Year 2, Day 151: Mark 4

The Crowd

Today we get to shift from the Jewish leaders and their response to His authority to look at the crowd and their response to His authority.  We get several great parables and then a very familiar traditional story.  Let’s start with the parable of the soils.

The Four Soils

Jesus makes it clear.  There are four soils: hard soil (path), rocky soil, thorny soil (weeds), and good soil.  Obviously the goal is to be the good soil.  But here’s part of the point of the parable.  How does one know that they are good soil?  There is a harvest: thirtyfold, sixtyfold, or a hundredfold.  The thing that ultimately differentiates between the good soil and all the others is that there is a harvest.  The scale of the harvest is far less important than the presence of a harvest in the first place.  Want to read this parable and feel good about yourself?  Ask yourself what spiritual harvest you are involved in and you’ll have your answer.

However, if there is no harvest, perhaps we should look at what other type of ground there might be. 

• The path has no time for the seed – the Word of God that God plants in us.  The path rejects the seed and it is soon snatched away.  I’m guessing that if you are reading these words then you are not the path. 
• The rocky soil is not “soil with rocks in it” but rather soil that has a “very shallow layer of topsoil an inch or so above a hard bed of limestone.”  We know this because this kind of ground is common in the area of Israel.  In this soil, the seed is planted and it grows really well for a little while before its roots encounter the hard stone.  Then it stops growing well because the roots cannot find much depth.  In our life, it is easy at first to accept Jesus.  But then it becomes hard to seriously apply our faith to life.  As it becomes hard, people of this soil type decide not to endure the challenge and we wither and die – going back to the ways of the world. 
• Finally we have the thorny soil.  This is a soil that is ready to grow, but the seed has company.  The seed can germinate and it can even grow. But the thorns around it take up all the nutrients and choke out the seed.  These people are the ones who genuinely seem interested in God but who are simply too easily distracted to do anything meaningful for the faith.  These are the people who start off with good intentions but seldom ever follow anything through to its completion.  There is all kind of potential, but the potential never has any long-term focus.

When dealing with this parable, it is bad to assume that one is good soil.  We should want to be the good soil, but it is bad to assume that we are.  We need to genuinely ask: is there a harvest?  If there is a harvest, then we are good soil.  But if there is no harvest, then we need to ask ourselves why there is no harvest.  Are we rejecting some part of what God is telling us?  Are we simply not willing to endure the discipleship process and let it come to a lifelong series of meaningful ends?  Are we far too interested in the things of this world to genuinely grow in Christ?

Lamps and Baskets

Then we have the parable of the lamp and the basket.  This passage is all about hiding things and revealing things.  People do things in the dark because they don’t want to be discovered.  People do things in the light because they want them to be seen – hopefully in a good way as a role model.  In these words Jesus is telling us that we have the opportunity to do things in the light (righteousness) or to do things in the dark (sin).  To those who spend their time on this earth doing righteousness and following God’s ways, more will be given (eternal life).  To those who spend their time on this earth pursuing their own desires (sin), then even the life that they do have will eventually be taken away.

The Mystery of Faith

The next pair of parables talks about the mysteries of faith.  Who among us can know how faith grows?  No, with endurance we are faithful to God’s ways day after day.  It is only when we are faithful for days upon weeks upon years do we look back and see how we have been changed by God!  But even then we cannot explain it.  Defying explanation our faith grows large – far larger than anything we could have ever accomplished on our own.

I know this is absolutely true in my life.  I can’t remember a time in my life that I didn’t believe in God and God’s love for me.  But I can’t explain the process from being that little child of innocent and unwavering faith to the man I am now who wrestles with doubts and understanding but is still resolute in belief.  How did God take that you boy who could only recite what he was told and turn him into a man who consistently writes daily devotional blog posts?  The only explanation is through the mystery of daily faith development.  God does the slow daily growth that I don’t even feel happening but of which I can see the evidence when I look backwards in my life.

Parables in General

Before coming to the last story, I want to talk a little about parables.  We hear these parables and think of them as comforting stories that increase our faith.  And … they do.  But let’s look at the concept of a parable a little more deeply.  What does Mark 4:33-34 tell us?  Jesus only spoke to the crowds in parables.  He used many parables.  Furthermore, we know that Jesus had to explain everything in private to His disciples.  This means that when Jesus taught in parables, people didn’t get it.  If anyone was going to get it, it would be His own disciples!  So we can have confidence that the crowds didn’t understand Him in general.  What we think of as cute teaching lessons that help us understand the faith better were actually stories that confused people!  If fact, this was intentional on Jesus’ behalf!  Don’t believe me?  Go back and read Mark 4:11-12.

So, if parables are not meant to make our understanding easier then what is the point of the parable?  Simply speaking, the parable is a tool for weeding out true believers from people who confess belief but who don’t really have it.  To return to the soils parable, the parable is a tool to see who is good soil and who is just a pretender type of soil. 

How do we know this?  Well, look at what the disciples of Jesus do.  The disciples of Jesus come and seek out further explanation.  The disciples hear something that confuses them and they come and get the answer.  They pursue Jesus!  What does the crowd do?  The crowd comes, gathers, sees a few miracles, hears some teaching that they don’t understand, and goes back to their ordinary lives.  Does not God call us to pursue Him?

Therefore we can see the parable serving an incredibly important purpose.  The parable teaches us to pursue God – to pursue Christ.  The parable teaches us to wrestle with faith and always come back for a greater understanding.  The parable teaches us how to be good soil.  For those who do not wrestle and do not pursue … the parable reveals who those people are.

Calming the Storm

At last we turn to the story of the calming of the storm.  Now, I’m going to go quickly through this story.  First, notice that Jesus intentionally leads His disciples into this storm.  After all, He’s God.  He knows a storm is coming and He tells the disciples to get into the boat.  Those people in the world that think God is calling them into a nice, stable, and comfortable life need to reexamine this story – and all the other stories of His life and the lives of His true disciples. 

