persecution for the cause of Christ):

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,  as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.  (2 Cor 4:16-18)

     There are so many themes in these few verses to discuss... the transience of mortality, the proper Christian perspective on pain, the superreality of the spiritual, and what we dealt with last time, the selectivity of divinely-empowered perception.  We'll touch on all these as we stroll along...
     I love it when the biblical authors provide a unpolitically-correct "cup-check";  other great examples would include 1 Cor 16:13 and Heb 12:4.  And to be sure, these are gender-neutral:  men have no monopoly being commanded to or provided with spiritual toughness, as opposed to the insensitive, uncommunicative "manliness" that's often marketed in our culture.  So the point Paul intends is to combat the natural despair we experience when things are not precisely as we would wish them;  I was lamenting my own unconscious wimpyness when ill with a friend recently, and this has given me a new look at how to endure physical weakness to succeed in glorifying God through my words and deeds (especially helpful today!).  So all that to say:  Man Up!

"Death cannot stop true love..."

     Next, Paul forces us to admit the limitations that the Fall have introduced into the perfection God created;  namely, we die.  The moment we're born, our bodies begin to "waste away", and no amount of plastic surgery, Rogaine, or even Viagra can restore vitality to our moth-eaten corpses.  This adds new richness to the passages that describe us as spiritually dead (Rom 5:6, Eph 2:1, 5, etc.):  our bodies just take a while to catch up to the spiritual necrosis we experience at birth.  Or to put it another way, birth cannot stop true death.... "all it can do is delay it for a while".  God's word to Adam and Eve ("...you shall die") was true in every sense.
     But the breakdown of our bodies, and by extension every other trial, affliction and discomfort, is no excuse to descend into the doldrums;  on the contrary, the loss of everything our world prizes (youth, strength, energy, and most of all, life!) is merely a tool used by God to fix our attention on what God prizes:  an immeasurably rich, potent measure of the glory that belongs to Him!  If we weigh the pain possible here and now, even in Paul's life which was far beyond what 99.9% of us will experience, it simply doesn't compare to what will be ours in Christ for all eternity. Only by focusing on what's to come can we enjoy it now.

Yes, the stove is hot!  Once is enough...

     This reality is not apparent to everyone;  and a good thing too... if we focused on eternity, it would render all infomercials worthless!  So of course, just as no unbeliever would joyfully anticipate God's glory (or His judgment), the perception necessary to enjoy God's glory is restricted to the saints.  But equally obvious is the fact that Christians are not fixated on God every moment of their lives... they would be very different if we were.  This must be remedied, and in God's timely sanctification in each individual Christian, it will be.  Our text is just one of the many means used to change us into forward-looking, content folks... another is the actual experience of suffering.  As we wrestle with the seeming harshness of God's providence, we will be driven to the sufficiency of His grace and comfort.  If we come to this understanding sooner rather than later, further pain might not be necessary!

P.S.  During the course of writing, the nurse called and notified us we don't have strep in the technical sense, but just a nasty flu.  I feel better already.

Photo courtesy of tychay and eric pas d'accent