Spiritual Gifts as Worship (Romans 12:3-8)

Good Morning. I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. But let’s be honest, with Thanksgiving behind us, we’re all thinking about Christmas now. The Christmas decorations are already up in the Holcomb home. Part of me wants to complain that the Christmas decorations are up before it’s even December, but the other part of me thinks, “If we are going through all this trouble to set up the Christmas tree, it’s going to be up as long as possible,” so I’m fine with it. Even though this is the first Sunday after Thanksgiving, it is not an Advent Sunday. There is enough Sundays before Christmas in December this year to hold off the first Sunday of Advent to the first Sunday in December. But I will admit, I am one of those people thinking about Christmas. Hey, at least I’m thinking about the true meaning of Christmas: the historical event in which the Creator of the universe comes down to his creation as a humble baby. I’m thinking about the whole story: Mary, Joseph, the angels, the shepherds, and especially the magi.

 

Out of all the characters of the Christmas story, I find the magi the most interesting. The historical record of the magi can be found in Matthew 2:1-12, but over the years, as the Christmas story is told over and over again, legends arose about these magi, hence why they got renamed “wise men” and “three kings.” Usually, I quickly dismiss such legends because I don’t want confuse legend with the historically accurate inspired Word of God. One of these legends, however, I do like, just because it displays the symbolism behind the gifts the magi brought. The legend states that one of them was a young man, and in his youthful idealism he looked for a good and pure king, who would rule the people equally and fairly. He carried gold, a fitting gift for king. Another was middle-aged man. He had pushed aside such idealistic hope, and now he wanted the answer to deep the questions of life, ones about origins, meaning, morals and destiny. He realized only a God could answer such questions, and so sought to find God. His gift was frankincense with which to worship God, an incense offered to God as a sacrifice. The third was an elderly man. He was well aware his life was drawing to and end, and death would be near. Looking back on that life, all he could notice was that it was stained with in. He longed to discover a Savior. Through his studies, as well as logic and reasoning, he concluded that a Savior must be a sufferer to pay for his sins, even to point of death. He took with him the gift of myrrh, used to make healing medicine and perfume to embalm the dead.

I can neither affirm this legend as the inspired Word of God, nor can I confirm the historical accuracy of this legend, but this legend does one thing right. It displays and explains the three gifts of the magi very well. Most interesting is relating the symbolism of the gifts to the purpose of the magi’s visit: to worship. We know from the historically accurate Word of God that the magi came to worship the baby Jesus. There’s no doubt about that; just look it up in Matthew 2:2,11. But pay close attention to how they worship. They don’t surround him and sing songs to him. Instead, they worship him by giving him gifts. Also note that these gifts don’t just represent who Jesus is, but they also might reflect the giver and what the giver seeks in Jesus.

If you were to go to Bethlehem and go to the tradition spot of the manger, this is what it looks like now.

Maybe the magi can teach us something about passionate spirituality and vibrant worship. Now I suppose we could take a pilgrimage to Bethlehem, and we could leave at the traditional site of the manger a gift to that represents us and how we see Jesus. But I believe Paul provides us a more practical way to worship Jesus through gift giving. He provides those instructions in Romans 12:3-8.

Below you’ll see the passage, but you’ll notice I start the passage with Romans 12:1. That’s because I believe Romans 12:1-8 should be read as one paragraph, and I want to keep it in context. Some Bible translations will reflect this, while other Bible versions do not. I don’t have the space or time to teach you Greek grammar or syntax to help defend my position, but I know you remember your English classes, which taught you English grammar and syntax. Remember that that the first sentence of a paragraph is your topic sentence, while the following sentence go in detail about the topic. Keep that in mind when you read Romans 12:1-8.

Romans 12:1-2 NIV (1984 ed.)-
¹Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. ² Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. ³ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. ⁴ Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶ We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. ⁷ If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; ⁸ if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully

Remember that the first sentence of the paragraph is the topic sentence. Paul’s topic sentence, if I may summarize Romans 12:1, is a command to offer their bodies as living sacrifices, which is their spiritual act of worship. Also remember that the term “living sacrifice” is a paradox. Both the Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, familiar with the Jewish and pagan sacrificial system respectively, would tell you a sacrifice is not at all living, but it is very much dead. The term living sacrifice needs explanation, and Paul does so in Romans 12:2. A living sacrifice, to paraphrase Romans 12:2, is someone who no longer conforms to the pattern of the world, but is transformed by the renewing of the mind. That’s all internal, so how does someone live that externally? Romans 12:3-8 explains how to live out their spiritual act of worship.

12:3. Paul address the believers here on a personal level, as if he were there, speaking live to each one individually. Verse 3 begins with “For the grace given me.” Grace can mean, when used as an object like it is used here, “a spiritual gift that the Lord has given out of his graces.” Considering the rest of the paragraph goes on to talk about spiritual gifts, this definition would work here. With grace and spiritual gifts in mind, Paul issues a command to his readers. In this command, Paul plays around with a couple forms of the word σωφρονέω (sophroneo) “think” in this verse.  Since God has graced everyone with spiritual gifts, Paul commands everyone to not think of himself more highly than he ought. The idiom, “Don’t get a big a head” fits here. Christians with an inflated ego have no place in the church! Instead of having a big head, Paul instructs the believers to think of themselves in “sober judgment.” The Greek word for sober judgment, σωφρονεῖν (sophronein), might more literally translate to “sound thinking,” but many other words could communicate “sound thinking.” Paul picks this word for a good reason. To use another metaphor, the believers in Rome, especially those with sign gifts, might have become egoholics, drunk with their own ego. In this command Paul instructs the Christians in Rome to sober up their judgment with sound thinking.

Verse 3 closes with the phrase “in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” The measure of faith does not mean that people can have different amounts of salvation. The measure of faith does not mean that other people can have different levels of faith. Rather, quite the opposite. We all share the same faith, no matter how different people in a church can be. This faith levels the playing field for all Christians within a church. This faith is what qualifies us for our spiritual gifts, give us our spiritual gifts, and it determines how much or little we should use our gifts. Once again, the measure of faith gives us a healthy balance on how to think of ourselves with our spiritual gifts. A healthy way of viewing yourself is to is to view you as God views you. Not only does it give you a healthy self-esteem, but it also prevents you from getting a big head. This balance of humility and self-esteem should also give a healthy awareness of the importance and significance of the Christian contributing to the church. This will be helpful to remember as we enter our talk about spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts help give a healthy balance between humility and self-esteem. We should not think of our spiritual gifts more highly than they ought to be, but we should use them with sober judgment, in accordance to the faith God has given us. Remembering that the Holy Spirit empowers us with our spiritual gifts to glorify God keeps us in check. We cannot use our spiritual gifts to glorify ourselves, for that’s now what they are meant for.

12:4. Verses 4 starts off by emphasizing one body has many parts. This emphasis is to demonstrate that each body part has its own function, and therefore each body part has a different use for the body. A body all of one body part would not function, so a healthy body needs different body parts with different functions. The body parts work together to serve the body, not the body serving the body parts. When the body is healthy, the rest of the members are also healthy.

12:5. Verse 5 explains the illustration in verse 4. Just like a body has distinct body parts to perform certain functions, so the metaphorical Body of Christ, the church, has many distinct persons that come together to form one body, the Body of Christ. Just like the body has a diversity of body parts, they are all unified as one body. Unity in diversity will become the theme for the rest of the paragraph. God intended the Christian to be a communal one, not an individual one. Christians need the church, and the church needs Christians. When the distinct Christians in the church come together to build up the church or advance the kingdom of God, that’s what unites them in Christ. The metaphor of the body also reminds us that the Christian is to serve the church more than the church is to serve the Christian. When the Body of Christ mutually dependent on one another’s spiritual gift, you have a healthy Body of Christ. But once again, this can only happen if every Christian within the church views themselves and their gifts in the light of the grace God has given them.

12:6. Verse 6 begins a run-on sentence, which will not end until verse 8. Note how this verse starts off with “the graces given us,” whereas verse 3 begins with “the grace given me.” The same grace that made Paul who he was now worked wonders through the church at Rome. Verse 6 utilizes a beautiful wordplay. The Greek word used for spiritual is gift is χάρισμα (charismata), and the Greek word is χάρις (charis). This word play reminds the reader that God’s grace is the source of our spiritual gifts. This word play also reminds the reader that the purpose of God giving spiritual gifts to Christians is that so the Christian may by the tool or method of God’s blessing. Therefore, we should our spiritual gifts to grace others with God’s grace. Verse 6 brings the passage back to the individual level. Each individual believer has his or her own unique, distinct spiritual gift. Christians shouldn’t fret of what spiritual gifts that don’t have, what spiritual gifts other have, or even how other Christians use those other gifts. Nothing can be worse for a church when a Christian over-emphasizes or belittles a spiritual gift, whether that be someone else’s spiritual gift or his/her own. The Christian’s only concern is that he or she is using his or her own gifts, and he or she is using those gifts actively and energetically. In light of the previous verses, however, the reader needs to remember that such a spiritual gift needs to be utilized as God intended.

Paul lists prophecy as the first spiritual gift. Indeed, the Greek word used here is the word which transliterate and translate to get the word “prophecy.” Someone might be tempted to think of prophecy as simply predicting the future accurately, like a fortune teller, but prophecy meant so much more than just that. In fact, prophecy can talk of the past! Prophecy also included inspired utterances, and even sometimes just preaching. To sum it up in short, prophecy means proclaiming God’s message. Perhaps Paul listed this spiritual gift first because without God’s mouthpiece in the church speaking God’s Words, the church wouldn’t know how to prepare themselves to faithfully serve God. Notice how this gift is the only one that has the longest adverbial phrase “in proportion to his faith.” The phrase only appears here in the Old Testament. We know the phrase accurately translates into “measure” because it was used in the mathematics of measuring in the classical Greek period, but that doesn’t help ups theologically. We get a hint of what this means from a parallel passage about spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14. The church in Corinth was divided over spiritual gifts. Those who thought they had the “better spiritual gifts” (like prophecy) would uplift themselves because they had that spiritual gift, and they would put others down who didn’t have that spiritual gift. Maybe those who didn’t have that special spiritual gift might act or pretend like they did, just to avoid such humiliation. Paul instructs the church in Rome to that those who do not have the spiritual gift should not feel pressure to prophecy if they do not have that spiritual gift. In order to keep it in check, Paul commands those who have the spiritual gift the prophecy to use it in healthy proportion. The spiritual gift of prophecy should neither be overused or underused. It should be used in relationship to the truth already revealed to the church. By doing so, no one will treat prophecy like an extra special gift.

12:7. Paul lists teaching and service as the next two spiritual gifts. In the original Greek New Testament, the Greek word for service, διακονία (diakonia), is where we get the English word deacon. Earlier English translations would traditionally translate the spiritual gift as the gift of ministry, but modern-day English translations keep it simply to “serving.” Both “ministering” and “serving” are broad words, so neither really help understand what the  Serving might be in relationship the leadership mentioned in the next verse. Just as someone needs to lead in a ministry, someone needs to follow. Some have suggested service refers to the administrative tasks in a church. Today, this could mean everything from folding bulletins to collecting & counting the offering. Others have suggested service related to the ministry of reconciliation. If two members of the church did not get along, the deacon would step in to mediate until reconciliation is achieved. Service could also refer to caring for physical needs of the church.

Teaching differs from prophecy here in the sense a teacher transmits the doctrines and theologies that the prophet preaches, helps the church understand them, and then teaches the congregation how to live these truths out. Some interpreters have even suggested translating this spiritual gift as “mentoring,” for the teacher was more concerned about teaching the Christians how to live out the prophet’s words. Looking at this 2 independent clauses separately, the reader might forget the purpose of Paul listing the spiritual gifts. Therefore, it might be necessary to translate 12:7 as, “If God has given us the ability to teach, we should help the believers by teaching. If God has given us the ability to serve, we should help Christians by serving them.”

12:8. Encouraging could be as broad as other speaking ministries in the church beside prophesying and teaching. The gift of encouraging aims at the emotions and will. The encourager further emphasizes the what the preacher has preached and the teacher. If the prophet speaks the Word of God, and the teacher teaches them how to live out that the word, then the encourager encourages the church to heed God’s Word apply it to their lives. Encouraging is just as important as prophesying or teaching!  If God gave the believer the spiritual gift of encouraging, he or she should use it encourage other believers who need words of encouragement or the like. Someone might naturally think of the gift contributing as giving offerings, but it doesn’t need to be reduced to that. Contributing can be anything. Since God gives to his people in many forms, Christians can give in any form. In any case, if any Christian has the spiritual gift of giving, he or she should give generously and without skimping, and sincerely, without hidden or selfish motives.

The spiritual gift of leadership should not be mistaken for any official title. Paul simply instructs the believers that if any ministry in the church lacks the guidance of leadership, the church should seek someone with the gift of leadership to fill that role. Paul also commands those with the spiritual gift of leadership to govern diligently.. Instead, Paul might be simply saying, “If a ministry in the church lacks direction or goals, don’t just get anyone in the ministry to supervise them. Find a leader who had the spiritual gift of leadership to help them!” Whether that is the case or not, it is clear that the spiritual gift of leaders is not to give the Christian the power, but rather, by leading, they empower the church. The adverb diligently emphasizes that someone with the gift of leadership should not lead halfheartedly lazily. Rather, a good leader should invest his energy in serving the church in this way.

Finally, Paul lists the gift of mercy. To those with the gift of mercy, Paul instructs them to practice mercy cheerfully. Yes, that too, sounds exactly what it should be. Those with the gift of mercy should help those who need mercy from life and society, such as the poor, the hungry, the elderly, the widow and the orphan. Mercy should be practiced with happiness, smiling, and without any sadness. Those with the gift of mercy should show how grateful and joyful they are for having such a spiritual gift. Those they help do need someone to make them feel like they are a trouble or a burden. Life and society has already done that for them. A Christian with the gift of mercy should exercise his or her gift cheerfully, so the person feels loved and appreciated in this life.

If I were to sum up Romans 12:6-9, I would use the motto of the New England Patriots: Do your job. This motto helped the New England Patriots win Super Bowl LI. Simply put, the motto means that each player has an assignment, and each player is expected to execute that assignment. The players know exactly where to be. They know how to execute the game plan. They push themselves to improve their skills. See, this is why football is my favorite sport. In sports like basketball or hockey, everyone is responsible for passing, shooting, blocking and stealing, regardless of the position you play. In football, roles change with different positions. Quarterbacks are responsible to pass. Running backs are responsible to run (and occasionally catch). Wide receivers are responsible to catch the ball, and then run with it. Tight ends help the quarterback either by catching his passes or protecting him with the offensive line. The offensive line protects the quarterback. Even on defense, while everyone can tackle, sack a land intercept, the defensive line primary sacks, while the secondary primarily intercepts. What a good metaphor for the church! God has given you a spiritual gift to put you to work in the church. Now to what God has spiritually gifted you to do so.

Now that we have detailed understanding of the spiritual gifts mentioned in Romans 12:3-8, let’s put them back into context. Remember these spiritual gifts were mentioned in the supporting sentences of a paragraph. The topic sentence of this paragraph was a command to offer their bodies as living sacrifices, which is a spiritual act of worship. Put it together, and what do you get? When Christian exercise their spiritual gifts in the church, they worship God!

Therefore, I feel confident that I can make a bold statement: there is no one in the church who doesn’t like to worship! Even if you honest enough to confess “I dislike worship,” or even if you willing to admit “I struggle to worship” or “I have to force myself to worship,” I don’t believe it, and neither should the people saying those things. If you think those thoughts or feel that way, you’ve been given the wrong definition of worship. For my Church at Worship class in seminary, I studied the top 2 Hebrew words for worship in the Hebrew Old Testament and the top 2 Greek words for worship in the Greek New Testament, and from those 2 Hebrew words and those 2 Greek words, I constructed this definition: Worship is when a person voluntarily serves God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) with his thoughts, speech and actions, in a way that demonstrates loyalty, submission and honor, which only the Lord deserves. Notice my definition does not go into more detail on how to do that, and I left it that way on purpose. I believe Romans 12:3-8 teaches us that those thoughts, those words and those actions come down to our spiritual gifts, or how God made us and how God equipped us.

I can testify to this in my life. Early on, in 6^th grade, I learned that the Lord gave me the spiritual gift of knowledge and prophecy. At the time, I had no idea how to use that, except to get A’s in my Bible class at my Mennonite middle school (clearly, I did not fully comprehend spiritual gifts at the age of 12). I trusted the Lord with my spiritual gifts, and ever since, I have seen further equip men and build me up in regards to these spiritual gifts. 8 years of Bible Quizzing, 4 years of working for Child Evangelism Fellowship as a Summer Missionary, 4 years of undergrad at Lancaster Bible College and 6 years at Evangelical Seminary all aimed at building up these spiritual gifts God has given me. At this point in my life, I believe the Lord continues to push me, now asking me to earn my Ph.D in Bible. Now wouldn’t be odd if God spoke to me and said, “Graham, I have brought you through 8 years of Bible Quizzing, 4 years of working for Child Evangelism Fellowship as a Summer Missionary, 4 years of undergrad at Lancaster Bible College and 6 years at Evangelical Seminary. And now, I want you to be…A LUMBERJACK! Leaping from tree to tree!  As they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia!  With your girl by your side! Now sing: ‘Oh, I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay, I sleep all night and I work all day!’” (I’m going to stop there before it gets raunchy.) Yes, I know that’s a silly example, possibly too silly, but so many Christians act this way. Either they don’t know their spiritual gifts, or they know them but dismiss them. Either way, Christians think that their God wants them to worship contrary to how God made them or how God equipped them.

