Sunday Morning Greek Blog

December 21, 2022

“Rachel Weeping”: The Objectification of Gender and Children

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Ecclesiology,Exodus,Faith, Faithfulness,Genesis,Jeremiah,Prophet,Repentance,Romans,Soteriology,Spiritual Warfare — Scott Stocking @ 7:24 am
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Related Articles:

μαλακός (malakos) “soft,” “weak,” “effeminate”: A Look at Classical and Biblical Greek Usage

#ToxicMasculinity: Walking Like an Egyptian Pharaoh

#ToxicMasculinity: Walking Like an Egyptian Pharaoh–2021 Update

Abstract: In this article, I’ll compare the ancient practice of “exposure” to the modern practice of abortion. Then I’ll take a look at two different forms of gender confusion and argue that they are gross misrepresentations and objectifications of children and women.

(NOTE: If you like this post, you may also like μαλακός (malakos) “soft,” “weak,” “effeminate”: A Look at Classical and Biblical Greek Usage.)

The Bible tells us of three major “deliverance” events that had broad-ranging impact on world history. The first was the flood in Noah’s time. God was sorry and “deeply troubled” that he had made man, so he decided to start over again with the one righteous family he could find. God showed no discrimination in that judgment: everyone, young and old, except for the eight people in Noah’s family, died in that flood.

The second was the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt in the time of Moses. I will deal with that more below, but the point I want to make about this is that the birth of the deliverer was preceded by an edict against children. Pharaoh feared the Jews were becoming numerous enough to overthrow Egypt, so he ordered all male children drowned in the Nile. It was, in effect, a primitive and cruel attempt at population control.

The third major deliverance event was, of course, the coming of the Messiah. When the visit from the wise men spooked Herod about the birth of the Messiah, he ordered all male children under two years of age to be killed. So like pharaoh, he acted out of fear and self-preservation. This prompted Matthew to quote a prophecy from Jeremiah 31:15:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,

mourning and great weeping,

Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no more.” [1]

In the prophecy, Rachel represents the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom, because Rachel’s grandsons (sons of Joseph—Ephraim and Manasseh) were the two largest tribes in that kingdom. Israel was weeping for its lost innocence.

When I see the outright abuse and evil foisted upon our most vulnerable population by powerful forces with a gruesome agenda, I must echo Rachel’s sentiment here. Is the current war on children, families, and gender the precursor to another deliverance event? Are we getting to the point again where “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart [is] only evil all the time….[and] the Lord regret[s] that he had made human beings on the earth”?[2] Has the corruption reached the limits of God’s tolerance? How close are we to the end of this era and possibly to the second coming of Christ and the new creation?

I want to examine the three most egregious, in my mind, attacks on children, the family, and gender in modern society to make my point: abortion, genital mutilation of children, and transgenderism. My goal here is to strip away the politics and agendas that overshadow these things to both shut out dissent and “normalize” this behavior, and to take a look at it for what it really is. As Christians, if we believe these things are not only bad, but evil, we can, if we start taking a stand and pushing against the evil woke, progressive mob, recover our culture and restore righteousness to the earth. I hope and pray this article will give you courage and strength to make that stand.

Abortion

“Exposure”: The Precursor to Abortion

[710] I will give you a pithy proof of this. An oracle came to Laius once—I will not say from Phoebus himself, but from his ministers—saying that he would suffer his doom at the hands of the child to be born to him and me. [715] And Laius—as, at least, the rumor goes—was murdered one day by foreign robbers at a place where the three highways meet. And the child’s birth was not yet three days past, when Laius pinned his ankles together* and had him thrown, by others’ hands, on a remote mountain.[3]

* fastened together by driving a pin through them, so as to maim the child and thus lessen the chance of its being reared if it survived exposure.[4]

The above passage from the English translation of Sophocles’s Oedipus Tyrannus (spoken by Iocasta, the mother of Laius’s exposed son) describes the ancient and often barbaric practice of “exposure.” In ancient times, if a child was unwanted, or in this case, feared because of some prophetic portent, parents or other elders would abandon the child in the wilderness to die alone, exposed to wild animals and the elements. Notice the eerie dispassionate tone she takes when speaking about the fate of her own child, a fate she seems wholly complicit in.

In the Bible, the practice is at least as old as Genesis 16, perhaps partially reflected in Sarai sending away Hagar and Ishmael. At least Sarai allowed the mother to care for the child (the angel of the Lord almost immediately restored them to Abram’s family unit). In Exodus 2, Moses is born to Levite parents under Pharaoh’s order to throw every male child into the Nile. Moses’s mother technically obeyed this command, but had put him in a papyrus basket, where he would be rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in Pharaoh’s court, with all the accompanying privileges.

The first chapter of Exodus doesn’t seem to indicate Pharaoh was concerned about any kind of prophecy, although pharaoh’s increased demands of their brick making were compelling the Israelites to cry out more to their God. Pharaoh’s fear of the Israelites was that they were becoming too numerous (Exodus 1:9), which prompted his fateful declaration. In other words, it was a form of population control imposed on an unwanted race of people. Kind of sounds like racism, right? Hitleresque? Legalized infanticide? Homicide of the innocent? Dare I say, “post-birth” or perinatal abortion?

Modern History of Abortion and Genocide

Let me preface this section by saying that I would not consider a medically necessary pregnancy termination to save the life of the mother an “abortion,” especially as that term is used today. If you’re terminating your pregnancy because it’s inconvenient or embarrassing for you, that’s the concept of abortion I’m writing about—the premeditated homicide of an infant prior to or around the time of birth with no indication of a medical emergency that threatens the life of health of the mother. If you’re terminating your pregnancy because your health or life is irreparably threatened, that’s not an “abortion” in my mind, and I’m not writing about those situations. If you’ve been in the dreadful situation of being a victim of rape or of a molestation or incest that resulted in pregnancy, I’m not writing about those situations, and it is not my place (nor anyone else’s) to pass judgment on women in those situations.

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was an avowed eugenicist and racist. In her twisted mind, it was necessary to leave the procreating to those who had wealth and access. Abortion is just one method the Left promotes to control population under the guise of “women’s rights.” What is even more disturbing are the attempts of the radical Left to promote and glorify abortion. Can we really say a person is “normal” if they’re celebrating the opportunity to kill an innocent child in the womb? What kind of “empowerment” for women is unfettered access to abortion when what they and their abortion doctor are taking power over is a defenseless child in the womb? How did we get here as a culture?

What kind of “empowerment” for women is unfettered access to abortion when what they and their abortion doctor are taking power over is a defenseless child in the womb?

Abortion isn’t just about women’s rights, either. In fact, I would argue that the “antihuman” philosophy has taken over. They have no compassion for the life of the unborn or the mental and physical health of the mother. Their main goal is depopulating the earth. Why? Is it because they want to become some elite group to control all the resources? There’s your eugenics. There are certainly inequities in abortion, with women below the poverty level and women of color getting abortions at a higher rate.[5] So I think it’s fair to ask the question if abortion is being promoted among these demographic groups because of elitist or even racist attitudes.

I also think there’s merit to the idea that the Left just hates the idea of a loving, nuclear family, especially if a child is rescued from an abortion by a loving family. I refuse to believe any child is unwanted. What kind of monsters do these people think the human race is? The Left knows that every child rescued from an abortion by a loving family, regardless of their religious or political affiliation, is potentially a witness against their demand for unfettered abortion access.

All this brings me to my major point about abortion in line with the theme of this article: abortion objectifies the child in the womb. The child becomes an unwanted item when they’re deemed to be an “inconvenience.” The irony of this is that some of these women may have an “unintended” pregnancy because they themselves were objectified by an unscrupulous man who just used them for sex and split the scene. How does it solve a consequence of objectification by objectifying the consequence of objectification?

Gender Confusion

Reassignment or Mutilation?

I am not ashamed of the absolute truths of Scripture, and I hope that my Christ-following brothers and sisters share that boldness. It’s what we need in times like these. When God said “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,” he was talking about individual human beings AND humanity as a collective whole. We, individually and together, reflect the glory and image of God’s creation, because we are the crowning piece of God’s creation. We were created to be stewards over God’s creation. Nothing else in God’s creation was given that status.

Genesis 1:27 speaks of our creation: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” “Mankind” is a singular noun in Hebrew, but it doesn’t necessarily refer to a person’s name. Here, it has the definite article associated with it, so it most likely refers to the human race, or humanity as a concept. The next two lines of the verse bear that out. The first “them” at the end of the second line is singular, and the first two lines are simply a chiasm to emphasize the point that God did the creating. The “them” at the end of the third line is plural, meaning that male and female are separate and the only two genders God created. And each has their own unique sex organs that differentiate based on the possible combinations of the sex genes. The sex organs are analogous: if they’re XX, you get ovaries, labia, and a clitoris; if they’re XY, you get testicles, a scrotum, and a penis.

The current trend of pushing kids—kids, mind you, under 10 years old in some cases—to get so-called “gender reassignment” surgery is absolutely disgusting. This is nothing more than genital mutilation akin to what we rightly condemn in other countries. These surgeries in many cases eliminate the possibility of reproduction because they remove the only sex organs they have. In other words, they’re removing the only phenotypical physical markers of gender and replacing them with a sham. I fail to understand how giving a transgender person parts that have limited functionality can help with gender dysphoria when the person knows their new parts aren’t really genuine. They can never fully realize the physical reality of being the gender they’re not born with.

Not only, then, is this push to get kids to question their gender rather than affirming the gender they were born with an objectification of children, making them pawns in a disturbing practice akin to surgical experimentation on children, it is also an objectification of gender, as if it’s something you can pick and choose or create your own variation thereof. Romans 1:26–27 says:

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.[6]

Of course, this most likely refers to consenting adult males and females. But isn’t this exactly the evil we’re foisting on children? We have subjected innocent children to a practice that describes the wrath of God. See what you think about this passage if we put it in the context of what these radical cultural thugs are doing to kids with gender dysphoria:

Because of this, God gave the adults over to shameful abuses of power. Adults coerced the young girls to exchange future natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, adults also coerced the young boys to also abandon future natural relations with women so they would be inflamed with lust for one another. These men and women committed shameful acts upon boys and girls, abused their power and the trust of the children, and should receive in themselves the due penalty for their error.[7]

Seems pretty harsh, doesn’t it? But when what they’re doing to these kids is essentially legalized child abuse, I think the rebuke should fit the crime. These people are perpetuating a cultural lie and have deceived or convinced many that such treatment of children should be normative. If you’re a parent and concerned about how this is impacting your children, or if others are influencing your children under the guise of “trusted adults,” you must be the ones to advocate for your children if you don’t want this happening to them. My purpose in writing this is not to offer counseling advice, especially since each situation would prevent its own unique set of circumstances.

Drag Queens: Objectifying and Degrading Women

As I was preparing to write this section, Tucker Carlson had a story about “A Drag Queen Christmas” show “for all ages.” Video from the performance shows scenes of what you might see in a strip joint. They have to blur out the (apparently) boxed, oversized “breasts” of a drag queen, and there’s a sketch about “Screwdolph the Red-Nippled Reindeer,” which features two men in reindeer costumes simulating sodomy. Some of the drag queens were interviewing kids(!!) in the front row of the show as young as nine years old! Why is it even legal to expose kids to this? This smacks of grooming through and through. A similar event called “Drag the Kids to Pride” happened in Austin and Dallas this past summer, where kids are encouraged to give tips to the drag dancers. Note the signage that’s hardly appropriate for kids.