Second, Jesus falls asleep.  Jesus is not worried about the future or about the fate of His disciples.  All things rest in God’s hands.  God is in control.  Those who struggle with letting God be in control need to sleep in the middle of more thunderstorms so God can be in control.  I can stand to learn this lesson better.

Finally, the disciples have to come to Jesus.  The disciples need to realize how much their worrying and their human understanding simply cannot solve the problems of life.  All of God’s disciples need to learn humbleness and patience and faith.  Only God can solve the problems of this world.  Another lesson I can stand to learn.

In the end, this chapter has a great unity of flow to it.  Last chapter we saw the religious struggle with Jesus’ authority and reject it.  This chapter we see the crowds interact with Jesus’ authority and become ambivalent towards it.  This chapter we also see the disciples’ wrestling with Jesus’ authority and they begin to learn to embrace it and pursue it.

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Year 2, Day 150: Mark 3

Response To Conflict

We already know that Jesus had to be careful when going into the towns.  Upon beginning His ministry, Jesus was in almost immediate conflict with the Jewish leaders.  Jesus was largely forced to go out among the crowds and in the desolate places in order to avoid immediate conflict.

It’s possible to wonder why Jesus was avoiding the Jewish leaders.  It couldn’t be because He was afraid of them.  Jesus knew that He had come to die, so conflict was inevitable.  It was part of the plan!  Rather, Jesus needs time for two things to happen.  First, Jesus needs time to train His disciples to carry on God’s plan once He is gone.  The reality is that it takes time to change how people live and think; Jesus needed to buy some time to allow this to happen.  But I believe there is a second reason – a reason that is going to come out loud and strong over the next few chapters.  I believe that Jesus needed to expose the fickleness of the crowd and humanity in general.  Let’s see how this spins out in this chapter.

First we can see Jesus going into a synagogue – something that was very dangerous after the events of chapter 1.  The religious elite were watching Jesus to see what He would do.  Jesus knows that they are watching Him and He intentionally heals a man with a withered hand.  He does it to demonstrate once more that His power is from God.  There is no greater authority than being in the will of God.  This conflict over authority – Human understanding of God’s will versus God’s actual will – has a particular result.  They begin to plot Jesus’ death.  They plot His death because Jesus chooses to conform to God’s will instead of conforming to their interpretation of God’s will.

Response To The Crowds

The next story that we encounter with Jesus is a healing story.  Jesus heads out into the places between towns and the crowds gather around Him.  Everyone who had a disease came to be healed.  They pressed in upon Him just to touch Him.  They pressed in so tightly that Jesus had His disciples have a boat ready so that He could escape out onto the water. 

Notice that the crowds press around Jesus so that they may touch Him.  The crowds exert their will upon Jesus.  They want to be healed.  They want their life to be improved.  It isn’t about coming to Jesus to crucify their life and pick up the agenda of God.  They come to Jesus to impose their will upon Him.

I’m going to skip over the listing of the Twelve and move straight into the last few verses of that section.  When Jesus returns home, notice that the crowds gather around Him again.  The Bible is clear that the crowds gathered with such intensity that the disciples and Jesus could not even eat.  Again we see the crowd desiring to impose its will upon Jesus rather than coming to Jesus to humble themselves before God.

I’m going to put off the teaching of the strong man to the end because it’s really worth saving and it is completely on a different scale than what we are talking now.  So we move to the last story in this chapter. 

Response To Family

Jesus’ mother and brothers come twice to meet with Him because they are convinced that He has lost His mind.  What is significant is that Jesus redefines the family unit with one simple sentence.  What does Jesus say?  The people who are sitting around Him – His disciples and the people who are genuinely seeking spiritual relationship with Him – these are His brothers and sisters.  In the end, this too is a question of authority.  Jesus is living off of a model of spiritual authority.  Jesus’ mother and brothers come to Him on a model of worldly authority.  As with the crowds, Jesus’ family comes to impose their will upon Jesus rather than humble themselves to God’s will.

Therefore, we can understand that being under God’s authority necessarily implies humbling ourselves to God’s agenda.  It means that we take things seriously like prayer, scripture, our need for Christian fellowship, and our desire to serve God.  When we come to God with our own agenda and ask Him to make our agenda possible, we end up being nothing more than the crowds or Jesus’ own biological family at this point in the story.

Response To Spiritual Warfare

Now, let’s return to the parable that Jesus gives about the strongman.  Notice that by definition the religious leaders claim that Jesus is in a position of being in league with Satan.  This description implies that Jesus is the subordinate while Satan is the dominant force.  When we look at other portions of scripture (for example: John 12:31, John 14:30, and John 16:11) we understand that this perspective is intended.  Satan is the ruler of this world – although don’t hear me saying that God’s power is less than Satan’s power.  Satan is the ruler of this world; God is the ruler of the whole universe!  However, it is important for us to understand the perspective of the world as the domain of Satan to grip what is truly being said in this parable.

Thus, the beginning to understanding this response from Jesus is to identify the strongman as Satan.  Jesus, then, is the one who is breaking into the strongman’s lair.  Jesus is painting Himself as the thief who is coming into this world in order to bind up Satan and plunder whatever He can.

We can see this passage as even more of a challenge from the perspective of the authority of Jesus Christ.  In this light, the point that Jesus is making is that He is coming with His own authority and claiming what He can.  He is not receiving authority from this world.  Rather, He is coming with His own authority with God’s power and setting up His Kingdom after having plundered what He can out of the kingdom of this world.

If anything, this should speak to us about how you can’t be in both at the same time.  Either you are with Christ, or against Him.  Either you are with the world, or against it.  Either you work under the authority of God, or you live by your own authority – which is just a mask for living under the authority of the strongman.

