As Sheep to Be Slaughtered

As i read, the words stabbed me through the heart like a finely slung arrow. “This voluntary suffering and death to save others is not only the content of the gospel but also the method of our mission.” (John Piper, Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ, p. 15). My mind quickly ran through several Scripture passages which might support such a statement, and, having confirmed that this assertion by Piper is correct, asked the devastating question of itself, ‘What suffering and death?’

The Scriptures to support this are as straight forward as they are numerous. From Jesus telling us that He is sending us out “as sheep in the midst of wolves”, to Paul referencing Psalm 44, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered,” the Christian is promised a life that will bring suffering. Although we often assume this suffering is only a result of being rejected by the world, it also needs to realized that is an aspect of God’s plan for how the gospel will be delivered to unbelievers.

i see this working in 2 ways.

First, our suffering brings us opportunities to share that we would not otherwise have. “You will be dragged before governors and kings for my wake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles” (Matt 10:18). In this verse, Jesus is indicating that the suffering of the church is designed by God to give them the opportunity to present the gospel to people of authority with whom they would not otherwise be able to share the gospel. But there is also a second way our suffering works in presenting the gospel – namely, it makes the sufferings of Christ real to other people. This is shown by Paul in Col 1:24, “In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of the body.” Now, it would be incorrect to say that Christ’s sufferings were not sufficient for salvation – such talk would be severe heresy. Instead, Paul is showing here that our sufferings show others in a very true way the sufferings of Christ. In this way, our sufferings turn out not to be our sufferings at all, but the sufferings of Christ in us. This is what makes the gospel real to others – willing, loving suffering so that they may be saved. This is truly the best way to show them Christ’s love for them.

All this topples in on my very comfortable life.

Now, being one who is often prone to run to extremes, i have to guard against any impulse which says that living my current life is altogether wrong and must be abandoned. Some day, i may find myself in a third world country, sharing the gospel with risk to my life. But that day will not likely be tomorrow, and i will not be living in sin simply by continuing my basic life situation as it is now. That being said, i have very little, if any, sufferings with which i am sharing the gospel to others.

In the western world, we have become so strategic about how we bring the gospel to others that we have literally taken suffering completely out of the plan. At best, we accept that it could happen, but we don’t plan on it happening and often don’t respond well when it does. Not that we should run headlong into positions of suffering, but we often stand at such a distance to where suffering is not even possible. Even self sacrifice finds a bare minimum in our evangelism.

To be fair, i know personally many people who sacrifice in amazing ways to share the gospel with others; however, i do not see this as the norm in our churches. We as a church in the western world probably need a major shift in how we understand suffering. We obviously should not be masochists; however, we should not be afraid, either. People are dying – eternally. And my sufferings, for one, are minimal at best.

“But King David said to Ornan, ‘No, but I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for the LORD what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.’” (I Chronicles 21:24)

Comments and feedback are welcome. Peace to you,

Caleb

Thinking Through Decisions

For a few weeks now i have been slowly working through George W Bush’s Decision Points, a book of his most significant decisions made throughout his life as President. For the most part i agree with what he did as President, although, as with any leader, there were decisions with which i did not agree. But for years i watched his Presidency from a distance (that is, i didn’t keep up with it on a day to day basis), and i found myself consistently astounded by two things.

First, he is undoubtedly a man of great conviction. i find his strong moral character is hard to miss. In fact, i believe many of his critics were so critical because they found his character condemning. Even when he made decisions that were very unpopular, he did so out of a deep moral understanding that i think most people lack, and he stood strong by those decisions, including being humble enough to admit times when his decisions could have been better.

Second, i always saw President Bush as a man of incredible grace. He isn’t generally elegant, but he is overly gracious. He is kind and peaceful, and when the media and other critics raged against him, he never reviled back. He patiently endured, knowing that it isn’t people in this moment that will pass the final judgment on what is a good or bad decision.

For these reasons, i was moved to read his book. Now, i must admit that i am not quite half way through the book, but i must say even now, i am astounded at the man’s humility and wisdom. As much as i thought of him before as a man of great character and great grace, i now think of him all the more as portraying those same attributes. i do not think people in general do not realize how blessed we were as Americans to have such a great leader.

When we get to heaven, God will not judge President Bush on what he did to help our economy so much as what he did to bring people to understand God better. Granted, many of his political policies also have a moral element to them (such as economy, where a President is responsible to care for his people), but i believe that we have seen in him a greatness of character and grace that we see on a very rare basis. i recommend his book, and hope that even those who don’t agree with his decisions and conclusions will see at least great moral character and grace in his manner. Those things are far more important anyway.

Peace be with you,

Caleb

Working Through James (Intro)

After a very busy semester of not having time to write, i wish to embark on a little bit of a new category of blog posts, at least as far as this blog is concerned; specifically, exposition. As much as we can read and study many great books and hear strong preaching and teaching on a regular basis, the actual performing of exegesis takes practice. We have a great many resources that we can use to tell us what a passage means, and i do believe we should utilize those as much as possible; however, it is possible to use those resources as a substitute for thinking for ourselves, and praying and listening for what the Spirit of God is telling us through a passage. That being said, it has been some times since i have broken down a passage of Scripture on my own.

