Sunday Morning Greek Blog

November 1, 2022

Taking Time to Give Thanks (Luke 17:11–19; 2 Kings 5:11–15)

Filed under: 2 Kings,Biblical Studies,Greek,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Miracles,New Testament,Old Testament,Thanksgiving — Scott Stocking @ 9:13 pm
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Sermon preached at Mt. View Presbyterian Church October 9, 2022, and again at Peace Presbyterian on October 16, 2022.

Click here to listen

I’m going to ask a rather personal question here, but you are in no way obligated to answer it. How many of you can say you were at a point in your life when you felt like you were scraping the bottom of the barrel? If you’ve never been there, that’s good. I have, and I don’t wish it on anybody. You pretty much go through the whole range of negative emotions, from depression, to feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness, to anger, jealousy, rage, just to name a few. In those times, it can be difficult to discern the presence of God, especially if you’re not a believer or have no historical connection to a church fellowship.

Author and lawyer John Kralik was one man who felt he’d hit the bottom of the barrel. His law firm was failing, his second marriage had ended with a bitter divorce, and his girlfriend left him to boot. He felt increasingly disconnected from his grown children, was overweight, and lived in a cheap, poorly maintained apartment. He faced the prospect of losing what little he had left and was desperately looking for solutions.

Touched by a thank you note he received from his ex-girlfriend for a gift he’d sent her, he thought perhaps he’d try the same thing. Instead of focusing on everything going wrong in his life, he decided perhaps he should start focusing on the things he did have and the things he could be grateful for. He set off on a mission to write a thank you note a day for a whole year, and it completely turned his life around. He documented his journey in a book titled A Simple Act of Gratitude: How Learning to Say Thank You Changed My Life.[1]

Today’s passage from Luke finds Jesus encountering not one, but ten lepers who have most likely reached the lowest point of their lives. They have essentially been barred from society and have no means to support themselves. And it would have been difficult for others to help them at a distance too. As they stand at a distance and cried out for mercy or pity, Jesus didn’t even need to touch them. All he said to them was to report to the priests, and the text says they were cleansed as they went. They believed in and acted on what Jesus said, so they were all healed by their faith. There’s no question about that.

Now you would think that when they were healed and had presented themselves to the priests as the law required (Leviticus 14), they all would have returned to thank the one who healed them. But only one returns, a Samaritan no less. We’re not told why the other nine don’t return, but Jesus seems to think they had the opportunity, and responsibility, to do so, not for his sake, but for his father’s sake. Maybe the Samaritan, as a “foreigner,” felt he had so much more to be grateful for since Jesus primarily had come for the Jews.

The story here is reminiscent of an Old Testament account of another foreigner who was healed of leprosy. In 2 Kings 5, we have the story of Naaman, a highly regarded commander in Aram’s army, who also happened to have leprosy. A servant girl Naaman had acquired from a raid on Israel, the northern kingdom, apparently had compassion for Naaman, in spite of her captivity, and suggested that if Naaman could go see Elisha in Samaria, he would be healed. The king of Aram consented to Naaman’s “road trip” to Samaria, and to show it was a good-faith mission, the king himself wrote a letter of recommendation to the king of Israel.

The king of Israel thought it was a bad omen and tore his robes. Elisha, however, wasn’t phased and instructed Naaman and his entourage to come to his home. Elisha gave him a simple instruction, similar to what Jesus had told the ten lepers: go wash in the Jordan River seven times.

This time, it was Naaman’s turn to be indignant. We’ll pick up the story in 2 Kings 5:11:

11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.

13 Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

15 Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”[2]

I think it’s important to recognize in this story that Naaman may have gotten a second chance here. When the Lord sent the spies out to explore the Promised Land, 10 of the 12 spies didn’t want to do what God commanded them to do. And after all the pleading with God, the 10 still didn’t want to go, so God killed them and told the Jews, “Sorry, you’re going to have to wait 40 years now for your children to see the Promised Land. Most of you will be dead by the time you get there.” The Jews changed their minds pretty quickly at that point, but it was too late. Their first attempt to take the land ended miserably because God had removed his blessing.

Fortunately for Naaman, his servants had cooler heads, and they prevailed with Naaman. Naaman had to shake off his pride in his own homeland to wash in “God’s river,” the Jordan. When he realized his obedience paid off, he returned to Elisha and offered a gift of thanksgiving, which Elisha refused. He eventually negotiated a deal with Elisha to get some dirt from Samaria so he could build his own altar to the Lord in Aram as his expression of thanks.

We see many other examples in the Bible of those who faced difficult circumstances but always returned to God to give thanks when their prayers were answered. Hannah, the other wife of Elkanah in 1 Samuel, desperately wanted a son, so much so, that she dedicated her first-born son, Samuel, to the Lord’s service at the young age of 3. In chapter 2, we see Hannah’s prayer honoring God for giving her the son she desired. It sounds very much like the song another mother sang hundreds of years later when she realized her son was destined to serve God.

Mary’s song, after she realizes the full implications of her pregnancy with the Messiah, picks up some of the same themes as Hannah’s prayer: the Lord is glorified; the humble are exalted; the hungry are filled; the poor are provided for, while the rich are brought low. Even Zechariah’s song at the end of Luke 1 carries some of the same themes, but focuses on the salvation Mary’s son would bring to the world.

Both women faced incredible social and cultural challenges: A barren wife often felt shame for not producing a possible heir for her husband. Mary, on the other hand, was pregnant without being formally married to Joseph. Yet when both of them realized the important roles they played in their respective histories, they gave God the thanks and glory he deserved.

So how can we be a thankful people? What are the benefits of developing the character quality of gratefulness? Tony Robbins once said, “Gratitude is the antidote to the two things that stop us: fear and anger.”[3] If you have trouble thinking of things to be thankful for, one of the suggestions I’ve come across most often is to keep some kind of “gratefulness” journal. Some people who keep a journal set aside a corner or section of their journal to deal strictly with things they are grateful for. Sometimes, it may be something as simple as “I woke up today” or “I’m grateful for my friends.” Others who keep a prayer journal usually have a ready supply of answered prayers to be thankful for. Once you get in the habit of writing down and taking account of the things you’re thankful for, you will begin to see more and more opportunities to give and express thanks for.

Don’t be afraid to say thank you to someone who’s been kind to you in some way. One suggestion that intrigued me was to say “thank you” when you ask someone for help instead of apologizing for inconveniencing them.[4] Not only is that a more positive statement, but it also helps to build relationships. A few years ago, I put out a request to my small group for some help moving a king-size bed frame, mattress, and box springs. One of the guys who was relatively new to the group showed up, much to my surprise. I made sure to thank him, and we’ve become good friends in the group.

Being thankful can also help develop an attitude of humility, as we saw in Hannah’s and Mary’s prayers. In saying thank you, we recognize, in part, that we couldn’t do something for ourselves and needed someone else’s help. This in turn also leads to a greater sense of community as well. We recognize that we’re stronger together. As one blogger put it, we realize that we “don’t always have to be strong” and that we’re allowed to “break down” once in a while, perhaps even have a good cry with a friend,[5] especially in difficult times when we truly need the support of others.

Drilling a little deeper here, having this humility can also help us see that our perspective may be a bit distorted at times. Sometimes we get in a rut with an old or bad habit and have trouble seeing any other way to deal with a situation. When we get bogged down in those “stinkin’ thinkin’” patterns, that may be another time when counting your blessings can help get you out of a rut.

Dr. Kenneth Miller, who writes for Psychology Today, summarized some key points about gratitude after he found himself laid up for a few weeks after a 30-foot fall from a rock climbing wall. Miraculously, his injuries were relatively minor compared to what they could have been: 30 feet is considered the start of the “fatality zone” when it comes to falling a long distance. He had “cultivate gratitude as a way of coping with [his] injury.” One thing he had been learning from his recovery, is that “gratitude…can strengthen resilience and wellbeing.”[6]

One final thought here, and this is something that comes from the biblical passages we discussed, is that in all of those stories we read, the grateful person made an effort to reach out to the one they were grateful for. In the gospel account, the leper may have been completely destitute, so all he was able to do was come back and say “thank you.” He didn’t have the means to bring any other gift. Perhaps this is why Jesus questions the gratitude of the other nine: they could have at least done the minimum, especially since it seems Jesus was right there in the village with them all.

As I mentioned before, Naaman negotiated an acceptable gift not for Elisha, but for the Lord who had told Elisha to relay the cure-action to Naaman. Hannah dedicated her son to the service of God and wrote a prayer of thanksgiving and praise that was included in Samuel’s history. The same could be said of Mary’s song, except she really had no choice in the matter of dedicating her son to God’s service.

The point here is that it is important to reach out personally (or in the case of God, prayerfully) to those who deserve our thanks, and not just with the spoken word. Our actions can express a louder thank you than just our words. Now you don’t have write a thank you note a day, as John Kralik did. Nor do you have to literally give up your first born to God’s service. And neither do you have to buy the person you’re grateful for an expensive gift. Drop them a personal note; call them; stop by and see them as you’re able. This also will help you continue to build and develop relationships. And for those of us in the church, we know precisely how valuable such relationships are for the life of the congregation.

So let me close this morning by practicing what I preach. I want to thank the leaders at Mt. View for welcoming me back to the place where I first found faith and for the opportunity to share what I’ve learned about that faith and the God who is worthy of it in my nearly 60 years on earth. It was a year ago this weekend that I first filled the pulpit here, and I’ve learned and grown so much as a preacher, pastor, and scholar. I look forward to more Sundays with you as long as you’re willing to have me and as long as God gives me breath. Peace to you all! Go forth and give thanks! Amen!

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My views are my own. I’m grateful for those whose views I shared and documented here for adding value to this message.

[1] Adapted from book review on Amazon.com accessed 10/08/22.

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

[3] Quoted in Learning to say thank you changed my life- How to cultivate a habit of gratitude (streaksoflight.com) accessed 10/08/22

[4] Learning to say thank you changed my life- How to cultivate a habit of gratitude (streaksoflight.com) accessed 10/08/22

[5] A Thank You Letter To The Person Who Changed My Life | Thought Catalog accessed 10/08/22

[6] What a 30 Foot Climbing Fall Taught Me About Gratitude | Psychology Today accessed 10/08/22

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.

“Opportunity Cost” in God’s Economy: The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31)

Filed under: 1 Timothy,Biblical Studies,Greek,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Repentance,Soteriology — Scott Stocking @ 9:27 pm
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Click to Listen (2022 message)

Click to Listen (2025 revision)

Prosperity without genuine charity magnifies disparity.

I preached this sermon at Mt. View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE, September 25, 2022. Lightly edited for publication. I modified the original message when the passage came up in the Lectionary again and preached it on September 28, 2025. I’m retaining the original text of the 2022 message for the blog.

19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”[1]

One of the talk show hosts I like to listen to, Dan Bongino, is fond of talking about an economic concept called “opportunity cost.” The phrase has been around since 1894, according to Merriam-Webster. The concept is pretty easy to grasp, and something most of us understand instinctively: it’s the difference between the most efficient and profitable uses of one’s time, money, talents, and resources and the less efficient or more wasteful uses of those assets. Opportunity costs are hard to ignore, but there are times when we may not be able to avoid settling for less. Sometimes, the costs are more obvious. Do I use my tax refund to pay down some debt or buy a brand new 80″ ultramegasuperduper high-definition television? Do I buy new boat to take out on weekends or my wife a more reliable car? (For the record, I have no desire to buy a boat.)

