Sunday Morning Greek Blog

December 31, 2023

Praising the Savior (Luke 2:22–40)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Birth Stories,Christology,Christology,Epifanía,Epiphany,Hebrews,Isaiah,Luke Gospel of,Soteriology — Scott Stocking @ 3:51 pm
Tags: Anna, Body of Christ, Church Attendance, Consecration of Jesus, First Sunday after Christmas, Hebrews 10:24-25, Isaiah 9, Luke 2:22-40, praise, Service, Simeon

I preached this sermon at Mount View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE, on December 31, 2023, the First Sunday After Christmas on the liturgical calendar year B. I was on the back end of a cold, so I sound a little different.

Last Sunday, Christmas Eve, I had the privilege of baptizing my half-sister at my home church. Thirty-three years and day before that, December 23, 1990, I had been present at her dedication and baptism at the Lutheran church on N. 30^th Street. My dad and her mom wanted me to be her “sponsor” or “Godfather.” It was a distinct honor to come full circle like that on a commitment I quite frankly had little influence on in her early life because I lived 500 miles away.

Lindee’s story parallels my own faith journey as I’ve shared with you in past, but our stories both parallel the life of Jesus in this regard as well, and we see the first part of that story in our passage today. Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the Temple to go through the Jewish purification rites. Mary had to wait 40 days to be purified from giving birth, which as we all know involves some blood. But because Jesus was also a firstborn son, he had to be dedicated to the service of the Lord as the Israelites were commanded in Exodus. That involved a sacrifice as well, as we see in the final “plague” of the Exodus. And of course we know that Jesus was baptized as an adult “to fulfill all righteousness,” as Matthew records. The Western church recognizes that event the day after Epiphany next week.[1]

Now when you and I dedicate ourselves to raising our children in the Lord, whatever that looks like from your perspective, I would venture to guess none of us has any idea what our kids are going to be like some thirty years later. But Mary and Joseph encountered two people in the Temple that day of Jesus’s consecration who seemed to know quite a bit about what Jesus would be doing thirty years later.

Simeon’s prophecy about Jesus is both encouraging and haunting. On the one hand, he is saying that Jesus is the light to the Gentiles Isaiah spoke of in Chapter 9 of his prophecy. But then it takes a darker turn, speaking of the rising and falling of many and that he would be a sign spoken against. The final part of his prophecy to Mary is the most haunting of all: “And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” That little word “too” at the end of the prophecy reveals that Jesus is destined for incredible suffering at some point in the future, which we now know was the cross. Mary witnessed that event as well, so you can imagine the pain she must have felt.

Anna also had what at least on the surface appears to be an encouraging prophecy as well, giving thanks to God, but she mentions the redemption of Jerusalem. Now I know we may tend to throw around these $20 religious words like “salvation” and “redemption” without thinking more deeply about what they imply, but the Jews would have understood from their sacrificial system that “salvation” and “redemption” both required blood sacrifices in the Old Testament. So even as Simeon and Anna spoke over the infant Jesus, their words prefigured in some way, subtle or not, that Jesus would suffer death at some point.

It’s hard to say what the son of God knew or understood as an infant when he heard these words. His human side would not have understood them, but his divine nature surely would have, and how those two natures worked together will perhaps forever be a beautiful mystery to us. But the text in Luke goes on to say that Jesus’s parents took Jesus to the Passover every year in Jerusalem, so Jesus, as he grew older, began to understand that the Temple wasn’t just a place of worship, but his own spiritual home, because the Temple was his Father’s house.

It’s a fair extrapolation, I think, to assume that Jesus and his family were regulars in the local synagogue as well when they weren’t in Jerusalem for the Passover. Luke gives us just a glimpse of Jesus as a preteen with the story of him staying behind to school the teachers of the law in the Temple courts. Now if he was doing that with the teachers in the Temple, can you imagine what he must have been like in the local synagogue? We don’t see Jesus begin his ministry until he was thirty years old, but what was he like as a young adult? Did he give the synagogue leader some pointers after each message? Surely he didn’t live in isolation as a young man. Were the women oohing and aahing about his theological prowess? I’m guessing not. He was probably a Nazarite like Samson, except he knew how to behave himself, which is why we never read about him getting married. He was off limits to women, because he was laser-focused on preparing for his ministry as the Messiah.

All of what I’ve said up to this point is more or less an intellectual exercise, examining the history and background around the birth and dedication of Jesus and the times he lived in. But what are some takeaways for us? What are some things we can do to help our kids and grandkids raise their own kids so they can take ownership of their faith and understand God’s purposes for them in this day and age?

The most obvious takeaway for us is the importance of gathering with God’s people in God’s house. For the Jews, that was primarily the local synagogue, with the Temple being a special destination, one to three times a year depending on how often people could make the journey. For us Christians, we really don’t have anything akin to the Temple, so it’s the local church that’s important.

I’ve often had people tell me, and perhaps you’ve experienced this as well, that you don’t need to go to church to be a Christian. I would beg to differ. As believers, we are part of the body of Christ; we may be set apart from the world in God’s eyes, but we are not set apart from our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are united essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally in God’s eyes through Christ. Wherever God has a child, we have a sibling in Christ. Hebrews 10:24 and 25 puts it this way:

²⁴And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, ²⁵not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.^[2]

Most of us who have grown up in the church recognize this distinctly. We recognize the power of connection and the shared purpose and goals that develop from such a connection. The local church is not just a place where we come to be uplifted and encouraged, but where we can also uplift and encourage others. It is a community with bonds that are not easily broken.

Related to this is the idea of service. Some churches have signs above the doors that exit out of their sanctuaries that say, “You are now entering the mission field.” In Acts 6, we see the apostles were concerned about the Hellenistic Jewish widows who were being overlooked in the distribution of food. They gathered everyone together and quickly worked out a solution and appointed capable people to handle that specific ministry. That couldn’t have happened if everyone was doing their own thing.

Another takeaway for us comes from the responses of Simeon and Anna. Granted, they had some prophetic insight into who the baby Jesus was and how he fit into God’s plan for salvation and redemption, but we now have the hindsight to know exactly what that looked like. Just as Simeon and Anna praised God for who he is and what he was doing through Jesus, so to can we praise God for who he is, what he has done for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and what he is doing in us through the work of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Our reading from Psalm 148 gives us some hints about how we can praise God:

¹¹kings of the earth and all nations,

you princes and all rulers on earth,

¹²young men and women,

old men and children.

¹³Let them praise the name of the Lord,

for his name alone is exalted;

his splendor is above the earth and the heavens. ^[3]

Like attending church, praise is not just an individual effort we make to show our gratitude to God. Praise also flows from our experience together as a community, especially as we see the fruit of our mutual and collective labors. It also flows from reading and hearing about God’s great works in the service. Psalm 148 also has several references to God’s wonderful creation that is available to all mankind, not just to those of us who believe.

One final thought about Luke’s passage here: Simeon especially indicates that following Jesus is going to cause people to take sides. We see more and more in our world today the antagonism toward the good news of Jesus. This is all the more reason for us to maintain community on the one hand, so there’s strength in numbers. But also we can take a unified stand for righteousness and truth and send a powerful message of unity and steadfastness to the world.

As we look forward to the new year, then, let us resolve and recommit ourselves to serving and praising God and meeting together as body of believers to carry out the various ministries he’s called us to. Together, we can be shining lights in a world of darkness, a beacon of hope amidst the signs of fear and despair. Amen.

[1] I removed the following because I didn’t want the sermon to get too long, and I didn’t want to dive into the topic of adult baptism with an older congregation.

But the parallel doesn’t stop there. I think most of us recognize that next week is Epiphany, where the Western church celebrates the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus. But how many of you know that the day after Epiphany is the recognition of Jesus’s baptism by John? Even though John knew he needed to be baptized by Jesus, and even though Jesus knew he was the son of God and sinless and had no need to “repent and be baptized” as John was preaching, still Matthew records Jesus’s desire that he be baptized “to fulfill all righteousness.”

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

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

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December 6, 2023

“Bones” in the Bible: Why I Do NOT Want to Be Cremated at Death

The following article is long overdue, at least from my perspective, because I’ve been stewing on it as I get older and must make decisions about the disposition of my own body upon death. The question I’ve been stewing over is whether cremation is an appropriate final disposition for those who consider themselves Christ followers.

If we only look at the obvious difference between cremation and traditional burial, that is, the rapid reduction of the body and bones to ashes versus the slow decay of the embalmed body over time in a tomb or coffin, one might think the cremation is perhaps more environmentally friendly, and there are certainly antagonists to traditional burial ceremonies.[1] But as with all things that relate to our spiritual lives and disposition, this temporary habitation we call Earth will not survive the final judgment and is thus a secondary concern to the spiritual realities.

Now before I go into my analysis, I want to emphasize that my conclusions should NOT be considered a theological tenet, as the Bible has no explicit “Thou Shalts” or “Thou Shalt Nots” regarding the disposition of the bodies of those who have gone before us. After looking at all the Scriptures that mention “bones” (since that is ultimately the difference in what remains after the different means of disposition), I have discovered that most of those passages are anecdotal at best, but they do seem to reveal a broader worldview about the disposition of the dead. My intention here is not to criticize or condemn those who have chosen cremation for themselves or loved ones, because there is no ultimate biblical basis to do so.

My main purpose here, then, is to let my family know in no uncertain terms what my wishes are for the disposition of my body. I absolutely do NOT want to be cremated. After studying these passages, as you will see in my analysis below, I believe the Judeo-Christian worldview (as well as that of several other Middle Eastern, northern African, and southern European cultures represented in the Scriptures[2]) has a high regard, even sacred view, of the bones of their dead on the one hand. The corollary to this view is that keeping the bones of the dead either intact, or at least collected in an ossuary, sends a signal that there was hope of a resurrection, much as the Egyptians mummified their dead because they believed they had their own journey in the afterlife.

On the other hand, when judgment is involved, especially on the enemies of God’s people, the desecration of their bones serves as insult added to injury. A corollary to this is that the desecration or total destruction (crushing, breaking, etc.) of the bones in conjunction with that declaration of judgment sends a signal that there is no hope of resurrection or redemption of those so judged.

Setting the Tone With the “Clone” of the Bone

Of course, the first reference we have to a bone is in the creation story in Genesis 2:21–22. The Hebrew word for rib (צֵלָע ṣē·lāʿ) in this passage is typically a generic word for “side,” but this is the only time it is understood as “rib,” perhaps based on Adam’s “bone of my bone” (עֶ֚צֶם מֵֽעֲצָמַ֔י ‘eṣem mē‘ăṣăma^y) comment in vs. 23. I think there is a greater significance to this than just a poetic statement about Adam’s new female human companion, Eve. Without getting too technical, the bone contains marrow, which is responsible for creating a constant supply of red and white blood cells as well as platelets in the body as those cells do their part to carry oxygen, fight infection, and promote healing, respectively.[3] God apparently had distinct medical reasons to use a bone for such a purpose.

If, as Leviticus 17:11 says, “the life of a creature is in the blood,” then the “life” of the blood is in the bones. This would make a bone, with some flesh attached, the perfect primitive source for God to “clone” another human being. Another thing to consider here: only males carry both X and Y sex genes. As such, to create another human of a different gender in the way God did would require a male donor. God could create a female from a male bone, but could he create a male from a female bone? I guess the answer to that questions depends on whether you think God would respect the natural order he created. This doesn’t take away the miracle of creating an adult human being out of a rib. But I do believe it sheds some light on how important God considers the human body even after death. One final thought here: our DNA can survive in our bodies long after we’re dead even with standard embalming practices.[4] DNA can also still be recovered from burnt or cremated remains in the bones or teeth, but not for quite as long a period.[5]

I believe Genesis 2:21–23 confirms, anecdotally at least, why the bones of a person are considered sacred: they constantly produce what the body needs to maintain life when not hindered by disease. We don’t really hear about bones again in Genesis until the very end of chapter 50, where Joseph insists that the Israelites must carry his bones out of Egypt when they return to the Promised Land. We are reminded of that promise in Exodus 13:19 when Moses ensures that the bones of Joseph are among the spoils of the exodus and again in Joshua 24:32 toward the end of the conquering phase in the Promised Land when we learn that Joseph’s bones were buried at Shechem. In the New Testament, the final mention of bones is found in Hebrews 11:22, when we’re again reminded that Joseph’s bones were to be removed from Egypt.

