It’s often thought that everything in today’s world must be 1) complex and 2) cater to individuality. A calculator, notepad, and wallet won’t do; we need a pocket-sized supercomputer that is itself hooked up to a learning network of far more advanced computers which can provide or fabricate answers to our questions in milliseconds (oh, and it also needs to double as a camera). Further, there can’t be one answer for everyone. Instead, there needs to be a multiplicity of answers that represent a broad range of ages, beliefs, cultures, sexual orientations, and gender manifestations.

As Christians, we know that some of these aspects of the modern world are morally neutral at best while others are sinful distortions at worst. Still, even we can shy away from simple things and singular answers. Simple things too often leave us yawning and checking our watches (or smartphones, more likely); singular answers too often leave us asking, “But what about…?”

Sometimes it helps to think about the life of faith in the simplest terms. Two impactful (albeit easily overlooked) verses in Genesis give us the opportunity to do so. The Bible reads: “So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan” (Genesis 12:4-5). In these two verses we find an outline of the three necessary components of any faithful life.

For every person, the life of faith involves responding to the call of the Lord: “So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him” (Genesis 12:4). The Lord’s call to Abram appears to have been direct and audible, involving the spoken words recorded in the verses prior (Genesis 12:1-3). “[I]n these last days” though, God has “spoken to us by His Son” (Hebrews 1:2), who chooses to call us by the Gospel (2 Thessalonians 2:14). Faith does not and cannot exist in those who have not heard “the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17 ESV) and responded to it by “obedience to the truth” (1 Peter 1:22 ESV).

For every person, the life of faith involves pursuing a clear and singular goal: “Abram… departed to go to the land of Canaan” (Genesis 12:5). While the text says that Abraham (as he was later called) went to Canaan, the Hebrews author ties his pursuit of Canaan with the clear and singular goal that all the faithful have: “By faith he went to live in the land of promise […] For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:9-10). Every faithful person must have this heavenly, God-established city as his or her clearly prioritized goal. Like Abraham, even if pursuing this goal calls us to leave our “country […] family […and our] father’s house,” we should be willing to do so (Genesis 12:1).

Finally, for every person, the life of faith involves us calling others on behalf of the Lord and giving them the opportunity to join us in pursuing our goal: “Then Abram took… the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed” (Genesis 12:5). While we have to be honest about the reality of slavery and the potential for acquiring people as property in Abraham’s world, this is not likely what this phrase indicates here. In his exhaustive work Creation and Blessing, Allen Ross argues, “This expression probably does not refer to the acquisition of slaves, for the Hebrew word [translated people] would not likely be used for that.” He further argues that if the expression refers to winning proselytes,^[1] “the narrative implies that, already in Haran, Abram had been sharing his faith.”^[2] When people answer the Lord’s call and pursue the Lord’s city as their goal, they can’t help but tell others about it and can’t help but acquire more souls to join them on the journey of faith.

In today’s complex and individualistically oriented world, we need to keep things simple. As Christians, we have one God who has called us (1 Corinthians 1:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:14) and one heavenly city that we join Abraham in pursuing. Have we answered that call, and are we with singular focus pursuing that goal? The surest way to check is to ask the question, what souls have I acquired along the way? Jesus Himself said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

My family and I recently had the opportunity to go to Cordova, Alaska. We truly enjoyed exploring the beauty of God’s creation there and are very glad we went. At the same time, we weren’t able to see the thing that made us think of going to Cordova in the first place. There’s a relic associated with the Kennecott Copper Mine story (a story that wrote its final chapters nearly a century ago) called Miles Glacier Bridge, or, more frequently, the Million-Dollar Bridge. Completed in 1910, this bridge cost an incredible amount of money for the time: 1.4 million dollars, over 49 million dollars in today’s currency. It’s apparently quite a spectacle, spanning the Copper River at the base of the Childs Glacier. What we didn’t realize until we arrived was that the bridge is currently inaccessible due to the washout of another bridge before it on the Copper River Highway that happened several years ago.

Being the completist that I am, I still wanted to go as far as I could down the Copper River Highway. This brought me to a bridge that extends halfway across the river only to come to an abrupt and dramatic stop. As I looked down from the bridge’s broken edge, the powerful surge of the Copper River did not leave me guessing as to what happened to the rest of the bridge.

America is a nation that profits greatly from a cultural desire to build and maintain roads. There are so many places that are accessible via our nation’s network of roads. Rather than be grateful, we typically take these roads for granted. We complain about traffic, potholes, construction work, and road closures; we expect to be able to get where we want to go and for there to be no barriers, at least no insurmountable ones. Even I had to check the desire in myself to say, “There is a road. It should be open!” with the reality that even when it was there, the Copper River Highway really went nowhere. No towns or communities that I’m aware of were cut off when the bridge collapsed at mile 36; it just became harder to go see what was on the other side of the river.

I got to thinking about that dead end road as I was reading the book of Isaiah the other day. The tendency to desire an unobstructed path is not a uniquely American trait. Isaiah described his people, saying:Israel saw God and His prophets as obstacles keeping them from where they wanted to go. Really, nothing could be further from the truth.

For starters, the highways that man builds always wind up broken and always wind up at truly dead ends. Proverbs records not once but twice, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25). It’s definitely not good for us to always go our own way and never be hindered or redirected.

The truth that brought to my mind the comparison between our highways and God’s comes from Isaiah 35, where Isaiah describes a highway that God was going to build:What a beautiful picture. What a beautiful prospect! God’s highway differs from ours in every way. Only God can decree, “A highway shall be there,” and it certainly will be, come hell or high water (in fact, He’s the only one for whom that statement really applies). Only God could establish a “Highway of Holiness,” dictating who could and who could not “pass over it.” Only God could create a road with 100% guaranteed, “everlasting joy.”

And Christians, God did create that highway. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). So the next time you feel frustrated about not being able to get where you want to go, stop and think, “Where does God want me to go?”

I promise, His highway is better than yours.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

I love hiking in glacial valleys. While I don’t believe in the timelines and explanations proposed by old earth evolutionists, I tend to believe that glaciers had something to do with the formation of these valleys. Perhaps, phenomena related to the Noahic flood created massive glaciers which in turn helped to shape these valleys. However they came to be, these valleys feature beautiful bottomlands, often containing lakes or rivers, surrounded by steep, impressive mountains that stand in stark contrast to the valleys themselves. These valleys are some of the more awe-inspiring places on God’s green earth.

Fed by melting glaciers, these valleys are often verdant and full of plant life, which adds to their beauty. However, because the glacial silt in these valleys is often incredibly rocky, this life often clings to a relatively thin layer of soil. Depending on what seeds find their way to these valleys, sometimes plants grow which the thin soil simply can’t bear. It’s not uncommon to see a mighty forest with several fallen trees which betray weak, shallow roots that evidently failed to penetrate the rocky soil in which the trees had formerly been planted.

The Gospel accounts contain three records of Jesus speaking about seed that “fell on rocky ground” (Matthew 13:5; Mark 4:5; cf. Luke 8:6). While two of these accounts provide clear details that indicate that they were spoken on the same occasion as each other (Matthew 13:1-2; Mark 4:1), Luke doesn’t provide the same details; it’s possible he records a similar teaching given on another occasion. This might explain the difference in Jesus’ stated issue with the rocky soil. Matthew and Mark record that “rocky ground” has “no depth of soil” (Matthew 13:5; Mark 4:5), while Luke records that the seed that “fell on the rock… had no moisture” (Luke 8:6).

For those who might not be familiar with this account (and who might be wondering why a religious teacher like Jesus is talking about seed and soil at all), Jesus used the farming methods of His day to call His audience to think about their hearts as they received His teaching. In Jesus’ day, sowers (as they were called) would plant crops by scattering seed across the ground (Matthew 13:3; Mark 4:3; Luke 8:5). Jesus compared the sower’s seed to “the word of God,” which His audience’s hearts could receive like soil receives seed, if they would let them (Luke 8:11, 15; cf. Matthew 13:19; Mark 4:14, 20). However, without some effort on their part, their hearts might prove not to be receptive but instead to be compacted by the traffic of the world (like wayside soil), crowded and choked with other concerns (like thorny soil), or kept cursory in their cultivation (like rocky soil). Jesus spoke somewhat cryptically about sowers and soils to encourage investigation; the disciples who bothered to ask what He meant demonstrated that they were fit “to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” and thus were good soil (Matthew 13:11; cf. Mark 4:11; Luke 8:10).

Because Jesus’ illustration drew from His audience’s experiences rather than mine, it’s pretty clear that His words about rocky soil weren’t meant to draw people’s minds to glacial valleys but to the rocky soil of Galilee. And, to return to the thought above, it’s possible that Luke does in fact record the same event as Matthew and Mark and that the Holy Spirit simply guided the authors to include or omit one detail or another. Still, the fact that Jesus describes two issues with such soil – “no depth of soil” and “no moisture” – allows me to make a point of comparison. The glacial valleys I’ve hiked in have plenty of moisture but, like the soil Jesus spoke of, afford plants no chance at depth.

Farming metaphors run through the Bible. Paul envisioned the church at Corinth as “God’s field” (1 Corinthians 3:9). The seed had already been sown in Corinth, for Paul said, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6). Through both the farming efforts of Paul and Apollos and the life-giving work of God Himself, green Christian shoots had sprouted in this field. Like glacial valleys, water was no issue in Corinth, but depth clearly was. Paul laments, “I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1).

There are certainly hearts out there that need more watering. The Hebrews author encourages us, “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another” (Hebrews 10:24-25). While I’m convinced that the focus of the Hebrews author is not a tick-box mentality towards attendance, prioritizing and then utilizing Christian assemblies is an important habit that some just don’t have. God envisioned the church in prophecy as a place where, “the Word of the Lord” would “go forth,” allowing people to be taught “His ways” (Isaiah 2:3). Sadly, some don’t attend regularly while others attend but do so with hearts more akin to the hardened wayside soil than the good soil Jesus desires, showing up but tuning out. So yes, some Christians are withering on the vine (cf. John 15:1-8) because they willfully find “no moisture” (Luke 8:6), choosing to remain as rocky soil.

For the most part though, churches tend to be well-watered places – just like glacial valleys. This brings the second danger of rocky soil to mind though: “depth of soil” (Matthew 13:5). Some Christians are more focused on upward growth than they are on downward growth. They want to appear to be towering trees of Christianity, doing what they do “to be seen by men” (Matthew 23:5). They take advantage of the well-watered nature of their church-valley home to promote their upward growth, but they don’t grow deep in personal understanding or in communion with God. When the storms of life come as they inevitably do, the weight of their upward growth becomes a liability because of their lack of downward growth, and, like the tall trees in those glacial valleys, “great” is their “fall” (Matthew 7:27).

There is no fast track to sustainable Christian growth. As always, “patient continuance in doing good” is the order of the day (Romans 2:7). Jesus’ description of the good soil is worth remembering: “But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15). So ask yourself as I ask myself: “Do I hear with a noble and a good heart, receiving God’s Word and His watering? And am I trying to grow upward too quickly, without letting the Word become deeply embedded in my heart?” May we strive to be good soil and not rocky soil.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

In the late 1960’s, Frank Sinatra released a song in which he looks back at his life and proudly declares, “I did it my way.” The self-determination and independence that his song’s lyrics celebrate are qualities prized by many people, including no doubt some who claim to be Christians. Can I hold these as personal values and still please God?

The first thing worth considering is that God Himself has a way. Today, that way is found in none other than Jesus Christ, who declared, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Jesus’ words declare exclusivity and singularness. There aren’t multiple ways to please God; there is just one way, one path. Jesus encourages, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). His startling words found a few verses down in Matthew 7:21-23 remind us that the broad way has incredible room for self-expression. Following it are those who want absolutely nothing to do with God as well as those who have mingled service to God with lawless practices, things outside of the boundary of His will or His way.

God’s singular way can’t be found by following intuition or human ingenuity. Isaiah said, “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ says the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9). This should cast a real shadow of doubt on any idea that God uses an inner voice, thoughts, or feelings to guide us in serving Him. Jeremiah knew, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). This led him to a very logical and important conclusion: “O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 17:9). Discovering God’s will for us is not about us searching our heart or our mind; it is about honoring the fact that “the Spirit of God” has already searched out “the depths of God” and communicated them in the “spiritual words” of Scripture (1 Corinthians 2:9-13 NASB).

This ought to influence how we see Christianity. If Jesus envisioned Himself as being a singular, exclusive way and warned that we could easily mingle what we envision as service to Him with lawlessness, we shouldn’t envision Christianity as a series of many winding roads that all lead to the same place. Even in prophecy, Isaiah said, “And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it” (Isaiah 35:8). The way has always been singular and always carried the risk of not being followed even by the well intentioned. In the New Testament, the Bible even describes Christianity over and over again as “the Way” (Acts 9:2; 16:17; 18:25-26; 19:9, 23; 24:14, 22). Paul lived “in all good conscience” (Acts 23:1), and yet he was persecuting “the way” rather than pursuing it (Acts 9:2). Apollos had been “instructed in the way of the Lord,” yet his partial knowledge necessitated that someone would come along and “[explain] to him the way of God more accurately” (Acts 18:25-26).

God’s way is not without its liberties; it is not a way of slavery but of sonship (Romans 8:21). God’s description of Christians as members of His Son’s body in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 reminds us that God has uniquely designed and equipped each of us for His service. Both of these truths remind us of the fundamental truth we are considering here though. Sons and daughters must still obey their Heavenly Father; as Isaiah reveals, “‘Woe to the rebellious children,’ says the LORD, ‘Who take counsel, but not of Me, And who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, That they may add sin to sin’” (Isaiah 30:1). Likewise, members of a body must follow the guidance of the body’s head, which in the case of Christians is Jesus (Ephesians 1:22-23), lest their individualistic behavior “spread like cancer” (2 Timothy 2:17).

May we all strive one day not to say, “I did it my way,” but, “I did it HIS way.”

Years ago, the United States Forest Service launched a highly effective marketing campaign targeted at eliminating wildfires. You might remember the focal point of the campaign: Smokey Bear and his famous motto, “Remember… Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires.” Are you aware though of the little change the Forest Service made to Smokey’s tagline, and why they did so?

In 2001, after over 50 years of saying the same thing, Smokey started saying, “Only YOU Can Prevent Wildfires” instead. Why? The Forest Service’s decades-long crusade against forest fires was one of the most successful marketing campaigns of the modern era. It was so successful in fact that it helped to shape a generation that believed all fires – including planned fires for routine brush clearing – are undesirable. However, some in the Forest Service began to realize around the turn of the century that eliminating all fires led to an even more undesirable consequence: unmanaged forests that have become breeding grounds for huge, devastating wildfires over the last three decades. It turns out that eliminating small fires only leads to bigger, more destructive ones.

The Psalmist writes, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1). I’m sure you would agree wholeheartedly that this is true, but what happens when they don’t? Sometimes, the thought process in such moments can be to maintain the peace at all costs. If there is a hurt feeling because of someone’s behavior, brush it and perhaps even that person aside (and, if Satan is allowed to offer his advice, talk about it with everyone but the person who hurt you). If sin is involved, trust the sinner to learn the error of his or her way through time and (of course) without any intervention. If you have a different opinion regarding a decision someone in leadership makes, just quietly withdraw your support and do your own thing.

The problem is that none of these decisions represent unity and, given enough time, all of them will likely shatter any illusion there is of peace. Conflict is inevitable between flawed, imperfect people; like fires to a forest, it will come. So God’s people are left with two choices when met with a moment of disunity: 1) a small, more easily controlled fire now or 2) a huge, sweeping wildfire later.

Jesus emphasizes pursuing the former choice on both sides of any conflict. After speaking of the potential for anger to condemn a soul “to hell fire” (Matthew 5:22), Jesus gives advice, not about preventing anger in ourselves but about preventing someone from being angry at us. He says,Jesus couches His advice in two powerful pictures. The picture of a person going to worship God who stops first to be reconciled with his angry brother reminds us of how incredibly important it is to seek reconciliation quickly. The picture of a trip first to the courtroom and then to a prison reminds us of what happens when we don’t do so. It’s a hyperbole of course – not many people who are angry with you have the power to literally throw you in prison – but many people can testify to having spent years or even a lifetime in the prison of someone else’s anger, kept from the unity and fellowship God desires. Human wisdom says, “Let them cool off”; God’s wisdom says, “Don’t let them burn up.”

Jesus also isn’t silent about the person on the other side of the conflict. After dramatically describing the consequences of setting an example of sin for someone else (“it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea” – Matthew 18:6), Jesus says: “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother” (Matthew 18:15). The simple phrase “you have gained your brother” shows the need for speed; if your brother is not “gained” he is “lost.” James’ words come to mind: “Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20).

None of this is to say that 1) every case of anger is justifiable and reasonable or 2) sin is involved in every conflict. However, even in conflicts not involving sin, a desire to avoid sin should create a sense of urgency. Among the seven things that God hates is, “one who sows discord among brethren” (Proverbs 6:19), and among the works of the flesh are “hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies” (Galatians 5:20), which often describe either the process or the product of opinion-based conflict. Dwelling in unity isn’t just “good and… pleasant” (Psalm 133:1); it’s actually the necessary antithesis of things that we absolutely must avoid. No wonder Jesus’ dying prayer was for His followers to “be one” (John 17:20-23).

It is sad that the same God who values unity and hates discord was crucified in an attempt to bring reconciliation after conflict (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:18-19). This is a strong reminder that among flawed, imperfect individuals, even perfect behavior can still lead to destructive fires. However, knowledge of the possibility of failure shouldn’t prevent any attempt at preventing the spread of fire through early action. In fact, being faithful to the example and teachings of Jesus demands it.  