At my church, Stony Brook Mennonite Church, the New Church Development process has revealed, through surveys of the congregation, that the congregation feels like the church lack passionate spirituality and vibrant worship. Such thinking and feeling must come a wrong definition of worship. Honestly, I can’t see it. I can worship happening in the church, even where you may not see it. I see Lois worshipping when she collects the soap and the school bags for MCC. I see MaryAnne worshipping when she plans events for the women at Reach Out. I see Shawn worshipping when fixes up the church building, and I see Dawn worship as she balances the budge. I hear about Ron worshipping when I hear your testimonies about maintaining the cemetery, even if that’s mowing the lawn or adjusting tombstones! I see Lorie worshipping when she plans fellowship meals, community meals and rescue mission meals. And I see Carlton worshipping as listens to the congregation’s concerns as the member-at-large. Maybe this sounds like you. Perhaps you serve a similar role or function at your church. I want to encourage you right now by telling you are worshipping! Romans 12:3-8 teaches us that’s all worshipping. See, you can worship, and I encourage you to continue worshipping in this way.  As for me, my spiritual gifts are knowledge, teaching and prophecy. I worship by teaching Sunday School and preaching sermons. Those Sundays where I end up doing both, I always get concerns if I’m overwhelmed. That could be the furthest from the truth. God made me this way, God equipped me this way, so I love doing teaching and preaching, and I enjoy preaching and teaching because I know I worship God and serve the church by teaching and preaching. If I stopped teaching or preaching in the church, I would be doing a huge disservice to both God and the church.

Now you might be encouraged, now that you know you can worship, and you possibly have been worshipping without knowing, but you’re not off the hook just yet. If a may borrow another metaphor from the world of football, God did not create and equip Christians to become church benchwarmers. You, as a Christian are not meant to keep the pew warm every Sunday morning. I already said I would be doing God and the church a disservice if I did not use my spiritual gifts, and now I will say that you are doing your God and your church a huge disservice if you are not using your spiritual gifts. True, God does not expect you to worship or serve in a way that’s contrary to the way he made and equipped you, but he does expect you to worship and serve in the way that he has created you, especially if you know your spiritual gifts. If you don’t know your spiritual gifts, this is probably what’s hindering you from passionate spirituality and vibrant worship. Get to know your spiritual gifts, so you can worship vibrantly and serve the church. If you do know spiritual gifts, find a way use them to worship God and serve the church. On the flip side, I want you to make yourself aware of the needs within the church. Then I want you to think to yourself, “Is there anywhere where my spiritual gifts can help?” If you can honestly say no, then you are off the hook. To be sure if you are honest, I offer what I call “The Mirror Test.” Look at yourself in the mirror and say, “My spiritual gifts do no equip me for that ministry.” If you say into a mirror, and you laugh or get angry, you know you’re lying to yourself. Serve.

If you can say that without laughing or getting angry, you’re still not off the hook. Your new job is now to pray for someone to come to this church, who is spiritually gifted in that way, who can served the church in that need. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I hear an announcement in the church go something like this: “I need someone fill an opening for a Sunday School teacher. Please consider volunteering. Anyone can do it.” No! That’s not what Romans 12:3-8 says. Romans 12:3-8 says that God has spiritual gifted certain people to equip them for certain roles in the church. Not everyone can do it! I like how Bob Kauflin says it his book Worship Matters, “When Moses had to find men to oversee the construction of the tabernacle, he didn’t pass around a sign-up list. He chose craftsmen whom God had gifted with ‘skill and intelligence’ (Exodus 36:1).” God has in mind someone to fulfill that needed role in a church. That person may already attend the church, or that person may not. If he does not attend that church, God will call that person to come the church a need, and a humbly obedient Christian will answer the call. This stresses the importance of praying for needs in the church. If you serve your church and still have open spots, pray that God will fill them.

Finally, I believe one last lesson we can learn from Romans 12:3-8. Romans 12:3-8 emphasizes unity through diversity. We all come together to worship God, but we worship God different because God has gifted us differently. Therefore, we cannot tell other Christians they worship wrongly because they worship differently. Different worship doesn’t always necessarily mean wrong worship or lacking worship. Once again, I believe Bob Kauflin words it well in his book Worship Matters, “Our highest priority when we gather with the church is not our own personal expressiveness [in worship], but the privilege of serving others.” When we come together to worship, let us remember who we worship. If we concern ourselves with how people worship differently than us, our audience is not God, but ourselves.

One more football illustration to make my point. Carson Wentz is the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. When you watch him practice or warm up, you’ll see his clothing (sometimes his shirts, sometimes his cleats) have inscribed on them “AO1.” “AO1” stands for “Audience of 1.” It is Carson Wentz’s motto. It means that whatever he is doing, whether that be school or work (for him, that’s playing football) or hobbies, he does it as the Lord is his only audience. That’s powerful to hear that coming from the mouth of Carson Wentz. Carson Wentz probably doesn’t go to church on Sunday mornings to belt out praise and worship songs. On Sunday mornings, if anything, he’s probably warming up his arm. Carson Wentz, however, has discovered the beauty using your God-given gifts and talents as worship. He has combined his faith with his quarterbacking talent to worship the Lord on the playing field. He teaches a weekly Bible to his fellow players. God has accepted such an offering. Since Carson Wentz has joined the Philadelphia Eagles, 6 Eagles players have been baptized. And of course, the Philadelphia went 10-1 in their first 11 games. If Carson Wentz can worship the Lord and serve others through his God-given gifts and talents outside church on Sunday morning, we can too!

In closing, I invite you to pray. Pray that the Lord will reveal to you the spiritual gifts and talents that he has given you, whether you know of them or not. Then, pray to God, asking him to reveal to you how you can use the spiritual gifts and talents to serve the church and worship him, and also pray the Holy Spirit will encourage and motivate you to fill it. Some of you will need a tap on the shoulder, some of you will need a smack on the head, and some of you need a swift kick in the butt, but it needs to be done. Next, pray to the Lord that he may open your eyes and reveal to you ministries lacking in your church open spots in current ministries. Finally, if you can honestly and sincerely say that you cannot fill those positions, pray that God will rise up someone to fulfill those positions. May we rise up to serve the church, and thus worship God.

Living Stones (1 Peter 2:4-8)

In August 2016, the 31^st Summer Olympic games took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. One of the first games to launch the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics was cycling. Early on in the cycling route, one of the struggles the cyclists had to deal with was cobblestones. The cobblestones caused quite the havoc. They were breaking bikes. They made the water bottles fall out of their holders, giving the cyclists additional obstacles to dodge. The cobblestones caused such a hassle that when a stretch of the cobblestone part had pavement, a majority of the cyclist went out of their way to bike on the paved part than to continue on the cobblestone part. The Bible doesn’t talk about cobblestones, but it talks about another stone that starts with a c: the cornerstone. If you’re not on the right side, the cornerstone will cause you trouble, just like bikers on cobblestone, but if you’re on the right side, you’ll find attitudes and behaviors worth imitating.

I invite everyone to turn in their Bibles to 1 Peter. You’ll find 1 Peter near the end of your Bibles. In fact, it’s the 7^th to last book of the Bible. It is an epistle, meaning it’s a letter, and it’s a general epistle, which simply means this epistle is not written by Paul. It’s written by Peter to churches in what they knew back then as northern Asia Minor, but today we know as northern Turkey. Peter was probably a bishop, or overseer, of these churches. To set the scene, a new emperor has come into power, and he’s not too fond of Christians. A new persecution has broken out across the land. Peter provides hope so the Christians in northern Asia Minor can stay strong, and he also gives them instruction how to behave in such a time. Let’s look at 1 Peter 2:4-8.

While I have much to disagree with when it comes to the theology of John Calvin, one thing I do appreciate about his hermeneutics, or the process he interpreted Scripture, is that he always put God first. It’s a hermeneutic I have adopted myself, but I give it an Anabaptist-Mennonite twist. I believe the best application starts with understanding what the passage teaches about Jesus, and then to apply it, I ask myself, “How do I respond to that?” I believe Peter is thinking the same way. Peter wants all who are reading his letter to understand they are living stones. In order to understand what it means to be a living stone, Peter first wants us to understand that Jesus Christ himself was the ultimate living stone. To prove Jesus is the living stone, Peter does not turn to the life of Jesus, but rather the Old Testament. After looking at these 3 proof texts from the Old Testament, you too will believe Jesus is the living stone.

Before we get into any of proof texts, we need to talk about cornerstones, for the cornerstone are found in both texts. The cornerstone typically was a big stone that supported two walls coming together to form an angle. And when I say big, I mean big. Archaeologists found cornerstones of public buildings measuring up to 37 feet long and weighing over one hundred pounds! The whole foundation rested on the cornerstone. The whole building’s strength and stability relied on a strong, durable cornerstone. The building’s structure and design started at its cornerstone, and it worked around the cornerstone. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the 2 proof texts.

This is the Western Wall inside of the tunnels. The Wailing Wall you are familiar with are in the southern part of the Western Wall. This is more of the northern part. This specific part, the lower part of the walk on the picture, is believed to be the cornerstone of Western Wall. It is the biggest stone on the Western Wall. It is 40 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 15 feet deep. It is estimate to weigh 570 tons. Not only in this the biggest stone on the temple mount, but the biggest stone in Israel.

As a proof text that Jesus is indeed the living stone, Peter quotes Isaiah 28:16. I’m going to turn to the actual Isaiah 28:16, for the wording a little bit different. I’m not going into all the details of textual criticism, but let’s just say that Peter is most likely quoting the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament, which might have paraphrased and abridged this passage. Since our English Bibles looked at the Hebrew manuscripts first, it has the full text, so I’m going to read out of that one. In Isaiah 28, Yahweh, through the prophet Isaiah, pronounces judgment on the nation of Israel in order to warn Judah they could face the same impending doom. Assyria was on its way to conquer Israel, and Judah would be next on the hit list if they too did not turn back to the Lord. Of course, the response God wanted was a response of repentance and obedience. Instead, Judah turns to making alliances, from alliances to the foreign nations to alliances with the foreign gods. Their latest alliance was with a foreign god, the god of the death. The people of Judah believed that their alliance with the god of death would hold off their time with death. Yahweh informs Judah, through the prophet Isaiah, that if anything, by turning to the god of death, they have hurried along their own death. Rather, the Lord God calls on Judah to trust him instead of trusting in foreign nations or foreign gods. The Lord assures Judah that Judah can trust in him because he has laid a stone which will become the cornerstone and foundation. Those who believe in it, God promises, will not be in haste. Whereas the god of death will hasten Judah’s death, the living God, who has the laid the foundational cornerstone will bring salvation and not hasten death.

Now this is the part where I’d like to pause and tell you what the cornerstone is in original context (that is, how the Jews living in Judah during Isaiah’s lifetime would have understood the cornerstone to mean), but to be honest with you, no one knows! Jewish and Christian scholars alike have debate what it means. They have hypothesized the cornerstone refers to the temple, the Law, the covenant, the city of Jerusalem, the nation of Judah, faithful Jews, the Davidic king, or even Yahweh himself, but no hypothesis has brought up enough proof or evidence to stand out as the leading theory. Yet when Peter quotes in 1 Peter 2:6, and Paul quotes it in Romans 9:33, they declare, without batting an eye or breaking a sweat, “This is about the Messiah, Jesus Christ.” Therefore, many Christian scholars have sided, stating this text to be purely messianic, simply because Peter and Paul said so.

When Peter reads Isaiah 28:16 and he quotes it 1 Peter 2:6, Peter only mentions certain parts of the verse because he wants to highlight those certain parts. Peter chooses to focus on the two words used to scribed this stone: chosen (or elect) and precious (or honored). The Greek word for chosen more specifically refers to a specific one chosen out of many because it is special. The Greek word for precious means to be held in high honor. Together, the emphasis is on God’s master plan. God’s master plan always had Jesus chosen as Messiah, and his death and resurrection honors him as precious. God’s actions also differed from that of the Jewish religious leader. Where God chose Jesus and held him in honor as precious, the Jewish religious leaders of the day rejected Jesus and declared him worthless. More on that later. Instead of closing with the believers “not being in haste,” Peter closes with the phrase “will never be put to shame” as the NIV puts it (I prefer the NIV here. The Greek uses a double negative of the word “no,” which in English, best translates to “never”). The Septuagint chose a more generic word for “haste,” kataischunthēi It best translates to the word “shame,” but it could also mean disappointed, dishonored or humiliated. Put it all together, Peter makes a strong theological statement. Never has the cornerstone brought shame, disappointment or humiliation in the past, and the cornerstone will never do so in the future. God has always been victorious in the past, and so he will be in the future. Therefore, the believer will never be disappointed or ashamed for having faith in the cornerstone. The believer has nothing to fear, for security in Jesus is secured.

As another proof text, Peter quotes Psalm 118:22. From a plain reading of the verse alone, the verse already carries a great irony. The word “rejected,” used here to describe the stone, carries this idea that builders saw it and decided it was useless and good for nothing. What a twist of fate that the stone would go on to become the cornerstone, a very important and significant stone.

Let’s talk about Psalm 118:22 in its original context. Psalm 118 is what Bible scholars call a “declarative praise psalm,” meaning that the psalm is praising and thanking God for his rescuing. Both Jewish and Christian tradition states the psalm was written after the Jews returned from exile, and it was written for the first Jewish holiday the Jews could celebrate back in their home land. How fitting that holiday was the Feast of Tabernacles! Not only does the Feast of Tabernacles celebrate God’s provision of a bountiful harvest, but it also celebrates God rescuing Israel from Egypt, pulling them out of wandering in the desert and putting them in a land of their own, where they could go from hunting and gathering to growing crops, from living in tents to living in houses, and from worshipping in a tabernacle to worshipping in a temple. The Jews returning from the exile must have felt the same way. Coming out of Babylon and coming back into Israel, the Jews had many reasons to celebrate God giving them a home of their own. Coming down to Psalm 118:22 specifically, the worship leader (probably a prophet, priest or king/governor) marvels at the Lord’s decision for a people of his own. Of the great nations and empires of the world, the Lord picked the smallest. While so many of those great empires have dismissed Israel as a bunch of useless people wasting a good land (or maybe won’t even recognize them as a sovereign country!), God has made that nation the foundation of history.

When Peter reads Psalm 118:22, he reads it as if the Psalm 118:22 is looking forward to Jesus Christ, what later theologians would call reading it cristocentrically. So when Peter reads Psalm 118:22, he’s not just thinking about Israel in general, but he’s think about a specific part of Israel, specifically the Davidic king. While the foreign nations and empires rejected Israel as a nation in general, they have also rejected its Davidic king, not seeing him as a legitimate ruler. Centuries later, during Peter’s lifetime, even the rejected nation of Israel would reject their own Davidic king, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Instead of the foreign rulers rejecting the Davidic king, now the Jewish religious leaders reject him. Little they know that the man they rejected as useless and good for nothing would become the king of the kingdom of God. On the flip side, we know Jesus ministered to Gentiles: a Syrophoenician woman, a Roman centurion, even some Greeks, just to name a few. Therefore, Peter concludes the issue no longer lies in the nationality of the person, but rather in their faith. In fact, I believe a better translation of the Greek should start out 1 Peter 2:7 by saying, “It is precious to the believer, but to the unbeliever…” Those who believe will find Jesus, as the living stone, as precious. Those who do not believe, the like foreign rulers and the Jewish Sanhedrin, will find themselves in the same judgment.

For a third proof text, Peter goes back to Isaiah, but this time, he goes to Isaiah 8:14. Once again, Peter uses only the part of the verse relevant to him, so let’s read the passage in its original location, and let’s look at it in its original context. Remember that Israel has chosen to side with foreign nations and foreign gods over the true living God. By doing so, they have made themselves enemies of the Lord. So many Jews have done so, even the prophet Isaiah needs a reminder from God himself not to fall into peer pressure and do the same. In Isaiah 8:14, Isaiah describes the Lord using the metaphor of a rock, and he uses it both ways. When a rock or stone come together to make a sanctuary, that sanctuary can become a fortress of protection and security for someone. On the flip side, a rock or stone can also bring harm to a person when used as a weapon or a trap. Those who side with the Lord find themselves protected, while those who side against the Lord find themselves in danger.

Peter links the stone or rock mentioned in Isaiah 8:14 to the cornerstone mentioned in Psalm 118:22. Not only has the stone builders rejected become cornerstone, but it has also become the stumbling stone and the rock of offense. Not only has the Jesus that the religious leaders rejected become the foundation of the faith, the Jewish religious leaders’ disbelief and disobedience towards will be their downfall, just like the Jews disbelief and disobedience in the Old Testament led them to exile in Babylon.

Now it’s time to put our 3 proof texts together. Remember our hermeneutic process. We start by asking “What does this passage teach me about Jesus?” and we end by asking, “How do I respond to that truth?” What did we learn about Jesus from 1 Peter 2:4-8? Overall, we learn that Jesus is chosen and precious, or elect and honored. Yahweh chose/elected Jesus as Messiah and King of the kingdom of God, so Yahweh held Jesus as precious and honored. No shame, disappointment, dishonor or humiliation can fall on Jesus. Even when governors, kings, emperors or rulers reject Jesus, Jesus will always have the victory. All 3 proof texts defend Peter’s position that Jesus Christ is the Living Stone.