Elsewhere in the Torah, we see that the Passover lamb was not to have any bones broken (Exodus 12:46; Numbers 9:12). The bones could be separated at the joints, but the individual bones themselves were not to be broken. In fact, all sacrificial animals had to be “without blemish,” which included not having any broken bones. This was true of Jesus as well, as prophesied in Psalm 34:20 and fulfilled in John 19:36.

Bones and the Resurrection

The connection of bones to a resurrection motif is found in 2 Kings 13:21, where some Israelites, faced with a band of marauders, hastily threw a body into the tomb of Elisha instead finishing the burial, and the man came to life when his body touched Elisha’s bones. Perhaps the most stunning connection to the resurrection, though, is the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37. The Lord commanded Ezekiel to prophesy to the dead bones, and they “reconstituted” themselves into an entire army. Another word of prophecy filled them with the breath of life. The conclusion of that event still speaks to us today, especially when we feel defeated by the world: “These bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’” O, that we would have faith to allow God to renew us with his mighty breath!

There is an interesting translation issue with Ecclesiastes 11:5 that may tie into the sacredness of the bones. Two recent translations have the following:

ESV: ⁵As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.^[6]

NRSV: ⁵Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything.^[7]

These are very literal translations of the passage, and the translators see a causal connection between the הָר֔וּחַ (harû^aḥ wind/spirit/breath) and the כַּעֲצָמִ֖ים (bones). However, most other translations (as the NIV below) would seem to respect the zāqēp̄ qāṭōn (^:) accent over הָר֔וּחַ, which indicates the main break in the first half of a Hebrew sentence:

⁵As you do not know the path of the wind,
or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
the Maker of all things.^[8]

As such, as much as the NRSV and ESV translations of Ecclesiastes 11:5 may hint at an enhanced sacredness of the bone, I don’t think the Hebrew text supports their translation. This does not, however, negate the fact that “bones” is a metonymy for the precious human fetus.

Other signs of the sacredness of human bones would include Numbers 19:16–18, where touching bones out in the open wilderness caused one to be unclean. Israel apparently had a special class of people (“gravediggers”) who were responsible for handling the bones of the dead, especially in a battlefield (Ezekiel 39:15).

“Bones” in the Poets and Prophets

The poetic and prophetic books in the OT have several figurative uses of the word for “bone.” In many cases, it signifies the inner self or the inner soul, sometimes in a positive sense (Jeremiah 23:9), but many times reflecting angst or pain in the deepest part of our souls. Other times bones visible in the malnourished frames of a starving people reflect the oppression or severe trials of the people (Job 33:21; Proverbs 17:22). Proverbs 15:30 and 16:24 speak of the importance of how good news can strengthen our “bones,” our inner self. Even though the figurative uses of the word “bone” don’t have much bearing on the concept of the disposition of one’s earthly body, this still shows the intimate connection we have with our inner self. I’ll save further discussion of this for another time.

One other aspect of how the OT treats the subject of actual human bones does, however, have a huge bearing on the cremation vs. burial debate. Several times in the OT, we see the refusal to bury human bones (Jeremiah 8:1) or the burning of human bones was used as a means of desecration, shaming, or cursing. In 1 Kings 13:2, there is a prophecy about Josiah burning human bones on pagan altars, which was fulfilled in 2 Kings 23:14–20 (see also 2 Chronicles 34:5), which defiled the pagan altars. I can’t help but make the comparison here to a common practice with cremation: scattering the ashes, typically in some memorable location. The latter practice, however, is not typically done with the intent, but more on this below.

What Is Cremation?

Cremation doesn’t consume the bones. A full skeleton remains after cremation, so the bones are pulverized (“cremains”) such that the whole “collection” fits into the urn or other chosen container.[9] Given what the Bible says about the problem of human bones scattered on the ground (e.g., Ezekiel 6:5), I personally would have to think long and hard about scattering someone’s ashes. But I emphasize that I am only making an educated guess here, not promulgating a theological tenet.[10]

Even with the cremains, there still may be recognizable bone or tooth fragments, so imagine how you might feel hiking in some scenic location and finding a couple partially charred fragments of human teeth. I can understand the sentiment involved in scattering a loved one’s ashes, but how might others feel about that? I can’t answer the question, but I can’t avoid asking the question either: Is scattering someone’s ashes a desecration in the view of the Bible or the biblical worldview? I think people need to decide that for themselves, because as I said at the beginning of the article, there is no “Thus saith the Lord” on that question. My mom had my stepdad cremated a couple years ago, but she just recently had the small wooden casket, if that’s what you call it, buried in his prepurchased burial plot, so his cremains are sealed in one place.

“Bones” and Resurrection in the NT

On the whole, we can learn much more about the significance of how human bones are treated in the OT, but I want to turn to the one significant reference to bones in the NT to wrap up this study. Before looking at this reference, however, I want to cite a couple passages that will help support my argument. John 12:24 says, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Chapter 15 in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians gives a detailed description of his view of the resurrection. I would encourage you to read that whole chapter, but I think it will do to cite 1 Corinthians 15:42–49:

⁴²So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; ⁴³it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; ⁴⁴it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. ⁴⁷The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. ⁴⁸As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.^[11]

The two passages above both suggest the idea that burial is akin to “planting” a seed. My question is, then, to what degree should we take that as a metaphor? And if it is a metaphor, to whatever degree, what is the spiritual (or physical?) reality behind it that makes it meaningful? What role do the bones play? Remember what I said above about the purpose bones serve in the body. They create life-giving blood. You can also extract DNA from the bones long after the flesh has begun to deteriorate. Add to that the reverence shown to bones in the OT that I documented above, and I think I can make a pretty strong case that our bones are the “seed” of the spiritual body Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 15.

Doubts? Look no further than the accounts of Jesus’s resurrection appearances and what he says about himself. What does he say to his disciples at his first appearance?

39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.

Of course, Jesus had just recently died, so there was no visible deterioration to his body, but he still apparently showed the scars of his crucifixion. Was Jesus’s body the “spiritual” body that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 15? Suppose for a moment Jesus had been cremated? Would his resurrection body have still showed the scars? It’s hard to say. I do believe we will recognize one another in heaven, but we have no way of knowing on this side of eternity what that might look like save for the resurrection appearance of Jesus. Jesus’s whole body was resurrected, and I would expect my remains would be resurrected as well. I believe my coffin will be empty at the resurrection.

Final Questions

Before I get to my conclusion, I want to include here several questions that occurred to me after I finished writing the main article. I let things stew sometimes to see if any other issues arise, and I thought some of these question worth asking, even if they could never be answered. As I said above, I believe the preservation of the bones was a sign of the hope of the resurrection. But after considering the two NT comparisons to “planting,” I’m wondering: Is there something about the bones that may “facilitate” the resurrection in God’s economy?

If the bones contain DNA long after a person’s death, is there something about God’s design in creation where he might use the person’s DNA to facilitate the resurrection? You might think that’s silly but hear me out. If God is all-powerful that he could resurrect us with just a word, would he not also be all-efficient? Does God in fact use what he already created (i.e., our DNA, our skeletal remains) to facilitate the resurrection process, that is, as the “seed that dies”? Does he speak a word and our DNA is “supercharged,” so to speak, to renew our bodies into their eternal spiritual form, similar to how he created Eve from Adam’s rib? Or would our eternal bodies even have DNA? It’s not clear whether Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances are in his final heavenly body or if he’ll be transformed upon his ascension. But what does seem to be clear is that the graves of the faithful will be empty after the resurrection.

Conclusion

My conclusion here is a very simple one. The Jews (and other cultures) believed that preserving the bones was a means of preserving one’s hope for a resurrection, and that worldview carries over to the NT and thus the Christian faith. (In the case of the Egyptians, it was belief in a whole new journey in the afterlife. NOTE: I’m not saying I believe in Egyptian cosmology; I’m only saying that their view of burial and the afterlife is not at odds with the Hebrew worldview.) I have a strong hope in that resurrection, and I want my dead body left intact as an enduring sign of that hope.

I do want to be sensitive here to those who have had loved ones cremated. If God created Adam from the dust of the earth, then I believe he can resurrect us from whatever the final state of our bodies is, whether they are ashes scattered on a mountainside, a corpse at the bottom of the ocean, or a body in a buried coffin. But for me, and again, I’m not claiming this is any sort of gospel truth, the fact that God can resurrect us from ashes doesn’t necessarily mean I should have my body reduced to ashes and pulverized bone fragments. I prefer to follow the pattern of the ancients and keep my body intact in its own coffin. Please don’t cremate me; I don’t want to take a chance that I’ve interrupted God’s divine design for resurrection.

My opinions are my own.

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

[1] Environmental Impact of Burial Funerals, What Funeral Homes Don’t Want | Safe Passage (safepassageurns.com) Accessed 12/03/23.

[2] For example, see Journey to the afterlife: mummification in ancient Egypt | Reading Museum Accessed 12/06/23.

[3] Bone Marrow: What it is & Why it is Important (clevelandclinic.org) Accessed 12/03/2023.

[4] How Long Does DNA Last? – Investigative Sciences Journal Accessed 12/06/2023.

[5] Is DNA Destroyed During Cremation? (knowyourdna.com) Accessed 12/06/2023.

^[6] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2016. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

^[7] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

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

[9] Cremation: The Process Of Reducing The Human Body To Bone Fragments – FuneralDirect Accessed 12/05/23.

[10] The death of Saul and the disposition of his body should be mentioned here. Saul’s body (and the bodies of his associates) were hung from a wall, so there probably had already been some significant deterioration of their bodies by the time they were recovered. The bodies were burned, most likely because of the deterioration and the difficulty of trying to embalm the bodies in such a condition. But the bones were still buried, twice (1 Samuel 31:12–13, then moved to the tomb of Saul’s father, 2 Samuel 21:12–14).

^[11] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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November 12, 2023

Are You Ready for His Return? (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18; Matthew 25:1–13)

Filed under: 1 Thessalonians,Amos,Biblical Studies,Chronology,Eschatology,Matthew Gospel of,New Testament,Resurrection — Scott Stocking @ 6:33 pm
Tags: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Amos 5:18-24, Daniel 7:25, Day of the Lord, End Times, Ezekiel 39:9, Matthew 25:1-13, Mid-Tribulation Rapture, Post-Tribulation Rapture, Preterist, Pretribulation Rapture, Proper 27, Rapture, Revelation 16:15-16, Second Coming of Christ, Tribulation

Click the “Play” triangle above to hear the message preached 11/12/23 at Mt. View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE.

High school was a very important time for me with respect to my spiritual life. A lot happened in those three years in our family, the most important of which was a change I had begun to see in my mom. Without going into the “why” of what led to her transformation, she got connected with a regular weekly Bible study with other women, and I noticed a positive change in her spirit and her demeanor. That change was amplified by her sharing her renewed faith in Christ with the rest of her family, primarily by leaving little “Jack Chick” comic book tracts around the house for anyone to read.

Many of them were rather simple: short stories about someone looking for God or discovering their need for forgiveness or reconciliation, or even encouraging “right living.” But amongst those more traditional evangelistic topics, there were a few tracts that spoke about the second coming of Christ. That was a totally new concept to me, or so it seemed. I had been pretty regular in my Sunday School attendance here at Mt. View as a kid, and if we ever talked about the second coming of Jesus in Sunday School up through my junior high years, it never stuck. But now I was curious, especially because my mom had a new testimony about her own renewal.

The topic of Jesus’s second coming was the spark that started the fire for my own spiritual renewal, eventually leading up to the summer between my sophomore and junior years at my aunt’s ranch in Wyoming, where I discovered she had a whole collection of these tracts, and several copies of each to boot. That was the summer, summer of 1979, that I made my faith my own. I understood that I had a decision to make to finish the work my parents started when they had me baptized as an infant here, dedicating themselves along with the congregation to raise me in the faith.

Now I’ll admit that, in the first two years after that summer, I made the mistake that the late great preaching professor Fred Craddock warned about: I got so caught up in the second coming of Christ that I ignored his first coming and everything that went along with that. I nearly undid my renewal because I hadn’t focused on growing in my knowledge of Jesus and what he wanted from my life until that day would come. I don’t think I was alone in that, either. I remember finding a bookmark in the Zondervan store that said, “Don’t be so heavenly minded you’re no earthly good.” That kind of hit home for me.

