Casting Crowns (Revelation 4:9-11)

Good morning! He has risen! He has risen indeed! No, I have not mixed up my Sundays. For the first 10 years of my life, I grew up in traditional German Reformed church, which meant the church followed the liturgical calendar to the letter. I understand why some Christians step away from tradition and liturgy. They feel both tradition and liturgy will lead to rote repetition of words without thinking about their meaning. I appreciate the tradition around this time of year. If you look on the liturgical calendar, today is the 2^nd Sunday of Easter. The liturgical calendar reminds us that Easter is to be remember for more than just 1 Sunday. Keeping with the spirit of the liturgical calendar, I have spent the past week continuing to reflect on Easter. As much as I kept trying to think about Easter Sunday, the Holy Spirit kept pulling me back to think about Palm Sunday. My pastor, Jim Heindel, gave a wonderfully expository, exegetical and hermeneutical sermon on the Triumphal Entry. My favorite part was when he cross referenced the Triumphal Entry with Revelation 7:9&10, which reads, “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, ¹⁰ and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” These verses remind that Palm Sunday not only looks to the past to recall and celebrate a past event, but Palm Sunday also prepares us to look forward to second Triumphal Entry, when Jesus establishes his kingdom on heaven and on earth. I wondered to myself, “Is Easter like that? Does Easter Sunday not only look back to celebrate a past even, but does Easter Sunday also point forward to a future event?” Well, I got my answer about Palm Sunday from the book of Revelation, so of course I would get my answer concerning Easter Sunday also from the book of Revelation.

If you haven’t already, I invite you to turn to the book of Revelation. Anyone can find the book of Revelation easily. Just turn to the back, and it ends the Bible as the last book in the Bible. Everyone knows the book of Revelation for its end-time prophecy, but no one should limit the book to just end-time prophecy. For starters, in the first 3 chapters of Revelation, John writes letters to the seven churches he oversees, all located in then Asia Minor, which is today Turkey. Even before John gets to all the death and destruction that make a smashing good film, John spends the next 2 chapters, chapters 5 and 6, depicting the Lord God on his heavenly throne, receiving praise and worship from the heavenly host. Chapter 4 emphasizes the Father as the Creator, and chapter 5 focuses on the Son as the Redeemer. The order makes sense. Before anyone can call Jesus Redeemer, that person first must acknowledge the Father as creator. The sinner worships the created, but the righteous worships the Creator. The sinner abuses God’s creation, but the righteous are good stewards of the creation. Revelation 4 teaches its readers how to rightfully worship the Lord as creator.

And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever. ~Revelation 4:9 ESV

Beginning Revelation 4:9 with the word “whenever” might sound like it contradicts the previous verse, which states the 4 living creatures never cease to praise the Lord. It might mean that the 4 living creatures praise God repeatedly but not continually. John input the whenever to emphasis the eternal repetition into the future. The whenever might refer to not the 4 living creatures, but rather, it refers to the 24 elders. The 24 elders receive their cue from the 4 living creatures. The 4 living creatures praising the Lord leads to the 24 elders worshipping God.

John describes the 4 living creatures’ praise as giving “glory and honor and thanks.” Giving does not mean the 4 living creatures provide the Lord’s attributes, but rather, the 4 living creatures proclaim the attributes of God. To proclaim the Lord as glorious, the 4 living creatures proclaim God as majestic and wonderful. To give the Lord honor, the 4 living creatures proclaim God’s fame and worthiness. To give the Lord thanks, they proclaim the blessings that outflow from God.

Together, John paints a picture of the Lord seated on his heavenly throne, surrounded by the heavenly host. This image should not be new to any Bible reader, it would not have been new to John. The Old Testament describes God as seated on the heavenly throne, surrounded by the heavenly host, in numerous Old Testament passages (e.g. 1 Kings 22:19, 2 Chronicles 18:18, Psalm 47:8 Isaiah 6:1-3, Daniel 7:9). What might be new, however, is adding the attribute of God’s eternity to this description. The closes in the Old Testament that happening is Daniel 4:34, where Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges the Lord’s eternity. Coupling the Lord’s sovereign rule with his eternity, John wants the recipients of his letter to clearly understand that God’s rule is not temporal, but it is as eternal as he is.

the twenty-4 elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, ~Revelation 4:10 ESV

At the same time the 4 creatures worship the Lord, the 24 elders join in worshipping God. Verse 10 repeats the same 2 attributes of the Lord as in verse 9. While this repetition from a modern perspective might sound redundant. The repetition to ancient reader would have meant John wants the reader to focus attention of these 2 attributes. John draws our attention to these 2 combined attributes for a few reasons. First, John wants the reader to contrast the Lord’s eternal reign to the temporal reigns of the kings and lords on the earth. It doesn’t matter if you think Revelation speaks to the persecuted churches under the Roman emperor, or the earth under the Antichrist during the Tribulation, or both, or anyone in between, all these reigns are temporal. God’s reign is eternal. Second, John wants to assure his reader that God is indeed the ruler over all the universe. Since God is the creator the universe, he is also the king of the universe. Third, John repeats the exact same attributes with similar actions, so they reader may also respond in a similar fashion. If the 4 living creatures and the 24 elders worship the Lord as the eternal ruler, then Christians should respond similarly.

The 24 elder do not simply worship in word or song. Their worship also contains action. First, the 24 elders fall down in worship. The verb does not mention if the 24 elders fall down by bending the knee, bowing or fully prostrate, but the verb tense clearly states that this action shall be ongoing into the future forever. Then the 24 elders cast their crowns before the throne. The verb “cast” might sound like a forceful throwing. Roman historians Cicero and Tacticus record that when kings of smaller kingdom would visit the Roman emperor, the emperor would make the lesser king lay down his crown at the throne, symbolizing submitting the power of the Roman emperor and his empire. These kings would forcefully throw their crown down, showing they followed the emperor’s commands, although they didn’t approve. Revelation doesn’t sound like that all. It really means to lay down the crown, which, if you think about it, kind of paints of picture of humbling kneeling to lay it down. Here, the 24 elders lay down the crown voluntarily and humbly. The crowns represent the power and authority to rule. By bringing their crowns to the throne, the 24 elders acknowledge God as the king of kings and lord of lords. The Lord is the only true sovereign ruler.

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” ~Revelation 4:11 ESV

To continue to emphasize God’s sovereign rule, the 24 elders address their praises to the Lord and God. Emperor Domitian used the Latin version of this total to refer to himself. John’s uses the title to affirm the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the only true Lord and God, as well as the true king of kings and Lord of lords. In the Greek, the adjectives glory, honor and power all have definitive article. A translation of that line in verse 11 could read, “to receive the glory, the honor and the power.” John probably used the definitive article to emphasize all the glory, honor and power goes to God, or to refer back to the same glory, honor and power state in verse 9. Verse 11 differs from verse 9, however, because the 24 elders worship God for his glory, honor and power, whereas the 4 living creatures give glory, honor and thanks. Giving thanks partially draws attention back to the self. The 24 elders focus all their praise totally onto God. Verse 11 goes on to explain the Lord God deserves glory, honor and power because he created all things. God’s creation demonstrates his power because he has the power to create all things. God’s creation displays his glory and honor because the creation came about as a result of God’s will. Since God created the world, only he deserves to rule the world.

At the end of verse 11, the 24 elders sing, “by your will they existed and were created.” The verbs might sound redundant to us, but they probably had meaning to the 1^st century audience. Perhaps the synonyms created a synonymous parallelism, emphasizing nothing comes into existence unless God creates it. Maybe the elders hint that when God creates something, he creates it twice. First, he creates it as a thought in his mind, and then he creates it again when he brings it into existence. The verb tense provides better hint. The first verb comes to us in the simple past, whereas John pens the second verb in the ongoing past. Therefore, John attempts to teach the reader that not only God creates all things into existence, but every living thing’s ongoing existence depends on God, too. Such a message would have meant a lot to the persecuted churches John oversaw. These churches needed to know that their evil emperor’s reign existed only temporarily, but God would preserve the church eternally through his eternal reign. God stands above all kings and lords, and kings and lords below him must submit to his good will, not their evil will.

As verse 11 close chapter 4 of Revelation, we see how verses 9 to 11 contribute to the overall message and themes in chapter 4. John highlight the Lord God as the Creator of the universe. The Lord created the world and universe out of his almighty power. Nothing exists apart from God. Because the Lord created the universe, God alone has sovereign rule over all the universe. Any other ruler, either from heaven or from earth, must submit to the will of God Almighty. Therefore, the Lord deserves glory, honor and thanks from his creation, in both heaven and earth. As Creator and Sovereign Ruler, God deserves worship from the creation as such.

As mentioned earlier, the crown in the original context of Revelation represents the power and authority to rule. To bring the truths of Revelation 4 to our 21^st century, I ask you, what is your crown? I believe your crown is anything, either material or non-material, that your take pride in.  Your crown might be a high school or college diploma. More specifically, it could be a cum laude, magna cum laude or summa cum laude GPA. Your crown might be award or trophy you once wpm competing in a sport or extracurricular school activity. You might consider your crown your job security, your tenure or your salary. You could call your house or your car a crown, especially if you worked hard to earn it. If you haven’t caught on yet, yes, I would say that any blessing the Lord has given you is your crown, but remember, God gave you that blessing to bless others and give him the glory and the honor. Therefore, just like the 24 elders, Christians need to cast their crowns before the throne of God above.

I know you might think to yourself right now, “But Revelation 4:10 says the 24 elders cast their crowns before the throne, not the multitude of Christians, like in Revelation 7:9.” I hear you. I actually wrestled with that myself, but listen to how apostles talk about crowns in the epistles-

Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. ~Revelation 2:10 ESV

I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. ~Revelation 3:11 ESV

And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. ~1 Peter 5:4 ESV

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him ~James 1:12 ESV

Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. ~2 Timothy 4:8 ESV

From all these New Testament verses, I believe that all Christians will receive crowns in the new heaven and new earth. Now if I see the 24 elders, who actually deserve the authority to rule, lay down their crowns at the heavenly throne of God, how can I keep my crown on my head? How can I not also lay down my crown at the throne of Jesus? That’s the application John wants his readers to get from Revelation. When the 4 living creatures praise the Lord, the 24 elders join in worshipping God, adding their worship by falling down and laying their crowns. The 24 elders have set an example, and the Christians need to follow that example. If the 24 elders can humbly relinquish their authority to rule, then Christians need to humbly submit all blessing the Lord has given me, whether by giving them directly back to God, or passing them off to someone else who needs that blessing. Christians need to realize the same thing the 24 elders did. All our blessing belongs to the Lord. In his sovereignty he grants it to us.

On the 1^st Sunday of Easter, a lot of churches will celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus by writing their sins on a notecard or some piece of paper, and then nail those papers to a cross. My church, Stony Brook Mennonite Church, participated in the practice. I really liked how Becca Grosh, our worship leader, reminded the congregation that nailing our sins to the cross should not be sad, like on Good Friday, but on Easter Sunday, it should be a celebration. I really liked that. Indeed, when Christians nail their sins to the cross, they should celebrate that when they come to the cross with a confessing and repenting heart, they will assuredly receive forgiveness and reconciliation. Let’s be honest, though, that’s the easy part. Born-again Christians want to rid themselves of sin. If Jesus willingly wants to take that burden, Christians will throw that burden onto him. When Christians come to the cross, however, Jesus calls them to give more than just their burden. Jesus asks for their all. In order to nail that sin to the cross, it requires to first lay that crown at the foot of the cross. To rid ourselves of sin, we must rid ourselves of our all, including our “crowns.”

When I see churches celebrate Palm Sunday by waving palm branches, I remember Revelation 7:9, and I tell them they are doing a “practice.” They practice waving the palm branches today, for one day will wave their palm branches when Jesus reigns victorious over sin and evil. I invite you to do a “practice round” of Revelation. Make a crown out of paper (or if you’re not that creative, go get one from Burger King). Next, decorate it. Then, write on it what your crown represents: your schooling, your job, your achievements, your awards, your worldly possessions. Finally, I invite to somehow symbolically lay it at the foot of the cross. If you have a cross decoration at your house, put it below it (and if you don’t, you might want to buy/make one!) Use it as bookmark in your Bible. Whatever you do, remember you participate in a practice round of Revelation 4. I can confident assure you that you will do it again in the new heaven and new earth, but then you will lay in front of the real throne of Jesus Christ.

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.

As the Eagle Catches Her Young on Her Wings (Deuteronomy 32:10-14)

Good day! Indeed, it is a good day today. After all, Psalm 118:24 declares, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad it in.” Today is an especially good day, for it is Sunday! Ah yes, Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, the day of the week Christian set apart as holy, the day of the week Christians set apart to worship the Lord and to rest. And what a better way to rest than to watch football! I’m not sure if this is a boast or a confession, but in my colleges, I could easily watch right after church, from noon to midnight. As much criticism as football players and coaches have received for working on the Sabbath, think about how many more people rest on Sabbath because they can be found sitting in the stands or on their coach, watching. It’s almost like Jesus had people like me in mind when he resurrected on Sunday, knowing the future Christians would make Sunday their Sabbath, and knowing the NFL would schedule most of its games on a Sunday.

Where I grew up, our mailing address was technically Perkiomenville, but we more like Frederick. If you’re familiar with left half of Montgomery County, my home was halfway between the Boyertown/Gilbertsville area and the Harleysville/Souderton/Telford area. If you’re not familiar with that area, I grew up about 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia. With that being said, if you knew someone who liked a sport, that person most likely rooted for the Philadelphia team in that sport. If a person liked hockey, that person rooted for the Flyers. If a person liked baseball, that person rooted for the Phillies. If a person liked basketball, that person rooted for the Sixers. If a person liked football, they rooted for the Eagles. I fell into that statistic. I liked watching football, and therefore, I rooted for the Eagles.

Another person who fell into that statistic was my Bible quizzing coach. My favorite thing about my Bible quizzing coach was that we could talk about the Bible, which made me both a better quizzer and a better Christian. My second favorite thing about my Bible quizzing coach was that when we weren’t talking about the Bible, we were talking about sports because we liked the same sports. My coach, living in Pottstown (Pottstown is probably the next biggest town to Frederick/Perkiomenville), also rooted for the Eagles. We could spend hours talking about the Eagles. I remember one time my coach turned to me and said, “You know, the Philadelphia Eagles are the most Biblical team name.” I chuckled. My quiz coach was one of those who would joke around and kid around with the guys, so I thought he was just joking or kidding. His face, however, showed he was dead serious. I stopped laughing. “OK, I’ll bite,” I said, “Please tell me how the Philadelphia Eagles have the most Biblical name.” “That’s easy,” my quiz coach replied, “The word Philadelphia appears in the Bible, and the word eagle appears in the Bible. Therefore, the Philadelphia Eagles have the most Biblical team name in sports.” To this day, I’m still not sure how much he was being serious, and how much he was kidding.

Indeed, the word Philadelphia appears in the Bible. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of you know the location of the word. The church in Philadelphia is one of the churches John addresses in the book. Might I also add the church in Philadelphia stands alone as the only church that John compliments and does not discipline. Go Philadelphia! (Not sure he would say the same about the church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania…) Indeed, the word eagle appears in the Bible, 29 times to be exact. Of those 29 times, 26 of them come from the Old Testament. Yes, only 3 times does the New Testament use the word eagle. Interesting enough, all 3 appearances happen in the book of Revelation. This is a helpful reminder that most of the times we see the word eagle in the Bible, it’s the prophets using the eagle as prophetic metaphor. The most famous instance comes from Isaiah 40:31, where Isaiah writes, “but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” As famous as that verse is, I don’t find that verse the most interesting. I find the use of eagles most interesting in Deuteronomy 32:11. Today, we’ll observe how Deuteronomy 32:11 uses the eagle as a metaphor, and we’ll observe it in its context of Deuteronomy 32:10-14.