Then there’s the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. They mock the chastity and poverty of true nuns by their very name, which is nothing more than hate speech against Catholic Christians and especially against Catholic nuns. Many of them paint their faces white. I’m just wondering how that’s any less racist than those who put on black face to mock or imitate black people? Drag is little more than normalized misogyny perpetuated by biological males against genetic females. It is toxic masculinity at the extremes. Why do so many people accept this? This is yet another example of objectifying gender, and especially objectifying women. The trouble is, under so-called diversity, inclusion, and equity, no one ever thinks to look at it for what it is because the wokaholic, “politically correct” (what an oxymoron!) crowd wants to defend their fringe behavior.

Drag is little more than normalized misogyny perpetuated by biological males against genetic females. It is toxic masculinity at the extremes.

Balancing Survival and Compassion

This is going to be hard to take for a lot of people. As Christians, we typically don’t fight by burning down cities, throwing frozen water bottles at the police, or tearing down statues and memorials. We have our words, and we have The Word. The antireligious bigots out there know that, which is why they’re trying so hard to alter the traditional understanding of language, redefine the traditional meaning of words, and hide or rewrite history. This is truly Orwellian. When I read 1984 last year, I could see just about everything that was happening in that forward-looking novel was and still is happening in our world today.

Jesus reserved his harshest words for those religious leaders who oppressed the people by abusing and misusing the cultural power they had as religious leaders. Jesus also treated harshly those who insulted the character of his Father in his Father’s own house by charging a fee to convert Roman coinage into Temple money. Jesus’s kindest and most compassionate words were for those who were oppressed or manipulated by the powerful. I realize there are many people who feel trapped and are doing what they think is best for themselves, not realizing they may be missing a better way or a higher calling because they can’t bring themselves to acknowledge God, or they have a distorted view of who God is and how and why he created the world and each of us to live in it and have dominion over it according to his plan.

My words in this article are intended for those “pharisees” who are arrogant enough to flaunt law and custom to impose a cultural fascism on the rest of us. My words are for those who have willingly “exchanged the truth of God for a lie” and “who freely strut about when what is vile is honored by the human race” (Psalm 12:8). If you’re one of the masses who have been caught up in this because it was popular or trendy or “enlightened,” and you’re just not sensing the satisfaction or peace you were promised, then I urge you to seek out a friendly church where you will be welcomed. As I said, Christians fight with words and ideas, because we know God’s Word never returns void. But we also extend love and compassion to all who desire to know the peace and security of a relationship with a living, loving, forgiving God.

My words and ideas are my own, supplemented with the sources I’ve documented herein.

Scott Stocking

[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[2] The New International Version. 2011. Genesis 6:5b–6. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[3] Sophocles. 1887. The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles. Edited with Introduction and Notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Lines 710–719. Edited by Sir Richard Jebb. Medford, MA: Cambridge University Press.

[4] Jebb, Richard C. n.d. Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus (English). Line 718. Medford, MA: Perseus Digital Library.

[5] Dehlendorf C, Harris LH, Weitz TA. Disparities in abortion rates: a public health approach. Am J Public Health. 2013 Oct;103(10):1772-9. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2013.301339. Epub 2013 Aug 15. PMID: 23948010; PMCID: PMC3780732. Disparities in Abortion Rates: A Public Health Approach – PMC (nih.gov)

[6] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[7] Romans 1:26–27. Modified for emphasis.

October 3, 2022

Strength From (and for) Our Suffering: Paul’s Commissioning of Timothy (2 Timothy 1:1–14)

Filed under: 1 Timothy,2 Timothy,Biblical Studies,Courage,Ecclesiology,Faith, Faithfulness,Romans — Scott Stocking @ 10:22 pm
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I preached this sermon October 2, 2022, at Peace Presbyterian Church in Omaha, NE. I forgot to bring my voice recorder, so unfortunately, I do not have an audio file for it. Peace Presbyterian opened in 1989 when the Presbytery closed down the Waterloo Presbyterian Church and my uncle, Kenneth Bunnell, Jr., moved from the pulpit there to Peace.

“Shrinking back” is the opposite of “faithfulness.”

I think most of us have had someone near and dear to us in our lives that wasn’t a blood relative. For some of us, it was someone we looked up to who was “cool” in their own way, and maybe even one who, although we couldn’t admit it out loud, we wanted as that third “parent” or our safety net when we thought our own parents didn’t understand us.

For others, maybe you were that cool one or caring one who latched on to a kid or young adult who truly needed a better environment or solid guidance and direction to get or keep their life on a good path. And when they succeeded, your heart filled with pride just as if they were your own child.

We see in the New Testament just such a relationship between the Apostle Paul and a young disciple named Timothy, and we can trace the evolution of their relationship throughout Paul’s letters. We first meet the “disciple” Timothy in Acts 16:1, in the town of Lystra, on Paul’s second missionary journey. A few chapters later, Luke calls Timothy and Erastus Paul’s “helpers.” It would seem Timothy had a strong desire help Paul spread the gospel across Asia Minor.

As we progress through Paul’s letters, we begin to see Paul’s descriptions of Timothy becoming more personal and familial: In Romans 16:21, “Timothy, my coworker”; in 1 Corinthians 4:17, “Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord”; in 2 Corinthians 1:1 and Colossians 1:1, “Timothy our brother.” In Philippians, it seems Timothy has “risen” to equal status with Paul: “Servants of Jesus Christ.”

And when we come to the letters addressed to Timothy in the New Testament, we see the depth of Paul’s love for Timothy: “My true son in the faith”; “My dear son.” The two letters to Timothy are the first of only four letters Paul wrote to an individual instead of to a church. If it was even possible then, Timothy seems to have a risen to the status of an “Apostle-come-lately” just as Paul was. Paul’s letters to Timothy, then, are guidance on how to raise up men and women who could lead in the local church. Let’s listen to the first part of 2 Timothy chapter 1 and see how Paul speaks to Timothy in the historical context, and how that applies to those of us who lead and serve in the church in the modern context.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, in keeping with the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, 2 To Timothy, my dear son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

3 I thank God, whom I serve, as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. 4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. 5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.

6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 8 So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11 And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. 12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.

13 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.[1]

Paul is not just making a passing reference to the influence of his ancestors on his faith and service in verse 3; he mentions them as a comparison to the faith Timothy’s mother Eunice, who was a Jew, and her mother (presumably) Lois had and how they had passed that faith down to Timothy. In verse 4, Paul also seems to allude here to his tearful farewell meeting with the Ephesian elders in Miletus, as we read about in Acts 20. He knew suffering and prison awaited him in the future as he returns to Jerusalem, but he was set on pressing forward nonetheless.

In verse 6, Paul sets the tone for the encouragement he is offering Timothy by first reminding Timothy of his own ordination, a confirmation of his calling: “Fan into flame the gift of God!” It would seem after the personal instructions and teaching of the first letter, Paul is now commissioning Timothy to prepare him for his first located ministry. We know from 1 Timothy that Paul had appointed him to preach in Ephesus, perhaps one of the largest group of believers in Asia Minor. Timothy is apparently coming to the church on the heels of Paul’s 2+ years of ministry in Ephesus, perhaps just before he’s arrested if we can assume that from v. 8, so it would have been a daunting task for anyone to step into those shoes.

That’s why in vs. 7, Paul reminds Timothy that the Holy Spirit dwelling in us “does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.” Timothy may realize that he could face the same fate as Paul in being arrested (and indeed, we learn from the end of Hebrews that he had in fact been in prison), but Paul knows the only way to put forth a convincing gospel presentation about life in the hereafter is to proclaim it with and in the power and authority of the Holy Spirit. The message of the gospel must stand in contrast to the spiritual darkness of the world around them, full of light and truth. Otherwise, what would be the attraction of the gospel?

Also note in vs. 7 that, even though Paul is addressing Timothy personally in the whole letter, the promise of the power of the Spirit of God is not just for Timothy. When Paul speaks of “us” here, he’s not using the royal “we.” At the very least, Paul is may be referring back to his ancestors and Timothy’s mother and grandmother whom he mentioned in his opening; it’s even more likely that he is including all believers everywhere. You only need to flip back a few pages into 1 Timothy to see this is the case, where he not only gives basic instructions for praying men, modestly-dress women, and lonely widows in chapters 2 and 6 (all of which indicate some sort of submission or humility before Christ, so there’s no sexism there), but also instructions in 1 Timothy 3 for the character qualities of overseers, deacons, and women who were leading in the local church at that time.

In verse 8, Paul puts some meat on the bone as to what it means to be timid by exhorting Timothy to “not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner.” Paul is speaking here of his own “testimony,” (in the language of the New Testament, the same word from which we get the English word “martyr”), that got him thrown into prison. That testimony was not just the words Paul spoke about the gospel, but the life he lived for the gospel. It involved his whole self, mind, body, and soul, or as Paul puts it in verse 11: “herald, apostle, and teacher.” Paul then makes Timothy an offer some might not be willing to take: “You’re living in God’s power now, so go ahead and join me in my own suffering.”

Now verse 8 here sounds much like Romans 1:16–17:

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”[2]

The gospel of Christ is powerful to bring salvation. But what gives the gospel, the “good news” of Christ, its power? It’s powerful because it was perfectly lived out by God’s own son, Jesus Christ. That’s the crux of the argument Paul lays out in the first 8 chapters of Romans: Jesus did not break the law of God, so he was the only one to earn the designation “righteous.” Look at the last phrase in Romans 1:17: “The righteous will live by faith.” The Hebrew of Habakkuk 2:4, from which Paul quotes this verse, is a bit more nuanced: “The righteous person will live by his faithfulness.” It’s not clear why the NT translator didn’t follow the OT translation here, but do you see the implications here? If, as Paul says in Romans 3, “There is no one righteous, not even one,” then who is the righteous one who lives by faithfulness in Romans 1:17? That could only be Jesus, right? The author of Hebrews puts it this way: “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back. But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.”

So we see more clearly now the urgent reason why Paul is so strongly exhorting Timothy here: Being timid about the Gospel; being ashamed of the Gospel; fretting about the suffering for the gospel that is difficult for sure, but for most, nothing like what Jesus himself went through, is “shrinking back” according to the author of Hebrews. “Shrinking back” is the opposite of “faithfulness.”

Getting back to the 2 Timothy passage, Paul tells us in vs. 10 that Jesus’s life and crucifixion worked to “destroy death” and to bring “life and immortality to light through the gospel.” As the perfect lamb of God, Jesus’s own physical body was “destroyed” on the cross so that in his death and resurrection, he could destroy death and its power forever! As believers, we have been made alive in Christ. Our eternal life doesn’t begin when we die. Our eternal life has already begun in Christ.

In 2 Timothy 1:12, Paul again reminds Timothy that suffering for the gospel is no cause for shame. As Jesus said, we only need faith the size of a mustard seed to move mountains. Taking that first step of faith, planting that mustard seed, if you will, can be difficult. But once we start down that road of faithfulness to what he’s called us to, it becomes difficult to turn back. We may feel unworthy like the servants in the Luke passage we read, but we have a sure hope that our own faithfulness will be rewarded. Like Paul, we can have assurance that God is with us along the way. I love the last part of vs. 12 here: “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.”