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Year 2, Day 149: Mark 2

Authority

Many of the stories given to us in Mark 2 revolve around this issue of the authority of Christ.  In the first story, we see Jesus saying that the paralytic man’s sins are forgiven.  Immediately the scribes begin to question just who Jesus thinks that He is.  So Jesus asks them which is easier, to forgive sins or to heal the condition that they believe is the result of the man’s sin.  {After all, from their perspective if the man is a paralytic because of the sin – perhaps generational sin – in his life, then for him to be able to walk again means that the sin must have been dealt with, right?}  Anyway, Jesus heals the paralytic man, who takes up his bed and walks out the door after having come in through the roof!  Jesus has authority to deal with sinful behavior.

In the next story, we hear Jesus call Levi.  Levi (AKA Matthew) has Jesus come up to him and tell him to follow.  Levi does.  Now that’s authority, folks.  When the Son of God comes up to you and says, “I want you to live differently,” you either do or you don’t.  The one who acknowledges the authority of God leaves his former life behind and pursues the life that God asks them to pursue.  Jesus has authority over the ways of the world.

Then Jesus goes into Levi’s house and eats with other sinners and tax collectors.  The Pharisees and the scribes get upset and ask Jesus’ disciples how he can possibly tolerate becoming ritually unclean by hanging out with such people.  In other words, what authority does Jesus have to show such blatant disrespect for the Jewish cleanliness laws?  Jesus replies with an answer of authority.  He came for the sick, because it is the sick that need to be cleansed.  In making that claim, Jesus is asserting that He has authority over the law.  The Pharisees believe that by obeying the law and separating themselves from the world that they can keep themselves pleasing to God.  Jesus’ words give a completely different message.  Nobody can be pure in the world.  The Law doesn’t keep us pure; it tells us how much we need the Messiah.  Jesus came so that through His death the impure may be made pure.  Jesus has the authority to make those clean that the Law says are unclean.

The next story is about Jesus’ authority on the teaching of fasting.  Why do Jesus’ disciples seem to be able to break this rule?  Jesus’ reply is about His authority.  He has come to do a new thing.  His disciples are learning this new thing.  This means that His disciples are going to be living by the rules of the new authority.  Think about what we’ve already seen in Mark.  Jesus has been around lepers, tax collectors, social outcasts, and people with demonic possessions.    He was here to convert the godless rather than justify the self-righteous.  It should not surprise anyone that the disciples of Jesus see life through a different lens than the rest of the world. 

What is this new authority that we see in this story about fasting?  It is a life revolving around grace, mercy, self-sacrifice, and compassion.  It is a life where these things are done to display the character of God.  Christian authority has everything to do with entering the world and changing lives and absolutely nothing to do with justifying ourselves.  After all, who among us is righteous on our own merit?

The final story is about Jesus’ disciples as they go through the grain field.  The pluck up some of the grain and eat it – even though it is the Sabbath.  The religious leaders see this as Jesus’ disciples being able to do work on the Sabbath, which clearly speaks against the teaching of the Law.  Jesus counters their teaching by saying that the Sabbath is not superior to man. 

What I really believe Jesus is doing here is teaching that the traditional understanding of Sabbath as a day of “rest” is incorrect.  Jesus’ new authority is that the Sabbath is to be a day dedicated to the work of the Lord.  In other words, the Sabbath is about rest from the world’s work while embracing the Lord’s work.   Look at the example that Jesus uses.  In it, David is doing the work of the Lord, so that authority supersedes the assertion of the Sabbath.  Here in Mark, Jesus’ disciples are doing the work of the Lord – being a disciple of Christ – so their action is not “work” but rather “of God.”  Thus, it is no violation of the Law because of Jesus’ new authority.  Jesus has authority over what work is genuinely of God (and His people) and what work is genuinely not of God.

Caution

Now, I have to be really careful here.  It is easy to take the thrust of my words and say that I have set up a really nice pattern of allowing people to do whatever they want.  Nothing can be farther from the truth, but if I am not careful that is where I will end up.  I am not saying that we have authority from Jesus to do whatever we want and break whatever Hebrew/Christian rules that we think are irrelevant.  We must never see Jesus as breaking the rules simply because He believes them as irrelevant.

There is a purpose behind Jesus’ words and actions.  Jesus is about the work of God.  It isn’t that Jesus wants to get away with whatever He wants.  In fact, Jesus isn’t even interested in satisfying the desires of His own heart!  The fact that Jesus is not pursuing His own agenda is precisely what allows Him to act in this new authority.  Jesus humbles Himself and does the work of God.  When He is doing the work of God, He is under the authority of God.  No Law can supersede the authority of God’s will.

A Side Trip To Acts

This is a great time to bring in Acts 10:9-16.  Notice what Jesus says to Peter as the vision of the sheet comes down?  “What God has called clean, do not call common.”  What is it to live in God’s authority?  It is to submit to God’s will and do what He desires.  To live under the authority of God is to be like Jesus – sacrificing our own desires for God’s will.

If I’m living under that authority, will people see God in me?  In us?  Will they see something meaningful?

So I have to come back to the typical human being and ask how well we do this.  How well do I put aside my own agenda?  How well do I choose God’s will and not my own?  How well do I stop pursuing my own selfishness and actually pursue God’s calling?  How well can I claim to have followed the Great Commandment and the Great Commission?

• You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.  (Great Commandment, Matthew 22:37-40)
• Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  (Great Commission, Matthew 28:19-20)

If I am not really living as though God is the supreme authority in my life, why should I think anyone would see God in me?  Let’s flip that around.  Can we have any doubt that people saw God in Jesus because of the depth and faithfulness that Jesus had towards God’s authority?

