(September 1, 2017) 8:18 AM Yo folks!

So September is almost upon us. Huzzah! The kiddos are finally back in school. The weather is turning cooler. Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Those of us who teach are back into teaching mode. This week’s classes were phenomenal. I asked, “So what must we do to follow our Father’s footsteps into the kingdom?” For starters ….

• Reject manmade status symbols (like titles).
• Embrace the flat kingdom.
• Affirm, remember, and proclaim: THERE ARE NO HOLY PLACES.

Oooh, that last one.

Religions have their shrines, temples, mosques, and churches. Not so Christianity. We worship “in Spirit” — that is, worship is spiritual, not material — and “in truth” — that is, according to what the Bible teaches and not our human traditions. Moreover, the church is a missional church. Missions is an active word. We pursue the path of the kingdom precisely because the Way of Jesus is a path of shalom for all people. Christianity is an insurgency. We throw off all those things we once considered so important and now consider them to be no more than skubala. We put our minds and energies into the service of the daily, grinding, upstream-swimming, frustrating, impossible work of overturning injustice. Why, we’re even willing to put aside our legitimate rights (as Jesus did) if the time to exercise them isn’t right. We do not grow weary in well doing. We show up when others need us. We set apart our days for the work of proclaiming with our hands and feet the kingdom of God. It doesn’t matter if we live in India or Indiana. Together, we’ll keep up the holy work, keep laying down our lives, keep worshiping, loving, making space for others. We refuse to let the lies of churchianity hold us back.

There’s something exhilarating about living this way. There’s something wondrous, fantastical even, about flinging open the door of simple church and exclaiming, “Bring it on, Jesus!” This was my view this morning on my front porch as I meditated on the word.

My text was Phil. 1:12-14.

Since my Bible is so messy, the text reads as follows:

Γινώσκειν δὲ ὑμᾶς βούλομαι, ἀδελφοί, ὅτι τὰ κατ’ ἐμὲ μᾶλλον εἰς προκοπὴν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ἐλήλυθεν, ὥστε τοὺς δεσμούς μου φανεροὺς ἐν Χριστῷ γενέσθαι ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ πραιτωρίῳ καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς πᾶσιν, καὶ τοὺς πλείονας τῶν ἀδελφῶν ἐν κυρίῳ πεποιθότας τοῖς δεσμοῖς μου περισσοτέρως τολμᾶν ἀφόβως τὸν λόγον λαλεῖν.

As I thought about how Paul made the cause of the Gospel his number one priority, I wondered aloud: “How can I do that this day?” It’s a lovely thing to watch men and women living kingdom lives. Their whole beings are an act of worship (not just what they do during “worship” on Sunday — oh, how I wish we could rid ourselves of that concept!). As Paul shows us, there’s no single way to be a Christian. Sometimes even in our prisons we can do life together and make our circumstances count for the Gospel. Isn’t that it? We are the smell and touch of Jesus, wherever we are. God in the flesh, Word made man — surely it matters. “One can scarcely miss the focus of Paul’s concern, here and always: Christ and the gospel,” writes Gordon Fee on Phil. 1:12-26 (p. 56). Paul “…intends much of this to serve as paradigm” (p. 57). As always, Paul turns the attention away from himself and his circumstances to the Gospel. I like that. I like to think that everything from my recent bouts with bronchitis to my teaching Greek to my giving to disaster relief in Houston — all of it is a sacrament of community. Sometimes the best way for me to properly celebrate the kingdom is to answer my students’ emails in a timely fashion. We can embody the kingdom by going to the nations (as we ought), but we can also embody the kingdom by an unhurried family meal or a visit to a homebound relative. I want to live out my faith, not just talk about it. I want to live it out as an embodiment of the Gospel in real places, in real contexts, and with real people.