The book i am choosing to work through is James. The reasons for this choice are simple – i haven’t spent a great deal of time studying it. Although i have read through it several times and reference it on a regular basis, i don’t believe i have ever sat down and worked through the letter as a whole, nor do i believe i have ever heard it preached through as a unit. So as i begin, let me simply say that i welcome all thoughts and comments regarding these posts. My desire is, above all, the truth of the Word of God.

- The Greeting (1:1) – There is probably a great deal that one could say regarding the greeting with which James opens his letter; but i would like to work with simply one aspect of it, namely, that the people to whom it is written are said to be in dispersion.

The fact that he addresses the Twelve Tribes tends to suggest to our ears that this is a negative thing. Realistically, Israel in the New Testament never fully recovered from the exile. From a political standpoint, Israel had seen a total of approximately 70 years of independence since the exile. Mostly they were passed from one empire to the next, and were often oppressed even as they dwelt in their homeland. Furthermore, the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70 sent the Jews into a dispersion that would not be recovered from until after World War II.

Spiritually, since Jesus begins His formal ministry we see the spiritual picture gravitating slowly away from Jerusalem and never returning until the Great Tribulation and then, finally, Eternity (which is a New Jerusalem in any case).

Even for the church the idea of dispersion came as a result of persecution. The Apostle James was martyred only a few years after Jesus’ ascension, and all the Apostles except John are martyred eventually, although John would still see his fair share of physical torture.

So the Twelve Tribes and the Church both (or in my understanding, they are the same), are scattered all over the “known” world, and we tend to see that as a negative thing, particularly because it is riddled with the flavor of persecution.

But further meditation specifically on the words of Christ might in actuality reveal a much different perspective.

If we look carefully at Jesus’ ministry, He says things like, “And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations “, and then follows with a command in the Great Commission to take the gospel to other nations. He tells His Apostles in Acts 1 that they will go to the ends of the earth preaching the gospel. And when does the church finally spread out? In the midst of the persecution in Acts 8, when “Those who were scattered went about preaching the word.”

It is true that the church in Jerusalem was looking to send some out to preach the gospel in other places. But the most effective spreading came through persecution. Of course this is not to say that persecution is a good thing, but we should take note of the fact that the church has always thrived in times of persecution, even to this day.

So as James (almost certainly not the Apostle James) pens this letter, he can say that he is addressing this letter to “The Twelve Tribes in the dispersion“. And from a Kingdom perspective, this is a good thing. For the gospel is being preached further and further towards the ends of the earth.

Peace be with you,

Caleb

The Real Life Sovereignty of God

The sovereignty of God seems to be what holds the majority of my attention when it comes to biblical study. If i am reading a book on theology, philosophy or even fiction, i consistently find myself instinctively evaluating if the writer at hand is doing justice to the sovereignty of God over all things. As i read through the books of the Bible, i am always asking myself what each author has to teach me about the sovereignty of God. If i find myself on Amazon and realize that i haven’t read a good book on God’s sovereignty in awhile, i tend to go hunting for one. Even if i don’t end up buying it at the time, it will almost certainly end up in the “Save for later” section of my cart.

So yesterday evening when my friend Mark asked me what i had been study recently in terms of personal Bible study, i had no problem filling him in on all i was learning from Piper’s “The Justification of God”, which is a very careful exegesis of Romans 9. We spent several minutes talking about Scripture’s robust view of God’s sovereignty over all things, and how especially in our society we can never seem to get a big enough view of it.

i thoroughly enjoyed our discussion, and just as i thought we were about to close that subject and move onto another, Mark made sure our discussion would matter for more than just those few minutes. “So how do you make application of this study in your everyday life?” He asked. A most remarkable question, because those of us who love the study of the Word are often in danger of gaining knowledge that doesn’t affect anything in our everyday life. People cannot too often remind us to make application of the Scriptures.

So how, then, do we apply God’s sovereignty to our lives? Let me start with the overarching conclusion that the more we live out the truth of God’s sovereignty, the more we will find it needs to change everything in our lives. In particularly, we tend to carry an outlook of selfish anxiety every day that is completely evil. If God is sovereign over all things, then every time we worry about something, we are showing two things: 1) A distrust for God, and 2) A desire to do God’s job for Him. To be sure, worry and concern are two very different things. To be completely without care is very much a sin in the opposite direction. But without exhausting definitions, let me for the sake of argument define worry as “a concern that has grown to the point of causing mental or emotional hindrance to good judgment and the trust of God”. (Critiques for that definition are welcome)

So when we get frustrated because an unexpected traffic jam is going to make us late for work, we are instantly failing to trust God with our time. When we get upset because we were picked to work a weekend, and we believe anyone else would have been a better choice, then we are already better rulers of our world than God in our own eyes. If we find ourselves in a disagreement with someone, and frustration grows to selfish anger, and we start to believe it is our job to change someone’s heart or mind, then we have officially made our claim to God that He is failing miserably at His job.