At other times, the opportunity costs may be a little more difficult to calculate. Do I stay home and have some “me” time after a busy week watching the grandkids, or do I go hang out with my friends at dinner or a show? Do my wife and I take a vacation with or without the kids?

The pandemic pushed people into weighing opportunity costs with respect to their jobs. Do I really want to work at home isolated, or do I want to be in the office where I’m around interesting people? Should I stick with what’s comfortable and familiar, or should I spread my wings a bit and see if there’s something more satisfying for me to bring home the bacon.

But perhaps the greatest opportunity cost befalls us with respect to how we use our time. Job opportunities abound. Setting aside tragic what-ifs for the moment, we are generally hopeful that if we don’t see a friend today, we can see them tomorrow. But like lost sleep, lost time is something we can never get back. No one has figured out how to make time run in reverse (except perhaps that time in 2 Kings 20:11 where God made the shadow move backwards on the temple steps).

But I digress. Benjamin Franklin said, “If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality” (think “prodigal son”).

Do you all remember Andy Rooney? He used to come on at the end of 60 Minutes in the 70s and 80s with the wittiest and most profound take on the events of the day. In one of those commentaries, he apparently was reflecting on life lessons learned, and he talked about some things he had learned: “Opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.”

The 19th century Presbyterian minister Theodore L. Cuyler, however, probably says it best, especially in relation to our gospel passage this morning: “Tears never yet saved a soul. Hell is full of weepers weeping over lost opportunities, perhaps over the rejection of an offered Saviour. Your Bible does not say ‘Weep, and be saved.’ It says, ‘Believe, and be saved.’ Faith is better than feeling.”

Jesus’s story of the rich man and Lazarus comes at the end of a couple chapters’ worth of stories that focus on opportunity costs. The shepherd went looking for the lost sheep so he could know whether it truly was lost or if it had been attacked by a predator. He went looking so he’d know whether he had to be more vigilant for such predators. It was worth the woman’s time to sweep the whole house to find the valuable missing coin. On the flip side, we see the “prodigality” (to use Ben Franklin’s word) of the younger son, who wasted any profitable opportunities he may have had with his share of the inheritance by spending it on himself.

And in the first part of chapter 16, we see a shrewd but perhaps unfaithful steward of his master’s accounts. Before the steward loses his job, he “discounts” what his master’s clients owe to try to settle up the accounts. Some think this was dishonest in that he had no right to do that with his master’s outstanding assets, but some have suggested he may have been deducting any interest accrued, since it was against Jewish law to charge interest. Regardless, the steward seems to have used this opportunity to “win friends and influence people” by cutting deals with the clients, perhaps in hope of winning their favor and getting hired at his next job.

So let’s break down this story. The first thing that strikes us is that the rich man is not given a name in the story.[2] Only the poor man has a name, Lazarus. “Lazarus” is a latinized form of the Hebrew name Eleazar, which means “whom God helps.” The story is probably fictional, so there doesn’t seem to be a connection with Jesus’s friend Lazarus, whom he actually did raise from the dead. The fact that the rich man didn’t have a name in the story most likely stuck in the craw of any rich people listening to the story: after all, THEY were important; THEY had money and influence; and THEY could make your life miserable if they wanted to. You needed to know who they were so you could step aside for them!

So the rich man lived in the lap of luxury, feasting every day and never giving one thought, if he knew about him at all, to Lazarus. Lazarus was so crippled and destitute that he couldn’t get around on his own. Lazarus was completely dependent on others to move him around. It’s not clear why or how he winds up at the gate of this man. Was he Lazarus’s relative? A doctor? Or did he have some friends who worked as servants for the man and hoped to bring him some scraps later? However he was related to those around him, it’s obvious he was completely dependent on the mercy of others, including any friends he may have had. He could probably see or hear the man feasting in the house every day. And the purple robes were just salt in the wound, because purple was the symbol of ultimate wealth. What utter torture that must have been for Lazarus to watch and listen to the opulent lifestyle the man lived. His torture was only amplified by the dogs licking his sores with their rough tongues.

As the story goes, it would seem Lazarus and the rich man both died around the same time. Jesus uses the story to give us what I believe is a figurative look at the afterlife. Lazarus is helped by God as Jesus says the angels came and carried him away to Abraham’s side. In Jewish literature, this meant paradise. He was in a place of safety and security, awaiting the consummation of history. He was finally experiencing the comfort and healing that he never had a shot at in life. But for the rich man, the contrast is obvious. With all his wealth and selfish self-importance, he doesn’t get a parade of angels. He’s just buried. No pomp or circumstance. No mention of an elaborate funeral procession. No mention of any mourners expressing sorrow or grief at the loss of a loved one. To make it worse, we find out in vs. 23 that the rich man wound up in Hades, the abode of the dead in Greek mythology. That would have been the equivalent of hell or eternal punishment in the Jewish worldview.

Now it’s not clear whether you can actually see heaven from hell or vice versa, but Revelation seems to suggest you might be able to. At the judgment scene in Revelation, we read of God casting those whose names are not in the Book of Life in the Lake of Fire. So the description may have a ring of truth to it.

But back to the story. The rich man sees Lazarus in a comfort far more luxurious than he ever experienced and longs for just a drop of water from the tip of Lazarus’s finger. Abraham chides him and reminds him that he had made his choices in life. He chose to ignore and maybe even despise the suffering of Lazarus. He also chose to ignore Moses and the prophets and what they said about being right with God, so God gave him the punishment he deserved. If you spend your life running away from God instead of toward God, then God grants your wish in the end. Scary thought.

The rich man realizes he’s lost his opportunity at eternal comfort. That was his opportunity cost, and the cost had eternal consequences. He didn’t have the time or character to honor God while he was on earth, so now God doesn’t have time for him. As he comes to that realization, he pleads with Abraham to allow Lazarus to return to the land of the living as a testimony to his own family. Unfortunately, Abraham tells him that not even someone returning from the dead would be a powerful enough testimony to convince them to change their ways and believe in the possibility of eternal life in paradise. The testimony of the Old Testament, Moses, and the prophets, should be enough to convince people of this. It’s too little, too late for the rich man, and apparently for his family as well, although they still had a chance while they were alive.

Lazarus was helpless to do anything for himself. And it would seem like even his friends, if he had had any to begin with, had forgotten him. But apparently Lazarus had not given up his hope in God. These past three years with the COVID lockdowns was difficult for all, but especially for the most vulnerable. I’m sure it was difficult to limit family contacts for many of us. I’m sure many of us felt some sense of loneliness or helplessness at one time or another.

If you experienced a sense of any of this loss or disconnect, regardless of what caused it, you probably know at least a little bit how Lazarus feels in this situation. As I said earlier, the Lazarus story is most likely a parable, even though it’s not introduced in that way. It was unusual to mention a character by name in a parable, but the name, if it was a fiction, symbolizes the main point of the story: we need God’s help.

The rich man certainly could have used some help for his own situation, as he found out too late. He had obviously put his trust in his riches and was selfish to his own eternal detriment. Prosperity without genuine charity magnifies disparity. The rich man should have at least known Psalm 10:3–4:

3 [The wicked man] boasts about the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.

4 In his pride the wicked man does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.[3]

A short time after Jesus ascended to heaven, we see Paul warning about the pitfalls of greed in the absence of an awareness of God. If Paul was aware of Jesus’s teaching about Lazarus and the rich man, this seems to be the time and place for Paul to warn Timothy not to fall into the trap of greed:

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.[4]

This seems to be where the rich man is at. Notice the warning here, especially in vs. 10: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” First we see the love of money not the ONLY root of evil, nor is it a root of ALL evil. The love of money may be manifest in any number of situations and encounters. It can lead to coveting, desiring things we cannot afford or shouldn’t have in the first place. In some contexts, coveting even refers to planning how to get those things by illicit or illegal acts. Of course, what naturally follows, if such greed or lust is not kept in check, is stealing, fraud, or some other conspiracy. The rich man could have kept his greed and uncompassionate response in check by looking first to the God of his forefathers, as Jesus indicates in the parable, and perhaps opened up an opportunity for himself to experience what Lazarus had in Abraham’s bosom. He could very easily have helped Lazarus. He had access to God’s help just like Lazarus did.

One of the places I’ve looked for this help from the earliest days of my faith in Christ, especially when I’ve been scared or uncertain about the future, is Psalm 91. Let’s hear the first four verses again:

1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”

3 Surely he will save you
from the fowler’s snare
and from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. [5]

The word for “save” here is not the typical word for salvation, which would have been the same root from which we get Jesus’ name. It has more to do with being rescued or protected from something harmful. In the case of Jesus’s parable, since the story is probably fictional, it doesn’t make any sense to try to figure out why Lazarus was the way he was. The grammar of the description suggests that he had been that way for quite some time. As such, it’s important to note the story says he had the privilege of being carried away by the angels upon his death. Even though he experienced what appears to be a “deadly pestilence,” God did save him from it in great style by having the angels carry him off to paradise. What a ride that must have been!

Application & Conclusion

I was at a men’s retreat Friday and Saturday. One of the speakers, a pastor who leads a Celebrate Recovery group at a church here in Omaha, spoke about how certain types of sins involving thought and desire (lust, porn, greed, hatred), when left unchecked, can act on our brains much like a drug does if we become addicted to it. To put it simply, these things can train our brain to think there’s only one path, to the exclusion of all others, we can take to address these desires, and too often, that path is destructive to ourselves and to others. Recovery comes when we find alternate paths that are not destructive to address our addictions and our negative thought processes. When we put our faith, hope, and trust in God; when we come to him as our refuge and fortress; the God of the universe opens up a universe of possibilities for us to be healed from these destructive tendencies. If we’re honest with ourselves, I think we can all find areas that we need to surrender to God so we can experience life in this world more fully in his presence. We many never get in the shape Lazarus was in, but God is still there to help us through and bring us eternal salvation and comfort. And on the flip side of that, we may never get as greedy and selfish as the rich man, but God can still break through that if we let him so we can better share the love and grace of God with others. Amen?

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

[2] Some traditions ascribe the name Dives (DEE-ves) to the man, since that is the Latin word for “rich man” in the Vulgate.

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

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

[5] 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
Tags: ,
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.

August 7, 2022

Saved by the Bris: Colossians 2 and the “Circumcision of Christ”

Filed under: Christology,Circumcision,Colossians,Diagrams,Ecclesiology,Greek,Immersion/Baptism,Soteriology — Scott Stocking @ 11:38 am
Tags: ,
Listen to “Saved by the Bris”

Sermon preached at Mt. View Presbyterian Church, July 24, 2022. Lightly edited for publication.

I want to pose a question to you as I begin this morning, and I promise I will help you realize the answer by the time I’m done about 25 minutes from now. Here’s the question: What is “the circumcision of Christ”? The follow-up question to that is: “How does it save us?” Intrigued? Good. Let’s dive into Colossians chapter 2.

Colossae was a diminishing river town along a major trade route in what is now southern Turkey between Ephesus on the west coast and the Euphrates River in the east. Its close neighbors, Laodicea and Hierapolis had long before New Testament times overtaken it in prominence and prosperity. But that didn’t stop Epaphras, a convert from Paul’s two-and-a-half-year ministry in Ephesus, from founding a successful congregation there in the mid first century.