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Year 2, Day 148: Mark 1

Background

Today we are beginning the Gospel of Mark.  Mark’s Gospel is known for being short and sweet.  Mark wrote like Sergeant Joe Friday from Dragnet spoke: just the facts, ma’am.  You will also notice that Mark does not mess with a birth narrative.  It isn’t that the birth narrative isn’t important.  It’s that Mark is about the story of Jesus’ ministry.  Jesus’ ministry officially begins at His baptism – and you can make as many theological inferences into that statement as you want, for it is ripe for inferences of all kinds!

Jesus’ Baptism

We begin with John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism.  John the Baptizer was in the wilderness.  Literally, En Te Eremo!  John the Baptizer was proclaiming the need for people to repent and receive forgiveness for their sins.  John the Baptizer was preaching about someone coming after him who was more important than himself.  This sounds like a pretty good calling card for the Christian, too.  We are to talk to people about repentance and forgiveness while telling them about someone who is more important than ourselves.  Yes, we could all take a lesson from John the Baptizer.

Jesus is baptized.  As with all the stories of Mark, the baptism story is short and sweet.  Of course, Jesus was baptized by John as a sign of God’s approval, not for the forgiveness of sins.  I just felt the need to make that clear. 

Speaking of God’s approval, in the baptism we know that God does speak and declare His approval.  He calls Jesus His beloved son.  He says that He is well pleased with Jesus.  There is nothing about Jesus that brings the Father displeasure.  Already we have foreshadowing of the perfect nature of Christ and how only He can be the atoning sacrifice.  He is the one that is pleasing to God.  He is the one upon whom our salvation hangs; He is the one who appeases God’s need for a sacrifice for the ultimate forgiveness of sin.

Jesus’ Temptation

In typical Sergeant Joe Friday tradition, we then move to the temptation of Jesus.  Notice that we don’t have any mention of the three specific temptations that Jesus encountered as related by Matthew or Luke.  All we need to know is that Jesus went out and was tempted.  It is not ultimately important that we know how or why.  Sometimes all we need to know is that it happened.  Through the mysterious power of God, Jesus Christ was able to overcome the temptation to sin.

Passing through the temptation, we are then told that the time for ministry is now at hand.  As with John the Baptizer, we are told by Jesus to repent.  We are told that the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near.

Kingdom of Heaven

At the risk of having to shorten up the conversation about the rest of the chapter, I want to talk specifically about this idea of the Kingdom of Heaven.  What is the Kingdom of Heaven?  In its simplest form, the Kingdom of Heaven is Christ.  It is living out the agenda of God.  It is declaring God’s ways as ultimate and living so as to fulfill them.  That is what Christ did, and it drew near to us in Christ.

However, the Kingdom of Heaven did not go away when Christ ascended.  It is still here.  When the Spirit moves within us and we are obedient to God’s calling, we are living in the Kingdom of Heaven.  When Christ Himself comes to us and invites us into a spiritual relationship with the Father we are living out the Kingdom of Heaven.  When we become tools for God and invite others into that same relationship with God we are living in the Kingdom of Heaven.  I’ve quoted it often on my blog, but I think Galatians 2:20 is the perfect answer to the question, “What is the Kingdom of Heaven?”  Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ.  Therefore it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  What is it that draws near to us?  It is the opportunity to be crucified with Christ and live according to an agenda different than the agenda of this world.

Calling the Disciples

Then Jesus begins to call disciples.  Notice what happens here.  Jesus calls his disciples away from the work they were doing.  He calls them away from their family.  He calls them away from the agenda of the world.  To be a disciple of Christ is to be open and willing to do whatever God makes possible.  It might mean leaving your career.  It might mean leaving your family.  It might mean going to different parts of the world.  After all, Peter, Paul, and most of the disciples spent little time in Jerusalem and Galilee once the Christian movement really got moving.  Being called into discipleship inherently means being willing to sacrifice for the call.

Preaching to the Towns

Finally, Jesus settles into a routine of preaching and healing.  I don’t have space to go into great depth here on this topic.  But one verse stuck out as I read the rest of Mark 1.  Jesus says, “Let’s go to the other towns to preach, because that’s what I came to do.”  I had to pause when I read that verse.  What makes Jesus so great?  Jesus accomplishes what He came to do.

Then I had to ask myself the same question.  Do I?  Do I accomplish what Jesus asks me to do?  Again this goes back to the point of being a disciple.  Am I really following God’s agenda?  Am I really willing to give up everything for His call?  When I am living out my day, can I respond that “I am doing what God has called me to do today?”

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Year 2, Day 147: Ephesians 6

Children and Parents

The next section we turn to is a section on children and parents (especially fathers).  Notice what Paul says to children?  Paul asserts the commandment to honor the parents.  Then he teaches us something out of the Old Testament.  We honor our parents so that it may go well for us.  Paul is telling us that our parents should be good role models for our lives.  Sadly, this isn’t always the case, but it should be. 

When we honor our parents – that is, to show them respect – we are inviting them into our life to impart their most fundamental qualities into us.  We are welcoming their correction, their encouragement, their advice.  This is why things will go well for us.  As they pass along the lessons that God has taught them, we have an opportunity to hear God speaking into our own life.  We don’t just honor our parents – or others in authority over us – because we are told to do so.  We do it so that they have an opportunity to speak God’s truth into our lives.

Then Paul turns and gives some advice to parents.  Specifically, notice that Paul calls out the father.  Paul tells the father that he should not provoke the child to anger.  Do you hear how well this lesson coexists with the lesson about being a husband yesterday?  The husband is to love the wife unconditionally.  The father is to not provoke the child to anger.  Both have to deal with issues of love.  When we love someone, we will not want to provoke them to anger.  We will want to have a positive relationship with them.

Anytime I hear a repeated lesson so closely to each other, I usually have to ask myself why.  Why does Paul feel it necessary to speak twice to husbands about how to love in such close proximity?  I think the reality is that when human beings think of love in a family, we think of mothers first.  Fathers play many roles, but the word love is not often at the very top of the list.  How many times have you heard a person say, “I know my dad loved me.  He never said it, but I know it was there.”  The truth is that men often have a difficult time genuinely demonstrating love with confidence.  I think Paul speaks to men twice in such close proximity so as to encourage men to take the point position in the family of embracing this dynamic of demonstrating God’s love.