Our passages today bring back a ton of memories from that time in my life. The world is a much different place now than it was 44 years ago. Many so-called prophecy experts or eschatologists of the day thought Russia was the evil empire, Magog of the North from Ezekiel’s prophecies, and China and Iran (remember the hostage crisis?) were the manifestation of “the Kings from the East” of Revelation 16. But it wasn’t bad enough then. Today, it seems we’ve come full circle, only this time it appears to be much worse. Some of the same players have come back to the forefront again, and we should heed the signs of the times. Let’s take a look at our passages today.

Let’s start with our 1 Thessalonians 4 passage that we read this morning. The passage describes what is popularly known as the “rapture,” even though that word never appears in the Bible. It describes a time somewhere in the future (at least from Paul’s perspective, and in line with Jesus’s own words from Matthew 24) when the world will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds, resurrecting his followers first, then “catching up” his followers who are alive to rescue them from the final judgment of the earth.

The first couple verses of 1 Thessalonians 5, if I may borrow them from next week’s passage, tell us that day will come “like a thief in the night.” Now we may be tempted to think that day will be a day like any other day in our lives. As I started writing this section of my sermon, a commercial came on for David Jeremiah’s new book on the rapture, with video clips of people going about their daily lives just “disappearing,” with their clothes on (which I thought was bit odd), with nothing spectacular going on around them. But one of the Old Testament passages for today that we didn’t read, Amos 5:18ff, paints a very different picture of that day, and actually warns against being too excited about its coming:

¹⁸Woe to you who long

for the day of the Lord!

Why do you long for the day of the Lord?

That day will be darkness, not light.

¹⁹It will be as though a man fled from a lion

only to meet a bear,

as though he entered his house

and rested his hand on the wall

only to have a snake bite him.

²⁰Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light—

pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?^[1]

If you’ve studied this topic in the past, you’re probably well aware of the differing opinions about just exactly when this “rapture” happens in the whole scheme of the “end times” and the tribulation. I think this passage from Amos gives a hint about when that might happen if we put some other pieces of the puzzle together as well. I don’t want to dwell on this too much, because as Jesus says, no one knows the day or the hour when that’s going to happen. But we should be wise to the signs of the time and be able to discern at least the beginnings of that final era of our mortal history.

For example, some people think that what Jesus foretold in Matthew 24 has already happened, because he says, “This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” The question is, does “this generation” refer to the people he’s speaking to, or is it more broadly referring to the period of the Church? Those who believe it refers to the people he’s speaking to are typically called “Preterists,” which is just a fancy word for historical. For them, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70 marks the final point of judgment on the nation of Israel, and that is what is described in graphic imagery in the Book of Revelation. No rapture for us then! In this view, the age we’re living in now represents the rule of God’s kingdom on earth through the imperfect church, and there will still be a final reckoning of this history when perfection comes for good.

Others think the rapture will come at the beginning or half-way through the tribulation. Some take the phrase “time, times, and half a time” in Daniel 7:25 to say that’s three-and-a-half years, half of the seven years Ezekiel mentions about the last days in 39:9. But if you look a little closer at the Daniel 7 passage, you’ll see that God’s people will be “delivered” into the hands of the enemy for three-and-a-half years before being released. This leads to the very popular “mid-tribulation” speculation about when the rapture will happen. That’s the interpretation I learned as a teenager. But if you’ve been held captive by the evil in the world for three-and-a-half years, things probably aren’t going to be “business as usual” if and when you’re freed. It is nice to think that God wouldn’t want us going through the worst of the tribulation, but I don’t think things will be “bad enough” yet by the half-way point.

The phrase “thief in the night” that both Jesus and Paul use about the second coming of Christ is found in one other place in the New Testament, and it might surprise you where. It’s found in Revelation 16:15, where Jesus says of himself: “Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.^[2]” Now in case you haven’t read Revelation in a while, Jesus makes that statement after the penultimate sixth bowl of wrath is poured out on the Euphrates. Remember, the sequence of sevens is seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls, so if these things represent a linear history, we’re almost at the very end of this final judgment. This begs the question: will Christians still be around through all these judgments up until the point of the final battle? What does the next verse of chapter 16 say? “Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.^[3]” Where is Armageddon, which is Hebrew for the Valley of Megiddo? It’s about halfway between Tel Aviv and the border with Lebanon, just north of the border with the West Bank. And immediately after that, the seventh and final bowl of wrath is poured into the air. Things that make you go “Hmmm.” I base my own personal views on the end times on this then, that the rapture doesn’t happen pre- or mid-tribulation, but at the bitter end of the world to save us from the devastating final wrath and judgment of God. That is our hope.

Now again, I want to emphasize that I don’t have any special knowledge here about these things. I’m just doing some investigative work on how the pieces of the puzzle might fit together and making an educated guess. I’m not trying to make any predictions about when anything is going to happen in the future; I’m just putting forth the facts about what Scripture says, and letting the chips fall where they may. I’m not saying I’m right and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong. I’m not that arrogant about my understanding of the timeline. But the point I’m making is that you can see how this Day of the Lord might be a dark and gloomy time as Amos prophesied. It is kind of scary, but we know for sure that God will win in the end, and in that grand thought and fact, we put our hope.

This is where our Matthew 25 reading comes in. Although on the surface this appears to be a parable about any old wedding banquet, it’s actually a parable about the final wedding banquet we’ll have in heaven when the Church is made the bride of Christ. Because the virgins don’t know when the bridegroom is coming, and they know he could come in the middle of the night, it’s important for them to be ready and have oil for their lamps so when he arrives, they can enter straightaway. If they’re not ready, they’re not getting in. There’s no turning around at that point and trying to get more of what they need to get in. Nor can anyone share their “oil” with them to help them get in, because if they share it, they might not have enough for themselves and may be left out as well.

If that sounds a bit selfish, it is, intentionally so. Each of us can, in the end, only be responsible for our own salvation and readiness, and we’d be foolish to give up that readiness for the sake of someone who wasn’t ready. God wouldn’t allow it anyway, because he judges each of us on our own readiness and faithfulness, as the parable of the sheep and goats at the end of chapter 25 suggests. Those who aren’t ready can’t ride on the coattails of those who are. Those who thought they could make excuses for not doing what God has called them to do won’t get a mulligan. When it’s finished, it’s finished, done, and over. Eternal consequences are locked in.

The Day of the Lord and the end times in general are topics of interest to many believers, and perhaps even more so in today’s climate. Unfortunately, at times they can become topics of debate as well, but we must never make one particular view of the end times a test of faith, because I believe there’s so much more we don’t know about how all that will play out. My encouragement to you, then, is to stand firm in the last days. Be ready. Put on the full armor of God as Ephesians says. Be in a constant state of prayer. Don’t neglect the fellowship with your fellow believers. As I’ve said before, we don’t know when our final day will be. Our last day could be today, tomorrow, or ten or twenty years from now. Jesus is coming! God will ultimately destroy this temporary abode of ours and establish us in his eternal kingdom, a new heaven and a new earth, in our new immortal bodies. It is and will be a place of perfection where there will be no more sorrow or shame, only joy and rest in the light of God’s glory, the light of the Lamb. Amen.

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

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

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

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October 29, 2023

Living the Greatest Commandments (Matthew 22:34–46; Leviticus 19:11–18; Psalm 110:1)

Our gospel passage this morning contains the two most-quoted Old Testament verses in the New Testament. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” from Leviticus 19:18 of all places, is quoted directly 10 times, with one other allusion to it, spread across several books in the NT, not just the Gospels.

Psalm 110:1, which Matthew quotes in the second part of our gospel passage this morning, is the second most-quoted OT verse in the NT, with a total of 8 direct quotes of and another 10 allusions to the passage. But it doesn’t end there. Dozens of early Christian writers in the first 300 or so years after the birth of the church referenced the passage as well.

Jesus uses this verse twice in each of the first three gospels. The first occurrence is what we read here this morning, when he’s speaking to the pharisees during his last week before his crucifixion and claiming that he is the Messiah, son of David, that the OT points to; the second occurrence in each Gospel is when he’s defending himself before the Sanhedrin after his arrest and affirms his place as the preexistent Messiah and descendant of David. That was the statement that caused the high priest to tear his robe and accuse Jesus of blasphemy. Outside of the gospels, the NT writers and early church fathers use it to demonstrate his resurrection and appointment to the right hand of God.

You probably also noticed that Psalm 110:1’s popularity among early Christian writers pretty much forced the ecumenical councils of the day to use a form of the verse in their respective creeds; we read it every week here in the last part of the Apostle’s Creed: “He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”

Jesus knows his day of crucifixion is coming, so he’s essentially pulling out all the stops now as far as letting people know who he is. No more hints or subtle innuendos: by citing Psalm 110:1 about himself, Jesus is making the ultimate claim that he’s the Messiah come to earth. No stone will be left unturned before he breathes his last on the cross for our forgiveness, and one stone will be rolled away when he rises from the dead for our hope of eternity.

So we can have absolute assurance that Jesus is who he says he is: To the Jews, Messiah; to the Greeks, Christ. He’s the son of God, son of Man, son of David, three descriptions of the same person. He’s the one we can put our total and complete faith in, because we know how great his love is for us. And we owe him our very lives, dedicated to living out the hope he’s given us.

This is where we back up and look at the first part of our passage today for the two greatest commandments he’s left to us. Matthew and Mark place these commandments in Jesus’s mouth during the week before his crucifixion, while Luke has them much earlier, so it would seem, as a lead-in to the Good Samaritan parable.

Because these are the greatest commandments, we must of course be careful not to let the familiarity of these verses make them “trite” to us. Many of us recognize that these two greatest commandments come from the Old Testament. The “Love the Lord you God” passage comes from Deuteronomy 6:5, as Moses begins his final sermon on the Ten Commandments, in which we hear the oft-repeated refrain to “be very careful to obey all I have commanded you.”

This particular verse underwent a couple minor tweaks as it came into the New Testament. In the original passage, Moses says “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength,” as the NIV translates it. That last phrase about “all your strength” could be translated “all your utmost.” The word translated “strength” there is most commonly translated as “very” or “great/greatly,” so it implies the best of the best of the best, the utmost of the utmost.

In our passage this morning, Matthew changes “strength” to “mind,” which is acceptable given the otherwise generic nature of the original Hebrew. Mark and Luke add “mind” to the original “heart,” “soul,” and “strength” from the Hebrew. Including the word “mind” here is most likely a hat tip to the prolific Greek and Roman philosophers, historians, and statesmen and the knowledge base they had accumulated. That doesn’t mean Jesus agreed with Greek and Roman philosophers, however; it just means he wanted his followers to have some intellectual understanding of how his teachings and way of living were different from theirs.

Now loving the Lord with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind is noble indeed, and should be first on the minds of all Christ followers. But then there’s that second greatest command, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Unlike the greatest command, which is found at the beginning of Moses’s greatest sermon, the “neighbor” command is tucked away in the middle of one of the most exciting books in the Old Testament: Leviticus, chapter 19, vs. 18.

Leviticus 19 reads very much like the Ten Commandments themselves, at least in the early going. But then beginning in vs. 13, after Moses gives the general command not to defraud or rob your neighbor, he begins to break down what that might look like in his “negative” commands. Listen to some of the context leading up to vs. 18, beginning in vs. 11:

¹¹ Do not steal.

Do not lie.

Do not deceive one another.

¹² Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

¹³ Do not defraud or rob your neighbor.

Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.

¹⁴ Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord.

¹⁵ Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

¹⁶ Do not go about spreading slander among your people.

Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord.

¹⁷ Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt.

¹⁸ Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.^[1]

So NOT doing these things to your neighbor, I suppose, is a passive way of telegraphing your love for them.

The flip side of this, that is, the positive way to state this, is found in other scriptures, notably Micah 6:8:

⁸He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.^[2]

Proverbs 3:27–30 has some more sage advice about loving your neighbor with a mix of things we should and shouldn’t do:

²⁷Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,

when it is in your power to act.

²⁸Do not say to your neighbor,

“Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you”—

when you already have it with you.

²⁹Do not plot harm against your neighbor,

who lives trustfully near you.