Paul closes out his charge to Timothy by calling on him to keep the faith and do his part to “guard the good deposit…with the help of the Holy Spirit.” This hearkens back to Deuteronomy, where the Lord, through Moses, repeats the refrain throughout the book to “be careful to obey what I’ve commanded. Obedience and faithfulness are not accidents. They are intentional choices we make to step toward and into the will of God.

What are some practical ways we can guard the good deposit? That’s where Psalm 37 comes in, the one we read earlier in the service. It involves both “dos” and “don’ts.”

Trust in the Lord (2x)Do not fret (3x)
Dwell in the landDo not be envious
Do goodRefrain from anger
Commit your way to the LordTurn from wrath
Take delight in the LordTurn away from godless chatter (1 Timothy 6:20)
Be stillTurn away from the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge (1 Timothy 6:20)
Wait patiently 

Most of us have heard the phrase, “Let’s get ready to rumble.” Michael Buffer, the famous professional ring announcer for boxing matches, coined and trademarked the phrase to kick off boxing matches. As Christians, we face a “rumble” of our own when it comes to the world. Even in Timothy’s day, he needed the encouragement of his mentor and coworker Paul to not get discouraged in the face of the spiritual battles they faced with respect to persecution. This is why it is so important to hold onto the fellowship we have with one another. As Paul did for Timothy, we can encourage each other and draw strength from one another when the rumble comes our way. The scriptures we looked at this morning lay out a strategy for us to stand strong and keep the faith. Let’s go from here and advance the kingdom in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

August 10, 2022

Having a Heavenly Head: Colossians 3

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Christology,Colossians,Courage,Faith, Faithfulness,Greek,Repentance,Spiritual Warfare — Scott Stocking @ 10:20 pm
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Listen to “Having a Heavenly Head”

Sermon preached at Mt. View Presbyterian Church July 31, 2022. Lightly edited for publication.

Probably a lot of people were asking each other this past week, “What would you do with a billion dollars?” With one of the largest jackpots ever, who could blame us for asking, right? If I had won it, I’d probably quit my job, go back to school to get my PhD, and spend the rest of my days preaching and writing. I’d also build, or hire someone to build, a really great model train layout so I’d have something entertaining for myself. And of course, my wife and I would travel to the historic sites of the Bible and other great places in the world.

But as Christians, of course, we’d have to be careful that our wishful thinking about a billion dollars doesn’t turn into outright greed. There’s nothing wrong with wealth in and of itself. But perhaps we should ask ourselves a different question if we have any thoughts about buying that longshot ticket to fortune: “What would a billion dollars do to me?”

Jesus addressed that issue with his followers and disciples in several different ways: “What good is it if for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very soul?” (Luke 9:25). In our Gospel reading this morning (Luke 12:13–21), Jesus said to the rich fool, “Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” Jesus told the pharisees, “You cannot serve both God and Money” (Luke 16:13). He also told a parable about a man who was forgiven thousands of dollars’ worth of debt, but then couldn’t even offer that same forgiveness to someone who owed him a couple hundred dollars (Matthew 18:21–35).

I’ll tell you how I’d answer the question, “What would a billion dollars do to me?” because I’ve thought about it quite a bit, and some of the answers I don’t like. For starters, I think I’d be a little paranoid about people doing all kinds of crazy things to get a piece of the pie. Like claiming to have injured themselves by slipping on the ice in front of my house…in August…when the projected high is over 90 degrees for the next two weeks. I have a mindset that God has me where he wants me, and if I’d win that much money, I might not be doing what God wants me to do anymore. That actually scares me a little. But then again, God can redirect me at any moment he chooses, jackpot or not. I’m not sure I’d tell my kids, either. I want them to know what it’s like to have a career and work for the things that are important to them. That builds character, personality, integrity, and wisdom. I turn 60 in a few months, so I’m thinking more and more about retirement and less and less about working!

But alas, some lucky person in Des Plaines, IL, purchased the winning ticket, so I won’t have to wrestle with that question any time soon, or probably ever. It’s probably a good thing too, because in today’s passage, Colossians 3, Paul warns us about the dangers of greed and inappropriate desires, not to mention a host of other sins and concerning behaviors.

Now to refresh your memories, last week we looked at chapter 2 and how we have fullness and a foundation in Christ that helps us to stand strong in our faith. Paul also used the imagery of baptism to show us how we have been saved from eternal death through the power of Christ’s resurrection that baptism represents. This is where Paul picks up the discussion in chapter 3.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.[1]

I want to stop there because these four verses are intended to let us know what our standing with Christ is, and I want to break that down a little bit.

I mentioned last week that Colossians and Ephesians have numerous parallel themes. The first verse in Colossians 3 sounds very much like Ephesians 2:6: “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 3:6 that we are “sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” In a spiritual sense, then we can live and act with the authority of Christ. That doesn’t mean we’re bossing others around, but it does mean we have the spiritual authority to speak against the evil that Satan tries to throw our way.

When talking about spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6, Paul says we have the full armor of God so we can stand against the devil’s schemes. And that armor isn’t just “standard issue” that any soldier would get. If you look up the Old Testament references to the armor Paul describes in Ephesians 6, you’ll find that in every case, it refers to armor that God himself figuratively wears. We have divine protection in Christ. And corporately, as a congregation, Paul says in Ephesians 1 that we have every spiritual blessing in Christ. How cool is that!

Colossians 3:3 lets us know we’re protected from Satan’s reach by being “hidden with Christ.” This doesn’t mean that we’ll never be tempted or never have bad things happen to us, but that we can have confidence that Christ will see us through whatever may come our way. And at the consummation of his kingdom, we know that we will appear with Christ in glory ready to embark on our eternal journey in heaven.

But until such time as we depart from this mortal life, Paul warns us about several sins and behaviors that tend to lead us into temptation and sin.

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

This is probably one of the most comprehensive lists in the NT of bad behavior and stinkin’ thinkin’. In Colossians 2:11, Paul says “Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ.” In Ephesians 4:22, Paul says something similar: “22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.”

Now all sin is equal in God’s eyes, so I don’t think the fact that we seem to have two lists here (vss. 5 and 8) can be used to imply some sort of ranking of sins from worst to not-so-bad. Paul seems to suggest in vs. 5 that the sins listed there have to do with our earthly nature, our “body of flesh” as Paul put it in the previous chapter. They also seem to be a little more aligned directly with the Ten Commandments, especially when he equates greed with idolatry. He also specifically says after that list that it is these things that bring on the wrath of God. He seems especially concerned about these, because those sins were apparently once a way of life for the Colossians.

The second list in vs. 8 seems to be more about behaviors that are not related to our bodies of flesh but rather our minds or our learned behaviors that dishonor God and his kingdom. For example, on anger, Paul says in Ephesians 4:26–27: “26 Get angry but do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.” In other words, it’s not a sin to get angry; that’s a natural response we have to certain situations. Our modern English translations don’t translate the first part of 26 as a command, but that’s what it is in NT Greek text and the Greek translation of the Hebrew text of Psalm 4:4. It warns us about dealing with our anger quickly and not “sleeping on it,” as that could give the devil an “in” to make your life miserable. Unresolved anger and grudges can eat away at our souls.

And note that Paul in vs. 9 especially highlights not lying to each other and ties that in with the fact that we’ve put off the old self and put on the new self. Lying, along with all the other sins and bad behavior listed here, are not consistent with a new or a renewed life in Christ. We’re learning how to live, love, and act as Jesus would have, because we’ve been transformed into a new creation in the image of Christ.

In a world that spends a lot of energy looking at diversity, verse 11 becomes all the more important. God doesn’t want us looking at people from a worldly point of view or according to their worldly, innate characteristics. Barbarians were those who didn’t speak Greek and lived primarily in northern and central parts of Europe. Scythians lived north of the Black Sea, in what is now modern-day Ukraine. Both were considered to be quite primitive, and the Scythians were considered especially brutal, little more than wild animals. It’s interesting they’re mentioned here, because their civilization had been overthrown by around 200 BC. Survivors of that culture had evidently migrated south across or around the Black Sea into Asia Minor and especially the area around Colossae. Knowing that, one has to wonder if some of the behaviors described in the previous verses may have been from a remnant of the Scythian peoples as they were assimilated into the culture of Asia Minor.

The only thing that matters, then, is whether we have Christ, who is all in all, and are living according to his standards.

Now it’s not enough just to get rid of the old. It’s important to replace our bad behaviors and stinkin’ thinkin’ with a renewed lifestyle and mindset. In Luke 11:24–26, Jesus gives us this teaching:

24 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26 Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”

If we don’t replace the bad stuff with something positive, we run the danger of letting the bad stuff come in again, and potentially make things much worse for us than before. That’s where Colossians 3:12–17 comes in. Paul doesn’t leave us hanging. He gives us a corresponding list of the good behaviors and the mindset we need to lead a successful Christian life.

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

That phrase “God’s chosen people” in vs. 12 is not just a nice sentiment or a randomly chosen designation. That’s the same phrase Peter uses in his first letter, chapter 2, verse 9. Peter’s first epistle shares a number of common themes with Ephesians and Colossians as well. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” This goes right back to the authority Paul says we have because we’re raised up with Christ and seated with him. We’re “being built into a spiritual house” as the body of Christ, “offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God” (1 Peter 2:5).

The list of good stuff sounds very much like the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians. And notice how he puts it: he wants us to “clothe” ourselves in all these good things. This is a direct verbal contrast to our passage last week where he speaks of “putting off” the old self. I think we all know what the virtues listed are, so we don’t need to dive too deeply into that. I will say something about “kindness,” though. There does seem to be a slight difference between being “nice” and being “kind.” A nice person might not want to confront an issue because they don’t want to upset someone, whereas a kind person would confront an issue and give the other person a chance to do better.

I’ll take a recent example from my own life. We had some new siding put on the north side of our house in April, and it didn’t get painted until June. I was looking at the paint job when it was done, and noticed it was patchy; some places either didn’t have a second coat or perhaps they had two batches with a slightly different tint. As I started to look closer at the siding job, I began to notice there were gaps at the seams of the horizontal planks that were not acceptable. It was wavy and uneven. And to boot, some of the nails were already starting to pop through the siding leaving noticeable holes. Basically that would have left me with the same problem I was trying to fix.

If I had decided to be “nice,” I might have said, “Oh well, they did their best, I guess I’ll have to live with it,” and spend thousands more a few years down the road to fix the same problems all over again. But the “kind” thing to do in my mind was to let the company know and give them a chance to make it right. That may be more painful for all involved, especially for the siding company financially, but in the end we’re both better off knowing it’s a job well done.

The point is, these virtues aren’t intended to make us milquetoast. It takes a certain strength of character and a good deal of self-control to be gentle and patient in the face of life’s challenges. It takes courage to bear with each other through the tough times and forgive one another when we’ve been hurt. Even as Jesus was hanging on the cross, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.”

And just like 1 Corinthians 13, the greatest virtue of all to put on is love. Love covers over a multitude of sin, as Peter says.