How do we respond to this truth that Jesus is the Living Stone? 1 Peter 2:5 makes it clear. If Jesus Christ is the ultimate Living Stone, then if we as Christians believe in Jesus, we too are living stones. We are precious and honored in sight of God. God holds us in high esteem. We too have been chosen and elect. God has big plans for us, better than the best we could have ever imagined. But that means we have to take the good with the bad. Just as Jesus faced rejection as the Living Stone, so we too, as Christians and living stones, must also face rejection, persecution and maybe even martyrdom. But that bad side even had a good side on the flip side. By believing and trusting in Jesus as the Living Stone, we find our protection in Him. The enemies of Jesus, however, will find themselves in harm’s way.

How do we act in response to this truth that we, as Christians, are living stones? Once again, I point you to 1 Peter 2:5. The only active verb in 1 Peter 2:5 is “offer” as in “offer living sacrifices.” How do we live as spiritual sacrifices? The other place that mentions spiritual sacrifices in the New Testament is Romans 12:1, so I suppose we go could there for more instructions, but I believe a more immediate context gives better instructions. Just look up at 1 Peter 2:1. The verse reads, “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.” Then 1 Peter 2:2 goes on to say, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.” All those words in 1 Peter 2:1 have a negative tone to them, but the word “salvation” in 1 Peter 2:2 associates with the gospel, or the good news. Put it all together. The Christian, as a living stone, offers a spiritual sacrifice by rejecting all evil and other bad things, while growing in the gospel, or good things.

While a plain reading of the text of 1 Peter 2:4-8 might have realized the same answer as looking deeper into the 3 Old Testament passages, the 3 proof texts give us an extra enlightenment. The Jews, God’s chosen people of the Old Testament, failed to live up to their role as livings stone. Not until Jesus came to this earth did God’s chosen one succeed and to live up that role. Let us, as Christians, not fail God again, but let us live up to that role as living stone.

Metamorphoo (Romans 12:2)

Ever wonder where I get my interpretation? Ever get confused how I got my interpretation? Sometimes my literal interpretation agrees with a plain reading of the text, while other times my interpretation does not sound like the plain reading of the text, and yet I still insist it’s just as literal. That’s because I consider myself a contextual literalist; I even named my blog that. If you don’t know what it means, it’s right there in the blog description: “The most literal reading of the Bible is to understand the Bible in its original context: historical context, geographical context, cultural context and literary context.” That’s a lot to talk about right now and discuss, so what we’re going to do is just focus on one: the literary. I’m going to take a passage that’s very familiar to you, so familiar that I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you have it memorized, and I’m going to use the literary context to give the verse new meaning to you, deeper meaning to you, and to give application that will hit home, and perhaps you never thought about.

What is literary context? Literary context understands that while the Bible is a divine book, a book inspired by God, it is a book nonetheless. Therefore, it needs to be treated as such. What does literary context consist? Literary context concerns itself with the genre of the book. You don’t read a fictional novel like you read a non-fiction reference book. Same goes for the Bible. All the Bible books have different genres: Law, history, poetry, prophecy, Gospel, and epistles. These need to be read differently, too. Romans, the book our passage is from, is an epistle. More specially, it’s a Pauline epistle, which is a fancy way of saying it’s a letter Paul wrote. This is key for so many reasons, but one I want you to focus on is that Paul, as a very logical man, writes out all his epistles as a logical argument. This leads into the second importance of literary context.

Literary context understands the author has arranged the text in a manner that helps communicate his message. Literary arrangement can be broken down into 3 subcategories. First, there’s immediate context. Immediate context looks at how the sentences contribute to the paragraph. Does the author write deductively, where he starts out the paragraph with his main idea, and he spends the rest of the paragraph defending it with logic and reason, proofs and evidence? Does the author write inductively, making observations and then drawing a conclusion from the observations as his main point? Second, there’s near context. Near context looks at how the paragraphs and chapters contribute to the overall message and themes the author gives in his book. Third, there’s far context. Far context considers how the Bible book itself contributes to overall message and theology of the Bible. Let’s take a look at each, starting backwards with the far context.

With the far context, we want to consider how the Bible book, in this case, Romans, contributes to the overall message and theology of the Bible. The Bible comes in 4 acts. First, there’s the creation, where God creates the world and human beings. Second, the fall happens when sin enters the world. Third, God redeems humankind from the fall. Fourth, God begins re-creating or restoring the redeemed humanity. Now these 4 acts can be seen in smaller stories, too, but simply and generally speaking in terms of the Bible as a whole, the creation part happens in Genesis chapters 1 & 2, the Fall happens in Genesis 3, the Gospels focus in on the redemption part and the Epistles focus on the restoration part. So when we consider Romans in light of the far context, these 4 acts tell us that Romans, as an epistle will heavily talk about the restoration part of God’s plan for humanity. So we must ask ourselves, “What is Romans trying to teach us about God restoring humanity?” Keep that thought of restoration in the back of your head.

For the near context, how the paragraphs relate to each other in the book of Romans, I want to outline the book of Romans. For those of you who never read the whole book of Romans, this will be extremely helpful, but even for those who have read the whole book of Romans, this will help keep things in context. We Americans in this modern day like to dissect things to analyze small parts. (I dissected a worm and a frog in 6^th grade; did you?) The only problem with dissected is that it tends to make us forget the bigger picture. This outline will serve to remind us of the big picture of Romans, and how the little part, the verse, Romans 12:2, contributes to the overall book. I see the book of Romans broken down into 5 sections. I will give each section a one-word title.

The first section, chapters 1-3, can be summed up as depravity. What is depravity? If you need a definition of depravity, look no further than the famous Romans 3:23. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Paul spends the first 3 chapters convincing his audience everyone is a sinner. See, it’s easy if Paul’s audience was all Jewish. God gave the Jews the Law, the Jews broke the Law, and thus they sinned. Paul reiterates that in Romans. But Paul’s audience is a church mixed with Jews and Gentiles. He can imagine his Gentile audience saying, “God can’t hold us accountable for any sin or wrongdoing. He never gave us the Law. Therefore, it would be unjust for God to hold us accountable.” But Paul would say it is just. In chapter 1, Paul argues that God has revealed himself (although not fully) in nature and has revealed what is right and wrong in nature (although not fully). By acting contrary to nature, the Gentiles have broken natural law and thus have sinned, too. (If you ever have the chance, read Romans 1 and take a good look at the examples Paul used to prove they acted against nature.  They are sins very relevant to the Roman culture.) Therefore, in chapter 3, Paul concludes all have sinned, and no one is righteous.

The second section, chapters 4-5, is about justification, as highlighted in Romans 5:1. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” What is justification? Simply put, the debt of your sin has been paid in full. Taking the faith Abraham had and updating to the New Covenant and New Testament, Paul explains in chapters 4-5 Christians have been justified by grace through faith, and their debt of sin has been paid in full because of the work of Jesus Christ.

The third section, chapters 6-8, start off with 2 rhetorical questions Paul imagines his audience asking. If grace is such a good thing, should Christians continue sinning to get more grace? If Jesus pays the debt of sin, are Christians now allowed to sin? Paul answers both questions, “By no means!” Paul explains now that after Jesus paid the debt of sin, the Holy Spirit began a process of sanctification, which simply means that the Christian becomes less like the old, sinful self, but more like Jesus in righteousness and holiness. To continue sinning would contradict the work of sanctification the Holy Spirit has the Christian undergoing.

 

For the fourth section, Paul takes a break to talk about the sovereignty of God. This answered an important question to the church, mainly the Jews in the church. The Jews were always told they were the chosen people of God. How come Gentiles are now entering the family of God? Paul does his best to explain this, using illustrations like a tree grafted in. But even Paul gets to a points where he has to say, “I’ve explained it the best I can, but I know I can’t fully grasp it because God’s knowledge is greater than mine. But I know God is sovereign, so he can will it to be this and still be righteous and just. So I believe it and I will praise God for it.” Paul even ends this section with a little psalm or hymn of praise.

For the final section, Paul teaches his audience how to apply this teaching, or how to live it out. This brings right up to Romans 12, the chapter our verse comes from. To transition from near context to immediate, I’ll start at Romans 12:1.

 

Romans 12:1 (NIV 1984 ed.)-

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.”

Let’s stop at “therefore.” Do you know what “therefore” means? It means “Because of this…” or “Since this…” Because of what? Since what? Everything we just discussed in the near context! See, I was going somewhere with the near context. Because you were a depraved sinner. Because you were justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Because you were sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Because God is sovereign. (By the way, did you see the work of the Trinity in there? The justification of the Son, the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, the sovereignty of the Father.) Because of all this, this is how you are to respond: offer your bodies as living sacrifices.

 

Notice I put in bold living sacrifice. It brings us to our third form of literary context: figures of speech. Literary context thinks about the use of figures of speech. If you ever want a fun experiment, record every time you say or you hear someone use a figure of speech, and imagine what would happen if it was taken literally. Romans 12:1 is so famous among Christians, I have a feeling we’ve read it so much we forgot it’s a figure of speech, but it is. More specifically, it’s a paradox, which is an oxymoron created to make a profound statement. Paul’s audience, both Jew and Gentile Christians, would immediately recognized the paradox. In their old lives, both Jews and Gentiles would perform sacrifices. In both sacrifices, the blood would be completely drained from the animal. In no way could the animal live, except by the power of God. For the Jews, it was even more provoking. They remember the Law said God found human sacrifices detestable. How could Paul now call Christian to become any kind of sacrifice? So Paul has to tell his audience what a living sacrifice is. Paul does so in Romans 12:2, our verse.

 

Romans 12:2 (NIV 1984 ed.)-

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

A living sacrifice no longer conforms to the patterns of this world, but is transformed by the renewing of the mind. Well, this in general defines what a living sacrifice is, but it still needs to specifically describe how it looks and how it acts. How does someone no longer conform to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind? To complete our immediate context, Paul uses the rest of Romans chapter 12 to provide clear, straightforward applications which would be obvious to the Christian reader, like be loving, patient and joyful. To complete the near context, Paul spends Romans chapters 13 to 16 describing in detail ways to apply this that might not make clear sense to the reader. Romans 13 is the best example. In Romans 13, Paul commands his readers to submit to the government and pay taxes. His audience, especially his Jewish audience who believes the Roman government is pure evil, might wonder, “Wait a minute, Paul, that sounds more like conforming to the patterns of the world and less like being transformed.” So Paul has to carefully explain how to submit to the government in a way that’s not conforming to the world, but is transforming.

But I believe there’s a hint right in Romans 12:2 for how a living sacrifice looks and acts. Did you notice bolded transformed? This brings up our fourth part of literary context. Literary context considers the original language of the text. To quote one of Rob Bell’s more famous sermons, “Contrary to popular belief, the Bible was not originally written in English.” Simply speaking, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was written in Greek. To better understand the context, sometimes we need to study a word in the original language. In the case of Romans 12:2, let’s look at the Greek word for transformed.

The Greek word for transformedis μεταμορφόω. In an English transliteration, which is putting the Greek word in English letters so you know what sounds to make, it is metamorphoo(except in the case, the double o, oo, make a long O sound). When it comes studying Greek words, we must first look to see if it is a compound. In English, we use teeny tiny helping to connect our subjects and predicates, our nouns and verbs. In Greek, they just tag them on the words as prefixes and suffixes. Metamorphoo is one of those examples. Metamorphoo is a compound word. The prefix, meta, is preposition meaning “above” or “beyond.” The root word, morphoo, is a verb meaning “to form.” Put it together, metamorphoo literally means “to form above and beyond,” That’s what English translations translate it as “transformed” rather than merely “formed.”

When New Testament scholars want to better understand a word, they look at how the word gets used in other New Testament passage. The word metamorphoo appears 4 times in the New Testament in 4 different books, including this instance. 2 of those instances happen in the same story, although in different books. You know that means Gospels. The word metamorphooappears in both Matthew and Mark’s telling of the Transfiguration. You remember the story. Jesus takes Peter, James and John up to the Mount of Olives. Then, all of a sudden, Jesus turns shiny glowy, next to Moses and Elijah. Both Matthew and Mark record that Jesus was transformed, that he was metamorphoo. When Jesus is transformed, metamorphoo, the disciples see Jesus in all his glory and splendor. I believe this has something to do with seeing Jesus in his full holiness and righteousness. So already, being transformed, being metamorphoo, has something to do with becoming more like Jesus, in his holiness and righteousness.

Something else we can also do to help understand Greek words, although not always, is see how we use the Greek word in English. We can’t do this always because English is not a Greek-based language, but English did borrow a lot of words from Greek. If English did borrow the word from Greek, we can look at the English use the get a better idea of the Greek word as well. Metamorphoo is one of those words. So I will provide 2 illustrations of how metamorphoo appears in the English language. Let me make a disclaimer here: None of these 2 ideas are original. In fact, these are the 2 most popular illustrations I hear when someone preaches or teaches on Romans 12:2. But I believe the reason these 2 illustrations are so popular is because they are relevant, they are applicable, and they hit home.

The first illustration is probably the most popular because it appeals to nature. Metamorphoo is where we get the English word metamorphosis from. We commonly associate metamorphosis as the process which the caterpillar turns into the butterfly.

It’s quite the process if you think about it. It’s not like the caterpillar just sprouts wings. The insect goes from a fat, furry, multi-legged, multi-segmented caterpillar to a butterfly with a sleek body and beautiful wings. What’s going on in that cocoon? Scientists, more specifically, biologists, were puzzled at this, too. So they did all kinds of experiments and observations. They x-rays, infrared scans, ultraviolet scans, ultrasounds (like it’s a baby), just to find out what’s going on in there. They discovered that while in the cocoon, the animal becomes a mush, so mushy that even with a little pin prick the creature would ooze out and die. What happens when this animal becomes the mush is that its DNA is being rewritten, just as it was written in the embryo. Ladies and gentlemen, this creature is literally being reborn (or as close to literal as possible). So our first illustration informs us that if we want to be transformed, we need to be born again.

Let me quickly remind you what it means to be born again. I’m going to throw some more Greek in here, and even a little bit of Hebrew. If it’s too much, you can ignore it, but I really think it adds something that we can easily forgot. First, to be reborn, you must repent of your sin. The Greek verb for repent, metanoeō (μετανοέω), comes from a Greek military term. The military command told the soldiers to immediately turn 180 degrees and flee. Pretty much, it’s the Greek equivalent of retreat. Both John the Baptist (Matthew 3:2) and Jesus (Matthew 4:17) both began their ministries with this command. Jesus commands us to retreat from sin. To be born again, you must turn 180 degrees, completely turning away from your sin, and flee from all possibilities of sinning. The old self lived in sin; the born again self turns from sin.

Second, to be reborn, you must believe, and I mean really believe. I notice a generation gap when talking about believing. Older generations define believing as an intellectual pursuit – it’s how you think. Younger generations understand believing to be an emotional pursuit – it’s how you feel. For the Old Testament Hebrew word, aman (אָמַן), and the Greek New Testament word pisteuo(πιστεύω), believing was both intellectual and emotional…and a third thing. It was also how you acted. As Christian author Dennis Hollinger would put it, believing is head, heart and hands. Believing isn’t just acknowledging a bunch of historical facts or doctrine about Jesus and believing is not just feeling Jesus in your heart; it’s both, and then some. It’s acting out what we think and feel. Believing is praying for rain and then leaving the house with an umbrella, even though the sun is shining. To truly be born again, you must believe, and believing affects how you think, how you feel and how you act.

Third, to be born again, you must choose to call on Jesus as your Lord. Sometimes American Christians have a habit of making the name “Lord” just an interchangeable name for “God.” But the Old Testament Hebrew word, Adonai (אֲדֹנָ֤), and the New Testament Greek word kurios (κύριος) not only can be translated “Lord” but also “master,” as in what servants and slaves called their master. Slaves and servants did not have their own will. Their will was the will of the master; they made their will the will of the master. Therefore, the master’s will and the slaves’ will was one. To be born again, you must make your will God’s will. Too often I have seen Christians do the opposite. They try to make God’s will their own, and they expect God to bless it. How much shock they receive when they don’t get what they want. Instead, if you want to be born again, you must your will God’s will. It goes back to the first point. The heart of most sin is selfishness. If you surrender your will, and the selfishness that goes with it, to God’s will, you will find it easier to repent from sin. It goes back to our second point. If you make God’s will your will, you will think like God thinks, feel like God feels, and act like God acts. You will truly believe. You aren’t completely born again until you have made Jesus your Lord and made Christ’s will your will.
 
But I know some of you are thinking, “I am born again. I have repented of my sin. I have believed with my head, heart and hands. I have made Jesus Lord and surrendered my will to his will. What does this passage mean for me?” Well, that brings us up to our second illustration. This illustration is probably the second most popular because it appeals to pop culture, more specifically 90’s pop culture. Metamorphoo, or more specifically, the morphoo part of metamorphoois where we get the English term “morphing” as in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers!