³⁰Do not accuse anyone for no reason—

when they have done you no harm.^[3]

There’s no shortage of advice and commands in the Bible about how to love our neighbor. In the New Testament, there are nearly 100 verses about how to treat “one another.” If you have a concordance or good computer Bible software or Internet site that allows you to search, spend some time looking up all of the “one another” passages in the New Testament. It’s eye opening. All kinds of positive ways to love your neighbor: love, serve, greet, submit to, encourage, offer hospitality to, and so on. One interesting fact about this: the Greek word for “one another” (ἀλλήλων) in the New Testament is pronounced “all-LAY-lone”; the easy way to remember this is that “you’re never all alone with “all-LAY-lone.”

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that your quilt ministry, which we’re honoring today, is an important way to love your neighbor as well. Your painstaking efforts in cutting the pieces of fabric, arranging them in the various patterns, and stitching them together put meat on the bones of another scripture, Ephesians 4:28b: “doing something useful with [your] own hands, that [you] may have something to share with those in need.”

With all the help we have in scripture about loving your neighbor, you might think that’s always an easy task. But I think we all know better. Sometimes it’s very easy to love our neighbors; other times, there may be hurts or fears that run so deep that it can be hard to break through. There may also be times where “tough love” means we might have to separate ourselves from a situation because the pain or risk of harm is too great to ignore or too much for us to bear.

In those times, it’s good to know we have a God who loves us unconditionally and whose presence is always with us as we saw in last week’s message. But how can we as mere mortals love an almighty, all-sufficient God who has no “need” for anything from us? Just as God’s presence goes with us, God also desires our presence before him. He wants us to love and honor him with all that we are and could be, all that he’s made us to be, and all that we have, to the extent we are in-line with his commands and precepts.

Our reading from Psalm 1 this morning helps us to understand this relationship. The passage in our bulletin is, I believe, from the New Revised Standard Version. When I saw the first word was “Happy,” I actually cringed inside for a moment, because I knew most translations had the word “Blessed” for the first word. I had always figured that was the traditional word for “blessed” used by the Hebrews in their standard blessing: “Blessed art thou, O Lord, King of the Universe.” But I suspended judgment and checked the Hebrew, and sure enough, it was NOT the typical word for blessing. The word does carry the idea of blessing, but it also refers to an emotional state as well as a spiritual state. One lexicon I looked at had it translated as an exclamation: “How happy!” Eugene Peterson, the Presbyterian minister who translated the Message version of the Bible, picked up on that emotional aspect in his translation of Psalm 1, and I want to read that for you this morning. But I’ll give you a head’s up: if you’ve never read the Message translation, it doesn’t really read like a traditional Bible translation. In fact, Psalm 1 is about as far away from a traditional translation as you can get. The first phrase of Psalm 1 sounds a bit sarcastic, but it’s not intended to be. Listen, and you’ll hear why:

¹    How well God must like you—

      you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon,

      you don’t slink along Dead-End Road,

      you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.

^2–3 Instead you thrill to God’s Word,

      you chew on Scripture day and night.

      You’re a tree replanted in Eden,

      bearing fresh fruit every month,

      Never dropping a leaf,

      always in blossom.

^4–5 You’re not at all like the wicked,

      who are mere wind-blown dust—

      Without defense in court,

      unfit company for innocent people.

⁶    God charts the road you take.

      The road they take is Skid Row.^[4]

That is how we love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. We spend time with him by fellowshipping with one another on Sunday and throughout the week in our various ministries we have. We spend time in his word getting to know his precepts, statutes, and commands. We do things that bear fruit for God’s kingdom, for after all, Jesus said his followers would be known by their fruit. We “plant” ourselves in the God’s presence so he can nourish and sustain us, because that is how great his love is for us.

As the world around us continues to get scarier, with another mass shooting, a war in the Middle East that has Christians thinking about end-time prophecies and the book of Revelation again, and the general downhill spiral of morality around us, abiding in the presence of God and rekindling our love for him will become all the more important for our own spiritual security and emotional well-being. We can know without a doubt that God is with us; that’s an unfailing promise. We also know that his word will sustain us, for God’s word never returns void. Grace and peace to you all this morning. Amen.

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

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

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

^[4] Peterson, Eugene H. 2005. The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

The Power of His Presence (Exodus 33:12–23; Matthew 22:15–22)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Exodus,Matthew Gospel of — Scott Stocking @ 8:31 pm
Tags: Brother Lawrence, Exodus 33:12-23, Exodus 3:5-11, God knows you by name, Matthew 22:15-22, Practice of the Presence of God, Presence of God

In mid-17^th-century France, a 40-year-old peasant name Nicholas Herman of Lorraine, after spending much of his early adult life as a soldier in the Thirty-Years War, sought admittance as a lay brother among the barefooted monks in a Carmelite community near Paris. During his time as a soldier, he became disgusted with the ravages of a war in which there was no distinction made between civilian and soldier, and he felt compelled by God to seek a simpler life where he could focus more on his communion with God. He was assigned to kitchen duty and served in that role for at least fifteen years.

He had learned how to read and write, and over the years, he had written down many of his thoughts about his simple focus. We only know of him because one of the spiritual leaders in the religious community interviewed him four times and learned of the incredible wisdom and insight he had developed because of his unwavering focus on his communion with God, even, as he describes, while he was engaged in everyday work. Some of you may know of whom I speak at this point: his written work was eventually published for the world to read. In the community, Nicholas became known as Brother Lawrence, and of course his surviving work is called The Practice of the Presence of God.

The book is impressive in that Brother Lawrence, neither an educated priest nor a sophisticated politician, had insight that put most religious leaders of the day to shame. There is too much wisdom to unpack in the short time we have together this morning, but I did want to share one quote from his “First Conversation” with the Grand Vicar to the Archbishop of Paris that reveals Brother Lawrence’s insight.

“That we ought to give ourselves up entirely to GOD, with regard both to things temporal and spiritual, and seek our satisfaction only in the fulfilling of His will, whether He lead us by suffering or by consolation; for all would be equal to a soul truly resigned. That there was need of fidelity in those times of dryness, or insensibility and irksomeness in prayer, by which GOD tries our love to Him: that then was the time for us to make good and effectual acts of resignation, whereof one alone would oftentimes very much promote our spiritual advancement.”

Such words came about 2,500 years too late for the main character in our OT reading this morning, Moses. No one in the OT, not even Abraham, had quite the experience of the manifest presence of God that Moses did. Moses had spent the first 40 years of his life exposed to the best that Egypt had to offer, but he also was not untouched by the suffering of the Hebrew slaves. When he’d had enough, he killed an Egyptian and fled into the wilderness, where he, like Brother Lawrence, had the opportunity to reconnect with God.

But unlike Brother Lawrence, Moses apparently could not completely put his past behind him and focus on the power and presence of God once called. Listen the exchange God has with Moses at the Burning Bush:

⁵“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

⁷The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. ⁸So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ⁹And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. ¹⁰So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

And Moses responded: “Great Lord! Let’s get started! When do we leave?”

Umm, no. Even though God had just told Moses in person, out loud he would do all the heavy lifting and all Moses would have to do is stand before Pharaoh, Moses just couldn’t take the focus off himself when he responded:

¹¹But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”^[1]

How many of us have said at least once in our lives, “I just wish I knew what God wanted me to do”? Even though God had given him all these assurances, Moses just couldn’t comprehend that the presence of God before him and his people would be infinitely more powerful than whatever he might face standing in presence of Pharaoh. Maybe he was still afraid of Egypt. Maybe his experience in city planning in Egypt made him feel like relocating about 2 million slaves might be an impossible task. Whatever the reason, Moses was focused more on the potential troubles of what he saw around him and had a difficult time receiving God’s grace and appointment.

Fast forward through the awesome power of God displayed in the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, and a solo trip to the top of Mt. Sinai to get the Ten Commandments, and by then, Moses seems to be getting a handle on the concept of the Presence of God, but he still doesn’t seem convinced by the time we get to the passage we read earlier from Exodus 33:12–23.

Let’s look a little closer at this passage and glean some important truths about living in the presence of God. First of all, when we walk in the presence of God, we can be leaders in our own way. Some of us may lead in small ways; others may have more prominent roles. Whether we’re leading one person into a deeper relationship with Christ or a community full of people to the same goal, we have the promise of God’s presence, but we need that reminder from God as Moses did here.

At first glance here, it may seem like Moses still hasn’t learned his lesson about what it means to be called by God. In Exodus 3, we saw that Moses was so focused on his own weakness that he couldn’t see that God would provide everything he needed to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. But at least here in chapter 33, Moses doesn’t completely reject the idea of continuing to lead, but he still wants someone to go with him. What he doesn’t realize, and what God affirms in vs. 14, is that God’s Presence (capital P) will go with him. Not only that, God’s presence will keep them from harm as they journey through the wilderness. The “rest” God will give them is not only the security of the Promised Land if they’re faithful to what he’s calling them to do, but rest as two million souls moving across the wilderness is no small logistical challenge!

Moses’s response to God has a twofold meaning: He acknowledges that he can’t lead two million people without God, and he seems grateful for that. But Moses also needs a visible sign from God not only for himself, but for the people as well. After all, it’s pretty easy to establish your authority over two million people if you’ve got a cloud by day leading you and a pillar of fire by night as your rear guard. Moses was one of the fortunate few who got to witness God’s glory up close and personal in the cleft of the rock. That was the boost of self-confidence he needed to continue leading God’s people.

The second thing we see in this passage is that God knows Moses by name and that Moses knows God has favored him for this task. The word for “favor” in Hebrew was translated by the Greek speakers in Jesus’s day to the word for “grace.” In other words, God gave Moses the task of leadership not necessarily because he was the best and brightest, but because he chose to gift and empower him with that task. He did nothing to earn it. This is important, because even in those few times we read of Moses missing the mark during the wilderness wanderings, God still affirms his leadership through what would become a 40-year journey for the Israelites. There was no “vote of confidence” among the Israelites if they didn’t like the way things were going. God was leading, and Moses was his earthly representative. Case closed.

The third thing we see in this passage is that Moses, like Solomon a few hundred years later, desired to be taught God’s ways so he could continue to lead and continue to find favor with God. He began to realize the importance of his role and influence in leading two million people on a journey to their new homeland. This was perhaps the largest migration of any people group at any time in history. Even today, some scientists claim they can still see the evidence of such a migration in satellite imagery of the Sinai peninsula. Moses had grasped the significance of what they were about to embark on after receiving the Ten Commandments and the instructions for the Tabernacle and its accoutrements. He asks God to “Remember that this nation is your people.” Then again, after hearing myself say that out loud, there might be a tinge of sarcasm in Moses’s voice. How many of you who raised boys ever said to your husband, “He’s your son!”

I imagine that Moses already had an idea of what he was in for after the year or two it took them to get from Egypt to Mount Sinai. His father-in-law Jethro had advised him to appoint a hierarchy of “judges” who could rule on the inevitable conflicts and issues that arise in such a large population. And certainly Aaron hadn’t helped with the whole “golden calf” incident just before this story takes place either. It seemed that even though the people had left Egypt, Egypt hadn’t left some of the Israelites. They grew impatient waiting on Moses to come down from the mountain and used some of the gold they had plundered from the Egyptians and fashioned it into an idol of gold. They had so quickly forgotten what God had done for them because they took their eyes off God and what he was establishing for his people.

This is a good place to bring in our gospel passage for today. Jesus tells the Pharisees that if the coin has Caesar’s image on it, give it back to Caesar. But if you are God’s child, be sure to give yourself to God. The Israelites forfeited the plunder of Egypt for an image that represented Egypt, and they never got that back. If they had given themselves to God in that moment, there’s no telling what blessings might have befallen them.

So what are the takeaways for us this morning?

First, know that God loves us and wants to lead us into his glory, so that we can share his love with those we encounter and point them and lead them to his glory as well. His presence goes with us. Today, we’ll likely not have a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night leading us. But we have something much more personal: God’s Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in our lives is the confirmation of God’s presence with us. The Holy Spirit knows the heart of God and knows the love that God the Father has for his son, Jesus, and reveals to us God’s heart as we faithfully follow him and rely on him for strength and salvation.

Second, God knows each of us by name. Romans 8 says that as Spirit-led children of God, we are in fact heirs: “Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” because we share in his suffering that we might also share in his glory. What a marvelous thing to know the Creator of all the Earth knows each of us by name, and not only that, but knows our hearts and our hurts, and his Holy Spirit helps us get in touch and stay in touch with God even in our times of weakness. When we can’t find the words to pray, the Spirit prays for us. When we fail and fall short, the unfailing God is there to restore us. When we can’t find the words to express our joy, God puts a new song in our hearts. When we are broken, he brings healing. When we hurt someone or are hurt by others, the one who bore our hurts and pain brings healing.