And not only are we called to put on new behaviors, but a new mindset as well. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” What does that look like? That may be different for each one of us. When we’re ruled by the love and peace of Christ, we are bold evangelists for the good news. Unbelievers will be more inclined to listen to us if our actions are consistent with what we profess to believe about Christ. And I’m sure many of you have heard the adage, “I may not remember what someone said to me, but I do remember how they made me feel.” If we act and speak in the name of the Lord Jesus, the world will see that and perhaps share in giving glory and thanks to God.

So as we go from here today, let’s remember that not only do we have fullness in Christ, but that he’s empowered and equipped us to live lives holy and pleasing to him. Amen.

[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Note that I did not include the comma after “is” as the NIV (2011) version and other versions have it in 3:1. The Greek text appears to be periphrastic, with four words separating ἐστιν and καθήμενος. The NIV and other versions presume that οὗ ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν modifies ἄνω. But this makes no sense, since the rest of the sentence doesn’t flow neatly after that. The periphrastic makes the most sense here, because Christ is seated at the right hand of God. It does NOT refer to Paul’s audience, since he addresses his audience in the plural, and the participle is singular. (For comparison, see Ephesians 2:6, where Paul says we are “seated with Christ in the heavenly realms.”) The comma only serves to make this poor English syntax.

March 13, 2022

Temptations Lose Their Power (Luke 4:1‒13)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Deuteronomy,Exodus,Faith, Faithfulness,Greek,James,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Old Testament,Prayer,Spiritual Warfare,Temptation,Textual Criticism — Scott Stocking @ 11:44 am
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Author’s Note: This message was preached at Mt. View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, Nebraska, March 6, 2022. The text has been lightly edited with the addition of section headings. I was not recording audio files of my messages at that time.

I preached the message again on March 9, 2025. The new audio file is from that date.

It’s the oldest persistent and scariest challenge in the world, and one that very few have ever navigated with 100 percent success. Men and women who have done great things in their lives have lost it all because one time out of the hundreds or thousands of times they’ve dealt with this challenge, they failed horribly, miserably, and humiliatingly. Whether it was a moment of pride, lust, greed, or desperation, that one moment of failure was enough to erase and “cancel” all the good and great things someone ever accomplished.

The Roots of Temptation

By now, you’ve probably guessed what that oldest challenge is: temptation. We see it from the earliest chapters in the Bible, while Adam and Eve are still in a pristine paradise in the garden, clear through the Old Testament, and even into the New Testament story line. In Genesis 3, we see the primary elements of temptation in Eve’s encounter with the serpent: “the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom.”[1] John confirms this definition in his first letter (1 John 2:16) in slightly different words: “For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.[2]”

Examples of Temptation

Old Testament

We could, unfortunately of course, provide several other examples of temptation in both testaments, but I want to highlight a couple other ones to clarify what temptation is and is not. For example, later in Genesis, not once, not twice, but three times the patriarchs mislead the king of a foreign country about the nature of their respective relationships with their wives. Abraham does it twice, and Isaac once. These failures ostensibly came about because the men had some measure of fear of what these foreign kings might do, but that was no excuse in God’s eyes. And let’s not forget about Joseph when Pharaoh’s wife pursues him. He put his own life at risk by fleeing the scene of temptation.

Fast forwarding to the kingdom era, we of course have the story of David and Bathsheba, where David goes out on the rooftop of his palace and sees a beautiful woman bathing. Not only does he have her brought to the palace to take advantage of her, but when he realizes he got her pregnant, he tries to “frame” her husband for the pregnancy. Of course, this utterly fails, as Uriah has more integrity than David, and David has him put on the front lines of battle to a certain death. One moral failing leads to another, which is ultimately exposed by Nathan the prophet.

New Testament

One final example of temptation is that of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts, the couple who misrepresented the money they earned from a property sale and both wound up dead for lying to the church about it. They could have given whatever they wanted to and kept whatever they wanted to, but they tried to fool church and paid the ultimate price.

I believe each of these stories represent each of the three elements of temptation individually that we saw in Eve’s thinking and John’s epistle. But before we get too much further into this, it’s important that we look at the words the Bible uses for “temptation” so we can get a better understanding of its meaning and application.

Temptation and Testing: The Word Study

[Professor's Tip: Normally, I would do a word study in the original language, but since there are only two related Greek words (noun and verb) and one Hebrew word dedicated to the concept, a study of translation principles is more in order.]

Now even though I gave several examples of temptation from the Old Testament, the verb “tempt” (πειράζω peirazō) and its noun “temptation” (πειρασμός peirasmos) are rarely if ever found in English translations of the OT. Neither the New International Version nor the English Standard Version nor the New Revised Standard Version have those English words at all in the OT. The New King James Version translates the Hebrew word (נסה nāsāh) as “tempt” or “tempted” in four verses, three of which are related to Jesus’s responses to the devil in the temptation narrative we’ll look at in a moment. The reason I bring this up is because by comparing the NKJV with the other three translations I mentioned, we see that the other way the Hebrew (and in the NT, the Greek) words are translated: “test.”

The Difference Between “Test” and “Tempt”

So why do three of the versions I mentioned use “test” instead of “temptation” for the same Greek or Hebrew word? Well, as I tell my students when they ask me questions like that, the answer is “context, context, context.” If you follow the use of the words in their respective story settings, you find that “testing” has to do with the relationship between God and humans. The general thrust of the verses in question goes one of three ways: either God is testing his people to see how they respond, or the people are testing God by NOT doing what he’s commanded them to do, or one person is testing another’s character. And consistent with the concept of testing, sometimes there’s a judgment or “grade” on how we responded to the test.

“Temptation” is a subset of testing. That is, all temptations are tests, but not all tests are temptations. The word “temptation” is used by these English translation committees to indicate a situation in which some personified evil power or influence is at work. James 1:13–15 clarifies this for us:

13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.[3]

Our own modern English dictionaries seem to confirm this distinction as well. Merriam-Webster says “tempt” means “to entice to do wrong by promise of pleasure or gain,” “to induce to do something,” or its synonym “provoke.”[4] However, the word gurus at Merriam-Webster tell us that the use of the word “tempt” to mean “to make trial of” or to “test” (i.e., how the word is used in the King James Version) is now obsolete.

So, to sum up where we’re at: testing happens between God and man or from man to man. Temptation happens when an evil one or evil desire holds our attention. I haven’t forgotten about my sermon title, “Temptations Lose Their Power”; we’ll get to that soon. And no, there will NOT be a quiz afterwards!

OT Background for Jesus’s Temptation Narrative

Let’s get back to Scripture, then, and look at the passages that set us up for passage about Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness.

In Exodus 17, not long after the Jews had crossed the Red Sea on dry land, one of many grumbling episodes broke out against Moses. This is the first time we see the Hebrew word for “test” in the OT, so it’s worth taking a quick look at the text:

The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”

Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?”

3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

5 The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the place Massah  and Meribah  because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”[5]

Notice here that Moses, at least, passes the test. He’s commanded to strike the rock, and indeed he does. The people, however, not so much. Now if you’re scratching your head and saying, “Wait a minute, I thought Moses got in trouble for that one,” you might be thinking of the similar account toward the end of the wilderness wanderings in the book of Numbers, where Moses was commanded to SPEAK to the rock, but STRUCK it twice instead, and consequently lost his free pass to the Promised Land. Moses failed that one. So, let’s ask an obvious question at this point: If you’re stuck in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, which of these two stories of a Bible hero would you want on your mind to survive your time of testing?

Well, Deuteronomy 6 answers that question for us, and these verses are the sources for two of Jesus’s three responses in the wilderness to the Devil”

13 Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. 14 Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; 15 for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. 16 Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.[6]

The Temptation Narrative

And so finally, we come to the story today of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted (πειράζω peirazō) by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; 11 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

12 Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.[7]

Luke 4:1‒13

Now we can make an educated guess as to why the devil tried to pull this little stunt here of tempting God’s son. The devil knew Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and he couldn’t get to him on the spiritual side. The devil targeted Jesus’s human side with the three elements of temptation we talked about in the beginning: the lust of the flesh (turning stones into bread to assuage his hunger, a clear abuse of power to serve himself only); the lust of the eyes (the devil showing Jesus all the kingdoms and offering him to rule it all if he worshiped the devil, Jesus knew who the true ruler was and who deserved his worship); and the boastful pride of life (demonstrating superhuman strength and feats, again an abuse of power to serve himself and draw attention away from his teaching and example). If the devil could get Jesus to bite on just one of these, it would be all over for the rest of us.

How Temptations Lose Their Power

Prayer

One of the main reasons we have this story is to demonstrate what Hebrews 4:15 says: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”[8] And why did he care enough to do that? The very next verse gives us the answer, and one of the biblical steps we can take to cause temptations to lose their power. “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”[9]

For any test, trial, or temptation we face, we can always turn to God in prayer. Joseph, even though he was imprisoned after fleeing Potiphar’s wife, stayed connected with God. He would eventually rise to power in Egypt because he maintained his integrity and continued to do the will of God. And we’re not alone in these times either. Hebrews 12 says we’re surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Not only can we seek mercy and grace from Christ at the throne of God, but we can also seek it from the body of Christ here in our own communities. Some churches have a Celebrate Recovery program that helps people deal with addictions. Other churches sponsor Grief Care and Divorce Care groups to help people in those situations.

Living in the Will of God

This brings us to another strategy for cutting off the impact of temptation in our lives. Right after John gives his description of temptation I mentioned earlier, he says this: “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”[10] David, when he had a chance to kill King Saul in a cave, refused to lay a hand on God’s anointed. It must have been a huge temptation for him to have killed Saul then and there and complete his divinely appointed takeover of the kingdom, but David waited on God’s timing. Another episode where David succeeded was when he was bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. When he realized he wasn’t transporting it according to God’s instructions, and Uzzah died when touched the Ark to steady it on the cart, David left it at the home of Obed-Edom to keep it safe there until he could move it properly. He didn’t try to make excuses for doing it the wrong way, he just stopped doing it the wrong way.[11]

(Memorizing and) Quoting God’s Word

In addition to prayer and doing God’s will, Jesus shows us yet another way to address temptation and weaken its power in our lives: citing the word of God. The fact that Jesus cites two of his three verses from Deuteronomy 6 gives us some insight as to what Jesus had been thinking about and meditating on while he was in the wilderness. He was obviously thinking about how Moses had led a stiff-necked people through the wilderness for 40 years when he only had to survive it 40 days. He remembered Moses’s success at Massah as we read above from Exodus 17. We can always look to the Scriptures for help facing temptation. It’s good to memorize Scripture as well, so you can have it at the ready, especially when temptation may come at you out of nowhere. Study God’s word. Learn from the mistakes and successes of the heroes of faith. Make a plan.

A Personal Testimony

When I was a young Christian in high school, I was all too aware of what my hormones were doing to me. When I read the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, I embraced that as my power and plan to avoid that kind of temptation. Without going into any detail, twice I found myself in very similar situations to Joseph where I was outright given an opportunity I was not seeking to make the wrong decision with people I knew would be bad influences on me, and I followed Joseph’s plan as a young man. Run away! I am certain that those two events are watershed moments in my faith journey. I’d hate to think where I’d be today had I not made the right decisions in those early days of my faith.