 

If during the 90’s you were too busy deciding if the better boy band was N*SYNC or the Backstreet boys, if you were too busy deciding if the better female singer was Brittany Spears or Christina Aguilera, if you were too busy deciding if the Super Nintendo was truly the best video game system, or if the Sega Genesis could truly do what Ninten-don’t, let me fill you in on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The premise of show was that after 10,000 years the evil Rita Repulsa was free, and she had one thing in mind: time to conquer earth. That’s a big problem for Earth, for Zordon, the being who put her in her prison, is stuck in an interdimensional wormhole. So Zordon calls 5 teenagers, and not any 5 teenagers, but 5 teenagers with attitude, to become the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Let me describe a typical episode, and trust me, this won’t take long, for unless the story arc took more than one episode, all the episodes. The show would usually start out one of the teenagers dealing with an inner conflict that would cause angst. They were typical inner conflicts that would cause teenagers angst in the 90’s: fear of spiders, fear of heights, pleasing the family, winning the martial arts competition, getting good grades, finding a date for the dance, etc. Rita Repulsa would take this inner conflict and turn into an external conflict by having her monster making minion Finster create a monster that would personify the conflict. Meanwhile, Rita would send her Putty Patrol to keep the Power Rangers occupied. The Putties were supposed to weaken the Power Rangers, but they always just served as warm up. When the Putties all fell defeated, then Rita’s monster was finally ready. No way could the Power Rangers defeat this monster; this monster has explosive attacks. At this time, one of the Power Rangers would yell it, “It’s Morphin time!” That’s when the teenagers would become the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers! Now they are prepared to take down the monster. Their suits defend them from the attacks of the monster, and their weapons give them the power destroy the monster. At this time, when morphed, that one Power Ranger dealing with the inner conflict discovers how to deal with the inner conflict, which in turn provides the solution to defeating the monster. Of course, Rita wasn’t giving up there. She would throw her wand down to earth, yelling, “Magic wand, make my monster grow!” The monster would grow as huge as a giant, smashing buildings. At that time, one of the Power Rangers would yell, “We need zord power!” Then Zordon would send the zords that corresponded with each Ranger’s power. Individually, these zords were pretty good, but together, they formed the megazord, and the megazord was great. It was usually when the Power Rangers came together and formed the megazord that they could take the monster down.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, it is Morphin time! Too often have too many Christians trudged through life, living and acting as if they stand alone in their faith walk. No lie, sometimes the life of a Christian can get difficult. That repenting thing I talked about earlier can get tough. Your sinful nature wants you to follow the selfish desires that lead to sin, and it can get difficult to fight that off. On top of that, you got Satan and his demons attacking you from the outside, bringing in temptations to turn from God. Truth is, Christians, God has not left you on your own to deal with it yourself. God has equipped you with every spiritual gift that you could need. Just as Zordon gave the Power Rangers their protective suits, God has given the every Christian the armor of God to protect them from evil forces. Just as Zordan gave the Power Rangers their weapons to destroy the monster, so God has given Christian spiritual gifts to demolish the temptations and sins they face. If you, as a Christian, don’t know how to use or activate those gifts, don’t worry, for you are not alone. If you are born again, God the Holy Spirit is living within you. He will show you how to use them and give you the knowledge, wisdom and power to use them. But perhaps some of you still feel alone. Even with the Holy Spirit alive in you, sometimes it’s still hard to feel God. Don’t worry, God knows, that’s why God provided the church. God has provided the church as another to see the Lord working in your life. Just like the Power Rangers could finally defeat the monster when they came together in the megazord, sometimes the solutions to the problems and needs in your life is someone in the church. I truly believe that if evil brings conflict or angst into your life, and God has not gifted you the solution, then that means God has gifted someone in your church with the solution, and God wants you two to work together to fight that evil. Heck, I believe it so much that if you have spiritual gift, it is less likely you have it to solve your problems (although if it does, good for you), and more likely to solve someone else’s problem. This doesn’t mean we go tell other people how to live their lives. Rather, the next time you hear a prayer request or a need in the church, not only pray that God would answer that prayer, but pray, “God, am I that answer to prayer?”

 

I hope the literary context gave you a new, deeper understanding of Romans 12:2. If you are not born again, I pray that you make that decision to repent of your sin, believe with all your head, heart and hands, and you make Jesus Lord, surrendering your will to his, so you can truly be born again. If you are born again, I pray that you morph, accepting the power the Holy Spirit has given you and using it when in need. Don’t worry when things get tough. You’re not alone. You have the Holy Spirit in you, and you have the Holy Spirit living in the church. Look toward the church when you have problems and needs, and in turn, look to help those in the church with needs when you have the solution. You weren’t meant to be a 90’s teenager with attitude; you were meant to be a Power Ranger. You weren’t meant to be a caterpillar; you were meant to be a butterfly. It’s morphing time! Now morph and become what God intended you to be.

3 Cultures of Head Coverings

Introduction

Going to a Mennonite church for the past fifteen years, I knew about head coverings. Most of the women there, especially the older women, wore them every time they went to church. At first, head coverings struck me as strange because I never saw women in other Christian denominations wear any head coverings. The more I thought about it, though, I did know of a religious rule that stretched across all denominations. Ever since I could remember, church taught me, as a man, to take off my hat during prayer time. I became confused on why I had to uncover my head while women had to cover their head. I became even more confused upon a clear, straightforward reading of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. I wondered why most church denominations follow Paul’s command for men to keep their heads uncovered, but so few denominations, like the Mennonites, followed through on Paul’s command for the women to keep their heads covered.

When it comes to the issue of head coverings, to get the best interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, the cultural context of first headwear needs to be considered. Figuring out that culture does not come easily, though. Corinth began as a Greek city, became a Roman colony upon the Roman Empireconquering it, and the city also had a heavy Jewish population. The culture of Corinth is multifaceted; it cannot be contained to one culture. Therefore, in order to fully understand head coverings in Corinth, first must come an understanding of head wear from the Jewish perspective, the Greek perspective, and the Roman perspective.

The Jews and Head Coverings

No verse in the Old Testament commands women to wear head coverings, nor does any verse even hint that head coverings were a regular practice. This does not mean that women did not decorate their head at all. On the contrary, the Old Testament does record decorating the hair. For example, Isaiah 3:18-24 lists headbands, headdresses, turbans and veils as items the Lord will take away from the women’s heads. By the time of the New Testament, not much had changed in the Jewish stance on head coverings. Women felt no pressure to wear a head covering or a veil. This did not change for a few centuries after the New Testament, when Rabbis began interpreting an early rule from the Mishna that an uncovered head could lead to grounds for divorce. The same goes for men. The famous skull cap which modern-day Jews wear did not become a practice until centuries after Paul’s lifetime.

While Jewish people did not see it disgraceful to not wear a cloth head covering, the Jews saw it as disgraceful for women to wear their hair down. Most, if not all, women wore their hair up with the help of a hair net. Women with their hair down brought shame upon themselves. In Numbers 5:18, a priest would let down a woman’s hair to reveal her as an adulteress. Rabbinic laws does not allow women to let their hair flow loosely because the rabbis believed that men only had the right to free, loose hair. The punishment for any wife with loose hair would be divorce from her husband. Any man who loosed a woman’s hair in public had to pay a fine. The Jewish rabbis carefully made sure women wore their hair up. Therefore, in the first century Jewish mindset, a woman covering her head might simply be her hair up on her head.

The Greeks and Head Coverings

The Greeks did not use head coverings during worship. The concept of head coverings during worship was so foreign to them that they did not understand why other religions did require head coverings. The closest prohibition was the ban of face veils in the pagan temples, as well as any jewelry meant for the hair. Even outside the temple and religious worship, Greek art rarely depicts Greek women wearing any kind of head covering in public. When they do, it depicts them wearing hair nets in order to keep their hair up. The few examples are portraits of noblewomen on coins. Since the coins only depict women of high status wearing the head covering, the head covering in Greek culture might symbolize ruling power. The same goes for veils. Women rarely wore veils in public, too.

The Greeks also had cultural beliefs about hair, and women should wear their hair. At the templeof Dionysus in Corinth, the prophetesses would perform multiple duties, such as engage in sexual acts and prophesying. In all their duties, the prophetesses would always wear their hair down, free flowing. This free-flowing hair practice lies deep with the doctrine of the Dionysiac cult. Dionysus was the Greek god of grapes, vineyards and wine. Because of the alcoholic properties of wine, Dionysus became known as a god all about setting people free. Dionysus set his worshippers free from the daily grind of life. Dionysus set them free from sexual restraints that society put on them. Dionysus set them free from the male oppression brought on by their fathers and husbands. All this became symbolized by letting the hair down and flow freely, another act of freedom. Loose hair to the Dionysiac cult worshipper meant getting far away from social norms and reconnecting with nature. After all, Greek mythology stated that Dionysus always worked with his hair down. While the female worshippers of the Dionysiac cult found freedom in letting their hair down, some Greek men found this to be offensive.

The Romans and Head Coverings

Romans art visually helps Bible readers understand the Roman culture of head coverings. A statue of Caesar Augustus making a sacrifice shows Augustus wearing a part of his toga over his head when making a sacrifice. The head of Nero, which most likely came from a similar statue, also displays the toga over the head. Many marble statues of women have been recovered from the sites of ruins. In almost all of these statues, all the women have their hair pulled back, and none of them have their head covered. Not only does art show what people look like, but all the currency of the day also depicts what people looked like. A coin with the head of Augustus shows the head of Augustus with no head covering or any head gear for that matter. Livia, the wife of Augustus, has appeared on a couple different coins. On one coin, Livia has her hair back, pinned in a knot. On another coin, Livia wears a cloth covering over her head. Augustus’s successor, Nero, appears on coins during his reign. His coins display him wearing a laurel wreath around his head. Another Roman emperor, Emperor Hadrian, is also depicted wearing a laurel wreathe on a coin. These two emperors probably established the idea that laurel wreathes on the head as a sign of an emperor.

 

 

Head coverings were not foreign to the Romans at all. The most famous head gear of the Romans is the wreath they would wear around their head. Most commonly they were laurel wreathes, but they could also be made from celery, pine and olive trees. These crowns were given to royalty and military leaders. Winners of sports games would also receive these wreathes when they won. Occasionally they would be worn in religious rituals.

In the Roman culture, worshippers did wear head coverings. These head coverings were not separate pieces of cloth. The Roman worshippers would simply pull his or her toga over his or her head. Both men and women wore this head covering in worship. While this practice was custom in worship, no rule required worshippers to wear a head covering. The only time when worshippers of the Roman gods needed to wear head coverings were during special sacrifices. These sacrifices were rare, though. Only priests would perform these sacrifices, as well, possibly hinting that only religious leaders would need to cover their heads.

More often than head coverings, Roman art displays Roman women wearing their hair up on their heads. Women hairstyles ranged between braided up and tied up, but they are always up and never covered with a head covering. Sometimes women did wear head coverings. They had special head coverings for special events. For example, brides had a wedding head covering, which was a red veil. At the same time, special events like weddings and funerals would allow women to let their hair down in a socially acceptable fashion, usually with a head covering. Men, however, kept their head uncovered at all times, even through these special events.

Conclusion

 

Despite three different cultures living in Corinth all the people of Corinth probably shared similar views on head coverings because of the similar stances on head coverings between the Jews, Greeks and Romans. Neither Jews nor Greeks nor Romans had any rule, law or command in the political realm or the spiritual realm that required men or women to cover their heads. In all three societies, most men and women kept their heads uncovered, and those who did wear coverings on their head were few. In all three cultures, women wore their hair up as the cultural norm. On the flip side, all three cultures frowned upon women who wore their hair down in a free-flowing fashion. Women who did so could bring shame and embarrassed on themselves and anyone close to them.

With a better cultural understand of head coverings and hair styles in first century Corinth, a Christian can make a better interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 and can better understand the message Paul attempted to get across to his readers. 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 could serve as another call from Paul to be counter culturally, just as Paul does in Romans 12:2. From this cultural study of head coverings and hairstyles, a Christian can safely conclude that when Paul calls for women to cover their heads, Paul calls for them to put their hair, or on the flip side, Paul speaks against worshipping with their hair down and free-flowing. Such worship the people of Corinth associated with worship of Dionysus. Worship of Dionysus included sexual revelry and liberal lifestyles. Therefore, by transitive property, women who wear their hair down got associated with sexual revelry and liberal lifestyles. Paul wanted the Christians or Corinth to display to the rest of Corinth that Jesus was nothing like Dionysus by living lifestyles completely different from the pagan worship of Dionysus. God would not tolerate such sin in worshipping him. The Christians in Corinthwere to worship the Holy One in a holy manner during worship.

Today, Christians still debate how to interpret this passage. The literalists still want women to cover their heads, whether it is a skull cap or a bandana. If they really wanted to go literally, this cultural study would tell them to cover the woman’s head, the woman should wear her hair up, not apply cloth to the skull. Yet this literal interpretation still misses the point Paul tries to communicate with the Corinthian Christians and Christians around the world. This is where the literalist answer is not the best answer, but rather the contextual literalist answer is. Paul wants to Christians to live lives counter-cultural to the world, especially in worship. Paul doesn’t want Christians merely “Christianize” a pagan religion, but rather worship in a way that is set apart as holy to the Lord. In the first century Roman Empire, it looked like women wearing their hair up, but it wouldn’t look like that in twenty-first century. To accurately apply this passage, Christians would need to figure out a way to worship God that does not conform to every other religion, including atheism, but really set them apart as Christian. For starters, this could mean rejecting styles of worship that were borrowed from other religions. Simply adding the adjective “Christian” to eastern practices like yoga and meditation that empties the mind to find inner peace does not make them Christian. After rejecting foreign worship rituals, Christian can further set apart their worship by focusing on the doctrines that make Christianity unique to other religions and find out ways to live them out. For example, since Christians believe Jesus is God Incarnate, they could worship in ways that involve both the physical body, as well as mind and spirit. Since Christians believe in the resurrection, Christians should live out a lifestyle that has them focusing on and preparing for their second life. Since Christians believe they are co-heirs with Christ, Christians can practice it by taking care of the earth they will co-reign with Christ. By practicing Christianity in this way, instead of focusing on what men and women put on top of their heads at church, Christians can truly live out Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16.

3 John: Open the Door!

Open Door Policy. This small phrase can have so many specific uses, but they all root from the same broad definition. In the broadest terms, it simply means to allow people to come and go as they please. This term has been applied to everything from politics to business. In politics, it means to allow people and trades from other countries to come and work in their country. In business, it means to allow lower employees to collaborate with employers in the business’s affairs and performances. Even colleges have adopted this definition. That’s the definition I’m more familiar with. Now on the college level, it can be taken both literally and figuratively. Literally, it means that the students’ dorm rooms’ doors remain literally open. Figuratively, it means to allow students to come and go as they please in all the dorm rooms. Either way, both are meant a more comfortable and socialable environment. Still, if it’s unclear which one is meant, confusion can ensue. I remember one time in college my roommate and I were discussing which dorm to live in for the next school year. He wanted to live in a different dorm building, but I wanted to same in the same one. When he asked what my objects were, I simply said, “The dorm has a very open door policy.” My roommate, who struggled with metaphors, replied, “No, you can shut the doors there.” Apparently, he took it to be literal, but I meant to be figuratively, to just mean people can come in and out of my room, with little to no privacy.

For an introvert who needed private time alone, I wasn’t one to want an open door policy when it came to my dorm room. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t experience an open door policy during college. My mentor in college helped me experience an open door policy. He decided it would be best for our small group to have a key to his apartment so we could go over any time we wanted, whether it be to set up early for Bible study or just to go off camps to chill out. It was only halfway through my fall semester of my freshman year, we had only known each other for a few weeks, and he already was allowing us to come over to his apartment anytime I wanted to. I remember it clearly. There it was, the key to his apartment lying on the table, no one in our small group wanting to take. Never had such responsibility and accountability been given to us! In a way, we were all afraid to take the key. But when a classmate who we only knew a little bit, who just so happened to be sitting with us for dinner, wanted to take it just so he could play my mentor’s vast library of video games, I decided that I, as the most responsible one, should be the one to guard over the sacred key to the sacred apartment. I remember thinking to myself when I first got it that I would never use the key and only go to his house when he was home and he wanted me to come over. But as the semester passed, and the years past, I found myself using the key more and more, whether it was to arrive early for Bible study or just to chill out, whether it was to go with my friends or by myself, whether my mentor was home or not. It increased so much that by the spring semester of my junior, I pretty much went over every other day, whether I needed to find a quiet place to study or I just needed to get away from the people I was living with in my quad. My mentor indeed stayed true to having an open door policy, allowing me and my fellow friends in our small group to come and go in and out of his apartment as we pleased. And so, I commend him for truly following 3 John, for 3 John itself commends anyone who has open door hospitality.

Just like I did with 2 John, for 3 John, I will merely post the introductory material in a list formation. I will only clarify and discuss more in-depth the new introductory material that differs from the other epistles. All the introductory material that is similar to the other epistles will not be mentioned again. If you want to see more information on those pieces, just simply go back to the introductions to the Gospel of John or the epistle of 1 John.

AUTHOR (WHO): John
AUDIENCE (WHOM): Gaius
DATE (WHEN): 93 AD
LOCATION (WHERE): Asia Minor (most likely Ephesus)
HISTORICAL OCCASION (WHAT): Diotrephes has taken 2 John too far to an extreme, shutting the door to true Christian preachers and teachers
PURPOSE (WHY): John wrote the book 3 John to motivate Gaius to continue showing his love for his fellow Christians through his hospitality.
PLAN (HOW): A “postcard” epistle with dichotomy and duality

Although I have said it many times over, I will say it again one more time. Even if the letter is signed, “the elder,” I am very sure that the author is John, the disciple and apostle of Jesus. The proof can be seen in everything from common theological themes to common literary devices. The date, broadly speaking (since it’s hard to exactly pinpoint dates for these books), is somewhere in the early 90s AD. Since 3 John has to be after 1 John and 2 John, and if 2 John is written about 92 AD, then 3 John must be 93 AD. Since John has been continuing his ministry in Asia Minor, the location of the epistle is in Asia Minor, most like Ephesus because tradition states John resided in Ephesus at the end of his life.

The audience whom John wrote the epistle to is Gaius. Little is said about Gaius, so little is known about Gaius. We can’t say this Gaius is the same Gaius mentioned in Acts 19:29, Romans 16:23 and/or 1 Corinthians 1:14 because Gaius was a common name back then.** The only official stuff we know about Gaius is right here in this epistle. It seems like Gaius has some kind of leadership role in his local church. Since John ministered to churches in Asia Minor, most likely Gaius lives in Asia Minor. It’s even possible Gaius might be from Ephesus if John spent most of his time there. Gaius and John also seem to have a strong friendship, as John calls Gaius his “dear friend” four times. So this letter clearly shows the close friendship between John and Gaius and what makes this letter so personal.