Paul’s point in Phil. 1:12-14 is a simple one: The Gospel is not bound (pardon the silly pun). It’s advancing both inside and outside prison. It survives despite jerks who preach it with false motives (1:15-18). And it will survive even if God takes Paul home to heaven (1:19-26). I live in a Christian subculture that elevates the Bible to the fourth member of the Godhead. We celebrate the cult of the speaker. (Apparently you can type that sentence and not be struck by lightening.) But the real question is: Have our lives been molded by this Spirit-inspired word? The purpose of the Scriptures is to equip us and then send us out into the world. And guess what? Everyone gets to play. Seminary students do. Mothers folding diapers do. We all do. Despite our “issues.” Paul’s teaching us in Phil. 1:12-14 to focus simply on the Gospel. Don’t let your daily problems drive you to panic. Let them drive you joyfully to leverage your circumstances for Jesus. Don’t give up or give in. Patience in the midst of trials is the trademark of God’s Holy Spirit in your life. And that’s a good word in this aspirin age of ours.

Blessings,

Dave

(September 1, 2017) 9:40 AM As everyone knows, William Varner of the Masters University in California is going through the entire book of Philippians verse by verse. I just checked out his latest vlog on Phil. 1:16. It’s excellent. I especially enjoyed how he calls our attention to a rhetorical device called chiasmus that Paul seems to use in Phil. 1:15-16. Now that’s the kind of exegesis I enjoy. To those who know Paul, they know how much he enjoyed using rhetorical devices, not for their own sake, of course, but to draw his audience into the text. That’s why, when I was in seminary, I began to reorient my life around not only the denotative meaning of Scripture but around its connotative meaning as well. As Will notes, poetry is not prose. I know that some students get discouraged when they see just how demanding exegesis can be. But I sort of like how deep the New Testament is. It gives me chills when I read such exquisite poetry as the Christ hymn in Phil. 2 or the ode to love in 1 Cor. 13. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate how much poetic language permeates the New Testament writings. Nowadays, when I read my Greek New Testament, I try to slow down. I watch. I listen. My hunger for the overtones of the text increases. I’ve witnessed rhetoric at work in Paul in so many places it’s mind-blowing. I am a man of detail. It sounds boldfaced to say that, but there it is. I pray for eyes to see what the Holy Spirit put into the text. I feel like a small child wading on the shore of a limitless ocean. But I still want to go out into the deep, like I used to do at Sunset Beach even when I knew the waves were breaking surfboards in half. My prayer for my students (and all of us) is that the Holy Spirit would sweep into our lives with holy disruption. That He would show us things in the text that would upend our assumptions. I’d like to see a great awakening, for sure, but I’ll settle for a few more of us to simply become more careful readers of Scripture.

8:58 AM Through Scripture, God speaks to us. Through it, Jesus speaks life to millions of believers every day. That’s probably the reason I just can’t get past Phil. 1:3-11 in my study of God’s word. Because what if there are truths He’s still trying to impress on me? Such as …

1) Gratitude is not gratitude unless it’s expressed. Paul didn’t just think thoughts of gratitude. He expressed gratitude. Is there someone I need to say “Thank you” to today?

2) Interestingly (Paul is always interesting!), Paul expresses his gratitude for the Philippians, not to them, but to God: “I thank my God for you….” It’s easy for us to thank others and then forget to thank God. I know I’ve been guilty of this. I’ve been so preoccupied with my horizontal relationships that I’ve disengaged my mind from the God I really need to express my thanks to more than anyone else.

3) Prayer focuses on specific needs. The word Paul uses here (Greek deesis) can imply “that which is asked with urgency based on personal need” (Louw-Nida). The needs of others should drive us to prayer. One of Becky’s sisters lives in Houston. God spoke to me instantly to be praying for her. We need to balance thanksgiving with petition. Jesus demonstrated this balance in His famous Disciples’ Prayer. It wasn’t a one-sided prayer that focused on needs. Nor did it ignore those needs. I love that.

4) Paul prayed habitually. So did our Lord. His life was a living prayer — unhindered communication with the Father. Both Jesus and Paul set an example for us.

5) Paul excluded no one from his prayers. Note the repetition of “all of you” in this passage. It’s like a constant drum beat. Paul’s love was not selective, and neither should ours be.

6) But where did Paul get his love for the Philippians? It wasn’t self-derived. Not at all. Paul makes it very clear that he loved them “with the affection of Christ Jesus.” Do our prayers exhibit the Lord’s compassion? They can and they must.