The Promise of God

This brings me to my final Scripture, 1 Corinthians 10:13. I’m sure many of you are familiar with it: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”[12] Trust in God, his word, and the power of the Holy Spirit working in your lives to watch over you. The devil tried to convince Jesus he could jump off the top of the temple without being harmed by quoting Psalm 91:12. But that verse was never intended for us to do things to provoke God’s protection. That promise is there for us when we find ourselves in a place we were powerless to avoid. God will make a way to cause temptations to lose their power, and that’s one way he shows his great love for us.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My opinions are my own.

[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[2] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[3] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[4] Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1996. In Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.

[5] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[6] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[7] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[8] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[9] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[10] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[11] 2 Samuel 6

[12] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

May 19, 2021

Work: The ‘Rest’ of the Story (Sermon)

Filed under: Acts,Creation,Ecclesiastes,Ephesians,Faith, Faithfulness,Genesis,Greek,Hebrews,Proverbs,Sabbath,Work — Scott Stocking @ 7:48 am
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Sermon preached at Wheeler Grove Rural Church May 16, 2021. All opinions are my own.

It seems work has been on everyone’s minds lately, one way or the other. Will I be able to go back to the office, if ever? Will it be safe if I do? If you’re in the hospitality industry, you wonder if things will ever be the same again? When will we get back to the prepandemic “normal”? Such questions have been on my mind as well.

For my own situation, my full-time employer, based in Minneapolis, has let us know they’re closing our Omaha office building and everyone who previously worked from that location will continue to work from home indefinitely. Now on the one hand, I can understand why they’re doing that: I work for a pharmacy benefits manager, so we make sure people get the medication they need to feel better. We’re essentially in the information industry, so we’re not coming together to build buildings or manufacture cars, home appliances, or clothing, industries where it’s helpful to have people around to perform and look after the processes. We can do our jobs from home; people in those industries typically can’t.

But on the other hand, I fear that working from home with no one else around you (except needy pets in many cases) may threaten what some of have come to call the “culture” of a company. We no longer have others around us physically who share the same goals and objectives from a work perspective. And we lose the connectedness we have on a social level, especially with those we interact with who share the same values or likes and dislikes that we have outside of the work environment.

How many people do you know who’ve made a close friend at work who’s added value to each other’s lives. Even in the Creation story, which we’ll look at in a moment, God says it’s not good for Adam to be alone, so he provides a “helper,” one who shares his human nature but from the perspective of the opposite sex; equals in many ways in personhood, but different in their gifts, callings, and innate abilities. Together, they shared one primary purpose in the beginning: tend to the garden.

When God created male and female, he also created “work.” As we dive into the message this morning, I do want to give you my main point up front so you can get a feel for where I’m going with the topic. Here it is: Work produces Order, and Order produces Rest. Again, Work produces Order, and Order produces Rest. Thus the title of my message: “Work: The ‘Rest’ of the Story.” See what I did there?

I also want to give a couple disclaimers as well: Many of the Scriptures we’re looking at this morning aren’t just about the work we do for a paycheck. At times, they have more to do with how we interact with our families and those around us, or more to do with our relationship with God and his kingdom, than they do with our employer. The second disclaimer is, if you’re retired, you have my permission to tune out if I’m talking about an employer. You’ve already given your time to “the man” and have earned your earthly rest from that.

Let’s roll up our sleeves and look at Genesis 1:1–2 and 2:1–3.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Then for six days, God begins speaking creation into existence.

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Day 0: “In the beginning”—Chaos
Day 1: Light Day 4: The lighted bodies
Day 2: Sky and water Day 5: Air and water creatures
Day 3: Dry ground Day 6: Land-dwelling creatures; Man

Day 7: “God rested from his work.”—Order

A couple things about the text first before taking a deeper dive into Genesis 1. Genesis 1 has some unique features as a written text. Several key words are found 7 or 10 times throughout the passage. This shows some intentionality in writing, even if the writer wasn’t aware of it, if you know what I mean. The phrase “formless and empty,” tohu vebohu in Hebrew (how poetic!), is found in a couple other places in the Old Testament, namely Isaiah and Jeremiah, where it refers to the utter destruction of the land coming on those nations that have forsaken God. [See https://sundaymorninggreekblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/work-the-rest-of-the-story-ecclesiastes-3/ for in-depth look at chart.]

Genesis conclusion

So you can see that in the very act of Creation, God created a theology of work. On this alone, I think I’ve made my main point that Work produces Order, and Order produces Rest. But that would be a very short sermon! I do think it’s important to take a look at how that theology of work plays out in Scripture. As such, I have a sampling of verses, especially from the Wisdom Literature of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, about the benefits of work and the consequences of neglecting our responsibility to work.

The Rest of the OT

Of all the books in the Bible, Ecclesiastes has the most practical wisdom and theology about life in general, and work in particular, than all the other Bible books combined. Solomon’s wisdom really shines through in Ecclesiastes, even as the cry of “Meaningless” echoes through the text. I think the key passage here is Ecclesiastes 3:9–15. Let’s hear that again:

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. 15 Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.

[For “beautiful,” see Eccl 5:18, where the Hebrew word is translated “appropriate.”]

18 This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them—for this is their lot.

Think of all the “toil” we do each and every day. How do we make things beautiful? How do we find satisfaction? What are the tasks that bring you satisfaction? Let me run a few by you.

Around the house or the farm:

• A freshly cut lawn.

• A freshly tilled field ready for planting.

• A sparkling bathroom after cleaning it (including getting that nasty whatever out of the drain).

• Big ripe tomatoes on the tomato plants.

• Making your bed first thing in the morning. (Navy Seal Admiral McRaven: Bed inspected every morning at training. Accomplishing the first task of the day leads to getting more tasks completed.)

In the kitchen:

• King’s Hawaiian rolls with honey butter.

• A perfectly grilled thick pork chop or steak.

• A scrumptious chocolate cake. (Are you hungry yet?)

In the workplace:

• Crisp new copies of a dynamite proposal.

• Seeing the finished product at the end of your assembly line.

• Finding extra money in the budget for upgraded computers.

• Landing that big account.

At school:

• A pristine science project.

• An A+ on your history research paper.

• Hitting a walk-off home run to win the game.

I think we all know how good it feels at the end of a day’s work, regardless of whether it was physically, mentally, or emotionally challenging, to finally get to the (made) bed and lay our heads down knowing we’ve accomplished something important, bringing order out of the disparate parts of our experience, a finished product out of the many different parts that compose it, or adding beauty where there was barrenness. And even if in all your work you didn’t get the outcome you wanted, you can still have the satisfaction of knowing you gave it your best shot, and that tomorrow will bring another opportunity.

Now up to this point, I’ve kept it pretty upbeat, but to understand the contrast, we need to acknowledge the elephant (or is it a sloth?) in the room: all those verses in Proverbs and elsewhere about not owning up to one’s responsibility to work. Staying in Ecclesiastes, we find this relevant passage in chapter 10 verse 18:

18 Through laziness, the rafters sag; because of idle hands, the house leaks.

Proverbs has several verses about laziness or a general malaise about working. Proverbs 26:13–16 focuses on the topic with a bit of sarcasm to boot:

13 A sluggard says, “There’s a lion in the road, a fierce lion roaming the streets!”

14 As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed.

15 A sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth.

16 A sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven people who answer discreetly.

You have to wonder, with four verses like that in a row, if Solomon himself had had a bad day when he wrote this. It wouldn’t surprise me if Solomon had witnessed each of these during his day, and that last sarcastic remark was accompanied by Solomon throwing up his hands in resignation!

New Testament

In the book of Acts, we see some of these contrasts as well. For example, in Chapter 5, we see how Ananias and Sapphira got together to conspire a plot to cheat the church and get ahead. Most of us know what happened to them. By contrast in chapter 6, we see the apostles take up a thorny issue of distributing food to needy Greek widows. They appointed 7 men full of the Holy Spirit to address the matter. They worked hard to earn the new believers’ respect in this matter, and it paid off with more and more people being brought into the kingdom.

Paul himself, later in Acts, reminded the Ephesian elders about his hard work among in the nearly 18 months he spent ministering there. Acts 20:33–35 says:

33 I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. 34 You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. 35 In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

The Thessalonians must have had a problem with not wanting to carry their weight. Paul has to warn them in both letters about laziness in the strongest terms. Paul says in 1 Thess 5:12–15:

12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. 14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.

And in 2 Thess 3:6–13, he says something similar:

6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. [skip vs. 9] 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

Our modern English translation needs two words and a conjunction to translate one Greek word about shirking your responsibility to work, whether it be at your job, at home, or for the kingdom. “Idle and disruptive.” This particular Greek word is only found in the letters to the Thessalonians, which emphasizes the point that something was wrong with the Thessalonians work ethic. In other contexts outside the Bible, the word has to do with being out of military formation or just general disorder and chaos. “Without form and empty.”

Paul continues from there in vv. 11–13, and emphasizes that word again, and transitions us back to a positive thought as we begin to wrap up the message:

11 We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. 12 Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. 13 And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good. Hear it again: “Never tire of doing what is good.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 (author’s translation; contrast with “walk” in 2:2) says:

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faithfulness—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to walk in good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

As if to emphasize the point, he says in Ephesians 4:28

28 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.

Hebrews 4:6–11 (Sabbath rest)

6 Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, 7 God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” 8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. 9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve seen to day how Work produces Order, and Order produces Rest. In a world around us that seems to be trending toward disruption and disorder, it is good to know we have a God who is working hard to hold it together, and to know that there are saints among us who are working hard to support, promote, and uphold God’s kingdom. And now you know the ‘rest’ of the story.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

All Scriptures, unless otherwise indicated, are (c) 2011 New International Version, Zondervan Publishing.

What Makes God Weep?

Filed under: Christology,Faith, Faithfulness,Greek,John Gospel of,Life of Christ,Miracles,Resurrection,Thanatology (Death) — Scott Stocking @ 6:00 am
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Sermon preached by Scott Stocking, Wheeler Grove Rural Church, January 17, 2021. This was the first Sunday the church was open after COVID.

Introduction

This past year has certainly been a challenging one for the world. Many of us know people affected by COVID, whether testing positive without any more symptoms than a few sniffles, to those who unfortunately lost loved ones or their own lives to the disease. My wife works in a skilled nursing facility in Omaha as an occupational therapist, and had to put on her “protective armor” to work with residents who tested positive for the disease.

Jill and I also have two friends who went to death’s door with the disease, but have or are making what seems to be full recovery. One friend’s wife had actually gone to talk to the funeral home before he rebounded. Another friend, just in that last few weeks, had been on a ventilator. Those who go on a ventilator have a 10% chance of survival. He eventually got off the ventilator and beat the odds, and at last report, he was doing quite well in rehab, just having his trach removed and talking up a storm with his family members.

It’s been an eye-opening experience for me, as I’ve never had two friends in one year come this close to death, and it reminds me both of how fragile life can be, and also how precious life is. In Jesus’s day, life was considered cheap. The philosopher Aristotle said, in so many words, you were born to either be an elite-class ruler or part of the masses of the lower-class ruled. There really wasn’t much of what we call the “middle class” in that day and age, socially or economically.