Nothing can prevent fire in this fallen world. It is destined to “pass away with a great noise, and… be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). But the aim is not to prevent fire; the aim is to keep fires from burning out of control. So remember… only YOU can prevent wildfires.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

I like watching new movies. Every now and then though, I like to watch something that I’ve seen before. As I get older, this is sometimes because I’ve genuinely forgotten what happens. At other times though, I know exactly what is going to happen, and yet I still want to watch. There’s a certain comfort and joy in experiencing a good story with a known, good ending.

This is one of the best things about being a Christian. As a Christian, you don’t necessarily know how your individual story is going to play out, but you do know how it’s going to end. This produces something more than just comfort and joy; it produces peace. Paul spoke of this peace when he said, “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

As Paul says, the reason we can know the end of our story as Christians is because of the story of Jesus. Jesus’ story is different from ours in one major aspect: He not only knew the end of His story; He knew the entirety of His life’s story as a human before any human story ever even began. John the baptizer described Jesus as “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29, 36), and the apostle John added that He was, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Jesus knew “all things that would come upon Him” (John 18:4), and yet He lived out a story that saw Him described as, “A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), a story filled with pain and tragedy, to grant us the opportunity of peace and a good ending.

One of my favorite Bible passages demonstrates Jesus’ foreknowledge, His confidence, and His ability to provide us with peace. Jesus concludes some words to His disciples on the eve of His crucifixion by saying, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Careful Bible students typically notice that God sometimes speaks of future events using past grammatical tenses to indicate a degree of certainty that only He can have about the future. Before the garden and its betrayal, before the trial, before the cross, and before the tomb, Jesus said, “I have overcome the world.” He had peace, and He invited His disciples (and, by extension, us) into that peace.

Four things stand out to me as I reflect upon this powerful passage. First, there is a definitive location of the peace Jesus provides. Jesus says, “in Me you may have peace.” Too often, men and women can be guilty of saying, “‘Peace, peace!’ When there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). False offers of peace abound. Only Jesus can offer real peace, and He only offers it in one place: “in Him.” Indeed, “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” is “in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3); there is no peace nor any spiritual blessing apart from Him. The only way to be “in Him” is to put Him on in baptism, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

Second, John 16:33 describes a definitive means of Jesus’ peace. He says, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.” One cannot be truly baptized into Christ without “faith in the working of God” (Colossians 2:12), and faith comes from “hearing… the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17 ESV).  Further, one cannot abide in Jesus unless, as Jesus said, “My words abide in you,” and “you keep My commandments” (John 15:7, 10). The words of Jesus incorporate the “red letters” found in some Bibles that highlight the words He spoke during His life as well as the entirety of the New Testament which He died to put into effect (Hebrews 9:16-17). The words of inspired men like the apostle Paul are none other than “the commandments of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:37).
 
Third, I find in John 16:33 a clear indication of what peace is not. Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation.” Sometimes people think that peace is the absence of evil; Jesus knew no such peace and promised no such peace. No, peace for Jesus was something different. Rather than granting the absence of evil, the peace Jesus offers for those in Him is the abiding presence of all that is good. Tribulation not only exists; it is promised. No matter how tumultuous the tribulation gets, “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12), but this does not in any way detract from their peace.  

The fourth thing that stands out to me as I reflect on John 16:33 is why this is so. Christians can abide in peace because Jesus Himself abides. Jesus said, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Satan must have truly thought that Calvary was going to be a battle and that the gates of Hades would indeed prevail against Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth of what happened. Jesus’ life and subsequent death on the cross allowed Him to “destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15). As prophesied, Jesus was not left in Hades, and His body saw no corruption of decay (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:27). The gates of Hades did “not prevail against” Jesus building His church (Matthew 16:18), the institution to which He adds the saved in Him (Acts 2:47). The outcome of any and all tribulation Jesus faced was known and overcome before it even began; so it is with those in Him.

Jesus knew the end of His story from the beginning and could say with full confidence before it even happened, “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). There is no greater peace than knowing a good end is coming before a story has even started, and it is exactly this peace that Jesus offers to us. If you want this peace, get in Jesus, abide in Jesus, and let His words abide in you (John 15:7) to the point “that you bear much fruit” (John 15:18), indeed, “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11).

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

Sometimes it’s assumed that many churches who bear the identifying name “church of Christ” have chosen to worship God through acapella singing because of preference. It doesn’t help that some who associate with these churches but are less mature or less grounded in their faith have occasionally explained the practice this way. There are many though who identify as the church of Christ, because they aim simply to be part of the church that belongs to Jesus Christ and not part of yet another church whose beliefs and practices are dictated by preference. They would explain it very differently. For them, acapella worship is not a matter of preference; it is a matter of conviction.

Convictions are not always reached by the same route. Many have reached a conviction concerning acapella singing by applying the principle of silence. When you go to a restaurant and order something, you don’t have to specify the many things that you do not want on the menu apart from your order. When God orders, “Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing” (Ephesians 5:18-19), and “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace” (Colossians 3:16), Bible students almost universally recognize that God desires musical worship. However, like good waiters and waitresses at a restaurant, those determined “to wait on the Lord” (Isaiah 40:31) recognize His specificity regarding a musical instrument – “making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19; cf. Colossians 3:16) – and His desire for a “sacrifice of praise […] that is, the fruit of our lips” (Hebrews 13:15). They don’t wait for God to list all the things that He does not want; they seek to act in accordance with His stated wishes.

Some have reached (or deepened) their convictions concerning acapella though by also reflecting on the practice of the earliest Christians. Acapella singing was for many centuries the exclusive practice of the church. In fact, the very term “acapella” means “in the style of / the manner of the chapel / church.” In his excellent paper, “Beyond the Argument from Silence: A Covenantal View of A Cappella Worship” (which he has made accessible online at https://www.theoutlet.us/), Ashby Camp surveys a host of historians and scholars who report this. One quote that stood out to me comes from James McKinnon, a musicologist with no affiliation with the churches of Christ; he writes, “The antagonism which the Fathers of the early Church displayed toward instruments has two outstanding characteristics: vehemence and uniformity.”

It is of course possible for even good convictions to be reached in a way that isn’t good. In an attempt to build a case against using mechanical instruments in New Testament worship, some have argued that God never intended for them to be a part of Old Testament worship. Some seem to believe that when David identifies himself as the one who made musical instruments “for giving praise (1 Chronicles 23:5), that he was taking credit for the whole idea. I have even heard Amos’ woe towards the lazy elite in Israel, described among other things as those “Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments, And invent for yourselves musical instruments like David” (Amos 6:5), as a condemnation of instrumental praise. Other passages though demonstrate that what David put into effect concerning instruments actually “was the commandment of the Lord by His prophets” (2 Chronicles 29:25), and that all of David’s plans came from the Lord (1 Chronicles 28:19). God Himself brought inspiration to several Psalms which mention instrumental praise, one of which we will reflect upon later.

Before we do so, I’d like to suggest this: one line of reasoning that isn’t often considered in the acapella discussion is how the elements of the Old Law prefigure and point towards “something better” in the New (Hebrews 11:40). The Hebrews author described the Law of Moses as “having a shadow of the good things to come” and contrasted this with “the very image of the things” (Hebrews 10:1). No one confuses the shadow and the substance; further, no one aware of the substance seeks the shadow. We do not find completion and perfection in the Law of Moses, but in the Law of Christ. So, what implications does this have for musical praise?

Let’s consider Psalm 150. The Psalmist clearly has an intense desire to praise God; the phrase, “Praise the LORD!” forms an inclusio, encapsulating the idea of the Psalm (Psalm 150:1, 6). The psalmist desires to praise God because of who He is (a God of “excellent greatness”) and because of what He does (“His mighty acts”) (Psalm 150:2). But how can such a great and glorious God be praised?

As the Psalmist writes these words, God is worshipped in a tent (or perhaps the temple if David is not the author). While the Psalmist believes that God should be praised “in His mighty firmament,” i.e., in accord with the expanse of His power, He knows that praise is offered “in His sanctuary” (Psalm 150:1). The sanctuary is in the tabernacle/temple; it is not within the Psalmist. Likewise, when the Psalmist envisions praise, he envisions it in external terms; he encourages praise via a variety of instruments which are ultimately external to the worshiper.

As we turn to the New Testament though, we find Paul specifying and highlighting only one instrument: “with your heart” (Ephesians 5:19). Paul even employs the Greek verb which shares an etymology with the word transliterated as “psalm,” a word which means to pluck or twang, as on a stringed instrument. Again though, the verb is transitive and the instrument is specified: the heart. New Testament worshippers do not need to travel to the tabernacle or temple; they are “the temple of the living God” (2 Corinthians 6:16). They do not need to grab mechanical instruments to praise God; God encourages them to reach into their hearts and pluck its strings as praise.  

I do not often agree with John Calvin, but I find his comments on this issue powerful as we reflect on this “shadow vs. substance” line of reasoning. He writes, commenting on Psalm 33:On another occasion, commenting on 1 Samuel 18, he writes:It’s incredible to me how many people revere this man but never stop to consider these words.

Acapella singing is not merely a preference. It’s something God specifically requested, something that the early church universally rendered to Him in worship for centuries, and something that represents the substance of an Old Testament shadow.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

I love inspirational sports movies. Recently, my boys and I had a chance to watch an older one called Chariots of Fire. This 1981 film chronicles the story of two British athletes, Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell, as they prepared for and participated in the 1924 Olympic Games. We really enjoyed the movie and were particularly impressed by the way the film showcased Eric Liddell’s faith.

Liddell was born overseas to a missionary family for the Scottish Congregationalist denomination. His family returned to Scottland prior to the 1924 games, and Liddell was given the opportunity to compete for Great Britain. He would ultimately return to the mission field and die there while interned in a Japanese prisoner camp near the end of World War II. While some aspects of his life were either played up or reimagined for dramatic effect, the film chronicles something that really did happen: Liddell withdrew from his strongest event, the 100m sprint, when he discovered that it would require him to race on Sunday. He believed that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, and therefore that it is not a day for work or, importantly, for sports.

Liddell’s decision gave my boys and me a lot to talk about. “Is Sunday really the Sabbath day for Christians?” I asked. My boys knew that it wasn’t. There is no New Testament passage which changes the Sabbath day, which is Saturday, into Sunday, and there’s also no passage which says that Christians should treat Sunday like the Jews treated the Sabbath. While Sunday is the Lord’s Day (Revelation 1:10), the Old Testament idea of a Sabbath rest finds its fulfillment for Christians not in a restful day of the week but in an eternal rest with God in heaven (Hebrews 3:7-4:11). The fact that Christians in some places gathered on Sunday evening (e.g., Acts 20:7) may very well have been an accommodation for working Christians and/or slaves. Whether this is true or not, there is a fundamental difference between the Sabbath (a day of rest) and the Lord’s Day (a day of worship).

I shifted gears though. “If the church were meeting in a place where we were, and a sporting event or something like that happened at the same time, would it be OK to miss church?” And again, the boys knew that the answer was no, and I’m glad they did. I love the example of Paul in Acts 20. He was being chased by plotting Jews (Acts 20:3) and “was hurrying to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the Day of Pentecost” (Acts 20:16), but when a late arrival in Troas caused him to miss the Sunday assembly, he “tarried” for a full “seven days” (Acts 20:6 ASV) so that he could catch the next assembly. Paul planned his life and his travel as best as he could around worship, and so should we.

I knew this shouldn’t be the end of the discussion though. “What if the Bible says something is OK, but we feel like it is wrong? What should we do then?” My boys were a little less certain about this question; a lot of people are actually. Reflecting on Liddell’s decision, I told them how the Bible says that sometimes we might feel like one day is different from another and certain things should or should not be done on that day, referencing Romans 14:5. In times like these, I said, the Bible says that God wants us to keep our consciences. Conscientiously believing that something is wrong could make it wrong for us, even if otherwise it would be something God allows (Romans 14:22-23).

While I wanted to make sure that my boys were able to work through the decision Liddell made through the lens of the Bible, I also wanted to uphold something powerful about Liddell’s example for them and for you too. While Liddell might not have understood the difference between the Old Testament’s Sabbath and the New Testament’s day of worship, he did understand something that a lot of people do not: faith is a conviction, not a preference.

What’s the difference between a conviction and a preference? A conviction is a decision that will not change under any circumstance regardless of the consequences. A perfect example of conviction on display in the Bible can be found in the words of Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego (a.k.a. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah) as they replied to Nebuchadnezzar after he gave them another chance to worship the statue bearing his image. They said,They said there was no need for an answer because the decision had already been made. Whether God would deliver them or not from the furnace did not matter; regardless of the consequences, they would worship no one but God. This is what conviction looks like.

A preference on the other hand is different. A preference is a decision that, given the right circumstances or conditions, will change. Sometimes people confuse the two, because preferences can present themselves with great emotion, fervor, lip service, desire, and even great consistency under normal circumstances. However, when that one in a thousand or even one in a million moment comes that makes a preference too difficult to hold, a preference will be set aside.

So what really is faith: a conviction or a preference? The Hebrews author said, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV). Every example of faith that follows in Hebrews 11 shows someone who was operating on the basis of conviction, not preference. Faith by its very definition is conviction.

I did a little bit of digging into Liddell’s story in the days after we watched the movie. The Hollywood retelling had Liddell finding out about the Sunday race only when enroute to Paris; the truth is, he knew about it months in advance. If anything, this actually makes the story more impressive. One hundred years after the 1924 Olympics, BBC retold Liddell’s story in an article by Greg McKevitt entitled, “‘It's complete surrender’ – Olympics hero Eric Liddell and the true story behind Chariots of Fire.” McKevitt reports the words of fellow athlete Greville Young regarding Liddell’s decision: “It caused tremendous furore amongst many people […] They were quite menacing almost and there were cries of, ‘He's a traitor to his country.’” Young added though, “He just accepted these things, and I never remember him being upset. He said, ‘It's just my belief. I don't criticise others about it, but I'm not going to run on the Sunday.’”

The BBC article’s title contains Liddell’s reported last words before he passed: “It’s complete surrender.” I can’t think of any better way of describing what faith should be, because this is what conviction is. In another article, I also found this quote that is attributed to Liddell: “You will know as much of God, and only as much of God, as you are willing to put into practice.” All I can say is… wow.

So, is faith a conviction for you? Is it one for me? Are we holding back pockets of our life from God’s reach, or was our decision to follow Jesus one of “complete surrender”? Jesus words seem to me to be an appropriate conclusion to these thoughts: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13).

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

What will it be like to stand before Jesus as a faithful Christian on the Day of Judgment? When you hear the word Judgment and see Jesus described as a Judge in the Bible, it’s hard not to envision a courtroom setting. Though I’m sure that ancient Jewish and Roman courts differed from modern American ones, the trials of Jesus and Paul indicate that some of the elements clearly were there: a judge, witnesses, and the possibility of a verdict being rendered as guilty or innocent. Jesus even seems to bring the concept of witness into the picture when he describes the “men of Nineveh” and the “queen of the South” rising “up in the judgment” against His generation (Matthew 10:41-42; cf. Luke 11:31-32). So, is this how the Day of Judgement will work for Christians: standing before Jesus and being forced to defend oneself against a host of charges and witnesses, hoping for a favorable verdict?

Even for a faithful Christian, envisioning the Judgment this way should bring a lot of fear. Remember, from the earliest days of the church, a “faithful saying” circulated amongst the brethren, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15). This faithful saying reminds us as Christians that, given what we know about ourselves, we cannot (or should not be able to) envision a greater sinner and that we would be hopelessly and totally lost without Jesus. So, what hope would we have should we have to argue our case?

The newer hymn “Cover Me” by Mike Rogers seems to be written in part with this fear in mind. In case you are not familiar, the stanza I have in mind reads, “The room is still, as the charges are read. It’s Judgment Day, to trial I’ve been led. Then Satan turns and exclaims that I must die. Again I cry: cover Me!” Is this fear founded in reality? Is this what the Day of Judgment will be like even for the faithful?

Certain passages may lead us to think that it is. Paul for example told the Christians at Corinth, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10). If this passage were written in isolation, it would certainly seem as though we’re going to answer for all we’ve done, both good and bad. However, we should remember what we’ve already noted: if Judgement Day were really a day for measuring good and bad, we would all have absolutely no hope. The Christian life is not about doing enough good to outdo the bad; it recognizes that no amount of good can undo any amount of bad (Matthew 16:26; Romans 6:23). While works are required in order for us to come to Jesus (e.g., John 6:28-29) and while those in Jesus “should be careful to maintain good works” (Titus 3:8), it is Jesus who saves us rather than these works. The parable of the day laborers reminds us that while work is a prerequisite to receive our reward, the reward comes because of the Father’s grace and not because of the amount of work done (Matthew 20:1-16).

Reflecting on other Biblical teaching, we realize that the day of Judgment will not be a day of revisiting wrongs and answering accusers for everyone. Jesus told story after story emphasizing that, for the faithful, this day will be a day of joy (e.g., Matthew 25:21, 23), relief (e.g., Luke 16:25), and reward (e.g., Luke 19:17). The coming of Jesus is compared to a wedding feast (Matthew 22:1-14), not a dread-filled march to a day in court with Satan and others we have wronged arguing their cases against us. The hymn “Cover Me,” is correct in picturing Satan as “the accuser of our brethren […] which accused them before our God day and night,” but the statement between those two phrases is incredibly important as we envision Satan today: “is cast down” (Revelation 12:10). While I tend to see the hymn as poetically addressing a very real fear by emphasizing the power and grace of Jesus, it’s important to understand that this fear is not substantiated by Scripture.