That naturally leads us into the historical occasion. A good historical occasion first examines all the main characters in the story, and then sees how they relate to each other. Already we have John and Gaius. The body of 3 John adds two more people: Diotrephes and Demetrius. Although both names start with a D, Demetrius and Diotrephes seem to be opposites. Demetrius is spoken as good and Diotrephes is spoken as evil. Yet upon closer examination, it’s not that simple. Demetrius seems to be a minor character in the story. All we really know about him is he is well spoken of. Many scholars believe that Demetrius is one of those traveling ministers, who traveled town to town, helping John carry his messages. So he’s not a major character in the story. Yet the dichotomy is there. So where is it, and who is it between? Have we forgotten about Gaius already? The dichotomy is between Gaius and Diotrephes. Well, what’s it over? As you can probably tell by the introduction I wrote, it’s over hospitality. This is where 3 John starts linking closely to 2 John. By this time, 2 John has circulated well over Asia Minor. Everyone has read its message loud and clear, and, believe it or not, they are accurately following through with it. The problem is, however, they have followed through it almost too well, so well that the pendulum has swung over to the opposite extreme. Now there are some Christian families that will not allow anyone in (not even other fellow Christians!) for anything. A prime example would be Diotrephes. On the other hand, Gaius has continued to be hospitable. Now the dichotomy thickens even more when we consider that both Gaius and Diotrephes have some kind of influence on the local church. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Why is one person right and the other person wrong? This is why John needs to write. He needs to explain who is right, and why he’s right, and who is not right, and why he’s not right. What it’s going to come down to is John has to clarify what he meant in 2 John.

John wrote the book 3 John to motivate Gaius to continue showing his love for his fellow Christians through his hospitality.

Just like 2 John, I decided to describe the structure of 3 John as a “postcard” epistle because it is short (at 14 verses, 3 John is the 2^nd shortest book in the New Testament) and because it is a personal letter to a dear friend. But I want to go deeper than that. Deeper than pointing out it’s a Greco-Roman epistle, with the right greeting and closing. If you take a good look at the text, you’ll notice a dichotomy or a duality forming. What’s a dichotomy? A dichotomy, as Merriam-Website defines it, is “a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities.” Simply speaking, a dichotomy is when a division happens to show similarities or differences. A dichotomy that shows differences is often called a duality because it shows the two opposites contradicting each other. Perhaps that best way to explain this is with some examples from modern media.

My first example of dichotomy and/or dualism will be a silly, funny example. Being a ‘90s kid, I naturally grew up watching the cartoon Animaniacs. If there was any time left over at the end of the half-hour show, Animaniacs would do a short segment called, “Good Idea, Bad Idea.” As the title hints, the segment would simply show a good idea and a bad idea paired up. The good idea and the bad idea paired up together would be mostly similar, but would have one little, minor detail that made them different, and ultimately make them either the good idea or the bad idea. Most of the time, it would be grammatical, a wordplay, that set them apart. For example, “Good idea: tossing a penny into a wishing well to make a wish. Bad idea: tossing your cousin penny into a wishing well to make a wish.” Another example would of the same nature would be, “Good idea: playing catch with your grandfather (as in throwing a ball back and forth between you and your grandfather). Bad idea: playing catch with your grandfather (as in throwing your grandfather back and forth with another person).” And another example: “Good idea: playing the scales on a piano. Bad idea: playing the scales on a shark.” Sometimes the difference between a good idea and a bad idea were simply because they were opposites. For example, “Good idea: alpine skiing in the winter. Bad idea: alpine skiing in the summer.” Another example would be “Good idea: kissing a loved one. Bad idea: kissing a total stranger.” A good idea and bad idea could even be separated by being out of season. For example, “Good idea: singing Christmas carols to your neighbors on Christmas. Bad idea: singing Christmas carols to your neighbors on the 4^th of July.” Or, “Good idea: finding an Easter egg on Easter morning. Bad idea: finding an Easter egg on Christmas morning.” The list could go on and on. But the point is the difference in dichotomy could be anything that separates the two, and that small degree of separation could be the difference between a good idea and a bad idea. (For more “Good Idea, Bad Idea” go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dJOIf4mdus&feature=colike for the complete collection.)

My second example of dichotomy and/or dualism is a more serious example. During my childhood, I was subscribed to the children’s magazine Highlights. Every week (apparently since 1948), there’s a small cartoon called “Goofus and Gallant.” As the title hints, the short comic is about two boys: Goofus and Gallant. Gallant is always the good example, as he is loving, kind and gentle. Goofus is the bad example, as he usually is selfish, mean, rude and inconsiderate. Most of the time, “Goofus and Gallant” cartoons intend to teach children good social skills. For example, a comic might read, “Goofus takes the last apple without asking, but Gallant shares the last orange with everyone.” Another examples reads, “Goofus leaves his toys on the ground, but Gallants picks up after himself.” Recently, Goofus and Gallant has also included good and bad examples of healthy habits to promote healthy living among children. For example, “Goofus eats candy and chips for snack, but Gallant eats fruits and vegetables for snack.” Another example might say, “Goofus sits inside and watches TV all day, but Gallant goes outside to exercise.” Whether it be social etiquette or healthy living, the comic “Goofus and Gallant” draws a deep dichotomy and duality between Goofus and Gallant to show the big difference between the right thing and wrong thing. In doing so, it is clear which option is the right one, and why it’s right, and which option is the wrong option, and why it is wrong. (For further inquiries, just search for “Goofus and Gallant” on Google Images.)

I hope the examples of “Good Idea, Bad Idea” and “Goofus and Gallant” help you understand what dichotomy and duality is. Dichotomy contrasts two opposites, and duality uses to contrast to show the good from the bad. If you need a 3^rd example, then go to 3 John. 3 John uses a dichotomy to deeply contrast two people and two examples. 3 John uses duality to clearly show that the one example is the good example because it is the right thing to do and the other example is the bad example because it is the wrong thing to do. So without further ado, let’s dive into 3 John to find the dichotomy and duality.

We can skip verses 1 and 2 because they are your standard introduction and greeting as found in a Greco-Roman letter. But once we get to verse 3, there it is, and it continues until. Because the recipient is mentioned in verse 1, we know that the second-person “you” used throughout verses 3 to 8 are indeed Gaius. Just look at some of the good things he does. Verse 5 says that Gaius welcomes all his Christian brothers into his house, even if they are completely strangers to him. Verse 6 tells us that his hospitality is not only for when they arrive, but also when they depart. When Gaius sends off missionaries on their way, he makes sure they are fully equipped for the journey ahead of them. Verse 3 states that John is not the only reference Gaius has. Any Christian who knows Gaius will attest to his faith, his love and his goodness. If the example isn’t enough evidence, and the referrals of the Christian brothers still isn’t enough evidence, then go to verses 7 and 8, for John explicitly states the importance of showing hospitality. First and foremost, the traveling preachers and teachers need the hospitality because the non-Christians definitely won’t give them help. It makes sense, too. Consider the cultural context we talked about 2 John. Welcoming a teacher into your house meant you support his teachings. Since the non-Christians do no support the Christian teachings, they will not be welcomed into any non-Christian home. Second, John recognizes that these missionaries left everything for the sake of God, so John encourages other Christians to give the same recognition. He wants them support their teachings by providing them food and shelter. In a way, it’s almost like financial support Finally, as highlighted in verse 8, John wants the Christians to show hospitality simply because the non-Christians do not. In verse 8 alone, John sets up a mini dichotomy and duality between the goodness of Christians and the evil of non-Christians. If non-Christians live out a sinful life, then Christians are to aim for holiness and goodness. Therefore, if the non-Christians refuse to show hospitality, which is the wrong thing to do, then Christians are to do the right thing, the good thing, and show hospitality. By this alone, Christians show that they are truly Christians, working for the truth, by setting themselves apart from the non-Christians.

Verses 9 and 10 are our bad example. In verses 9 and 10, we meet a man named Diotrephes. These are the only 2 verses that talk about Diotrephes (maybe because John didn’t want to dwell so much on a bad man), but it’s all we need to know about him. Diotrephes is a leader of some sorts in the local church. But the leadership has gone to his head and he’s now trying to use it to have power over all the members of the congregation. Now Diotrephes sees himself as the true head, calling himself the true, good apostle. He talks down the other apostles with false rumors in order to make them look bad. He uses 2 John for his own selfish motive and denies any Christian preacher or teacher that disagrees with him (such as the apostles John sent) hospitality. ,He even goes as far as threatening to excommunicate any Christian in the local church who does welcome any of those apostles, once again, taking 2 John too far. By reading 2 verses alone, the reader already gets a sense that Diotrephes is a jerk. And that’s what John is aiming for. The actions of Diotrephes alone are enough proof that Diotrephes is a bad example of a Christian because he gossips and lacks hospitality. And if it’s still not clear enough, John claims that the next time he comes to the church, he will make it obvious that Diotrephes is doing the wrong thing, and then will proceed to shun him.***

In verses 11 and 12, as John begins to close the body of his letter, I believe John presents Gaius with a choice. Remember that verses 3 to 8, John gives Gaius a good example, which is Gaius himself. In verses 9 and 10, John gives Gaius a bad example, which is Diotrephes. If for some reason, Gaius still does not see the good and bad example, or he does not know which example is the good one and which the bad one is, John makes it clear in verse 11. In verse 11, John simply says, “Do not copy the bad example, copy the good example” (my paraphrase). Why? All good examples of good things come from God. All bad examples and bad things are not from God. What you do reflects whose side you are on. If you do what is right and what is God, you are on God’s side. If you do what is wrong and what is bad, you are not on God’s side. Does this sound fairly familiar? It’s those common themes found in both 1 & 2 John! In both epistles, John urges the readers to accept God’s and his apostles’ teaching and rejecting the false teachers and their teachings. 3 John is no different. And remember, 1 & 2 John revealed to us that one of the ways the false teachers were at fault was because they refused to show love to their fellow Christian. 3 John reminds us that refusing hospitality to a fellow Christian is not showing love to a fellow Christian. In verse 12, the choice gets more specific with an example. In verse 12, John makes Gaius aware that Demetrius, a speaker of Christian truth, is coming that way to the church. Demetrius is a true Christian, as John and many others speak well of him. There’s the choice Gaius has to make. Either Gaius can continue following his own good example and welcome Demetrius with hospitality, or he can follow the bad example of Diotrephes and not welcome him, showing no hospitality. Now this decision might not be an easy one for Gaius. Remember what we said about Diotrephes. Maybe Gaius is afraid of showing any more hospitality in fear of being shunned by Diotrephes, which would mean being shunned from the whole church. John helps Gaius make the choice a little bit easier by, in a way, simply saying, “You know what the right choice is because you’re doing it. Keep it up.”
John closes 3 John by declaring in verses 13 and 14 that he wishes not to further write about the issue, but would rather talk about it face-to-face. So John makes a note that the next time they see each other face-to-face, they will talk about it. And as with all Greco-Roman epistles, John gives blessings to the recipient and the congregation.
Before we conclude our study of 3 John with some application, let’s sum up what we’ve read in a nice, simple outline.

I. Opening Greeting (1-2)
II. Good example: Gaius (3-8)
III. Bad example: Diotrephes (9-10)
IV. Choice: Follow good example or bad example (11-12)
V. Closing Greetings (13-14)
According to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture, a good hermeneutic shows that the theology presented in the book can be found elsewhere in the Bible. Obviously, these themes are repeated in 1 & 2 John. We’ve already talked it about a little in this commentary on 3 John, and we’ve talked about plenty in our commentary on 1 & 2 John, so we’ll skip over finding all the verses that back that. But hopefully by now you know that John has constantly repeated in his epistles that we, as Christians, must love our fellow Christians. The first quote that comes to mind is when Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love my disciples.” But then again, that’s from John 13:35, which is still John. What can we say outside John? Let’s go to my second favorite Bible character, or my favorite Bible character who wasn’t divine: Paul. Paul repeats the theology of 3 John in his letters. In Galatians 6:10, Paul says, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” In 1 Thessalonians 3:12, Paul tells the Thessalonians, “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” The Thessalonians must have heard the message loud and clear, for Paul opens 2 Thessalonians 1:3,4 declaring, “We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.” Paul was praising the Thessalonians for following the command to love one another. Paul would be very much on board with John’s message on the importance of the Christian’s love for fellow Christians.

Obviously, the message here is clearly Christian love, especially for fellow Christians. But I believe we can get a little more specific than just Christian love. I believe the message for 3 John is that our Christian love for our fellow Christians should be seen through our hospitality. Now when you hear hospitality, you might think of the spiritual gifts. Indeed, hospitality is a spiritual gift. But that does not mean only people with the gift of hospitality should be hospitable. After all, evangelism is a spiritual gift and yet Jesus commanded all his disciples to evangelize the Gospel (see Mark 16:15, for example). I think the distinction here between the command and the gift is how easy and naturally it comes. God commands everyone to be hospitable, but God has gifted some people to be more hospitable than others. For those people it comes naturally and easily. These people have hospitality flowing out of their ears. Therefore, I believe they have higher notch that they are expected to stand up to.
So let’s start with some basic ideas for basic Christians who do not have the spiritual gift of hospitality but would like to still fulfill the command to be hospitable. For these people, the first thought that comes to mind is a Scripture: Matthew 25. Matthew 25 paints of picture of Jesus separating the sheep from goats, which represents those who accept Jesus and those who reject Jesus. The difference is whether or not the fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, gave clothes to the naked, gave housing to the homeless and give visitation to those in hospital and prisons. That’s a good start. Jesus commands everyone to hospitable in those ways. Give the hungry food to eat. Give the thirsty drinks to drink. Give the homeless a place to reside. This isn’t a hand out. This is giving people grace and mercy (the same grace and mercy Jesus gave us on the cross) until they have enough time to get back on their feet. If in any way this is an handout, it would be a handout for those in the ministry, who have to focus on evangelizing and discipling people for the glory of God. We saw Gaius do it for the ministers coming into his town. Now you as Christians do it too!

Now how about those who do have the gift of hospitality, or maybe even for those who don’t have the gift of hospitality, but would still like to try to take it up a notch. Clearly Gaius had the gift of hospitality. What did he do? He opened up his house for every Christian. Maybe you’ve been blessed to have your own living space. It doesn’t matter if it’s a mansion, a townhouse, a trailer home, a condominium or an apartment. You can use that living space, no matter what size. Open it up for ministry meetings. The bigger the living space, the bigger the meeting you can have, but all homes can be used for small group meetings. You don’t have focus or worry about being the leader of the small group, for there are other people in the church that do have those gifts. Let them lead. In fact, I know some churches where the small group leader and the small group host have to be different people, for this exact reason: all people in the church have their own special role. On the base level, just opening your house is hospitality, but there are many ways you can make it deeper than that. Clean and set up your living space to accommodate everyone in the small group. Prepare food and drinks for the people in the small group to eat. Have games and other entertainment for your small group to do before and after the Bible study or prayer meeting or whatever your small group does. If you’re really trying to take it up to the highest notch, see if you can have an open door policy on your house. Allow people to come over whenever, for whatever reason they want to come over. Now there’s also ways to be hospitable without necessarily owning a living space. Then your job is to be a greeter of sorts. Introduce yourself to new people. Always welcome people that come into the house or the church. Make them feel invited. Introduce new people to everyone. Heck, these work even if you are the owner of the host place. Your goal in hospitality is to make an environment where people feel loved, welcomed and comfortable. By doing so, you should also aim to help improve relationship with other people in your small group.

It’s easy to say you’re a loving Christian, and it’s easier to think that you’re a loving Christian. But it’s not until you prove it with your actions. What a better way than through hospitality. Hospitality really does set us apart from the non-Christians. Not every non-Christian will invite other people in their home, even if there are similarities. But we as Christians do have similarities. The bond Christians share with other Christians through the blood is Christ is stronger than any other bond between people. So let us not just talk about it, but let us live it out. Let us show the world Christ’s love by showing them it in action between Christians. And what a better way for us Christians to stand out by showing hospitality to one another, a hospitality between Christians that will make non-Christians want to become Christians.

* Once again, let me give proper credit to where credit is due. The idea for the title of this commentary comes from the “Keyword Learning System” by Walk Thru the Bible. They too wrote that the theme of 3 John was “Open the Door.” I don’t feel bad “copying” them because I don’t feel like I “copied” them. If we believe that the Bible is objective, absolute truth, then everyone, when doing proper exegetical and hermeneutical study of the Bible, should reach the same theology. Just as they reached the theme “Open the Door,” so did I.

** If one of these verses might be talking about the same Gaius, it would Romans 16:23 because that Gaius is also mentioned as a hospitable man. Two reasons, however, get in the way of this conclusion. First of all, this man seems to be more associated with Paul than with John. If that’s the case, he might be the same Gaius as mentioned in Acts 19 and 1 Corinthians 1, but that would make him even further than the Gaius in 3 John. Second of all, Roman is for a church in Rome, and 3 John is for the churches in Asia Minor. These are 2 distinctively different regions, so they can’t be the same person. More evidence says that the Gaius in Romans 16:23 and the Gaius in 3 John are two different men.