In Deuteronomy 32:10, Moses sings, “He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness.” Where exactly the “desert land” and “howling waste of the wilderness” is has caused a lot of conversation among scholars. Most scholars (Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, David Brown, Richard Brathcher and Howard Hatton to name some) think in the immediate context and think that the desert refers to the Sinai Desert, where God established the Mosaic Covenant with the Israelites through Moses. Indeed, the Sinai desert has a lot of howling, from howling animals to howling winds. This, too, would work because, at the foundation of the Mosaic Covenant, God promised that he would provide, sustain and take care of his people, the heart of this Deuteronomy 32:10-14 passage. While a majority of scholars believe Deuteronomy 32:10 refers to the Sinai Desert, a minority of scholars dissent.  Some scholars like, Jack Deere, believe that the desert land referred to in Deuteronomy 32:10 is Egypt. For the Israelites in their slavery, Egypt was a howling waste in the wilderness. It was nowhere near the Promised Land, the land flowing of milk and honey. In Egypt, the Pharaoh, who thought of himself as a god, killed the firstborn of the Israelites. On the contrary, Yahweh, the true God, cared for the Israelites. Eugene Merrill does not believe the desert refers to any even in the Israelites’ present, but rather, it refers to their past. The Lord found the patriarchs in Genesis wandering in desert as nomads. Since then, God has focused on working his redemptive history around these people, which involves protected them and providing for them.  Still other scholars, like Carl Keil and Franz Delitzsch, thinks the first half of verse 10 should be taken metaphorically, symbolizing that the Lord found the Israelites under unfortunate circumstance, and he took them out and placed them into a place of blessing. Still, the emphasis is on a caring God.

Either way, whenever or wherever Yahweh found the Israelites, he reacted to the Israelites’ helplessness with gestures of love and caring. This picture of the Lord encircling the Israelites most likely means God put a protective shielding barrier around the Israelites, but it also has undertones of love, like Yahweh encircled Israel with his arms in a loving embrace. The last words in the Hebrew text reads “The little man in the pupil.” This saying probably came from the fact when a person looks into another person’s pupil, that person sees a miniature reflection. The English phrase “the apple of his eye” will suffice here. This end of the verse explains why the Lord took care of the Israelites: the Israelites are the apple of his eye. The Hebrew word refers to the center of the eye, or the pupil. Just as the pupil is the center of the eye, so God’s people are the center focus for providing tender care.

Deuteronomy 32:11 switches to a new metaphor to explain how much Yahweh loves his people. Verse 11 compares God’s care for his to people to how an eagle cares for its young. Eagles place their nests in high elevations, like mountains, plateaus, cliffs or just very tall trees. When the time comes for the eaglet to learn to fly, the mother eagle has many ways that she teaches the little eaglets. First, she demonstrates how to fly. A mother eagles will fly around her nest, even sometimes hovering over the nest, displaying what flight looks like. Yes, despite having quite the opposite size of a hummingbird, just like the hummingbird, the eagle can flap its wings so fast that it can virtually hover in one place. The eaglets, look at their mother ahead, will begin to realize these wings attached to their back have a purpose. They might begin flapping their wings. In fact, on the opposite end of that, eaglets separated from their mother early in life never become airborne because they don’t know how to use their wings. Second, if the eagle chicks have not yet left the nest, the mother will quite literally push the eaglet out of the nest with a nudge, and the eaglet will begin plummet from the cliff. At this point, instinct kicks in and the eaglet takes flight and begins soaring. If not, the mother eagle will not let her chick fall to its death. Rather, the mother eagle does a nose dive, so she ends up below the eaglet. She catches the eaglet on her wingspan, and she brings the eaglet back into the nest. The mother eagle understands the eaglet is not ready. Third, if the eaglets have yet to fly away from the nest, as verse 11 reads, the mother eagle will agitate the nest. She begins to take it apart piece by piece. The goal here is that the little eaglet will think they can no longer reside in the nest safely or comfortably, so it abandons the nest for a new home. Why does the mother eagle go through all this? The mother eagle’s only concern is that the eaglets learn to fly and take care of themselves. She will go to any lengths to teach her eaglet this life lesson, even if it means pushing the eaglet out of its comfort zone, even destroying the comfort zone to get it to move on in life.

The metaphor works perfectly for the Israelites. Although the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites as slaves in Egypt, it would not surprise me to find out some of them got comfortable in their slavery. In fact, Exodus 16:3 (NIV) reads, “The Israelites said to [Moses and Aaron], ‘If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.’” Yes, shortly once out of Egypt and in the Sinai Desert, some of the Israelites already complained that life got worse leaving Egypt, and they wished they could returning to Egypt! Deuteronomy 32:11 reminds the Israelites that Yahweh, like the mother eagle, had a better plan of a more fulfilling life for his children, which including the Israelites living freely in the Promised Land. This life of fulfillment would take training and discipline. The Lord used the Israelites’ time in the Sinai desert to train them and discipline them. It may not have been what the Israelites wanted, but the Lord knew the Israelites needed it. Just like the eagle, God would catch the Israelites when needed, but only when needed. When the Israelites could not learn their lesson, Yahweh provided for them, protected them and took care of them when the Israelites lived the Sinai desert, just like he did in Egypt. Also remember with this illustration that the rough desert exposes the eaglet as weak and helpless. It would never survive in the desert alone. It needs to learn survival from its mother, and when it can’t learn, it needs its mother to survive. In the same way, the Israelites needed to learn from Lord, yet at the same time they needed to totally depend on God for all things.

In Deuteronomy 32:12, Yahweh makes it clear that no foreign god came to the aid of the Israelites. God alone tended to the Israelites’ needs. Therefore, the Israelites in exchange should only serve and trust in the Lord for help. The Israelites had struggled to stay faith to Yahweh. The previous generation of Israelites forgot this when the built the golden calf. Yahweh warns the next generation to not make the same mistake. The Lord faithfully protected and provided for the Israelites; therefore, the Israelites shall faithfully worship God alone.

When the Israelites obediently trusted in the Lord, they did reap the benefits. Deuteronomy 32:13 describes those benefits. Since God, in the words of Deuteronomy 33:26, “who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty,” the Israelites would reach to the tallest mountains, in both the desert and the Promised Land. Elevation would not stop the Israelites form conquering the land. In Old Testament times, whoever conquered the high lands would rule over the lands below it. Because of the omnipotent hand of Yahweh, who is higher than any human, the Israelites would conquer those high lands, and on conquering the high lands, the Israelites would rule over the land below it. Since the Israelites would have access to the highlands all the land below it, they would also have access to all its produce and other provisions of the land. Moses carefully chooses the verb “suckle” in verse 13. As uncomfortable as this metaphor might sound, this paints a mental picture of a mother breastfeeding her child. Just as a mother shows her love and provision in one act, God’s love and provision is one in the same. You might have noticed the phrase “honey out of the rock” in verse 13. Wild honey bees in Israel can make their nest almost anywhere, even in the crevice of the rocks. Olive trees, which grew abundantly in Israel, can grow in the harshest areas, even in rocky soil, even on rocky ledges. Furthermore, the phrase “oil out of the flinty rock” paints a picture that Israelites will harvest so much olive oil, it will almost appear as if the rocks used on the oil press seeped olive oil! Together, the phrases “honey out of the rock” and “oil from the flint rock” symbolizes that even the most barren areas would become rich and produce.

The list of rich and flavorful foods in Deuteronomy 32:14 illustrate the bountifulness of the Transjordan land, the land the Israelites dwelled just before entering the Promised Land. Even at this point, when the Israelites are in a healthy land and about to enter a bountiful land, Yahweh never said to the Israelites, “You should be good from here on out. You’re on your own.” No, in  Deuteronomy 32:14, the Lord assures the Israelites that he has continued and will continue to provide the Israelites access to any provision they need. In fact, grammar nerds will find it interesting that Moses wrote the whole Deuteronomy 32:10-14 passage in the present progressive, meaning God’s provision is a present action ongoing into the future. By the end of this stanza, Moses communicates a clear message to the Israelites. From Egypt, to the Sinai Desert, to the Transjordan, to the Promised Land, the Lord protected and provided for the Israelites, out of his enormous love for them.

Let’s re-visit that metaphor and symbolism back in Deuteronomy 32:11. Earlier, I used explained the metaphor and its symbolizing in its then-and-there tense, referring to the Israelites. Now, I want to explain the metaphor and its symbolism in a here-and-now tense. Now I will use a more inclusive, all-encompassing term. Instead of using the term “the Israelites,” I’m going to switch to the broader, all-encompassing term “God’s people.” Listen to the metaphors and symbolism in Deuteronomy 32:10-14, now with the term “God’s people” instead of “the Israelites.”

God found his people in an unfortunate situation. God had bigger and better plans for his people. Therefore, God took his people out of that unfortunate situation. Out of pure love, God protected and provided for his people when God’s people could neither protect themselves nor provide for themselves. During that time, God took the time to train, disciple and discipline his people. God instructed his people how to live. Then God gave his people the opportunity to try to live it out themselves. If God’s people stumbled and fell, God would rescue his people and pull them back to safety, and he would continue to protect them and provide for them. Sometime God’s people would get too comfortable in their current position, and then God would push them to an uncomfortable state to encourage them to pursue bigger and better blessings, like God intended. God alone protected and provided for God’s people, with no other help. Never at any point did God abandon the people of God at a “good enough” spot, for the Lord wanted to continue the good work in them until it had come to completion.

The reason I use this inclusive, all-encompassing terminology is because the truths that we learn about God in Deuteronomy 32:10-14 (in regards to his protection, his provisions and his love) can be applied to all of God’s people, both those there-and-then and here-and-now, including the 2^nd generation of Israelites out of Egypt, and including you. I see 4 lessons we can learn from this passage. First, if you ever find yourself in an unfortunate place or an unfortunate time in your life, do not think that means God likes you there or God wants you there. Sometimes God allows unfortunate circumstances into his people’s lives, but God’s allowing does not mean God’s approving! On the contrary, when the Lord finds us in the unfortunate place, the Lord, out of love, desires to protect us from those unfortunate circumstances because the Lord, out of his love, has bigger and better plans of blessing for us. Second, God loves us! We all know that God loves us, but do we really know what that entails? God’s love for us means so much more than God has warm, fuzzy feelings about us. The Lord desires to manifest his love for us outwardly. He does so by protecting us and providing for us. Those protection and provision may not be what we had in mind, but they are what God had in mind, and they are better for us, better than we can ever comprehend. Third, this Deuteronomy 32:10-14 passage also teaches us that, in order to reach bigger and better blessings, sometimes we need to receiving training, discipling and discipling. We may not always like it or enjoy it, but if we want to move on to the bigger and better blessings, God needs to bring us through the trials. Finally, this Deuteronomy 32:10-14 should assure you that the Lord will not abandon you when you reach a “good enough” spot or a “close enough” spot. To borrow from Paul’s words in Philippians 1:6. “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion…” Until you reach that time of blessing of life, and even when you do arrive there, God will be there for you, protecting you, providing for you, and pouring out his tender love for you.

So then, how shall we, as God’s people respond to these truths about God we learned from Deuteronomy 32:10-14? Remember, Moses speaks to the second generation of Israelites out of Egypt in Deuteronomy 32:10-14. Moses did speak a similar message to the first generation of Israelites out of Egypt. In Exodus 19:4,5, the Lord, via Moses, tells the Israelites, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine.” Although not as poetic as Deuteronomy 32:10-14, Exodus 19:4,5 reminds us that another outward manifestation of God’s love is the covenant he made with his people. When two parties enter into a covenant, both parties have stipulations, or conditions, they must meet. If they meet those conditions, they reap blessings, but if they do not meet the conditions, curses fall upon them. See, God desires to bless his people with protection and provisions, but he expects obedience to his word and commands in return. The first generation of Israelites out of Egypt failed to adhere to the covenant. In fact, if you read the rest of Deuteronomy 32, Moses goes into great detail to remind the second generation of Israelites how the previous generation failed to obey the covenant, to warn the second generation of Israelites to follow the covenant.

Consider this your warning, too. The term “warning” sounds pessimistic, so let’s re-word it to more optimistic terms. The pessimistic will think, “I have to obey, or else I will get cursed,” but the optimistic thinks, “Since the Lord has held up his covenant by protecting me and provided for me, I can’t think of a better way to show my thanks and love toward him by holding up my end of the covenant by obeying his commands.” You’ll find out a circular process will happen. The more the Lord blesses you, the more you’ll desire to obey the Lord’s commands. The more you obey God’s commands, the more God will bless you. There’s no need to “name it, claim it,” there’s no need to actively pursue it. If you hold up your end of the covenant, the Lord will hold up his end. Once again, it may not be what you want or expect, but God knows you better than you know you, so he will bless you better than you can expect.

So next time you see an eagle, whether that’s a bird, a symbol of the United States of America, or a football player from the pro Philadelphia football team, may it remind you that you have a God that loves you very much, and may thinking of his love make you respond with a heart of obedience to his Word.

Cairn (Joshua 4:1-7)

I posted a few pictures above, and you can see there’s one commonality among all of them. In each one, you can see that the trophy is the center of attention. Now, hold on. No, this is not me treating to toot my own horn. I’m going somewhere with this. This trophy is not just about a win, a victory or a championship. This trophy reminds me of an important spiritual discipline that the Bible commands all Christians to follow.

I invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Joshua. The book of Joshua is the sixth book of the Bible, right after the book of Deuteronomy. In fact, the story in the book of Joshua picks off right after the story in Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy closes with the death of Moses, and the book of Joshua opens with Joshua taking the reigns as leader. Joshua’s leadership role, however, differs from the leadership role Moses has. Whereas Moses was the lawgiver, Joshua is a general, although the book of Joshua will constantly remind its reader that God is ultimately the commander-in-chief. You might be familiar with the military strategy of “divide and conquer,” utilized by Philip II of Macedonia (Alexander the Great’s father), Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte. Joshua’s military strategy was the complete opposite. Joshua conquered, then he divided. The reader can clearly see Joshua’s military strategy by the arrangement of the book. The first half of the book, chapters 1-12, focus on the conquest part, and the second half, chapters 13-24, focus on the dividing part. Since this passage comes from Joshua chapter 4, this passage comes the “conquering” half and will deal with that aspect.

Before we dive into chapter 4, let me quickly summarize the previous chapter, chapter 3, to set the context for chapter 4. At the start of chapter 3, we find Joshua and the Israelites camped at the Jordan River, near Shittim (pronounced “Sheetim”). This specific location of Jordan is key. Just like any major river, at some points you talk about its width in terms of feet, at other points, you talk about its width in terms of yards, and still yet at other points you talk about its width in terms of miles. This is one of the points you talk about it in terms of miles. Furthermore, Joshua chapter 3 informs the reader the setting takes place in the middle of the Jordan River’s flood season. Tack on another mile or two to the Jordan River’s width. If the distance alone wasn’t already a factor, the depth of the water would be. In non-flood stages, the Jordan River’s depth at this certain location is at least 3 feet deep, but now that Jordan River is in its peak flood stage, we’re talking closer to 12 feet. Joshua and Israelites truly have a problem on their hands. Here the Israelites stand at the door of the land that God has promised them, but they cannot enter, for the flood waters stand in the way.

Knowing the dire problem of the situation, Joshua commands the Israelites to consecrate themselves, or make themselves both physically and spiritually clean, so the people may petition the Lord. After the people of Israel consecrate themselves, the Lord instructs Joshua (my paraphrase), “Have the priests take up the ark of the covenant. Next, have the priests, bearing the ark of the covenant, march toward the Jordan. Then I will perform a miracle that will make it clear that I am the true living God on all the earth.” The priests take up the ark, they march towards the Jordan, and sure enough, once the first priest puts his foot in the Jordan – WHOOSH! – the waters of the Jordan River split and they heap up into a wall of water. One wall of water stands by the town of Adam, and the other wall of water stands at the mouth of the Jordan River, where the Jordan dumps its water in to the Dead Sea. Furthermore, Joshua 3 emphasizes that the Israelites crossed over a dry ground. Not a molecule of H₂0 remained on the Jordan’s riverbed. Once again, God has provided a solution to Israel’s problems.

Now if you’re just here looking for a good story, this is where the story ends. We’ve hit the climax, the exciting part of the story, with the Lord using his supernatural power to perform a miracle. We have a solution to our problem. The problem was the Israelites could not enter the Promised Land, and the solution was God parting the Jordan, allowing Israel to cross over into the Promised Land. But I believe that Joshua 4 serves an epilogue that gives us that timeless truth than everyone can apply to their lives, no matter where you live on this earth. So without further ado, let’s look at Joshua 4:1-7.

¹When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, ² “Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, ³ and command them, saying, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests’ feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.” ⁴ Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. ⁵ And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, ⁶ that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ ⁷ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”

I’m going to stop at verse 7, for time’s sake. The rest of the chapter goes on to say that the Israelites did as Joshua commanded, and then it finishes by summarizing chapters 3 and 4. But don’t let my summarization of the rest of the chapter undermine what’s going on in the rest of chapter. A continuous theme that runs throughout the whole book of Joshua is that when Israel obeys, God blesses Israel with victory. When Israel doesn’t obey, whether that means doing the complete opposite or slightly veering off of their instruction, then they find themselves cursed and defeated. The repetition demonstrates that Israel is obedient, which will bring about much needed blessing for the first battle in chapter 6, the famous battle against Jericho.