God assures us time and again that He stands over all things as sovereign Ruler. The most godly example of suffering found in the Old Testament finds its foundation in Job’s conclusion, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21) In Isaiah we find an overarching claim of God,

“This is the purpose that is purposed
concerning the whole earth,
and this is the hand that is stretched out
over all the nations.
For the LORD of hosts has purposed,
and who will annul it?” (Isaiah 14:26-27)

Even the decisions of man are under His sovereignty. How else can God make the claim, when Rehoboam did not listen to the wise elders of the nation, that “The king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the LORD that he might fulfill his word, which the LORD spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.” (I Kings 12:15) And Ezra, after Judah’s return from exile, doesn’t bother to praise the King of Assyria for helping with the Temple, but instead says that “the LORD had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.” (Ezra 6:22)

And how else can Joseph make the claim, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen 50:19-20) This word “meant” in Hebrew in unambiguous. It specifically says that God intended for his brothers to do what they did. Everything that happened to Joseph was not God’s brilliant response to his brother’s evil, but God’s plan from the beginning.

This is why Paul can command without hesitation, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:6-7) To worry is to take a responsibility on ourselves that we are neither permitted nor equipped to carry out.

The sovereignty of God stands over all things, and we will never know it well enough. We must be careful to spend time studying the Word and praying that God will help us trust Him in all things. We must take measures to keep fresh in our minds God’s control over all things, from memorizing Scripture to placing post-it notes on the bathroom mirror. We must be careful not to attempt to take on those responsibilities which God reserves for Himself. And only in that trust can the peace of God guard our hearts in Christ Jesus.

Peace be with you,

Caleb

Training the Next Generation

There is an old story about Question 98 of the Westminster Catechism. Evangelist D.L. Moody was speaking in Scotland to a large group of elementary students. Upon asking the rhetorical question, “What is prayer?”, hundreds of hands flew up in the air. Caught off guard by the fact that these kids were responding to a rhetorical question, he called upon a young boy, who stood up and answered, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.” It was a direct quote of Question 98 of the Westminster Catechism. Moody was stunned, and so was i when i first heard the story.

A Catechism is simply a question/answer formatted explanation of basic beliefs of doctrine. The tradition of catechism is very old, potentially dating back to New Testament times. Although i know a few people who grew up learning different catechisms, i never even knew what a catechism was until having a Lutheran high school girlfriend provoked me to look into Luther’s Catechism to see if our beliefs could ever be reconciled. Although some churches such as the Catholic Church still maintain a regimented use of catechism, it seems to me that most Protestant churches have carelessly abandoned the use of it.

This is a great tragedy – a tragedy that has come to my mind more often in the recent days as Lydia and i talk more about eventually starting a family. We are surrounded by people with very little background in the Bible, even those who did grow up in a church. i want so desperately to pass on to my children a solid understanding of the Word of God, so they will be better equipped to answer a world that will bombard them with challenges to their faith.

Catechisms offer two major advantages. First, the organization of a catechism enables one to think logically through many basic biblical beliefs. For example, The Reformed Reader begins with the question, “Who is the first and best of beings?” It is the most basic biblical question one can ask, and logically, all things must go back to this truth, that God is the first and best of beings. Starting with basic questions, and then branching out to more complex questions will not only ensure that one has their basic concepts in place, but having those basic questions articulated will in turn give one a more solid background in which to answer more complex questions.

The organization not only allows one to think logically through biblical doctrine, but it also ensures that many important question will not go unasked or unanswered. The second question of The Reformed Reader is, “What is the chief end of man?”. Many people who grew up in the church will often forget to ask this question. Then when confronted with it in the future, they are left grappling for answers. i believe that there are countless important questions like this that those of us who grew up in the church will often take for granted in our own lives, while at the same time lacking the answers for other people who have no background. This is a significant oversight that must be corrected.

It is difficult to ponder how this would be integrated into our churches that seem are often afraid of regulations for fear of legalism. Possible solutions could range from requiring for church membership a class that would go through a catechism, to a church highly recommending a couple different catechisms. But my point here is not to establish a fool proof solution – it would probably vary between churches in any case. My point is simply that the church would do well to solidify the basic understanding of its future leaders by using a catechism more regularly, either through some kind of ‘Sunday School’ classes or small groups. Because before you know it, you are 27 and scrambling to organize your basic beliefs so that some day you can answer your child’s basic questions.

Perhaps that is why this lays heavy on my heart. Not only do i want to establish a foundation for myself, but i want my children to be well equipped to live in faith in this world. While i am well aware that this will not guarantee their faith, it will put them in a better position to understand their Creator and His Word. i find myself many days reviewing the The Reformed Reader questions, just trying to familiarize myself with it by the time my children come around. i have committed myself to take each one of them through a catechism when they are old enough to understand.

The more i have looked at the church in our society, the more i find that one of the main weaknesses we have is knowledge. This would be one way to strengthen that area. i don’t know what God holds for the next generation, but i do know this, that in a society that grows more biblically illiterate every day, a future generation of believers that has as little of a background as ours will not easily survive in the coming years.

Grace and peace,

Caleb

(My examples come from The Reformed Reader, but probably the most common Protestant Catechisms are Luther’s Catechism and The Westminster Catechism.)