Perspective

If social media posts are reflective of where our culture is at the moment, few texts in all of Scripture would be better than the words of 1 Peter 3:13-22 to encourage us. Social media – and many main stream media talking heads – suggest that 2016 was about the worst year in the history of mankind and, depending on how you voted in November, 2017 will either be the ultimate cure-all year or a downhill slide into the abyss of what started in 2016.

The hyperbole with which so many describe our current culture may be guilty of overlooking some rather important historical moments. Was 2016 really more difficult than 1861-65 – the years of the Civil War? Or 1941-45 – the years of World War II? And that is just looking at two moments in our own history. What about the persecution early Christians faced just for following Jesus? Or Christians in many parts of the Middle East today whose lives are put at risk simply by being Christian.

The text I mentioned from 1 Peter 3 suggests that “even if you should suffer,” that doesn’t mean you aren’t “blessed.” And beyond that Peter urges his readers – who most likely had far more difficult lives than I do, “do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled.” For Peter, the presence of “troubled times” is a reason “to sanctify Christ in our hearts.”

For much of my life, I heard all sorts of apologetics people quote verse 15 in a way that defended their tendencies to believe that presenting a dozen or so reasons some part of the Bible was true was what Peter encouraged his readers to do. Whether or not that approach is healthy or not is not for me to say, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t what Peter was talking about.

When, in the midst of “intimidation and trouble” if I am living a “sanctifying Christ in my heart” kind of life, it likely will cause people to ask questions. Apparently I am supposed to be cowered by the “intimidation and trouble” that those who don’t know Christ might bring my way. When I don’t respond that way – “I sanctify Christ in my life” - that will generate confusion, perhaps even questions.

The “ingredient” in life that will be so counter-intuitive to the fact that I should be cowered by evil is one word: hope. Hope is such a vital word in our experience of faith. The challenge with the word is that in our daily languages we use that word so casually. Go and buy a lottery ticket, the clerk might say, “Hope you win.” Of course your chances of winning are pretty slim. Back in December, after the final exam in a class I taught at Point University, I had an email from a student who did very little work all semester, failed the course project and final exam, and clearly was going to fail. His email contained this phrase, “I hope I am going to pass your class.”

If that’s what Peter means by “hope” then we are, quite frankly, hopeless and all the doom and gloom of social media posts would be appropriate. But that isn’t hope, as Scripture describes it. Hope is “confident assurance” that God keeps His promises. That is so certain, that the Holy Spirit Himself was given to us as “guarantee.” (Ephesians 1:13,14) Solomon’s prayer of dedication for the Temple (1 Kings 8:22ff) is deeply rooted in the idea that God keeps His Word!

As Paul nears the end of his life, he is still talking about “faith, hope, and love.” In 2 Timothy 1:12 he defines hope like this: “for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” 

If Paul could say that in view of the circumstances of his own life at the moment – then I’m pretty certain that I ought to be saying the same!

So, at the beginning of a New Year – 2017 – that will have all sorts of challenges and moments of uncertainty, maybe Peter’s advice to early believers should be our resolutions. Let’s live in a way that causes non-believers to ask us “how do you do that?” Then, with gentleness and reverence, we can tell them about our hope in Christ.

Rescued and Transferred!

Earlier this week I was privileged to give a devotion at the Point University trustees meeting. Several people asked me for a copy so here it is.

Back in late September, my family and I went to the Greek Festival held annually at the Cathedral of the Annunciation up on the northside of Atlanta. It is one of those events that once you go, you know you will go back.

A part of the appeal of the festival is that you can get a guided tour of the cathedral itself, which has some of the most profoundly beautiful mosaic art I’ve ever seen. That art reminds you that there is design and purpose in creation and when art connects with that design and purpose, “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1)

But there’s more to the Greek festival than that – though in some ways that would be enough. You get to see a picture of the culture of another country – especially in the form of music and dance – that gives you opportunity to reflect on the much needed reminder in our day and time that “God is no respecter of persons”  (Acts 15:6-21). 

Of course if you go to the Greek festival, you get to eat Greek food – Mediterranean food! I actually saved my receipts from our trip to the festival this year because every time I go for my annual physical, my doctor says I need to lose a few pounds and get my blood pressure a little lower. Of course she then goes into a diatribe and what foods I should and should not eat. She always says “Eat more Mediterranean!” I don’t know if she doesn’t realize feta and goat cheeses are often served with Greek food, red meat makes for delicious gyros, and Greek desserts – think about baklava – are to die for.  But I felt like I was on a medical mission since my annual physical was the Friday before we went on Sunday afternoon.

Like nearly all festivals, there are vendors who sell “stuff” that is somehow connected to the nature of the festival. This one is no different. It was pretty hot that Sunday afternoon and most of the vendors were in this massive building on the cathedral grounds that was air conditioned. I gave in to my wife and daughters and went to walk around the shopping areas.

For a while now, I have been collecting crosses – and you can step down to my office and see some of that collection hanging on the walls of my office. Walking around the area where the vendors were set up, I saw an interesting cross – made of olive wood and etched on it were the Greek words for the Lord’s Prayer. Of course the vendor instantly told me it was from olive wood that had grown in Palestine – which instantly doubled the cost of the cross! And I had never seen a cross like it – the Greek text of the Lord’s Prayer.

So, forty dollars later, I was walking around the Greek festival with that cross in a bag. That Monday morning, I brought it to my office and was trying to find a place to hang it. Every morning now, when I come into my office and walk to my desk chair – I am confronted with that cross and the Greek text of the Lord’s Prayer. I typically stop and read that prayer several times a day. The fact that N.T. Wright says – correctly I think – that the Lord’s Prayer should have the same formative influence in the lives of followers of Jesus that the ten commandments had on Israel, makes me think I am doing something that could make me more of  “a kingdom person doing kingdom things” – which is my goal in life.  (As a side note – it is sad that we evangelicals are probably better known for wanting to put the ten commandments in our courthouses than we are wanting “his kingdom to come, on earth, as it is in heaven.”)