Now let’s break down the Joshua 4:1-7. The paragraph opens, “When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan…” As I explained, this repetition reminds the reader that Israel obeyed completely, therefore God blessed them with safe voyage into the Promised Land. It also reminds us that the events of chapter 4 will pick up right after chapter 3 left off. After every person crosses over the Lord instructs Joshua to call together the twelve men, one from each tribe, who were specially consecrated in chapter 3. Since the twelve men were one from each tribe, you can tell these men were meant to be representatives of their respective tribe. Once Joshua calls these 12 representatives over, the Lord tells Joshua to pass on the message to them that they are to go back in the Jordan River, to the middle part where the priests stood with the ark of the covenant, each one is to bring back a stone, and they together are to bring those stones back to their new campground on the other bank of the Jordan River.

Now let’s pause here. Let’s put ourselves in the Israel’s shoes. How do you think they crossed the Jordan River? You don’t have to imagine too hard, for if we would have read on, Joshua 4:10b tells us the people crossed over “in haste.” They hurried over as fast as possible. While researching this passage, it didn’t take me long to find some modern-day skeptics, who had their doubts that something supernatural happened, who explain it away as natural science (I’m not saying God couldn’t use science. He could have very well used science. It’s doubting it was a miracle that I’m not OK with). I don’t think only modern-day skeptics struggle with what they hear about in Joshua 4. I bet right then and there, some of the people witnessing might have been skeptics, having doubts. How do we know this is from God? How do we know this isn’t some freak act of nature? Do we even know how long it’s going to last? For if you believed it was of God, you’d expect God to make sure everyone would get across, but if you don’t believe it’s from God, you don’t know how long it will last. Not knowing how long it will last, but at the same time, wanting to take advantage of it, you dart over to the other side. Now that everyone is safely to the other side, Joshua calls these 12 representatives of the tribes, and he tells them to go back! All the thoughts that must have gone through their mind. I even wonder if one of them really wanted object out loud. Yet, all these men go back. They lay down all their fears, and instead, they pick up faith. What great faith these men had! This faith allowed those men to put their fears aside and march back into the dried up Jordan River to pick up a stone, just as the Lord commanded. (The humorous side of me imagines one of representatives looking over the stones in the middle of the Jordan River, thinking to himself, “I could pick that one… no, that one will break my back even trying to pick it up. I could pick that one, but if I do, Joshua just going to send me right back in for another…”) If the men’s faith or God’s power wasn’t enough to encourage the men to go back in the Jordan River, the importance of the stone should be.

When the men come back with the stone representing their tribe, Joshua’s commands in Joshua 4:3 say “lay them down.” The Hebrew is הִנַּחְתֶּ֣ם (hinnahtem). The root of the word simply means “rest,” but in the case of this specific verb tense in Joshua 4:3, it means “cause them to rest.” This has a lot of significance. For starters, these stones would represent the Israelites. No longer would the Israelites wander from land to land; rather, God would cause the Israelites to rest in the Promised Land. More importantly, the verse explains that these stones the 12 representatives gathered were not simply thrown together in a heap. They were placed by design for a purpose

What was this purpose? It was not to be worshipped. That’s why God kept it simply to a heap of rocks, not some artistic form, like a statue. It was not to build an altar on which the people of Israelites sacrificed animals to God. Rather, these stones formed a memorial. The memorial was to remind the Israelites how good the Lord was them. When they were in a tough bind, the Lord provided a way. The memorial was intended to attest to a specific event. It wasn’t just “The Lord provided,” but moreso “When the Israelites were unable to enter the promised land because of the flooded Jordan River, God outstretched his almighty hand to defy the powers of nature and he divided the waters of the Jordan ensuring Israel had safe voyage into the promise land.” It was supposed to create a good story! The memorial was supposed to also spark up conversation about the Lord. In verse 6, the ESV reads the question the children might ask as, “What do these stones mean to you?” but a more literal translation of the Hebrew says, “What is it to you?” When the younger generations would ask such a question in the future, the old generation should take the responsibility to emphasize the importance of the memorial, almost to the point of stopping everything they were doing to do so.

Once again, I invite you think back to the Old Testament times, but not during the times of the events in Joshua. Think back to years, decades or even centuries after the events happened. An Israelite farmer now owns the land on which this memorial sits. One day, the farmer tells his son, “Son, I’ve been prayer extra hard during the past winter that God would give us a bountiful harvest this upcoming year. I believe that the Lord will answer that prayer, but we got to do our part as well. So on this first day of spring, first thing is first. We have to clear the land of all the debris the winter storms brought in over the winter. So you start at one end, I’ll start at the other, and we’ll meet each other in the middle.” The son sighs, for one can only get so excited about doing lawn work, but he listens to his father’s instructs and begins doing his work, picking up sticks, stones and leaves, and moving them off the land. Going from one end to another, the farmer’s son eventually comes across this memorial, but to him, it’s just a heap of rocks. The farmer’s son lets out a loud groan, thinking to himself, “Great! Now I got to pick up large rocks! They look so heavy!” So he begins. He picks up the first rock, and with much struggling – SPLOOSH! – the first rock goes back into the Jordan River. While trying to get a grip on the second rock, the son all of a sudden hears a loud yell. It’s from his father, running toward him, franticly waving his arms. The boy rolls his eyes his and groans again, thinking to himself, “Great, what I have done wrong this time? Am I using the wrong lifting technique?” When the farmer finally gets there, he yells to his son, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” The son replies, “I’m clearing the land, just like you asked me to do.” All the father can franticly say is, “Not those!” “Why Dad?” the son asks. “What are these rocks to you, that they are so important, that you run down and freak out when you see one move?” The father replies with his own question, “Son, have I ever told you about the time Lord helped our people here?” The son shakes his head no. “Well, son,” the father says, “have a seat. Let me tell you about what the Lord did here.”

That’s exactly what the heap of rocks was supposed to do. It was supposed to remind people when they saw it. In a time when writing was scarce, people needed images to remind them of significant events that happened in history. It was supposed spur on a good story, making the event even harder to forget. It was supposed to have importance. This wasn’t something the father would say to the son, “Long story. I’ll tell you at dinner after work.” It was so important, the people would stop whatever they were doing, sit down and discuss it

This heap of rocks has a proper term. It’s cairn, coming from the Scottish language. Cairns can found in many cultural throughout several different time periods. The debate rages on it origins. Some claim Yahweh founded this idea, and as other cultures encountered God-fearing cultures they adopted this practice, even if they didn’t worship the one true God. Others claim that God saw his creation practicing this idea of cairns, and wanting to relate his creation and speak their language, he joined in on creating cairns. No matter what its origins or what cultured practiced it, the meaning still stayed the same. Cairn were stone landmarks, meant to serve as memorial to remind people of something special that happened. They were to invite people remember, share stories and celebrate. And I might I add one more thing to that list. Cairns, in the Biblical sense, were to encourage Yahweh worshippers to put their faith in Yahweh and have hope that he would act the same way again when his people needed him.

So how do we, living in 21^st century America, practice what we learned in Joshua 4:1-7? I guess we could set up a heap of stones either inside or outside our homes, but that would be very much so against popular trends of interior decorating or landscaping alike. Rather, I propose 3 more realistic ways to practice this spiritual discipline.

First, while I would not suggest building a heap of rocks inside or outside your home, I would suggest decorating your home with keepsakes that will remind you of what the Lord has done for you. If you were to walk upstairs into my wife and my apartment (we have a 2^nd story apartment), the first thing you would see is a photo canvas of one of our wedding pictures. In fact, we have 2 of them (and I will admit, my laziness has not allowed me to hang the second one up). We also have many other photos hanging up from our engagement and our first anniversary. When I see these photos, it reminds me to praise God for how he has helped our marriage nurture. They also remind me the commitment I made to be faithful to my wife. This goes beyond just not committing adultery. When my boss calls me at home, asking me either to fill in for a co-worker who has called off on Sunday, or to go paintballing with my co-workers on a Saturday, I look upon those pictures, remember my vows, and say back, “At the wedding, I made a commitment: my wife comes first. Last weekend, I made a commitment that the upcoming weekend would be all for her. So I’m going to have to say no.” In the same way, I invite you hang up things that will remind you about how God has worked in your life. You’ll find out that not only will it remind you of how God faithfully acted in the past, but you’ll find yourselves looking for God in the same way in the future.

Second, celebrate holidays! God merely did not use cairns to help the people remember significant event. God also used holidays. In Leviticus 23, God commanded the Israelites to celebrate 6 holidays (I’m not including the Sabbath on that list, just annual holidays). Let me emphasize the word again: commanded. Celebrating the 6 holidays in Leviticus 23 were not optional; they were mandatory. Now let me be clear that some things did change with the New Covenant. In Colossians 2:16, Paul says that no one should judge you in regards to which festival you celebrate, so Christians are not required to celebrate those 6 festivals in Leviticus 23 (although I think the churches that do celebrate them are cool). But I don’t believe that means that the command to celebrate is null and void. Quaker pastor and writer Richard J. Foster has well convinced me in his book, The Celebration of Discipline, that celebration is a spiritual discipline all Christians need to celebrate. So we need to celebrate Christian holidays. Yeah, I know it can be difficult to celebrate the religious holidays with the commercialism that surrounds them. Besides, shouldn’t we be living out the meaning of the holiday every day? For example, when it comes to Easter, shouldn’t we be living out the hope of the resurrection every day? True, but I believe that holidays serve as a reminder (there’s that word again) to get us back on track. Going back to our example, when Easter rolls around every year, it should make us think, “Have I been living out the hope of the resurrection recently?” If the answer is no, Easter should be the day that you will start thinking about the resurrection and putting your hope in it.

And the spiritual disciple of celebration does not need to be confined to holidays established on the calendar. You can make up your own holidays. A few years ago, if you were to ask me what significance October 4 had, I would say none because it really didn’t have significance. Now it does have a lot of significance, for October 4 is my wife and my anniversary, and we do something to commemorate it. Of course, that’s an anniversary, it’s a big event in life, you should commemorate it. But it can be smaller things, too. On a day that the Lord did something for you in the past, commemorate that day. Do something to celebrate what happened, even if it just means lifting up a prayer of thanks. By celebrating days as special, we keep alive the memories of what the Lord has done for us.

Third, share a testimony. As I said earlier, seeing cairns should lead to telling stories. I consider myself a Mennonite, and I attend a Mennonite church. The Mennonites have a rich history of sharing testimonies. Previously in Mennonite history, most Mennonite church pastors were not seminary trained and ordained. A lot of Mennonite pastors were selected merely by prayer and lots. The few Mennonite pastors who were seminary trained and ordained were traveling pastors, traveling from town to town, church to church, spreading the gospel message. In either case, the question would arise, “How do we know what the pastor preaches is Biblical truth?” How do we know that the pastor selected from prayer and lots is speaking Biblical truth? He has not received seminary training, nor has anyone made sure he’s doing his daily devotions. How do we know the traveling pastor is speaking Biblical truth? We do not know him. For all we know he’s a conman, and this is elaborate hoax to collect the offering plate money. So the Mennonite denomination formulated a plan of testimony sharing. After the pastor would preach, the church service would have a time for the elders to get up a share a testimony of how the sermon applied to something that happened to them in the past or how they could use the sermon in the present or future. If an elder did not get up and share a testimony, it meant the pastor’s sermon did not speak Biblical truth. If an elder did get up and share a testimony, it validated the spiritual truth behind the sermon. And of course, the more elders that got up the better. I can imagine that this time following the sermon was a nerve-racking one for the pastor!

So take the time to share your testimonies. It doesn’t have to be constrained to just church, small group, prayer group or Bible study. Share testimonies at school and work. Share testimonies at the dinner table. Share testimonies when you visit someone. Share testimonies when you’re just hanging out. Tell everyone what the Lord has done for you. Not only will you give God the glory for doing so, but if someone else was in a situation you were in, it will encourage that person to seek the Lord for the answer, knowing that the Lord helped you.

In closing, let me practice what I preach. Let me explain to you why that ACC Tournament Championship trophy is my cairn. Going into that ACC Tournament, this Spring City team had just finished the 8-week season in 6^th place in League. While that might sound good, our final point average was 82, two quiz outs and a little more. So with that unimpressive point average, we were, well, to parody a Judy Blume book title, a “tale of a sixth place nobody.” Going into that tournament, our 7-quizzer quiz team had 2 quizzers out of state, and out of the 5 quizzers remaining, 1 quizzer only got 4 questions right all year and 1 quizzer just got back from baseball camp, so one could only guess how much studying he had. It looked like we were right in line to continue our average of 82 points, which would get a few wins in the round robin portion of the tournament, but that would be about it.

Our first match of the tournament was against Neffsville 1. We had a lot of errors, but since Neffsville 1 was, nicely put, a below average team, we easily won 120-45. Our second match was against Reading 1. In that match, we got over 5 errors, causing us to lose points. Somehow, it was still close, but Reading 1 beat us by a matter of 5 points. The close loss left us devastated. It really knocked off our game. Our next match, we got a bunch of errors, and yet we somehow won. Then came our next match, and once again, we got a lot of errors, but somehow, we won.

Then it came down to the last round in the round robin. In our round robin ground, only 3 teams had a winning record: 1^st place Petra 2, who was 4-0, 2^nd place Reading 1, who was 3-1, and 3^rd place Spring City, who was 3-1 (Reading 1 had the tiebreaker due to head-to-head results). The last 2 matches were Spring City vs. Petra 2, and Reading 1 vs. Neffsville 1, who was the below average season team who was still winless at the time. The only way we could make the playoffs is if Spring City won against undefeated Petra 2, and Reading 1 loss to winless Neffsville 1. It was not looking good.

That match against Petra 2 didn’t look good either. Our top quizzer of the year errored out during it. Somehow, we managed to stay afloat. It came down to the last question, question 15. We were down by 10. The quizmaster asked the question, and Petra 2’s top quizzer buzzed in. I thought it was over at that point. She answers, “Eljiah…No! Elisha!” The quizmaster responds, “No, I’m sorry, I have to take your first answer.” Who does the bonus go to? Of course it’s that quizzer who only got 4 questions right the whole year! But after thinking about it, she realized what the Petra 2 quizzer did wrong. She quietly answered, “Elisha?” She was right, sending the match into overtime, where we won with a team bonus.

After our win, the whole team rushed toward the standings board to see the results of the match between Reading 1 and Neffsville 1. They were still in the match. All we could do was pace and pray. I even remember vowing to my teammates, “If Neffsville 1 wins this match, I will hug them all.” Then the record keeper out. He walked to our group’s board. He drew the tally mark. I was the first one to see. When I saw the results, I yelled them out loud. I yelled….”NEFFSVILLE WON!!” The boys (including me) went wild. We jumped up and down, we high-fived, we fist bumped, we chest bumped, we screamed, we yelled, “WE’RE NUMBER ONE! WE’RE NUMBER ONE!” Our friends from other teams joined in our madness. Meanwhile, our coaches still walking their way back to the standings boards kept bumping into other coaches congratulating them. They kept wondering why they were getting congratulated. They figured it out once they saw the commotion their quiz team was causing.

But it doesn’t end there. Due to tiebreakers, we actually went from 3^rd to 1^st in our group. Because we finished 1^st in our group, our first playoff match was against a team that finished 2^nd in their group, and from what I heard, they barely finished 2^nd. In that match, we got 5 errors, but we got 5 errors, but we won with team bonus. Since the playoffs are a simple single elimination playoff tree, you know your next match ins against 1 of 2 teams. During the whole playoffs, it seemed like every time the underdog won, meaning we were playing the underdog next, giving us the advantage, all the way to the final match against Goods 1. Now rumor had it that this team had the perfect match during the season: 5 quiz outs and a team bonus. We had the best match we had all night. We got the first 6 questions right, limited ourselves to 2 errors (the least amount of errors we had all day), got team bonuses and 2 quiz out, giving us the win, and earning us that championship trophy.

But this is where it becomes more than just a win, a victory or a championship. See, our coaches, the Deitricks would always do more than just coach us how to win matches. They mentored us so we could spiritually grow. This year, Dave would always talk about favor, as in “seeking God’s favor.” I didn’t fully grasp what it meant, so I didn’t fully know what to do with it. So I could do is I took it to heart and began putting my quizzing fate in God’s hands. Whatever happened was God’s will, so I prayed hard that the Lord would help me do my best. Now, after this tournament, I understood. There was no way with so many errors (36, to be exact) we should have won so many matches. There is no way that we should have beaten the undefeated and always formidable Petra 2. There is no way a winless Neffsville 1 should have won over Reading 1. There is no way we should have gotten such an easy path to the final match. But there is a way. It’s called God’s favor. On that I learned, just like the Israelites would learn in the book of Joshua, that God favors the one who surrenders their will to God’s will and who obeys what God has commanded them. So every time I look upon that trophy I remember how God has shown me favor in the past, and it encourages me to seek God’s favor in the future.