Slaves and Masters

We next turn to the section on slaves and masters.  I use the word slave while many translations speak of bond-servants of servants.  The word here is slave.  Paul’s advice here is clear.  Slaves, do the work you are supposed to do.  Don’t do it just to get your master’s eye.  Don’t do it for selfish reasons like that.  Do it because it is the work you are supposed to do and honor the commitment.

We may not live in a culture of slavery today, but I think this is great advice for employees, too.  Employees, do the work your employer expects to be done and do it not to impress them.  Rather, do it because you wish to honor your commitment. 

The same goes for masters – or we might say employers in today’s culture.  Masters and employers, respect those under you who do an honest job and who honor their commitments.  Do it because it is the right thing to do.

Full Armor

Before we get to the final greetings, we turn now to a famous passage: the Armor of God.  I’m going to speak briefly on it because it is such a famous passage.  First, notice that the purpose of the armor of God is so that we can resist evil when it comes.  We are not to be a people of compromise.  We are to be a people who resist evil and genuinely believe that it is not futile to try and resist evil and the ways of the world.

As for the armor proper, let’s look at the components of the armor: truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, Spirit, Word of God, prayer, supplication.  You know what you don’t see?  You don’t see violence, aggression, assertiveness, self-centeredness, concern about fairness, getting what you can out of life.  The armor of God is about turning to God and living according to God’s agenda first.  What we see on that list are things that the world does not typically value.  So again we can understand a fallacy that the world teaches us.  The world values things that are of little worth while they also teach us to undervalue the things that are of great worth.

Ending

Paul then ends his letter.  He ends his letter with words of peace.  He genuinely cares about the Ephesians and wishes them to be well.  He genuinely wants them to be encouraged – even in the midst of his imprisonment.  He sends Tychicus to them for this very reason.  He does not want them worried about him.  Even in the midst of the prison cell, Paul is more concerned about the Ephesians than himself.

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Year 2, Day 146: Ephesians 5

As Beloved Children

The first verse of this chapter really got me thinking today.  “Be imitators of God, as beloved children.”  I’m going to approach this conversation backwards.  When I read this, I was struck by the thought, “children learn how to behave in this world first by watching their parents.  Then things like siblings and friends and pop culture enter the picture.  But first is learning from parents.

I’m going to give my folks a ton of credit.  When I watched my parents, I learned from two very good models.  Credit for the man I am today goes first to God, then my parents, then my wife.  It really makes me wonder how many of our cultural problems today are learned by people who simply don’t take their job as role model seriously enough as a parent?

As a beloved child, we learn from our parents.  We learn the good and we learn the bad.  Boys learn how to treat women from their dad.  Girls learn how to treat men from their mom.  Girls learn how they should expect to be treated from their dad.  Boys learn how they can expect to be treated from their mom.  Children learn how to interact with the world from their parents.  Children learn their educational priorities from parents.  Children learn morality, ethics, and spirituality (whether for good or for bad) from parents.  It isn’t perfect (because things like friends and the world come into view).  But it is a proven fact that children are great imitators of parents.

That is the angle that Paul is speaking to with respect to God.  If we are God’s children, we should be learning to imitate him.  Just like children don’t perfectly imitate their parents, we of course do not perfectly imitate Him.  That’s why we have things like confession and forgiveness.  But fundamentally, the truth is: we should be imitating God.  If we aren’t – can we really claim God as our Father?

And then we get to another list of Paul’s. 

What Does This Life Exclude?

• Sexual immorality.  It should not be among us.  I don’t know about you, but I think this is a big one – especially when we add in the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:27-30.  I take my marriage vows very seriously and I claim sexual faithfulness to my wife.  I think more people who are sexually faithful in their marriage need to come public with that claim, personally.  However, that doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally fall into a lustful thought.  Most of the time I fall into a lustful pattern because the world around me is drawing me into that kind of pattern: the way people dress, images on TV, advertisements in stores, etc.  I’m not saying that I’m not responsible for my own thoughts, because I am.  But I have to admit, this is a tough culture to live in and struggle against lust.
• Filthiness in speech, foolish talk, or crude joking.  How often do we tell racist jokes, sexual jokes, off-color jokes?  Prefacing a joke with “This joke is a bit off-color, but…” should really tell us to stop right there.  If we enjoy something that must be prefaced like that, there is a problem within us.  How often do we talk about things we shouldn’t talk about?  How often do we gossip?  You get the idea.
• Coveting.  Ever really desire something that someone else has and it becomes the focus of your life?  In those moments how good are human beings at stopping and asking God, “Do you really want me to have that?”  Or do we just set our heart on it until we possess it so that coveting becomes a subtle form of idolatry?
• Ever make a promise that we do not intend on keeping?  What about a promise to God? Empty words.

Look at how Paul talks about people who have these elements as a part of their life.  They have no inheritance in the kingdom of God.  It is shameful to even speak of the things that they do in secret.  Yet, how many of us have these things – or things like them – living deep down in the heart?

How Should We Walk?

Then we get to Paul’s claim on how to walk.  He uses a great line – a combination of quotes from Isaiah 51:17, 52:1, 60:1, and Malachi 4:2.  Paul speaks not in terms of slowly changing from death to life.  Paul speaks in terms of one who is dead now arising into life.  Christianity is not about compromising our current life with God’s ways.  Christianity is not about compromise between this life and God’s ways.

Christianity is about ending our life with the world and living the full life of God.  In Galatians 2:20 we did not hear Paul say, “Therefore, I am mixing my life with Christ; we both live within me.”  Rather, we heard him say, “I have been crucified with Christ.  Therefore it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”  So the question becomes: what’s more important?  Me living my life or me living God’s life?