*** Some scholars have suggested that Diotrephes is a false teacher who has managed to sneak himself in the church and been able to climb up to a leadership position. They provide two pieces of evidence. First, they declare that John says he will nothing to do with the church, hinting at everything from ex-communication to apostasy (falling away from the faith). Second, in verse 11, they claim that John implicitly and indirectly calls Diotrephes an evil man, who has not seen God. I can see where they are coming from, but I’m not sure I’m ready to commit to this myself. I think moreso he’s struggling with sin. Power has gotten to his head and made him do sinful things. As I also said above, I think Diotrephes is taking 2 John to too far of an extreme. So, yes, he’s sinning, but no, he’s not fallen away or a false teacher. But I also believe that either way, the message and themes found in 3 John do not change.

2 John: Shut the Door!

Ever slam the door in someone’s face? I did once. It’s one of those things you look back now and laugh, but no one was laughing back then. It was the summer between 7th grade and 8th grade. During that summer, my sister’s friend, who lived right down the street, would come up the street, knock on the door, and ask if my sister could come out to play. Usually, my sister would answer the door and go out to play, but for this one week, things were different. My sister had gone up to Spruce Lake for a week-long summer retreat. Now everyone in my family told my sister’s friend that my sister wasn’t going to be here all week, but that didn’t stop my sister’s friend. She would still come up every day and ask if my sister could come out to play. And every time, someone in the family would have to remind her that my sister was gone for the week. Not that it changed anything; she kept ccoming back every day. Well after a few days of this, I couldn’t take it. The next she came knocking on the door, I answered mid-knock, opened the door, yelled, “SHE’S NOT HERE!” (before the girl could say anything), and slammed the door! Well, my dad overheard and was not happy with me for doing that. Especially since his mother, my grandmother, was staying with us for the week and overheard it as well (I guess he was embarrassed). Needless to say, next time I saw her, I had to apologize or face being grounded.

My dad was displeased beecause slamming the door is considered rude. And for the most part, it’s true. But honestly, how many times have you wanted to slam the door in someone’s face, no matter how rude it is? If we were to play a game of Family Feud, and I were to ask the question, “Name a person you would want to slam the door on,” possibly answers would be Jehovah’s Witnesses, door-to-door salesmen or court officers delievering subpoenas. Would you believe John would give us, Christians, permission to slam the door in someone’s face? Slamming the door doesn’t seem Christian, but John would want us to slam the door for good reasons. Who would John want us to slam the door on? False prophets and false teachers. Why would John want us to slam the door in their faces? In order not to be deceived by their false doctrine and false practices. How do we know that John would want us to slam the door? Read 2 John.

Alright, let’s start as I always like to start with introducing the historical and cultural context of the Biblical setting. Let’s ask ourselves the who, whom, where, when, what and how. Some of this information is the same as 1 John and/or the Gospel of John. If that’s the case, please take a look at the introductions for those books. Other information will be brand new to 2 John. That I will briefly mention here.

AUTHOR (WHO): John
AUDIENCE (WHOM): The Chosen Lady and Her Children
DATE (WHEN): 92 AD
LOCATION (WHERE): Asia Minor (probably Ephesus)
HISTORICAL OCCASION (WHAT): Concern that the family and the church would welcome false prophets and false teachers into the house and into the church
PURPOSE (WHY): John wrote the epistle of 2 John to motivate the chosen lady and her children to continue to reject false teachers and their teachings.
PLAN (HOW): A “postcard” epistle.

The author who wrote the epistle of 2 John is still John, the Apostle, disciple and first cousin to Jesus Christ, despite the epistle signed “The elder.” This has been thoroughly discussed in both the introductions to the epistle of 1 John and the Gospel, so go back to those introductions if you want the full discourse on those. The date when the epistle was written was 92 AD. It was written after 1 John, and 1 John was written about 91 AD, so naturally, we’ll say 2 John is during 92 AD. Where we last left John in 1 John, John was in Ephesus. We know John’s letter is circulating in Asia Minor. John himself is also circulating through Asia Minor. So the epistle of 2 John is most likely written in Asia Minor and is circulating in Asia Minor. If we had to be more specific, 2 John was probably written and started in Ephesus, just like 1 John.

The plan/structure is an epistle. It has the typical Greco-Roman epistle: first line is the sender, second line is the recepient, and the third line is the greeting. It has the closing greetings. It even has the body opening on a positive note. I call it a “postcard” epistle because this letter is extremely short, like a postcard. It’s so short, it doesn’t even have chapter numbers (or it’s just one chapter, depending on how you view it). The epistle consists of 13 verses and 245 words, making it the shortest book of the New Testament. As your Bible might show you, it can easily fit on one standard piece of paper. Heck, it probably could all fit on a postcard if you wrote small enough! This is probably because many themes are repeated from the last epistle, 1 John. The length can be explained by the author, date and location, but it also helps with the audience.

The one I do want to spend time on is the audience whom John wrote the epistle to. The text of 2 John says in verse 1b, “To the chosen lady and her children.” The question that arises is whether to take it literally or metaphorically. If taken literally, it is a family of a mother and her children. If it is to be taken metaphorically, it is the church. The chosen lady is the church itself, and the children are the church members. After all, the church many times in the New Testament is referred to as the bride and the wife of Jesus Christ. In the Greek, the epistle is adressed to “Ekleta Kyria,” which literally translates to “Chosen Lady.” Some has suggested that, if taken literally, the woman’s name might be Ekleta or Kyria, but that might be taken it too literally. Intersting enough, Kyria, which is translated “lady,” is more than just a synonymn for “woman” or “girl.” It is the term for an upper class woman of high status. It is the female eqivilent of “lord.” This seems like further proof for the metaphorical argument. The epistle does use both singular pronouns and plural pronouns, but that could favor both sides. Verse 10 mentions a house, and a literal house, so literalist would say that it’s a woman and her children and her house. Yet the metaphorical view could easily bounce back, stating churches met in houses all the way up to the 300s, for it wasn’t until the 300s that churches met it separate buildings. I’m going to stick the literal approach. My proof lies within the other background information. The date reminds us that 2 John comes after 1 John. While this seems obvious, it carries an important fact. 2 John comes after 1 John, and yet it is shorter and it repeats most information found in 1 John. Why repeat a letter with less information? The small body of text represents a small audience. It is truly a postcard epistle. The truths in 1 John are quickly applied to the family unit in 2 John. 2 John motivates the family to keep up with the good and persuade them to get rid of the bad. The epistle gets very personal, so personal a person can only get that personal with a few individuals. Besides, good hermeneutics say to keep everything as literal as possible unless you have good reason to believe it’s figurative. I believe the evidence for the literal interpretation outweighs the metaphorical interpretation. the audience is a lady and her children, and chosen lady, or elect lady, means she is saved and a born-again Christian. And we get the vibe her household is saved and born-again as well.

The historical occasion isn’t far from the historical occasion from 1 John, so we’ll keep this short. False prophets and false teachers were, for the most part, still circulating around Asia Minor. The text  hints that, for the most part, the churches in Asia Minor had resisted these false teachers. But perhaps they weren’t resisting them enough. The false prophets and false teachers were still floating around Asia Minor. John, and maybe other elders and apostles, might have been concerned that if any church members would be as so kind as to let the false teacher stay at their houses or share a meal with them, they would start listening to the false tachers, which would then lead to falling away from the truth faith and taking up a false religion. To illustrate using the terms of a familiar story, John didn’t want the hole in the dike to flood the whole town.

That naturally leads us to the purpose, or why John wrote the epistle. The big change from 1 John to 2 John would be the key verb. I changed it from “persuade” to “motivate.” What’s the difference? Persuade means, “You’re doing the wrong thing! Try doing the right thing, which may just be the opposite thing!” Motivate means “You’re doing the right thing! Keep it up!” Motivate could be a simple encouragment to keep doing the same thing, or it could mean to take it up to the next level. You’re going to notice that even before we reach the halfway point of 2 John, John has already praised the chosen lady and her children for walking truth AKA following 1 John. This is why I take the audience as literal. 2 John repeats 1 John in a paraphrased way, but makes it more personal, in order to give personal examples. Since they seem to be mastering 1 John, John invites the chosen lady and her children to take it up to the next step, as found in 2 John. At the basics, it’s the same as 1 John: reject false teachers and their teachings (such as Gnosticism and Docetism), love one another and obey God’s commandments.

Alright, let’s dive into the text. We can skip the first 3 verses because we already mentioned it all in the introductory material. And those first 3 verses are the typical start of the typical Greco-Roman epistle, so we’re on the right track. Let’s stay on that track.

Even though this epistle not a Pauline epistle, but rather a general epistle (“general” here pretty much means “non-Pauline epistle”), someone could easily mistaken this epistle as a Pauline epistle. Why? Mostly all of Paul’s epistles (Galatians is the exception) start with some positive word of reaffirming, congratulating the audience of something they are doing right. John does this in verse 4. In 2 John, John praises the chosen lady and her children for following God’s commandments, just like John commanded in 1 John. This further supports the the purpose. The family isn’t doing anything wrong, so they don’t need to be persuaded turn from the wrong thing to the right thing. They need to be motivated to continue doing the right thing.

John moves the chosen lady and her children to take the next step up by focusing on another aspect of John’s previous epistle. Which aspsect is that? John wants the family to focus on loving thy neighbor. John has no worry about the household having problems to carry this out. In verse 6, John ponts out that if people want to truly love their neighbors, the best way to do so is to follow God’s commands. Since the family is already following God’s commmands, it shouldn’t take much of a transition to go from keeping God’s commandments to loving thy neighbor.

May I pause to make a quick aside? The Theological Interpretation of Scripture (T.I.S., for short) states that a good interpretation of a Scripture passage looks at its contributions and correlation to the overall Bible and the Christian’s overall theology, as found in creeds. So according to T.I.S., this aside is neccessary. Go to Matthew 22:37-40. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus answered that the first great commandment was to love God, but in a close second, the second greatest commandment is to love thy neighbor. Jesus even says that all the other commandments in the Law and the Prophets all circulate around these 2 commandments: loving God and loving your neighbor. This is why John is so sure that the chosen lady and her children in 2 John can love their neighbors. Since they are already following God’s commandments, they have the ability and have the power to love their neighbors.

Let’s go back to 2 John and pick up in verse 7. Here, in verse 7, it’s more helpful to have a literal translation, like the ESV, NASB or KJV, because the dynamic eqivilencies, like the NIV will leave out the transition words (although the 2011 edition of the NIV does give a transiton). In the Greek, the transition word that starts off verse 7 is hoti. Literal translations of the Greek word hoti translate it as “for,” but a better translation would be “because.” Either way, the point is that there’s a link between verse 6 and verse 7. Verse 7 talks about false prophets and false teachers who refuse to recognize Jesus was human. These false teachers will eventuall become known as Docetists. So what’s the connection? As John was showing in 1 John, John is making the correction between doctrinal theology, social theology and moral theology. If one theology goes bad, it will spoil the whole bunch. The Docetists might just seem to have bad doctrinal theology, but John warns his readers to think about the consequences. Remember 1 John revealed to the reader that the false teachers who denied Jesus was God or human also believed Christian fellowship was not needed, and they also believed that God doesn’t care about sin so much they a person could sin with no effect. John personally warns the family in 2 John of this. Don’t fall for their false teachings, for they might take  you away from loving your neighbor and keeping God’s commands. So instead, John encourages and motivates the household to simply keeping hold on to what they are doing, and to make sure they don’t follow the false teachers. If they do, they will keep the reward they have now. If they don’t, they will lose it.

In verse 9,  John uses an interesting phrase: “Anyone who runs ahead.” Some of the Doecetists and Gnostics were suggesting that they had spiritually advanced, so much that some were claiming that they had even surpassed Jesus himself! John points that that anyone claims that have “run ahead” of Jesus is no longer following Jesus, but doing their own thing. And their own thing is false. If they are not following Jesus, then why should any Christian follow them? John answers by repeating an idea he constantly repeats in 1 John: Anyone who does not know the real Jesus, the true Christ, does not know God. John also provides a flip-side. Those who do not listen to the false teachers and continue with the true teaching will have both God the Father and God the Son with them.

So what’s John’s advice? Do not welcome any false teacher into the house. Now we have to make clarifications here. John is not advising his audience to be mean, rude or cruel to people. If he were, he would be condicting himself in his epistle, for he commanded to love thy neighbor (and, as Jesus illustrated in the Good Samaritan parable, even enemies can be neighbors). A better understanding of this passage comes from understanding the historical and cultural context. Back then, religious leaders and philosophical teachers would travel from town to town, preaching their religion and teaching their philosophies. In a way, they were nomads, and they were dependent on people to take care of their basic needs. As we’ll discuss more with the next epistle, 3 John, people who aproved of the philosopher’s teaching would show their approvaly by showing hospitality and charity via giving them a house to sleep in and food to eat. Actually it shows approval on 2 levels. First, the act of hospitality itself was a cultural sign of approval. Second,the support allowed the preachers and  teachers to continue their preaching and teaching. So John suggests that the family should not take in any of the false teachers in order to show disapproval to their teaching and to not support the false ministry any further. But I believe there’s even more reasons to that. Possibly when the preacher or teacher stayed with a family, he would talk about what he is preaching or teaching. Anyone welcoming this man in would be influenced by his teachings, one way or another. In the case of false teachers, it would lead the family astray. Especially keep in mind that churches in the first century meet in the church members’ homes, for churches don’t meet in seperate buildings until the 300s. If any church member would allow a false teacher to reside in the same building the church meets, the false teacher could lead an entire church astray! John does not want any Christian to be deceived or fall away, so John strongly recommends that the false teachers be avoided at all costs, especially in the household. Here is an individual case where it’s OK to not to show Christian hospitality, for the consequence could be dire. Well what if someone wanted to show hospitality? John is so strongly against this motion, he reaffirms what I said above. Anyone who does welcome the false teacher in, no matter how Christian that person claims to, is showing his or her approval and support of the false teacher and his teaching. This could seriously bring the Christian’s faith into question, for a Christian would not want to accept any kind of evil.

John closes his epistle by saying that he has much more to write and he’s planning to visit soon. Perhaps that’s why this epistle is so short. He sends a letter with the main points because the issue is urgent and needs to be addressed immediately. But in his letter, he tells audience, “I’ll tell you more when I get there” becase he finds it to be a more meaningful experience to talk face-to-face. I don’t want to discuss too much further because I don’t want to distract from the main theology of the book. But maybe John does have a point. Maybe face-to-face is more meaningful when it comes to communicating truth, both socially and spiritually. It does make you think about the difference between having a 1-on-1 conversation over lunch together instead of over Facebook. But I digress. John’s last words are “The children of their younger sister send their greetings.” As mentioned in the introductory material, what this means all depends if you take the audience of “the chosen lady and her children” to be literal or figurative. If it is literal, then it is the chosen lady’s literal sister and and literal children, perhaps another familyJohn is close friends with. If you take it figuratively, then it is another church.

Alright, let’s draw back to the overall theme and grab some application out of it. But first, let’s make a connection to the modern day with a modern-day scenario to show why John insisted so strongly to resist the someone with different beliefs. Imagine, if you a will, a hindu man wants to stay in your house. You decide to let him because, after all, it’s showing Christian hospitality, right? But it’s not as eas as you think. He’s started putting up his hindu god idols around your house. When you say grace for meals, he prays out loud to his gods as well. When you have small group at your house, he also brings in his hindu friends for prayers and worship to their gods. When he runs into your neighbors, he tries to convert them to your faith. All those months and years you’ve spent building up a positive Christian in your community has gone down the drain! Now remember I said that it’s possible this lady’s home served might have served as the meeting place for the church. So now apply the same scenario to your church. Your church allows a Hindu man to reside in your church. But during his stay, he’s set up a Vishnu statue right in front of the cross. He prays in the sanctuary to his gods. He holds worship downstairs while your church worships upstairs. Weak-minded Christians could fall away! Non-Christians could be confused and deceived! See why John is so concerned?

While that example might be an extreme example, an example that drives closer to home would be the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who come door to door, wanting to talk to you. How do you deal with them? The scholarly and intellectual Christians will try to counter-convert the Jehovah’s Witness with an apologetic of their own faith and also disproving the Jehovah’s Witness theology. The hospitable Christians will invite them into their house, serve them, and politely listen, but in their minds, they are disagreeing, and as the Witnesses leave, they throw out their literature. Other Christians might do something else. For example, they might simply appeal with a heart-felt, emotional story. What would you do?

Here’s some suggestions I would make, for encountering any false teachers, and I base them all off of 2 John. It all comes down to showing love to thy neighbor, but also not showing approval of what they are teaching. First of all, don’t be mean or rude. That’s not showing love to your neighbor. It also could be a big turn-off for them future coming to the faith. Loving your neighbor can simply be treating them like human beings. So how do you not show approval and do it nicely? Try asking a question that stumps them. Find a question they cannot answer but you can. Use that oppurtunity to talk about your faith. Be aware if they are around young and/or immature Christians, and don’t let them speak in front of them. You can invite them to church or small group, but do not allow them to talk, even if it is a discussion-oriented small group or church. As harsh as that sounds, it would be the crack that would allow deception in the church. If you find yourself uncomfortable making such a request, then do not invite them. The church needs to be preserved. If they find it unfair that you can talk about your faith and they can’t talk about theirs, then level the ground by not talking about your faith. But that doesn’t mean you have to stop living it out. By living out your Christian life, especially including Christian love and Christian hospitality, you can be just as powerful a witness to Christ. Live out that Christian faith especially where their faith fails. John (kind of) suggested this. He knew the false teachers weren’t loving their neighbor and resisting sin, so he called the true Christains to love neighbors and resist sins. Find out where the faith fails and show how the true Christian life is better. Altogether, remember you’re not simply trying to prove them wrong and yourself right. You’re trying to win over another soul to Christ. And as John reminds, make sure we perserve the church as we do so! After all, it’s not worth it to lose many followers in order to gain a few. If none of this works, and you can’t think up any better ideas, then maybe the last thing to do is kindly say “no thank you” and shut the door. Once again, it goes back to perserving the true believers, including yourself.