At some point early in the life of that congregation, they came under the attack or influence of some heretical teaching. It’s not really clear what exactly the nature of that teaching was, but we can glean some ideas based on the themes Paul addresses in the letter. Most likely, the primary challenge to the Christian faith that was emerging at that time, Gnosticism, was that threat. Gnosticism says that anything done in the flesh is evil, therefore, nothing we do really matters for eternity. What was important in Gnosticism was that you know and believe the right things, things about God and the order of the universe and spiritual powers at work in the universe.

This is why Paul spends a significant part of the first chapter writing about who Christ is and revealing some very important truths about Christ that we don’t get anywhere else. Listen to his words about Christ in chapter 1:

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation[1]

Note what he says here: Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. God didn’t have a wife in heaven, of course, so “firstborn” doesn’t mean a literal birth, but that he is the primary and ultimate expression of every God-created element, every being, every creature born at any other time in the world. We know from John 1 that he was with God in the beginning when he began creating the world. In Genesis 1, we hear the refrain over and over again: “And God saw that it was good.”

But the ultimate knock to the Gnostic heresy is Colossians 1:19: “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.” That must have blown the Gnostics minds! In their thinking, there’s no way a holy God would have or could have put all his fullness into a physical form they believed to be thoroughly evil. And not only that, Paul emphasizes in vs. 22 that it is through Christ’s physical body, through his death on the cross, that we are reconciled to God. I can imagine the Gnostics were running away with their fingers in their ears screaming “la la la la la la, I can’t hear you!”

Paul goes on to exhort the Colossians to stand firm in the face of this heresy and in fact commends them for doing just that. And he also makes the argument against the Gnostic heresy personal by saying that his own physical suffering for the church is working to spread the gospel and encourage his readers all the more toward undying faithfulness.

And so we come to our passage this morning: Colossians 2:6–15. Let’s look first at vv. 6–8 and see how Paul makes the transition here to the heart of the passage that begins in vs. 9.

6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. [2]

Paul recognizes that the Colossians are living faithfully and holding fast to the Gospel message that Epaphras had brought to them in the beginning. It’s good to know that not every church he wrote to had problems from within, as he must address in other letters. The Colossians are exemplary in that regard, but they are still dogged by the outside influence of some Gnostics.

So Paul again addresses the Gnostic heresy here with his warning about “hollow and deceptive philosophy” and the “elemental spiritual forces of this world,” which are probably nothing more than angels, demons, and perhaps some low-level spiritual powers and authorities. The Jews of Paul’s day had access to a great deal of apocryphal, pseudobiblical literature and oral traditions that told tales of angels, demons, and other spiritual forces. Some of these had the names of patriarchs and prophets attached to them, which may have given them a false veneer of credibility. But Paul is reaffirming that everything we need to know about our salvation and about how God interacts with his creation comes from Jesus himself. Let’s look at vv. 9–15 from the English Standard Version, mostly. In verses 11–13, I’m going to give my own translation, partially because most English translations either read too much into what Paul is saying or they don’t respect the strong verbal parallels with similar passages in Ephesians.

A  For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him,

B   who is the head of all rule and authority.

C    In whom you were also circumcised with a hands-free circumcision by the putting off (τῇ ἀπεκδύσει, see vs. 15) of the body of flesh, that is, by the “circumcision” of Christ.

D     You were buried AND raised with him in baptism

E      through the faithful work of God

D’     who raised Christ from the dead. Even though you were dead in your sins

C’   and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

D”    God made you alive with Christ, forgiving all your sins.

C”    by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

B ‘  He disarmed (disrobed? ἀπεκδυσάμενος) the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame,

A’  by triumphing over them in him.[3]

Before we put meat on the bones here, I’d like you to take a look at how the passage is formatted above. You can see how it has successive indents as you read through the passage, and then the indents start to move leftward in the last half of the passage. The bold statement in the center (line E) that has the greatest indent is the key point in the passage: God raises us up and makes us alive in him because of his faithfulness to us. God’s faithfulness is what gives the Colossians the courage to stand up to the Gnosticism they encountered and to stand firm in their faith in spite of sometimes intense opposition. And God is still faithful today, so that you and I can have that same confidence in him to stand firm and carry on with our respective ministries and mission.

You will notice that I’ve italicized some words as well. In addition to similar index indents, those italicized words help you see the verbal parallels between the different parts of the passage. So, for example, in lines B & B’ of the passage, you’ll see the words “rule and authority” highlighted.

If you remember at the beginning, I asked you to dwell on the question, “What is the circumcision of Christ”? It is in the structure of this passage as I’ve laid it out here that we get that answer. Look at verse 11 (line C). Notice that a form of the word “circumcise” is used three times here. Then look down to line C’ (v. 13b): there’s the word “uncircumcision.” At that point, the outline “backtracks” a couple levels to previous verbal connections. Line C” (vs. 14), then, is at the same outline level as the circumcision phrases. But instead of using “circumcision” here, he makes a statement about the crucifixion: “This he removed from our midst, nailing it to the cross.” So here’s the answer to the question: “The circumcision of Christ” is in fact the crucifixion! The crucifixion is, if you’ll allow me this, the circumcision to end all circumcisions. Here’s the logic behind this.

Paul’s use of the phrase “removed from our midst” sounds very much like the statement in vs. 11 about the “putting off” of the body of flesh. And given that Colossians and Ephesians have dozens of verbal parallels, this sounds a lot like Paul’s discussion of this topic in Ephesians 4:22–24:

22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off (ἀποθέσθαι) your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on (ἐνδύσασθαι) the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.[4]

The word for “putting on” the new self is the exact opposite of the word for “putting off” the body of flesh in Colossians. In Ephesians 2:3, Paul speaks of us “gratifying the cravings of our flesh,” from which God saved us. He says a little later in 2:15 something very similar to our Colossians passage about “waging war in his flesh against the commandments and regulations” and making peace with the new creation we are in Christ. The original act of circumcision was intended to set Israelite males apart from all others. It was a sign of the original covenant, but it had no power to save. The crucifixion, however, when we believe in its efficacy, not only sets us apart, but prepares our “new creation” bodies by putting off the whole old person and putting on the new to receive the fullness of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

This is what baptism (practiced as immersion in the early church) represents as well: connecting with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and recognizing the connection with the body of Christ and newness of life we have in him. And all this is possible because, as the central verse of our passage says, God is faithful to work in and through us for the glory of his kingdom.

So, now that we have the theology out of the way, what does that mean for how we live our “new creation” lives in the kingdom of God? Well, Colossians isn’t just about theology. Here are just a few of the exhortations from Paul for us from chapters 1 & 2:

1:23: “Continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope of the Gospel.”

1:28: “So that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.”

2:2: “That they may be encouraged in heart and united in love.”

2:4: “That no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.”

2:6–7: “Continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith…overflowing with thankfulness.”

2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.”

2:20: “Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules?”

2:16: “Don’t let anyone judge you.” (repeat)

Here’s the bottom line: Colossians says that in Christ, you have been brought to fullness. What that means here is that you have everything you need in Christ to carry out the ministries and missions he’s called you to, individually or collectively. Your faith in Christ is your own. You’re the only one who will answer to God for it before the throne. Your faith doesn’t belong to a family member. It doesn’t belong to a friend. It doesn’t belong to a pastor. It doesn’t belong to a congregation, although we hope you’ll share your faith with your congregation, friends, and family. And dare I say it doesn’t belong to any earthly institution or establishment of religion. The Holy Spirit alone determines how his gifts are distributed, and he does so without regard to where you find yourself in any local congregation or church body.

And speaking of gifts of the Spirit, your calling in Christ is your own, except to the extent that that calling leads you to find common cause with others in the local congregation or the broader body of Christ. We are saved as a part of the body of Christ, not apart from the body of Christ. As Paul said in 2:16, “Don’t let anyone judge you” for how you choose to live out your calling. Romans says his gifts and calling are without repentance. God knew what he was doing when he called you to your ministry or mission, and no one should have the power to take that away from you.

And if you want to explore Colossians further, try reading it alongside Ephesians some time. I said at the top of my message that the congregation at Colossae probably started while Paul was preaching in Ephesus. It’s no accident that many of the themes in Ephesians have found their way into Colossians, but in a different order. Ephesians has a very sophisticated organization, while Colossians is, to be kind, a rearranged and shortened version of Ephesians for a different audience and purpose. I guarantee such a study would be very fruitful.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.[5]

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

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

[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2016. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles. Verses 11–13 are my own translation.

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

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

May 23, 2022

A Nation of Praise: Psalm 67

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Easter,Hebrew,Liturgical Calendar,Prayer,Psalms,Thanksgiving — Scott Stocking @ 11:25 pm
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Listen to “A Nation of Praise: Psalm 67”

Preface and Introduction

I want to give this preface to my message this morning: The Book of Psalms was the hymnal for the Jews. It’s not completely clear when the collection as we have it today was complete, but we do know that long before the great Psalm writer David ever was born, God’s chosen nation was already starting to write and sing some of these hymns. So fair warning this morning, since the psalms were sung, you might catch me breaking out into song during my sermon. I may not be able to help myself!

The Songs of Moses and the Israelites

The Old Testament gives us many stories of the deeds of great men and women of faith, along with the praise that accompanied those deeds and in many cases told their stories. The first such example of this, at least in a big way, is the song of Moses and Miriam in Exodus 15 after the Israelites passed through the Red Sea and God drowned the Egyptian army. Here are the first few lines of that song:

“I will sing to the Lord,

for he is highly exalted.

Both horse and driver

he has hurled into the sea. (sing it with the “Yeehaw” at the end)

2 “The Lord is my strength and my defense;

he has become my salvation.

He is my God, and I will praise him,

my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

3 The Lord is a warrior;

the Lord is his name.

There’s a short song of praise in Numbers 21, where the Lord provides water for the Israelites: “Spring up, O well!”

Deuteronomy has another long song of Moses just before his death.

3 I will proclaim the name of the Lord.

Oh, praise the greatness of our God!

4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect,

and all his ways are just.

A faithful God who does no wrong,

upright and just is he.

David, toward the end of his life and after had won victory over all his enemies, including Saul, sang a 50-verse song of praise in 2 Samuel 22, which was included with the Psalms in Psalm 18:

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;

3     my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,

my shield and the horn of my salvation.

He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—

from violent people you save me.

4 “I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise,

and have been saved from my enemies.

The Praise of Jehoshaphat

Now all these songs of praise were sung after the fact, after the events for which they tell the story. But in 2 Chronicles 20, we have the story of Jehoshaphat, who decided his army should be led by a choir! We pick up the story of the impending battle in vs. 20:

“Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem! Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful.” 21 After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying:

“Give thanks to the Lord,

for his love endures forever.”

22 As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.

Did you hear that? Judah put prayer and praise first in their battle plan, and they won the war without ever having to engage a single enemy with weapons of war. Now we probably don’t have the whole song here, because the writer speaks of “prais[ing] him for the splendor of his holiness.” What we probably have here is the most likely the first line of the song, in which case, we could make an educated guess that the rest of the song may be found in Psalm 136:

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

His love endures forever.

2 Give thanks to the God of gods.

His love endures forever.

3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords:

His love endures forever.