Finally, stay focused on the Word of God. Moses and Solomon both asked God to teach them his ways and give them wisdom to lead. That is an attitude we all can model. God’s word never fails; it never returns void. It always accomplishes the purpose for which it is intended when spoken out loud and claimed for a promise. We may not see or understand that purpose at the time, or it may not be what we intended, but it will be effective nonetheless. Stay in community with the body of Christ as well as much as you can, especially as the days continue to become more and more evil. Only the members of the body of Christ can support the body of Christ. The world will continue to hate us, just as Jesus predicted, but stand strong in the word of God and in the fellowship of the saints around us.

Jesus is coming. If not today, then tomorrow. If not before we die, then after. We don’t know when, but Jesus does tell us to pay attention to the signs of the times. Pray for peace. Pray for safety. Pray for the triumph of Good over Evil. Pray for the lives of the innocent and oppressed as well as for the souls of the wicked and the oppressors. Take heart in knowing that God will win the victory, and that we who believe will someday be gathered to him in glory.

^[1] Exodus 3:5–11. The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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October 2, 2023

Obedient Sons (Psalm 25:1–9; Matthew 21:23–32)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Christology,Ecclesiology,Eschatology,Faith, Faithfulness,Matthew Gospel of,Passion,Prophet,Psalms,Repentance,Soteriology,Spiritual Warfare,Work — Scott Stocking @ 10:54 pm
Tags: 2023 Proper 21, Authority of Jesus questioned, John the Baptist, John the Baptizer, Matthew 21:23-32, Obedience, Obedience as sons, Parable of two sons, Psalm 25:1-9, Sifre to Deuteronomy

Message preached October 1, 2023, at Mt. View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE.

What does it mean to trust someone? How does it affect your life when you either learn that you can trust a person, especially someone who might be new in your life, like a new significant other in the life of your kids or grandkids? What does it feel like when someone violates your trust?

Our reading from Psalm 25 this morning lets us know that we can put our trust in God, even in the face of our worst enemies. One thing that is striking about Psalm 25 is that it begins and end with David’s concern that he not be put to shame. In a culture that valued honor above all else, shame could be devastating to someone personally, professionally, and even spiritually. David says the surest guarantee against shame was to put his trust in the Lord. But again, what does that look like? David paints a pretty good picture in Psalm 25, so let’s take a look at that.

First we see that David’s trust involves putting his hope in the Lord. That “hope” in God gives David the confidence to know his enemies will not defeat him. Psalm 25:3 has one of the two negative statements about David’s enemies: they are treacherous without cause, and because of that, they will suffer the social stigma of shame.

But David also shows us the path to avoid shame: He asks God, by his personal name “Yahweh,” to teach him about and guide him in his divine paths. In David’s day, pretty much all he had to go on for spiritual guidance was the Torah itself, the first five books of the Old Testament, and perhaps a prophet or a seer. He didn’t have all 66 books of the Bible like you and I have to keep us on the straight and narrow. David most likely had read the Torah himself a few times during his kingship; his many psalms that he wrote offer ample proof of how well he knew the Torah.

He also asks God to remember the good and forgive the bad. He first asks God to remember his own character, his mercy and his love for his creation. Then he asks God to forget, and essentially forgive, his own sins and shortcomings. But then he asks God to remember him as a person who can’t survive without God’s love.

Verses 6 & 7 here give us a nice concise pattern for a quick prayer should we ever need to utter one. Acknowledge God for who he is and what he’s done; cry out for forgiveness; and ask him to remember us, just as the thief on the cross would do 1,000 years later. The word “remember” here should not be overlooked, since it’s use three times. In the Bible, when God remembers, he acts. So when he remembers his mercy and his love, he shows his mercy and his love. When he remembers us, he loves us and reassures us of our place in eternity with him.

As an aside, there’s another application of that word remember as we celebrate World Communion Day today. What do most communion tables say? “In remembrance of me.” So when we partake of communion later, let us not only remember what Christ has done for us, but act on it by sharing it with others and recommitting ourselves as his followers.

In the last couple verses of our Psalm reading today, David again reminds us of God’s goodness and guidance in the lives of those who humble themselves before him.

These principles from this first part of Psalm 25 tie together our two gospel stories we read this morning. The first passage is an actual account from the life of Jesus as he encounters the Pharisees. The second is a parable targeted at the Pharisees.

The first story takes place the next day after Jesus has made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Do you remember what the first thing Jesus did was after his triumphal entry? He entered the Temple courts and threw out the money changers! And what did he say when he did that? “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers,” bringing together two quotes from Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11. Because Jesus’s true father is God himself, and the temple is God’s dwelling place on earth, the Temple is also Jesus’s birthright home. He is the earthly steward of the Temple, not the priests or the religious rulers. Jesus’s first act after entering Jerusalem was to establish his authority over and ownership of the Temple as his rightful home. This sets the stage then, for day two, when the chief priests and the elders of the people ask Jesus where his authority comes from.

It’s interesting in this passage that these religious leaders don’t want to engage Jesus on the Scriptures he cited when clearing the temple. The religious leaders are evidently well aware that they’ve been using the temple as an excuse to place a financial burden on the people. Instead of addressing that fact, they try to do what? They try to assassinate his character! Sound familiar? But Jesus, ever the shrewd one with the religious leaders, comes back with a question of his own, which puts them in a pinch. Either way they answer it, they know they’re in trouble of losing their respect and power with the people. Jesus had already said that John represented the return of Elijah, so that put him above the religious leaders in the eyes of the people. If John’s authority was from God, the religious leaders should have believed him. If it wasn’t, the people knew better and would most likely rebel against the religious leaders. Only a nonanswer could save their skins in the short run: “I don’t recall.”

Because the religious leaders couldn’t answer Jesus’s question, which was a perfectly legitimate response in Jesus’s day according to the rules of rhetoric in Greek culture, Jesus deferred the answer to his question as well. Of course, Jesus had already demonstrated his authority at the Temple the day before, but he had also been demonstrating it all along with his healings and miracles he’d done in full sight of the people and the religious rulers. Any attempt to damage Jesus’s character would result in the same backlash to the religious rulers as either of their answers about John the Baptizer would have. Jesus’s response, then, actually helps the religious rulers save face as well.

Jesus was obedient as a son to his Father by defending both the honor of the Temple and his own honor as the true image of God on earth. In the second story from the Gospel reading today, a parable, we have two sons who would in that culture be expected to do their father’s will when asked. The first one says no, but then later reconsiders and decides to go anyway. The second one says he will go, but he never does. The first and I think most important point from the parable is that God expects us to do his will. There’s really no hiding from that.

At first glance, you might think the parable is about keeping your word to do what you promised. But then, if the son who said he wouldn’t go never actually went, would he really deserve anything for keeping his word if he didn’t do his father’s will? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? But by the same token, the son who said he would go but didn’t is in a bit of double jeopardy. Not only has he not kept his word, but he’s failed to do his father’s will as well.

The point of the parable, then, is not how or when you do God’s will, but THAT you do God’s will. Jesus goes on to continue the comparison to John the Baptizer’s ministry that he began in the first part of our Gospel reading. The religious leaders had not heeded John’s warnings to repent, but the “tax collectors and the prostitutes” did believe him and they repented, thus gaining access to the kingdom of God. Their past didn’t matter. God accepts those who humbly come to him in repentance seeking forgiveness.

But the more amazing thing is that, even after the tax collectors and sinners began to repent and turn back to God, the religious leaders still refused to repent themselves! They could see the work of God happening right before their eyes, but they couldn’t bring themselves to believe it. Jesus says earlier in Matthew that his followers would be known by the fruit they bear. Those who do his will bear good fruit. Those who do not bear no fruit or bad fruit.

It’s not clear why the religious leaders didn’t see the importance of John’s (and Jesus’s) message of repentance. The biblical story is full of examples from the patriarchs and other men of faith who repented and went on to do great things for God.

Abraham took Sarah’s slave as a second wife and had a child by her, but God still allowed the line of his chosen people to descend from Sarah.

Abraham and Isaac both lied to kings about their respective relationships with their own wives, but God continued to propagate that family line as his chosen people.

Moses directly disobeyed God’s command, yet God still allowed him to finish his task of leading the people to the doorstep of the Promised Land.

David committed adultery and had the husband of the woman killed in battle, but God still used him to lead Israel to greatness and write numerous inspiring Psalms that are still with us today.

Solomon had hundreds of wives and concubines, yet God still allowed his wisdom to survive the ages in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.

In Isaiah’s day, Hezekiah repented while Jerusalem was under siege, and he witnessed the miraculous fatal judgment upon 185,000 of Sennacherib’s soldiers overnight.

Every single one of Jesus’s disciples, with the exception of John, abandoned him on the night of his arrest, and Peter denied knowing him, yet all except Judas were restored to leadership status by Jesus after his resurrection. Peter went on to preach at the birth of the church on Pentecost. The teaching of the apostles was the standard of the early church according to Acts 2:42.

Paul persecuted the early church and tacitly approved of the stoning of Steven, yet God used him to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles, and his letters form a significant portion of our Scriptures today.

Jesus never promised that the path of following him would be without struggle and effort, failure and heartache. When he says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light,” we can’t forget that we still have a “yoke” on; there’s still fertile ground to plow, and that takes some measure of strength and effort. In researching this passage, I came across an anonymous Jewish parable that the rabbis used to teach a similar point to this one. It goes like this:

The matter may be compared to someone sitting at a crossroads. Before him were two paths. One of them began in clear ground but ended in thorns. The other began in thorns but ended in clear ground….

So did Moses say to Israel, “You see how the wicked flourish in the is world, for two or three days succeeding. But in the end they will have occasion for regret.” So it is said, “For there shall be no reward for the evil man” (Proverbs 24:20)….”You see the righteous, who are distressed in this world? For two or three days they are distressed, but in the end they will have occasion for rejoicing.” And so it is said, “That he may prove you, to do you good at the end” (Deuteronomy 8:16). (Sifre to Deut. 53).[1]

So following God may have its thorny patches in the beginning, but when we get to the end of the road, the path is clear and welcoming. But if we try to go our own way, thinking that might be the easier way, and never get on the right path with God, we can only expect trouble in the end. The tax collectors and prostitutes realized they were on the wrong path and changed their ways and their destination. I know many of you have been on the right path, and you’ve experienced your thorny times, but you are stronger, wiser, and more dedicated to God for that because you know his is and will continue leading your through it. Your obedience will yield a great reward. I would encourage you to remain firm and steadfast on that path.

So we see how the truths of Psalm 25 play out in these two stories from the Gospel of Matthew. If we put our trust in God and allow him to guide us, even through the most difficult times, we will know his reward and his glory. I pray that each of us here will continue on that straight and narrow path that is the road to eternal life. Peace to you all. Amen.

[1][1] Trans. Jacob Neusner, Sifre to Deuteronomy, vol. 1 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1987), pp. 175‒76.

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Kingdom Equity (Exodus 16; Psalm 145; Matthew 20:1–16)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Christology,Ecclesiology,Eschatology,Exodus,Matthew Gospel of,Psalms,Thanksgiving,Work — Scott Stocking @ 10:03 pm
Tags: Equal Pay, Exodus 16, First will be last, Galatians 3:26-29, Grumbling, Last will be first, Manna, Matthew 20:1-16, Psalm 145, Vineyard workers

Message preached September 24, 2023, at Mt. View Presbyterian Church. Joel Brady helped me with the sketch at the beginning of the message; I screwed up the most important line of the sketch!

What are the consequences of grumbling against God? How does God respond to us when we think he hasn’t been fair to us?

In Exodus 16, the Israelites are on their way to Mount Sinai, when the naysayers had finally had enough of the nomadic desert life and complained to Moses that they weren’t back in Egypt sitting around pots of meat and eating their fill. God, being somewhat tolerant of their frustration and their trouble adapting to their new nomadic lifestyle, promises to give them some meat that night, then rain down bread from heaven in the morning.

That night, God provided them a “harvest” of quail for their meat. Then in the morning, when the dew dried, there was a bunch of white flaky stuff on the ground, and it wasn’t snow. The people, through Aaron, asked Moses about it. Here’s what that exchange might have been like:

Aaron: “What’s this white stuff, Moses?”