But what about Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 5:10? This is perhaps where we need to appreciate more fully what it is to be covered by Jesus’ blood. For the Christian, whatever was done before baptism “passed away” even as each of us became “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). What about those sins we have committed after our baptism? Provided “we walk in the light” and “confess our sins” to God, “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7, 9). The unique and exclusive benefit of living as a Christian is knowing God has said of all faithful Christians, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” (Hebrews 8:12; 10:17).

Returning to 2 Corinthians 5:10, it seems to me that Paul’s words should be understood as meaning “either/or” rather than “both/and.” As we compare this verse to the scene Jesus describes in Matthew 25:31-46, it seems that the faithful will, as Paul says, “appear before the judgment seat of Christ” and receive the benefit of the good “things done in the body.” They will get to see how the things they did in pursuing Jesus were seen by Jesus Himself. What a blessing to one day enjoy “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11; cf. John 15:1-8; Galatians 5:22-23; James 3:18), a blessing made possible only because Jesus indeed allows “lawless deeds” to be “forgiven,” and “sins” to be “covered” (Romans 4:7; cf. Psalm 32:1).  

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

An internet meme I’ve seen a couple of times now features a picture of a pig and an open Bible with this statement, “Most people were taught this… PORK WAS MADE CLEAN… but Scripture never says that.” It then lists three Bible verses (Leviticus 11:7-8; Acts 10:28; Isaiah 66:17). The implication of the meme is 1) you can’t trust what you were previously taught about the Bible; 2) the Old Testament prohibition against eating pork still stands.

There is of course some merit to that first implication. Jesus began His first recorded sermon in Matthew by addressing six things his audience had “heard that” were “said to those of old” (Matthew 5:21; cf. Matthew 5:27, 31, 33, 38, 43). Jesus wanted to make sure that people knew 1) the antiquity of an idea alone does not make it right or wrong; 2) what people hold by way of tradition is not always in harmony with God’s will. While it is important to recognize that Christianity is a tradition which we have received from the apostles of Jesus (2 Thessalonians 3:6), man has a way of subtly supplanting divinely inspired traditions for human ones (Mark 7:1-13). So no, you can’t simply trust whatever is “received by tradition from your fathers,” because often this tradition contains “aimless conduct” from which you need to be “redeemed” (1 Peter 1:18).

With that being said, there are any number of voices in today’s world that seek to gain credibility by denouncing the wisdom of the past. The aim of the person(s) who made this meme was to take advantage of 1) people who had accepted this teaching without establishing in their minds what the Bible says, and 2) the fact that people don’t often consider how the Bible does and does not teach. So, let’s walk through this topic and try to address both of these aims.

To the “Scripture never says that” point, it is of course correct. However, it should immediately be added that there are a lot of things that Scripture never says that are nonetheless true. If the New Testament outlined verbatim everything that is true and false and everything that we could and could not do as Christians, as John said of Jesus, “I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). Jesus’ aim in creating the New Testament was not to create a following of legal experts who would carefully adhere to volumes of codified commandments and prohibitions, but to create a family of believers with renewed minds, changed hearts, and transformed lives. The test of whether something is right or wrong is not always dependent on whether or not the Bible says something word for word, but rather whether that thing is in harmony with what the Bible does say.

As we turn our attention back to our meme example, of course the Bible does say in Leviticus 11:7-8 that animals such as pork were declared to be unclean under the Law of Moses. The citation from Isaiah 66:17 perhaps gives us some insight as to why swine in particular were unclean. While some people believe that the dietary restrictions of the Law of Moses dealt purely with health concerns, this passage seems to indicate that the bigger problem was that eating swine flesh was associated with idolatry. Remember, the Law of Moses was not created merely to protect people from diseases (although I can’t deny that this might have something to do with it given what Deuteronomy 7:15 says); it was created to create “a holy people,” a nation distinct from all the other nations that surrounded it (Deuteronomy 7:6; 14:2, 21; 26:19; 28:9).

The inclusion of Acts 10:28 though is intriguing as this passage says nothing about swine or dietary restrictions at all. However, if a person were to go to a New Testament passage to demonstrate that pork is clean, he or she would likely go to Acts 10:11-16. In this passage, Peter is shown a large cloth full of all kinds of unclean animals. He is told, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat,” and further, “What God has cleansed you must not call common” (Acts 10:13, 15). By drawing our attention to Acts 10:28 though, the meme seems to be implying that because Peter’s eventual take away from the vision was, “God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean” (Acts 10:28), the vision is not really evidence that God declared any unclean animal to be clean.

There is a big problem with this line of reasoning though. If this is in fact the reason that Acts 10:28 has been included, the meme is accusing God of doing something ridiculous: falsely claiming that animals are clean (remember, according to the meme, this is a lie) to establish the truth that people are clean. The fact of the matter is though that God does not lie to establish truths; He doesn’t lie at all (Romans 3:4; Titus 1:2). Make no mistake about it: though the vision taught Peter something about people, it was a vision about animals. The instruction, “Rise Peter; kill and eat” makes absolutely no sense if the animals in some weird way only represented people. So, if God said the animals in the sheet are clean, then they are, and pigs were undoubtedly represented among, “all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air” in Peter’s vision (Acts 10:12).

Though the meme is attempting to misdirect people by including Acts 10:28, its premise is built upon an entirely false assumption: it assumes that we are still living under the Law of Moses. There are literally dozens of passages in the New Testament designed to help us to understand that we are not. Jesus came “to fulfill” “the Law” and “the Prophets” of the Old Testament (Matthew 5:17). He “wiped out the handwriting of requirements” these Laws contained, “And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14). The Law of Moses “was our tutor to bring us to Christ […] But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor” (Galatians 3:24-25). Jesus “takes away the first” covenant “that He may establish the second” (Hebrews 10:9). This is just a small sample of New Testament teaching on the subject. To pick and choose anything from the Law of Moses and bind it as a religious practice is “to become estranged from Christ” and to “have fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4).

Further, Acts 10:11-16 is not the only passage to which one might go to establish that Jesus has done away with Jewish dietary restrictions under His New Testament. Paul acknowledges that some Christians might follow their consciences and avoid certain foods, but asserts, “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking,” before adding, “All things indeed are pure,” and that it is only “evil for the man who eats with offense” (Romans 14:17, 20). Further, he tells Timothy, “For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:4, 5). The words “all” and “every” in these passages of course include pork.

I hope this helps you to work through this meme (and things like it) and encourages you to cultivate a habit that sees you looking deeper than 1) what you have been previously taught about the Bible and 2) a superficial view of any New Testament teaching. As Peter demonstrates in Acts 10:28, God often expects us to glean principles from what He has taught and learn through deductive reasoning. As Peter came to Cornelius’ house, it dawned on him: if animals had been declared clean by Jesus, then what he had always been taught about Jews and Gentiles could not possibly be right. You see, the law requiring “a Jewish man [not] to keep company with or go to one of another nation” (Acts 10:28) was not the Law of Moses, but the laws of tradition. So, in effect, Peter had to learn the very lessons we have to learn as well.

Over time, the modern American church has accumulated a large number of stock phrases that worship leaders use (sometimes without even realizing it). You’ve probably heard any number of these: a prayer before a sermon asks God to grant the preacher a “ready recollection of the things he has prepared”; a closing prayer asks God to “guide, guard, and direct us” before asking Him to “bring us back at the next appointed time”; a sermon ends with “come as we stand and sing”; on and on the list could go. One of the more commonly used expressions serves to mark a boundary between two actions in worship: the Lord’s Supper and the church’s opportunity to “lay something aside” as a monetary contribution to the Lord’s work (1 Corinthians 16:1-2). This expression, “separate and apart,” is meant to create a continental divide between these two actions, a divide that someone years ago felt was so clear and so important that some long-forgotten person(s) created a habit of emphasizing it twice (since “separate” and “apart” both mean the same thing).

There are of course good reasons to keep these two actions of worship separate in our minds (if not in our worship services). For starters, the Bible does not join them together. There is no command or example of the Lord’s Supper ever immediately being followed by an opportunity to give. The insistence of many worship leaders to keep these actions together “as a matter of convenience” (a statement which has itself become another stock phrase) has led some people see the contribution as kind of a “part three” to the Lord’s Supper. While it is very appropriate to give back to the Lord in light of all that He has given to us, we shouldn’t walk away from the Lord’s Supper thinking that the event it memorializes either demands a financial contribution or could ever be repaid with one. What the Lord has given us truly stands “separate and apart” from anything we might give Him.

Recently though, a worship leader did something that got me thinking about the whole “separate and apart” idea again. He introduced the Lord’s Supper with a PowerPoint slide that said, “Communion.” It’s an accurate description of the Lord’s Supper, since it is one of a number of ways this action of worship is described in Scripture. In speaking about the Lord’s Supper, Paul says, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16). “Communion” is a word that is more commonly translated “fellowship” (e.g., Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 1:9; 2 Corinthians 8:4; Ephesians 3:9; Philippians 1:5; 2:1; 3:10; 1 John 1:3; 1 John 1:6-7), and describing the Lord’s Supper as communion reminds us of the rich fellowship we enjoy with Jesus because He saved us.

Well, I think it was just an accident, but on this particular Sunday “Communion” stayed on the screen, as the worship service shifted gears, and the prayer leader introduced the opportunity our congregation would have to give. This is what got me thinking. You see, the word translated “communion” is actually used on a few occasions in Scripture to refer to a financial offering made by Christians. When Paul anticipated the Corinthians contributing to the needy saints in Judea, he described it as a “liberal sharing” (NKJV) or “contribution” (ESV, NASB), which is the same word translated elsewhere as “communion” or “fellowship.” Romans reveals that the Corinthians did as Paul hoped; he describes the offering of both Macedonia and Achaia (where Corinth was) as “a certain contribution,” with the word “contribution” once again being translated from that same word (Romans 15:26). And, when Paul speaks of the Philippians’ “fellowship” (NKJV) or “partnership” in Philippians 1:6, he likely has reference to their financial contributions to his work for which he later thanks them in greater detail (Philippians 4:15-18).

Let me reiterate, the Lord’s Supper and the collection taken up on the first day of the week are NOT the same thing even though the same term describes them. Instead, the fact that the term fellowship is used to describe them both is an indication of how rich the idea of fellowship is. When John says, “we have fellowship with one another,” describing both the connection between fellow Christians and the connection between Christians and God, he is describing an intimate, relational connection that manifests itself in mutual sharing and cooperative effort. The Lord’s Supper is a fellowship meal that serves as a solemn, needed reminder that we have been “baptized into His death,” and that it is His death that allows us to “walk in newness of life” with God and with each other (Romans 6:3-4). Our financial contribution is an opportunity to pool our resources to become “God’s fellow workers” (1 Corinthians 3:9) and further His work in this world.

We’re used to thinking of the Lord’s Supper as “communion,” but what about our Sunday offering? How should it change the way we give to know that the money we give is another way to celebrate the connection we have with Jesus and each other? Even though Scripture warns against it, too often giving can be done “grudgingly or of necessity” (2 Corinthians 9:7), and we can treat our giving more like a donation to a charity than a contribution to an effort. But really, the latter is what it is, and what we give becomes a real way to be connected to efforts that we may never physically be a part of. Because the Philippians contributed to Paul’s work, he considered them, as he put it, “partakers [a compound word formed by the prefix “with” and the word “fellowship” – PWS] with me of grace” (Philippians 1:7). Everything Paul did, they too did. Whenever we are “willing to share [again, a word etymologically linked to ‘fellowship’ – PWS]” our money and resources, we lay “a good foundation for the time to come” and “lay hold on eternal life” (1 Timothy 6:18-19).

Though we do need to be careful to make sure our stock phrases don't become "vain repetitions" (Matthew 6:7), it’s not wrong to emphasize in whatever way we choose that the Lord’s Supper and the contribution are two separate actions that we undertake in worshipping God and obeying His Word. However, it’s worth remembering from time to time that both things are ways we celebrate and participate in the rich fellowship that we enjoy as Christians.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

More than one conscientious Bible reader has come to this passage and paused: “Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation” (Mark 3:28-29). While all Biblical warnings should be taken seriously, these words carry incredible weight: “never has forgiveness… eternal condemnation.” Some variance in Greek manuscripts sometimes sees translations saying “sin” instead of “condemnation,” but the outcome is the same. If one has committed an eternal sin, he is subject to eternal condemnation. Jesus words were even echoed on another occasion, potentially applying what the Scribes did to others: “to him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven” (Luke 12:10; cf. Matthew 12:31-32).  Christians are used to singing about the “wonderful grace of Jesus” that is “greater than all my sin,” and proclaiming, “His grace reaches me.” These words in Mark 3 though seem to add a limitation to God’s grace and create a place that His grace cannot reach. Do they?

I think it’s important to interpret Jesus’ words while considering both their immediate and remote context. Though I would normally suggest the opposite as a procedure in Bible study, for Christians who might be reading this verse in genuine fear that they have already committed an unforgiveable sin, I would suggest beginning by reflecting on the remote context first. Any number of verses might be considered, but Peter’s words stand out, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). There’s a two-fold universal claim here: 1) God is not willing that any should perish; 2) God desires that all should come to repentance. To those who might be reading this text in fear, please realize, this verse and many, many other verses establish in stone the desire of God to forgive. What God desires, He is able to achieve in Jesus, who is “able to save to the uttermost” (Hebrews 7:25).

To return to the immediate context, certain scribes have just said that Jesus’ ability to cast out demons is a sign that he himself is demon possessed (Mark 3:22). Mark tells us that what Jesus says is in response to this fact (Mark 3:30). In light of this, two things occur to me: 1) There are clearly some things about the scribes behavior that are not repeatable today. We are not in the presence of Jesus and cannot see Him cast out demons, so we of course do not have the opportunity to see such a thing and attribute it to the power of a demon. 2) It’s possible that there’s simply a matter-of-factness about Jesus’ words. The scribes already had their hearts set against Jesus; if the very thing that God intended as evidence to move them out of unbelief (cf. Hebrews 2:1-4) was totally misinterpreted and maligned, what more could God do to win them?

When you fly an airplane away from an airport, there is a point that is reached which is sometimes referred to as the “point of no return.” At this point, the fuel in the airplane is no longer sufficient to return to the airport at which the flight originated. Is it possible that the scribes Jesus described had reached this point in their own spiritual journey? I would argue that it is. And is it possible for us to reach a similar point in ours? While I would argue that we can’t do what the scribes did and thus can’t commit the unpardonable sin that is described, we can so harden our hearts “through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13) that our sin becomes eternal and subject to eternal condemnation. I would never presume to know if someone had reached this “point of no return,” but I would argue that God does. Fear is probably a good sign that we have not reached that point, but faith is the only way to ensure that we never do.

It is interesting to me that Mark sandwiches this event between two other accounts. Before it, Mark lists the men who were appointed by Jesus to share in His power, men who would later become apostles (Mark 3:13-20). These men left behind everything to follow Jesus. They are joined by a multitude which pressed towards Jesus with such determination that Jesus and His apostles “could not so much as eat bread” (Mark 3:20). Whether it is the soon-to-be apostles or the others recorded in this account, the text reveals people who know who Jesus is and how important it is to be with Him.

After the unpardonable sin text comes a very different picture: “Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him” (Mark 3:31). They aren’t outside denouncing Jesus as One who is demon possessed (although at least some of them are possibly the people described in Mark 3:21 who say, “He is out of His mind”). However, they also aren’t inside the house with Him or seeking to be. No, they are satisfied with who they are and with what they have; Jesus should be with them, not the other way around. They don’t seem to be interested at least at this point in following Jesus, for Jesus’ words imply that they are not behaving like His family or doing “the will of God” (Mark 3:33-35).

As I think about these three accounts, I have to conclude that while I can’t really do what the scribes did by denying the source of Jesus’ power, I can certainly be where they are: in eternal sin and subject to eternal condemnation. Logically, I can pass the point of no return. If I’m going to avoid their fate, there really isn’t any safety in “standing outside” of what Jesus and His church are doing. Jesus’ mother and brothers were closer to the scribes when they did so than they were to Jesus. No, the surest way to avoid anything like the unpardonable sin is to run away from it. I do so by desiring to be in the house with Jesus, not by calling Him out to me, and by putting myself wherever I can be as close to Him as possible.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

The typical modern western worldview is incredibly materialistic. People reared in this part of the world are frequently taught both expressly and implicitly that everything in life is subject to scientific methods of examination. For every observable phenomenon, there must be some material explanation (even if it is not yet known); for every effect, there must be a cause rooted in the physical world.

This perspective should come into direct conflict with the Christian faith. For example, where does an answer from God to prayer fit into such a worldview? Well, it doesn’t… at least not easily. Some who embrace the western worldview while embracing faith believe that God exclusively answers prayer through the agency of materialistic causes. God heals, they might say, but only through the agency of doctors, nurses, and medicine. Their worldview causes them to see God as interacting with creation in a very hands-off, almost deistic kind of way.^[1]

There are many issues with viewing God this way. First, it is incorrect to say that materialistic explanations are always adequate. If medicine were an exact science, for example, then disease and treatment would always work the same way; every disease properly diagnosed and treated would see the same outcome. Doctors learn instead to speak of probabilities and likely outcomes instead of certainties, as some patients defy expectations through recovery while other patients expected to recover do not.