We didn’t just take home a trophy that night. We were allowed to take home the giant playoff bracket. Just like the trophy, that is at the Spring City church, but it is wrapped in the corner of the youth Sunday school room. There’s some good theology there. Just like the trophy, it is made of earthly materials and will go to the big bonfire in the end when Jesus returns. But this trophy reminds that I don’t have to wait until Jesus returns to see him in action. This trophy reminds me Jesus is active in the present, and I can expect him to continually act all the way to his return.

Is the Jesus of Suburbia the Jesus of Nazareth? (Jeremiah 17:9)

I want to start off with a story you might have heard of, or some form of it, for multiple versions of it exist on the internet. A five-year-old girl was having one of those trouble-filled days with her mother. It seemed they spent the day arguing back and forth. No matter what the mother asked her to do, the young girl would always stomp her foot and scream loudly, “NO!” Finally, the mom had enough. “Jane, go sit in the corner, right now! Your time does not start until you sit in that chair, and don’t you dare stand up until I tell you to!” The little girl, fists clenched, stomped over to the small, wooden chair in the corner and plopped down in it. Arms crossed, she looked back at her mother with the dirtiest look and said, “Mom, I am sitting down on the outside, but I am standing up on the inside!”

Parents here probably can relate to this story, for they might have had similar experiences disciplining their children. Other people, parents or not, might be able to relate if they are willing to admit they were that child! Of course, I couldn’t think of any time I was that child (although if you asked my parents, they could probably tell you). Being the good big brother I am, though, I could think of a time my little sister did. It was Halloween 2001. At my sister’s elementary school on Halloween, the kids would have this Halloween parade, where the kids would dress up in their Halloween costumes and march around the school. Family would come in to watch the parade. For some reason unknown to me, my sister, that year, wanted to be Cleopatra for Halloween, perhaps because the Cleopatra costume came with makeup. For whatever reasons my mom had (I’m pretty sure they were good ones), she instructed my sister not to put on the makeup. I remember at that breakfast my mom told my sister over and over again not to put on the makeup on, and my sister said over and over again she would not. That afternoon, my mom invited to come along to the elementary school’s Halloween parade, since my middle school had the day off. We waited patiently for the fourth graders. When my sister came around the corner…well, let’s just say she looked as good as a nine-year-old putting on makeup for the first time could look.

What drives a person to act this way? Some simply credit it to immaturity. After all, the examples I just gave you all were of children. But let’s be honest. We’ve seen adults act like this, too, perhaps at work. How can even mature adults act like this? I bet the prophet Jeremiah wondered the same thing, for God provides an answer to the question in Jeremiah 17:9.

Please turn in your Bibles to Jeremiah 17:9. While you’re turning there, I am going to put the verse in context. Remember, I’m big into context. Personally, I believe that so many bad interpretations of the Bible and bad theologies started as a Bible verse taken out of context. We, in our western minds, like dissecting things (like that frog in 6th grade). We like breaking things down and analyzing each piece. There’s some good to that, but to borrow from a metaphor I hear commonly at my seminary, we sometimes spend so much time staring at the tree, we forgot that we’re standing in a forest, with other trees around us, and we forget how that tree is a part of the forest. Before we break down and analyze Jeremiah 17:9, I want to put Jeremiah 17:9 in 3 contexts: the far context, the near context and the immediate context. First, we’ll look at the far context. How does Jeremiah 17:9 contribute to the whole Bible? Second, we’ll look at the near context. How does Jeremiah 17:9 contribute to the book of Jeremiah? Third, we’ll look at the immediate context. How does Jeremiah 17:9 contribute Jeremiah 17?

In the far context of the whole Bible, Jeremiah 17:9 will help Bible readers better understand humanity’s struggle with rebellion towards their God. The Bible has clearly established that God is holy, just, faithful and loving. He looks out for his Bible. These attributes of God alone should provide enough reason to trust in God and follow his commands. Yet throughout the whole Bible, Bible readers can see people throughout history make choices that side them against God. Think about the famous stories of the Bible. Why did Adam and Eve choose to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, when God clearly commanded them, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Why did the people of Israel choose to wander 40 years in the desert rather than enter the land God promised them, a land flowing of milk and honey? Yeah, there were some bad spies who convinced the Israelites that the people there were as tall as giants, but hadn’t God told them that he would take care of it, and hadn’t God proven it with the way he dealt with Egypt? Why did the new nation of Israel, during the time of the Judges, keep going to back to the idolatrous way by worshipping the pagan gods, even though they knew it would lead to the foreign nations conquering and enslaving them? This isn’t just before Jeremiah’s time, for it happened after Jeremiah’s time, too. The biggest example yet is in the New Testament. Why would the Pharisees and Sadducees, who were the teachers of the law, the experts of the law and the masters of law, have the long-awaited Messiah right in front of their faces, and yet they deemed him a blasphemer deserving death? If you ever wondered any of those questions, Jeremiah 17:9 will provide an answer.

In the near context, Jeremiah 17:9 plays a crucial role in preparing Jeremiah for what he’ll face in rest of the book of Jeremiah. Over the years, Jeremiah has received the title of “the weeping prophet” from Bible scholars and church layman alike, for a number of reasons. Mainly, the title comes from the bad news he always has to deliver and how Jeremiah responds to it. Indeed, after receiving his first batch of bad news, Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 9:1, “Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” I call Jeremiah the weeping prophet, not just due to the bad news Jeremiah has to give the people, but I believe the way the people received the news must have caused Jeremiah to weep as well. Just take a look at these 3 instances. In Jeremiah ch. 27&28, Jeremiah goes out to the people of Judah and preaches, “Because of your sin, God has handed you over to King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, and you will serve them!” How do the people of Judah respond? Out of them arise false prophets and sorcerers (more like “fortune tellers”). They preach to the people, “It’s not that bad. At the worse, King Nebuchadnezzar will be around for 2 years. But after that, it’s peace and restoration!” Of course, the people favor the latter and no one will take Jeremiah seriously. Then, in chapter 38, Jeremiah proclaims to Zedekiah, the King of Judah, “If you want King Nebuchadnezzar to spare you, your family or any of household, just surrender and the Lord will take care of you. If you do not surrender, however, you will face utter destruction, and so will your family and household. Of course, King Zedekiah and his household don’t take too kindly to this. They throw Jeremiah into a muddy cistern, and Zedekiah and his family attempt to flee anyway. Long story short, Jeremiah gets out of the cistern. Zedekiah witnesses his two sons murdered in front of him, and then King Nebuchadnezzar blinds Zedekiah so the last thing Zedekiah sees is his sons dying. Once King Nebuchadnezzar takes away the upper class citizens of Jerusalem, Jeremiah gathers the leaders of the lower class remnant and says to them in chapter 42, “Stay here, and God will take care you. Just whatever you do, don’t go down to Egypt, for if you do, Nebuchadnezzar will follow you down there, and you will be walking into your own demise.” In chapter 43, the people respond to Jeremiah, “No, you’re wrong, God did not tell you that. We’re going down to Egypt, and we’re taking you along as our good luck charm, you like it or not.” Jeremiah almost literally goes to Egypt kicking and screaming, and he stays there until he dies. Sure enough, King Nebuchadnezzar decides to continue his campaign right into Egypt, and the Jews who fled to Egypt find themselves right in the middle of it again. Poor Jeremiah! God has granted Jeremiah one of the most precious gifts of his time, to be the mouthpiece for God, and the people do the opposite of what Jeremiah says. Fortunate for Jeremiah, God prepared Jeremiah ahead of time with Jeremiah 17:9.

In the immediate context, Jeremiah 17:9 answers Jeremiah 17:5-10. In this section of the book of Jeremiah, the Lord reminds Judah about the covenant they entered with him. Prior to Jeremiah 17:5, God exposes Judah for breaking the conditions of the covenant. Now comes the time for the Lord to remind Judah that those conditions came with a promise of blessing to those obeyed and curses those who did not. In Jeremiah 17:5-8, the Lord contrasts the man who trusts in man and the man who trusts in the Lord with an illustration of a shrub in the desert and a tree planted by water. Just like nothing good ever happens to a shrub in the desert, the man who trusts in man is cursed, and no good will come to him. Just like the tree planted near water, the man who trusts in the Lord bless. He will continue to reap blessings, even when hard times comes, like a well-watered tree will continue to produce, even during a heat wave or drought. From this illustration, the right answer should be clear. You’d want to be like that well-watered tree, that tree planted near water, so you could always reap the blessings. Therefore, you should want to put your trust in the Lord so you could reap his blessings. Yet Judah had chosen to be like the shrub in the desert by choosing to trust in man. Soon, this illustration would become quite literal, as the invading Babylonians would destroy that land so badly, that even the most fertile lands would look like barren deserts. Clearly, from this illustration, choosing the desert shrub is the wrong answer! Why would anyone choose that, knowing it will lead only to curses?

The answer to the far context, the near context and the immediate context all come to answer in Jeremiah 17:9. It all comes back to the heart. Jeremiah 17:9 describes what the heart is like that causes it to act this way. First, it says it is “deceptive,” or in the Hebrew, עָקֹב (aqob). Yes, this is Hebrew root from which get Jacob. If you recall, the name Jacob literally means “grasps at heel,” but metaphorically means “deceiver.” Think back to Jacob in the book of Genesis. How did Jacob get the birthright? By taking advantage of his brother’s weakened state of hunger. How did Jacob get the blessing? By tricking his father Issac to believing he was Esau, even making sure he felt like Esau, smelt like Esau, and had stew that tasted like Esau. That’s what your heart does to you! It takes advantage of your weakness to get you to do the wrong thing. It gets you to go out of way to do something you don’t even want to do, just to satisfy the sin.

Second, Jeremiah 17:9 describes the heart as אָנַשׁ (ʾānašh). The New American Standard Bible and the English Standard Version definitely have the most literal translation of the word. It means “to be sick” or “to be ill,” but in the case, the Hebrew tense is in the absolute, meaning there’s an emphasis on the word, almost to an extreme, hence the “desperately” part. It’s almost like chronic illness, a sickness that has no cure, hence why the NIV says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” But keep in mind this isn’t a medical heart illness, like coronary heart disease or a heart palpitation. No, this is an inner heart disease, a spiritual heart disease. That’s why this time I turn to the King James Version’s interpretation of Jeremiah 17:9. The KJV says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” The heart desires and yearns to that which is selfish and wicked, even if it brings about harm to others and self. It has no desire to be healed. It only wants more sin.

After understanding how depraved the heart really is, you might wonder aloud the rhetorical question the ends verse 9. “Who can understand the heart?” Sin has corrupted the heart. Since the heart is so deceitful, no person can even trust his or her own heart. That’s where the Lord steps in. The Lord can understand the heart, for he is the omniscient God who can search it and test. God cannot be deceived, for not even the worst heart can hide evil intentions from the Lord. Only a holy God can therefore be trusted, for he has not been corrupted or deceived by evil.

And may I be clear this isn’t an intellect vs. emotions kind of thing. As much as I would like to say this verse is promotion us to abandon our emotions and feelings for strict intellectual thought, being the intellectual thinker I am, it is not. In this passage, the “heart” is verse 9 is paralleled to the “mind” (Actually, the Hebrew word literally translates to “the kidneys.” You might be tempted to laugh at that, but if you think about, how much medical research proven that the heart’s job is to solely work with the blood in our circulatory system, and yet we still use it as a metaphor for the source of our emotions.) in verse 10, which means they are treated as synonyms. In the original audience’s context, in the Hebrew context, the people of Judah would not have separated intellect and emotions like we do, but have understood both heart and mind as synonyms symbolizing the inner being. Still, for our context, the parallel reminds us that the sinful nature infects both the head and heart alike.

Someone who would have understood this the doctrine of sin nature would be Aurelius Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo. Augustine struggled with what has been described as “every man’s battle.” Augustine struggled with lust, making him very relatable to every man. Now usually people don’t ask questions like, “Why does God allow suffering?” or “Why do bad things happen to good people?” until the bad or evil thing happens to them. Not for Augustine. Augustine recognized that he was the evil, and he needed to know how to stop. Augustine tried many worldly philosophies attempting to solve his questions, but they could not. The best solution came from the Scripture. In his studies of the Scriptures, Augustine learned a lot about sin. For example, he learned how sin was the absence of good. Most importantly, he learned that his fallen heart had enslaved him to sin. If Augustine knew about drugs like we do in the 21st century, he would have described our sin nature just like a drug addiction. Just like the drug addict will lie, cheat and steal to get his or her fix, so they sinful nature will commit all kinds of sinful act to get his or her selfish wants, even if it destroys him or her.

Now I know what I am preaching right now would be a hard message for the non-Christians, those outside church. Psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists and anthropologists would all say that all people are born good and all throughout their lives are generally good people. Yeah, they will admit people do bad things, but they account those bad things as good people doing the wrong thing, almost like “mistakes,” but still call them good people. Only a few people can truly receive the title of “evil,” like Nebuchadnezzar, Nero, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Yet I am going to a bold statement. In all honesty, I really think that Americans of the past two centuries, the 20th and 21st centuries, don’t really believe this, and I have both a classical example and a more modern example to prove my point.

Who has read the book The Coral Island by R.M. Ballaytne, whether that be in a college, high school or middle school literature class? Written in 1857, the book is about 3 British boys, eighteen-year-old Jack, fifteen-year-old Ralph and thirteen-year-old Peter, who all get shipwrecked all alone on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Despite having little modern technology, they are able to create a self-sustaining lifestyle on the island, adequately providing themselves with food and shelter. Life is idyllic and idealistic on the island. It is almost as if they made their own little utopian society with the three of them thereon the island. Eventually they decide it is time to leave the island with the boat they have made. They come upon another nearby island, where they meet a barbaric and savage Polynesian tribe. Through teaching Victorian-era manners and ideals, however, these 3 young men are able to civilize the whole village. Once again, the boys leave the island and come ashore on another island. Here, they run into Christian missionaries, who have struggled to convert the native polytheist to Christianity. Again, once the boys teach the native people proper Victorian etiquette, the missionaries can successfully convert the Polynesian polytheists to Christianity. I’m betting a lot of you never read this books, and I think there’s a reason for that.

But who has read The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, even if it is in a college, high school or middle school literature? This book was written in response to The Coral Island. William Golding read The Coral Island and thought to himself, “No, that’s not how it would happen.” He wrote his book, The Lord of the Flies, as a response, almost a satire, of The Coral Island, even giving the main characters the same name. In the same way, Jack, Ralph and the other boys find themselves stranded on an inhabited island. Instead of working together to form a self-sustaining society, they argue with each other, they curse at each other, they bully each other, and even near the end (spoiler alert!) they begin to kill each other! By the end, the last “good” boy is merely trying to survive from the other boys on the island!

I bet a lot of you have read The Lord of the Flies, at least a lot more than The Coral Island. Indeed, The Lord of the Flies seems to be more popular than The Coral Island. One reason some books become more popular than others is because of how relatable they are. With popular books, we can relate with the character and their life more than in the unpopular books, where we can’t relate to the characters. The Coral Island is unpopular because we can’t relate to that experience; The Lord of the Flies is popular because we can relate to that story. We have no experiences of everyone coming together to create a greater good, yet we can name the countless experiences where people have turned on us, betrayed us, and caused stress and conflict just to get what they wanted. See, people really don’t believe that good-at-heart philosophy. They too recognize the heart is sick with evil.

But The Coral Island was written in the late 1800s, and The Lord of the Flies was written in the early 1900s. What about the 21st century? Maybe we’ve matured or culture ourselves so we are working together for good. Let’s use less of a classic example and more of modern example. In the late 1980s, three teenagers in Los Angeles came together to form a punk rock band which the world would come to known as Green Day. At first, their songs were about typical things that caused 90’s teenagers angst: parents, teachers, school, work, friends and girlfriends. Eventually, everyone got tired of their music, including the band themselves! In 2005, instead of the typical songs, lead singer Billie Joe wanted to create album that told of story from his life. This album would become known as American Idiot. To date, this is their most popular album, so popular, it became a tour, a live album and even a music. Let’s take a look at it.

The first track serves as a prologue of the story of the album, and it sets the scene. The song “American Idiot describes how the main character sees the world he is in. American is run by politics and the media, all driven by agendas and bias. They tell the American people what to believe in how to act. They use propaganda as a tool, and it only leads to a paranoid people. In the end, it turns all Americans into American Idiots, hence the title of the album and the song title [“American Idiot”].