Husbands

What a beautiful place to now turn to husbands and wives.  I hate when this passage is used in weddings, because newlyweds (especially first-timers) just don’t have the maturity in the relationship to really understand what Paul means when he uses words like “submit” and “love.”  This is not a passage for newlyweds.  It is a passage for those who have had their first marital fight, or who have come to their seven year itch, or whose children have just left the nest and they are looking at each other wondering what still holds them together.  This passage is for married people who need a kick in the pants to remember that marriage is a calling, not a choice.  Once you say “I do,” it is now a life-long calling.

Let’s start with men.  Husbands, love your wives!

Do you notice the lack of condition?  Does Paul say, “husbands, love your wives when they love you.”  No.  Paul says “love them.”  Period.  Love them as Christ loves us.  Period.  We obviously cannot earn Christ’s love, so what husband has any right to even think that they can demand any reciprocal love either?  No, Christ loved us when we were unlovable in the hope that we would learn to love Him.  So, too, must we love our wives.  Whether they love us or not, we as husbands are called to love our wives.  When we stop doing that, we break God’s calling for us as husbands.  Plain and simple.  When we stop loving our wives unconditionally, we are guilty of sin.  We missed the mark God established for us.

You might be saying that this is a really high standard.  You know what?  It is.  It is a very high standard.  But did God lower this standard for Hosea when God told Hosea to marry Gomer and Gomer was out having affairs as though living like a prostitute?  I understand that God was working a different agenda with Hosea and making a point to Israel.  But the reality is that Hosea was called to be faithful in spite of whatever Gomer did or did not do.  Period.

Now, I do understand that life is not quite that black-and-white.  Sometimes relationships don’t last.  Sometimes no amount of love from the husband can keep a relationship alive.  Life happens.  But that is no excuse for a husband who claims to believe in God to ever stop loving his wife.  As men of God, we are to love as Christ loves humanity.  Even when humanity turns its back on God’s love and pursues anything else, God still loved enough to send Christ to die for us.  God never stops loving.  Neither should Christian husbands.

Wives

Now we turn to wives.  The church genuinely loves Christ because of the grace He has shown to us through the love of God.  It is a response to God’s initial act.  Paul is also saying that women should respond to their husbands the same.  If a woman is married to a man who demonstrates unconditional love towards her, why would she not desire to submit in awe?* 

Sure, no man is perfect.  Sure, no husband can truly show unconditional love as God can.  But if a husband is genuinely trying to demonstrate God’s unconditional love to her through their marriage, how can any woman claim to be Christian and not respond in awe? 

What do we call people who see God’s unconditional love and turn their back on it?

Summary

Again, I am painting a really hard picture here.  But it is the picture Paul paints.  Men should love unconditionally.  Women should be willing to submit to God’s unconditional love poured out through a man.  It is the plan and order of God.

Now don’t get me wrong.  This is not a perfect world.  We need forgiveness because we cannot always attain God’s standard.  But that doesn’t mean that we do not try.  And when we fail, we darn well better pursue repentance and seek genuine forgiveness.  After all, it is a messy world out there.  It is a world where we will get into some situations that are hard.  It is a world where we must be open and forgiving.  But that doesn’t also mean that we don’t teach the standard as a standard.

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*This is a long argued-about passage.  So I’m going to go into the Greek.  The first thing that we should note is that in the Greek there is no verb for verse 22.  Period.  There is no verb.  So you might be asking, “Well, why do they say that wives are to submit to their own husbands, then?”  How do they know that submit is the right word if there is no verb?  That is an excellent question that I can answer.

First, when there is no verb, Greek Grammar gives us two options. 

• First, you can insert a verb of being (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been, etc).  This gives the reading of “Wives are to their husbands as to Christ.”  Well, what do we do to Christ?  We submit to Christ.  We crucify our own life so that God can live through us.  That sounds like submission to me.
• Second, you can take the most recently used verb in the prior sentence.  Well, the most recent prior verb is “to sumbit” or “to be subordinate.”  This gives us the reading “wives, submit to your husband as to Christ.”

So, using either way we end up with the same understanding.  That’s why I love Paul’s writing – he had such mastery over the Greek!  Wives are to be towards their husbands as they are towards Christ.  However, this is not the end of the discussion.  We need to look at the whole “submit” thing.

The whole phrase in verse 21 – to use the “prior verb option” as discussed in the second option above – is “to submit in awe.”  We submit to God because we are in awe of His love, grace, mercy, etc.  This is why in verse 33 Paul returns to the same concept and uses the same words as he does in verse 21 (although many translations translate those words differently in either context).  Verse 33 should read, “In any case you all are the same.  Everyone thus loves their wife as themselves in order that the wife is in awe of the husband.”

When we add this sense of “submission out of awe” we get the sense about which I blogged today.  Women should not be submitting out of moral or Biblical compulsion.  That is in no way, no shape, or no form what Paul talks about here.  There is no compulsion about forced submission at all in this passage.  The compulsion is that if the husband loves the wife unconditionally, then the Christian wife should desire to submit in awe of God’s love poured through the husband as we all should desire to submit in awe to God.

In any respect, the onus is clearly put on the man.  Husbands must love their wife unconditionally.  If this does not happen and there is no unconditional love given from the husband, there is no reason for the wife to submit in awe of a love that is not present.  I know we live in a culture that demands equal rights for men and women.  But men, in this case, the burden is placed upon us by God’s Word.  If we don’t love our wives unconditionally, it is we who are at fault and it is we who are in need of repentance.  If we do – and our wife refuses to submit in awe as she submits to Christ, then it is between her and Christ as to whether or not she is truly in Christ.  If she is, she will submit to unconditional love.