In the passage we’re looking at today, we see Jesus’s countercultural attitude toward life, at least countercultural in his day and age. Jesus did not think life was cheap. He valued the individual, regardless of their rank in life, and even regardless of the type of life they led. We will also see perhaps the most intense display of Jesus’s humanity as well as glimpses into his divine nature.

What Makes God Weep?

As we come to the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in John 11, we will see the full range of Jesus’s human and divine natures. Even though “all the fullness of the Deity dwells within him,” he is still fully human as well, so much so that the Gospel writers record Jesus using the title “Son of Man” for himself.

The story starts at the beginning of chapter 11 when Jesus learns that Lazarus, perhaps his best friend outside of the circle of the apostles, is sick. Jesus doesn’t seem concerned however, and like the good friend he is, he intentionally delays going to see Lazarus. Wait, wha? [Pause for effect, pretend to be confused and reread that sentence.] The apostles don’t under Jesus’s delay, but only because he knows “this sickness will not end in death,” but “is for God’s glory.” He eventually says cryptically a few verses later that “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep,” but the apostles don’t pick up on the subtle reference. Jesus must tell them plainly a few verses later that “Lazarus is dead.”

Now it should not surprise us that Type A Martha, the control freak of the two sisters, is the one to go out and meet Jesus at the gate. Since it took Jesus four days from the time he got the news (at least from a human source) to go the two miles from Jerusalem to Bethany, Martha had plenty of time to think about what she’d say. Martha is chomping at the bit to make sure Jesus knows that because he wasn’t there, it’s all his fault that Lazarus died. Pretty harsh, right? In fact, Martha is so focused on getting these first few words out, that we get no indication in the story that she’s in mourning. I think most of us know that feeling: we get our adrenaline going about something peripheral such that we forget how we’re supposed to feel or what we’re supposed to say about whatever the core issue is that is truly impacting us emotionally.

But either Martha knows she’s stuck her foot in her mouth after that first statement, or she really has been thinking about what her second statement would be: “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” Does that statement represent genuine concern, or is it more like a backhanded control freak statement? “I’ve waited four days for you to get here, Jesus, so you owe me big time!”

But Martha does prove to have a heart of gold, a heart full of faith, and a desire for great theological conversation when she goes on to say, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” If there were other people within earshot of that statement, I’m sure it would have turned heads, especially if any of the crowd were Sadducees. This is exactly the reasoning Abraham used, according to the author of Hebrews, to not hesitate to obey God’s command to him to (almost-) sacrifice Isaac. As such, Martha is the personal recipient of one of Jesus’s seven “I am” statements in the Gospel of John: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

So to this point in the story, what do we see of Jesus’s divine and human natures? Someone brings him the message that Lazarus is dying, but Jesus is most likely already aware of this given what he says to his disciples about it. He doesn’t seem to be concerned about Lazarus dying, which, from a human perspective, might make him appear cold, matter-of-fact, and uncaring. If this were you or I, we’d want to make every effort to go see the friend on their deathbed. But his divine nature knows the end of the story. Jesus implicitly trusts in his heavenly Father that the end result will be for his glory.

So here we have Jesus, quite stoically handling the news of Lazarus’s death and just matter-of-factly stating that he is the resurrection and the life. That last claim, by itself and at face value, would have been absolutely astonishing to his listeners. Most 30-year-olds in Jesus’s day were typically closer to their death than their birth, and the cultures around the Jewish people had little regard for the sanctity of life, as my opening illustration revealed. So keep that and Jesus’s initial response in mind as we look at vv. 32–39 here. We pick up the story after Martha has gone to bring Mary back to see Jesus.

Read John 11:32–33a.

Notice that Mary’s first response to Jesus is identical to Martha’s, except that Mary is making no pretense about her sorrow. She’s bawling, and everyone with her is bawling. The text doesn’t say, but I’m pretty sure Martha is standing there trying to be the strong one: “I’m not going to cry in front of Jesus! I’m not going to cry in front of Jesus.” Truly there is great sorrow here, and this is one of the few times in the Gospels where we see Jesus come face to face with not just mourners, but mourners who are most likely among his closest friends outside his inner circle. In the next few verses, we get a profound insight into the depths of Jesus’s human nature. Back to vs. 33:

Read John 11:33-35

There it is: “Jesus wept.” The shortest verse in our English Bibles. Nine letters. Six consonants and three vowels in three syllables. Yet nothing is more poignant, nothing more revealing of the depth of human sorrow than weeping. And this isn’t some Hollywood zoom-in shot of Jesus’s face where he sheds one dramatic tear. Oh no! Jesus is in full-on weeping mode with his friends. And even though the story doesn’t say it, I think it’s safe to say that, to the extent Martha was trying to be the “strong one,” Martha’s floodgates open up here; she can’t hold it in any longer, and she begins to weep as well, perhaps precisely because Jesus wept. How profound it is when we see first hand that Savior of the world feels AND shows the same emotions that you and I feel at the death of a loved one. How profound to know that our God does NOT turn a blind eye to our sorrow and pain.

Now Jesus’s weeping is not a sudden outburst that isn’t expected in the story. John, in fact, is building up the tension in the story to that climax. Look back at the end of vs. 33: John says Jesus is “deeply moved” and “troubled.” In the original language of the Scripture, that word is perhaps the strongest expression of “negative” emotion one could have. In Matthew 9:30, Jesus “sternly warned” the blind man not to say who healed him. That would have been akin to Jesus saying something like, “Don’t you dare, in a million years, tell anyone who did this to you.” At Jesus’s anointing in Bethany, where the prostitute broke an alabaster jar over Jesus’s head and let the perfume run down him, we’re told that those present (except for Jesus) “rebuked her sharply,” probably even to the extent of cursing her or reminding her in no uncertain terms about her profession.

Some commentators here go as far as suggesting that Jesus may have “snorted” (their word, not mine) here. On the one hand, he could have been choking back the tears in light of all the weeping. On the other hand, and perhaps more importantly, Jesus may also be on the verge of cursing death itself here. The one who is the resurrection and the life, the one who knew he himself must suffer horribly and die on the cross, and who knew God would thus give him ultimately victory over death, must face the death of a friend nonetheless. He shows himself to be the great high priest, as he’s called in Hebrews 4:15, who is not “unable to empathize with our weaknesses,” who has been tempted as we are, and yet was without sin.

Now I want to suggest something here that has probably never occurred to you: The main focus of John’s account of this story here is NOT that Jesus raises someone from the dead eventually. Jesus has already done several amazing miracles to this point, building up to the raising of Lazarus as the greatest of his miracles. Another miracle? I’m impressed of course, but not surprised. John has already hinted to us that that is going to happen in the story, with Jesus’s “I am” statement and Martha’s statement. Keep in mind that John, in his short epistles toward the end of the NT, is fighting against Gnosticism, a belief that nothing done in the body matters at all for eternal salvation. When John says, “Jesus wept,” he’s acknowledging that God considers human life precious and valuable; that the body does matter for our earthly existence. That’s why “Jesus wept” is at the center of this whole story. He intends this show of Jesus’s humanity as the highlight and climax of the story.

This is all pretty intense, right? So if we’ve hit the climax, where do we go from here? Well, there is “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey used to say. There is, as literature professors would put it, the “anticlimax.” Note a further expression of Jesus’s humanity in vs. 36: “See how he loved him.” That word for love there typically implies a brotherly or familial love. It’s not the self-sacrificing agape love, and it’s certainly not any kind of romantic love. It reveals the deep friendship that Jesus had (and will have again) with Lazarus.

Even some in the crowd in v. 37 echo Mary and Martha’s sentiment that Jesus could have kept him from dying. “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Read John 11:38–40

Once again, we see that word for “deeply moved” that we saw in v. 33. Jesus has still got some fire in him at this point. So when he asks for the stone to be taken away, I think he’s not just making a polite request here. I think he spoke it like I read it, with that “I’ve-had-enough-of-this” indignation. “Let’s get this over with; he’s been dead long enough.” Of course Martha, the rational one, has regained her composure in the time it took to walk over to the tomb, and isn’t too thrilled about consequences of removing the stone. That just stokes Jesus’s fire all the more. “I’m going to raise your brother and you’re worried it might stink a little bit?” I’m pretty sure that the “glory of God” at that point was not going to have any stink associated with it.

Read John 11:41–44

Now when I set out to write this sermon, I had intended to do the three shortest verses in the NT and tie them together in a neat little package. But the more I got into, the more the Spirit led me down the road I followed today, focusing on “Jesus wept.” One of the three shortest verses is “Pray continually,” or more literally, “pray without ceasing.” Jesus offers his prayer here. He doesn’t need to do this, because he knows God is always listening to him. But as he’s said all along in this story, his goal is to make sure God is glorified. He wants to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that what is about to happen is not some magic trick or sleight of hand. This is God-power all the way, the “incomparably great [resurrection] power for us who believe,” as Paul tells the Ephesians.

In v. 43, Jesus’s fire is still going. Again, it’s not a polite request or, “Hey, Lazarus, ollie ollie ots and free.” Jesus booms with a loud, commanding voice, loud enough to literally wake the dead, “Lazarus, come out!” I think it’s interesting that the NIV here says “The dead man came out.” Umm, looks like he’s not dead any more. The more literal translation here is “the one who has been dead came out.” Can I get an “Amen”?

The third short verse precedes “pray continually” in 1 Thessalonians 5: “Rejoice always.” In the last part of v. 44, Jesus loses all the tension he’s been feeling to this point. I’m sure he’s got a huge smile across his face at this point, as do all those who’ve seen Lazarus rise from the dead and walk out of the grave. Jesus’s happiness, smile, and dare I say laughter are all additional profound insights into Jesus’s human side. The savior who weeps with us in our time of sorrow rejoices with us in our time of joy.

Conclusion/Call to Action

John 11 is a powerful story about Jesus’s love for a friend and his disgust with death and the seeming cheapness of life in the world around him. But how does that impact us today? What are steps that we can take as believers to promote the value of the individual, especially in this time when we’ve had to be isolated from ones we love?

In the ancient world, at and before the time of Christ, there were two practices that absolutely cheapened life. One of them was known as exposure. At that time, if you gave birth to a child you didn’t want, or the child was conceived in, shall we say, ill repute, it was legal, and in certain situation expected of you, to expose that infant to the elements and let the Fates decide what would become of the child. As Christianity took hold, Christians began to rescue these innocents. As Christianity grew and the concept that all life mattered began to take hold culturally, Constantine eventually outlawed the practice all together in the Roman empire.

The second practice was, in certain Greek democracies where they did not have the concept of freedom of speech, the casting of the ostraca. Ostraca were simply pieces of clay pots on which the voters (usually only “citizens”) wrote the name of a person whom they thought was not worthy of participating in their society any longer. The person receiving the most votes was “ostracized,” or banished from the city-state democracy. As you might imagine, the ancients had their share of folks on all sides who spread lies and misinformation about political enemies in order to influence who got voted off the island, so to speak.

In this day and age when our country is so divided on so many issues, it’s important that we learn how to not only respect our differences, but understand why each of us believes what we believe. Jesus’s disciples were a diverse group, from a hated tax collector to the lowly fishermen. My prayer is that we see the value in each and every individual and in what they bring to the table for the good of our Lord and our country. Peace to you all, and thank you for letting me share with you today.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My views are my own.