The second track of the album introduces the main character. Billie Joe Armstrong gives him the name “Jesus of Suburbia.” Armstrong has carefully chosen the name, as the first part of the song uses Biblical imagery to describe his main character. The lines “the bible of none of the above” and “No one died for my sins in hell” describe the Jesus of Suburbia as a self-centered and self-righteous egotist. He says/sings, “There’s nothing wrong with me. This is the way I’m supposed to be,” yet he seeks answers for the problems of life. He starts his search in his hometown, following the adage “home is where your heart is,” but it only leads to disappointment. Singing “…everyone’s heart doesn’t beat the same, we’re beating out of time,” he says there is no connection in relation. He sings, “Like the holy scriptures of a shopping mall /And so it seemed to confess / It didn’t say much / But it only confirmed that / The center of the earth / Is the end of the world.” He means that no one knows the answer any better than he does, and he concludes that listening to one another then just make everything worse. So the Jesus of Suburbia denounces his home city, concluding it to dead and damned [“Jesus of Suburbia” Part 2 – City of the Damned]. What hurts Jesus of Suburbia is that no one seems to care, even looking upon the dirty faces of lost children. Jesus of Suburbia denounces them again, calling them liars, hypocrites, and the worse, “hearts recycled but never saved.” He condemns their beliefs as “make believe,” and therefore he doesn’t believe. So he replies in the song, “If you don’t care, then neither do I!” At the end of part 3, subtitled “I Don’t Care,” two phrases describe the Jesus of Suburbia: not believing and not caring [“Jesus of Suburbia” Part 3 – I Don’t Care.” Jesus of Suburbia cries out for help, hoping someone can give him therapeutic advice, but no one answers, further reinforcing his belief that no one cares about anyone but himself or herself [“Jesus of Suburbia” – Part 4 Dearly Beloved] Because of his home city’s lack of concern, Jesus of Suburbia concludes he will never find his answer in his home city. To stay and die there would be tragic because he’d never have his answers. So he runs away, and leaves the city behind, to find out what he really believes [“Jesus of Suburbia” – Part 5 Tales of Another Broken Home].

Jesus leaves his home city for the big city. The big city give him new life. For Jesus of Suburbia to be in the big city, it’s like his life is one big holiday, one big vacation (In British English and Australian English, the words “holiday” and “vacation” can be used as synonyms)[“Holiday”]. Yet when the emotional high of new beginnings settles down, Jesus of Suburbia then experiences an emotional hangover. Despite being in a big city, he realizes he is all alone. The only companion is his own shadow. He still longs for someone to find him and give him his answers [“Boulevard of Broken Dreams”].
Upon realizing he is alone, the Jesus of Suburbia begins to have his doubts. Things seem to be no different. Whether he’s in his home city where he is metaphorically alone (no one cares), or the big city where he’s literally alone, he ends up alone either way. Doubts enter his mind, “The Jesus of Suburbia is a lie.” He repetitious scream, “Are we, we are, are we, we are the waiting” has him thinking, “What am I waiting for?” He feels like he’s waiting for something that will never happen, something that will never come true, a fairy tale [“Are We The Waiting”].When all of a sudden, lo and behold, another character enters the story. Billie Joe gives him the name St. Jimmy. St. Jimmy describes himself as “the needle in the vein of establishment,” “the product of war and fear that we’ve been victimized” and twice “I’m the patron saint of the denial, with an angel face and a taste for suicidal. St. Jimmy seems to be the typical bad boy. He interests are in crime, gangs, sex, drugs and rock and roll [“St. Jimmy”].

St. Jimmy convinces Jesus of Suburbia to take the same route as he does. Jesus of Suburbia follows St. Jimmy’s footsteps. He takes drugs to numb the pain his problems have caused [“Give Me Novocain”]. It appears that Jesus of Suburbia will fall into a slump he will never get out off, when all of a sudden a new character appears out of nowhere. Armstrong gives her the name Whatserface, which will make more sense by the end of the album. The singer describes Whatserface as a rebel, a saint, salt of the earth, dangerous, vigilante, missing link on the brink of destruction, the symbol of resistance and the mother of all bombs. Her path of life involves liberating people of the old way of thinking and starting a revolution of new thinking [“She’s A Rebel”].

Jesus of Suburbia falls in love with Whatserface. The two enter some kind of relationship, whether it be friendship or a romantic one. Either way, Jesus of Suburbia falls deeper in love with her, both with who she is and what she does. Unlike the people of his home city, Whatserface legitimately cares for people. Jesus of Suburbia finds Whatserface to be an extraordinary girl. Yet problems arise in their relationship. [“Extraordinary Girl”]. It’s not her; it’s him. In “Letterbomb,” a letter from Whatserface to Jesus of Suburbia ending the relationship, Whatserface confronts him with his problems. For Whatserface, Jesus of Suburbia not only represents the problems in the city she’s trying to solve, he seems to be contributing to them. The climax of the song, and the album, comes near the end of the song. Whatserface says/sings, “You’re not the Jesus of Suburbia. The St. Jimmy is a figment of your father’s rage and your mother’s love, made me the idiot America.” This reveals so much. For the first time, the listener realizes that St. Jimmy isn’t real. St. Jimmy either been a schizophrenic hallucination or a bipolar alter ego. On top of that, Whatserface calls out the main character for daring to call himself the Jesus of Suburbia. His whole title, “son of rage and love,” was from his father’s rage and his mother’s love, and both of them were formed by the American Idiot condemned at the beginning of the album. If the main character really was the “Jesus of Suburbia,” he would be doing more like what Whatserface was. Ultimately, Whatserface blames Jesus of Suburbia for the city’s problems. She decides to take the same path Jesus of Suburbia (we’ll still call the main character that until the end to prevent further confusion) took at the beginning of the album and leave the city behind, and leave Jesus of Suburbia behid with him [“Letterbomb”].

In the song “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” Jesus of Suburbia realizes that he still had some innocence in him, and now he lost the last bit of innocence. His innocence led him to think that he could find the perfect answer to all his problems. His innocence led him to believe that the big city and the “holiday feeling” could give him the answer. His naïve innocence led him to follow St. Jimmy’s path of sex, drugs and rock and roll for an answer. Instead of gaining from his innocence, those events resulted in losing innocence. And ultimately, he loses Whatserface as a result.

In the beginning of the song “Homecoming,” Jesus of Suburbia finds himself alone once again, with doubt. St. Jimmy makes another appearance. He argues that Whatserface was wrong. He blames other people, mainly Jesus of Suburbia’s mother and father, and offers the solution, returning to the world of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Jesus of Suburbia faces a challenge. He can either return to St. Jimmy or start all over and try again. The end of part 1 of the song sums up the decision: “St. Jimmy died today. He blew his brains out into the bay. In my state of mind, my own private suicide.” St. Jimmy’s metaphorical suicide represents that Jesus of Suburbia acknowledged St. Jimmy was not real, but a part of Jesus of Suburbia, a part that needed to stop [“Homecoming” Part 1 – The Death of St. Jimmy]. Yet it comes at a cost. St. Jimmy at least made Jesus of Suburbia felt like he had company. After killing St. Jimmy, Jesus of Suburbia comes to an even harder realization that he is alone, and no one cares. Aiming to really become his namesake, Jesus of Suburbia signs up for community service (Part 2 is called East 12th Street. East 12th street is where Billie Joe Armstrong had to do community service after his DUI arrest). The job is not as life changing as Jesus of Suburbia hoped, as he is only doing paperwork. He finds himself wishing again to get out [“Homecoming” Part 2 – East 12th Street]. Yet Whatsername’s word won’t get out of his head, “Nobody likes you. Everyone left you. They’re all out without you havin fun.” Not only can he not get her words out of his head, he can’t her out of his head. He finds himself constantly missing her, hoping she’ll come back [“Homecoming” Part 3 – Nobody Likes You]. Going back to his old life in the big city isn’t an option. In a postcard from a friend, Jesus of Suburbia learns that his friend Tunny has sobered up and cleaned himself up, which allowed him to start a famous and successful rock band. His friend asks Jesus of Suburbia to get off his case and leave him alone [Homecoming Part 4 – Rock and Roll Girlfriend]. So Jesus of Suburbia decides to return to his home city. Running away has not solved his problem. When he left home, his problems followed him, and the big city made them worse. Neither the holiday feeling of the big city or St. Jimmy’s lifestyle gave him the answer. Jesus of Suburbia gives up on finding the answers out there and just goes home. Yet, Jesus of Suburbia still can’t get Whatsername’s words out of his head, “Nobody likes you. Everyone left you. They’re all out without you havin fun.” [“Homecoming” Part 5 – We’re Coming Home Again].

The last song, “Whatserface,” takes place years after the previous song “Homecoming.” It would seem that Jesus of Suburbia has changed to be like Whatserface, which would be liberating people from the old way of thinking to start a revolution of new thinking. This is why Jesus of Suburbia says/sings in the last line of the last song of the album “Forgetting you, but not the time.” While Jesus of Suburbia might have forgotten the girl’s name, hence calling her “Whatserface,” he has not forgotten her personality and what she stands for. He lives on her legacy by living out that lifestyle himself. Yet he can’t help but miss her and wish she was back [“Whatserface”].
Now that we have all observed a summary of the story in American Idiot, let’s make some interpretations. Now that we have a full view of the story, the listener comes to recognize that St. Jimmy was never a real person. I’d like to go further and say that the Jesus of Suburbia is not a real person either. Jesus of Suburbia too is a name given to describe the personality of a character. Then who is the main character? The album does not say. The musical, which goes by the same name, gives the main character the name “Johnny,” so let’s call him Johnny.

So what does Jesus of Suburbia and St. Jimmy have to do with the main character, Johnny, if each one is not the main character himself? For that, you need to know some Freud. In Freud’s model of the psyche, Freud said that the ego was mediator between the super ego and the id. The id is the part of the self that drives the instinctual drives, desires, wants and needs. Of course, Freud being Freud, is was about sex and power. The super ego is the critical and moral side of the self. In short, the ego is made up of the balance between id and superego. What does this have to with American Idiot? I believe the Freudian psyche model accurately describes what is happening to the ego of Johnny. The super ego is the Jesus of Suburbia. Johnny’s superego, Jesus of Suburbia, is not happy with American being idiots. He wants change. The id is St. Jimmy. Sex, drugs, and punk rock are examples of things the id goes after. The whole story is about this battle between Johnny’s id and super ego to comprise his ego. At first, it’s Johnny’s super ego which pushes him to not accept unbelieving unsympathetic society he’s grown up in. Then the id steps in under the name of St. Jimmy, telling Billie the answer is in sex, drugs and rock and roll. Johnny listens to him, but his problems only become worse.

There it is again. We see again the heart’s tendency to lean towards the evil and lean away from the good. Johnny found it easier to listen to St. Jimmy, but found it hard to listen to Jesus of Suburbia. I believe this album became so popular because people could relate on how easy it is to evil and how hard it is to do good. Also, we notice another key aspect everyone can relate to: the struggle part. For years, people have tried to explain what this struggle could be.

Sigmund Freud tried to explain this is in terms of id, superego and ego. For Freud, the id is the selfish wants and desires that demands “I want it now,” the superego is the altruistic, utilitarian and moralistic side that informs you, “That’s not right,” and the ego is the real you, the compromise between the superego and the id. While Freud might have been onto something, I don’t like his conclusions. For starters, a Jew gone atheist does not belong in the church. Most importantly, Freud’s ego consists of a compromise between the selfish and the altruistic, the good and the evil. Freud’s philosophy states that the ego finds a moral excuse to act immorally. The Bible clearly teaches that no action is moral unless our thoughts and feelings are also moral.

The media tries to explain it, mainly in children’s cartoons. It is portrayed in the imagery of a “shoulder angel” and a “shoulder demon.” The shoulder angel whispers into one ear the right, good thing to do, and the shoulder demon whispers into the other ear the mean, selfish things to do. My favorite example of this comes from the Disney animated film The Emperor’s New Groove. While this may help explain to children moral decisions and moral dilemmas, I wouldn’t build a theology around it. This illustration makes it look like the shoulder angel and shoulder demon have equal strength and an equal opportunity to influence the person. The Bible makes it clear that the person with the deceitful heart is enslaved to do evil, unless the Almighty God intervenes, which we will get to now.

So how should Christians respond to this doctrine of the sinful nature?

First, people should admit and confess their sinful nature. There’s a saying that goes something along the lines of, “The greatest lie the Devil ever told was convincing people that he didn’t exist.” I would say along those lines that the next greatest lie that the Devil ever told was convincing people that they are good. When people are convinced they are good, even the most basic sense, they refuse to work on better themselves when they do sin. This is even harder for Christians. We know are process of sanctification, the process of becoming less sinful and more holy, yet that doesn’t mean we don’t deal with temptation or sin. That’s where we can get tripped up. We can allow the devil to convince us, “Well, you’re born again and you’re in the process of sanctification, so that thought/feeling must be right.” We must put our guard up. If Judah might have confessed their sin and guilt, God might have spared them from Nebuchadnezzar, but that would have required humility, which Judah did not have. Let us humble ourselves to admit our sin and confess we cannot do anything along.

Second, people need to receive the cure. If you read Jeremiah 17:9 in the New International Version, it reads, “The heart is deceitful and beyond all cure.” I get what they’re doing here. They are attempting to explain that absolute adjective form, which the English Standard Version explains as “desperately.” I don’t like their interpretive move because, simply put, there is a cure. Jeremiah may have given a lot of bad news, but Jeremiah did give some good news. Jereiah got to foresee the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31. Specifically, in Jeremiah 31:33,34, the Lord says, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” There is a cure, and his name is Jesus. Jesus was both a rebel and a saint. He rebelled against the legalistic religiosity of Pharisees and the Sadducees, and yet he did not break a sing law, staying holy. Christ’s death and resurrection ushered in the New Covenant that Jeremiah foresaw. Instead of a heart bent towards to sin and evil, the New Covenant gives us a heart towards holiness. How is that possible? The prophet Ezekiel, a contemporary of Jeremiah, also saw the New Covenant. In Ezekiel 36:26 God announces that he will give those in the New Covenant a new heart. Only a brand new heart can break this addiction to sin and allow sanctify ourselves. That heart can only come through Jesus. If you haven’t called on Jesus, believe in him, and you will get your new heart.

Third, we must remove all sin in our lives. Sin is destructive, both to the individual and the corporate. If we don’t rid our lives of sin, it will only lead to destructive results. Romans 8:13 says, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” I like how John Owens, a Puritan preacher, said it, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

Fourth, what we about the sinful nature of the heart should lead to praise God for his grace and mercy. Now I am getting back to those still struggling with this teaching. Those struggling with this doctrine might be thinking right now, “What about non-profit organizations, like the Red Cross? Are you really trying to convince me that they are evil?” I would not say they are evil, but I will not say that the goodness they create is a goodness that comes from their own heart. I credit that goodness to the grace and mercy of our Lord God. All things good can only come our Heavenly Father (James 1). When we credit goodness to humanity’s own head, heart and hands, we rob God of praise he deserves. Let us praise God bringing goodness down to earth through his grace and mercy, even when it seems like humanity is doing the opposite.

Cemetaries Came Alive!

 ³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me [Paul] …¹² Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. ¹⁵ We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. ¹⁹ If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. ²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. -1 Corinthians 15:3-8,12-20 ESV

Today, we join millions of Christians across this nation, if not across the whole world, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Today, millions of Christian gather together at sunrise to worship the risen Jesus, meeting at parks, at beaches, at mountains, and even at cemeteries. Yes, you heard me right, cemeteries. Doesn’t sound right for Easter, does it? Cemeteries are something we associate more with Halloween than with Easter.

Christians meeting in cemeteries for church shouldn’t sound like a foreign idea. It’s a rich part of church history. While recent studies may show that Christians didn’t meet in the catacombs in Rome as we thought, early Christians did indeed meet in cemeteries. At first, it was just for practical reasons. During times of persecution, Christians met in cemeteries because cemeteries lied outside the city limits and would not catch the attention of the authorities. Also, with the growing faith, Christians needed a bigger place to come together and worship. What bigger a space than cemetery. But as time went by, meeting in a cemetery to have a deeper meaning.