We see what can happen when a nation comes together in their faith in God: Mighty battles can be won, and the nation’s enemies turn and fight amongst themselves or are attacked by third parties to their own destruction. And not only that, it took Judah three whole days to plunder the resources of the dead armies in the desert. And although we have no record of the words of their praise after they finished plundering the Ammonites and Moabites, we still know that they did gather in “The Valley of Berakah”, or “The Valley of Praise,” then returned to the temple joyfully with the music of harps, lyres, and trumpets. Not sure how they managed the harps on the battlefield!

Psalm 67

So, when Psalm 67 came up on the Lectionary calendar for today, I knew I had to preach on it. It was the first psalm, in its entirety, that I’d ever written music for. I don’t remember whether it was in college or after I got to seminary, but I do remember after really reading it for the first time, and not just speed reading through it, that I actually felt inspired to put it to music. Let’s listen to it again, and I’ll offer up my own rendition of the chorus verses (3 & 5):

For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A psalm. A song.

1 May God be gracious to us and bless us

and make his face shine on us—

2 so that your ways may be known on earth,

your salvation among all nations.

3 May the peoples praise you, God;

may all the peoples praise you.

4 May the nations be glad and sing for joy,

for you rule the peoples with equity

and guide the nations of the earth.

5 May the peoples praise you, God;

may all the peoples praise you.

6 The land yields its harvest;

God, our God, blesses us.

7 May God bless us still,

so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.

Now I always liked to add a little pep to the song if it was appropriate, and since this was about everyone praising God, I thought the chorus should sound something like this (New American Standard Version):

Let the peoples praise thee, O God, Let all the peoples praise thee!

Let the peoples praise thee, O God, Let all the peoples praise thee!

Psalm 67 is a carefully structured psalm that really does lend itself to being put to music, especially in the modern era, as music theory has developed to this point. Verses 1 & 2 are the first stanza or musical “verse” of the song. Verse 3 is the chorus; verse 4 is the bridge and the only verse in the psalm that has three lines as formatted; followed by the chorus repeated in verse 5. Verses 6 & 7 are the second stanza or musical verse of the song.

The other interesting thing to note about the structure of the psalm is that it’s a chiasm. What’s that, you ask? A chiasm is fancy term describing a particular structure of a section or written text, large or small, in which the elements or themes as presented in the first part of the text section are repeated in reverse order in the last section of the text. So here we have a stanza, chorus, bridge, chorus, stanza. The reason this is important to know is that in a chiasm, usually the middle element (in this case, the bridge) is the main idea of the passage, if it’s long enough to warrant that. We’ll get to that part in a moment.

Let’s break down this passage. The first verse sounds very much like what we know as the Priestly Blessing from Numbers 6:24–26:

24 “ ‘ “The Lord bless you

and keep you;

25 the Lord make his face shine on you

and be gracious to you;

26 the Lord turn his face toward you

and give you peace.” ’

Now this passage really brings back some memories of Mt. View when I was a kid. If you attended this church when I was a kid 45+ years ago, you know why. The choir used to exit down the aisle and line up in the walkway at the back of the sanctuary and sing this to end the service and dismiss us. (Sing it)

The Lord bless you and keep you,

The Lord lift his countenance upon you

And give you peace.

Now as when I was a kid, even though by that point in the service I was probably wanting to get home, I do remember having a bit of fascination with that musical benediction. Our choir back then did it quite well. Beautiful four-part harmony, a little bit of antiphony and overlapping melodies to mimic the voices congregation as they greeted each other on the way out of the sanctuary, and the descant over the “amen” chorus at the end as if an angel of God were signaling God’s pleasure with the saints gathered.

Verse 2 is the reason why he makes his face shine upon us: so we can share the good news with the world! If I’m not mistaken, I’d say that sounds very much like being the light of the world and letting the whole world see and glorify God. We are God’s representatives here on earth, and we’re called as a holy, set apart, people to live such lives that the world cannot refute or call us into question for what we believe. When the world sees us living united in our faith, that sends a positive to message to the world that the peoples and nations have no option but to praise God. And what is praise? Praise is nothing more than an expression of worthiness toward the one who is the object of praise.

As I indicated above, vs. 4 is the “bridge” verse, or perhaps better, the hinge pin that the Psalm is centered on. From vv. 2–4, we have three different words used for the “nations” or “people.” In vs. 2, the psalmist uses the word (גּ֝וֹיִ֗ם) goyim for “nations.” Typically this might be translated specifically as “gentiles,” referring perhaps to more of a religious feature: those who don’t worship God regardless of their nationality. “Peoples” (עַם ʿǎm) in vv. 3, 4, and 5 probably has to do more with local family units or tribes within a nation than a whole nation.

“Nations” in verse 4 (לְאֹם leʾōm) refers more to the general population as a whole without referring to ethnicity, race, or religious affiliation. This would simply indicate that God’s word is for everyone; no one is excluded!

If we recall Jehoshaphat’s strategy, he praised God with a choir at the head of the army. In our world today, which is becoming increasingly hostile toward Christianity and Christian values, we can use praise as a weapon to keep all things aligned for God. Our hope as Christians is that speaking and living out God’s word will bring all nations to repentance and to follow their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We hope that all things will work together for good for those who love God. And we hope that we can convince the world to live in true peace and love.

In the last two verses, we see a promise of God, that we will not have need because we will have a good harvest to maintain our health and strength. As the light of God’s face brightens our lives, so the blessing of God in our lives will convince even more to acknowledge the healthy sense of fear we should have when coming before the God of the universe.

Conclusion

Every time we share the good news of Jesus and God’s greatness, we have the promise of Isaiah 55:10–11:

10 As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Sometimes we may look at the world and see the moral fabric deteriorating around us. The words of the psalmist seem truer every day (14:1):

1 The fool says in his heart,

“There is no God.”

They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;

there is no one who does good.

We are the light of the world. We are the city on a hill. We are the salt of the earth. We are God’s hands and feet to take his message of hope and love to the world. Let’s go forth, singing his praises and proclaiming his blessings to those around us.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My views are my own.

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May 15, 2022

Jesus, the Good Shepherd (John 10:22–30)

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Biblical Studies,Christology,John Gospel of,Life of Christ,Soteriology,Theology, Biblical — Scott Stocking @ 6:14 am
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Author’s Note: I preached this sermon on Mother’s Day (05/08/22) at Mt. View Presbyterian Church. The text is lightly edited for publication. For a related post, see “I Am the Door of the Sheep”; “I Am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:7, 11). Additional Note: I preached this sermon again on March 11, 2025, which is when I recorded the audio. Prior to that, from March through Mother’s Day, this message was viewed over 700 times, outpacing my otherwise most popular article. Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy the addition of an audio file. I retained the original text of the sermon.

I mentioned last week how the challenge of preaching from the lectionary texts has served to sharpen my preaching and academic skills. But this week’s texts presented an additional challenge for me, because none of them lined up with today’s special designation on our social and cultural calendars: Mother’s Day. What’s a preacher to do!?!

Well, fortunately, God gave me a unique 7-pound mass of gray matter that never ceases to amaze my wife with the connections I can make between seemingly unconnected concepts. At least, I think I amaze her. She would probably tell you I befuddle and bewilder her and then roll her eyes for emphasis. But anyway, I digress. Although I can’t make my whole message about motherhood based on the text today, I can highlight some principles of motherhood that undergird Jesus’s ministry and apply them to our situations.

Jesus in His Father’s House

To set the stage for our text today, we need to go back to Jesus’s preteen years, when he was only 12 years old, probably his “coming of age” year as a young Jewish male. Jesus’s family had gone to Jerusalem every year for the Passover, and that year was no exception. Only this time, according to Luke 2, Jesus decided to give his parents the scare of their lives by staying behind in Jerusalem while his parents headed back to Nazareth. His parents didn’t realize this until about a day later, because they thought he was hanging out with the other kids in the caravan they were travelling with.

It took them three days to find him, and when they did find him, he was in the temple courts hanging out with the teachers of the law. They were “amazed [ἐξίστημι (existēmi)] at Jesus’s understanding and answers.” In other words, they couldn’t believe their ears that such wisdom was coming from a 12-year-old boy. On the other hand, his parents were “astonished” or “overwhelmed” [ἐκπλήσσομαι (ekplēssomai)] that he was apparently commanding so much respect from the teachers of the law, let alone that he had managed to survive half a week in Jerusalem without his parents.

Jesus’s response to his earthly parents I think has been largely underappreciated or at least underemphasized in most circles: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Now every Jewish mother expected her boy might someday be the Messiah, but Mary knew it for a fact that Jesus was the Messiah. So Jesus’s response here may be the first time the implications of his conception and birth really hit her: Jesus IS the Son of God.

Luke says that Mary “treasured these things in her heart,” which probably meant that she had a choice to make about being the mother of the Son of God. Any other Jewish mother would have encouraged her son to follow in his father’s footsteps. But Jesus had a “stepfather,” if you will, in Joseph the carpenter as well as his true father, the God of the universe. So we can make an educated guess at this point that, not only did Mary and Joseph encourage Jesus to be a carpenter, but they also had to respect that his true home was the temple, where God was said to live. It’s fairly easy to assume then, that they continued the annual trips to the temple (perhaps at least three times per year) to help him develop and maintain that connection, at least until Jesus struck out on his own.

Jesus’s love for the temple, which he had such a special, passionate connection to, seems to be a main focus of John’s gospel, wherein lies our text for this morning. Now think about this for a minute: John’s first story about Jesus in the temple is Jesus chasing out the money changers. And what does he say? “Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” If the temple is his father’s house, then isn’t it technically his house too as the son of God? As God’s earthly representative, Jesus has sort of a default power of attorney over the temple and must protect the honor of his father and the integrity of his father’s house. For Jesus, then, clearing the temple wasn’t just an act of righteous indignation, but a deeply personal act of protecting his family honor. I must admit that this thought didn’t occur to me until just this week as I was preparing my message. This is the kind of passion you can expect when a good mother—and a good father—instill in their children a profound respect for family and home.

Seven of the 21 chapters in John place Jesus at the temple in all or part of the chapters. This is one feature that sets the gospel of John apart from the other three gospels. Sure, John does have Jesus ministering in locations outside of Jerusalem, like the wedding at Cana and the feeding of the multitudes. But he always comes back to the temple or a festival at the temple.

Jesus: The Gate and the Good Shepherd

That’s where we find ourselves in today’s passage, John 10:22–30. Jesus has come to the Festival of Dedication, what we know today as Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, to participate in the celebration and do a little more teaching as well. He uses the metaphor of sheep in his discussion, which fits right in with two “I am” statements John records in the first part of chapter 10: “I am the good shepherd [ποιμήν (poimēn)],” and “I am the gate [θύρα (thyra)] for the sheep.” In fact, John 10–14 would seem to be the core of John’s gospel, because we also have two more “I am” statements in that section: “I am the resurrection and the life,” and “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

So how does this all tie together? And why is Jesus using the imagery of sheep here? His first “I am” statement in John 10 is perhaps the biggest clue. When he says, “I am the gate for the sheep,” he’s most likely standing very near the Sheep Gate, one of the ancient entrances into Jerusalem, which is within 100 feet of the outer court of the Temple, the Court of the Gentiles. The Sheep Gate was so important given its proximity to the temple that Nehemiah (3:1) lists it as the first gate the Israelites repaired when they returned to Jerusalem. John’s first account of Jesus healing someone is in chapter 5, where Jesus healed a man who had been lame for 38 years at the pool of Bethesda near the Sheep Gate.