Second, God does not present either Himself or the realm in which He dwells as being totally detached from the realm in which we dwell. James for example presents God as the source of every material blessing (James 1:17). He states that our failure to ask God (or to ask Him properly) at times limits our access to these blessings (James 4:1-3), adding that righteous prayer is incredibly powerful in moving God to bring about dramatic change (James 5:16-18). The Hebrews author adds that the angels are actively serving as “ministering spirits” to us, “those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). On the other end of the spectrum, Peter warns us of the active opposition of the devil, who, “like a roaring lion,” “walks about… seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:7). Paul says that joining him are “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

So, if the Bible clearly describes both God and Satan as being active in our world, why do Christians sometimes embrace the western worldview and its detached (or non-existent) view of the spiritual realm? Sometimes, they do so because they confuse the concept of the cessation of miraculous gifts with the cessation of spiritual activity.

Christians in the first century were endowed by the Holy Spirit with miraculous gifts – nine to be exact according to the list Paul gave (1 Corinthians 12:1-11, esp. vv. 8-10). While some of these gifts may seem to be non-miraculous at first blush (“wisdom” or “knowledge” for example), it should be noted that even these were directly given “through the spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:8) and represented something given “individually” rather than something to which all had access. These gifts were given by the Holy Spirit through the agency of the “laying on of the apostles’ hands” (Acts 8:17-18; e.g., 2 Timothy 1:6).

The way these gifts were given – through the apostles – already says something about their duration. The office of an apostle is not one that Jesus intended to exist beyond the lifespan of the individuals He selected. Paul added to this the idea that the spiritual gifts apostles had and gave represented knowledge “in part” (1 Corinthians 13:9, 12) and that the intention of the Lord was for these things to pass away as the church matured and its body of knowledge – the New Testament Scriptures, described as “that which is perfect” – became complete (1 Corinthians 13:8-12). Instead of a dim mirror (knowledge derived from spiritual gifts – 1 Corinthians 13:12), the “perfect law of liberty” allows us to clearly observe our “natural face” and “be blessed” (James 1:23).

The fact that Scripture describes the end of spiritual gifts both by implication and direct teaching does not imply that Scripture declares that either God or our adversary Satan is inactive in today’s world. The passages that were referenced above relative to prayer, angelic providence, and spiritual warfare are not limited in their duration. Concerning God, I am always careful to point out that though God’s primary purpose in performing miracles – to bear witness to the message “which at first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him” (Hebrews 2:2-4) – has come to an end, God has not relinquished His power or right to interact with this world as He sees fit. Though I am cautious in applying any Biblical terminology like “miracle” to anything that happens outside of the Bible and prefer an Esther 4:14 (“who knows”) and James 1:17 (if it is good and perfect, it came from God) type approach, I never want to be guilty of trying to put God in a box or of pretending to know what I do not about all He is or is not doing.

What about Satan though and his “miracle” of sorts, the first-century phenomenon of demon possession? Since western modernity denies all miraculous activity, it naturally denies this ever existed, let alone exists today. On the odd occasion when a materialistically-minded person tries to explain demon possession, he or she will usually try to say that this was merely the Bible’s way of describing mental disorders like schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder. This really does not line up with anything but the broadest details of the biblical record; biblical demons had inhuman strength (e.g. Luke 8:29; Acts 19:16), supernatural knowledge (Acts 16:16), and innately knew who Jesus and His followers were (Matthew 8:29; Mark 5:7; Luke 8:28; Acts 16:17; 19:15). Those who had demons cast out were not described as being “healed,” as one would expect if this were merely a phenomenon inside the brain. Instead, even when cast out of people, demons had personalities and still existed (e.g., Matthew 8:31-32).

So, if real demon possession existed then, does it exist now? First, it should be noted that even though casting out demons is not explicitly described in Paul’s list of the nine spiritual gifts, it is described as a spiritual gift Jesus gave His disciples during His earthly ministry (Matthew 10:8) and one He envisioned being a part of the miraculous age (Mark 16:17). It’s possible that casting out demons was an operation under the banner of one of Paul’s nine gifts or that Paul’s list is illustrative rather than exhaustive. If casting out demons was a miraculous gift (or an aspect of a miraculous gift), the cessation of the cure points to the idea of the cessation of the problem.

Second, it should be noted that though demon possession is noteworthy and frequent in the New Testament, it is notably absent in the Old Testament. The witch at En Dor seems just as surprised as Saul when her antics manage to summon Samuel (who also was not a demon! – 1 Samuel 28:12). As for Saul himself, it’s difficult to say his “evil spirit” (KJV, NASB; “distressing” NKJV and “harmful” ESV) is a demon, since over and over again it is said to come from God (1 Samuel 16:14-16, 23; 18:10; 19:9) and the effect on Saul is very different than anything we see in the New Testament. It’s possible that the New Testament describes something new and different, where God allowed a miraculous opportunity for Satan and his forces even as He poured out the power of His Holy Spirit upon early Christians. As Jesus said, the advent of casting out demons was definitely intended as a sign that “the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:18-20).

Third, if demon possession was something that God intended to continue as an ongoing demonstration of the kingdom and its power, we would expect some teaching about 1) how to identify a demon possessed person (as opposed to a person under the influence of drugs or suffering from a mental illness) and 2) how to cast a demon out. It should remember that the encouragement, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting” (Mark 9:29; cf. Matthew 17:21) was an instruction given to those who had been given “power and authority over all demons” by Jesus (Luke 9:1; cf. Matthew 10:1, 8; Mark 3:15; 6:7; Luke 10:19). It is not merely enough to invoke the name of Jesus to cast out demons; the Bible records the account of the seven sons of Sceva who invoked the name of Jesus to no effect (Acts 19:13-16). Also, those supposed today to be “demon possessed” do not behave in consistent ways with Biblical accounts of demon possession, and the modern exorcism practices designed to cast them out are rooted in imagination, fantasy, tradition, and myth rather than Scripture.  

Fourth, prophecy may have something to say about the end of demon possession. Zechariah spoke of a day in which “a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness” (Zechariah 13:1). To borrow from William Cowper’s hymn, this appears to be a prophecy concerning “a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins,” i.e., the spiritual cleansing found in and through the blood of Jesus (John 4:14; 19:34; Acts 20:28; Romans 5:9; Ephesians 1:7; 2:13; Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 13:11-12; 1 Peter 1:18-19; 1 John 5:6-8; Revelation 21:6). In the very next verse, Zechariah writes, “‘It shall be in that day,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they shall no longer be remembered. I will also cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to depart from the land’” (Zechariah 13:2). The end of the gift of prophesy definitely seems to be described, especially in light of the verses that follow. What does Zechariah mean though by “the unclean spirit”? “Unclean spirit” is a frequent description given to demons in the New Testament (Matthew 10:1; 12:43; Mark 1:23, 26-27; 3:11, 30; 5:2, 8, 13; 6:7; 7:25; 9:25; Luke 4:26; 6:18; 8:29; 9:42; 11:24; Acts 5:16; 8:7). Though it is not a common interpretation of the text (why is “unclean spirit” singular?), it is at least possible that Zechariah saw both the miraculous gift of prophecy and demonic possessions coming to an end at the same time, some time after the opening of God’s fountain of forgiveness.

Fifth, it should be noted that the New Testament predicts a period in which people would falsely claim to cast out demons. Jesus will one day hear people He “never knew” claim, “have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” (Matthew 7:22-23). If Jesus will claim to have never known such individuals, it is clear that whatever they had done did not really involve casting out demons in the Biblical sense. One cannot falsely claim authority from Jesus and successfully cast out demons, as we see in the account regarding the sons of Sceva noted above. As I read Matthew 7, I can’t help but think of the people frequently described as “faith healers” in the modern world whom some more accurately describe as “fake healers.”  

In light of these considerations, it is difficult to argue that any demon possession like we see in the Bible exists today. What about the so-called dark arts though, things like paganism, witchcraft, black magic, and the like? The Bible speaks for example of “a certain man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people (Acts 8:9). Two things should be noted about what Simon did: 1) it does not appear to have had anything to do with demon-possession, as the context describes nothing to this effect; 2) whatever Simon did, it was something very different than real miracles, which left him “amazed” (Acts 8:13). “Sorcery” is the same word from which we get our word “pharmacy,” and points strongly to how the effect Simon and other “sorcerers” could achieve worked (i.e., through drugs). Likewise, the Bible speaks about those who “practiced magic” (Acts 19:19) but the same Greek word typically translated “magic” in Acts 19 is also typically translated “busybodies” in 1 Timothy 5:13, and again seems to speak about something fake at play (etymologically, the word in these passages is literally, “work around,” things designed to give the appearance of one thing while actually being something else).

Even though “sorcery” and “magic” both seem to have something fake about them, “sorcery” is nonetheless condemned as a work of the flesh (Galatians 5:20), “sorcerers” will find themselves excluded from heaven (Revelation 21:8; 22:15), and the Bible seems to uphold the actions of those who burned their books about “magic” (Acts 19:19). This speaks to some things that have always been true: 1) a follower of God should seek no blessing apart from Him or what He ordains as lawful and good; 2) a follower of God should neither captivate or control people as Simon did with the people of Samaria, nor allow themselves to be “brought under the power of any” person or thing besides God (1 Corinthians 6:12); 3) a follower of God should “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11).

None of the things we have discussed above denies the reality of an active enemy in Satan, or, just like with God’s work, a certain mystery about how Satan works in today’s world. Paul speaks about “the lawless one” yet to be revealed in his time, who will operate “with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10). A lot of debate surrounds what Paul means by “the lawless one,” but one thing that seems to be clear from the text is that even after the first century, Satan was/is able to use his wiles to convince people to embrace his power (real or perceived) instead of loving the truth. Still, overcoming these things and being saved does not involve an exorcism or an incantation; all one has to do is love God's truth. 

As we conclude, two things seem clear. First, we must not embrace modern materialism to the point that we no longer believe in an active God or in an active enemy. Second, we must abandon anything and everything connected with Satan and His power, and wholeheartedly and exclusively embrace Jesus and His power. Jesus’ power is sufficient to supply us with our needs and to defend us from any dangers, whether physical or spiritual. As Mary Ann Baker once wrote, “Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea, or demons, or men, or whatever it be, no water can swallow the ship where lies the Master of ocean and earth and skies.” We have nothing to fear when Jesus is near.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

One of the two things that Agur requested from God is, “Give me neither poverty nor riches” (Proverbs 30:8). He does so reasoning that either side of the wealth equation comes with temptations and potential problems: “Lest I be full and deny You, And say, 'Who is the LORD?' Or lest I be poor and steal, And profane the name of my God” (Proverbs 30:9). As sound as his reasoning is, it is sadly not the way most people in the modern world think and far from what most people would pray.

In Jesus day, most people assumed that if a person were wealthy, it was a clear indication of God’s favor. It was also assumed that poverty and/or physical ailments were likewise a sign of God’s displeasure; even Jesus’ disciples thought that “a man who was blind from birth” had gotten that way because of sin (John 9:2-3). While this way of thinking about poverty and other challenges in life is not as common today, many moderns do assume that wealth and faithful living travel together. They also tend to believe that if poor people would only work harder, exercise more self-control, and spend their money more wisely, they too would be wealthy. It’s fairly common to hear the non-biblical adage, “God only helps those who help themselves,” in today’s world.

Jesus frequently turned the whole “faithfulness brings wealth” paradigm on its head. One such occasion was when he was visited by a rich young man. When this man asked Jesus about the “good thing” he needed to do to “have eternal life,” Jesus responded with a typical list of commands from the Law of Moses (Matthew 19:16-19). The young man felt something had to be missing as he had done these things since his childhood; he asked, “What do I still lack?” (Matthew 19:20). Jesus responded with a revolutionary idea: wealth for this young man was not an indication of God’s favor; it was actually the biggest obstacle between him and the life he desired. Jesus said, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me” (Matthew 19:21).

To help His disciples make application of this lesson after the young man “went away sorrowful” (Matthew 19:22), Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:23-24). This statement confirms that the danger wealth presented to the young man could potentially trouble anyone. This point was not lost on the disciples, who responded with a question: if the rich, who they assumed were closest to God, faced a seemingly impossible chance at salvation (akin to a camel going through the eye of a needle), then who could “be saved” (Matthew 19:25)? Jesus responded with a very important statement that we will circle back to in a moment: “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

It occurred to Peter that the disciples themselves had already followed the instructions given to the rich young man. He said, “See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?” (Matthew 19:27). Jesus’ initial response was to affirm both the choice they had made as well as the affect this choice would have on others who made it. For Peter and the other disciples who would become apostles, this decision would lead to an important role in Jesus’ kingdom, the church (Matthew 19:28).^[1] Further, for “everyone” who follows these disciples’ example of self-denial and sacrifice, there will be benefits: “a hundredfold” blessings and “eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).

Jesus knew their hearts though, and he knows ours. Though it was/is not a common viewpoint in either Jesus’ world or ours, there are some who envision poverty as others envision wealth, assuming that there is something inherently holy or meritorious about being poor. From the Essenes in Jesus’ day to the monastic movements of the middle ages to the near deification of the marginalized by some in modern America, people throughout the ages have presented poverty as being next to godliness. Being poor therefore becomes the “good thing” that one must do to “have eternal life” (Matthew 19:16).

Do you remember though what Jesus said in answer to the question, “Who then can be saved?” (Matthew 19:25). The first part of his answer is very important: “With men this is impossible” (Matthew 19:26). Whether we take the common viewpoint that wealth travels with spiritual health or the less common viewpoint that poverty is true piety, in either case we have made salvation too much about us. It is absolutely true that wealth presents unique challenges and further that our sacrifices for the Lord will be rewarded; it is not true that our work either to obtain or to avoid wealth is what will bring about our salvation. To both ways of thinking, Jesus presents a corrective: “But many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Matthew 19:30).

It is important to note that the parable of the day laborers which begins Matthew 20 is actually a part of the same discussion. The word “for” in Matthew 20:1 serves to expand and explain the idea that the first will be last and the last will be first and provide a needed commentary on the whole wealth vs. poverty discussion. In the parable, a landowner hires some individuals at the beginning of the day, promising to pay them “a denarius a day” (Matthew 20:1-2). As the day progresses, he continues hiring individuals, even hiring some in the eleventh hour, each time promising to pay “whatever is right” (Matthew 20:3-7). When it is time for the workers to be paid, “beginning with the last,” each worker receives a denarius regardless of the amount of time he had worked (Matthew 20:8-10). Though the workers who had worked longer complained, the landowner pointed out that their complaints had no basis; the landowner could do what he wanted in paying wages (Matthew 20:11-15).

This parable illustrates something incredibly important. If we think that our work in pursuing either wealth or poverty is going to lead inevitably to spiritual blessings, we’re thinking incorrectly. While certain works are necessary to access God’s salvation, no work can ever merit salvation. It is in this latter sense that salvation is “not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:9). In the parable, it was the landowner’s prerogative to give as he chose. Likewise, salvation is subject to God’s prerogative to give as He chooses. The Bible teaches that God will give His salvation: to the rich and to the poor and to those in between; to those who have had the opportunity to sacrifice little and to those who have sacrificed much; to those who are newly converted and to those who have accumulated years of Christian service. And along the way, there are many who believe themselves to be first on all sides of the wealth equation who will actually be last (Matthew 19:30; 20:16). And again, salvation is only possible “with God” (Matthew 19:26).  

So how does wealth relate to spiritual health? The answer is that it doesn’t, at least not automatically. Wealth is simply a tool. While some jobs are made a lot more difficult without the right tools, even a good tool can do a lot of damage when used incorrectly. Likewise concerning wealth, as Agur’s prayer teaches us, riches and poverty both present spiritual challenges. Perhaps another Proverb would be incredibly helpful: “Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, Cease from your consideration of it” (Proverbs 23:4 NASB). Don’t make wealth your primary goal or consideration. If you have it, use it humbly and wisely; if you lack it, be content with what you have and count yourself spiritually blessed (1 Timothy 6:6-10, 17-19; James 1:9-10).

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

It appears that the early church was in the habit of using short, repeated statements as a way of teaching and maintaining their faith. Some of these sayings are recorded in the Bible in the letters that Paul wrote to the preachers Timothy and Titus (1 Timothy 1:15; 3:1; 4:7-9; 2 Timothy 2:11-13; Titus 3:8). Paul describes these as “faithful” (KJV, ASV, NKJV) or “trustworthy” (ESV, NASB) sayings, affirming their truthfulness and encouraging these preachers to continue to teach and repeat them.

The first of these faithful sayings is the Gospel in a nutshell: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15). Over the years, I have heard or seen several presentations of this text that more or less ignore the “faithful saying” part of the verse. These teachers assume that Paul was affirming this statement about his present life in Christ. The thought process is something like this: 1) In spite of all of his sacrifices and good works, Paul was still the chief of sinners. 2) Since this is true, it should be assumed that every Christian is still nothing but a sinner, and it would be prideful to assume otherwise. I’d argue that if this is true though, there’s no Gospel in the statement at all. If Jesus came to save Paul, and, even after His saving work, Paul was still nothing but the greatest sinner who ever lived, then what hope do any of us have?

I’d further argue that the context demonstrates that this interpretation misses the point of this faithful saying. Paul says very plainly in the next verse, “I obtained mercy” (1 Timothy 1:16), repeating the phrase he used earlier. He “obtained mercy” as one who “was formerly, a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man” (1 Timothy 1:13). It was in these things, not his present behavior, that Jesus had shown “all longsuffering” and created “a pattern” (1 Timothy 1:16). You see, the Gospel – the good news – is that someone can be all the things Paul was, and yet, 1) experience God’s longsuffering and 2) obtain mercy. This is the “pattern” that Paul sets – not of being a sinner in spite of Jesus’ work, but of being saved in spite of his sin. Paul was not presently the chief of sinners; no, as he had previously said, “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry” (1 Timothy 1:12).