⁵² The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, ⁵³ and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. -Matthew 27:52,53 ESV

These two verses are commonly forgot in the crucifixion and resurrection story, probably because only Matthew mentions this part of the story, and he really doesn’t put a lot of attention or detail. Who are these “saints” or, as the Greek literally puts it, “holy ones”? Are they Old Testament heroes of the faith? Maybe they aren’t. After all, if Moses or Elijah was to resurrect, walk into the city and say, “Hey, I’m Moses” or “Hey, I’m Elijah,” how could they really prove it? Even today with all our forensic science, we too would have a hard time proving the identity of someone before the time Christ, whether dead or alive. Then perhaps maybe these saints or “holy ones” are people living in the first century A.D. who believed in Jesus as the Messiah and died during Christ’s ministry, like Simeon or Anna from the Christmas story. But then again, the Jews living in Israel today will tell you they know the final resting place of all those Old Testament heroes. They’ve clearly marked, or should I say “decorated,” the tomb of Samuel (trust me, I’ve been there). So maybe it could be those Old Testament heroes. Either way, the truth remains. Upon Christ’s death, the tombs broke open. Upon Christ’s resurrection, the residents of the tombs came alive. The life-giving spirit has given life to those who were dead!

All the early Christians knew what this meant. No longer was death to be feared as the eternal separator and end to all. Their Lord, Savior and God had overcome death once. Now the Christians had hope. They knew by believing in Jesus, they too could look forward to overcoming death and coming back to life, just like the saints and holy ones who had also died and come back to life when Jesus died and came back to life. The early Christians lived out this truth daily in their lives. The laid hands and prayed healing on those who had communicable and fatal diseases. They preached the word of God where the word of God was banned, and they were martyred as a result. Most pertinent to my introduction, Christians worshiped in cemeteries, believing that they were worshipping side-by-side with their brothers and sisters in Christ who were not dead but merely just sleeping until Christ’s return. In fact, cemetery in Greek is koimeteria, which literally means “sleeping place.”

Part of my Easter tradition consists of calling my grandfather to wish him a happy Easter. My grandfather, turning 86 years old this June, is well aware of how close to death. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed to say such, for every holiday he reminds of how close to death he is. Despite being as healthy as an 86 year old can be, he’ll still say something like, “I’m not sure if I’ll be alive when you graduate from seminary or when you sister gets married” or he’ll tell me, “I’m just taking it one day at a time, for I might die tomorrow.” One time he even told me he was just waiting to die! As you can imagine, these calls become quite depressing. Yet when it comes to time to end the call, my grandfather never lets me say “goodbye.” He always says, “No, Graham, do not say ‘goodbye,’ for this is not goodbye. Say ‘so long for now,’ for this is until we talk again.” When Jesus rose from the dead, he removed all the “goodbyes.” He gave us hope that this is not the end, but the best is yet to come. So next time you walk by or drive by a cemetery, remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and then remember, this is not “goodbye,” this is just so long for now.

The Atonement: A Multifaceted Diamond

 

Introduction

The Merriam-Website Dictionary defines the term “multifaceted” as “having many facets or aspects.” When most people think of the word “multifaceted,” they probably think of diamonds, and rightfully so. Facets have an important role in shaping the diamond. The more facets a diamond contains, the more the diamond will shine, and the more beautiful the diamond will look.

The Merriam-Website Dictionary defines the term “atonement” as “the reconciliation of God and mankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.” Since Jesus found the church in the first century, the church has always recognized the death of Jesus on the cross as an act atonement, unifying the broken relationship between God and humanity. How the death of Jesus on the cross has brought atonement has not been as well defined. As church history has changed, so has its theology on the atonement. With every change in atonement comes controversy. Some Christians try to hold on to the older theory, while other Christians embrace the new theory, and it brings about debate, sometimes vicious. Instead of debating, Christian should discuss. Christians should not see these different, contrasting theories, but rather view them as different facets of the same diamond. When Christians can see these theories as multiple facets the diamond of the atonement, the gospel of cross will shine, and it will help Christians see the cross as beautiful, not as abusive or violent. This paper seeks to help Christians appreciate each facet of the atonement diamond by backing each theory with Scripture, observing each theory in its historical context, and providing an example of an exemplary church leader who held the theory.

Recapitulation Theory

Possibly one of the first fully developed atonement theologies comes the Early Church Father Irenaeus. Irenaeus believed in the recapitulation theory of the cross. Irenaeus saw Jesus as divine God taking on human history when he became a man. Jesus differs from humanity, however, due to his sinless nature. Therefore, Jesus obeyed whereas Adam and humanity disobeyed, and Jesus succeeds whereas Adam and humanity failed. In essence, Jesus exchanged his sinless life with humanity’s sinful life, thus reversing humanity’s fallen history. For Irenaeus, this culminates at the cross. Whereas Adam brought disobedience by eating from the tree, Jesus brought obedience by dying on the tree. The Scriptures would defend Irenaeus’s view. Romans 5:19 says, “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 states, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Paul would have agreed with Iraenaeus that those who believe in Jesus God declares as righteous as Jesus, for Jesus took on humanity’s sinfulness as a man. Therefore, the recapitulation theory, which Irenaeus first developed, stands in line with the Scriptures, and Christians need to see this important aspect while gazing upon the cross.

Ransom Theory

Shortly after, Origen developed his theory, which would become known as the ransom theory. Origen knew the Bible said Jesus paid a ransom for humanity. Mark 10:45 states, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 1 Peter 1:18-19 declares, “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Origen struggled, however, to understand who Jesus paid this ransom to. For Origen, it did not make sense that Jesus, God the Son, would have to pay ransom to God the Father. It would be as if God paid ransom to himself. Origen concluded the ransom had to be paid to Satan. At the fall, Adam handed over humanity to the devil. If the Lord wanted humanity back, God had to pay with the life of Jesus, just as the devil had expected. Out of his own pride, however, Satan did not expect Jesus to overpower him. Satan could not grasp Jesus, and so Jesus escaped from Satan’s bonds. Therefore, Satan lost everything, both humanity and Jesus.

While Origen receives the credit for developing the theory, ransom theory underwent many revisions during those early years of the church. Gregory of Nyssa positively described ransom theory as divine deception, for the whole ordeal completely fooled Satan. Of his ignorance, Satan did not see Jesus as divine, but instead, Satan saw Jesus as a perfect or near-perfect human because of his righteousness and performance of miracles. Satan wanted Jesus, and he offered God Jesus in exchange for humanity. When Satan received the payment of Jesus, he learned of the divinity of Jesus, which lead to his downhill. Gregory uses a fishing analogy to illustrate his view. The fish believes he receives a free meal by chomping down on the worm, the but hook inside the worm leads to his demise.

John of Damascus liked Gregory of Nyssa’s fishing analogy, but he hated Origen’s belief that Jesus paid the ransom to Satan. Instead, John of Damascus proposed that Jesus did indeed paid the ransom to the God the Father. Ever since Adam sinned against God, God handed humanity over to death. When Jesus died on the cross, and he paid the ransom to the Father and tricked death, which could not hold Jesus and his divine nature. This view understand the Scriptures that Origen focused on, while keeping God sovereign over Satan.

Satisfaction Theory

The Middle Ages brought about a new outlook on the atonement. In the Middle Ages, the people of Europe lived in a feudal system. Lords would let serfs live on and farm the land, and in return, the serfs would pay the lords back with a percentage of the harvest. This rate could fluxuate, depending on how much honor or dishonor the serf gave the lord. If the serf dishonored the lord, the lord would require the serf to pay a higher price, almost too high to afford. Anselm, living in the Middle Ages, saw the cross in light of this context. The sin of humanity brought dishonor to God. Therefore, humanity owes God a payment in order to restore his honor. Indeed, the sinner cannot afford the payment of sin. No amount of righteous acts could undo all the evil that the entire human race had committed. Even the death of the all humanity would not fulfill the payment. Thus, man cannot pay the price, but only God can. The one paying needs to be both God and man. As God, he can make the payment. As human, he represents the party in debt. Since Jesus had both a divine and human nature, only Jesus could pay the price. By dying on the cross, Jesus paid a price he did not have to pay. Because of his love for humanity, he gifted the reward to all who believe him. Anselm, in feudal context, saw Jesus on the cross as propitiation, as described in Romans 3:25-26.

Moral Influence Theory

While a majority of Christians in the Middle Ages held to Anselm’s satisfaction theory, not everyone appreciated as much. Abelard did not like Anselm’s recent satisfaction theory, nor he did like the older ransom theory. Instead, Abelard opted for the moral influence theory. According to Abelard, Jesus came to inspire humanity to love God. Jesus demonstrated how this love should look all throughout his life, but that demonstration of love culminated with his death on the cross. When Abelard looked upon the cross, he did not see a payment for sin, but he saw Jesus display God’s love, which in turn would encourage humanity to love God in return, even it means death. Abelard saw Jesus on the cross as an act of love, just like Paul said in Romans 5:8, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In turn, Aberland encouraged his listeners to follow Christ’s example, even to death, as Peter commands in 1 Peter 2:21.

Penal Substitution Theory

During the Reformation, the Reformers developed a new theory of the atonement, although it contained many similarities to Anselm’s satisfaction theory. The Reformers disagreed with Anselm on the idea that humanity’s sin brought dishonor to God. In all God’s sovereignty and greatness, nothing could cause God to lose his honor, not even humanity’s sin. Rather, the Reformers laid the foundation of their theory on God’s view of justice. The just God gave humanity the law, defining the difference between holiness and sinfulness. The law reveals God as holy and humanity as sinful. The holy God exercises his wrathful judgment towards sin by punishing sinners with death. Just like Anselm, the Reformers declare the human race as helpless to pay the penalty, but the hope of salvation lies in Jesus. As both God and man, Jesus became the perfect sacrifice. He took on God’s wrathful judgment against sin, so humanity would not have to. He died, so humanity may live eternally. Jesus substituted himself for humanity, taking on the punishment for sin, so humanity would not have to, just as Hebrews 9:6-15 explains.

Christ as Victor Theory

 

Although its roots began during the period of the early church fathers, Gustaf Aulen made the Christ as Victor, or Christus Victor, popular in the twentieth century. J. Denny Weaver would make it popular again in the twenty-first century with his book The Nonviolent Atonement. As the name hints, this view of the cross centers around the idea of victory. The Fall enslaved humanity to the evil powers of the world, such as the Law, sin, death, Satan and his demons. When Aulen looks upon the cross, he sees Jesus victorious over the Law, sin, death, Satan, demons and all worldly. Aulen reinterprets Irenaeus’s recapitulation theory, Origen’s ransom theory and the Reformers’ penal substitution theory to prove that through history the church has held to the Christ as victor theory. While anyone could easily question Aulen’s reinterpretation of church history, the Scriptures back Aulen’s theology. Colossians 2:15 tells the reader, “ He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” Hebrews 2:14-15 informs the reader, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” Indeed, after the cross, Jesus stood victorius.

Healing Theory

Bruce Reichenbach, in the book The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, offers a fresh, new view of the cross for the twenty-first century. This new view Reichenbach calls the healing view, or the healing theory. Reichenbach uses the whole Bible to develop his theory. First, Reichenbach defines humanity’s fallen nature as a sickness. Reichenbach proves this by showing a consistency between sickness and sin in the Old Testament. Staying in the Old Testament, Reichenbach defends God’s role as healer, and then he shows how God invited the priests into this role of healing with the Levitical law. To wrap up the Old Testament, Reichenbach focuses in on Messianic prophecies that describe the Messiah as a healer removing disease. Turing to the New Testament, Reichenbach turns right to Jesus. He emphasizes the healing miracles of Jesus because he sees those miracles as displaying Jesus as God the healer and the priest aiding in the healing. Therefore, when the Gospel narratives climax at the crucifixion, Reichenbach sees the ultimate healing, the healing of humanity’s sin. Jesus takes on the virus of sin. The virus of sin kills Jesus, but not permanently, for the healer cannot die. Therefore, Jesus cures humanity of sin and brings peace through his healing on the cross.

Conclusion

Christians need to view the atonement as multifaceted, for the Bible views the atonement as multifaceted. In Romans 5:19 and 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul defines the atonement as recapitulation, for on the cross Jesus exchanges places with humanity. Humanity becomes pefect and Jesus becomes sin, taking the punishment for sin. In Mark 10:45 and 1 Peter 1:18-19, both Mark and Peter call Jesus on the cross as paying the ransom so the slaves of sin may become the slaves of Christ. In Romans 3:25-26 and 1 John 2:2, both Paul and John label the cross as propitiation, satisfying the dishonor humanity’s sin brought upon God. In Romans 5:8 and 1 Peter 2:20-21, both Paul and Peter see the cross as moral influence, for Jesus becomes an example of love and obedience, even unto suffering and death. From reading Hebrew 6:9-15, the first century Christians would have called the cross penal substitution, for they would have seen Jesus become the perfect sacrifice to pay God’s wrathful judgment towards sin, just like the sacrifices in Leviticus did. From reading Colossians 2:15 and Hebrews 2:14-15, Paul and other Christians of the first would have gazed up on the cross and acknowledged Jesus as victorious over sin, death, Satan and all the evil powers of the world. Since the Bible talks about all these views, Christians can conclude that the Bible sees the atonement as multifaceted.

Not only did first century church hold all these theologies of atonement, but the church continued to hold these theologies throughout history, sometimes emphasizing one point over another. During the centuries of the early church fathers, Irenaeus saw the atonement as recapitulation. During that same time period, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and John of Damascus looked up the atonement as payment of a ransom. When the Middle Ages came, Anselm emphasized the satisfaction theory because focused on the wrongdoing on humanity’s sin on God’s honor, whereas Abelard emphasized the moral influence theory because he focused in on God’s love. The Reformers at the time of the Reformation drew towards the idea of humanity’s sin as the object of a holy God’s wrath, so they developed the penal substitution theory. When the twentieth and twenty-first century arrived, Christians wanted to think less of violence and more on overcoming worldly powers, so Gustaf Aulen and J. Denny Weaver reminded the church that the atonement displays Christ as the victor of those evil, worldly powers. At some point in time in history, the church has held at least one of these views, if not more. Therefore, history provides a testimony of the importance of each facet. Some Christians in the church talk about returning the good days of the first century church. While this belief lacks respect for church history, it would be helpful for the church when it comes its theology of the atonement, for it will gives the church a more complete picture of the atonement.

The Most Mennonite Verse in the Bible

I hope my title intrigued you. I hope it had you guessing. If you haven’t guessed, pause to take a guess. What do you think the most Mennonite verse in the Bible is? You might remember the Mennonites came from the Anabaptists, and Anabaptists mean “re-baptizers,” so it must be some verse that has to deal with baptism. It isn’t. Well, you might remember how the Mennonites were one of the first to view communion as a symbol, so the most Mennonite verse must be when Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” It isn’t. You might know the Mennonite have always took a stand of peace, pacifism and non-violence over a position of violence and war, so maybe the verse is in Matthew 5:44, when Jesus says to love your enemies, or Romans 12:17-21, when Paul commands to not repay evil with evil, but evil with good, or Psalm 34:14, in which David advises to seek peace and pursue it. Nope, nope and nope. The Mennonite have always been concerned with social justice. Could the most Mennonite verse be a prophet commanding social justice, like in Isaiah or Amos? Not what I have in mind. Then what is the most Mennonite verse in the Bible? Drumroll please. I believe the most Mennonite verse in Bible is Acts 5:29, where Peter and the apostle say, “We must obey God rather than man!” I hope to show you that this belief began with the apostles in 1^st century, continued with Anabaptist forefathers in the 16^th century, and has big implications for today.

Before diving into the verse, let’s look at the verse in context. The context of this verse starts all the back in the previous chapters, chapter 3 and 4, for those chapters show us that this is not the first time. In Acts 3, a miracle happens. Peter and John are walking in the temple courts when they walk by a lame man. Peter takes the lame man by the hand, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, the man can walk (3:1-10). This miracle lands them right in front of the Sanhedrin, the acting Supreme Court, to testify (4:1-7). Naturally, Peter gives all the credit to Jesus (4:8-12). When the members of the Sanhedrin come together to convene, they are completely befuddled! For starters, here they see two uneducated, untrained, common, ordinary men speaking with the authority, boldness and confidence of a scholar, and they don’t know how to deal with that alone. Furthermore, and even worse for them, they have a formerly lame man literally standing before them, too. All the people acknowledge this miracle, so much that even the Sanhedrin can’t deny what they see (4:13-17). So all the Sanhedrin can do is command them to not preach in the name of Jesus anymore (4:18). In Acts 4:19,20, Peter and John answer them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” To me, this is a passive statement. If I may paraphrase what Peter and John said in Acts 4:19,20, they are saying, “You have to decide on your own what’s the right thing to do, but we know the right thing to do.” After that, the Sanhedrin let them go. I suspect they thought, “Well, they technically didn’t say ‘no’”.