Moses: “What’s-it.”

A:“Yeah, Moses, what’s it called?”

M: “Yes, that’s what I told you, what’s-it.”

A: “When did you tell us? You’re just repeating our question back to us.”

M: “Just now. What’s-it’s what it’s called.”

A: (chidingly) “Moses, you’re stuttering again. Stop playing games.”

M: “I told you, the white stuff is called what’s-it.”

A: “That’s what we’re trying to find out! What’s it called?”

M: “Yes.”

A: “What’s it on the ground?”

M: “Everywhere you look.”

A: (frustrated) “GRR!”

M: “Bless you, Aaron. You speak Hebrew. The Hebrew word for “What’s-it” is “manna”!

A: (loudly) “Then why didn’t you say that in the first place! Ugh!” (drop script and storm off to your seat).

Thank you, Joel, for helping out with that. Even before the Israelites got to Mt. Sinai, God was already at work showing his people how he would care for them in the journey ahead. When the manna came each morning, everyone was able to gather as much as they and their family needed, and no more. Except on Fridays, when the “super-manna” came that would keep an extra day through the Sabbath.

At that time, the manna was intended to be a short-term solution for traveling through a deserted wilderness. The journey probably would have only taken them a few years had they not rebelled against God when they spied out the land in Numbers 13. But even in Exodus 16, Moses or perhaps Joshua, as they’re putting the finishing touches on the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, can’t resist putting a little reminder in at that early point in the story that the Israelites would go on from there to eat manna for the next 40 years. Perhaps it’s a sarcastic reminder to the Israelites that their stubbornness and rebellion didn’t start with the scaredy-cat spies, but much earlier with the with this rebellion in the desert.

If there’s a bright side to 40-years of wandering in the wilderness, it would have to be that the Israelites were truly a free people in those 40 years. They ruled themselves based on God’s divine leadership. Sure, it must have been boring after a while, wandering here and there as God led them, but at least they had a long stretch of freedom as wanderers. They had sufficient food; their sandals and their clothes never wore out (Deuteronomy 29:5); and they knew exactly which way to go and when because of God’s miraculous manifestation in the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day.

The other part of the bright side is that the peoples in the region began to realize how powerful this nomadic group of Israelites had become, and actually came to fear and respect them. Yet like most of us do, even when things seem to be going well with us, we can get bored and find a reason to grumble, an excuse to stray from God’s path, a reason to look back on “better days,” or at least that’s what we tell ourselves they were. Even though God had given them everything they needed in that time, I’m sure once the new generation began to settle in the Promised Land, they found that settled life much more desirable than their desert wanderings.

Our reading from Psalm 145 today brings to the forefront of our hearts and minds the great works that God has done as a preventive measure of sorts from grumbling about our current situation. The remedy: never stop recalling and recounting the great works of God and all that he has done for us. Tell the stories to your kids, your grandkids, and your great grandkids. Meditate on the greatness of God and his works. Sing about them with a loud voice. When we remember the goodness and greatness of God, any reason we think we may have to grumble pales in comparison.

Fast-forward to our Gospel passage today. We find yet another group of people ready to grumble. This time, we have a parable, or at least, it starts off like most parables of Jesus: “For the kingdom of heaven is like…” We’ll do well not to lose sight of this being a parable about the kingdom of God. It is NOT intended to be a command on how employers should pay their employees! Sorry, folks, but the CEO isn’t taking a pay cut, and you’re not getting a big raise. If this were really about employers and employees, then of course the workers who worked the whole day and got the same pay as those who only worked an hour or two would have every right to grumble. A denarius, after all, was considered a day’s wage in that time.

The parable uses the setting of the vineyard, which is a standard metaphor for the Jewish nation. The workers’ job is most likely to harvest the grapes, and it would seem that time is of the essence, as the owner of the vineyard must keep going back to the marketplace to get more laborers, even up to eleventh hour, one hour before quitting time. We shouldn’t read too much into the number of times the owner has to return to find laborers. One of the key points of the parable is found in this: the work of harvesting souls for God’s kingdom is a continuous process, and it’s never too late to stop harvesting. This doesn’t mean that the owner didn’t know how many laborers he needed; from a practical standpoint, I think it’s a safe speculation that he needed to space out the labor force for a variety of purposes, and each group may have had different tasks throughout the day.

Another point of the parable that may be obvious to most of us is that, since it’s really about the kingdom of God and not about how long you work, the perfect reward of heaven doesn’t have any kind of system of tenure. The one who’s been a saint all their life receives the same reward as those who come late to the kingdom of heaven. It’s interesting that the owner starts with the workers hired last when he pays them. Had he started with those hired first, they may have never known that those who were hired last got the same pay as they did! But then Jesus wouldn’t have been able to make his point about equity in the reward of the kingdom.

“The last will be first, and the first will be last,” then, is not a statement about flipping the rankings in the kingdom of heaven; it’s an affirmation that there are NO rankings in the kingdom of heaven. Everyone is on a level playing field. Your reward is the same as the apostle Paul, Paul’s helper Timothy, any of your former or current pastors, and a pre-teen who has just made a commitment to follow Jesus.

The final and related point here is that the owner of the vineyard never failed to keep his promise. He promised to pay the first workers a denarius, and that is indeed what they got. When he hired the later workers, he said he would pay them “whatever is right.” From a strictly business perspective, if you’ve got a deadline to meet and you don’t have enough help to meet it, the owner’s perspective is going to be that the value of the late laborers increases the closer the deadline looms. If the grapes need to be picked by the end of the day so they don’t start spoiling on the vine, the owner could lose a substantial amount of his investment. So paying the last laborers the same as the first is a sign of his great appreciation for their last-minute efforts, and he probably still made a profit even though everyone got the same daily wage.

As I said above, it’s never too late to stop working for the kingdom of God to “harvest” the souls who are ready to come into his kingdom. As the coming kingdom gets closer every day, the urgency to get God’s word out and change hearts for his kingdom becomes greater and greater. As Timothy says, God desires that all people come to the knowledge of his truth. That can only happen if each one of us does our part to share the love and hope of Jesus with the world.

The biblical story never hides the failings of God’s people. We see everyone for who they are: they find redemption for their fallenness and go on to do great things for God. When they think God is not being fair about what they receive from him, God reminds them, sometimes gently and sometimes more severely, that he has been and always will be their Jehovah Jireh, or Yahweh Yireh as the Israelite would say: The Lord is my Provider. When they try straying from God’s path of righteousness, God reminds them that he is their Yahweh Nissi, The Lord is my Banner.

Paul reminds believers in Galatians 3:26–29 that there are no worldly distinctions in Christ: ²⁶So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, ²⁷for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.^[1]

The kingdom of God is for all who will come willingly to him, regardless of race, ethnicity, age, gender, or their level of knowledge. Let us go forth from here today and be a people who would shine God’s light through our words and our lives so that the world might know the love of God.

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

August 4, 2023

The Everyday Kingdom of God: Minor Parables of Matthew 13

I preached a version of this message at Mt. View Presbyterian Church July 30, 2023. I modified a portion of the message to include more context about the major parables in Matthew 13 for my presentation of the message the following Sunday at Peace Presbyterian, which is what I’ve posted here. The recording is from Mt. View.

NOTE: The main text of the message is supplemented with two apologetic footnotes addressing issues that Stephen Wells cites in The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible (SAB). Specifically here, I address his comments about the size of a mustard seed and his assumption that Matthew 13:35 is misquoted from the Old Testament reference, Psalm 78:2.

When I was a student in seminary, my preaching professor assigned us what I thought at the time was a very unusual book for preaching class. We had to read Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon Days, a fictionalized story about the town the author grew up in in Minnesota. My preaching professor was big on pastors being able not just to handle God’s word correctly and accurately, but to be able to relay the message of God’s word in stories that churchgoers might remember better than a Bible verse or passage. Being a “meat and potatoes” kind of guy, I was at first a little leery about straying too far from a strict exegesis of God’s word.

But as I began to look more closely at the Gospels in seminary, I began to see how Jesus used stories, in the form of parables, to describe in memorable terms for his listeners what the kingdom of God is like. Now having grown up in the church and going to Sunday School most of my childhood, I had already heard most of the parables, so I kind of knew what they were. I even had come up with my own parable, probably sometime in my high school or early college years. Wanna hear it? It kind of follows one of the parables we read from this morning’s text.

The kingdom of heaven is like a bowl of popcorn. Some kernels never feel the fire of God’s word and remain untouched. Others open up a little, but they’re afraid of too much exposure and never experience their fullness. But those who open themselves completely to the fire of God’s word burning in themselves let his fullness fill them, and they add flavor to the world.

I know, it’s corny, right? Okay, I got my dad joke out of the way.

You might recognize the name Asaph as one of the authors of several Psalms in the Old Testament. In one of his psalms, Psalm 78, he prophesied that God’s messenger would come teaching in parables:

¹My people, hear my teaching;

listen to the words of my mouth.

²I will open my mouth with a parable;

I will utter hidden things, things from of old— [1]

³things we have heard and known,

things our ancestors have told us.

⁴We will not hide them from their descendants;

we will tell the next generation

the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,

his power, and the wonders he has done.^{^[2]}

One of things I think this psalm suggests is that there would come a time for the Jews when they would begin to lose track of their stories of faith. To a certain extent, we see that happening in the Gospels on the one hand with how the Pharisees and Sadducees respond to Jesus, but on the other hand, with how Jesus chides those religious leaders.

There are strong undertones in the Gospels that the Jews were not only feeling the tension of Roman oversight, but also that they were feeling the pressure of an increasingly legalistic form of Judaism. They were weighed down with its laws and requirements. That’s why Jesus said earlier in Matthew that his yoke was easy and his burden was light. He had come to give them eternal hope and some much-needed earthly rest from those burdens.

The religious leaders, it seems, had become so full of themselves with their knowledge of God’s laws and the “hedge” they had built around it with their oral tradition that they forgot how to relate to the people. This is why, Matthew earlier in chapter 13, quotes Isaiah 6:9–10, implying that he’s talking about the religious leadership of his day:

You will be ever hearing but never understanding;

you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.

For this people’s heart has become calloused;

they hardly hear with their ears,

and they have closed their eyes.

Otherwise they might see with their eyes,

hear with their ears,

understand with their hearts

and turn, and I would heal them.^[3]

The pharisees couldn’t even understand the stories at first, until they began to realize that Jesus was talking about them in some instances!

The average Jew was ready for a refresh of Judaism. When Jesus came doing miracles and teaching in parables, it seems that was just the thing the Jews needed to have their faith and hope renewed. Matthew packs several of Jesus’s parables in chapter 13 here. Just to recap briefly, the first parable Matthew records is arguably the most familiar to many believers: the parable of the seed cast on the four soils. In a nutshell, Jesus is saying there are four responses to my teaching: Some people will ignore it because they have no interest in it. The second group immediately and happily intakes it, but they have no foundation for it to thrive, so it never really takes hold. The third group might investigate it and even live it for a while, but when they experience trouble, they return to their old ways. Finally, there are those who become fully invested in God’s word and integrate it into their daily lives. Four of the five parables we’re looking at a little closer this morning are about the people in that last group.

The first of our parables this morning is that of the mustard seed. This is a one-point parable, the point being to plant the seed. We don’t need to try to figure out who the man (or woman) is who planted the seed or whether they reference anyone specifically. We don’t need to try to understand what or where the field is. Jesus has already explained that in the other parable from chapter 13 that we didn’t read this morning, the parable of the wheat and tares. We don’t even have to know what it tastes like when added as a seasoning to food. None of those details are important.

As the parable says, the mustard seed is the smallest seed known at the time.[4] That seed will grow into what is technically an evergreen shrub, but it happens to look more like a tree. We should take note here that Jesus doesn’t say it’s the largest tree, but that it’s the largest of “garden plants” in someone’s garden. I believe Jesus uses this particular parable to describe the physical size of the kingdom of God compared to its humble beginnings, especially in the Church era. It’s a parable about the outward manifestation of the kingdom of heaven.