So what then is the point of this early Christian saying? It achieves something similar to the prayer in the chorus of Dottie Rambo’s hymn, “Remind Me, Dear Lord.” She says, “Roll back the curtain of memory now and then; Show me where you brought me from, and where I could have been.” As each Christian examines his or her life and is totally honest about his or her sin, he or she should say, “If it were not for Jesus, I would be nothing but the chief of sinners. It is for my sin that He died, and without Him, I would be absolutely and totally lost.”

We can very easily be guilty of the attitude expressed in another hymn by Ira F. Stanphill entitled, “Follow Me.” In it, he juxtaposes his attitudes as a weary Christian soldier with some imagined responses from Jesus. He writes, “‘I work so hard for Jesus,’ I often boast and say, ‘I’ve sacrificed a lot of things To walk the narrow way, I gave up fame and fortune; I’m worth a lot to Thee.’” While not many Christians would be very likely to say such things out loud, it can be a great temptation to feel like this. The faithful saying, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief,” serves to keep us grounded and to remind us, like Stanphill’s hymn, that what we’ve done would amount to absolutely nothing without Jesus.  

Two back to back events in Mark’s Gospel represent two extremes in approaching Jesus. In the first event, recorded in Mark 3:1-6, Jesus is in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Present that day is a man who has “a withered hand” (Mark 3:1) as well as several Pharisees (Mark 2:24; 3:6). The Pharisees do not appear to be there to learn or to worship; no, instead, the Bible says “they watched Him,” i.e., Jesus, “closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him” (Mark 3:2). They weren’t concerned with doing right; they were concerned with being right. They would demonstrate this by telling everyone how wrong Jesus was. In their minds, they had no need of Jesus, and, seemingly, no need of God.

The second event occurs by the shores of the sea of Galilee and is recorded in Mark 3:7-10. “A great multitude” (Mark 3:7, 8) “came to Him” because of the “many things He was doing.” They did not come to judge Jesus; they recognized that they “had afflictions” and “pressed about to touch Him” (Mark 3:10). Their desperation reminds me of the amendment to the hymn “Just as I Am” by Travis Cottrell. He writes, “I come broken to be mended, I come wounded to be healed. I come desperate to be rescued, I come empty to be filled. I come guilty to be pardoned by the blood of Christ, the Lamb.” This is the opposite extreme from the attitude of the Pharisees, and is exactly the sentiment captured by the faithful saying, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”

When you gather around the Lord’s table each Sunday to remember Jesus’ death, do you remember the grace that brought you there? Another set of contrasting pictures is found at the table of Simon, recorded in Luke 7:36-50. Simon has invited Jesus to have a meal at his house. He does not see Jesus as the Son of God. No, to him, Jesus is his guest. The table is his, and the honor in being there belongs to Jesus. He doesn’t need to show Jesus any special treatment; it is enough for him to have extended this invitation to Jesus. It’s possible to partake of the Lord’s Supper with a similar attitude, almost expecting Jesus to say, “Thank you,” just because you did so.

In attendance at Simon’s house, not invited, is a sinful woman. She has no right to be there, and she will not be served anything but disapproving glances by the host, Simon. She doesn’t mind though; it is enough for her to sit at the feet of Jesus. As she sits in the presence of Jesus, recognizing Him for who He is, she cries. At the same time, she notices that Jesus’ feet are dirty. So, with her tears, her hair, and some fragrant oil she had with her, she begins to wash and kiss His feet (Luke 7:38, 45-46). It is this woman, not Simon, who hears, “Your sins are forgiven. […] Your faith has saved you. Go in peace” (Luke 7:48, 50). And it is this woman, not Simon, who represents each of us as we gather around the table to memorialize Jesus’ death.
 
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” I would argue that He succeeded, and that’s good news! I would also argue that if it were not for Him and His glorious work of salvation, only that last part would be true: “I am the chief of sinners.”

-Patrick Swayne 
patrick@tftw.org

Have you ever heard the story before about a farmer, his wife, and their old pickup truck? In case you haven’t, it goes something like this: one day a farmer and his wife were driving down the road in their old truck. This truck had bench-style seating instead of a middle console. The farmer’s wife was sitting at the opposite end of the cab from her husband. She said, “Honey, when we were newlyweds, we used to sit right next to each other when we drove in this truck. Now look at us. What happened?” The farmer thought for a moment and then replied, “Well darlin’, I don’t know, but I haven’t moved.”

Sometimes, either through the preaching or teaching of a fellow Christian or the example someone sets as they live out their faith, we become aware of the distance between us and God. The best possible response when we recognize that distance of course would be to ask, “What role did I play in creating that distance, and what can I do now to close that distance?” This was the response of some of the audience gathered in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. When they heard Peter and the other apostles preach the reality of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection and recognized their role in crucifying Him, they asked, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37).

The reason this audience wanted to do something was because the message Peter preached “cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37). This is what the Word of God is designed to do. The Hebrews author says, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). Every encounter with Scripture is an exploratory surgery. Sometimes, because the Holy Spirit has already been at work with His inspired Word, the surgery confirms that there is no issue (Romans 8:16). Sometimes though, the surgery uncovers a cancerous mass of sin that needs to be removed. It is sin that separates, or creates distance, from God (Isaiah 59:1-2).

When literal cancer is discovered, sometimes patients refuse treatment. Likewise, sometimes people who become aware of the distance between them and God because of sin don’t take positive steps like the people on Pentecost to do something about it. Similar language to that found in Acts 2:37 is used to describe the audience that heard Stephen’s sermon: “When they heard these things they were cut to the heart” (Acts 7:54). Rather than ask “What shall we do?” though, this audience “gnashed at him with their teeth […] And they stoned Stephen” (Acts 7:54, 59).

This “shoot the messenger” response is unfortunately probably the most common response when people learn about the distance between themselves and God. God has specifically chosen “the foolishness of  the message preached to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). Since there cannot be a “message preached” without “a preacher” (Romans 10:13-16), this means that an imperfect messenger is God’s primary vehicle for delivering His perfect message. This presents any number of opportunities for those who aren’t looking to change. They can easily dismiss the message because of the real or perceived faults of the messenger (e.g. 2 Corinthians 10:10) or, like Stephen’s audience, they can deflect their attention from themselves to someone else. No person makes for an easier target in this moment than the one who raised the issue in the first place, i.e., the messenger.  Sometimes when a message or a faithful example offends, the thought process of the offended person can be, “If I could only defeat the messenger, then I would prove that I am right.”

The lengths to which people will go in such efforts is incredible. One day in a synagogue, a group of Pharisees gathered to see what Jesus would do with a man in attendance “who had a withered hand” (Mark 3:1-2). Jesus not only healed the man on this occasion; he also called out the Pharisees by asking them a searching question (Mark 3:3-5). The Bible says, “Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him” (Mark 3:6). This is a pretty incredible outcome. The Herodians were members of an opposing sect of the Jews; as the name suggests, this sect in particular tried to curry political favor with Herod, a gentile king. For the Pharisees, Jews who emphasized purity and purposeful disconnection with sinners and gentiles, this meeting is incredibly out of character. Today, people cross similar lines when they turn to Google to find arguments against a given Biblical teaching or practice. If they find something that agrees with them, then it doesn’t really matter what else the source they discover teaches or does; all that matters is that they have corroboration for their point.

Of course, sometimes people do manage to separate the messenger from the message but still don’t respond in the right way. Like the farmer’s wife in the story above, they blame God for the distance. However, just like the farmer, it is not God who has moved. God never moves!

Ezekiel envisioned a conversation between his people and God, “Yet the house of Israel says, 'The way of the Lord is not fair.' O house of Israel, is it not My ways which are fair, and your ways which are not fair?” (Ezekiel 18:29). Whenever our response to God’s Word is, “That’s not fair,” or, “I don’t think that should matter,” or, “The Bible’s wrong for saying that,” or other statements like these, we’ve really not understood what we’re saying and what we’re doing. We’re saying that God is right and we’re wrong (which is never true – Romans 3:4), and we’re effectively trying to sit in God’s seat and judge as though we were God. Isaiah describes how ridiculous this is when he says, “Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker—An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?' Or the thing you are making say, 'He has no hands'?” (Isaiah 45:9 NASB). God, our Maker, has every right to tell us we are wrong and encourage us to change.

When we hear or see the Word of God preached, taught, or lived in the life of a fellow Christian and become aware of our own sin, we need to fight the temptation to be angry at the person or at God. Our wrath in such a moment will never work God’s righteousness (James 1:20). We need to learn to slow down and listen without speaking or reacting (James 1:19). It’s natural and good for us to test the messenger and his message against the Bible (1 Thessalonians 5:21; 1 John 4:1). If the message is true, then it is time for us, not God or anyone else, to move. As Acts 2:37 and Acts 7:54 illustrate, the difference between a lifegiving surgery and a potentially mortal wound lies not in the skill of the surgeon but the response of the patient. May God help us to develop soft hearts, open ears and eyes, and eager minds.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

The Holy Spirit points out on two separate occasions that the members of the early church were incredibly generous in responding to each other’s needs (Acts 2:44-45; 4:34-35). The fact that it then goes on to highlight the generosity of a man named Joseph (who earned the nickname “Barnabas”) is worth noting (Acts 4:36-37). Just as Michael Jordan did in those dominant 1990’s Chicago Bulls basketball teams, Barnabas evidently shined brightly in a team full of stars.

Pausing over the details, we can see the picture the text paints which demonstrates why his generosity was so noteworthy. The text says that Barnabas was from Cyprus. Since the Gospel had not yet gone to Cyprus as of Acts 4 (it would only do this later after the persecution of Saul, cf. Acts 11:19), it’s reasonable to conclude that Barnabas had been converted on a trip to Jerusalem, perhaps on the day of Pentecost itself. Like the Pentecost converts, he had evidently determined to stay in Jerusalem so that he could continue “steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine” (Acts 2:42). This decision would have meant that he had to establish an entirely new life for himself in Jerusalem, including finding work and a new place to stay. His land in Cyprus would have served as both a tether to his old life and an emergency fund if things didn’t work in Jerusalem. By both selling it and giving away the money, he cut the tether and deprived himself of the security it provided. It’s no wonder that the apostles called him, “Barnabas,” literally, “the son of encouragement.” To the Jewish mind, “son of encouragement” would have meant something like, “one who is equal to encouragement,” or perhaps, “encouragement personified.”
 
There were probably other things that earned Barnabas his nickname besides his generosity. Though we aren’t told as much about Barnabas’ life as we might like to know, the story of his life that we are told is one littered with encouraging actions. When Saul (who would later be known to the world as Paul the apostle) first became a Christian, people had a hard time believing his conversion was real. He had been notorious both for being a Pharisee (Acts 23:6; 26:5; Philippians 3:5) and for being a great persecutor of the church (Acts 8:1-3; 9:1-2; 22:3-5; 26:9-11; 1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13; Philippians 3:6; 1 Timothy 1:13). When soon after his conversion, Saul “tried to join the disciples,” the Bible says, “they were all afraid of him, and did not believe that he was a disciple” (Acts 9:26). The very next verse says though that “Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus” (Acts 9:27). Barnabas believed every detail of Saul’s story and recommended that Saul be extended full fellowship as a Christian brother.

Barnabas’ decision shows a great deal of trust. Had Saul been pretending, Barnabas might have been among the first to be arrested and perhaps even killed. Even if he somehow escaped this, he might have born the weight of knowing that he had personally brought persecution into the midst of the church. However, as an encourager in tune with the heart of a God who “is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), Barnabas knew that trusting Saul in full forgiveness of his past was the right thing to do. After all, as Saul himself would later write, love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7).
Barnabas therefore shows us that two kinds of trust are incredibly important in the Christian life. One, we must trust God enough to be courageously generous with what he has given to us. Two, we must trust others, even if it comes at a risk or a potential cost. However, Barnabas also teaches us that trust can go too far.

Barnabas would eventually trust Saul so much that he would seek him out and enlist him in the work he had started doing with the church in Antioch. Through their efforts, the church at Antioch grew to the point that it was able to send the two of them out as missionaries. At some point either before they were sent out or, perhaps more likely, after they had returned from their first mission trip, Peter made a visit to Antioch. Everything went well until “certain men came from James,” and Peter, “fearing those who were of the circumcision,” “withdrew and separated himself” from the Gentile Christians in the church there (Galatians 2:12). “The circumcision” is rendered “the circumcision party” (ESV) or “the party of the circumcision” (NASB) by some translators in an effort to point out that it was not merely those circumcised but those who thought everyone, whether Jew or Gentile, needed to be circumcised in order to be faithful to God. These individuals pressured Gentile Christians to adopt Jewish customs (principally circumcision) and withdrew their fellowship from them if they did not do so.

Unlike Peter, Paul never lost sight of “the truth of the gospel” regarding this matter (Galatians 2:14). He knew that the Gospel had made it so, “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing” (1 Corinthians 7:19). He also knew that forcing people to be religiously circumcised in order to enjoy fellowship with Jewish Christians represented a partial return to the Old Law, i.e., the Law of Moses. He knew that God would not be pleased with this “pick and choose” mentality concerning the Old Law. Those who turned to part of it would have to turn to all, and in so doing it could be said of them, “You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4). Paul saw it all very clearly, so he went to Peter and “withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed” for both a breech in the fellowship of the church and for the potential his actions had to lead individuals away from grace.

The text says something different about Barnabas in all this: “And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy” (Galatians 2:13). So why was Barnabas, a missionary to the Gentiles who had perhaps spent years enjoying fellowship with them without requiring religious circumcision, now shunning those who weren’t circumcised? I would suggest: 1) it wasn’t because he was “of the circumcision” party; 2) it wasn’t because he feared those of that party like Peter did; 3) it certainly wasn’t because he harbored any prejudice towards Gentiles. The text says he “was carried away,” but this also does not mean that Barnabas was a “jump on the bandwagon” type of person. Remember, he was prepared to stand alone with Saul and believe his conversion story when everyone else was afraid. I would suggest the reason was trust; whether he trusted Peter, the ones who came from James, the other Christians who were caught up in this, or some or all of the above, he acted based on trust rather than “the truth of the Gospel” (Galatians 2:14).

When does trust take us too far? It is not when we take a step in faith that robs us of some degree of stability or security. It is not when we believe someone’s story about themselves. It is also not when trusting someone puts us at a disadvantage or potentially causes us to suffer loss, or when we forgive someone and give them a second chance. The story more commonly told regarding Barnabas involves him trusting a young man named John Mark after this man had previously disappointed him (Acts 12:25; 13:5, 13; 15:36-40). Giving John Mark a second chance seems to have made an eternal difference in his life (Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 1:24). No, trust only goes too far when it causes us to lose sight of “the truth of the Gospel” (Galatians 2:14).

May God help us to learn from Barnabas to be more trusting people. May He also help us not to trust anyone so much that we lose sight of what His Word says.  

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

You open your eyes and see nothing. No matter how many times you blink, no matter how much you rub your eyes, all you can see is darkness, darkness so thick that you could cut it with a knife. You get on your hands and knees and crawl across the ground, dizzy from the loss of one of your sensory perceptions. People walk to and fro around you, bumping into you and stumbling over you whenever you cross their path. They yell at you, telling you to get out of the way, but do not offer a helping hand. You hear the laughter of children and then feel the shove of a small hand on your side. Had you been able to see, the shove wouldn’t have meant anything, but in this impaired state, you fall over. Kicked and stepped on, you finally make it to a wall and prop your back up against it. Your state is hopeless; you feel helpless. But then, you feel something land on your lap. You pick it up and feel the shape and features of a coin.

If you followed along, you have just stepped into the weary and worn shoes of blind Bartimaeus. To imagine a day in this man’s shoes is difficult for many of us. One of the things many of us take for granted the most, besides perhaps the sun that shines on our heads and the air that we breathe, is our God-given ability to see. It is truly a blessing to be able to open our eyes each day and see the wonders of God’s green earth: “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).

However, a far greater blindness than the one Bartimaeus experienced darkens the eyes of many today: the blindness of sin exacerbated by turning a blind eye to the word of God, the only lamp that provides any light unto our spiritual path (Psalm 119:105). As pitiful as Bartimaeus’ situation was, it is nothing compared to the plight of a soul separated from God. Thankfully for Bartimaeus, a solution to his problem was near. And thankfully for the blind sinner, the same solution to an even greater problem likewise is near (cf. Romans 13:11). Jesus was the answer to Bartimaeus’ blindness, and that same Jesus is able to save people from their sins and thus their spiritual blindness (Matthew 1:21; Luke 4:17-21).

Some obstacles stood in the path between Bartimaeus and the answer to his blindness. The first obstacle was the blindness itself; he could not see Jesus even though He was walking down the very highway on which Bartimaeus sat and begged. Fortunately, Bartimaeus still had his ears, and as the Bible records, “he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth” (Mark 10:47). Bartimaeus believed that Jesus was near but also knew that this was not enough for him to receive his sight. As a result, he tried to call out to the Lord, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47). The second obstacle then reared its head: those around him “warned him to be quiet” (Mark 10:48). Thankfully, these people did not stop Bartimaeus, who “cried out all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’” (Mark 10:48). Jesus heard, “stood still and commanded him to be called” (Mark 10:49).