I tell you all of that to be able to tell you this: One morning while standing eye-ball-to-eye-ball with that cross and reading the Lord’s prayer – I realized that when Jesus told us to pray “deliver us from evil” Matthew has him using precisely the same word that Paul uses in Colossians 1:13, 14 when he says “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (ESV)

The fact that I’ve been teaching for you all at Point in the area biblical studies and theology for 41 years and just discovered that, perhaps should be a matter of concern for you. However, it confirms what I regularly say in my biblical interpretation classes – “the great thing about learning to study the Bible well is that you will never run out of something new to learn.” As William Willimon says, “the Bible is a thick book.”

“Deliver us from evil” alongside of “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

So what? Is this merely a little story about a sometimes Greek-nerd professor who discovered something new? Not at all.

In the psalms – over sixty times – the translators of the Hebrew Psalms in to Greek (LXX) this word is used to remind Israel that deliverance comes not by natural law to which both “the gods” and mortals are subject – but rather by the “creating and sustaining word of Yahweh for whom the salvation of the people and the individual is a part of His creative actin in the salvation history commenced by Him.” He is, after all, the one who spoke of a Lamb – actually the Lamb – that was slain from the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:8)

Most of the usage of this word in the New Testament is found in Paul’s writings (and in Matthew’s Lord’s Prayer text; Luke’s quote of Zechariah in 1:74) – and every single time God is the subject of the verb. It is God who rescues, every time.

In Colossians – note that Paul says “has rescued” not “will rescue.” “Has transferred us” not “will transfer us.” Paul believes that the fact that Jesus came into the world, lived, died, was buried, raised, ascended into heaven, and will one day reappear in glory means that everything has changed. Now, Period. Eternally.

He is calling us to live in the power of that change and realize that already God has rescued us. And it isn’t just rescue – it is transfer. So we celebrate with John the apostle who said “Beloved, now (already) we are the children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we will be, but we will be like him for we will see him just as He is.” (1 John 3:2) It’s a done deal. 

In Luke’s story of Jesus cleansing the ten lepers, (17:11-19) – that’s the story of ten lepers, only one of whom came back to say thanks – we often get so wrapped up in the one who came back to say thanks that we ignore what may be the real point of the story. Jesus didn’t do anything except say “Go to the priest . . .” The point is, he expected them to act “as if they were clean” – and sure enough they were.

I am trying to remind myself every day that I have been rescued and transferred. And, I am trying to remind myself to live “as if that is true” despite the challenges that surround me. If we can find a way to do that here – I believe we will discover an even greater priest who will declare us to be clean!

What We Need These Days

I recently ran across a copy of The Cathedral Messenger, the weekly newsletter of Westwood Hills Christian Church, from July 2, 1995. At the time, Dr. Myron J. Taylor was the minister of the church and reading his weekly comments in The Cathedral Messenger could be akin to a weekly seminar on ministry. 

In this particular issue Dr. Taylor said, “I always try to give priority to the gospel as it is set forth in Scripture as it is interpreted and proclaimed by the church. My job is not to preach the Bible, but preach the gospel. Just explaining a passage of scripture, or even worse, just commenting on it can be terribly boring and irrelevant. Preaching is rooted in the biblical message and made meaningful to the lives of people.” 

When I talk about the Bible in my classes, I often say that it is written by God, written about Jesus, and written through the Spirit. In some ways I think that is exactly what Dr. Taylor meant when he said he gave “priority to the gospel as it is set forth in Scripture . . .” It is the gospel that reminds us that that personal salvation and individualism are not our mission. Our mission isn’t merely to be the source of every moral platitude imaginable to mankind or to discover a kind of private approach to life that takes us out of the mix of what is happening in the world around us.

It is the gospel that won’t allow us to become so withdrawn from the world around us that we can never hope to change it and so legalistic that we become irrelevant.  After all, one can be so biblical that no one will listen or so relevant that there is nothing to say. In both cases, the gospel hasn’t been proclaimed.

It is the gospel that reminds us the Jesus story is not just about dying and going to heaven, but about “life, and life more abundant.” (John 10:10) It is the gospel that has the power to transform us into kingdom people out in the world living kingdom lives in ways that create kingdom outposts all over the world. At least that seems to be the result of the preaching of the Gospel as recorded in Acts.

To think that Scripture is more important than Jesus – which is what inevitably happens when we are satisfied with “preaching the Bible” and not “the gospel” – is to become guilty of a kind of idolatry that means we replace God the Creator with something from creation. 

Don’t misunderstand – the Bible is our primary resource when it comes to the gospel. But we can’t fail to let that resource point us to Jesus, the one who in His incarnate life embodied the gospel in ways that invite us to walk with him in this abundant life as we anticipate the day of His reappearing. 

If you ever heard Myron Taylor preach, you heard the gospel. Today I am grateful that my life crossed paths with his. Good preaching points us to Jesus. His preaching did exactly that.

In that article mentioned above, Dr. Taylor also said, ”We dare not be ingrown, irrelevant, trivial in a time like this. The world is loved by God and is the object of his action in behalf of our salvation. The gospel is for the world. It takes courage sometimes to declare the gospel to the age. It is much easier to discuss the past or speculate about the future. Our need is to hear the biblical gospel intelligently interpreted and persuasively proclaimed to our time – now.”

If he thought that is what the world needed on July 2, 1995, I’m guessing he would think that and then some about “what we need these days.”