The other thing Jesus says about being the gate for the sheep is significant: “Through me, whoever enters will be saved.” That sounds very much like “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” in John 14:6. Another way to look at this is that John arranges this core section of his gospel with the two “I am” statements where Jesus says he’s the only way at the beginning and end.

Now Jesus saying that he’s the gate for the sheep leads naturally into Jesus’s next “I am” statement: “I am the good shepherd.” The shepherd fulfills multiple roles while he’s tending his flock. He serves as protector of the flock, fighting off wolves, predators, and thieves in the wilderness. Of course, these are roles we’d typically assign to a father, especially in Jesus’s day. But the shepherd also helps the ewes give birth and tends to any injured sheep, roles we would typically assign to, wait for it, mothers! See what I did there? I snuck that reference into my Mother’s Day message, wink and a nod.

And why can Jesus say he’s a good shepherd? Well in part, it’s because he healed that man at the Sheep Gate a few chapters earlier. But that’s not all. Jesus gives a pretty full explanation of what it means to be a shepherd. Here are the highlights:

  • The shepherd knows his sheep by name.
  • The sheep know the shepherd’s voice and to follow the shepherd’s voice; they won’t follow a stranger’s voice.
  • The shepherd will lead them to fertile pastures.
  • The shepherd ensures the sheep will have a full and abundant life (sounds kind of like “I am the resurrection and the life,” right?)
  • The shepherd will not abandon the sheep when danger is present; in fact, he will lay down his life for the sheep.

So with this background in mind, let’s read again today’s passage.

22 Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. 24 The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.” [1]

John 10:22–30

The Jews want to know if Jesus is the Messiah, but many of the Jews are probably still thinking of a political Messiah who will overthrow the rule of Rome from their lives and restore a theocracy again, or at least something akin to what they had in the days of David and Solomon. Jesus’s response is a bit cryptic, as it usually is. He doesn’t want people to believe because he’s told them so. He wants people to look at what he’s done in the way of his miracles and teaching and figure it out for themselves. Figuring it out for yourself is always more convincing than just being told outright, right? Jesus’s followers know him and recognize him for who he is. They made the sacrifice to follow him, learn from him, and grow closer to God in him. They were the “sheep” following the shepherd. I don’t use that term in a disparaging way, of course. His followers put their trust in him, and Jesus proved faithful with that trust. But those who haven’t been following him or are just casual observers, they can’t believe because they don’t have the experience with him just yet.

Recognizing the Shepherd’s Voice

I think vs. 27 is the most important concept to grasp here. “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” How is it we can get to a place where we can distinguish the Savior’s voice from all the other noise around us? I’m going to include another motherly fact here: audiologists say that between 6 and 7 months in the womb, a baby begins to recognize their mother’s voice and respond consistently. That’s two to three months BEFORE they’re born! How about you? When did you first realize God was speaking to you, calling you into his fold? Are you able to look back on your life and recognize, “Hey, maybe God was talking to me in this or that situation and I didn’t even realize it!” I’m sure he was talking to you even before you made your faith your own.

Another way we recognize God’s voice is by staying engaged with his word. I will never forget the time when I was a campus minister at Northern Illinois University, and our ministry operated some student housing. We had one resident who wasn’t working; he claimed God didn’t want him to work. Unfortunately, that meant he never had money to pay his rent. I guess he thought it would somehow magically fall from the sky and into his pockets. However, somehow, he always had money for food. When we finally confronted him about this, including Scriptures about working to provide for yourself (Eph 4:28; 1 Thess 5:14; 2 Thess 3:6–13, esp. v. 10), his response floored me: “I can’t help it if I’m more spiritual and you’re more scriptural.” In other words, he thought the Holy Spirit was telling him to do something that contradicted the word of God! I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that. The more we get into God’s word, the more we understand what he wants for our lives.

Assurance of Eternal Life

In the final part of this passage, we see that the good shepherd has given us eternal life; “life” without end. On the one hand, that means life to the fullest, as he promised earlier in the chapter. On the other hand, that means we have the promise of his resurrection, which he affirms in chapter 11 not only by saying he is the resurrection and the life, but by raising Lazarus from the dead as well. Not only do we have this eternal life, but we have the promise that, as long as we abide in him, nothing will ever overcome or nullify that promise of eternal life.

Paul reaffirms this in Romans 8:38–39:

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38–39

Conclusion

To bring this to a close, I want to look briefly at chapters 12 & 13, the rest of this core section of John’s gospel, to grasp how Jesus further demonstrates himself as the good shepherd. In chapter 12, we see Jesus anointed with perfume in preparation for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which we looked at a few weeks ago. In chapter 13, we see the true servant nature of Jesus as he washes the disciples’ feet. He’s also preparing his disciples for when he departs from them after his crucifixion and resurrection, although they don’t seem to fully comprehend that. He’s truly ready and preparing for the time when he’d have to lay down his life for his sheep.

Are you a member of God’s flock? Are you part of the fold? Now is the time if you’re not. Reach out to the Father and ask him for forgiveness and acceptance, while pledging your life to be part of his kingdom.

[1] Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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April 24, 2022

The Coming King: An Exegesis of Revelation 1:1–8

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Biblical Studies,Chronology,Eschatology,Isaiah,Revelation,Spiritual Warfare,Theology, Biblical,Theophany — Scott Stocking @ 10:50 pm
Listen to “An Exegesis of Revelation”

In the past four months, I’ve explored much about the life of Jesus with you in the Gospels, especially as it relates to the fulfillment of prophecies about Jesus. At Christmas time, of course, we looked at his birth. A couple weeks ago, we looked at some of the prophecies surrounding his triumphal entry and final week up to the crucifixion and resurrection. The Old Testament prophets also told us he would teach in parables (Psalm 78:2||Matthew 13:35).

Variety of Interpretations

Now if you’ve spent much time reading and studying the book of Revelation or the end times in general, you probably know that there are many different views about how to interpret the book, especially as how it relates to the calendar. Views range from the preterists, who believe the end-time prophecies have already been fulfilled, perhaps when the Romans conquered Jerusalem in AD 70, to the postmillennialists, who think Christ will return after a literal 1,000-year reign of the church on earth. Then there are those who think there will be a 7-year period of tribulation prior to Christ’s return and millennial reign, with varying views on when the “rapture,” the transformation of God’s living saints into heaven, happens. And the last major view I’ll mention is that of the amillennialists, who see the church’s current presence on earth as a figurative expression of the 1,000-year reign of Christ, with Christ coming at the consummation of history and establishing his new heaven and new earth.

These differing views have all been put forth by their respective proponents based on well-intentioned study of and meditation on God’s word and historical theology. As someone who spent a great deal of time studying the end times when I was a renewed believer, I’ve seen some of these proponents use the same Scriptures to support their differing views! Add to that that much of the literature on end times is written from an American or Western perspective, but Christians throughout the world at various times and places have at one time or another experienced intense persecution and interpreted the signs of their own respective times such that they thought their generation would be the one to see the return of Christ. So let’s be honest and face the facts—we really don’t have enough solid information to make any absolute statements about when and how Christ will return. And as such, I’m not here this morning to defend any one of these viewpoints.

Setting the Stage

Instead, I believe that the message of the Revelation to John, when taken at the face value of the printed word, is one that can be easily understood. For example, we don’t have to know who or what the four horsemen of the apocalypse represent (or represented) in the historical context (past, present, or future; although we are called to discern those signs); the important thing to grasp is how the events surrounding these players would impact the church, and how the church should respond to those events. So this article, we’ll take a look at the first few verses of Revelation chapter 1 to see how John is setting the stage for us regarding the revelation he received while imprisoned on Patmos, which he recorded for all posterity.

Prologue

1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

Greetings and Doxology

4 John,

To the seven churches in the province of Asia:

Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits l before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

7 “Look, he is coming with the clouds,” 

and “every eye will see him,

even those who pierced him”;

and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.”

So shall it be! Amen.

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” [1]

——Revelation 1:1–8

Defining “Revelation”

First, it helps to know what exactly is a “revelation.” In the biblical sense, a revelation (Gk ἀποκάλυψις apokalypsis) involves making something known that was previously hidden and that could NOT have been known by man prior to its being revealed. In Romans 16:25 and Ephesians 3:3, ἀποκάλυψις refers to a mystery. In Galatians 1:11–12, Paul claims to have received the Gospel not from any human source, but directly from Christ. This lines up with the testimony from Acts 9 when Paul is confronted by the risen Christ on the road to Damascus and his own testimony that he waited at least three years before going fully public with his conversion to Peter and James.

Revelation is a broad category. A revelation may simply be a statement from God about the truth; some sort of physical sign that appears in the natural world; or a “vision,” which in modern technological terms is similar to a 3-D interactive hologram, except some of the people and things in the vision may have some physical substance to them that the person actually experiences. Usually a vision is limited to one person, and is almost always accompanied by a messenger or angel, as in the current text. This helps give credence to John’s testimony, as he would have otherwise been alone when he received the revelation.

Location and Occasion

The book of Revelation is a very long epistle written to seven churches on or near the western coast of Asia Minor, what we know today as western Turkey. Because it was so long and John needed to get the word out quickly “because the time is near,” verse 3 has the instruction that the entire book be read out loud to the seven churches rather than have separate copies made and delivered to each of the churches. The order of the churches in vs. 10 (and their corresponding letters in chapters 2–3) would have been a typical circuit for anyone who traveled regularly through that region. What probably happened is once the book was read at Ephesus, someone would have travelled to Smyrna to pass it off to the next church, and so on.

What we don’t seem to know, at least, no one in the several commentaries I reviewed knew, is why these seven churches. There were other churches nearby who had already had letters from Paul: Colossae was just a few miles to the east of Laodicea, and the region of Galatia was just east of there. A simple answer, and the one I’ll assume here, is that John functioned as some sort of overseer for these churches, and so he “stays in his lane” and focuses on those churches. With these cities being on an established circuit, we can make an educated guess that there may have been some strategic considerations as well for eventually distributing the message to the rest of the Mediterranean region and beyond. At least one commentator suggested this area could have had the highest concentration of Christians at the time.

Many commentators focus on the number of churches, seven, because that symbolizes completeness, and as such, each in their own way may represent established churches elsewhere in the world. But there are local details that only the believers in the respective churches could have related to, so that might lessen a broader appeal to other churches. At the very least, if other churches besides those mentioned received this letter, they surely would have been able to discern broader principles that applied to their situation, and the grand visions of Revelation in chapter 4 and beyond would have had universal significance to the church as it existed at the time. For now, though, we can set the question of “Why these seven churches” aside and still discern some meaningful truths from the passage.

The OT Connection

Many early– to mid–20th-century versions of our English Bibles do not indicate that the book of Revelation has many, if any, direct quotations or allusions to the Old Testament. But as scholars and translators have studied the book in more detail, and the use of computers facilitated better text comparisons between the Old and New Testaments, they’ve come to discover the book’s extensive connections to the OT.

Verses 4 and 5 are at the heart of what I hope to communicate to you this morning. Not only do they speak to who Christ is, but to our relationship with Christ as well and how he views us in his eternal plan. After greeting the seven churches, Paul opens with a pretty standard greeting formula: “Grace and peace to you.” The word “grace” was rarely used in the OT, and when it was, it usually referred to adornment, graceful speech, or a graceful appearance. Only a couple uses of the word in the NIV could be considered to come close to the NT understanding of grace as a free gift from God, especially for salvation. “Peace” was the more common OT greeting, so John and the other epistle writers use this formula to tie together the new and old covenants when addressing a mixed audience. “Peace” is not just the absence of conflict in the OT context, but a sense of security and acceptance as well.