Some obstacles stand between the blind sinner and Jesus as well. The sinner is surrounded by the blinding influence of the world and false religion. His schools have taught him that he is nothing more than an animal. People he thought to be religious have told him that one religion is as good as another. Yet, the sinner still has ears if he will listen: “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).
Having heard the pure Word of God ring out in a multitude of darkness and having believed it, a sinner can call out to the Lord by obeying His simple commands to repent, to confess the name of Jesus, and baptized, just like another formerly blind man was told: “Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). Sinners must ignore other obstacles like the cries of their friends and family who try to silence them by saying things like “It is silly to be baptized,” or, “One church is as good as another,” or, “You don’t need Jesus.” No, they must cry even louder to the Lord by obeying His voice. Upon doing so, a sinner is called by Jesus in that he or she becomes one of the “called out” – a member of the church (1 Peter 2:9). The sinner is no longer lost and no longer blind.

Bartimaeus asked and received his sight. A sinner has only to call upon the name of the Lord in faithful obedience in order to receive the remission of his sins and his spiritual sight. However, the story must not end there; it did not end for Bartimaeus. In the parallel account recorded in Luke 18:35-43, we learn that after he was healed Bartimaeus “followed Him, glorifying God” (Luke 18:43). The Christian, whose sins have been cleansed by the saving blood of Christ, must faithfully follow Jesus all the days of his life (Revelation 2:10). The person who dies a faithful follower of Jesus will be rewarded by the “Rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6), just like Bartimaeus was.                  

-Patrick Swayne

In the movie The Princess Bride, there is a scene in which the villain, Prince Humperdinck, is attempting to marry a young maiden named Buttercup against her wishes. Fearing that his sham of a wedding ceremony is at risk of being halted due to some commotion outside of the castle where the ceremony is being held, Humperdinck tells the officiant, “Skip to the end.” When things are still moving too slowly for his liking, he tells the officiant, “Man and wife. Say, ‘Man and wife.’” The confused clergyman says, “Man and wife,” and Buttercup is rushed away.

Later, when Buttercup’s true love, Westley, appears to rescue her, Buttercup laments, “Oh Westley, will you ever forgive me?” explaining, “I got married. I didn’t want to. It all happened so fast.” Confidently, Westley told her that it never happened. He asks, “Did you say, ‘I do’?” Buttercup responds, “Well, no, we sort of skipped that part.”

It’s pretty widely acknowledged that certain things simply cannot be done unless… well, they are. A person can’t simply declare himself to be married, nor can even a qualified marriage celebrant simply declare two people to be married apart from their wishes. A successful marriage involves three things in agreement: human intention (i.e., of a man and a woman to marry each other), God’s will (i.e., God’s word identifying two people as able to be married, and God’s action in joining them together), and obedience to societal laws or customs (i.e., being subject to the governing authorities and their rules about marriage, which God calls us to do – Romans 13:1-2). None of that can be “skipped.”

When we come to difficult instructions in the Bible, it becomes very easy to… sort of skip that part. Some of the greater temptations to do so surround Jesus’ instructions regarding conflict inside God’s family, “the church.” Jesus says,


As we reflect on this teaching, we see several things that we must not skip.

First, don’t skip to the end. It is becoming very common in today’s world to hear people promote setting boundaries for yourself, pursuing self-care, and protecting yourself in moments of intrapersonal conflict. There is definitely some wisdom to these things; after all, the Bible says, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8). It’s hard to love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself to some degree! At the same time, Timothy was warned that “perilous times will come” when “men will be lovers of themselves” (2 Timothy 3:1-2). It is reasonable to protect yourself from imminent danger. It is unreasonable though to use self-care as an excuse to skip all of Jesus’ instructions until you reach one that you like such as, “Let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector” (Matthew 18:17). Jesus did not die on the cross so His followers could build walls between one another; in fact, He died to break down walls of separation (cf. Ephesians 2:14).

Second, don’t skip the word “sins” (Matthew 18:15). Sometimes in intrapersonal conflict, people confuse the word “offense” in the Bible with the idea of being offended. Offense in the context (Matthew 18:7) is not talking about when somebody does something I don’t like or even something that produces a negative emotion in me. Instead, it’s talking about when someone does something sinful against me or to lead me into sin, as per the previous verse, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin” (Matthew 18:6). Likewise, the word Jesus uses in our text is “sins.” Sin is defined in Scripture as lawlessness (1 John 3:4), pointing to the reality that God’s law defines what is or is not sin. When we feel offended, we need to pause to make sure that it is God’s standard and not ours that has been broken. These two standards are simply not the same (Isaiah 55:8). In the case of something that is only an offense against my personal standard, while it may be wise to follow Jesus’ next step (“go and tell him his fault between you and him alone”), the rest of the text does not apply.

Third, don’t skip the first step that involves another person: “go and tell him his fault” (Matthew 18:15). Have you ever been totally unaware of something that was very obvious to others? I think any honest person would admit he or she has. Even though we might be aware of this about ourselves, sometimes we fail to see how that same thing might apply to others. “He ought to know better,” we might think, or, “She should know how this affects me.” We need to operate under two assumptions in order to follow the example of love, which “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). First, we need to ascribe the best possible motives to the behavior of our brothers and sisters until their repeated, unrepentant, sinful behavior keeps us from doing so. Second, we need to believe that our brothers and sisters in Christ will make their wrongs right if they are given a chance to do so. 

Fourth, don’t skip the word “alone” (Matthew 18:15). Our natural tendency when we are hurt due to the behavior of someone else is to find someone to agree with us about what has happened. Unfortunately, another natural tendency really hurts us here: the tendency to believe the first one who speaks to us about any conflict (Proverbs 18:17). Talking to another person first is typically counterproductive. First, it reinforces the negative feelings the behavior has stirred up as we relive the event through retelling. Second, because the person we are talking to is likely to agree with us, it reinforces our feelings of superiority and indignation, removing the “spirit of meekness” Paul encourages us to put on in our approach (Galatians 6:1). Third, rather than cover sins as love does (Proverbs 10:12; 1 Peter 4:8), it expands the impact and influence of sins.

As a side note, Christians sometimes struggle with what to do when someone has skipped this important part and has come to them wanting to talk about a problem with another person. What should a Christian do when this happens? For starters, don’t be afraid to refuse to hear something. It may seem unfriendly and unloving to turn away someone who has come to you wanting to talk, but it is actually more unfriendly and unloving to facilitate sinful behavior. Someone sinned against can actually become a sinner by ignoring Jesus’ command in Matthew 18:15 and choosing instead to become a talebearer or a gossip, which is frequently condemned in Scripture. Asking simple questions like these will help you determine a person’s motives and intentions: 1) Have you talked to this person? 2) When are you planning to do so? 3) Why did you come to me first?

If a person genuinely seems interested in obeying Matthew 18:15 and simply needs advice or help in doing so, recognize that taking an advisory role creates several obligations. First, because you cannot simply trust the first thing you hear and because some matters are not as black and white as a hurting person might believe them to be, you owe it to the supposed offender to eventually hear his or her story. It is foolish to draw conclusions before you have truly heard a situation out (Proverbs 18:13), and you simply have not heard a situation out when you have only heard one side. Second, though a person might not have sinned against you, if he or she really has sinned against God, you need to be a part of the effort to “restore such a one” (Galatians 6:1). Third, while it is best if the one who is directly sinned against leads in any restoration effort (this is what Jesus says!), if he or she refuses to do so, it does not free you from your obligation to talk to someone in sin and seek his or her repentance. Strangely, sometimes people who are told something negative about a fellow Christian see any continued involvement in the matter as gossip, when in fact involvement is what is required of any true peacemaker.

Fifth, don’t skip the goal in all of this: “If he hears you, you have gained your brother” (Matthew 18:15). Note carefully, the aim of confrontation after we have been sinned against is not: 1) to get restitution for perceived or real loss, 2) to get a satisfactory apology, 3) to be vindicated or proven right, or anything like this. Jesus wants us to be focused on one thing: gaining our brother back. If sin has driven our brother towards Satan and driven a wedge between the two of us, restoring that brother and removing that wedge should be the only thing that we are interested in. We should try our best to remember the father in Jesus’ parable about the prodigal son who was more interested in his son’s return than in his confession (Luke 15:11-32). It is very appropriate for someone who truly repents to apologize and make restitution where possible (2 Corinthians 7:10-11), but we should be more interested in a soul than we are in our own satisfaction. As the very next parable Jesus tells in Matthew 18 demonstrates, we should be ready to offer full forgiveness to our brother, remembering the forgiveness that we have received from our God (Matthew 18:21-35).

Sixth, don’t skip the part involving two or three witnesses: “But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that 'By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’” (Matthew 18:16). “Witness” here does not refer to people who testify to the brother or sister’s sin (since they would be expected to carry out the first step themselves). Instead, it refers to impartial witnesses who can establish “every word” between you and the one with whom you are in conflict (Matthew 18:16). Like the situation envisioned in 1 Corinthians 6, each witness should be “a wise man among you” who is able “to judge between his brethren” (1 Corinthians 6:5). Jesus assumes in the text that a brother or sister really has sinned, but a possible outcome of bringing impartial witnesses is that they may 1) determine the conflict is not over a matter of sin but of opinion or personal standards, 2) determine that both of you bear fault in the matter at hand, or 3) determine that you alone are actually the one who has sinned and the person you are accusing is innocent. It is incredibly important to obey Peter’s command in this step of the process, “Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility” (1 Peter 5:5).

Connected to this point, it is important for those called as witnesses not to skip what is expected of them: “if he refuses to hear them” (Matthew 18:17). It is impossible to hear someone who is silent. Further, the word translated “witness” is connected to the verb frequently translated in the New Testament as “testify.” Therefore by definition as well as according to Jesus’ words, witnesses are not supposed to keep silent. No matter which of the four outcomes discussed above is discovered through the mediatory process Jesus envisions (i.e., 1) there is no sin, 2) the accused brother/sister is in sin, 3) both the offender and offended are in sin, or 4) the one claiming to be offended is in sin), the witnesses are called by Jesus to speak, to join the chorus seeking restoration and unity.  

Seventh, don’t skip the instructions related to the church: “And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church” (Matthew 18:17). Once an offended person and two or three impartial witnesses have been unable to encourage someone to repent, Jesus envisions 1) the whole church being told and 2) the whole church speaking to the brother or sister in sin. This rarely followed step is described as a last-ditch effort to try to win back the person who has sinned. It is not standing against the person; it is standing with God and all the angels, who long for the person’s repentance and restoration.

Eighth, don’t skip the final instructions, but also don’t skip why the rest of the Bible says they are there. Only at the very end of this process which now involves the whole church does Jesus say concerning the unrepentant sinner, “let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector” (Matthew 18:17). Heathens (“gentile” – ESV, NASB) and tax collectors were people on the fringe of the Jewish world with whom most Jewish people did not regularly associate. Peter explains typical Jewish behavior towards these individuals when he tells Cornelius, “You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation” (Acts 10:28).

Is the goal though simply to cut these people off and be through with them? Other passages which speak about this subject help us to understand what Jesus is commanding here and why:

• “Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them” (Romans 16:17).
• “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. ” (1 Corinthians 5:4-8).
• “But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person” (1 Corinthians 5:11).
• “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted” (Galatians 6:1).
• “And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother” (2 Thessalonians 3:14-15).
• “Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned” (Titus 3:10-11).
• “Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20).

When these passages are considered alongside of Jesus’ words, a very different goal appears. The goal is not to cut off or be through with a person, but 1) to acknowledge across the entire church that a person is in sin and therefore in real spiritual danger; 2) to cut off normal, friendly, brotherly relations to send a clear message to the sinner regarding this spiritual danger; 3) to encourage all contact with the sinner to work exclusively towards repentance and restoration; 4) to protect the church from the leavening influence of sinful behavior. Some people claim such a process would only drive a person further away, but the one example of this process being carried out in Scripture at the church at Corinth resulted in repentance (2 Corinthians 2:5-11).

Jesus words as well as the many other passages which support them represent some of the most ignored words in all of the Bible. But can we – should we – just skip this part of Jesus’ will for our lives? As Christians, we know that Jesus’ words “will judge [us] in the last day” (John 12:48). Matthew 18:15-17 records Jesus’ words. Let’s make sure we don’t have to give an answer one day regarding why these words were never followed in our local congregation of His church. If we skip Jesus’ words about forgiving others, He will one day say regarding our own forgiveness, “It never happened” (cf. Matthew 6:12, 14-15; 18:35; Mark 11:25-26; Luke 6:37; Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13).

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

“We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). This simple statement forms the backbone of the entire Bible, as it summarizes Scripture’s story about the actions of a loving God to seek and save fallen man. Not only is the statement beautiful; it is also revolutionary when compared to other books of religion and philosophy. Manmade holy books and their corresponding religions do not tell the story of God seeking man. Instead, they describe how man can seek or even in some cases become God, a noble, but ultimately fruitless endeavor. “Who has ascended into heaven, or descended?” (Proverbs 30:4). The answer remained, “No one,” until God came down to enable man to go up (cf. Ephesians 4:8-10).  

Two pictures summarize on the one hand the emptiness of manmade faiths and on the other the efficacy of the faith once and for all delivered by God (Jude 1:3). Interestingly, both involve the voluntary shedding of blood, and both occur on mountains.

To view the first picture, we must ascend to the top of Mt. Carmel, located at the northern extent of Biblical Israel’s ancient territory. Here, over 2700 years ago a prophet named Elijah waged a war for the hearts and minds of a nation torn between serving the God of heaven and serving the gods of the earth. Addressing his fence-sitting audience, Elijah said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21).

To settle the matter for those seeking the truth, Elijah challenged 450 prophets of Baal to a test. They would call upon their god to send fire to consume their offering while He called upon the one true God to consume his. Students of biblical history know how the challenge ended. God consumed Elijah’s offering, but Baal, deaf, dumb, and dead as he was, was of course powerless to consume the offering made by his prophets.

The picture as it stands teaches a very clear lesson, but we can learn more by looking closer. To call Baal’s attention to their pleas, his prophets tried everything. They spent half a day crying to Baal, even leaping upon the altar in their frustration. After midday, the record says they took even more drastic measures, “So they cried aloud, and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them” (1 Kings 18:28). The prophets thought that if they shed their blood, Baal would spring into action (it was even “their custom” to call upon him in this way!). Of course, there was no action, because there was no Baal. He was a figment of their imagination.

Herein lies the tragedy of this first picture: the manmade faith and the god it upheld were powerless to honor the sacrifice of the prophets. Their blood flowed to heaven, but no voice responded and no hand was extended. It is exactly the same with each pursuit of every philosophy and every faith created by man.

The second picture we will consider is even more tragic, though for a different reason. From Mount Carmel, we travel south to a hill called Mount Calvary (Luke 23:33), also sometimes called Golgotha, literally, the place of the skull (Matthew 27:33; Mark 15:22; John 19:17). On this hill over 700 years after the events that formed our first picture, Jesus, the sinless Son of God, was crucified by wicked, cruel, indeed, “lawless hands” (Acts 2:23). The conclusion of the events of that tragic day is recorded by John: “But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out” (John 19:34).

In this picture lies a beauty that far exceeds its tragedy. You see, in manmade faiths like the one held by the prophets of Baal, the blood will always flow the wrong way: from man to heaven. Because of this, the results will always be the same: nothing of any real benefit, whether earthly or eternal. The Christian faith is entirely different, and this is what makes it beautiful. The blood that flowed at Calvary did not flow from man to Heaven but from Heaven to man. God did not ask for our blood; instead, He gave the blood of His only begotten Son (John 3:16; Acts 20:28; Romans 3:25; 5:9; Ephesians 1:7; 2:13; Colossians 1:14, 20; 1 Peter 1:18-19; 1 John 1:7).

Can you see why John said, “We love Him because He first loved us”? God has not called us to outdo or even to equal His sacrifice to gain His attention. He simply asks for our faithfulness. What a blessing to serve a living God instead of a dead religion!

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth’” (Matthew 28:18). More than once, I’ve asked in a one-on-one Bible study or a Bible class, “How much is all?” The answer I’m typically looking for is, “All.” However, this is definitely one use of the word “all” when we need to do a little bit of thinking in order to fully appreciate Jesus’ claim and what it means for us.
 
For starters, what exactly is “authority”? The word Jesus uses here is exousia, a very rich word with the following potential definitions: 1) a state of control over something, as in freedom of choice, right; 2) the potential or resource to command, control, or govern, as in capability, might, power; 3) the right to control or command, as in authority, absolute power, warrant; 4) the power exercised by rulers or others in high position by virtue of their office, as in ruling power, official power; 5) the bearer of ruling authority, whether human (authorities, officials, government) or in the spiritual realm; 6) the sphere in which power is exercised, as in domain.^[1] We can rule out the sixth definition, given “domain” is effectively what is indicated by the later words, “in heaven and on earth.” We would do well though to keep in mind the remaining definitions as we examine Jesus’ claim alongside of what the Bible says elsewhere about exousia.

Exousia is found over one hundred times in the New Testament. Not surprisingly, a number of these references are about Jesus. Even before His post-resurrection claim to have “all authority,” “He taught… as one having authority [exousia]” (Matthew 7:29; cf. Mark 1:22) and demonstrated over and over again that He had exousia over the spiritual realm (Mark 1:27; Luke 4:36) as well as over sin and forgiveness (Matthew 9:6; Mark 2:10; Luke 5:24). His authority was noted by those whom He encountered (Matthew 8:8-9; 9:8; Luke 4:32; 7:6-8) and was only ever questioned by those who coveted it (Matthew 21:23-27; Mark 11:28-33; Luke 20:1-8).

Jesus Himself though said some things about exousia that should be kept in mind as we interpret His claim in Matthew 28:18. First, He made it very clear that exousia was something He had been given by God the Father (John 5:27; 10:18). This is in complete harmony with what Paul would later teach. Paul says that exousia was something “put… under His [i.e., Jesus] feet” (Ephesians 1:21-22) and adds elsewhere that the idea that someone would put something beneath someone else’s feet naturally exempts him from being put there (1 Corinthians 15:27). In fact, Jesus may have claimed exousia over heaven and earth but added that the “times” and “seasons” remained in the Father’s “authority” (Acts 1:7) as well as “power [exousia] to cast into hell” (Luke 12:5). Paul indicates that the aim of Jesus is to return His authority to the Father “that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:24, 28).  