But then, a similar scene happens again. More miracles happen in the name of Jesus Christ (5:12-16). Out of jealousy, the Sadducees have the apostles arrested (5:17,18). The Sadducees might have thought this put an end to miracles, but it only causes another miracle to happen. An angel of the Lord frees the apostles from being behind bars, commanding them to return to the temple grounds to preach the gospel message (5:19-21a). When the Sanhedrin finally convenes and is ready to call the apostles forward, the officers cannot find them in their cells. The Sanhedrin launches an investigation, but the investigation leaves them befuddled again! The doors are locked and guarded, but the apostles are nowhere to be seen. Finally, someone discovers the apostles preaching in the temple court (5:21b-25). Once again, the captain and the officers bring the twelve apostles before the Sanhedrin for questioning (5:26,27), and once again, the Sanhedrin commands the twelve apostles to stop preaching about Jesus (5:28). Now Peter, John and the rest of the apostles answer more aggressively than before. They realize that the Sanhedrin had backed them into a corner in choosing between the submitting to their religious authorities and preaching what their rabbi Jesus taught them to do. For the apostles, the real moral choice was clear, and they answer with a strong, direct answer.

When I studied Acts 5:29 in my commentaries, the commentators approached this verse with fear and caution, and rightfully so, for this verse contains great power. In the wrong hands and with wrong intentions, Acts 5:29 can be misused. It can be used for anarchy. An anarchist might say, “In Acts 5:29, Jesus, through the mouth of Peter, tears down all government by inspiring his disciples to revolt in revolution!” On the flip side, religious leaders can misquote and skew this verse to get the average church layman to blindly follow his leadership, even if sinful. Indeed, some of the most wicked popes in church history have gotten Christians to submissively obey them because the pope told the Christians this his acts were acts of God, not as a man, the pope. Both sides would fall in error because the Bible has safeguards against such interpretation in what Bible Hermeneutics calls the immediate context, the near context and the far context.

The far context, or the verse in context to the other passages of the Bible, does not support this. The apostle Peter, the same Peter who boldly proclaims in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than men!” will later on say in 1 Peter 2:12,13, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.” Soon after the story in Acts 5, the church will gain another apostle, named Paul. Eventually, the apostle Paul will write to the church in Rome, Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.” Together, 1 Peter 2:12,13 and Romans 13:1,2 show the Christian that Peter’s statement in Acts 5:29 is not a proclamation of anarchy.

The near context, or the verse in context to other verses in the chapter, does not support such bad interpretation. In Acts 5:30-32, Peter goes on to say, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” I personally bolded some words and phrases in those verses for emphasis. I like to call them “juicy nuggets.” These juicy nuggets demonstrate Peter is not pushing an anarchist agenda. First, Peter wisely uses the phrase “God of our fathers.” By doing so, Peter explains to the Sanhedrin that the apostles do not worship a new God or a different God. They were obeying the same God the Sanhedrin worshiped and the same God that both the apostles’ and the Sanhedrin’s ancestors worshipped. The difference was the apostles began following Jesus as God’s promised messiah, and Peter invites the Sanhedrin to accept Jesus as Messiah, too. Second, Peter gives Jesus the title “Prince.” This word has a heavy leadership connotation, especially in regards to government. The apostles may not be submitting to the Sanhedrin’s leadership, but they are submitting to Christ’s kingship. Third, Peter clarifies that God pours out the Holy Spirit to “those who obey him.” For Peter, and the reader as well, the Holy Spirit stands as proof of an apostle living a life of obedience, for the Holy Spirit indwells in Christians who live a life of obedience. (And just to clarify on my part, that obedience is not a list of commands, but rather that obedience is accepting and receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior

The immediate context, or the context of the words and phrases within the verse, safeguards the passage from bad interpretation. This one a little harder to see without reading the original Greek text. The word used for obey in Acts 5:29 is πειθαρχειν (peitharchein), which is not the common word used to define obedience, which is the Greek word ὑπακούω (hupakoúō). Once again, Peter carefully choses his wording in his defense. The word starts out with peith, deriving from the Greek word peitho, meaning to persuade. The middle part, arch, you might recognize from words like “archbishop” or “archenemy.” The Greek word arche, most literally means “first,” but can mean “first” as in supremacy, the highest. Therefore, the Greeks would commonly use the word for a leader or a ruler. Put it all together. The obedience that peitharchein talks about is an obedience out of persuasion by higher authority, such a ruler or an expert. Honestly, that “persuasion” could simply a ruler exerting his power, as in, “Obey my laws or suffer the consequences.” But I believe it was different for Peter and the other disciples. The disciples had spent the past few years listening to Jesus teach. They heard Jesus teach with authority, and such powerful teaching persuaded the disciples that Jesus had the way, the truth and the life from God. Then the Holy Spirit comes down on Pentecost, and when the disciples listen to the Holy Spirit speaking in their hearts, the Holy Spirits reaffirms the truths Jesus taught and persuades the disciples even more. For Peter and the disciples, they are persuaded by the Holy Spirit that they are not living a life of rebellion, but a life of obedience to a higher authority.

Still, as we read Acts 5:29, we have to stand in awe at the boldness and confidence of Peter and the apostles. Keep in the mind that the high priest and the Sanhedrin was the highest religious governing body of the day. They ruled on all matters religious and spiritual. They determined the difference between the godly and the ungodly, the righteous and the unrighteous, the clean and the sinful. And the Sanhedrin would tell you that God instituted them for that role. Peter and the apostles had been raised all their lives believing that. So when that governing body of 70 men tells them that one rabbi they listened to was off his rocker and a little crazy in the head, How could Peter and the apostles find the courage to stand so boldly and confidently to reply to the Sanhedrin, “No, you’re crazy for not listening to Christ Jesus”? I’ve already mentioned how Jesus taught with authority, and I went over how the Holy Spirit speaking the in apostles’ hearts, but I believe there’s more to it than that. I believe that piece is the Scriptures. We all know that famous verses 2 Timothy 3:16, which reads, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” What we all have a habit of forgetting is that the “Scriptures” that Paul is referring to what we call the Old Testament, the books from Genesis to Malachi. They did not have the New Testament yet. Luke 24:35 tells that after Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus “opened their mind to the Scriptures,” once again referring to the Old Testament. When the apostles read the Old Testament, they did not see the Sanhedrin’s interpretation; they saw Jesus.

But don’t think that the 1st century understanding of 2 Timothy 3:16 should be the same for the 21^st century. For us in the 21^st century, 2 Timothy 3:16 applies to New Testament Scripture, too. In 2 Peter 3:16, Peter puts Paul’s letters on the same level as the Old Testament Scripture. In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul starts out by saying, “The Scriptures say,” and then quotes the Gospel of Luke. Already by the 1^st century, the apostles recognized that their words were not the words of their own heart and their own will, but rather, their words were the words were the words of God the Holy Spirit speaking through them. So when a few generations later, when the Early Church Fathers convened to officially the create the New Testament canon of Scriptures, for the most part, they did the with great ease. Christians of generations past had already recognized those 27 books as God-inspired revelation, not just because the teaching had authority, but also because these had been equipping, edifying and encouraging the church for decades.

So why do I think Acts 5:29 is the most Mennonite verse in the Bible? Let’s fast forward in history to the 1500s for some Anabaptist history (for those of you who don’t know, the Mennonites would come from the Anabaptists). Actually, let’s start with some Anabaptist pre-history. Ulrich Zwingli had begun a Reformation in Zurich, Switzerland, question both Catholic doctrine and Catholic church practices. In fact, the Anabaptist forefathers George Blaurock, Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz were disciples of Ulrich Zwingli. They looked up to him, but they saw that he had one big flaw, which Zwingli did not see as a flaw at all! Zwingli had a high view of church and state. Therefore, Zwingli would always ask the city council for permission before making a reform, and Zwingli would only go through with it if he received the city council’s stamp of approval.

 

The Anabaptist forefathers, Blaurock, Grebel and Manz sharply disagreed with Zwingli on this practice. They believed the city council had no authority to make decisions for the Christian or for the church. They believed only the Bible had the authority to do so. This caused the early Anabaptists to hold their own Bible studies, in which they read and re-read the Bible in order to learn how to live life as the Bible says to live life, not as any governing body said so.

At the time, the pressing issue just happened to be infant baptism. Ulrich Zwingli had actually played around with the thought of removing infant baptism, but when the council refused to get rid of infant baptism because they used the infant baptism as their method of taking census, Zwingli submitted and ceased to play around with the idea anymore. The Anabaptist forefathers, Blaurock, Grebel and Manz could not submit so easily. When they read the Bible, they could not find infants being baptized, but they saw adults being baptized as a symbol of voluntarily joining the church and the kingdom. Therefore, Conrad Grebel refused to baptized his daughter, and George Blaurock had Conrad Grebel baptize him as an adult, for Grebel and Blaurock believed that they followed the Bible more closely by doing so. So let me make a big and bold interpretation of history, for all history is interepreted. The initiation and foundation of the Anabaptism is not adult baptism, as the name hints. If big issue of the day would have been communion, we would have been known as the memorialists. If the big issue of the day would have been war, we would have been known as the pacifists. The initiation, foundation and driving force behind the Anabaptists and the Mennonites is the belief that the Bible, as God’s inspired Word, is the ultimate authority on truth and righteous living not man. To sum it up, I would use our verse, Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than men!”

If you need anymore, listen to this quote by Anabaptist forefather Felix Manz. At his trial, he gave this simple defense, “I wish to bring together those who were willing to accept Christ, obey the Word, and follow in His footsteps, to unite with these by baptism, and to purchase the rest in their present conviction.” As simple as Manz’s defense is, it’s also complex. Not only does Felix give the obedience of the Word a priority in his belief, he also recognize the only way a person can transition from accepting Jesus to following in Christ’s footsteps is obeying his word.

Let’s catch to the present day, to the 21^st century. How do we can continue on the tradition of acknowledging God’s Word as the authority on how to live our life, just like the apostles did in the 1^st century and the Anabaptist forefathers did the 16^th century? First, we have to know the Word. We cannot follow the Word unless we know the Word. This involves reading our Bible on a daily basis. This involves reading that Bible story for the hundredth time, if not more. That means taking to the time read and listen on what other Christians had to say about that passage, in both the past and present. And it involves taking the time to meditate and reflect on the Scriptures that are read. We cannot obey and follow unless we know what to obey and follow.

If you’re a teacher, or even took one teaching class in college, you’ll know there was this guy with the last name Bloom, who had a taxonomy, famously called Bloom’s Taxonomy. On Bloom’s Taxonomy. Bloom’s taxonomy displays the levels of learning. On the lower end, the base of the pyramid, you have lower end learning, “knowledge,” which is as simple as remembering, even if it’s by rote memorization. On the higher end, the top of the pyramid, you have higher learning, like analysis (breaking things down), synthesis (putting things together), and evaluation. The reason for the pyramid shape is that higher end learning cannot happen without a base of lower end thinking. Let’s look at an example. Consider the question, “Would Augustine have justified World War II with his Just War Theory?” That’s a high-end learning evaluation question. In order to answer that question, you needed a base of lower-level thinking knowledge. From the question alone, you need to know who Augustine was, what his Just War Theory was, and what World War II was. After finding out those answers, you’d have to build another base of knowledge and comprehension by making connections. After learning that Augustine’s Just War Theory says that all other possible means must be exhausted before declaring war, you’d have to look into what other nations attempted to do to stop Hitler prior to World War II. After learning that Augustine’s Just War Theory states the least destructive methods have to be used, you’d have to learn about the weapons and armor used in World War II, from the H-bomb to the fire bombings of Tokyo. See what I mean? If we want this generation of Christians, and the future generations of Christians, to live out a Christian lifestyle, we must start by building a foundation of Biblical knowledge. Without that foundation of Biblical knowledge, how can we expect future Christians to know how to apply a Christian lifestyle to the world that they live in?

If you still need convincing, you need to read unChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. In most of the book unChristian, Kinnaman and Lyons focuses on surveying non-Christians to understand how they see Christians, but a few times, they survey Christians, and those surveys are quite eye-opening. When surveying Christians, David and Gabe wanted to make sure they were really surveying Christians, not just people who said they were Christian. So in order to qualify as Christian, the person had to call himself or her a “born again Christian,” a “fully devout Christian” or a Christian who “accepted/received Jesus as Lord/Savior.” I think we can agree that those people are indeed genuine Christians. They then wanted to see if those Christians had a Biblical worldview, meaning that they saw the world as the Bible sees the word. In order to have a Biblical worldview, the Christian had to believe that God is the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator of the universe, Jesus was sinless, Satan is real, salvation is a gift from God than cannot be earned, a Christian has the responsibility of sharing his/her faith with other people, the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches, there is such thing as unchanging moral truths, and the Bible tells us what those moral truths are. Once again, I believe we can all agree this is the bare minimum of a Biblical worldview. Guess how many Christian could say they have a Biblical worldview because they hold to all 7 beliefs. It’s not half of the Christians at 50%. It’s not a third of Christians at 33.3%. It’s 25%, 20%, 17.6%, 12.5% or even 10%. It’s 3-9%. Among Christians between the ages of 20 to 40, only 3% had a Biblical worldview. That’s roughly 1 out of 33. Among Christians over the age 40, only 9% of Christians had a Biblical worldview. That’s roughly 1 out of 11. Wow

That’s the not even the shocking part! After determining which Christians had Biblical worldview, Kinnaman and Lyons asked all the Christians in their survey about their lifestyle choices. David and Gabe found that the Christians who signed off on all 7 beliefs of a Biblical worldview live a lifestyle completely counter cultural to the world around. The Christians who could not sign off on any of those beliefs, and the Christians who signed off on only a couple or a few of those beliefs, lived lifestyles very similar to the world and the culture around. We need to realize that the way we think does affect the way we act. It all starts in our brain and in our hearts, and it flows out of our hands. If we want to live out a Biblical worldview, we need to start by thinking a Biblical worldview.

But as the Parable of Wise Builder and the Foolish Builder reminds us, it’s no good to just listen to God’s Words. We must apply it, and we must obey it. I could say so much about that. Of course, if the Bible says do it, you do it. If the Bible says don’t do it, then don’t do it. If you’re unsure, consider doing whatever is counter culture. Sure, it might be sinful, Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians, that while it may not be sinful, we still need to consider if it helps or hinders our spiritual growth and relationship with God. Most often than not, when we choose to live counter-cultural to world around us, we grow spiritual and become closer to God.

Speaking of counter culture, one of the best way to continue the tradition of Biblical obedience that the apostles started in the 1st century and the Anabaptist forefathers continued in the 16^th century is to be a witness by your counter-cultural obedience. When we talk about being a witness, we usually think of Christians witnessing to non-Christians, and rightfully so, for this is where our priority should be. But I believe that Christian denominations can be witnesses to other Christian denominations that certain beliefs work. And what a witness the Mennonite church has been

Indeed, the Mennonites have influenced the church in the past, and the Mennonites are influencing the church in the present. Don’t believe me? In the United States of American, a majority of the churches (dare I say “most”) practice adult baptism; only a minority still practice infant baptism. Who began that? The Mennonites. In many American churches (dare I say “most” again?), if you ask the pastor about the church’s view of communion, or read the booklet or pamphlet on church beliefs, you’ll discover that they hold a symbolic view of communion, most similar to what the Mennonites belief. Who started that? The Mennonites. And the Mennonites died over such issues! Those other American churches didn’t start agreeing with the Mennonites until it was safe to come out of hiding.

But the Mennonites’ influence does not cease in the past. The Mennonite still witness to other denominations in the present day. As a seminary student, I try to stay up-to-date with what pastors and theologians. I can’t count the number evangelical pastors who are beginning to say, “You know what? Christians joining the military to fight in a war doesn’t make sense. I can’t see Jesus enlisting to fight, nor can I see any Jesus wanting anyone to enlist. It would contradict what Jesus preached on the Sermon on the Mount.” And these are the most patriotic evangelical pastors, the ones who preach from a pulpit that stands next to the American flag! I can’t help but wonder if the Mennonites gave these evangelical pastors that idea. I’ve read many emergent pastors talk about bringing about the kingdom of God with social justice and social reform. The talk and language they are using is very similar to what I heard Mennonite pastors preach decades earlier. I can’t help but wonder if the Mennonites gave those emergent pastors these ideas. And churches all around the nation are beginning to introduce foot washing into their church practices. It began sneaking in as something a couple would do in a marriage ceremony. But as the pastors would prepare for the wedding ceremony and the foot washing, they began reading John 13, and they realized that this was a practice everyone was involved in, right alongside communion. And so pastors are beginning to introduce this idea of foot washing into the church. Now, they have to introduce it slowly and safely. Some churches are doing hand washing instead of foot washing; other churches have only the pastor administer the washing to the congregation. Still, the Mennonite witness proved that this practice spiritual benefited the church, and now other churches in America are having the same experience.