The next phrase, which is also repeated in vs. 8, tells us who the sources of grace and peace are: “The one who is, and who was, and who is to come” is, of course, God himself, the father. The phrase is a direct reference to the Greek translation of God’s divine name in Exodus 3:14, when he reveals it to Moses at the burning bush: “I am who I am,” or perhaps better “I will be who I will be” (Hebrew: אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה; [ehyeh asher ehyeh] Greek LXX: Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν [egō eimi ho ōn]). In Hebrew, we know that name to be Yahweh, which as a word, is nothing more than a glorified form of the “to be” verb in Hebrew. This refers to the timeless, eternal, self-sustaining nature of God. One other interesting fact about this description: The phrase “who is to come” sounds like it might be a future tense, right? But in Greek, it’s actually a present tense verb. Why is this little bit of grammar important? Because in Greek, the present tense usually implies an action is in process and is not a one-and-done event. God is saying that, even now, he is actively working on coming to us to redeem us once and for all and finally put an end to Satan’s power. We can always count on God’s presence and involvement in the affairs of our lives and in the world around us.

The next source for grace and peace is the “seven spirits before his throne.” This is a little trickier to discern, because John describes the seven spirits differently in each context he mentions them. In 3:1, when addressing the church of Sardis, Jesus says, “These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God….” In 4:5, John says the seven lamps blazing in front of the throne of God are the seven spirits of God. In 5:6, John says the “seven eyes” of the Lamb “are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” At the very least, then, it would seem like these spirits represent a special group of divine beings, perhaps archangels, who have some authority to carry out God’s will on the earth, especially with respect to the judgment events later in the book. However, this may in fact be an expanded way of referring to the Holy Spirit, because then we would have an expression of the Trinity in vss. 4–5: Father, Spirit, Jesus.

If you’re following along in your Bibles, some of you may have a footnote with an alternate translation: “the seven-fold Spirit.” This may refer to a seven-fold description of the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 11:2 about the shoot that comes up from the stump of Jesse, and thus support the idea this is in fact a statement about the Trinity:

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—

the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and of might,

the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord

If this is the case, it would seem these seven spirits (or the seven-fold Spirit) may have a role to play in preparing and protecting believers in the tribulation that John will describe. However we interpret the phrase “seven spirits,” we at least can be assured that God is working in our best interests to bring us grace and peace.

Moving on, we see the final source of our grace and peace is Jesus himself. We’re reminded of who he is and what he’s done for us. He’s first called a “faithful witness” here, which brings us back to Isaiah again, 55:4:

See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,

a ruler and commander of the peoples.

He is the faithful witness because he did all that his father commanded him to, even accepting death on a cross for our sins. This is also why he’s called here “the firstborn from the dead,” because God raised him from the dead and proved once for all that death could in fact be defeated (Psalm 89:27; Colossians 1:18). It’s important here that John reminds his readers of this hope of the resurrection because of the intense suffering some of them may face based on the revelation John is proclaiming.

The final piece in the first part of vs. 5 here is that Jesus is “the ruler of the kings of the earth.” This again hearkens back to the last part of Isaiah 55:4 I read a moment ago. Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

In response to the grace and peace of the blessing from the Father, Holy Spirit, and Jesus, John returns thanks to Jesus and acknowledges what the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have done not just for him, but for all believers everywhere. First off, he loves us. I think we all know the passage from John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” He’s also “freed us from our sins by his blood.” The death of the perfect Lamb of God was powerful enough to cleanse us and make us holy in his sight. Finally, John mentions a promise that goes all the way back to their release from captivity in Egypt and before God gives Moses the Ten Commandments. Exodus 19:5–6 says:

Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

What a blessing to know that we have power, authority, and hope in our Savior to face whatever may come our way! And because of that, John can conclude that God deserves all glory and power for who he is and what he’s done for us.

Verse 7 isn’t so much a vision but a mash-up of several OT verses that confirm that God is indeed all powerful and worthy of all glory. Let’s hear it again before breaking it down:

“Look, he is coming with the clouds,” 

and “every eye will see him,

even those who pierced him”;

and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.”

So shall it be! Amen.

“He’s coming with the clouds” is a direct quote from Daniel’s vision in 7:13. The gospels use this description of Christ’s return as well. The next few lines about being pierced and the people mourning come straight from Zechariah 12:10. The Jews always recognized these two passages as Messianic from the time they were published after the exile. John is confirming that here.

Verse 8 closes out this passage with God himself saying he is the Alpha and Omega. This also hearkens back to a passage in Isaiah 41:4:

4 Who has done this and carried it through,

calling forth the generations from the beginning?

I, the Lord—with the first of them

and with the last—I am he.”

Long before this, Jewish writers were referring to God as the ‘’Aleph and Tau,’ the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Some Jewish writers went even further and added the middle letter of the Hebrew alphabet between the first and last, which made the Hebrew word ’emeth, which means “truth.” So God calling himself “Alpha and Omega” is nothing new to Jewish Christians who spoke Greek. A few verses later, in Revelation 1:17, Jesus calls himself “the First and the Last.” In Revelation 21:6, God again calls himself Alpha and Omega, only this time he also adds “the Beginning and the End.” In the final chapter, 22:13, we see Jesus taking on both those titles as well, only this time he adds in “the First and the Last” from 1:17. In other words, Jesus affirms that he is part of the Trinity with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is God, not “a” god little g, but the one and only “God” big G.

Conclusion

Revelation can be a difficult book to navigate. It’s full of strange and sometimes bizarre images of multihorned beasts, horses of different colors, and terrible cosmic events. But even if you don’t understand all that, the important thing to understand is what we’ve talked about here this morning. Here’s what I hope you’ll take away from today’s message:

  1. God is in control even in the most difficult times, and his presence is always with you.
  2. God loves you and has freed you from your sins. With that kind of freedom, you can and will do great things for God’s kingdom.
  3. No matter how bad things get around us, we have the absolute assurance that God and his church will win in the end. We don’t know how much of the bad stuff we’re going to have to go through, but we can be sure God will rescue us in the end and bring us safely home to his eternal kingdom.

Go in peace today with the assurance that your sins are forgiven, and that God is preparing a place for you.

[1] Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™
Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My opinions are my own.

April 10, 2022

The Day of the Donkey: Holy Week Events From the Perspective of the Prophesied Donkey

Filed under: Biblical Animals,Biblical Studies,Christology,Genesis,Greek,Hebrew,Isaiah,John Gospel of,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Passion,Prophet,Zechariah — Scott Stocking @ 2:47 pm
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Press play to hear the message. I had forgotten to record this the day of the message, so I recorded it at home. My apologies for the cat chiming in.

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™
Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Author’s Note: Dr. Wayne Shaw, my preaching professor at Lincoln Christian Seminary in late 1980s, had assigned as one of our textbooks Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor. He did this so that we as preachers would not just preach exegetical, point-by-point sermons all the time, but to learn how tell stories as well. Every once in a while, I will break from my normal preaching (and writing) style and do just that, tell a story. My message this morning (April 10, 2022) at Mt. View Presbyterian Church in Omaha, Nebraska, was a retelling of the triumphal entry and the events of Holy Week from the perspective of the donkey who carried Jesus into Jerusalem on what we now know as Palm Sunday. I hope you enjoy.

My name is Ḥamor (חֲמוֹר). A silly, almost embarrassing name, really. I mean, why couldn’t my parents just name me Hammer, like the great Judas “the Hammer” Maccabeus. That sounds so much cooler than “Ḥamor.” That guy knew how to take it to the enemy and gain Jewish independence 200 years ago. But I digress.

I said my name is almost embarrassing. In fact, it really is quite embarrassing unless you know the history of my ancestors and how they’ve played an important role in the spiritual history of my people. Wait, what? You say you don’t know what the name Ḥamor means? Ohhh, that’s right, most of you probably don’t speak Hebrew, do you. Well, this is embarrassing then, because in your language, my name really doesn’t have a good reputation at all. In the language of the Romans, Latin, I’m known as Equus asinus (AH see noose). The Greeks would call me ὄνος (onos). That came over into the King James Version of the Bible as, well, uh—this is so embarrassing—(whisper) “ass.” Whew, there, I said it. Let me say it again (with confidence): “I am an ass.” Feels good to get that out. Yes, I say it proudly: I am a donkey! Go ahead, get it out of your system. Laugh if you want, “heehaw” and all that. I’m used to it. But be careful: I’m not just any donkey. I am THE donkey. Yep, I’m the one the prophets talked about as far back as the time of Jacob and his sons in Egypt. I’m the one the Messiah rode into Jerusalem last week.

Now you may think I’m just a dumb…donkey, a beast of burden to carry your stuff around and pull your plows. But what you don’t know is that, just like every Hebrew mother thought her son would be the Messiah, every donkey mom thought her little colt would be the one who’d fulfill the donkey prophecies in what you call the Old Testament. What? You’re not familiar with those prophecies? Well, we donkeys are taught them from the time we’re born. I guess if you’re not a donkey, it might be hard to appreciate the stories about donkeys. But it really is a fascinating story, and I hope by the end, you’ll have a new appreciation of donkeys, and maybe you’ll stop using that other word as a bad word, because I’m proud of our history and heritage.

Before we get too far into those stories, let me give you a little history of donkeys, especially as they relate to this part of the world. We donkeys have a bit of a mixed reputation throughout history. Let me start with the bad news first: some Christian traditions later on will associate us with absurdity, obstinacy, and slothfulness, and at some point, a red donkey becomes the symbol of Satan. I really don’t know how we got connected with that evil accuser, but I do admit that we can sometimes be a bit stubborn and slow starters. Plato called us “perverse” for whatever reason, and another Roman writer said we were the meanest of all animals. Not sure where he got that one from. Maybe he was thinking of our half-breed cousins, the mules.

But the good news is, there were plenty of cultures that had very high opinions of donkeys, so much so that they were always included in royal ceremonies. The Ugarits have artwork showing their gods riding donkeys, while the Muslims would call some of their heroes “donkey-riders.” One ancient Christian tale (Vita Sanctae Pelagiae Meretricis) even suggests that a woman riding on a donkey represents the height of beauty. Generally speaking, if someone with a lot of power and clout was riding a donkey, it usually meant that they were coming in peace.[1]

As far as the Bible itself goes, however, we seem to get a pretty fair shake. It all started with Jacob when, on his deathbed, he was blessing all his children, and pronounced this regarding Judah (Genesis 49:8‒12):

      8 “Judah, your brothers will praise you;

         your hand will be on the neck of your enemies;

         your father’s sons will bow down to you.

      9 You are a lion’s cub, Judah;

         you return from the prey, my son.

         Like a lion he crouches and lies down,

         like a lioness—who dares to rouse him?

      10 The scepter will not depart from Judah,

         nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,

         until he to whom it belongs shall come

         and the obedience of the nations shall be his.

      11 He will tether his donkey to a vine,

         his colt to the choicest branch;

         he will wash his garments in wine,

         his robes in the blood of grapes.

      12 His eyes will be darker than wine,

         his teeth whiter than milk.