Second, Jesus made it very clear that exousia was something He intended to share. Several references are made to the exousia Jesus gave to His disciples as He sent them out to cast out demons and perform other confirming miracles even as they preached the coming of the kingdom (Matthew 10:1; Mark 3:15; 6:7; Luke 9:1; 10:19). They were given this power to confirm the revelation of “so great a salvation” (Hebrews 2:3-4; cf. Acts 8:19) and an even greater sharing of exousia, where Jesus shared and continues to share “the right [exousia] to become children of God” (John 1:12), the “right” to partake of a special altar of forgiveness (Hebrews 13:10), and the opportunity to escape death’s “power” (Revelation 20:6). This opportunity and the corollary blessing of “eternal life” was the very reason the Father gave Jesus exousia (John 17:2).

Jesus ultimately granted exousia to the apostles “for edification” (2 Corinthians 10:8; 13:10), that we might be both shown through their example and taught through their words “[Jesus’] commandments,” do them, and have the “right [exousia] to the tree of life” (Revelation 22:14). Some exousia has also been granted to angels (e.g. Revelation 18:1), who identify as fellow servants with the apostles (Revelation 19:10; 22:9). Like the apostles, these faithful angels use the authority granted to them to work under the authority of Jesus for the benefit of “those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14).

Third, both Jesus and the chroniclers of His life indicate the presence of exousia that gives no allegiance either to the Father or to Jesus. Reference is made to “Herod’s jurisdiction [exousia]” (Luke 23:7; a clear example of that sixth definition listed above) and the desire of Jesus’ opponents “to deliver Him to the power and the authority [exousia] of the governor” (Luke 20:20). When Pilate claimed to have exousia, Jesus did not deny it, but rather said, “You could have no power [exousia] at all against Me unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:10-11). Jesus spoke of how His disciples would be brought before “the synagogues and magistrates and authorities [exousia]” (Luke 12:11).

So, did these competing forces vanish when Jesus made His claim to have all exousia? Paul commands after Jesus’ claim, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities [exousia]” and speaks of “the authorities [exousia] that exist” (Romans 13:1; cf. Titus 3:1). He’s referring to earthly authorities, i.e., human governments and their duly appointed officers. These authorities don’t merely exist; just like Pilate’s authority (John 19:10-11), they exist by “the ordinance of God” and should be respected by Christians (Romans 13:2-4). Exousia is used to describe several earthly governing authorities in Scripture that exist even after Jesus’ claim (Acts 9:14; Acts 26:10, 12).

The New Testament speaks of many authorities that “were created through [Jesus],” (Colossians 1:16) and that exist alongside of His authority (Ephesians 3:10). While these authorities have indeed “been made subject to Him” (1 Peter 3:22; cf. Colossians 2:10, 15) and while He is the only one to whom true “power [exousia]” belongs (Jude 1:25), many of these authorities do not behave as though this is true. Paul speaks of “the power [exousia] of darkness” from which we as Christians have been “delivered” (Colossians 1:13) and yet against which “we wrestle” (Ephesians 6:12). Chief among these opposing forces is “the prince of the power [exousia] of the air,” Satan (Ephesians 2:2).

Satan has authority (Acts 26:18), and, according to the book of Revelation, even has some ability to grant authority (Romans 13:2, 4). The book of Revelation is full of references made to those who somehow were given exousia (Revelation 6:8; 9:3, 10, 19; 11:6; 13:5, 7, 12; 14:18; 17:12). It can be easy to conclude either in light of the symbolic descriptions of this power being exercised or the real world events that took place during the Roman empire that these passages indicate that all of this comes only from Satan. It’s important though to keep in mind a couple of passages from Revelation relative to exousia: 1) Jesus was then and forever remains the one able to grant “power [exousia] over the nations” (Revelation 2:26); 2) God retained ultimate “power [exousia] over these plagues” (Revelation 16:9); 3) This statement rings true in the midst of and in spite of everything else the book records: “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power [exousia] of His Christ have come” and Satan “has been cast down” (Revelation 12:10).

So how can Satan have exousia if Jesus has all of it “in Heaven and on earth” and if he “has been cast down”? While part of the answer seems to lie in the function that Satan seems to perform in testing men’s faith (cf. Job 1-2), another important part of the answer lies in a negative example in revelation where people gave “their power and authority [exousia] to the beast” (Revelation 17:13), which itself had derived power from “the dragon,” Satan (Revelation 13:2, 4). Satan often tries to convince people that he has all the power to give if people will give him their allegiance (he even tried to convince Jesus of this same thing – Luke 4:6). The fact remains though that Jesus does have all authority (Matthew 28:18) and that authorities only exist as He and His Father allow them to exist (John 19:11; Romans 13:1). Like human governments, Jesus allows Satan’s authority to exist beneath His own.

This brings us to what is absolutely the most important part of our study of exousia. Remember, exousia does have as one of its possible translations, “freedom of choice.” Students of the Bible recognize (or should) that humans have freedom of choice; the Bible’s use of exousia demonstrates how this is possible. Jesus, the one who has all exousia, allows Satan to continue to work in this world so that we can actually exercise our exousia – so that we can choose to serve Jesus or choose not to do so. Yes, as Paul points out, God does have exousia over us akin to the power a potter has over clay (Romans 9:21). Make no mistake though: the potter illustration is not intended to convince us that God has any desire to shape us in a negative way. “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone” (James 1:13)  God’s hands always and only shape for good! The potter illustration is intended rather to show that even when we refuse to be shaped into something good, we will still find ourselves as a part of God’s overall rule and His overall plan. While life lasts though, we can always be reshaped (Jeremiah 18:1-6).

Jesus told a parable that uses the term exousia in a way that helps us to understand how Jesus can have all of it while we evidently also have some of it to yield either to Him or to Satan. Jesus says that our present situation awaiting the coming of the Lord “is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority [exousia] to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch” (Mark 13:34). Jesus has granted us the opportunity to freely choose what we do in the hopes that we will be faithful so that He can reward us with much. This is demonstrated by another parable where Jesus speaks of exousia. There, the master in the parable says, “Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority [exousia] over ten cities” (Luke 19:17). How we use the freedom of choice granted to us determines whether we are likewise rewarded by our Master, Jesus.

There are many things life over which we have exousia. Peter for example reminded Ananias and Sapphira concerning their money, “While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control [exousia]?” (Acts 5:4). Several passages teach either by example or encouragement that while we have exousia we should not simply use it to do what we want: 1) Fathers had “power” over their “own will” in first century Corinth and how they would guide their daughters relative to marriage but were encouraged to keep in mind “the present distress” (1 Corinthians 7:26, 37-38); 2) Christians should not use their “liberty” to “become a stumbling block to those who are weak” (1 Corinthians 8:9); 3) Each Corinthian woman had “authority on her head,” but, like “the angels,” she should learn submission and headship and express that in culturally appropriate ways (1 Corinthians 11:10). 4) Paul had the “right” to receive the financial support of the church, but did not do so among the new converts in Corinth or in Thessalonica, fearing it would “hinder the gospel of Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:4-6, 12, 18; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-9).

Tragically and all too often, people choose to yield their authority to Satan, ignorantly or purposefully buying into his perpetual lie that it is really God who wants to take our authority, our power away. No, in reality, Jesus is the one who already has all authority, power, domain, or whatever else might be meant by exousia. Yet it is a sign of how glorious and worthy of worship He is that He willingly grants some of that exousia to us and even to Satan so that we can truly have the freedom to choose Him or not. To borrow from John, let’s not give our “power and strength to the beast” any longer (Revelation 17;13). Though it does not contain the word exousia, another passage from Revelation serves as an appropriate conclusion: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12).

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

Jesus said, “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37). What should we do though when our “yes” or “no” comes into direct conflict with the revealed will of God? Should we keep our word at the expense of breaking one of God’s commands? At first glance, this is what seems to be happening in Joshua chapter 9 when the Israelites made a covenant with the Gibeonites. Closer examination though reveals that perhaps there is more to the story.

For those who might not be familiar with Joshua 9, it is a small part of an historical narrative describing how God’s people claimed the land that He had given to them. The land is identified in multiple places as “the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites” (Exodus 3:17). God gave His people land that already belonged to others to accomplish at least four things: 1) to reward the faithfulness of Abraham and His progeny (Genesis 12:1-3, 7; 18:19); 2) to demonstrate His faithfulness in keeping promises (Genesis 26:3; Exodus 6:8; 12:25; Deuteronomy 9:5.); 3) to providentially judge the “complete” iniquity of the people who lived in the land (Genesis 15:16; Deuteronomy 9:4); 4) to create a nation that would provide a blessing to all families and nations through a “Seed,” namely, Jesus (Genesis 12:2-3; 18:18; 22:18; Galatians 3:16). So, both to promote good and to punish evil, the previous inhabitants of the land had to be driven out and destroyed (Deuteronomy 9:3).

Gibeon was among the cities of the land of Canaan given to the Israelites (Joshua 18:25; 21:17). While its inhabitants are sometimes called Gibeonites in the Bible, they belonged to the family of the Hivites (Joshua 9:7; 11:19). The Hivites are identified multiple times as one of the people groups that God wanted to be driven from the promised land. Without any mitigating factors, the Gibeonites, like all Hivites, should have been driven out and destroyed as the Lord commanded. Even the Gibeonites themselves were aware of this fact; speaking to the Israelites, they say, “your servants were clearly told that the LORD your God commanded His servant Moses to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you” (Joshua 9:24).

Joshua 9 describes a very different story than these facts would lead us to expect. When the Gibeonites heard what the Israelites did “to Jericho and Ai” (Joshua 9:3), the Bible says “they worked craftily,” developing a plan to trick the Israelites into thinking they were “ambassadors… from a far country” (Joshua 9:4-6). Their goal was to establish a covenant with the Israelites before they found out who they really were. The text records something that went in their favor: the Israelites “did not ask counsel of the LORD” (Joshua 9:14). Their plan worked perfectly; “Joshua made peace with them, and made a covenant with them to let them live; and the rulers of the congregation swore to them” (Joshua 9:15).

Three days later, the Israelites discovered that they had been tricked and that the Gibeonites really “were their near neighbors who dwelt near them” (Joshua 9:16). To a man though, “all the rulers” of the Israelites “said to all the congregation, ‘We have sworn to them by the LORD God of Israel; now therefore, we may not touch them’ (Joshua 9:19). The Gibeonites were granted a serving role in the Israelite community that from the author’s point of view continued “even to this day” (Joshua 9:27). This of course brings us to our question: is keeping our word more important than keeping God’s Word?

Perhaps the best place to begin would be to ask the question, “What did God think about this covenant? Again, the text points out that the Israelites “did not ask counsel of the LORD” (Joshua 9:14). The events of Joshua 7-8 would lead us to believe that not seeking the Lord’s counsel in this endeavor was not a good idea. Further, seeking or not seeking the God’s counsel seems to be a theme in the historical narrative going forward, with occasions of doing so or not doing so bringing about dramatic consequences. At the very least, we can conclude that it was wrong for them not to have asked God what to do.

The remainder of the chapter provides no details concerning the Lord’s impression of the covenant. However, in the very next chapter, the covenant is put to the test. When several Canaanite kings heard about the peace Gibeon made with the Israelites, they determined that rather than attack the Israelites, they would “attack Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel” (Joshua 10:4). When Joshua heard about this, he “ascended from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor” (Joshua 10:7) to defend the Gibeonites and keep Israel’s covenant.

It is at this point that God speaks. He does not rebuke Israel for creating the covenant nor
does He in any way advise breaking it. Instead, He says, “Do not fear them, for I have delivered them into your hand; not a man of them shall stand before you” (Joshua 10:8). Effectively and emphatically, God said, “Keep this covenant.” In fact, God went so far as to perform not one but two miracles, sending large hailstones down upon the opponents and causing the sun and moon to stand still in response to Joshua’s prayer (Joshua 10:12) so they could have enough time to defeat their enemies. The latter is one of the greatest miracles in Biblical history; the text records, “And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the LORD heeded the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel” (Joshua 10:14).

Later Biblical history seems to underscore the fact that the Lord supported this vow. Years later, God held the entire nation of Israel responsible for how Saul had “killed the Gibeonites,” bringing a famine for three years (2 Samuel 21:1-2). Far from being a place that was stigmatized, only brought under the protection of God’s people via obligation, Gibeon is noteworthy for having been a place where the tabernacle was set up (1 Chronicles 21:29) and where the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream (1 Kings 3:4-5). The Gibeonites even seem to have eventually been enfolded into the nation of Israel. Later biblical history sees Gibeonites involved in the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 3:7) and numbered among, “The number of the men of the people of Israel” (Nehemiah 7:7, 25).

So, the Lord was at least eventually in favor of the vow. But was the Lord in favor of it simply because it was made? Are vows so powerful that they supersede God’s commands? Were, for example, the individuals “who banded together and bound themselves under an oath, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul” (Acts 23:12) duty bound before God to do so?

Paul himself gives an emphatic answer: “Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). If it were true that human vows transcended God’s will, that statement would read exactly the opposite. Further, the Law of Moses actually made provisions for escaping vows spoken “by a rash utterance” (Numbers 30:6; cf. vv. 3-16). While these provisions do seem to have been primarily given in light of gender and family dynamics, they promote the principle that human vows do not transcend God’s will and do not have to kept at all costs.

So if that is true, why are the Israelites called to keep a vow that appears to be contrary to God’s command? A thorough study of vows under the Law of Moses leads one to the conclusion that vows seemed to dwell in the world of voluntary restrictions, voluntary freedoms, and personal choice. So, one possibility is that even though God had given them the land, He also allowed them to exercise some measure of autonomy as relates to governing it and making (or not making) agreements and/or extending mercy. The same provision seems to have existed relative to crimes subject to capital punishment. David’s sin regarding Bathsheba warranted death for them both (Leviticus 20:10), but this punishment was not carried out. Could God have allowed Israel to extend a similar leniency to the Gibeonites? Wasn’t a similar leniency extended to Rahab and her family?

There’s actually a lot of similarity between the case of Rahab and the Gibeonites. Like Rahab (Joshua 2:9-10), the Gibeonites had heard about the Israelites, their deeds, and their God (Joshua 9:9-10). Like Rahab (Joshua 2:11), the Gibeonites were afraid (Joshua 9:24). Like Rahab (Joshua 2:12-13), the Gibeonites desired mercy from the Israelites (Joshua 9:25). And like Rahab (Joshua 2:4-5), the Gibeonites told a lie to preserve themselves (Joshua 9:3-13). The difference of course is that Rahab lied to her own people while the Gibeonites lied to the Israelites. It could be argued though that both Rahab and the Gibeonites had faith (albeit an incomplete faith based upon incomplete evidence) and that God chose to providentially reward the Gibeonites just as He had rewarded Rahab.

The lasting lesson of Joshua 9 is not that we can use vows, promises, and oaths to get out of obeying the Lord’s commandments. Our word is not more important than God’s. Instead, there are at least two important thoughts to take from this text. First, if we do not consult the Lord when making big decisions in life, we might find ourselves being taken advantage of. Second, and perhaps most importantly, God expects us to keep our word as relates to sacrificing personal liberties and freedoms even if we are taken advantage of. When we keep our Word to the undeserving, we mirror our God who continually does the same thing. The transformation of the Gibeonites also demonstrates that sometimes keeping our word helps someone to have the chance to keep God’s.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

Growing up in a rural part of the state of Georgia that eventually was swallowed up by the ever-expanding city of Atlanta, I was conditioned to accept change as a part of life. One thing that did not seem to change though, at least not while I was growing up in the 90s and early 00s, was a general respect that people had for Christianity and the Bible. My hometown might have been quickly suburbanizing, but it was still in the so-called “Bible belt.” My teachers taught me amoeba-to-man evolution, but more than one of them said, “I don’t really agree with this, but I have to teach it.” My school friends weren’t members of the Lord’s church, but most were churchgoers. They believed the Bible is God’s word; they believed sex should wait for marriage, didn’t curse, and didn’t do drugs. My peers in the church were the same. In this environment, even if people didn’t fully know, do, or in other ways pursue what was right, they generally had an idea of what it was.

Ideas though don’t always or even often correlate to actions. As I grew older, I discovered that many people I knew simply abandoned that sense of right that we all knew. I don’t know what happened to many of my childhood friends outside of the church as we lost touch after high school, but I remember having a conversation with one while he was in college and I was in preaching school who described trying alcohol (something we both had been committed to avoiding when we were in high school). I learned the sad story of another friend who hated how his parents behaved while they were drunk and who told me he would never drink; he died due to an alcohol overdose. As I think about my friends in the church, it isn’t much better; far too many of them fell away from the faith, falling captive to the very things we were told in Bible classes and sermons to avoid.

What is right is established by God’s Word. God’s Word is powerful, living, and active (Hebrews 4:12); it contains the truth which can set us free from all kinds of things that enslave us (John 8:31-32). I never want to discount that power. At the same time, respecting what was right, and, especially in the case of my church peers, knowing what was right proved not to be enough for many.

I can remember going through some study books in high school classes with titles like “Biblical Truths for Today’s Teens.” Besides typically being written a couple of decades before “Today,” they honestly felt like big lists of “don’ts.” And it seemed so simple: if you just didn’t think, do, or say those clearly sinful things, things would be good and God would be happy! Again though, while the truths behind these “don’t’s” were powerful and real, they clearly were not enough.