As much as the parable of the mustard seed is about the external manifestation of the kingdom of God, the parable of “hiding” (ἐγκρύπτω eⁿgkryptō) or mixing the yeast in the dough is about what the kingdom of God does in each of us. Again, there’s no reason to discern external, real-life references to people or places with the elements of the parable. Nor should we try to interpret what the expansion of the dough with yeast might mean. The singular point here is what happens when we “hide” God’s word in our hearts; it works itself through every part of our lives eventually, in our bodies, our minds, and our hearts and souls, so that we might know the full redemption awaiting us in eternity.

Now the next two parables again each make a singular point; only the characters are different. In the parable of the treasure hidden (κρύπτω kryptō) in the field, (and take note that we see the word “hide” again; same root word as in the parable of the yeast—it’s not an insignificant repetition), Jesus is talking about what the kingdom is worth to those who’ve invested their lives in it. As with the first two parables, the details are irrelevant here: Jesus doesn’t intend us to question the motivation of the man who found a treasure in someone else’s field. We shouldn’t make judgments about that, because we’re not even told if the man had a right to be in someone else’s field.

The parable immediately after that one about the merchant looking for the pearl of great price speaks to the broad expanse of God’s creation. The merchant seemingly has a singular goal here, finding the pearl of great price. As with the hidden treasure parable, the point of these is not the actions of the individuals mentioned or who they might be specifically. Nor is the point that only one individual in each parable gets the kingdom to the exclusion of all others. The point in both of these “value” parables is the value of the kingdom and the desire to have it at all costs. Anyone can find the treasure if they search long enough for it. It’s not reserved for any special class or group of people.

The final parable of the net is a little more complex than the other four we’ve looked at this morning. The net lets us know that God will gather all creation to him in the final judgment. The fact that Jesus mentions “all kinds of fish” here is a bit unusual, since other fishing stories usually just refer to “fish.” The word for “kinds” is the same word that can be translated “nation” or “people” of a certain nationality or ethnic background as opposed to any random person. In the parable, the fishermen keep the good fish but throw the bad (σαπρός, sapros) ones away. The word for “bad” there means “decaying” or “rotten” and is used to describe “bad” fruit in Jesus’s teaching on trees and the fruit they bear. But when Jesus talks about the allegorical equivalent to the fishermen, the angels, he says the angels throw the wicked (i.e., the bad fish) into the fire. That’s a graphic image of the final judgment of humanity.

This parable is nearly identical to the parable of the wheat and tares from earlier in chapter 13. These two parables, the net and the wheat & tares, have always impressed me as lessons for Christians to accept those we live with and work with and not pronounce any kind of ultimate judgment on those who do not follow Jesus. This acceptance should not be confused with tolerance. Christ still wants us to bear witness to his saving grace even to those who are in a state of unbelief or rebellion against God. Our job is not to judge, but to share the truth of God’s word and not only hold our ground in the spiritual battles we may face daily, but to gain ground so we can push back against the evil around us. God will make the final call on each person’s eternal fate. Our job is to be faithful with how God has called us to serve him and NOT to play God ourselves.

Jesus’s use of parables is radically counterculture to how the “official” Jewish religious rulers of the day taught. Those religious rulers taught rules and regulations, laws and statutes. That did have a purpose, but without stories, the Jewish people were getting lost in a growing set of requirements that was difficult to keep up with. He showed us that when we share the word of God with others, his kingdom grows. When we hide his word in our hearts, we grow. He also showed us that of all the things we pursue in this world, even billion-dollar Mega Millions jackpots, the kingdom of God is the greatest and most rewarding treasure we could find and possess. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other good things you worry and fret about will be added to your life. Amen!

[1] Countering SAB on Matthew 13.35. It is difficult to make an argument that the New Testament “misquotes” an Old Testament passage, especially when the speaker may not have been using the original language the Old Testament was written in. The Greek of the Septuagint (LXX) for first part of Psalm 78:2 is identical to Matthew’s first line. The second part of the verse, though, uses different words in the New Testament, but the sense of the phrase is still the same. Here they are for comparison:

LXX (Logos version) of Psalm 78:2: ἀνοίξω ἐν παραβολαῖς τὸ στόμα μου, φθέγξομαι προβλήματα ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς.

UBS 4th Ed. of Matthew 13:35: Ἀνοίξω ἐν παραβολαῖς τὸ στόμα μου, ἐρεύξομαι κεκρυμμένα ἀπὸ καταβολῆς [κόσμου].

The reason for the difference may stem from the theory that Matthew originally wrote his gospel in Aramaic, so the translation into A.D. first-century Greek may not have followed the Septuagint. It’s also possible that the meaning of some of the Greek words in the LXX had changed significantly in the 200 or so years leading up to the NT times, so Matthew had to choose a different word.

The Hebrew word translated προβλήματα (from which we get the English word “problem,” and which is not found in the NT) in the LXX is either translated with a form of that word or the Greek word from which we get “enigma” (αἰνίγματα). The Greek word used in Matthew’s passage (κεκρυμμένα) means “what has been hidden,” so that certainly fits the sense of “enigma” or “problem.” The NT rendering is essentially a dynamically equivalent translation of the LXX version.

One minor point here: SAB says Matthew’s misquote is of Psalm 78:2–3, but only vs. 2 is quoted.

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

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

[4] Countering SAB on the size of the mustard seed in Matthew 13:31. While the mustard seed is definitely not the smallest seed known to us today, this does not take away from what Jesus is saying. First, the seed is planted in a garden that would have been home to vegetable and herb plants, practical things the growers could use for sustenance. While the seed of an epiphytic orchid may be the smallest known seed today (according to what SAB claims, anyway), it was not something that would have been planted in a vegetable garden.

Second, the word for tree (δένδρον) is used because the variety of mustard plant that grew in that region would have grown to a height of about 4 feet by the time it produced the seed pods, much larger than any of the other plants in the garden, but it was classified as an evergreen shrub. It would have been large enough for birds to perch (κατασκηνόω) in. The word doesn’t necessarily mean to make a nest. It implies a temporary residing place. In fact, it comes from the same root word used in John 1:14 to describe Jesus making his “dwelling” among us.

Getting back to the epiphytic orchids: if you do a Bing search asking “Where are epiphytic orchids found?” you will find that they’re found in tropical rainforests growing on top of other plants, thus the name (epi = upon; phytic = plant; Greed roots, of course). They are, apparently, the smallest seeds by weight. Again, calling on Bing, ask “What is the smallest seed in the world?” and you’ll get the answer Aerides odorata, an orchid. However, the information says there’s even a smaller seed than that, about 1/4^th the size (0.05 mm vs. 0.2 mm). A simple check of the American Orchid Society (www.aos.org) reveals that these orchids are not native to the Middle East and would probably not have been known to Jesus’s rural and agrarian audiences.

The bottom line is, Jesus used a well-known seed as an object lesson, something everyday folks would know about. It wouldn’t do him any good in his teaching to call on his omniscience and explain that halfway around the world, there’s a seed y’all have never heard of that’s the smallest seed. It’s the ratio that’s important here: the size of mature plants is not proportional to the size of their seeds. The mustard seed wins the prize for the smallest seed that produces the largest plant, relatively speaking.

So once again, we can dispatch SAB’s criticism as uninformed and ignorant of the sociocultural context in which Jesus lived, taught, and interacted with his neighbors.

Comments (3)

July 22, 2023

Counting the Days: Acts 10 and Jewish Time References

Filed under: Acts,Biblical Studies,Chronology,Ecclesiology,Evangelism,Prayer,Reliability of Scripture,Textual Criticism — Scott Stocking @ 11:32 pm
Tags: 384, Acts 10:30, Biblical time references, Cornelius and Peter, Gentiles, How did Jews count days?, In three days, On the third day, SAB, SAB Contradiction #384, Skeptic's Annotated Bible, Steve Wells

In this post:

I address discrepancies between the NIV (2011) and its precursor, the TNIV vs. the NIV (1984), ESV, NLT, and several other translations regarding how many days passed between Cornelius praying for someone to come to his home and Peter’s arrival in Acts 10:30.
I also briefly address a couple ridiculous comments on this passage by Steve Wells in his Skeptic’s Annotated Bible (SAB) that smack of cultural insensitivity and reveal that he missed important contextual clues in analyzing the passage.

The Background

Our Saturday morning men’s group at the church I attend has been reading through the New Testament following the scheme in Tyndale’s The One Year Chronological Bible. We’re not reading through it following the calendar; we’re only reading it on Saturday’s together, so it’s been a slow process, but helpful in getting the big picture of Scripture, especially as it related to the parallel accounts in the Gospels.

This morning we were reading in Acts 10, Cornelius’s plea to God for someone to come explain the Gospel more fully to him and his household in Caesarea and Peter’s response to that call. In Acts 10:30, the NIV (2011) says this:

³⁰Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me.^[1]

No sooner had I finished reading this, several men in the group spoke up and said their version said “Four days ago.” In the grand scheme of things, this little discrepancy doesn’t have a lick of theological impact on the Bible or on any of our lives, for that matter. But it does present itself as a teaching moment on how the first century believers counted time, so I wanted to share a brief insight on this.

The first part of Cornelius’s response in Greek looks like this, followed by my literal translation:

Ἀπὸ τετάρτης ἡμέρας μέχρι ταύτης τῆς ὥρας ἤμην τὴν ἐνάτην^[2]

From the fourth day until this hour, being the ninth [i.e., about 3:00 pm]

The phrase in Greek that I have translated “From the fourth day” is somewhat idiomatic, and it does not actually contradict other translations directly, and can in fact be shown to represent the narrative in chapter 10 about the event. I’ll get to that in a moment, but I want to show that the crucifixion story may lend itself to such a discrepancy if we don’t understand how the Jews count.

Counting the Days: Jewish Reckoning of Time Forward

Most of us know that Jesus died on a Friday afternoon and was raised on Sunday morning. His prophecy about himself is consistent that he would die and rise again “three days later.” But if we think about in how we moderns look at that, we might come up with two days. The time period between Jesus death and resurrection was less than 48 hours, that is, less than two full days. But for the Jews, Crucifixion Day was Day 1, even though the day was more than half over by that time. Interestingly enough, Jesus died at 3:00 pm on that Friday according to Mark’s Gospel. The Sabbath (and the next day) would begin at sundown that evening, so all of Saturday is silent to us in the Scriptures. That was Day 2. But by Sunday morning, Day 3, sometime after the sun had set and Sunday had begun, Jesus had risen and was no longer in the tomb. From our perspective, we might say, “But Jesus only died two days before he rose!”

When Jesus speaks of rising again, the Gospel writers are not consistent with the temporal preposition they use, even within the same Gospel. Some have “in (ἐν) three days,” while others have “after (μετὰ) three days.” There was even one occurrence of διὰ (“through”) being translated as “in.” The first preposition, although commonly translated “in,” can also mean “within three days” or “when the third day arrives.” So Jesus rising on Day 3 of his crucifixion and burial fits perfectly in that scheme. The same goes for “after.” “After the third day dawns, I will rise again.” The third preposition, found only in Mark 14:58 in these parallel passages, implies that “during” that three-day period, he will rise, similar to a meaning of “within” from the first preposition. Therefore, there is absolutely no contradiction here with how the events unfolded and Jesus’s prophecies about himself.[3]

Counting the Days: Jewish Reckoning of Past Time

Getting back to the Acts 10:30 passage now, it should be easy to see why the discrepancy exists among the various translations. To make it clear how time transpires in this passage, let me put it in “weekly planner” format, and for ease of argument, we’ll take Day 1 as Monday (thanks to my friend Jerry who pointed the textual clues out during our discussion):

Monday, 3:00 pm. Cornelius is visited by an “angel of God” (Luke’s words) while he’s praying, or at least in a prayerful state of mind. (Acts 10:3; see also 10:22 for the servants’ description as a “holy angel,” and 10:30 for Cornelius’s own statement that he was praying when he had the vision.)

Tuesday, noon. One of Cornelius’s soldiers and two of his servants are approaching the city; Peter goes up to the roof to pray, gets hungry, and sees a vision. (10:9)

Evening: Cornelius’s men are guests of Peter that afternoon and overnight. (10:23a)

Wednesday morning: “The next day Peter started out with them….” (10:23b)

Thursday, 3:00 pm: “The following day he arrived in Caesarea” (10:24, 30).