I leave you by concluding our study of 2 John with a summary of the whole book. You’re doing good keeping God’s commandments and seeking holiness instead of sin. Live it out by loving your neighbor. Do not do anything the false teachers do, such as deny the humanity or deity of Jesus, not love thy neighbor, or sin willingly. In fact, if you encounter any false teachers, shut them out and avoid them altogether, in order that you may be perserved and not deceived. I greet you with warm welcomes. If you have any questions, comments, concerns or criticisms, feel free to post them in the comments, or contact me directly. May we continue to preach and teach  the true Christ.

P.S. I shall give credit where credit is due. The idea of “Shut the Door” for the theme of 2 John comes from Walkthru the Bible’s Keyword Learning System. They, however, use the phrase “Bolt the Door” instead of “Shut the Door.” But I thought “shut” went better with my introduction and application, so I went with that instead.

1 John: A Three Ring Circus

Have you ever been to a circus? I haven’t been to a circus since I was a little kid, and I barely remember those. In the past, back in the day (and maybe even today, too), circus tents were circular in shape, and within the circular circus tent was three rings. In these rings, the circus acts were performed, all at the same time. With all the crazy circus events happening at the same time, it’s turned the term “three ring circus” to mean “a situation characterized by confusing, engrossing or amusing activity.” I wouldn’t describe the Bible as the latter definition, or the informal definition. But 1 John does have something similar to the former definition. In 1 John, John seems to running three shows at the same time, yet they are all in the same Biblical “tent” and they all agree with the rest of the Bible, with no contradictions. And as of a matter of fact, there are three in 1 John. But these three are not 3 rings, but 3 theologies.

Before we look at the 3 theologies, let’s once again remind every of the introductory information that we started out with. It might just help us understand the theology John is throwing at us.

THE AUTHOR (WHO): John

THE AUDIENCE (WHOM): Christians in Ephesus(and possibly all Asia Minor)
THE LOCATION (WHERE): Ephesus(and possibly all Asia Minor)
THE DATE (WHEN): 90-91 AD
THE HISTORICAL OCCASION (WHAT): False teachers teaching false theology, such as rejecting Jesus as God/man/Christ, as well as de-valuing the Law and fellowship
THE PURPOSE (WHY): John wrote the book of 1 John to persuade Christians in Ephesus to continue believing that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, and to love God and other people by not sinning against them.
THE STRUCTURE (HOW): A three-theology epistle

As I have mentioned before, a lot of times the structure of the Bible book could be displayed in an outline. But as I have also mentioned, 1 John is notorious for being difficult to outline. It would seem that John is all over the place. But he’s not. Instead, John mentions all 3 theologies in each chapter to display how all these theologies are interwoven and how they all display the character of God. So instead of attempting to outline the epistle, let’s look at the 3 theologies John spends most of his time focusing on, and then see if we can draw any conclusions out of it. The 3 theologies can be titled and categorized as following: doctrinal theology, moral theology, and social theology.

Doctrinal Theology.In Ephesusduring the 1^st century, mainly two different types of false teachers arrived. The one was an early form of Gnosticism, and the other was an early form of Docetism. The early form of Gnosticism preached that Jesus was only human and never God. Docetism preached that Jesus was only God and never human. Either way, John points out that both theologies deny that Jesus is the Christ, whether they do so intentionally or not. In 1 John 2:18-28, John uses the term “Father” and “Son” showing that Jesus has the same deity as Yahweh. In 1 John 4:1-6, John declares that Jesus came from God in the flesh. He also declares this an essential, orthodox belief in Christianity. Later on 1 John 4:14-16, John continues to say that it’s the deity of Jesus that makes him the Messiah and the Savior of the world. John concludes the doctrinal theology in 1 John 5:5-12 by stating that eternal life can only be obtained if Jesus is the Son of God. By clearly stating the facts that Jesus is God, human and the Christ, John also swiftly rejects anyone who preaches differently. Those who preach differently are liars (2:21), antichrists (2:22), of the world (4:5), and not of God (4:6). John declares these people not Christian, so true Christians should even listen to them. That is how important the deity and humanity of Christ is to Christianity. Without it, Jesus can’t be the Christ and can’t be the Savior of the world, which would leave humanity doomed.

Moral Theology.False teachers were also coming in proclaiming that since Jesus died on the cross, God no longer cared about sin. So a person could sin as much as they want, and God wouldn’t care. John devotes all of chapter 1 alone to get rid of this theology. In 1 John 1, John calls people who continue to sin liars who don’t know God or the truth. This applies to both the false teachers and all who follow the false teachers. In 1 John 2:12-17, John urges Christians to continue to overcome sin and not return to their old sinful lives. In 1 John 3:1-10, John urges Christians to purify themselves from sin. Those who do continue to sin are lawless (3:4), does not see or know God (3:6), is of the Devil (3:8) and is not born of God (3:10). Once again, this applies both to the false teachers and those who follow the false teachers. John concludes the moral theology of sinlessness in 1 John 5:2-4. In these verses John says the only way to love God is to obey His commandments and not sin. A true believer loves God, so if that believer loves God, he or she will avoid and overcome sin, and not fall into it. God does care about sin because He cares about the well-being of His people.

Social Theology. Somewhere between the false doctrines, a false social theology had slipped in. False teachers were also preaching that Christians only needed God, so they didn’t need to love other Christians or fellowship with other Christians. John simply states the facts. In 1 John 2:3-11, John says that a Christian cannot love God if a Christian cannot love his or her fellow Christian. In 1 John 3:11-24, John tells his Christian readers that they must follow the good example of love that Jesus provided, and they must not follow the bad example of love, as found in the story of Cain. In 1 John 4:7-13, John states that Christians must love other Christians because it is the sign they are Christian, for God is love. John even ends 1 John 4 by commanding Christians to love another, for anyone who doesn’t is a liar.

So what does this tell us about God? Well, a lot. The doctrinal theology tells us that God is concerned with truth. It also tells us that Jesus, God the Son, is just as much as God as the Father is. The moral theology reminds that God is holy and righteous, and He will not tolerate sin. The social theology teaches us that God is love, and so God expects His people to love one another just as God loves them.

So what does that mean for modern-day Christians in the 21^stcentury? Well, lucky for us, epistles are as straight-forward as application can get. John wants all Christians to follow all 3 theologies he presented in 1 John. Although it’s not threatened like it was in the earlier centuries, today’s Christian need to believe that Jesus is both God and man. It should be in every church’s faith statement and it should be discussed when evangelizing. Today’s Christians must also not take a liberal view of sin. If God does not tolerate sin, then neither should Christians. Yet at the same time, Christians today should not take a legalistic view of sin, for it does not accurate represent the compassion, mercy and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even though going to church does not save a person, no one should separate themselves from church. Christians must keep coming together in Christian fellowship and in Christian love. If we do, it can be a powerful testimony to the world around us.

1 John 5: Water + Blood + Spirit = Baptism

If you look about halfway down the 1 John 5 in the NIV, you’ll notice that the last section is titled “Concluding Remarks.” This section title could be an accurate title for the whole chapter because it seems like John is simply repeating and summarizing what he’s taught so far into a nice conclusion. Yet John does have morsels of new information in this chapter. I’m not going to spend on reviewing the old information because I’m saving that for a grand conclusion on the epistle of 1 John. Instead, I’m going to pick out one of the morsels of new information and expound on that. I’m really excited about the morsel I picked because it centers around my Mennonite beliefs. The verses I have chosen are 1 John 5:6-8.

1 John 5:6–8-

This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

The Mennonites believe heavily the Jesus to show the way how to live and bring about God’s Kingdom in our behavior. To them, Christ’s life on earth is a demonstration on how Christians should live their lives. I also firmly believe in this, believing that Jesus never asked His disciples to talk or act differently than He did. Jesus walked the walk as much as Jesus talked the talk. This doctrine provides a wonderful answer to the question, “Why did Jesus get baptized?” Most Christian denominations recognize baptism as a public sign that shows confession and repentance of sins, dying to the old, sinful self, believing in the Lord Jesus, and rising up to new life in him. If baptism has a lot to do with rejecting sins and the sinful nature, then why did Jesus, who perfectly sinless, have to get baptized? The Mennonite doctrine gives us a simple answer. Jesus was setting up an example. Jesus wanted his followers to live exactly as he did. So if Jesus wanted his followers to get baptized, he needed to get baptized as well. Jesus did get baptized, and therefore Christians need to be baptized, too.

When most people think of baptism, they think of water. The thought of baptism might even spark a debate among Christians on which method is the right method to baptize someone (sprinkling, anointing, dunking, etc.). The Mennonite Confession of Faith chooses not to debate those methods of baptism, but it does look at 3 different types of baptism. It is a baptism of water, a baptism of blood and a baptism of Spirit, as written in 1 John 5:6-8. Jesus got baptized in all 3 ways, and so Christians need to also be baptized in these 3 different ways.

Let’s start with Jesus because Jesus is our example. Jesus received all 3 baptisms. The first and obvious baptism is the baptism of water. Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by his second cousin John the Baptist at the age of 30. This baptism signified the start of Christ’s ministry. When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit rested on him in the form of a dove. This is the baptism of the Spirit, the Spirit testifying about Christ’s baptism. If this is not enough proof, throughout Christ’s ministry, Jesus preached on how the Holy Spirit testifies about him. Even after Christ’s earthly life, the Holy Spirit continued to testify about Jesus in the same way. So without a doubt, Jesus had baptism of the Spirit. The third baptism was the baptism of blood. This event is also an obvious one. Christ’s baptism of blood was his crucifixion on the cross. 1 John 5:6-8 says that these 3 baptisms serve as a testimony that Jesus was the Christ. The book of Deuteronomy states that a testimony needs 2 or 3 witnesses to verify the testimony as truth. John declares that the baptism of water, Spirit and blood testify that Jesus is the Christ. Considering the context, John has once again shot down the heretical false teachers that deny Jesus is human, God or the Christ, for John has provided 3 witnesses that say differently.

Now just as Jesus was baptized 3 ways, the Christian life calls Christians to also be baptized in those 3 different ways. First of all, there’s water baptism. Just like the Lord’s Supper, the Mennonites see baptism as a symbolic. I’ve noticed that the more symbolic something comes, the less emphasis is put on it. I also see baptism as a symbolic sign, so I therefore also see that baptism is not required for salvation. Once again, I will always point you to the criminal on the cross who recognized he was a sinner and that Jesus was the holy God. He did not get baptized, yet Jesus said he would be in paradise. Water baptism is not required for salvation, but it is highly recommended for those who can to do so. Why? First of all, Jesus did it, and if we are able to, we need to follow His example and do exactly what He did. Second, the symbolism behind it displays who we are as Christians and what it means to be Christian. Just as we “bury” ourselves in the water when we perform baptism by dunking, so we die to our old lives of sin. Just as we anoint ourselves with water to when we performing baptism by pouring, so we set ourselves apart for serving the Lord (in Old Testament times, anointing was a symbolic sign to show that the person was consecrated and dedicated to the Lord for His service). Just as water cleans things (dishes, laundry, etc.), so baptism represents that we have been cleansed of our sin. Third, baptism displays the person’s faith publicly, to the church and to the world. Baptism becomes an action that defends the belief. In a way, it is proof to the belief. If the baptism is done in a really public place, like an outdoor place, it can even be an evangelistic witness to the world. Fourth and finally, baptism can be identification in the church. When a person is baptized, the person shows that he or she is one and the same as all the other people in the church. The similarity is that they’ve all been baptized. It’s a spiritual take on the saying, “Blood is thicker than water.” If blood is what connects the physical family, then water baptism is what connects the spiritual family.

Second of all, there’s the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This baptism is a required baptism because it is the “proof of purchase” that the person has been saved. All Christians receive the Holy Spirit when they are saved. If someone does not have the Holy Spirit, they are not saved. The Holy Spirit is needed in the person’s life, for the Holy Spirit is the one who makes the person a new creation. The Holy Spirit baptism literally does what the water baptism symbolically does. The Holy Spirit kills the sin within us. The Holy Spirit washes us clean of sin. The Holy Spirit sets us apart and makes a new creation for the service of God. The Holy Spirit unites a Christian with the rest of the body of Christ. What is the relation between water baptism and Holy Spirit baptism? Do a read through of the book of Acts, or at least a quick skim. You’ll find out that people received the Holy Spirit before, during and after water baptism. It is never too late for either water baptism or Holy Spirit baptism.

Last of all, there’s the baptism of blood. The baptism of blood has a rich history with the Mennonites. Back when the Anabaptist movement (which would birth the Mennonite denomination) began, the Anabaptist beliefs weren’t accepted by other church denominations. These churches would persecute, even martyr, Anabaptists who didn’t agree with their faith statements. Yeah, that’s right, Anabaptists were being tortured, even killed for baptizing adults, calling the Lord’s Supper symbolic, and putting God and His Law over the government and its laws. After all, heresy and treason were one and the same during medieval times. Thus, the Anabaptists, and later on, the Mennonites, held strongly to the baptism of blood. Just as Jesus was persecuted and martyred for his teachings, so Christians must also be willing to accept persecution and martyrdom for holding on to the true teachings of Jesus. Just as Jesus was baptized by blood in his crucifixion, Christians must also be willing to give up their lives in the same way.

When the rest of the Christian world finally figured out that the Mennonites had it right the whole time (notice how most evangelical Christians, who are the majority of Christianity today, practice adult baptism and hold communion to be symbolic), the persecution of Mennonites decreased greatly, and Mennonites no longer were killed or tortured for their faith. So what was to become of the baptism of blood? Was it only to be conditional? Was it to be voluntarily or optional? The Mennonites turned to verses like Romans 12:1. In Romans 12:1, Paul calls Christians to become “living sacrifices.” The paradoxical term simply means to yield your personal wants and needs in life and to give them up for the sake of God and His kingdom. The Gospel accounts further continue this idea, when Jesus tells the disciples to “take up their cross” (see Matthew 10:38 and Mark 8:34). Once again, the term simply means to give you all to God. Just like you are dead to your sins and alive in righteousness because of Jesus, you are now dead your personal needs and wants and you’re now alive to glorifying God and advancing His kingdom. The baptism of blood means that you reject the ways of the world and accept the ways of God, even if it comes to your own personal life. This also still retains its original meaning, for if rejecting the world and accepting Jesus means persecution and death, the Christian must willingly face it. A Christian who has been baptized by blood has willingly taken on the life of the suffering servant, just like Jesus lived out. This also unites fellow Christians.

Baptism is not as simple as being one-fold. Baptism is three-fold. Baptism consists of a baptism of water, a baptism of the Holy Spirit and a baptism of blood. These 3 baptisms serve as witness. Jesus received all 3 baptisms. They witnessed that Jesus was the Christ. Anyone who also receives the same 3 baptisms has witnesses that declare that the person is a Christian. Whether you’re a Mennonite or not, I encourage everyone to receive these 3 baptisms. Be baptized with the Holy Spirit by accepting Jesus and being saved from your sins. Be baptized with water, and make your faith public to the church and to the world. Be baptized by blood, and adopt a life where you’re willing to do anything for God and His kingdom, even if it means suffering.

1 John 4: A True or False Test

Who likes tests? I bet a few of you do. As much as people, especially students, hate to take tests, tests serve an important role. Tests reveal how much a person knows or how much a person has learned. Tests can also reveal a lot about a person, like the person’s identity. In 1 John 4, John poses a test. But this test isn’t just for people, it’s also for spirits.

Let’s set the scene and remember the context. The church in Ephesus (and possibly other churches in Asia Minor) was plagued with false prophets. Some of these false prophets might have even been former church members. They were claiming to be full of the Holy Spirit and to be bringing the good news, but their gospel message was much different from the one all the other apostles were presenting. Some of them were denying the deity of Jesus, while others were denying the humanity of Jesus. Some of them were teaching that sin didn’t matter to God, while others were preaching that loving fellowship is not needed. This left Christians in Ephesusvery confused on who to listen to.

John knew the first step was to distinguish between a true apostle and a false apostle, a true teacher and a false teacher. Remember how John said 1 John 3 that children of God are of God, but children of the world are of the Devil? John wants the reader to apply that same principle to teachers and apostles. The true teachers are the ones who have the Holy Spirit. The false teachers do not have the Holy Spirit, but have the Devil. So the key is to distinguish between the Holy Spirit and the Devil, for that will reveal if the teacher is true or false. John gives an easy test that will hit home to the problem at hand. John declares that anyone who acknowledges Jesus is the Christ in the flesh is from God. Those who cannot acknowledge Jesus is the Christ cannot be from God, but rather from the Devil. Instantly, John declares anyone who denies the humanity of Jesus cannot be a true teacher. That person must be a false teacher. Well what about those who deny the deity of Jesus? Actually, John’s statement cuts down those people as well. A lot of Jewish tradition in the first century said that the Messiah, or the Christ, would have some kind of divine origin. John uses that tradition to display the truth that if Jesus is the Christ, then Jesus is God. So John finds it essential that every believer must acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, for it also acknowledges Jesus is God. If a person cannot acknowledge Jesus is God, the person is not a true believer and is not to be listened to.