7) Above all, Paul prays for the Philippians’ love to abound. That seemed to be their greatest need at the moment. The term Paul uses for love (agape) does not necessarily refer to divine love. After all, when Demas deserted Paul, it was because he had agapoed the world (2 Tim. 4:10). There are good reasons to look to Paul himself for his definition of love, and a place to start might be Phil. 2:2-4. Here Paul contrasts love with selfish ambition. To love is to serve others humbly. It’s to esteem others as more important than ourselves. It’s being plain, everyday kind to one another. It’s when daily courtesies become a habit. It’s being “big-hearted” (Phil. 4:5). Love means going the second mile, opening your home to strangers, “doing good to each other and to all people” (1 Thess. 5:15), being willing to give your best effort even when it’s inconvenient. Men, it’s opening the door for ladies. It’s refusing to repeat lewd jokes. It means drawing her bath. Go back to your first love in your marriage. Gentleness is not something to be ashamed about.

Friends, sometimes I wonder why we go so fast through the Bible. I still struggle with Paul’s teaching in Phil. 1:1-11. I’m not ready for any more truth! I hope we all wrestle with the truth we know. I hope we look deep into our hearts and sift through our ecclesiology and our missiology and our praxis and all of it. I hope we can learn to change. I hope we can all become a bit more inclined to slow down and listen to what Jesus is saying to His church. He can speak to us anywhere — in cathedrals and living rooms and offices and, yes, even in church buildings. But we’ve got to be willing to play second fiddle and embrace His plan. Remember: Anyone can pray for anyone else. So go ahead and pray for me. Go ahead. Pray that God would allow me to be a disciple of the Way and to remember whose I am and why I live this life. And I’ll pray the same for all of you.

Grace and peace,

Dave

(September 7, 2017) 6:04 PM Anyone studying the book of Philippians needs to keep in mind what Paul writes in 4:9:

ἃ καὶ ἐμάθετε καὶ παρελάβετε καὶ ἠκούσατε καὶ εἴδετε ἐν ἐμοί, ταῦτα πράσσετε· καὶ ὁ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης ἔσται μεθ’ ὑμῶν.

The teaching we’ve learned and received from him we need to be putting into practice constantly. Nothing like hitting us over the head with a two by four, Paul.

(September 8, 2017) 11:32 AM I am a word guy, fully right-brained (unless I’m being left-brained). Carved into the temple at Delphi are these words:

I wonder if Paul might be alluding to them in Phil. 4:5, where he uses the Greek term epieikes, often translated “gentleness.” The temple carving means something like “Nothing in excess.” Hawthorne prefers “big-heartedness,” but then adds, “For big-heartedness one may substitute any of the following: forbearance, yieldedness, geniality, kindliness, gentleness, sweet reasonableness, considerateness, charitableness, mildness, magnanimity, generosity” (p. 193). The goal is to “meet people halfway,” to “not insist on one’s own rights all the time.” Forgive me for beating a dead horse, but, again, don’t we see this in Paul’s discussion of the Roman “preachers” in 1:15-17? Paul could have gotten on their case because of their false motives. The fact is, they are advancing the Gospel, and for Paul that’s the main thing. Yet isn’t it also possible that Paul has chosen to highlight these ill-willed evangelists because they are causing strife and division in Rome, much like the Philippians themselves were possibly polarizing around two women whom Paul actually names in 4:2? I think the point is this: Paul is being tactful. He wants to address the issue of division (or at least disharmony) among the Philippians, but he’s willing to bide his time. First he has to set the backdrop: the life and ministry of Jesus. This tactfulness on the part of Paul is whispering to me, “Not so fast in becoming argumentative when you disagree with people, Dave.” I’ve got a dozen emails I still haven’t answered, and one of them is, let’s just say, a bit uncharitable. Epieikes doesn’t apply to me, does it? Surely not.

Ahem.

“The Christian is the man who reasons that it is far better to suffer wrong than to inflict wrong (I Cor. 6:7)” — so writes Hendriksen on the word epieikes (p. 193). Who am I in this scenario? A man who needs to heed Paul’s injunction. How about you? Try practicing the presence of the One who is meek and gentle amid the noise and confusion you’ll be facing today. Rest assured. You can be big-hearted. So can I. Such simple things matter to God — and make a Christian stand out in a crowd.