My hometown has continued to change dramatically since I lived there. I drove through several years ago as an adult, and it was already at that time almost unrecognizable. I doubt anyone going to school, even right there in the Bible belt, would find the kinds of teachers and friends that I found. In many places outside of the Bible belt, that since of “right” has been gone for a long time (if it was ever there). More than one young adult has shared with me their reality, one of growing up surrounded by atheists and agnostics rather than churchgoers and believers. If “right” wasn’t enough in my childhood, it certainly isn’t enough now.
 
It wasn’t until several years after I finished high school that I heard a preacher talking about something that (to me at least) was revolutionary. Instead of just saying, “Don’t have sex before marriage,” he encouraged us to give some thought as to how that might be done. He described secular dating as practice for divorce and a well-traveled pathway to sexual sin. He said that “Make no provision for the flesh,” an instruction given by Paul in Romans 13:14, meant that Christians should date differently. Young men and women should vet out their prospective partners and determine their character before dating; they should establish habits that (surprise, surprise) made no provision for the flesh. It wasn’t rocket science, but no one had ever told me when I was a teen the simple things he suggested like, “Meet up in public,” or, “Don’t go over to each other’s houses if you're going to be the only ones there,” or, “Don’t sit in a parked car alone.”

There are some people who might interpret these suggestions as legalistic. They certainly could be; any time we impose a restriction that God does not impose and bind it as though it were God’s law, we are being legalistic. At the same time, we should understand that Scripture upholds taking an instruction like Romans 13:14 and doing exactly what that preacher did with it by discussing how it could be carried out practically. This is what the wisdom, prudence, and discretion that the Proverbs encourage are all about. Is the father of Proverbs 7 being legalistic when he talks about the naïve young man who passed near the house of the immoral woman and encourages his son not to go anywhere near her? No, I would suggest that he is being wise. Spiritual maturity demands that we move beyond simple right and wrong in order that we might seek what is best, “that you may approve the things that are excellent” as Paul prayed (Philippians 1:10)

Truly, “right” alone has never been enough. Adam and Eve knew exactly what was right, but it did not prevent them from ignoring it (through ignorance or intention) and doing what was wrong. “Right” is upheld and given strength by a steadfast commitment to practicality and intentionality.  Paul’s command, “do not be conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2), is not about keeping in mind a list of things that must not be done and simply not doing them. It is about thinking about the unique pressures of different places and different stages of life and adopting intentionally countercultural, otherworldly habits so as to not be shaped by them.

Christians, “we are not ignorant” of our enemy’s “devices”; there is no reason that “Satan should take advantage of us” (2 Corinthians 2:11). Let’s give God’s word real power in our lives by pursuing it in a way that’s practical and real. If we do, we’ll be equipped for whatever challenges our changing world might bring.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

Many years ago, an elderly sister motioned for me to come over to her before a Sunday morning Bible class. She had been absent for a while, and she wanted to know what our next study was going to be about. “I hope it’s not the old Bible,” she said, adding, “I hate the old Bible!” After a little probing, I came to realize she was talking about the Old Testament.

Even if there aren’t very many who would go so far as to call the Old Testament “the old Bible” or vocalize this attitude towards it, there are many followers of God that have effectively torn their one Bible into two pieces, forming two very separate books, one of which is very neglected. It’s a little too common to find Christians who haven’t spent much time with the Old Testament, let alone given it the study it deserves. Here are some reasons why every follower of God should study the Old Testament:

1. The Lord never changes (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8) – I have an idea that some people who approach the Old and New Testaments as though they were old and new Bibles also may unconsciously think that there are two Gods – one old and one new. However, the same God who inspired the Old Testament also inspired the New. No understanding of God’s nature can be complete unless it takes into account the information given in both the Old and New Testaments.
2. The Old Testament is inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16-17) – The Old Testament is not something that man put in our Bibles to confound us; it was something God gave to complete us. Paul told Timothy, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” More literally, he said that all scripture is God-breathed; it came from the mind of the Almighty! While the New Testament is Scripture, Paul references what Timothy had known from the time he was a child (2 Timothy 3:15), which could only refer to the Old Testament.
3. The Old Testament helps make us wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 3:15) – Again, the “Scriptures” Paul is talking about in this passage are those in the Old Testament. No walk with God is complete without a walk in His book; and no walk in His book is complete without a walk in the Old Testament. The reason so many received the gospel after only hearing one sermon in the book of Acts was that they had studied their Old Testaments. Paul described the Old Testament as a tutor which leads people to Christ (Galatians 3:24).
4. You can’t understand much of the New Testament without first understanding the Old (Acts 2) – The scripture reference I gave for this thought is Acts 2; many others could have been put in its place. In this passage, Peter makes no less than three direct references to Old Testament passages. Large portions of the New Testament, including Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, simply cannot be understood without a proper knowledge of the Old Testament. As Augustine once said, “The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed; The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.”
5. The Old Testament helps us to know Jesus through promise and prophecy (1 Peter 1:10-12) – Sprinkled throughout the Old Testament are incredible pictures of Jesus Christ. For example, how did the Ethiopian Eunuch learn about Christ? With the help of Phillip, he was able to discover Him in Isaiah 53. We learn about Jesus Christ not just from the gospel accounts, but from the prophetical pictures of Him in the Old Testament. The Old Testament gives us a richer understanding of who Jesus is and what He did.
6. The Old Testament provides evidence that the Bible is indeed inspired through predictive prophecy (2 Peter 1:19, 20) – Though there are far too many illustrations of this point to include here, here are a few:
   • Isaiah 44:28-45:1 names Cyrus and describes his mission as the one to return the Jews to their homeland nearly 200 years before he took power – before the people of Judah were even taken into captivity! History both confirms Cyrus’ name and his actions. People often try to date the book of Isaiah later because of this profound prophecy.
   • Ezekiel 26 describes the destruction of Tyre in fantastically precise detail. The city being made like “the top of a rock” (Ezekiel 26:14) describes to a T what Alexander the Great did when he tore down the mainland city of Tyre to build a bridge across the sea to the island city.
   • Daniel predicts the fall of Babylon and describes subsequent empires perfectly (ch. 2).
7. The Old Testament gives examples of God’s care for the righteous and His wrath towards the wicked (Romans 11:22) – The God of the Bible is a God of both goodness and severity; He is a Being that inspires both love and respect. Some people limit His love and goodness to the New Testament and further limit His judgment and wrath to the old. Yet, as stated before, the Lord never changes, and examples of both His love (e.g. His mercy towards sinful patriarchs in Genesis) and His wrath (e.g. the Noahic flood) are found in the Old Testament.
8. The Old Testament shows us what faith can accomplish (Hebrews 11) – Of course, we would all like to follow the footsteps of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but too often we fall short. Our greatest encouragement in this pursuit lies in our cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) – the living examples of men and women who overcame their shortcomings to serve God through faith. Their faith can be our faith, and their triumph can give us hope.
9. The Old Testament can help us defend our faith and hope (1 Corinthians 9:3; 1 Peter 3:15; Jude 3) – How do we know the Bible is from God? How do we know that Christianity is the only road to eternal life? The inspired pages of the Bible prove it to us. Though the Bible is not a science, mathematics, history, or geography textbook, when it speaks of these and other areas, it speaks with total accuracy. Christianity is the only religion based upon a flawless and perfect book; all others are based upon manmade documents filled with imperfections.

Many more things could be added to this list. Hopefully this is enough to establish the point: The Bible must not be divided into two different books, with one being judged to be important and the other unimportant. Instead, the whole Bible must be used; in its entirety, the Bible provides us with “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). If we desire both to stand before God and to equip ourselves against the wicked one, we must be girded with truth (Ephesians 6:14) – the whole truth. Paul made a declaration that we should strive to emulate both in our personal study and in our teaching: “For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org

Being around a new convert can be an extremely encouraging experience. For those like myself who grew up attending the gatherings of God’s people from birth, babes in Christ provide a much-needed reminder that the kingdom of Christ is a pearl of great price.

Chantelle and I were blessed to get to know one such sister at a previous congregation we attended. She was so generous and so hospitable in addition to being so clearly zealous for the Lord. She had us into her home and even let us borrow her car on a couple of occasions. However, as a candle burns brightly before it burns out, this sister also “burned out” and stopped attending church.

After we and several others tried to reach out to her, she finally told one of the brethren a major factor in her decision to quit. She had observed the behavior of the older women of the congregation (who were long-standing members) and determined that she didn’t want to be in an environment where she might become like them as she too got older.

We are quick to garner encouragement from new converts; we are also quick to judge them if they leave. We can be especially harsh when we hear reasons for leaving like the one above. However, Jesus taught us to turn judgment inward before we turn it outward (Matthew 7:1-5). What can we learn from this sister?

Upon closer examination, this sister did two things that all of God’s people desperately need to do: 1) she thought about what she was becoming as she got older, and 2) she assumed that spiritual progress ought to apply to women as well as to men. My experience has been that if God’s people think about progress for anyone, it’s about making boys into elders. Can we say that we have given much thought about making girls into worthy widows?

Obviously, widowhood is not something that God’s people should strive for; inherent in widowhood is tragedy (I’ll say more about this later). However, the Bible speaks of widowhood as a reality some will have to endure and expects women who encounter that reality later in life to have prepared themselves to become worthy of not only the church’s admiration, but also its financial support. Let’s explore the text that lays out this expectation before considering some points of application.

As the text opens, Paul encourages Timothy (and through Timothy, the church) to “Honor widows who are really widows” (1 Timothy 5:3). James encourages Christians “to visit [look after – HCSB]… widows” as a part of the practice of pure religion (James 1:27), but when Paul considers enrolling (v. 9, 11 – ASV, ESV) widows in a program of perpetual care, he tries to get Christians to think of widows beyond the common tragedy they have experienced.

In terms of her family: Does she have family that can be relied upon (v.4)? If so, she is not “left alone” and therefore not truly a widow in one sense of the word (v. 5). If her Christian family does not care for her (v. 16), they are worse than unbelievers (and ought to be subjected to church discipline) (v. 8). It is worth noting though that Paul describes widows who are worthy of support as having brought up children through good works, which possibly argues for there being something more to the honor/enrollment he commands than financial support.

In terms of her age: If a widow is under the age of 60 (v. 9), then Paul sees her as a younger widow (v. 11). Paul says younger widows will struggle with the temptation to “[live] in pleasure” (v. 6), to gossip (v. 13), or to marry again, something “enrolled” widows must not do (v. 11-12). Paul’s will for these younger women is to marry (v. 14) and avoid the fate of those who “have already turned aside after Satan” (v. 15). They too are not in Paul’s words, “really widows.”

In terms of her behavior: A widow is worthy of special honor for something much more important than her age or even her need. To put it simply, she has lived honorably before her husband died and is living that way now.

Before her husband died, she honored him as her one and only and is known for her devotion to him as “the wife of one man” (v. 9). She is also known for good works, first as relates to raising her children and second as relates to governing her home. Her home was always open to guests, and her hands were always full with works of service. She gave what she could to those who had need, and “devoted herself to every good work” (v. 10, ESV).

Now that her husband is gone, she has not lost her faith; if anything, she is more committed to God than ever and has a powerful habit of prayer (5). She is neither self-indulgent nor man crazy (v. 6, 11-12; yes, that does sometimes happen, even among older women) and doesn’t waste her time with sinful talk (v. 13). She devoted herself to good work before her husband died, and all signs point to her continuing to do so as she moves on from her loss (v. 10). This kind of woman is worthy of honor and support as long as she lives.  

This text offers many rich points for reflection. Rather than focusing on cultivating benevolent programs in local churches for the care of widows (which is a neglected and needed study), let’s consider what we as individuals can take from this text.

Some thoughts for everyone: Man’s plan for old age is retirement and enjoyment; it is a time to travel, enjoy grandchildren and family, and do whatever you couldn’t while you were working. However, the pattern for this period of life tends to play out as follows: a few good years of fun and freedom followed by a few years of frustration as the body fails and ultimately dies (Ecclesiastes 12:2-7). Man’s plan is incomplete and unrealistic at best, and at worst deepens the temptation towards depression we experience in old age. This text ought to serve as a reminder that God’s plan and man’s plan are not the same, and ought to motivate us to reconsider if we have bought into the wrong plan.

Some thoughts for widows: Sisters, you have each experienced a tragedy. God understands what you are going through – He lost a loved one too when Jesus died – and He cares about you deeply. There are references to you throughout the Bible; God has taken every step to ensure you will be provided for all the days of your life. This text is here to remind you that though you have lost the most precious and important person in your life, your life is not over; God still has a plan for you.

As hard as it might be to hear, God’s plan is for you to move on. Grief is like arthritis; the more you stay still, the harder it is to move. By all means, grieve; use the Psalms to work through the feelings of loss and abandonment you no doubt are experiencing. However, set your aim on moving on.

Moving on doesn’t look the same for everyone. Younger widows, you can see God’s plan for you in this text, can’t you? As hard as it might be for you to imagine giving your heart to someone else, as the old hymn says, “There’s nothing worse than being alone.” God doesn’t want you to be alone as you move forward. He doesn’t command you to marry again (1 Timothy 5:14; “desire” in the ASV), but He truly believes that it is what is best for you.

Older widows, God understands that you reach a point in life where starting over just isn’t an option. God still doesn’t want you to be alone. He designed His church with you in mind; there’s a work for you to do. God saw you as being just as worthy of regular support as a preacher or an elder, especially if your family is not willing or able to help you (1 Corinthians 9:14; 1 Timothy 5:3, 9; 5:17). Of course, you can pray (although you already know that – 1 Timothy 5:5), but I think God had more in mind for you than that. No one is supposed to eat without working (2 Thessalonians 3:10). It may very well be that this text envisions a reward for the abundant work you have done in the past. It may also be though that God wants you to take on a new work, perhaps in the counseling department of His church.

Widows (young and old), you know much about much about life. You’ve experienced the joy of the greatest union that exists on earth and the pain of losing that joy. Your experience is incredibly valuable, and I believe at least part of the future that God has planned for you involves using that experience to guide those younger than you through the tragedies they no doubt too will face. Older people generally have wisdom to impart, but the wisdom you’ve gained through experience is special and will allow you to connect with some in a way no one else can. I hope you will put your wisdom to use.
 
Some thoughts for widowers: Brothers, it’s possible that when you read passages like this you think that God has forgotten you. He hasn’t. Your grief is real, and you’re not meant to just swallow it and move on. Still, God knows that you know that she was created differently than you. You probably saw over and over again that while she was the fairer (and often wiser and more capable) sex, she was also the “weaker vessel” (1 Peter 3:7). You know why God has gone to such lengths to care for her. That doesn’t mean you’re just meant to ignore this passage. Use this passage as a reminder if you need it: just as God had a plan for widows in the church, so too does He have a plan for you. If her experience is valuable, yours is too.

Some thoughts for wives: Sisters, I know the last thing in the world you want to think about is the possibility of your man going to be with God. However, it’s so important that you at least consider it and consider what kind of person you would be if that were to happen. The person you are becoming now is the person you will be then.
Wives, what are you doing today to ensure that you will be a woman of prayer who “trusts in God” when you are old (1 Timothy 5:5)? How are you preparing your children now to ensure they will care for you when you are older so they don’t deny God’s pattern of faith (v. 4, 8, 10, 16)? How are you preparing yourself not to live in pleasure (v. 6) or place any relationship above your relationship with Jesus (v. 11-12)? How are you preparing now to not be a gossip when you’ve got too much time on your hands (v. 13)? Are you devoted to husband? Is your home open to guests? Are your hands open to the afflicted? Is your heart set on good works?

There can be little doubt but that you will find the behavior required by these questions difficult and at times overwhelming. Don’t forget what this text is also teaching you – there is a wealth of knowledge and support available in older sisters who have lived well. You need these mothers (v. 2) as much as they need your love and support.

Some thoughts for husbands: Brothers, I know that you want to protect and provide for your family. In your heart of hearts, you probably feel as though you always will. The reality is though that if Christ does not return first, you will leave this earth and probably do so before your wife. Are you preparing your family now so that this separation is only a temporary one, so that there will be a reunion in heaven? Are you helping your wife to prepare for the future God wants for her once she’s alone?

Whether or not your wife raises faithful children who will honor her after your death is largely your responsibility (Ephesians 6:4). Further, what hope does she have to be devoted to you if you’re not devoted to her (1 Timothy 5:9)? To “[lodge] strangers” if you hate having guests over? To “relieve the afflicted” if you’re stingy or wasteful with the family’s money? To “diligently [follow] good works” if you’re barely paying attention during the Sunday morning announcements after worship (v. 10)?

By all means, take from this text that God wants you to help widows both in your blood family and in the church. But don’t forget that this text is also a reminder to you to help your wife become the woman God wants her to be.

Some thoughts for the young and unmarried: Brothers, look carefully at this passage. As you do so, remember, “Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing” (Proverbs 31:30). The kind of girl you want to marry is the kind of girl that is becoming this (1 Timothy 3:11 and Proverbs 31:10-31 might also help).

Sisters, look carefully at this passage. This is what you want to become. A good man can help you get there; a bad one can make becoming this incredibly difficult. Think about this passage (as well as 1 Timothy 3:1-10, 12-13; Titus 1:5-9) when thinking about a future husband.

I hope this text has given each of us something to think about. Spiritual progress in the kingdom of Christ was never meant to be limited to men; women have something wonderful to strive for when they reach old age. From the ashes of the tragedy of death can rise the beauty of a woman who is worthy of honor, love, and support as long as she lives.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org