All the Hebrews knew that the Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah based on this prophecy. And all the donkeys knew that this ruler, the Lion of Judah, would eventually choose one of us for the most important mission in history. It seems like God is saying that he’s already got a plan to put all the players in place for when this ruler comes, even though the Hebrews had never had a king to this point. But one thing we’ve never been able to figure out about that prophecy is the bit about washing his garments in wine and his robes in the blood of grapes. Seems like they’d come out sticky and disgusting if we did that. One day we’ll know, though, I guess, right?

It’s not really a prophecy, but there is that story about Balaam in Numbers when he got a little too eager to help Moab out against the Hebrews. Keep in mind that Balaam probably wasn’t a Hebrew, but just a pagan prophet for hire. When the mama donkey (אָתוֹן, ʾāṯôn) he was riding (yes, she was female!) saw the angel of the Lord trying to stop him three times, she stopped and got a beating each time from Balaam. When mama donkey had finally had enough of that, she became a mama bear and chewed Balaam’s…, I mean scolded Balaam for his misplaced eagerness. Wouldn’t you have loved to see Balaam’s face when that mama bear voice started reading the riot act to him? He must have been white as a ghost. Mama donkey saved our reputation that day. She’s definitely one of our heroes.

Then there was that time that David had his son Solomon ride David’s own mule (פִּרְדָּה, pirdā(h); in case you don’t know, a mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey) to name him as successor to his throne. That must have been quite a day of celebration, pomp, and circumstance. I wish I could have been there.

But the ultimate prophecy that impacts us donkeys is the one in Zechariah 9. All of us have to learn this one.

      9 Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!

         Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!

         See, your king comes to you,

         righteous and victorious,

         lowly and riding on a donkey,

         on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

      10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim

         and the warhorses from Jerusalem,

         and the battle bow will be broken.

         He will proclaim peace to the nations.

         His rule will extend from sea to sea

         and from the River to the ends of the earth.

      11 As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you,

         I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.

      12 Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;

         even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.

      13 I will bend Judah as I bend my bow

         and fill it with Ephraim.

         I will rouse your sons, Zion,

         against your sons, Greece,

         and make you like a warrior’s sword.

Oh, how I love this prophecy, especially now, because I’m realizing I’m living in the midst of it. Verse 13 refers to Judas Maccabeus, you know, the Hammer guy I mentioned at the beginning of my story. He and his followers were able to overcome the Greek Seleucids and bring independence to Judah for a long time. It was from them that the Herod dynasty arose in Judah. They were okay at first, as most new rulers are, but they’re just sniveling little Roman puppets now. Nobody likes them. In fact, one of them tried to have the Messiah killed after he was born, and another one had John the Baptist beheaded. They’re just puppet kings; they’re not real kings, and they’re certainly not on the Messiah’s side. But, that was exactly the situation God needed to send the Messiah.

I’m pretty sure the current Herodian wouldn’t have ridden into town on a donkey. He’s too full of himself to go near us donkeys. But about a week ago, we started to hear the buzz around Jerusalem: Jesus and his disciples were on their way. He’d already earned quite a reputation with his miracles and his teaching, and it was obvious he was doing something right because the religious rulers were having a really hard time accepting him. Our donkey spy network, if you want to call it that, had been hearing troubling conversations, even to the point of the religious rulers wanting to crucify the Messiah. We were scared and excited at the same time.

We had been noticing that the crowds coming to Jerusalem for Passover were a lot bigger than in recent years, so my person thought we ought to get a jump on the day last Sunday, even though my hometown of Bethphage was only a few miles away. My mom and I were tied up outside, waiting to get loaded up and leave, when these two guys who looked like they’d been traveling forever came up, scratched my nose, and started to untie me. Now you’d think my mom would have started braying and kicking up a storm when that happened, but instead, she gave them both a gentle nuzzle. My person came out and asked, “Why are you untying the colt?” The older of the two just smiled and said, “The Lord needs it.” That was good enough for my person. Mom gave me a knowing look and kind of nudged me, as if to say, “It’s okay. Go with them. It’s time.”

So they led me a little way toward Jerusalem, and who do think was at their camp waiting for me? It was Jesus!!! There were so many people around, I was a little scared, but I realized this must be the time that Zechariah and Jacob had talked about in their prophecies. People put their cloaks on me and on the road ahead of me, waved palm branches, and Jesus himself sat on me! What an honor! A whole crowd of people were so happy to see him and were shouting all kinds of praises to him. But I saw a couple grumpy Pharisees trying to get Jesus to quiet the crowd. Yeah, right. Good luck with that, Pharisees. I imagine Rome was getting pretty nervous as well.

Even though the crowd was cheering, as we got closer to Jerusalem, Jesus started crying and pronounced a sad, scary prophecy about the city. That kind of took me by surprise. Why was he so sad and so gloomy about Jerusalem when most everyone else seemed so excited and joyful?

Well, it didn’t take too long to find out. Our huge parade went into the city, and the first place we went, as you might imagine, was the Temple. I couldn’t go in, but Jesus was really upset at those who were taking advantage of the poor who were coming in for the Passover and overturned their tables and chased them out of the Temple courts. Something about making his father’s house a den of robbers. That just seemed like quite a turn of events at that point, and it seems to have set the stage for what happened the rest of the week.

Now I did stay in Jerusalem after that Temple incident, but I didn’t go everywhere Jesus went. However, I had begun to hear stories of Jesus confronting the Pharisees, prophesying against the Temple, and other stuff like that. When I did see Jesus, he was resolute, like a man on a mission who could not be deterred. On Thursday night, a few of the disciples loaded me up with some Passover food and we headed to a house in town. The meal was upstairs, so I had to stay outside. It was a quiet night because it was the Passover meal, so I was able to hear bits and pieces of the conversation coming through the windows. Something about washing their feet, body and blood, and even a betrayer. It wasn’t long after that conversation that I saw Judas running out of the house and headed toward the Temple.

After that is when things get a little confusing. Jesus and the rest of the disciples sang a hymn and came down from the meal. We all went to the Garden of Gethsemane, but by that time we were all getting pretty tired and the sun had set. I lay down there to try to sleep, and I heard Jesus say something to Peter and John about staying awake. All of the sudden, everyone started shouting, because Judas had come to the garden with soldiers. They were arresting Jesus!!! Things got really confusing then. I heard a couple swords drawn, someone got hurt but Jesus healed him, and then all the disciples scattered, forgetting about me.

I managed to follow Jesus back to Jerusalem without being too obvious and was just able to slip through the city gate before they closed it again. I heard someone say they were going to the high priest’s house. We got there, and there was quite a crowd for that late at night. I heard a lot of shouting and arguing coming from the house, and eventually Jesus came out, still tied up. It was weird. Right when he came out, a rooster crowed, and I could see Jesus was looking straight at Peter, who was in the crowd. Peter looked sad, but the crowd surged at that point, and I lost sight of him.

It’s hard for me to describe what happened the next day, because it was so gruesome and ugly and I’m still pretty shaken by it. The pharisees turned Jesus over to the Romans, who whipped him, then he was brought to Pilate, who wanted to release him. But the Pharisees were stirring up the crowd, shouting “Crucify him!” I couldn’t bear it anymore. I just wanted to go home. Here, I thought I was the donkey of the prophecies, yet the “king” was going to be crucified instead. As I was exiting the city, I saw three poles on a hill nearby. It looked like there were already several Roman soldiers there and a crowd gathering. Then I heard behind me a mob approaching. I went down the road a little bit where I could get off to the side and still watch the hill. In the midst of the mob, I saw Jesus, whipped, bleeding, struggling to carry the horizontal beam of the cross. Oh, wait, maybe that’s what the prophecy meant about his garments washed in wine. Eww (shudder). It couldn’t be. I watched the rest of that scene unfold in utter disbelief. I watched as they hung Jesus from the cross between two other criminals. I could see that Jesus was shouting something as best he could, but I couldn’t make it out. I saw a soldier poke him in the side. Then the sky went dark. Yeah, that seems to fit the way this day is going.

As I was watching all this, I remembered that along with the donkey prophecies, my parents had taught me an Isaiah passage as well: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds, we are healed.” How could all that pain and suffering bring healing? Then I made the connection: I realized I have a cross on my back; most donkeys do. Could it be that God made us beasts of burden with a cross on our backs because one of us would one day bear the one who would be burdened with the sin of mankind on a cross? As much as I wanted to go home, my eyes and my soul were captivated by the horror of what I was seeing. I had to get closer. I watched as they took his limp body down from the cross. I could see the general direction they were headed, so I tried to get to where they seemed to be headed. I’m glad I did. When I got to the place where they would bury him, I watched as they took his body, wrapped in linen cloths, into the tomb, rolled the stone in front of it, and put the Roman seal on it. And then I saw two people I recognized: Mary and John. I went up and nudged them gently, and they recognized me. But it was getting close to sundown, and they had to get home before the Sabbath started. They tried to get me to come, but I put on my stubbornness and wouldn’t budge. I wanted to stay near the tomb.

As much as I wanted to go home, my eyes and my soul were captivated by the horror of what I was seeing. I had to get closer. I watched as they took his limp body down from the cross.

That Sabbath yesterday was the worst day of my young life. I was still in shock. I couldn’t even move, let alone eat. I just hid out in some nearby trees and kept guard as best I could. I dozed off and on all day (just like the Roman guards!), until I finally realized I had slept through most of the night. Just before daybreak on the morning after the Sabbath, I felt the ground shake and heard the Roman guards yelling as they ran away. Then I saw them at the tomb, two angels rolling the stone away! I saw Jesus come to the opening of the tomb. He looked straight at me, winked, and disappeared. Could I be dreaming?

Just then Jesus’s mother, Mary, and Mary Magdalene came running up to the tomb, only to find the stone rolled away. I hadn’t been dreaming! I wanted to approach them, but before they noticed me, the angels appeared to them and told them what had happened. It was true then, Jesus was alive! The women never saw me, but turned and ran back toward Jerusalem, presumably to tell the rest of the disciples.

After the women ran off, one of the angels looked at me and said, “Well done, faithful Ḥamor. You may return home.” I had done my part that the prophets had predicted so long ago. I was indeed THE donkey that gave the king a ride into Jerusalem, and now I knew just what kind of king he would be. I headed home to tell my mom, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

[1] Ryken, Leland, Jim Wilhoit, Tremper Longman, Colin Duriez, Douglas Penney, and Daniel G. Reid. 2000. In Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, electronic ed., 215. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

March 27, 2022

Lost and Found: The Parable of the Prodigal (Luke 15:11-32)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,forgiveness,Grace,Greek,Luke Gospel of,Repentance,Theology, Biblical,Zechariah — Scott Stocking @ 7:39 pm
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I preached this message at Mt. View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, Nebraska, March 27, 2022. I modified the introduction and preached it again on March 30, 2025, recording it this time. The text from the original message has been lightly edited for publication and to add in references to the key Greek words. The only major change made to the text in 2025 was a change in the opening illustration; this edit is not indicated here.

We can’t do anything else to earn [God’s forgiveness] because it’s already been granted to us in full by his grace.

When was the last time you “lost,” or rather, “misplaced” something you really needed? Since I had my third surgery on my leg a month ago, I’ve gotten out of my usual dressing habits and have been wearing sweatpants. The pockets in sweatpants tend to not be as deep as pants pockets, and this has gotten me out of the habit of where I put all my stuff during the day. With my pants, I could have my keys and change in one pocket, billfold in the back pocket, handkerchief in the other back pocket, and cell phone in my other front pocket. Pockets were made for carrying stuff, and I take full advantage of that.