It’s a simple as this. The Holy Spirit is God. God cannot tell a lie, for all God speaks happens. So God will always tell the truth. Since the Holy Spirit is God, the Holy Spirit will always speak the truth. And the truth is that Jesus is the Christ, both human and God. So anyone who declares that as truth, they must be speaking from the Holy Spirit, and thus, they are of God. Satan is the father of lies, and all he can speak is lies (see John 8:44). Therefore, since Jesus is God and man, Satan will never confess that. Satan will always deny that Jesus is God, that Jesus is human, or both. Thus, anyone who also says the same thing is speaking the same language as Satan. In 1 John 4:3, John calls this “the spirit of the antichrist.” Yes, anyone who makes false claims denying Jesus his deity or humanity is the opposite of Jesus, and just as bad as the Antichrist.

John gives an example in 1 John 4:4-6, and what better example than the audience themselves. Look carefully at 1 John 4:4-6. Notice John’s careful use of voice in the pronouns. Every time he speaks those of God, he uses the pronoun “we.” Every time he talks about those of the world, he uses the pronoun “they.” John displays a sharp contrast between the Christians and the people of the world. John makes it clear that because the rest of the world speaks differently than the Christians, it doesn’t make the world right and the Christians wrong. Truth is not a democracy. Something isn’t right because a majority of people says it’s right. True truth comes from God, and that truth will always be true, even if it’s the minority. In fact, John says that holding on to the true truth will help the Christian overcome the world, even if that truth is the minority in comparison to the truth of the world.

Doesn’t this sound like a plague the 21^st century church deals with a lot? In the early 1800s, a doctrine known as “utilitarianism” arose. The philosophy of utilitarianism believed that what is moral, what is right and what is true is whatever brings about the greatest overall happiness and approval within the community, both the local community and global community. Thus, something “immoral” could technically become “right” if anyone in the community would approve and be happy with the results. I do sometimes think that a lot of truths in the Bible have come under fire because they do not make most of the world happy. It’s like the world is saying, “If it was your Bible, Christians, everyone would be of accepting of (issue)” (homosexuality, for example). Don’t worry, John warns us his Gospel and his Epistles that the world will act that way. The real crime is what the liberal Christians the liberal churches do. Not wanting to be unpopular, unliked, or the odd man out, they have compromised their faith and agreed with the world. Do you not know, liberal churches, that you have sided with the Devil? The world is going to speak differently because they are not of God, but of the Devil, who is the price of the world. Thus, to agree with the world is to agree with the Devil and to disagree with God, or to side with the Devil and to be against God. Liberal churches, you are not doing the rest of greater, universal church a favor. You have made the truth, and the churches who hold to the truth, look like biased bigots, while in reality, you are lying to the world to fit into the world. I beg you, liberal churches, listen to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, and come over to the truth. Then you can be united with your fellow Christian brethren, and together, we can be a light to the world. (Before I move on, let me say that utilitarianism within itself is not bad or evil. In fact, utilitarianism can be an apologetic for God’s Laws. It’s when utilitarianism conflicts with God and His Laws that it becomes an evil.)

John provides another test in 1 John 4 to see if a person or a spirit is really from God or from the Devil. That test is love. John simply states, “God is love.” He says in 4:8 and 4:16. In Greek, “God is love” is an equitive sentence, meaning that John is saying they are equal. God = love. John provides proof God is love in 1 John 4:9,10. God loved us so much He sent His Son Jesus down to earth. Now remember in heaven Jesus is king and everyone and everything in heaven worships and adores Him. Yet He willingly left His throne in heaven to come down earth, a place that hated Him, abused Him and mistreated Him. But that’s not all. Jesus would go to the cross and died a slow, painful, agonizing death in order to pay for our sins. Now that’s love. John’s proof also serves as John’s example. Therefore, just as Jesus demonstrated God’s love, than if we, as Christians, truly have the Holy Spirit within us, we are also to love. John means this so much that if a Christian cannot love another person, (s)he is not really a Christian, but rather a child of the world. Those who cannot love do not know God, but those who do love have God the Holy Spirit living within them.

There you have. There’s the two tests. The first test is that a true Christian will confess Jesus is God, man and Christ. The second test is that a true Christian will love other people. If (s)he does both, (s)he is a Christian. If (s)he cannot, (s)he is of the world, and of the Devil.

1 John 3: Think, Say, Do

What is sin? As simple as that question may be, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of Christians wouldn’t have a good answer for it. Some might be left speech, while others might give a long and complicated answer, while others might just go off naming as many examples possible. When I worked for Child Evangelism Fellowship, they taught their summer missionaries an easy way to teach children what sin is. The definition would always start, “Sin is anything you think, say or do…” and it would end with a few variations, like, “…that does not please God” or “…makes God sad” or “…breaks God’s law.” I always liked the definition’s beginning because it was holistic with our thoughts, speech and actions. Now think about the opposite. What is righteousness? What is holiness? Once again, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot Christians would be unable to produce a good answer for question. They would either be speechless or give me an answer that is long and more complicated than it needs to be. What if we were to take that definition for sin, turn it around and make it the opposite? What do that do the trick? I think it would. Righteous and holiness is when we think, say and do things that please God, that make God happy and that keep God’s law. I think this does work, and my proof is 1 John 3.

I always like to say our identity defines our actions, or who we are defines what we do. John might be thinking the same thing because he starts of chapter 3 by describing Christians with a title. The title John uses is “children of God.” It means Christians are born of God the Father and they are a part of his family. In the second half of the verse, John puts use to the title to explain why Christians aren’t accepted by the world. Christians, the children of God, are born of God. Those of the world are not born of God. Therefore, they do not recognize God. Thus, anyone who acknowledges God will be rejected by them. In verse 2, John further explains that since God has not been fully revealed, Christians, in a way are not fully revealed yet either. When God does fully reveal Himself, Christians will be revealed fully too. This truth is so strong that when God does fully reveal Himself, and when God fully reveals Christians, we will find out we are so similar to God. John says that Christians should live on the hope of this.

Now we have defined who we are, we can now describe what we do. Since we are children of God, we will not sin. John breaks this down nicely for us. God is righteous and holy, or perfectly sinless. The Devil is evil and sinful, as he was since the beginning of the creation. Those who choose to live righteous life are the children of God, for God is sinless and the children of God are like God. Those who chose to live a sinful life are the children of the Devil because the Devil is an evil sinner and those who sin live the same life the Devil does. Anyone who lives a sinful life is not a child of God, and anyone who lives a righteous life is not a child of the Devil. Well, what is the dividing life? What separates the righteous life from the sinful life? The answer is simple: the Law. The Law defines what righteousness is. Those who live by the Law are living a righteous life. Those who do not live by the Law are living a sinful life.

Actually, it’s interesting that John uses the Greek term anomia, which translates to “lawlessness.” The word only appears 9 times in the Greek New Testament, and the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) only uses it once. The word appears the most in 2 Thessalonians 2, a total of 4 times. In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul uses anomia in a bigger phrase: “the man of lawlessness” or “the lawless one.” Both titles Paul gives the Antichrist (with a Capital A), who will appear during the end times. It’s interesting because John talks about antichrists, but he talks about antichrists (with a lowercase a) just as much, if not more, than the Antichrist (with a Capital A). I think John is linking two ideas here. The antichrists, or those false teachers who are teaching wrongs things about Christ are just as bad as the evil man who will come at the end of time. And those who do not follow the Law are as bad as both the lowercase a antichrists and the Capital A Antichrist. All of them are children of the devil and have nothing to do with God or His people.

Once again, we must be careful not to use this passage to develop a doctrine that makes Christians legalistically follow the Law. John is not saying that once a person becomes a Christian, he or she will never sin again. Not only would a doctrine like that make Christians quickly become legalistic about salvation, but that kind of doctrine would also lead Christians to suffer from lack of assurance in their salvation, as well as give Christians a great increase in guilt. Skim through 1 John 3:4-10. Notice every time John uses the verb “sin,” he also throws in helping verbs before it, like “keeps on,” “continues to” or “goes on,” to keep it in context. These type of help verbs show an action that is on-going, continual or habitual. John is declaring that those who regularly sin, or make sinning a lifestyle, are the ones who are not children of God, but children of the Devil. By declaring this, John is also reducing sin in Christians to just merely accidental or a mistake. When a Christian sins, it is a mistake, or an accident. Those “mistakes” and “accidents” are nothing to fret about, John says in 1 John 3:5. Once again, John reminds his Christian reader that when they do slip up and make a mistake, the death of Jesus atones for it.

In the second half of the chapter, John gives an example of the difference between following the Law and lawlessness. Of course, John uses his favorite example: loving your brother. First, John gives the example of lawlessness in 1 John 3:11-15. The bad example from the Old Testament is Cain. John reveals an important truth to be learned from the famous story found in Genesis 4. Cain’s disobedience to God’s Law on sacrifices led Cain to be jealous of his brother Abel. Cain’s jealousy led to anger, his anger to led to hatred, and his hatred led him to kill his brother Abel. John uses this tension between 2 brothers to show the tension between the Christians, the children of God, and those of the world, the children of the Devil. Those of the world will feel the same feelings toward Christians as the evil Cain felt toward his brother Abel: anger and hatred. This is expected to be of the worldly, but it is not the expectations to Christians, not towards the non-Christian, but especially not towards the fellow Christian. Christians are always supposed to be loving, especially towards other Christians. Those who don’t are just as guilty of murder as Cain is. John is reinforcing what Jesus taught on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:21,22.

John then gives the good example of following the Law in 1 John 3:16-20. Of course, the good example has to be the only one who was able to follow the Law perfectly on this earth. That is, of course, Jesus Christ. Well how did Jesus Christ love His people, His followers, His brothers? He laid down his life for the people who followed Him, so they could be forgiven of their sins. Therefore, just as Jesus laid down His life for people who believe in Him, so His believers must lay down their lives for fellow believers. John is reinforcing what Jesus taught His disciples in the Upper Room in John 15:13. If Jesus laid down his life for people, so Christians must follow the same lifestyle. Now while John does intend for Christians to take this as literally as possible, John also wants Christians to take this metaphorically, too, for the metaphorical meaning is just as important. The best way to put the metaphorical meaning is to use a term Paul used in Romans 12:1. Christians are called to be living sacrifices. But how do Christians go about doing that? John gives an answer for that in 1 John 3:18. I’m going to put up the verse because I believe the verse is an essential theme to the chapter.

1 John 3:18-
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Let’s make sure we are clear on what John is saying. John is not saying to stop loving people in what we say. John is saying, “Don’t just love in what we say.” I think the context might even say, “I know you got loving in speech down, but you need to know more.” Actually, within the phrase, “words or tongue” might have more meaning than you think. In the Greek, John writes, “logō mede glossē,” which literally translate into “word nor tongue.” Now, it is possible that John is simply using two synonyms to add emphasis, but maybe John means more than that. Perhaps John kept in mind that Greek philosophers sometimes thought of logos as a philosophy, or a way of thinking. If that’s the case, John is saying, “Don’t love just in your thoughts and your words, but also love in your actions.” Maybe John is paralleling words and tongue with action and truth. In that context, “tongue” moreso means lying or hypocrisy. If that’s the case, John is saying, “Don’t just love by saying the right thing to do, but actually do it! And when you do it, do it with the right heart and the right attitude, not in hypocrisy.”

You’ve all been in that kind of Sunday School or Bible Study. The leader of the class or the group has presented a Bible passage in a thoughtful and meaningful manner, making lots of observations and interpretations. And now that the lesson has come near its close, the leader announces, “Let’s go around the group and discuss ways we can apply this Biblical message to our lives.” Now I’m going to skip over my usual rant about that being a sign that the leader hasn’t really thought of his own applications, and I’m going to get to the point of what it has to do with 1 John 3:18. Plenty of times, we have all participated in these circles. We’ll listen to many ideas on how to apply Biblical truths, and we might throw in a few of our own ideas, too. But those ideas are never acted on, either by the self or by the others in our group. The minute we walk out the door, those ideas walk out of our mind, and we go back to our normal lives. John tells his readers that it’s good their thinking about those good, loving things to do, and it’s also good that they are discussing among themselves about what is good, what is right and what is loving. But now John wants his readers to take it a step further and act out what they are thinking and what they are discussing. For if they don’t, the results can be nasty. But if they do, the results will be pleasing to God, and maybe even pleasing to other people.

I’ll give you a bad example, an example of how things can go wrong if actions are never carried out. After moving into the city, my friend started looking for churches that he could connect with. On one particular week, my friend went to the nearby Baptist church. First, they had church service. During the church service, he learned that the church’s pastor was on sabbatical for half the year, so they elders had pretty much taken charge, rotating the responsibility of pastor every week. Despite the pastor not speaking, the elder speaking gave a good, meaningful message. Following church was the Sunday school, in which one of the elders led in a small group discussion on how to live out what was preached in the sermon. Once again, the discussion was very thoughtful, and the elder did a good job mediating the discussion. During the fellowship time that followed Sunday school, my friend observed a man talking to an elder. The man was telling the elder that it was discovered that bugs and rodents had infested his apartment complex. All the tenants in the apartment complex had been temporarily evicted in order to bring in exterminators to exterminate all bugs and rodents and to clean the place up, but if the place was damaged beyond repair, the building would be condemned and the tenants would be permanently evicted. The man, with nowhere to go, had checked himself into the nearby homeless shelter because he could not afford to stay in a hotel. After the man explained his situation, the elder simply replied, “Well, I’ll definitely pray for you. I wish I could do more, but since our pastor is on sabbatical, I really can’t do anything about it, but I’ll definitely pray for you.” Of course my friend was furious, so furious that he never returned to the church again. Now he was more furious that the church could operate properly with a pastor, but when he told me this story, I was furious, too, but for different reasons. This church could sit around all day and think and talk about good things to do for the community and for the kingdom of God, yet when it came to living them out, they were unable to! This is what John is trying to end!

Don’t fear, for this is not the case for every Christian fellowship. I have a good example, an example of how Christians can carry out actions. This example may not be a church, but it is a Christian fellowship in the form of a Bible study, and I believe whenever you have a group of Christians coming together in a spiritual manner, you have church, so this is still a good example. The good example comes from a Wednesday night mens’ Bible study I attended when I was in undergrad at Lancaster Bible College. There was an overall leader, but the overall leader wasn’t the one doing all the leadership jobs. He would assign people to assist in leadership roles, and this includes being the speaker. So just like the church in the bad example, speakers would rotate, but all the speakers knew the importance of living out what was being preached, and they even led in doing so. I’ll give a few examples. One week, one of the speakers in the group talked about how fortunate and wealthy American Christians are in comparison to the rest of the world. So right then and there, the leader “adopted” an overseas African child and started passing around a collection plate to pay for this African child’s education. He would continue doing this every week, and every week, people gave. In another week, another leader got up and spoke about how Christian fellowship can be the salt of the earth and a light to the world. Ever since giving that message, he would get together a weekly trip to fellowship at a restaurant off campus in order to shine that light to the nearby community. In yet another week, a third leader got up and talked about serving other people. For every following week, he would get a bunch of guys to do the dorm duties for a whole dorm section once a week. This Bible study didn’t just talk about it, but they acted upon it. This is especially important for a Bible college campus. I will admit that in Bible college, it is easy to talk about what the right doctrine is and what the right application is in class. But when students leave the classroom, students don’t know how to do anything with it except talk about it. This small Bible study was able to get the men of the college to take what they learned in the classroom, to share it to their fellow classmates, and then to join their classmates in acting it out. This is what John is talking about.

Christians have it down pat to think about good, right, loving things, and Christians got it down to discuss good, right, loving things. But to actually do, that takes the extra step. Some fail, but others succeed. Might you be stuck in this “thinking and saying” stage, but unable to move into the “doing stage”? Here’s a good hint that might be the sign you’re stuck in that “thinking and saying” stage, but unable to get into the “doing” stage. I’m taking the hint right from the bad example. How many times has your solution to a problem simply been just praying for it? Now don’t get me wrong, praying is a very important part. It confesses to God that we as human beings are weak, and we need an all-powerful God to help us do anything. Yet, at the same time, Christians have allowed prayer to be their excuse to adopt good ol’ American laziness. When Christians say, “I’ll pray for it,” that’s all they want to do, and they hope that God will divinely drop down the answer from heaven which will perfectly solve everything. I really think part of the reason Paul describes the church as the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians and Ephesians is to make the point that the church, the fellowship of Christians, can be the answer and the solution to the prayer requests. In American society, being called “a tool” is a bad thing, but the truth is that Christians are supposed to be a tool of God. God is omnipotent and all-powerful, and He can do all things, but his preferred method of choice may not always be divine, heavenly or supernatural. It may be done through his people.

So next time you hear someone has lost their job, don’t merely pray for it, but help the person look for a job. If you come upon a person who is going to be evicted from their apartment or house, don’t just pray for the person, but take the person in, and if you can’t, find someone who can. If someone’s car has broken down, don’t only pray for the person, but help find a way to fix it, and in the meantime, help the person commute to where he or she needs to go. It’s true that for severely sick people we do need to solely pray for the person to get better, for we are not all expert doctors. But that doesn’t mean we can’t cook their meals, clean their house and watch their children. These are just a few examples, and I bet there’s a bunch more to go to, but they all have a similar formula. They are all active, and none of them are passive. They take our beliefs and they act them out in our applications. Proverbs, a God-inspired book of the Bible, frowns upon laziness. I bet God makes an even bigger frown when Christians use prayer as their excuse to let laziness slip under the radar.

Both John and I are going to conclude on the same note, and that is the results. 1 John 3:23 says, “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.” I believe this is John once again summing up the 2 greatest commandments: Love God and love others. How do we love God and love others? In thought, in words and in action. By doing so, we prove we live in the truth of the 2 greatest commandments and we also please God.