And I believe the Mennonite church can continue to be that faithful witness. I am slow to mention on how we can because it is a hot topic issue, but it recently has become very relevant in the Mennonite church. The Mennonite church is become more divided over the topic of homosexuality. At the last national conference, the Pink Mennonites (pro-gay Mennonites) were aggressively pushing the Mennonite church as whole to accept homosexuality and reject the idea that homosexuality is a sin. And so Mennonite USA passed a forbearance resolution. If I may be so bold, let me boldly proclaim that I believe our Anabaptist forefathers would be embarrassed to see what we become. Honestly, if I woke tomorrow morning, and I heard the news say, “The federal government has passed a law requiring all church to practice infant baptism. Anyone found baptizing adults will be imprisoned, tortured and killed.”, I would have to pause and ask myself, “Is that really worth dying over?” Our Anabaptist fathers thought it was. They were willing to be imprisoned, tortured and killed in order to Bible exactly to the letter. And here were are, in the 21^st century, falling in and conforming just because we don’t want to be ridiculed, made of fun, or appear as unloving. We have a wonderful opportunity to be that witness again! What an amazing witness it could be, too. Imagine all the other Christian denominations looking upon us and thinking, “Wow, those Mennonites believe homosexuality is a sin, but they are still a loving people, being nice and kind to everyone, even the gays and lesbians. I guess you really can be loving and opposing homosexuality as sinful.” We can be that, but we must stand our ground, despite what our surrounding culture says, both Christian and non-Christian.

Lord, thank you for the Bible. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for wanting to talk to us. May we receive it and show how much we appreciate it. May we use your Word to love and uplift one another, and most importantly, may we use your Word to love you and glorify you. Amen.

[Esther 0] The Prologue

My study of Esther dates back to spring 2011. My study of Esther could been seen as an act of the providence of God, for it seemed like within the spring months of 2011, Esther was thrown at me from many areas of my life. I was timekeeping for ACC Bible Quizzing, and the 2011 Bible Quizzing material was on Joseph and Esther. I was in the midst of student teaching, and the 10^th grade Bible teacher at ChristianSchool of York asked me to teach his 10^thgrade class the book of Esther. Already I ran into the book of Esther twice. The third time I would run into it would be in a short discussion in my small group Bible study. Although the discussion was brought about by an event I did not partake in, and the discussion was short and a “side note,” it was a very interesting discussion that raised questions. What happened to bring about the discussion (the “historical occasion” if you will) was a chapel that my 2 friends had at Lancaster Bible College. The chapel speaker began speaking on Esther, and then halfway through the chapel, he announced that the men and women would be split up and spoken to privately on what Esther meant for each gender. As the men and women suspected, the women talked about what it meant to be a woman in leadership (my 2 male friends verified this with their female friends and classmates). The men were excited to learn what Esther means to them as males, but they would be disappointed. Pretty much, the men were told that lesson men can learn from Esther is that men should allow women in leadership. Now may I remind you this chapel is led by a male, so arguing that they are pushing a feminist movement would be a weak one, but whatever your stance is on women in leadership, it should leave you scratching your head. It left my 2 friends scratching their head. Questions arose from the chapel. Why do we have the book of Esther in the Bible? What’s the main point, the moral of the story, and the lesson to be learned from the book of Esther? It would seem like that chapel speaker believed that the main point and the moral of the story is on women in leadership. But if that’s the case, it would beg the question: “Then what does the book of Esther mean for men?” There’s got to be a deeper meaning than “allow women leadership.” Even if you’ve heard that women in leadership is the moral lesson to be learned, I’m going to argue it’s not by giving an argument for a stronger point, a lesson that is equally applicable for men and women. It’s the providence of God.

I want us to float back to one of the questions I asked in the [long] introduction paragraph above. Why do we have the book of Esther in the Bible? A better question: Does Esther belong in the Bible? I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but there are whole studies on the canonicity of the Bible, or determining what books belong in the Bible. And Esther is one of the most debatable and one of the hardest books of the Bible to accept. It hasn’t always been accepted throughout history. A prime example would be the Essences, a Jewish group who didn’t even bother to copy manuscripts of Esther, nor translate Esther into other languages. It’s important to know if Esther is worthy to be in the Bible. If we don’t believe that Esther belongs in the Bible, we’re not going to learn anything from it. To do this, we have to look at some of the outside information we know about the book of Esther before we dive into the actual story of Esther. Yes, I know I usually look at the background information of the book to help give a bigger and deeper understanding of the text, and that’s still true for the book of Esther. But the background information is especially important for the book of Esther because it’s what the theologians and other Bible scholars look at to determine whether Esther is canon or not. So let’s look at the background information as evidence to help us decide whether or not Esther belong in the Bible.

So first let’s look at the author of Esther. Tradition has stated over time two authors. The earliest Jewish tradition credits the Great Synagogue for writing the book of Esther. Let me explain the Great Synagogue. Around one hundred years before Jesus came, about one hundred Jewish Rabbis and other religious leaders of the day got together to decide what books needed to be in the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament. During this time, to explain Purim, they want to put Esther in the Bible, but there are hundred of copies, some of which are just official Persian transcripts, and others editions weren’t even on written down. They were oral traditions. So the Jewish Rabbis, who called themselves “The Great Synagogue,” came together to make one copy of the story of Esther, one that agreed with no contradictions. That’s what most Jews say we have today. About one hundred years after the Great Synagogue, there was a Jewish historian by the name of Josephus. Josephus simply said Mordecai was the author, end of story. Some of Jews stick with his reasoning

Each side has valid proof. Those who see Mordecai as the author look at Esther 9:20, which says Mordecai had written it. But the other side will just come back and say it only says Mordecai wrote some of the book, not all of it. The Great Synagogue supporters point towards Esther 10:3. Esther 10:3 uplifts Mordecai greatly. The supporters would say it’s out of character for Mordecai to be so boastful. The supporters of the Great Synagogue also would say that the book many times over mentions the “annals and the chronicles of the Medes and the Persian,” so it’s another source. On the other side, the Mordecai supporters say that it has to be Mordecai because the author is clearly a Persian Jew because the author has full knowledge of the Persian laws and customs, and is lesser concerned about Israel. While I do believe those who support the Great Synagogue has strong arguments, I believe the arguments for Mordecai are stronger, so I’m going to say that Mordecai is the author of the book of Esther.

But the who question has another important people group, known as the audience. The audience is whom the book was originally intended to. The audience for the book of Esther is for all the Jews in Persian Empire. The Jews are scattered among the Persian Empire, thanks to the Babylonian exile. But it might be more specifically to the Jews in Israel. I’m not going to much explanation now, but the Jewish population is still heavily concentrated in Israel. Even though there is a lot of Jews in Israel, they are struggling. The Babylonian invasion tore apart the country and the Babylonian exile only left the poorest of the poor there. Rebuilding Israel is a struggle. For example, it took them 21 years to rebuild the temple. Even during that period, that’s a long time to rebuild a temple.

Now we know the who and the whom, let’s ask ourselves “when,” which obviously refers to dates. This question also comes in two parts. The first part is “When do the events happen?” The answer is somewhere between 483-473 BC. In terms of the Bible chronology, this would be between Ezra 6 and 7. This is critical between the temple has just been finished, and the Jewish people are trying to get back to the Law, which will go into a little deeper later. We know this time frame is right because King Xerxes ruled 486-465 BC. The other date question would be “When is this book written?” and the answer to that would be some time between 465-435 BC. Esther 10 talks about Xerxes in the past tense, so it has to be after his reign. But if Mordecai is the author, it can’t be later than his life. (This has led some canonicity scholars to believe Esther is the last book of the Old Testament to be written.)

Let’s look at the location, or the “where” next. Technically we can say the story happens in the whole Persian Empire because a lot of the decisions that King Xerxes makes affects Jews all around the Persian Empire. But if we were to get into the majority of the story, it would happen the capital city of Susa. It was also known as Shusan. Actually, if we wanted to get more specific, we could even say that it happens at the king’s palace and citadel of Susa. A citadel is the marketplace, the city square. All the important affairs of the city happen there, from the political, like court cases, to the financial, like business transactions. A lot of important events will happen in the citadel of Susa in the book of Esther. But there’s got to be a deeper reason we look at the location than that. So what’s the importance of knowing the location is Susa? The book of Esther focuses on the Jewish people, but doesn’t really mention Israel. The Jewish characters seem to have no urge to even go back to the land of Israel. God doesn’t care as much about the land, but he more cares about the people.

Now we’re going to talk about the “what.” The “what” is the historical occasion, or the events that lead up to the story. Since this Bible book is a historical narrative, the historical occasion will consist of the events that lead up to the current setting of the where and the when. So the question we have to ask ourselves is: What important events do we need to know to understand how we have Jews scattered about the Persian Empire? Well, how far back do you want to go? Technically, we can go all the way back to Genesis, explaining how God created man, but man fell from glory into sin, and how God chose a person (Abraham) to bring about a chose people who will ultimately bring about the Messiah and salvation. But I don’t think that’s necessary. Don’t worry, I got it down to 7. First, we need to remember God’s promise to the Israelites that they get to be in the promised land if they obey God, but if they do not obey God, they will be sent into exile. But as we know, the Israelites don’t obey. One of the reasons may be because they did not get rid of the foreign influences that would turn them to idol worship. One example I am going to pick out is King Saul and the Amalekites. The Lord commands Saul to kill off the Amalekites and wipe them off the face of the planet. Saul, to exalt himself, decides to let the royal family live. This specific example might come back to hurt the heroes of the story. But back to the disobedience of Israel, the disobedience leads to sin, and the sin leads to exile. Even with Israel and Judah split, both will go into exile. Israel is taken captive by Assyria in 722 BC and Judahis exiled by Babylonin 586 BC. While Judahis in exile, one of its prophets, by name of Daniel, interprets a couple of dreams in which God reveals the progression of empires. First comes the Babylonians. Next the Medes and the Persians will take over, then the Greeks will conquer, followed by the Romans. Sure enough, we see the first part come true as the Medes and Persians take over Babylon539 BC. The Persian King Cyrus allows all the exiled to go back home, but many choose to stay there. The Jews that do decide to go back to have a huge assignment in front of them. They have to rebuild the capital city of Jerusalem, which includes the temple and the city walls, as well as their homes. And they are struggling. They are poor and they face opposition. They are losing hope.

So now we know the who, whom, where, when, and the what, we can answer the why. The “why” is the purpose of the book of Esther. Why was the book written? To create a purpose, we need to combine all the details of the information given above. We’re agreeing on Mordercai writing the book of Esther. We’re agreeing that the audience is the Jews, mostly the Jews heavily concentrated in Israel. Now take into to consideration the historical occasion. The Jews in Israel are struggling to rebuild Israel and are losing hope. What do you need to do for someone struggling and losing hope? You motivate them! What do you motivate them with? God’s providence and faithfulness!

Mordecai wrote the book of Esther to motivate the Jews with God’s providential delivery and faithfulness to his people.

Now we know the purpose, or why Mordecai wrote the book, we can answer the plan, or how Mordecai will demonstrate God is provident, God is faithful and God will deliver. Maybe you’ve heard the Bible isn’t good at story telling. Well, Esther proves that wrong. The book of Esther is written like a play. It is a 3 act play, with 3 scenes each, except the last act, which has 4 scenes. Each scene is a chapter, and each chapter is a scene.

1. Act 1: The characters are introduced, and conflict arises (Esther 1-3)
1. Scene 1: A spot opens up (Esther 1)
2. Scene 2: The heroes are introduced and are strategically placed (Esther 2)
3. Scene 3: The villain is introduced, and he begins his evil plan (Esther 3)
2. Act 2: The plot thickens, and the climax is reached (Esther 4-6)
1. Scene 1: The heroes devise the plan (Esther 4)
2. Scene 2: The heroes set up the plan (Esther 5)
3. Scene 3: CLIMAX!- a foreshadowing of the villain’s downfall to the heroes (Esther 6)
3. Act 3: The heroes save the day (Esther 7-10)
1. Scene 1: The heroes win, the villain loses (Esther 7)
2. Scene 2: The good guys win, the bad guys lose (Esther 8)
3. Scene 3: The heroes and the good guys celebrate (Esther 9)
4. Scene 4: And they all live happily ever after (Esther 10)

Maybe a visual would help.

 

 

It’s called a literary pyramid (or some name similar to that). A literary pyramid shows the rising action, the climax, the falling action and the resolution. At the base on the left, the characters, setting and conflict are introduced. The incline on the left is the rising action, or what happens to get from the conflict to the climax. At the top of the pyramid is the climax, where the plot twists in a way that it cannot go back to what it use to be. The falling action is what happens to get from the climax to the resolution. Finally, there is the resolution, where the problem is solved. When the book of Esther is put in the literary pyramid, it would look like the picture above. Esther 1-2 is the introduction, where the protagonists are introduced and the setting is put in place. In Esther 3-5, the antagonist is introduced, and the antagonist starts bringing in conflict against the protangonists. In Esther 6, the climax happens because the antagonist’s downfall is in full motion and nothing can stop it. Esther 7-8 shows the downfall fully play out and Esther 9-10 displays the resolution to the story in its final state. The literary pyramid demonstrates a second time that Esther is good story material.

Now that we have the introductory material, we have now made a big step forward in deciding whether or not the book of Esther is canonical, or whether or not the book of Esther belongs in the Bible. First, let’s review what we just talked about

AUTHOR (WHO): Mordecai

AUDIENCE (WHOM): The Jews

DATE (WHEN): Took place 483-473 BC, written in 465-435 BC

LOCATION (WHERE): Susa, the capital city of the Persian Empire

HISTORICAL OCCASION (WHAT): The Jews in Israel are struggling to rebuild Jerusalem, and they are losing hope

PURPOSE (WHY): Mordecai wrote the book of Esther to motivate the Jews with God’s providential delivery and faithfulness to his people.

PLAN (HOW): A 3-Act Play

 

A big part of canonicity is historicity. Historicity is seeing if the Bible lines up with history. When it comes to historicity, Esther has its strengths and weaknesses. The first strength is that book accurately reflects the Persian empire, its culture and its customs. The second strength is that it fits the literary style of the time, too. Back then, history was told like a story. At the same time, history can be its weakness. One weakness is that there is no mention of Vashti, Esther, Mordecai or Haman is mentioned in any discovered Persian writings. Xerxes is mentioned in the Persian writings, but the character of Xerxes in those Persian writings is totally different from the character of Xerxes in the book of Esther. But one could easily say it’s because the Persian writings made sure to put their king in a positive atmosphere, without mistakes or problems. Another weakness is that the times and chronologies do not always match what we know as history. Besides history, canonicity is also looked at from different perspectives, such as the message. Those for Esther being in the Bible would say Esther belongs because of 3 important messages. First, it shows the triumph of God’s people over his enemies. Second, it shows the providence of God. Third, it gives a background of Purim. But the message can be contested simply with one fact: there’s not mention of God, or any other name for God, such as Lord. We’re even going to find in our reading the perfect verse where God could be mentioned, but he’s not. In fact, there’s no mention of the law or sacrifices either (but to be fair, sacrifices would have to happen in Jerusalem, and the story takes place in Susa). So what is the good of a message if there is no God? Does God have to be mentioned to say he’s at work?

Those last 2 questions are the questions I want to stick in your mind all throughout our study of Esther. “Is God at work even though he is not mentioned?” I think the same question applies to us. God will not always give a big sign that says, “I am at work here!” So does that mean God is not at work? By no means! It is up to us to see God at work, use that in our testimony, and praise Him. So for this Bible study, I am going to give you a follow-up activity. Take a piece of lined notebook paper. Label this paper in the top margin “God Sightings.” In the left hand column, to the left of the red/pink line, write the date. In the body, right of the red/pink line, write down something or somewhere you saw God at work. I plan to stretch this Bible study on Esther throughout September, so see if you can keep this list up daily for the whole month of September, or even past that. But if even if you decide not to participate in this little exercise, I’ll be pointing out the “God Sightings” in Esther. You can follow along with that.

In conclusion, I ask again, “Does Esther belong in the Bible?” There are more pros for Esther being in the Bible than there are cons against. The pros for Esther’s canonicity are stronger than the weak cons. So I have come to the decision that Esther belongs in the Bible. Since Esther belongs in the Bible, it needs to be studied so we can learn from it. So let’s begin our walk through this 3-Act play to see what message God is teaching us