But in the last couple weeks, I’ve “lost” or misplaced my house keys three times! They weren’t in their usual spot. One of those times, I looked all over the house during the day and couldn’t find them. When my wife got home from work, I looked in her car, and discovered they had fallen out of my sweatpants pocket between the driver’s seat and the center console. The other two times, I had taken them out of my sweatpants pocket and put them on my desk in my office instead of on the shelf in my bedroom where they usually go. The other day, I even lost my phone in the couch cushion, because I was keeping my leg elevated, and the phone fell out of my sweatpants pocket.

We hate it when we lose stuff, right? I went looking for some information on what are the most commonly “lost” items by Americans. What do you think is the number one item Americans say they lose?

Top Items Lost in US & UK
US: TV remotes, phones, car & house keys, glasses, wallets and bags 
UK: Keys, phone, pens (or other items of stationery), glasses or sunglasses, remote controls

CHipolo.com

The Parables of the Lost

According to the article this all comes from, written as a marketing piece for a company that sells electronic products you can attach to your lost items to help you find them with your smartphone, we spend on average 5 minutes and 20 seconds looking for lost items. That’s not to say we find the item after we search. This is quite the contrast to the time it takes to recover what the people in the parables in Luke 15 lost. The shepherd goes out into the open field to look for his lost sheep; probably not a quick walk. Or the woman who sweeps and cleans her entire household to find one coin, perhaps the most valuable thing she owned. And after the hard work to try to find what was lost, both the shepherd and the woman rejoice in finding what they’d lost.

The Lost Son Begins the Downward Slide

So as we come to the parable of the “lost” or “prodigal” son, we’re faced with a story of a different kind of “lostness.” Instead of an item, we’re dealing with a person, who by his own choice, loses himself by virtue of a series of poor decisions. Let’s look at the first part of that story.[1]

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

Let’s break this down a bit. The most important thing to note here is that, in that time, it was a grievous dishonor to your parents to ask for your share of the inheritance before they died. It was akin to saying to your father, “I wish you were dead.” It would have brought shame not only on the son, but on the father as well. The father could have easily said no, or he could have disowned his son altogether for such an act. It’s likely the father knew how the son would handle himself as well. Yet in spite of all this, the father consented and let the son go his own way.

This was not easy for the family. The oldest son was always entitled to twice the inheritance of the other sons, so the father probably would have had to sell off assets (βίος bios) he’d accumulated through his life’s work to give the younger son 1/3 of what the total inheritance for his sons would have been. The older son got his 2/3 inheritance as well, as vs. 12 says he divided his property between them. That will be important to remember as we come to the end of the story.

The younger son was impatient to get started on his newfound “freedom,” if we want to call it that, and dispensed with the cultural norms of saying goodbye. Keep in mind that most family units remained in close proximity to their ancestral home, so this was no small thing for the son to go away to a distant land. It was a sad time indeed, almost akin to mourning the loss of a loved one. But the younger son was seemingly insensitive to all of that, and went his own way.

So he “squandered his wealth in wild living.” That word “squandered” (διασκορπίζω diaskorpizō) is one of the most egregious terms for wastefulness in the New Testament. It implies an indiscriminate scattering of people, sheep, or even seed for planting. It tends to be a descriptive word about what’s going on, but it doesn’t seem to carry too much moral weight in that it’s not necessarily a strong condemnation. However, the results of his wastefulness come home to roost with him. Instead of planning for a rainy day or investing his wealth in something that might have earned him more money, he scattered it abroad indiscriminately. When the money dried up, so did his friends.

The beginning of his need was the beginning of his feeing of lostness. He had no friends, no nearby family, and there was no food bank or other charity nearby. He hired himself out to feed pigs, an animal considered unclean to the Jews. It was the ultimate shame, and he began to feel it. The pods the pigs were eating were carob pods (κεράτιον keration). Have you ever had carob? I remember several years ago carob had gained some popularity as a substitute for chocolate. But when I tried it, there was no comparison. If you like carob, more power to you. You won’t get any judgment from me. I’ll take the real chocolate any day.

Rock Bottom

But I digress. The son has hit the bottom of the barrel at this point, and he knows he needs to make a complete 180 degree turn with his life. We see his desperation in the next part of the story.

17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’

He thinks because he has brought such shame and disgrace upon himself that he can’t go back to his family with all the rights of a son. But he knew his father treated the servants well, so he at least thought he’d stand a better chance of survival and success there than all alone in a distant land.

Repentance and Ascendance

This 180-degree turn is what the Bible calls repentance. Repentance not only means to change your mind about the way you’ve been living, but also to change the way you’ve been living. He decides his best course of action is to humble himself and return home, where at least someone might love him.

20 So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

This part of the parable is one of the most beautiful pictures of God’s acceptance of a sinner returning to him. The younger son had probably spent most of his journey home rehearsing what he’d say to his father. Can you relate to that? You don’t have to raise your hand if you do. How many times have we found ourselves in a similar situation, where we knew we messed up and we have to humble, or even humiliate ourselves to croak out a huge apology. No excuses, no rationalizations, no passing the buck to someone else. It’s all on you, right? Those of us who’ve had those moments will most likely never forget how we felt in those moments.

But the younger son didn’t count on his father still loving him and missing him. Their parting was probably not pleasant as I hinted at above. The younger son had every right to assume his return would be met with skepticism, sorrow, and anger from the father. But the father shocks his son with his response, as Jesus shocks his listeners by telling this part of the story. The father runs to greet his son not with punishment or anger, but with love and compassion. This would have been somewhat embarrassing for the father, having to tuck his outer garment under his belt so his legs were free to run. It would seem all this time, the father never took his eyes of the horizon, waiting for his son to return, and the father didn’t care one bit what others may have thought of him for running to welcome his prodigal son home.

The prodigal, perhaps experiencing shock, embarrassment, and relief all at once, tries to get his prepared speech out, but the father cuts him off before he can get to the part about being one of his father’s hired servants. Instead, his father cuts him off and orders the servants to bring the best robe, a signet ring, and sandals. In that culture, those were signs of authority. The sandals were probably the most important part to the son, as slaves went barefoot. Right away, the son knew he was not going to be welcomed back as a slave, but as a son. When pharaoh made Joseph second in command in Egypt (Genesis 41:41ff), he received pharaoh’s own signet ring, which was a sign of authority and allowed Joseph to make financial decisions and royal decrees in Pharaoh’s stead. He got robes of fine linen from pharaoh, which must have brought back memories of getting the coat of many colors from his own father as a young man. Joseph received a gold chain as well, although there’s no mention of that for the prodigal. Joshua, the high priest in the time of the prophet Zechariah, had his filthy clothes exchanged for fine garments at the order of the angel as a sign that his sins had been removed (Zechariah 3:3–4).

To bring it back to our story, then, the younger son was experiencing complete forgiveness and restoration from his own father. Not only that, but the father orders the fattened calf to be killed for a great celebration feast. Notice the contrast between the response here and the responses in the first two parables in this chapter. The one seeking what was lost gathers friends and neighbors together to “Rejoice with me; I’ve found what I lost.” And then Jesus says that there would be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the 99 who don’t need to repent. Those first two parables use a form of the word for “rejoice” (συγχαίρω/χαρά sunchairō/chara) four times, but never use the word “celebration.” In the prodigal story, Jesus skips the “Rejoice with me” part and goes straight to a heaven-worthy celebration. The word for “celebration” (εὐφραίνω euphrainō) is used four times in the prodigal story. As such, we see how much more valuable God considers our own souls over and above what we possess or are called to care for.

How much is that like our God? Before we can even get the words of apology and repentance out of our mouths, God comes running to meet us where we are, ready to embrace us and welcome us into his kingdom. He’s ready to forgive the moment we change our minds; we can’t do anything else to earn it because it’s already been granted to us in full by his grace.

The younger son’s response here is similar to what we see in Psalm 51, which David wrote after his sin with Bathsheba was exposed:

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
   according to your unfailing love;
   according to your great compassion
   blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash away all my iniquity
   and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions,
   and my sin is always before me.

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
   and done what is evil in your sight;
   so you are right in your verdict
   and justified when you judge.

Or again, like the ending of the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119, the younger son seeks out restoration:

169 May my cry come before you, LORD;
   give me understanding according to your word.

170 May my supplication come before you;
   deliver me according to your promise.

171 May my lips overflow with praise,
   for you teach me your decrees.

172 May my tongue sing of your word,
   for all your commands are righteous.

173 May your hand be ready to help me,
   for I have chosen your precepts.

174 I long for your salvation, LORD,
   and your law gives me delight.

175 Let me live that I may praise you,
   and may your laws sustain me.

176 I have strayed like a lost sheep.
   Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands.

The Other Lost Son

It would be great if the story of the prodigal son ended here, with everyone rejoicing, but it would seem that the role of the problem child is transferred to the older son.

25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

31 “ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”

Evidently the servants had been so busy preparing things for the prodigal-come-home that no one thought to go get his older brother to join the celebration. Or, to be fair, maybe the servant assigned that task hadn’t got to him yet, and was meeting him half way. We don’t know how far out in the field the son was. Of course, the older brother’s attitude is what we might expect. His attitude is much harsher than the description of his squandering at the beginning of the story. Jesus here puts a different word for “squandering” (κατεσθίω katesthiō) in the older brother’s mouth, and adds the bit about prostitutes as well. The word for “squandering” here seems to carry a much more judgmental tone through the Scriptures, sometimes translated as “devour” or “exploit.” The father tries reassuring the older son that everything he has is available to him, but still emphasizes the need to celebrate his brother’s return. Jesus ends the parable abruptly there, presumably on purpose. He leaves us to think about what our own response might be in that situation. Would we continue to be indignant and jealous about the attention his younger brother is getting, or would we follow in the footsteps of his father and rejoice that a lost one has returned?

I get it. Sometimes it’s hard to trust that someone who has turned their back on God might genuinely want to come back to Jesus and get their lives back in order. Sometimes, they really have made the change in their lives. I’ve known people who’ve done that. But I’ve also known those who made a play at repenting, but then continued on with the bad decisions in their life. There was no real motivation for positive change or repentance. Do you have a lost loved one who may be showing signs of wanting to be restored? Run to them and let them know they’re welcome. Or have you lost your way and need to come home? Turn around. The father is waiting to welcome you into his kingdom with open arms.

Epilog: The Connection to the Parable of the Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1ff)

I want to offer a brief epilog here, because even though it looks like the three “lost” parables in chapter 15 stand as a unit of teaching, there’s a connection to the very next parable, the parable of the shrewd manager. The word for “squandered” (διασκορπίζω diaskorpizō) from the first part of the prodigal story is used to describe the manager in 16:1. But the parable of the shrewd manager ends quite differently. All we know is that the manager was accused of “squandering” the owner’s possession, but nothing seems to have been proven. The manager takes a couple bills and discounts them for the debtors so he can collect something for his master, and at the same time, earn a little favor with those to whom he gave the discounts. The owner commended the manager for his shrewdness, and Jesus closes the parable by saying “Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” The prodigal wasted his money on things that wouldn’t bring him any eternal benefit. The shrewd manager, however, used the money under his control to win friends and influence people. I’ll leave you with this question: How can we as individuals and as the body of Christ, grow the kingdom with our worldly wealth?

[1] Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My views are my own.

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