Year 2, Day 145: Ephesians 4

Walk As You’ve Been Called

Paul sets down a pretty good challenge right out of the gate on this one.  “Walk in a manner worthy to which you have been called.”  That’s a pretty tall order, Paul.  But it is what God asks of us.  He knows we cannot be perfect, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try.  It means we try, succeed, fail, celebrate when we succeed with God’s help, repent when we fail because we trusted our own abilities too much, and continue to try.

Then we get to the list that Paul gives us regarding godly living – a shorter list than he gave towards the end of Galatians.  Humility.  Gentleness.  Patience.  Loving one another.  Eager to maintain unity.  I wonder how many people read that verse and say, “Ouch, that’s hits home.”  I’m guessing that I’m not the only one that could stand to work on that list.  In fact, I bet I’m in the majority…

One Lord

Moving onto Paul’s next phrase we arrive at: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all.”  Again, ouch.  How many distinctions do we make among Christians?  Infant baptism.  Adult baptism.  Emersion baptism.  Sprinkling baptism.  1st communion at a specific age.  1st communion after expressing genuine faith.  Communion only among members.  Unleavened bread.  Leavened bread.  Wine.  Grape juice.  Contemporary.  Traditional.  Organ.  Piano.  Drums.  Guitar.  Dress up.  Casual.  ESV.  NIV.  NRSV.  NASB.  KJV.  Liturgy.  Traditional Lord’s Prayer.  Contemporary Lord’s prayer.  Pastor.  Preacher.  Reverend.  Right Reverend.  Father.  Priest.  Sunday Morning.  Saturday Night.  Sunday Night.  Denominational.  Independent.

Wow.  That list came out in under a minute.  I could probably go on.  But how does that prior paragraph jive with “one lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all?”  I don’t know about you, but I think that Paul has continued to hit pretty hard.  We’ve got work to do in this category, that’s for sure.  There are thirty-some thousand denominations in the world.  It isn’t certainly because there are 30-some thousand gods.  I think the problem is with us, not Him.

Grace

After the first six verses, I really feel like I need to hear verse 7.  “But grace was given to each one of us, according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”  Grace was given.  Why was grace given?  Because we need it.  God hands us faith, and we turn it into works.  God gives us community, and we turn it into cliques.  God gives us His Word, and we turn it into division.

But grace was given to each one of us.  Because we desperately need it.

Thanks be to God.

Then we move on.  God not only gave us grace, but he gave us people within His grace.  He gave us each other.  Why did God do this?  So that the church can be built up.  So that the saints (holy ones, consecrated ones, separate ones) can be equipped for His work.  So that we can be brought into spiritual maturity.

You know, the middle of this letter takes me right back to where I began in Ephesians.  We should be so thankful for God’s grace.  He does it all; we just receive it.  He sets everything in motion; we just need to follow.  He puts forth His plan; we just need to not get in the way!  We need to humble ourselves and not get in the way of His plan.

One Lord.  One faith.  One baptism.  One God, the Father of all … who gives us grace.  Because we desperately need it.

Thanks be to God.

New Life

We have new life.  Hear those words!  Breathe those words in deeply!  We have new life.  We don’t need to be the self-monger.  We don’t need to be the one in control.  We don’t need to be angry with humanity.  We don’t need to steal because we can’t come to believe in God’s provision.  We don’t need to tear one another down.  We have new life!  We can build one another up.  We can give out of what we have because we trust God can replenish what He has first given to us anyway.  We can love one another.  We can let God be in control.  We can be all about Christ.

We have new life!  One Lord.  One faith.  One baptism.  One God, the Father of all … who gives us grace.  Because we desperately need all of it.

Thanks be to God.

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Year 2, Day 144: Ephesians 3

The Mystery of the Gospel.

In the modern world, we like to talk about the mystery of the Gospel as Jesus Christ bringing salvation to the world.  We talk about the mystery of the Gospel as how and why God would pay the price for humanity.  But here in the book of Ephesians, the mystery is narrowed a bit.  Ephesians 3:6 says, “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

Do you hear the refinement?  The mystery is centered on the inclusion of the Gentiles.  That’s the really dumbfounding part for Paul and the rest of the Jews.  They always knew that a Messiah would come for God’s chosen – or at least those among God’s chosen who would believe.  They knew that God loved human beings – or at least a specific subset of humanity.

The inconceivable part of what happened through Christ is that the Gentiles have a part in the promise!  The inconceivable part of God’s grace is that those completely outside of God’s promise were given a free ticket inside!  The inconceivable part for the Jew is that God can love the whole world regardless of whether the whole world wants to obey ever single portion of God’s Law.

On one hand, it might be argued that this isn’t quite so inconceivable.  After all, aren’t all people sinful and fallen short of the glory of God?  Is not Christ the only way to salvation regardless of Jew or Gentile?  From this perspective it isn’t inconceivable because all people must rely upon Christ.

However, what is inconceivable is that God didn’t owe anything to the Gentiles.  Granted, He didn’t owe anything to the Jews, either.  But He had promised the Jews that a Messiah would come.  God had made a promise and because He is God He is true to His promises.  But no such promise had been made to the Gentiles.  Thus, the inconceivable part is that God was under no obligation to do anything for the Gentiles – and God showed His supreme grace by including us into His free gift of salvation.  God’s grace is inconceivable!

As Christians, we like to think of the mystery of the Gospel as the fact that God sent Jesus to die for our sake.  And that is absolutely a mystery.  But in Ephesians, Paul is refining that mystery to an even more specific mystery.  God sent Jesus to die even for the Gentiles.

Paul’s Prayer

Then we turn to Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians.  At this point we have a full understanding of Paul’s wordiness.  But if we are diligent, we can truly scope out the reason that Paul says he prays.  He prays so that the Ephesians would have the strength to comprehend God’s agenda and the knowledge of the love of Christ.  Paul’s prayer is for the Ephesian community and their spirituality.