August 24, 2019

The Lord’s Prayer: Deliver Us From the Evil One (Matthew 6:9–13)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Ephesians,Evil,Faith, Faithfulness,forgiveness,Greek,Matthew Gospel of,Prayer,Providence,Spiritual Warfare — Scott Stocking @ 2:19 pm
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Nothing is perhaps more common among the diverse branches of Christianity as the Lord’s Prayer. Aside from the occasional hesitation in the public setting about whether the church that’s reciting it says “trespasses” or “debts,” the basic form of the prayer is well established. Jesus implies in the text leading into Matthew 6:9–13 that it is a model prayer, not something intended to be formulaic or ritualistic (the surrounding context makes that crystal clear!), but rather a pattern for how we approach God the Father in prayer.

Many have proposed legitimate ways of outlining or summarizing the prayer, so my own comments are not intended to suggest those other ways are any less valid than what I am proposing here. We all have our own experiences and filters through which we come to the Father, and he really doesn’t care what, if any pattern we use. He just wants us to come and talk to him. But being a preacher, and an old-school one at that, I thought an alliterative outline would be good to organize my thoughts for my sermon on the passage this past Sunday.

Overview

Praise: Jesus gives praise to the Father in vv. 9–10 for who he is and what he is doing.

Provision: Jesus asks that God provides with the basic necessities of life, represented by bread.

Pardon: Jesus exhorts us to ask the Father’s forgiveness for our sins even as we (can and should) forgive those who sin against us.

Protection: Jesus asks God not only to keep us away from temptation, but also to deliver us from the evil one (or if you’re old school, from evil).

Praise

Verses 9–10 are structured as an inclusio, a literary technique that begins and ends a section with the same word or concept. It’s easy to see in English that the repeated word is “heaven.” The concept (“kingdom”) is repeated in the middle of the three praiseworthy items between the opening and closing lines of the inclusio. How can we be sure of this? In the opening line, “heaven” is actually plural: literally, “Our Father who is in the heavens.” In Matthew’s 32 exclusive uses of the phrase “kingdom of heaven,” “heaven” is always plural.

The fact that “heaven” is plural also calls to mind Ephesians, where five times Paul refers to the “heavenly realms” (a different Greek word formed from the root word for “heaven”) in reference to our proximity to Christ. In Ephesians, we see that we are with Christ in the heavenly realms. Jesus as much as acknowledges that in the closing line of the inclusio: “on earth as it is in heaven.” Actually, the word order in Greek for that phrase is transposed: “as in heaven [singular], so on earth.”

Another interesting tidbit about this section is that the three praise items are all written with third person imperative verbs. English doesn’t have a third person imperative, so we usually translate it something like “Let your name be holy; let your kingdom come; let your will be done.” Those three items are something we can’t command God to do; that totally comes from him, so the standard second person imperative in English wouldn’t do. We’re asking God to will and continue to will those things to be or become true.

Now before moving on to the other three points, I think the use of “heaven” as the key word in the inclusio is no accident. Not only does “kingdom of heaven” always use the plural form of “heaven,” but all references to the “Father…in heaven” also use the plural form. When “heaven” and “earth” are used together in the same phrase, “heaven” is often singular. I think we can look to Paul’s epistles to see how we’re to understand the reference to heaven. Philippians 3:20 says, “Our citizenship is in heaven.” Five times in Ephesians, Paul mentions our relationship to Christ “in the heavenly realms.” I’d never really heard this aspect of the Lord’s Prayer emphasized before, but I believe Jesus is emphasizing the dual citizenship of his followers. Just as we see God acting in heaven, we should work in concert to make it happen on earth. If God’s name is to be considered holy, we should be careful to live in such a way that those on earth can clearly see that. If God’s kingdom is to come, we should be working to make sure it is advancing here on earth. In fact, the final five lines of the prayer go back and forth between God’s work in heaven and his (and our) work on earth. Let’s look at those now.

Provision

“Give us today our daily bread” is a typical second person imperative that we might expect. It’s a simple request of God that he provide our daily, basic needs—not just food, but whatever we need to get through each and every day. It’s focused on our life here on earth, with God acting from heaven to move all the pieces in place for us. And because it’s “daily” bread, Jesus is saying that we should come to God each and every day, not just once in a while.

Asking for God to provide our daily bread does not absolve us from the responsibility to work. If we’re able and have the opportunity, we can and should work for a living. Paul says in Thessalonians that the one who doesn’t work shouldn’t eat. In times we face need, then, we can lean a bit more on this promise. Additionally, those of us here on earth, through compassionate and charitable efforts, can work to provide daily bread for those less fortunate and bring them to a place of self-sufficiency.

Pardon

In the next phrase, Jesus switches the focus to heaven: “Forgive us our debts.” This action again is a second person imperative, and the focus of the action takes place in heaven. Jesus declares us forgiven from the right hand of the Father. After all, it is his shed blood that purchased forgiveness, and his resurrection confirmed that he is both the Son of God and the one that has authority to forgive sins.

The next phrase is the only first person statement in the prayer, and as such, I think an important focus in the prayer. The scene moves back to earth: “As we also have forgiven our debtors.” Verses 14–15, immediately following the prayer, are an important contextual clue that this phrase is the focus of the Lord’s Prayer. If we forgive others here on earth, God forgives our sins; if we don’t forgive others, God won’t forgive our sins.

Protection

God providing our needs and forgiving our sins is essential for our physical and spiritual well-being. It is the best protection we have against the corruption of our souls and against falling into sin. But sometimes, the evil that comes at us may seem larger than life, and we need God’s extra protection to get through the really difficult times.

“Lead us not into temptation” brings the focus back to earth, and returns to the use of a second person verb, but this time, it’s subjunctive. In English terms, that means it rises to the level of an earnest plea: “Please, please, O God, do not lead us into temptation!” It’s one thing for us to ask God to help us in this way; it’s quite another if we intentionally put ourselves in a position to be tempted. The plea recognizes that sometimes, we can’t keep the birds from flying overhead, as Martin Luther put it, but that we can keep them from building a nest on our head. In the modern media and Internet culture, temptation is just a click away. We often need to rely on God’s strength and guidance to keep us out of situations where we might be compromised.

The final phrase, “Deliver us from the evil one,” (back to a second person imperative) returns the focus to heaven again, and brings to mind the passage in Ephesians 6 about the armor of God. Paul says in 6:12 that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” This is why the modern translations say “from the evil one” instead of the classic “from evil.” The Greek word for “evil” in the Lord’s Prayer has the definite article with it, and that implies that it’s not talking about a concept, but an actual evil person, someone who intends you harm. Jesus intends us to put a face on the concept. And that doesn’t necessarily always refer to Satan. It can be anyone here on earth or any of the forces Paul mentions above from the heavenly realms who intend us harm.

When Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 6:13 to “put on the full armor of God,” this is our God-given arsenal to “deliver us from the evil one.” What many people don’t realize about that phrase is that the armor of God doesn’t come from some divine arsenal that has an unlimited supply of breastplates, helmets, and shields. Every reference to a defensive piece of armor or the dual-purpose sword has its origin in the Old Testament, and they are all pieces that God himself wears. So “armor of God” means God’s own personal armor! In other words, we’ve got the best!

Conclusion

The Lord’s Prayer is a model prayer, but it is so much more as I’ve tried to show here. As a model, it serves as a daily defense against the things that would try to rob us of our spiritual health and joy in Christ. It encourages us to forgive as we have been forgiven so we can have healthy relationships with family and friends. It shows that we rely on God to give us just what we need each and every day. It is our way to stay connected to the Savior and know his love and protection each and every day.

My thoughts are my own,

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

 

February 9, 2019

#ToxicMasculinity: Walking Like an Egyptian Pharaoh

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Biblical Studies,Courage,Evil,Exodus,Faith, Faithfulness,Spiritual Warfare,Women in Leadership — Scott Stocking @ 4:13 pm
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Toxic masculinity is a hot topic these days, but I’ve yet to hear a clear definition of it from the media. As I was reading through the first few chapters of Exodus today, however, I saw several examples of it.

Extreme Toxicity: Pharaoh

The one that sticks out most to me is Pharaoh himself. In Exodus 1:16, Pharaoh is afraid of the Hebrews becoming too numerous, so he orders the midwives to kill all male babies as they are being delivered. The female (note the gender here) midwives, however, have great courage and integrity, and refuse to obey Pharaoh’s command to practice perinatal abortions founded on gender discrimination. Not only that, this is also a prima facie example of the rich and powerful oppressing, abusing, and dare I say even murdering the poor, weak, and defenseless. When Pharaoh realizes the midwives aren’t able to carry out his command, he takes his toxic masculinity to the next level and orders that the baby boys be thrown into the Nile River (Ex 1:22). It is important to know here that the females fear God’s (or their gods’) retribution if they kill the innocent, while Pharaoh has no fear of God.

Pharaoh overplays both his responsibility for leadership and defense of others. He overplays his leadership responsibility by becoming a tyrant with respect to the Hebrews. He overplays his responsibility to defend those he’s responsible for by attempting to destroy those whom he views as a threat, even if that threat may be 20 to 30 years down the road. The ultimate source of his toxic masculinity is his lack of regard for the one true God, the God of the Hebrews, whose power he will soon come to experience.

Pathetic Toxicity: Moses

Moses, initially at least, represents the other extreme from Pharaoh. Moses has first-hand knowledge of God and even has an extended conversation with him. However, in spite of all the assurances God gives to Moses about being with him, giving him words to speak, and showing Pharaoh his mighty power, Moses plays the wimp card. “Who am I, God?” “I speak with faltering lips, God.” “Send someone else to do it, God.” Really, Moses? God gives him a rare gift, a full accounting of what God wants him to do (most of us feel like we’re guessing at that, right?), and he isn’t man enough to accept it, at least, to accept it willingly and enthusiastically. To Moses’s credit, though, once he starts to see God afflict Pharaoh and Egypt with the plagues, his reluctance wanes and his confidence in God’s purpose for his life grows exponentially.

Toxicity 2019: Men With No Chests

Is it a stretch to say that so-called men like @GovernorVA Ralph Northam and @NYGovCuomo Andrew Cuomo are not that far removed from Pharaoh’s toxicity? Like Pharaoh, these two toxically masculine State governors want to kill babies right up to the time of birth and even after birth. They have indeed regressed to a more primitive culture, hiding behind the guise of “Pro-Choice,” which is in itself a form of toxic femininity (judging from the tweets and retweets of New York Council on Women & Girls chairperson @Melissadderosa–she’s an icon of toxic femininity in New York). They prey on the weak for their own political gain, not caring one whit about the emotional impact on women and families or the cultural decline that such positions represent. It is an absolute power play of the rich and powerful.

And where are men who should be taking the lead opposing this toxicity? Let’s start with the men who father these children, then run away and make an intentional choice not to be involved in or support the care of the pregnant mother or the child that is born to the mother who has the courage and integrity to give the child a chance at life. That’s pathetic toxicity to be sure. And what about you, men of God? Are you silent on this issue? Is this a worthy battle to fight? Can we harness our righteous energy and lead with integrity? Can we fight for the things that matter most, like the sanctity and dignity of those created in the image of God? Can we show tender care for the weak, the helpless, those who have lost hope, and those who need a vision of heaven? Let us rise up and make our voices heard!