In our modern parlance, if we were speaking on Thursday about something that happened on Monday, we would most likely say “Three days ago.” But counting backward in this story follows the same principles as counting forward in the crucifixion story. Thursday is the fourth day since Cornelius had his encounter with “a man in shining clothes,” the being Luke described as an angel in the opening paragraph (I’ll come back to that point in a minute). When the Greek text says “From the fourth day,” Cornelius is counting Thursday as Day 1, and Monday as Day 4 in the past.

The other interesting bit about this opening phrase in vs. 30 is that the participle for “praying” is in the present tense. Because Cornelius uses the “from…until” construction in what he says, it’s quite possible he’s not only saying that he was praying when had the vision on “Monday,” but that he’s continued praying “until” the time Peter arrives, fulfilling his prayers.

Wells’s Absurd Absurdity

For whatever reason, Wells, in his SAB seems to think it’s funny that Cornelius, a Roman gentile described as a devout man of faith and prayer, would receive a visit from an angel telling him how he can learn more about what the death and resurrection of Jesus means. Not only that, he’s told to reach out to Peter, who was the leading apostle at the time. (See his sidebar comments throughout chapter 10.) Cornelius is getting first-class service, and Peter is getting a lesson on what the next step of his ministry will be: reaching out to Gentiles, especially in the area around Jerusalem and Capernaum.

He also seems to think it’s funny that Cornelius refers to the angel as “a man in shining clothes.” In context, Luke knows what Cornelius saw and has the cultural and religious background to interpret it. The servants, who may have been Jewish or at least Samaritan, would have also recognized who Cornelius saw. But as a Roman Centurion, Cornelius may not have had the frame of reference to comprehend what he had seen. Additionally, the story about Paul’s encounter with a bright, heavenly light and the voice of Jesus on the road to Damascus may have reached his ears already, so perhaps Cornelius thought this was something similar. Maybe he didn’t know if it was an angel or Jesus himself, so he offers Peter a “just-the-facts” description of what he witnessed. Such cultural insensitivity toward a man who came from a pagan background into faith is just downright mean and nasty on Wells’s part.

Conclusion

As I said above, the issue of whether the passage should be translated “three days ago” or “four days ago” is extremely minor in the grander scheme of biblical inerrancy and translation fidelity. But I do hope you found the discussion enlightening. I’d love to hear your comments.

Peace to all!

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

My opinions are my own.

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

^[2] Aland, Kurt, Matthew Black, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metzger, Maurice A. Robinson, and Allen Wikgren. 1993; 2006. The Greek New Testament, Fourth Revised Edition (with Morphology). Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft.

[3] This also debunks Steve Wells’s contradiction #384 in his SAB. The “false witnesses” are not “false” because they supposedly made up something Jesus never said; they’re false because Jesus wasn’t speaking literally of the physical Temple made of stones and timber, but of the temple of his own body. They’re false because they tried to twist his words.

Comments (4)

July 10, 2023

A Childlike Faith in a Patient God (Matthew 11:16–30)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Evangelism,Faith, Faithfulness,Matthew Gospel of,Psalms,Soteriology — Scott Stocking @ 8:12 pm
Tags: burden is light, John the Baptist, John the Baptizer, Matthew 11, Psalm 145, rest for your souls, revealing the father, yoke is easy

Sermon preached at Mt. View Presbyterian Church July 9, 2023. Click above to hear the audio recording.

How patient is God?

We’re not sure how long Adam and Eve had been in the Garden of Eden before they took a couple bites from the forbidden fruit, but upon that violation of the only prohibition he’d given Adam and Eve, God moved rather swiftly. There was no, “Oh, they didn’t really understand. Let’s try this again.” Or “You know, I must have made that fruit just too irresistible for them; it’s my fault.” No, when Eve and Adam committed that first sin, the damage was done. The veil was broken that protected them from the knowledge of evil. They had their chance to know only life with God, and if they had chosen that route, the goodness they would have lived in would have never had anything to contrast itself with. God banished them from the garden immediately.

Then, after Cain and Abel had grown up, Cain being the firstborn of the first created, he decided he didn’t like how God preferred Abel’s offering to his, so he murdered Abel. Again, God dealt swiftly with it, but did not give Cain the death penalty he deserved. Instead, the Scriptures say God marked Cain somehow so people wouldn’t kill him. But Cain had caused a bigger problem that would establish an undertone throughout the OT: the curse of the firstborn. With the possible exceptions of Abraham and Noah (we don’t know their full genealogies), the firstborn in most of the major biblical stories are often bypassed for the continuation of God’s kingdom and the lineage of God’s one and only son, Jesus.

God must have turned on his patience after the Cain and Abel incident, because we don’t really hear of any judgment of God type events until we get to the flood in Genesis 6, 1,656 years after Adam and Eve were created if we’re to take the genealogies in Genesis at their word. God’s judgment is a little less swift as the story moves on. God allows Abraham to negotiate with him over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. God tolerates Abraham’s and Isaac’s deceptions about their respective lies about their wives to Pharaoh and Abimelek. God sends ten plagues over the course of a couple years, it seems, to try to get Pharaoh to change his mind about enslaving the Hebrews. And God uses a prophet to remind David of his sin with Bathsheba, a sin for which he could have been put to death, instead of dealing with him directly at the moment of his moral failure.

This is why David can write what he did in Psalm 145:

8 The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.^[1]

We all know that children require patience, a TON of patience! But sometimes we have to act quickly to protect them from danger. Maybe they’re getting too close to a hot stove or aren’t watching what they’re doing playing in the front yard near the street. No time for patience in some of those situations. But many more times, teaching a child how to navigate the world around them can be filled with a lot of trial and error, bumps and bruises, and scraped knees and elbows. At some point, they have to learn to walk on their own, ride a bike on their own, feed themselves with a spoon and fork, and other “big kid” stuff.

In our gospel passage this morning, we have an interesting analogy that both Matthew and Luke use about Jesus and John the Baptizer. The first-century readers of this gospel would have understood the pipe and dirge references as part of a children’s game. They would have a mock wedding or funeral and try to get people to participate, but no one was responding to them. The pipe referred to the mock wedding ceremony, and the dirge referred to the funeral, of course.

It was a simple game, really. All you had to do was show up and listen to the ceremony and enjoy or take comfort in the company of others, because that’s what the cultural custom told you to do.

John the Baptizer fasted quite often, so the dirge represented his ministry. Many followed him but not many listened to him, and those who didn’t or who were critical of him missed the message that the Messiah had indeed come. Jesus’s ministry was represented by the pipes, the wedding ceremony. Jesus used the wedding ceremony as parable of his own ministry elsewhere in the gospels, when he chides those who were invited but did not come to a wedding feast. The children playing these games had a childlike faith that people would follow along in their “game.”

Jesus had many followers and curiosity seekers as well but he was disappointed that many people did not take his message to heart and believe, especially from among the religious ruling class of his day. The problem wasn’t the general population, so much. They longed to be free from a legalistic Judaism that was crushing their spirit and making them fearful of “outliers” like John and Jesus. The problem was that both Jesus and John represented a challenge to the power of the religious leadership by the number of followers they were attracting, so like any politician threatened with the prospect of losing power or influence, they found a way to play both sides of the coin.

“John has a demon!” they cried, because he fasted and only ate locusts and honey.

“Jesus is a glutton!” “Jesus is a drunkard!” they cried, because he ate and drank with the outsiders and the outcasts, the sinners and tax collectors.

Our gospel reading skips over a few verses in Matthew where Jesus mentions several towns where they had ample opportunity to repent and believe in God. He even says his hometown of Capernaum will fare worse than Sodom in the final judgment. The people are seeing miracle upon miracle from Jesus; they’re hearing incredibly insightful and liberating teaching from Jesus; but these towns could not bring themselves to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah.

Our passage picks up again with Jesus praising God for revealing the mystery of heaven to “little children.” The term “children” there most likely refers to toddlers, three- and four-year-olds. Not only that, but he emphasizes that God was pleased to reveal his purposes in that way. God doesn’t require us to be intellectual superstars when it comes to being a Christ-follower. We don’t have to know the right doctrines or even be able to explain them perfectly. His main goal for us is that we receive the love and forgiveness he’s offered us through Jesus, to return that love to him out of gratitude, and to share that love and good news with others. Nothing else should be a test of faith for us.

Most children have an innate desire to attach to a grown-up who loves them, cares for them, guides them into right behavior and thinking, and teaches them the things they need to know to survive in life. It’s a matter of simple trust for them. That’s how God wants us to come to him. When we come to him without all the worldly pretense we’ve developed over the years, we, like a child, can see the true character of our heavenly Father. He reveals himself to us, sometimes in ways we’d never imagine.

The Jews in Jesus’s day were burdened with many legalistic requirements that the rabbis had implemented to help keep the people from sinning. It was a “hedge,” as they called it, around the law. It was possible to violate the hedge a little and not sin; but they valued ritualistic purity so much, they wanted to ensure there was no trace of doubt of anyone’s purity. It was a difficult system to live under, because you could suffer disheartening short-term ostracism for not strictly adhering to the Law.

Jesus is out to change that conception, though. He says:

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”^[2]

Jesus wants to change the system that had become bloated with legalism over the centuries. Much of that may have been well-intentioned when implemented, but taken all together, it had become something quite burdensome to keep. Jesus wants to make it simple again. “Rest in me,” he says. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus will teach us the true way to be a child of God, a Christ-follower. He will rescue us from our weariness and our burdens. Amen to that!

The apostle Paul seems to have wrestled with that quite a bit as well. I believe he understood God’s patience when it comes to our own response to God. But Paul also recognized we have an internal struggle sometimes, and we have to be patient with ourselves as we grow into that simple, childlike trust in God’s goodness and grace. He exemplifies that in Romans 7, where Paul seems to be having a little argument with himself: “¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.^[3]” Paul recognizes his own need not only for patience with himself, but patience from God as well as he fights a constant internal battle with his fleshly desires.

Before I wrap this up, I do want to return to our reading from Psalm 145:8–14 and hit a few high points from that passage. I think it puts a nice bow on what it means to have a childlike faith in God.

When we’re saved by grace, Paul says in Ephesians 2:10 that “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared in advance for us to walk in.” He may have had Psalm 145:10–12 in mind when he wrote this:

10 All your works praise you, Lord;

your faithful people extol you.

11 They tell of the glory of your kingdom

and speak of your might,

12 so that all people may know of your mighty acts

and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.^[4]

Jesus calls us to be light and life in this world. He’s empowered us to do that by imparting the Holy Spirit to us and making us righteous through his sacrifice on the cross. Again, it’s an easy burden from the Savior; certainly easier than trying to live life outside of the hope, healing, and forgiveness he brings. Just as we take joy at the innocence of children as they play their childhood games, so God wants us to experience the joy we can have by trusting in him.

But Jesus also realizes we may miss a step sometimes. His yoke is on us, not to enslave us, but to guide us on a straight path. Psalm 145:13b–14 reassures us that, when we stray from God’s path, he’s ready and willing to lift us up and put us back on the straight path:

The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises

and faithful in all he does.

14 The Lord upholds all who fall

and lifts up all who are bowed down.^[5]

May the Lord lift us up, sustain us, and bless us as we learn to walk in his will each and every day with the simple faith of a child. Amen.

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday Morning Greek Blog

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Praising the Savior (Luke 2:22–40)

December 6, 2023

“Bones” in the Bible: Why I Do NOT Want to Be Cremated at Death

Setting the Tone With the “Clone” of the Bone

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“Bones” in the Poets and Prophets

What Is Cremation?

“Bones” and Resurrection in the NT

Final Questions

Conclusion

November 12, 2023

Are You Ready for His Return? (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18; Matthew 25:1–13)

October 29, 2023

Living the Greatest Commandments (Matthew 22:34–46; Leviticus 19:11–18; Psalm 110:1)

The Power of His Presence (Exodus 33:12–23; Matthew 22:15–22)

October 2, 2023

Obedient Sons (Psalm 25:1–9; Matthew 21:23–32)

Kingdom Equity (Exodus 16; Psalm 145; Matthew 20:1–16)

August 4, 2023

The Everyday Kingdom of God: Minor Parables of Matthew 13

July 22, 2023

Counting the Days: Acts 10 and Jewish Time References

The Background

Counting the Days: Jewish Reckoning of Time Forward

Counting the Days: Jewish Reckoning of Past Time

Wells’s Absurd Absurdity

Conclusion

July 10, 2023

A Childlike Faith in a Patient God (Matthew 11:16–30)

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