I find this point really neat.  It is how it should be.  We should be praying for the spirituality of one another.  We should be praying and hoping that God increases the spirituality in one another.

The question that I find myself asking is: is that really what we pray for?  When we pray, do we really ask God to increase each other’s faith?  Are our prayers centered upon what God knows we need or what we self-discern that we need?

Don’t we often pray for ourselves and our own desires?  Do we pray for stuff we’d like to have?  Do we just pray for problems in our life – or the lives of others – that need resolved on our own timeline as we impatiently wait for God to do something about it?

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think that praying for our concerns and our worries is bad.  But in the greater scheme of things, what is really more important?  Are our own self-discerned needs what is important or is us learning to wait upon the Lord that which is important?

I don’t know about you, but I could really stand to finally learn this lesson from Paul.  I could stand to learn to pray less about my worries and concerns and pray more for the increase in spirituality in the people around me – especially those with whom I relate with any frequency.  I should be about concern for their spiritual lives – far more than I should be concerned about my needs.  After all, in the end are my temporal needs more important than the spiritual relationship between God and the people who love Him?

Again, please don’t get me wrong.  We can absolutely pray for our needs and our concerns.  Jesus Himself directs us to do so when He says that whatever we genuinely ask for in His name we shall receive.  {See John 15:16 and John 16:23.}  But we should not forget to pray for the things even more important than our needs.  We should pray for the spirituality of His people and the world around us in general.  After all, that is what we have been called to be about in this world.  Christ told His disciples to go and make disciples.  They are to baptize and teach what Christ commanded.  We are to be about the work of spirituality in this world.  It only makes sense that if spirituality is our focus in action that it should be our focus in prayer, too.

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Year 2, Day 143: Ephesians 2

Who Am I?

Paul opens with a whopper of a sentence today.  In it Paul says that we all used to walk the path laid out by the prince of the power of the air.  We all used to be people called the sons of disobedience – an old-fashioned term for what I would today call the self-monger.  The sons of disobedience (self-mongers) are people who pursued their own desires in flesh and mind instead of being obedient to God’s ways. 

Then he adds that we were children of wrath.  This does not mean that we are angry people.  Paul is saying that we were children of God’s wrath.  We were human beings who, because of our constant living so as to fulfill our own desires, deserved nothing but wrath from God.  God gave us life, but we rejected His life and sought our own.  Thus we deserve His wrath.  The self-monger deserves wrath.

At the heart of this concept is the word “sin.”  For a long time, I had an unrounded definition of sin.  I thought sin meant “wrong doing.”  However, the Greek word that is used for sin is actually a term from archery.  The word is “hamartia” (ἁμαρτία).  It literally means “to miss the mark.”  When an archer draws back the bow and lets the arrow fly and he completely misses the target, that is “hamartia.”  Thus, sin can be defined as wrongdoing.  But really, sin is wrongdoing because we’ve missed the target.

This was a very important concept for me to understand.  Thinking about sin in these terms forces me to believe that there is a target for which I am being aimed.  It isn’t that God has some amorphous life out there that He wants me to resemble.  God has a plan, a calling, a way of living, a design, and an arrangement for life.  When we miss that target, we sin.  We are “hamartia.”  I am “hamartia.” 

Sin

Sin isn’t so simple that it can be defined by saying that we have done an activity on God’s grand “no-no” list.  We are sinners because we missed the mark that He set for our life.  It isn’t that we’ve done a bad thing here or there.  It’s that in general the goals and pursuits of my fleshly existence have missed the mark of how God genuinely wants me to live.

Yes, when we sin we usually do something wrong.  But to simply think of sin as doing something wrong is very limiting.  It makes life all about doing more on the good list and minimizing doing things on the bad list.  But to think about sin in terms of missing the mark has so much more meaningful applications to life.  By definition it implies that there is a mark towards which God is aiming me.  It implies that He has a calling for me.  It implies that He has a future for me to live.  So when I sin, I have failed to hit the mark towards which God has directed me.  That’s a potent change in the way we think about sin!

What Does This Mean For Humanity?

This brings me back to the “children of wrath” concept.  The reason that those who do not follow God are considered to be children of wrath is because they don’t even acknowledge that there is a mark that God has aimed them towards.  They are so interested in attaining their own mark that they don’t stop to think that there might be a better mark out there – God’s mark.  So they live in sin, perpetually missing God’s mark time and time again.  What’s worse is they are not even repentant of it.  They aren’t even cognizant of it.

In that thought we can find the difference between a child of wrath and a child of grace.  Trust me, I miss the mark.  I sin.  But thanks be to God that His Spirit calls me to repentance.  Thanks be to God that He has given the free gift of grace.  Through repentance brought about by the Holy Spirit our sin does not have to end in wrath.  God forgives us when we miss the mark.

This should unite us together.  Those of us who are repentant should be able to rally around God’s grace.  It should bring us together in humbleness.  It should bring us together so that we can discover God’s mark for us as individuals and as community.

Even more importantly it should bring us together around Jesus Christ.  He should be the cornerstone that holds us together.  He is the foundation upon which His church is built.  He is the one who brings us together in unity.  He is the one who reconciles us with God and presents us before God as a potter presents his pottery.

Where Does God Dwell?

Finally Paul uses this idea of being built in unity to speak about a dwelling place for God.  Think about this deeply for a moment.  God dwells within us.  God dwells within His church, and specifically God dwells within each of us.  God – who has a perfect dwelling place in heaven with His heavenly host – desires to live among us.  God desires to live within us, even! 

Together, we are the temple.  I am not the temple, but we are the temple!  I am a portion of the temple, joined together with you and all the other pieces out of which God makes His temple.  He desires to live among us!

That’s amazing when you think about it, considering that we were all once children of wrath.  God’s takes us who miss the mark and still turns us into His dwelling place.

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