Conclusion

It is scary to think that the world has come almost full circle from the time of Pharaoh in Egypt over 3,000 years ago. This culture of despising life at its most vulnerable stages is toxic regardless of gender. Those who think they are “progressive” are lying to themselves; they have in fact put on display and are proud of their “regressive” policies. It’s time for the people of God to stand up for truth. God is with us! We need to be faithful to him and trust that he will win the victory for us just as he did when Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt toward the Promised Land. Remember, that God was always the one fighting for them; they never had to lift a finger in violence toward their enemies, and neither should we.

My opinions are my own.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

June 9, 2013

εὐθύς in Mark’s Gospel (Mark 1:3; Isaiah 40:3)

Filed under: Authorship,Christology,Eschatology,Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,Greek,Isaiah,Life of Christ,Mark Gospel of,New Testament,Septuagint — Scott Stocking @ 6:08 pm
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In this post:

  • The prophetic quotes in Mark 1:2–3
  • Thematic use of εὐθύς
  • Summary of the projects I’ve been working on
  • A personal note on my hiatus (moved to end 1/3/26)

Prophecy in Mark 1

As I started through Mark’s Gospel last week, looking at it in English and Greek, I noticed a few things worth mentioning. Mark opens his Gospel with quotes from Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3. I want to put the Isaiah and Mark passages side by side in Table 1 so you can see some interesting but relatively benign punctuation differences. Keep in mind that punctuation is a much later addition to the biblical text. The ancients didn’t waste papyrus and parchment with commas, dashes, quotation marks, or spaces between words!

Table 1

Isaiah 40:3 (NIV) Mark 1:3 (NIV)

3 A voice of one calling:

“In the wilderness prepare

the way for the Lord;

make straight in the desert

a highway for our God.

3 “a voice of one calling
in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for him.'”

Notice, for example, that the Isaiah quote has the one calling saying, “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord,” while the editors of Mark obviously see a reference to John the Baptizer here: “a voice of one calling in the wilderness.” The punctuation in the Isaiah passage is consistent with the accenting and format of the printed BHS text but again keep in mind that these are editorial decisions, not a part of the original text.

The Septuagint (LXX, Greek translation of OT which is the source of all OT quotes in the NT) has the quotation beginning at “Prepare,” but again, an editorial decision, since the beginning of a quotation in Greek is marked by a capital letter in the modern text, and the original Greek text was in all capital letters!

I don’t really perceive a significant difference in the meaning of the text one way or the other. In the Isaiah version, “wilderness” is probably figurative for any place or person who needs to be revived by God. In the LXX/Mark version, “wilderness” is a literal reference to the place where John was preaching. The important part of this verse in my mind is the last half: “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

εὐθύς

In one of my earliest blog posts, I made a passing reference to the fact that Mark uses the Greek adverb εὐθύς 41 times in his Gospel (by contrast, the word is used only 17 times in the rest of the New Testament). [NOTE: Strong’s has the adverb form as εὐθέως from the textus receptus, but modern eclectic texts use εὐθυς.) The word means “immediately” or “at once” as an adverb. However, the word is also an adjective that means “straight,” which is found in Mark 1:3 and the LXX translation of Isaiah 40:3. The Hebrew word in Isaiah 40:3 (ישׁר) has the idea of no turning to the left or right, and perhaps even making something level (see Prov. 4:25–27; cf. Heb. 12:13).

So what’s the big deal? Here it is: Mark is using the adverb form as thematic connection to the prophecy with which he opens his Gospel. Many probably think John the Baptizer is the one “preparing the way of the Lord,” but Mark’s repeated use of εὐθύς suggests that he’s portraying Jesus as the one “making straight” the way of the Lord. In Mark’s Gospel, then, εὐθύς represents the urgency with which Jesus went about his ministry. Aside from Jesus’s miracles, the fact that he was clearing the way of the legalism and unreasonable rules of the religious elite shows that Jesus was making the path to God more direct; he was making “straight paths” in wilderness of Jewish legalism. That was ultimately symbolized when the veil of the temple was rent at Jesus’s crucifixion. Man no longer needed an intermediary to get to God because of what Jesus had accomplished on the cross.

Conclusion

Mark, in all its simplicity as the shortest Gospel, seems to have a singular focus on making “straight paths” for the Lord. Matthew has a definite emphasis on the broad view of prophecy in his Gospel, while Luke is concerned more with historical accuracy and detail. But Mark’s Gospel should not be ignored just because it is short or abridged. He shows a sophistication in style comparable to Matthew and Luke.

A Personal Note on My Hiatus

I’ve been on a hiatus from the blog because my schedule got bogged down last summer. I took on an assignment in addition to my full-time job to edit and comment on Greek-English lexicon/concordance that is in the works (I can’t say anything more than that at this point, at least not until there’s a release date publicized). The concordance part was actually built into the lexical entries, which made for time-consuming reading. The author would list all occurrences of a word, often without the context lines. Add to that the extra time it takes to read numbers relative to words of the same character length on the page. Consider the difference between the following:

A reference would appear like this:

Mt. 22:36–38

As I was editing, I would read:

Matthew twenty-two, thirty-six through thirty-eight

Now imagine 600+ pages filled with a couple hundred references like that on each page, and the reading time per page nearly triples! Needless to say, I had to take a break after almost every page just to maintain my sanity! Fortunately, it was not my job to check the accuracy of each reference (although I did find the occasional error there on familiar passages), otherwise, I’d still be at it. The other challenging part of the edit was that the author’s preferred texts for the English translations were the King James Version and Darby’s translation, which resulted in some interesting entries (I had never heard or seen the word “dropsical” until I saw this dictionary).

The other project that came up is a new study Bible [1/1/26 Author’s Note: I realized I never returned to this post let you know I am listed as a Contributing Writer in three versions of The Jeremiah Study Bible (NKJV, ESV, NIV)]. It’s been challenging, rewarding, and even a little fun reviewing the notes, primarily for Old Testament books, and making suggestions and comments. I’m learning a great deal more about the OT and translation in general. I’m collaborating with a team of other reviewers; I even used one reviewer’s book on Bible study methods early in my teaching career. When that study Bible gets published, I’ll let you know.

I did finish reading through the Greek New Testament a second time in the process, but I’ve taken a break from a stringent schedule and had turned again to reading the Old Testament (in English, but still consulting the Hebrew) until I started participating in a men’s discipleship group. I set up a reading schedule for the guys that starts us in Mark’s Gospel. I also asked them to hold me accountable for getting back into the blogosphere, and rereading Mark 1 provided the perfect occasion for doing so.

August 30, 2012

Obedience (ὑπακοή, ὑπακούω) in Romans

Filed under: Baptism of Jesus,Biblical Studies,Faith, Faithfulness,Immersion/Baptism,New Testament,PHilippians,Righteousness,Romans,Soteriology — Scott Stocking @ 6:11 am
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I can think of a number of reasons Paul’s letter to the Romans wound up at the head of Paul’s writings in the New Testament. His discussion of justification by faith is classic, strengthened by his further treatment of the subject in Galatians. The statement from 1:16 has long been hailed from pulpits to encourage the body of Christ to boldly serve, speak, and act for the cause of the Gospel. I especially like Paul’s treatment of immersion in chapter 6, where he rescues the subject from those who downplay it as a “work of the flesh” by empowering it with the blood of Christ and his resurrection to make it an important and necessary part of our salvation journey. And of course, the Romans Road has long been an effective evangelistic tool for many, although I was never sure why that always took a detour around the heart of chapter 6. But there’s a bigger picture in Romans that often gets overlooked when we focus on verses and individual sections.

An Overlooked Inclusio

In a previous post, I mentioned that Romans 1:5 and its parallel in 16:26 form an inclusio for the entire book of Romans. However, in that post, I focused on the term πιστίς (“faith”/”faithfulness”), especially as Paul builds his initial argument in the first five chapters of Romans. In some contexts (e.g., Romans 1:17), that term refers to the faithfulness of Christ But what I noticed this time through Romans is that seven of the ten occurrences of the words for “obey” (ὑπακούω) and “obedience” (ὑπακοή) in Romans are found in chapters 6 (four times) and 15–16 (three times). The four occurrences of the words in chapter 6 come in the midst of his discussion about the significance of immersion and our being released from the slavery of sin. In fact, the words are tied to the metaphor of slavery in all occurrences there.

Because πιστίς refers to Christ in several key passages, I asked myself if “obedience” might have some Christological implications as well. One of the first passages that comes to mind is Philippians 2:8: “And being found in appearance of a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross.” A few verses later (v. 12), Paul commends the Philippians for their obedience and encourages them to “work out [κατεργάζομαι] their salvation with fear and trembling.” That word for “work out” figures very prominently in Romans 7, where Paul speaks of “doing” what he does not want to “do.” What does this mean?

Breaking it Down

First, the discussion of obedience comes between the discussion of the significance of immersion and the popular conclusion to chapter 6 (cited in the Romans Road without the rest of the context of chapter 6): “The compensation for sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Here is the irony: obedience or slavery to sin and obedience or slavery to Christ both lead to death. For those who are slaves to sin, they only have eternal death to look forward to, assuming they are looking forward to anything eternally. Obedience to Christ does lead to death, death to self, but there is on the other side the gift of eternal life. What is this obedience? One only need to look back to the first part of chapter 6: obedience to immersion. Just as Christ was obedient to death on a cross, we who believe are called to be obedient to death by immersion. Immersion is our Calvary. Immersion is also our Resurrection. Paul’s conclusion in 6:23 must be viewed in the context of 6:1–10.

Second, this gives new light to the phrase “obedience of faithfulness” found in Romans 1:5 and 16:26. The whole phrase is a euphemism of sorts for the crucifixion of Christ. It’s not just about legalistic obedience or stilted faithfulness. It’s about living this life sacrificially, knowing that we have eternal life as our ultimate reward on the other side of death. Ideally, obedience to immersion is a one-time event for the Christ-follower. But obedience in general is a lifelong commitment. Salvation is not a one-time event: it is a lifelong process we “work out… with fear and trembling.” Don’t get me wrong: we become a part of the kingdom the moment we put our trust in Christ, and we can be sure of the promise of eternal life from that moment on. But we cannot sit back and expect God to do everything for us. Repentance, discipline, study, meditation on God’s Word, and faithful obedience are all part of the “working out” process. We can never become perfect in this life, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try (Matthew 5:48, 19:21).

Conclusion

Those of you who are fond of the Romans Road, don’t take a detour around the discussion of immersion in the first part of chapter 6. It is part of the obedience that informs the rest of the discussion in Romans. To add a little more context to Romans 6:23, you might read it this way: “The compensation for slavery to sin is death, but the gift of God for those who are obedient to righteousness is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Immersion is our physical experience and signification of the death and resurrection of Christ. It’s not just a “work” that you can do whenever you think you’re ready. It’s an important component of working out your salvation as you grow in your faith in and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Peace,

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

Author note: “representation” changed to “signification” in last paragraph at 7:30 pm, 8/30/12.

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