Monthly Archives: July 2018

discipleship, Ministry

The Word and Unhooked Christians

(Friday, July 20, 2018) 7:46 AM Hey guys. This morning I’ve been “in the Word.” Both of them. I think God worked overtime on this morning’s sunrise, don’t you?

And then there was this passage in Heb. 13:1-2:

Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Don’t forget to welcome strangers into your homes and show them Christian love, for some did this and welcomed angels without even knowing it.

Two quick observations if I may:

First, I noticed the verbal aspect in the first command: “Keep on loving one another.” I find it interesting that the author didn’t rely on the tense of the verb to express his desire for continuous action. He used a verb that literally means “let it continue.” Perhaps our Greek textbooks should reflect this way of “mitigating” imperfective aspect?

Second, I noticed the morphological connection between “love of brothers” and “love of strangers.” This play on the phil-prefix is often missed in our English translations — “brotherly love” versus “hospitality.” Why should this be?

Finally, this morning I was reviewing my syllabus for the New Testament course I’m teaching this fall. This course is designed to cover Acts through Revelation. Its official title is “New Testament Introduction and Interpretation 2,” but I’ve entitled it “Becoming New Covenant Christians: Living a Life of Sacrificial Service to God and Others by Following the Downward Path of Jesus.” One of the books we’ll be using in class is this one.

I wrote this short treatise because, despite the proliferation of books about the church in recent years, no one had (to the best of my knowledge) ever exegeted 11 brief verses in Acts 2 that seem to practically “list” the hallmarks of the nascent church in Jerusalem. The early church was an evangelistic church, reaching out to the world in witness. It was a committed church, pledging allegiance to Christ alone in the waters of baptism. It was a learning church, devoted to the teachings of the apostles. It was a caring church, eager to share life together with one another (koinonia). It was a Christ-centered church, elevating His supper to a place of continued prominence. It was a praying church, asking God to help keep it pure and to give it bigger challenges to expand its territory. And it was a sacrificing church, generously caring for their poor brothers and sisters.

Today we read a great deal about “unhooked Christians,” Christians who’ve dropped out of the church. The reason they had done this was their disappointment and disillusionment with the local church. These churches seemed to lack a heart of witness, unquestioned loyalty to Jesus, devotion to biblical truth, genuine fellowship, Christ-centeredness, a keen sense of dependence upon God, and a sacrificial spirit, which is always a test of the sincerity of one’s love for Christ. With apologies to MLK, I have a dream of a church that is a truly biblical church, whose people love the Word of God and adorn it with loyalty and obedience. Such is my dream for the church. May it be one that all of us can share in our NT class this semester!

(From Dave Black Online. Used by permission. Dave Black is the author of The Jesus Paradigm and many other books.)

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Turning to Our Great High Priest

(July 11, 2018) 10:16 PM This evening Sheba and I were sitting on the front porch watching the storms going through the area, casting a feeling of foreboding over the countryside. My mind went to a decision I recently made that I have since come to regret. It wasn’t a life or death matter, or even a right versus wrong matter. It was simply a choice I made, made too hastily and without sufficient forethought. The regrets have since piled up in my brain and are sitting there festering. Ugh. I’m often paralyzed by decision making. I have been guilty of making by-the-seat-of-my-pants decisions. Then I say to myself, “Wie dumm von mir!” (Okay, so I don’t really speak German to myself. Well, not often. But I love that line of Rommel’s from the movie The Longest Day. “How dumb of me!” said the German commander when he realized that the Allied invasion of Europe was taking place in Normandy and not at the Pas de Calais as everyone, Rommel included, had assumed.) Do you know what happened next? I opened the book of Hebrews and my eyes just happened to fall on Heb. 4:14-16. That was a God thing, big time. This text began whispering to me, “You’re ignoring your Great High Priest.” And I was. Not only was I not turning to the throne of grace for help in time of need, I was turning everywhere else for relief from my self-inflicted guilt. Evidently, Jesus understands exactly what I’m going through. “Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses.” And boy do I have weaknesses. Becky would have not made the mistake I made. But I’m not Becky. I’m me. We each had our own weaknesses, but a good many of them we shared, per Craig Koester’s description of “weaknesses” in his Hebrews commentary (p. 283):

1) Physical weakness.

2) Social weakness.

3) Vulnerability to sin.

Jesus enables weak people like me to “approach the throne of grace” (v. 14). “[H]uman beings are subject to forces beyond their control, and they need help to cope with daily life” (Koester, p. 295). There is something so nourishing, so healing, when we remember that our High Priest understands exactly what we’re going through. It’s like falling into a soft cushion. When I’m feeling down, I want to call Pizza Hut. When I fail to look unto Jesus, the Pioneer and Perfecter of faith, I injure my own soul. A soul divided against itself will collapse, crushing everyone taking refuge under its shelter. Enter Jesus. Is there anything more we could ask for? Sure, we could spend our lives dragging our regrets behind us, but that’s our choice. Jesus allows us to move beyond our guilt and regrets by commanding us to look unto Himself (Heb. 12:2). “You’re not a failure.” “Everyone else struggles like you.” “I understand.” Jesus may have suffered, but I bet you a thousand bucks He was not whiny. I am His friend, beloved and treasured. If I ask Him for strength and mercy and grace, He will give them to me.

Obviously, I’m still working on this wisdom thingy. When we make silly decisions, He’s neither shocked nor horrified. Love still wins. Hope still triumphs. Faith still conquers. I may not be able to see my Great High Priest, but evidences of His presence are everywhere. All I have to do is pause and look for them. If any of you cared what I thought and asked for my opinion (right after Uncle Sam sends me a million dollar tax refund), I would say that we all need to give a lot more space in our lives for the concept of redemption. We need to incorporate a worldview that begins and ends with our Great High Priest, Jesus. I couldn’t fathom living a single day without Him. Could you? This has everything to do with Christian discipleship. Not only is Jesus the compassionate High Priest we’ve always wanted, He creates peace in us that we can only find in Him.

I’ve had many setbacks in life. And there will be plenty more to come. But the fact is, failure after failure has brought me to the place where I am today. The point is that I tried. I wasn’t afraid of failing. Mistakes are always learning opportunities.

Hey, Dave!

Try again.

Learn from your mistakes.

Never let fear paralyze you.

Fall down 10 times, get up 11.

Keep the faith even when you have no earthly reason to do so.

Never be the victim of your circumstances.

Stop beating yourself up.

Grab hold of your High Priest.

In celebration of Him, I’m gonna visit the throne of grace and tarry a while tonight. It’s not about me. It’s about Jesus — not Jesus the tooth fairy, but Jesus the Redeemer and Lover of my soul. This is so cliché, I know, but it really is true.

Through all of my tough times, I will forever be grateful for Him.

(From Dave Black Online. Used by permission.)