Archives For Bible – Galatians

Jesus is Not a Victim: Good Friday 2013

March 29, 2013 — Leave a comment

“Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment I received of my Father.” (Jn. 10:17-18)

It’s hard for us to imagine choosing suffering.

Who chooses to hurt? Who signs up for pain? Cancer, miscarriage, barrenness, the humiliation of job loss, strained and broken relationships, rebellious children, betrayal, misunderstandings that just don’t seem to go away, disappointment, death of our parents, a spouse, a child, not to mention the painful consequences and shame of any number of our own mistakes and failures.

Even the sturdiest of Christians often find themselves saying something like this: I wouldn’t have chosen this path, but I can see God’s grace in it. I wouldn’t have told the story this way, but I can see how the glory of God has shone through. How many of you have said something like that?

But Jesus is saying something different than that. Jesus is not saying that a series of unfortunate events will befall Him but God His Father will work them out for good. Jesus is not saying that. We know that God does in fact work all things out for good. God is working all things out for good. But Jesus is not passive in that work. Jesus is not merely being acted upon. Jesus doesn’t just have things happening to Him. Jesus is not a victim of circumstances. Jesus is not a victim of bad luck. Jesus is not even the victim of the plotting of evil men.

Jesus says that no one can take His life from Him. Jesus is not a victim. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. Jesus did not come to feed the sheep and somehow He got caught in the middle of a wolf attack. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and the Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. That’s not a possibility, not a potential hazard, that’s the plan. That’s what the Good Shepherd does. That’s what the Good Shepherd is for. That’s how you know He’s the Good Shepherd because He gives His life for the sheep. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Galatians, bible - John, Bible - Romans, Church Calendar, Lent, Sermon Outlines
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Jesus is Enough

January 25, 2013 — Leave a comment

One of the key themes in Paul’s letters to the fledgling churches of the first century is the insistence that Jesus is enough. In Jesus, they have been granted all that is needed. Everything that the Old Covenant foreshadowed is found in Jesus. Everything that the pagan nations ached for and groped toward, has now been revealed in Jesus. All goodness, all pleasure, all wisdom, all blessing is found in Jesus because Jesus is God’s Eternal Son. Jesus is the Executor of God’s estate. He runs the whole show. He has access to everything, and therefore in Him, we have access to everything.

One of the greatest threats to the early church’s grasp of this came specifically from the Jews, the nearest relatives of the Christian Church. The book of Acts clearly shows that the Jews were the center of the persecution of the first Christians (witness Saul/Paul), and in every city Paul proclaims the gospel to the Jews first and then when they have had enough, Paul turns to the Gentiles and this tends to enrage the Jews and before long they have stirred up mobs and riots and chased the apostles out of town. Surely other pagans had their own axes to grind, but the pressure is coming in its most virolent forms from the synagogues.

This pressure included direct political/physical threat and force (beatings, imprisonment, trials), but it also included multiple layers of social force and threat below this: threat of excommunication from the synagogues, being cut off from friends, family, and inheritance, as well as enduring the frowns, the disappointment, the implicit and explicit signs of betrayal, disappointment, let down. And these pressures and tensions aren’t usually just theological or abstract. God made the world such that battles are usually pitched in particular places, on particular dirt. There is usually much more going on than what can be seen in a particular flash of conflict, but the location and occasion for the conflict are relavent. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Colossians, Bible - Galatians, Creation, Culture, Education, ethics, Food, Grace, Jesus is Enough, Pastoral Theology, Politics, Wisdom
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Assurances of Salvation

June 6, 2012 — 1 Comment

Pastor Jim Wilson has a great little booklet entitled Assurances of Salvation, available here in Kindle format and available here for free download, along with a few other goodies.

The booklet lists 8 ways to have assurance of salvation but begins with the recommendation to read 1 John which is written “so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 Jn. 5:13).

Pastor Wilson continues with the following assurances:

1. The Holy Spirit seals, guarantees, and assures us (1 Jn. 4:13, Rom. 8:16-17, Eph. 1:13-14, 2 Cor. 5:5, 1 Cor. 2:11-16).
2.  Change of Character: read the lists of the works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:19-25. Which list characterizes you? Jesus saves out of the first list into the second.
3. Confessing Jesus as Lord (1 Cor. 12:3, Rom. 10:9-10, Lk. 6:45).
4. Obedience: People who are saved obey Jesus (1 Jn. 3:6, 3:9-10, 5:18, 2:3).
5. Discipline: If you are getting away with disobedience, you are not a child of God. If you are being disciplined, pay attention and repent (Heb. 12:5-11). Continue Reading…

In Bible - 1 Corinthians, Bible - 1 John, Bible - 2 Corinthians, Bible - Colossians, Bible - Ephesians, Bible - Galatians, Bible - Hebrews, bible - John, Bible - Luke, Federal Vision, Pastoral Theology, Theology - Pneumatology, Theology - Soteriology
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Twitter Bombs & Modern Judiazers

May 2, 2012 — 8 Comments

When pastors attack sin, they are either attacking sin outside the church, calling sinners to repentance, or attacking sin inside the church, calling sinners to repentance. While there is a crucial difference between talking to a corpse and talking to a resurrected corpse, the sin is still sin. And the sin is always a crutch, always a cover, always an idol: an attempt at finding safety, security, comfort, peace in something or someone other than Christ. And almost always, those crutches were snatched up from family, friends, television, celebrities, etc., grasping for what looks safe, what looks secure, what looks cool.

Which means that what we’re really talking about is the age-old heresy of Judiazing. The Judiazing tendency starts off with Jews following Jesus who cannot believe that God would not continue to require the complete keeping of the law as part of their full membership status in the people of God. Surely, the followers of Jesus must still be circumcised, surely they must keep the kosher food laws and refrain from trimming the sides of their beards.

But what Jesus lives and teaches implicitly, and the apostles proclaim freely is that Jesus is the end of the law for all who believe. Jesus is enough. It’s not Jesus plus sacrifice. It’s not Jesus plus circumcision. And therefore it’s not even Jesus plus baptism or Jesus plus the Lord’s Supper or prayer or organic popsicles. Continue Reading…

In Against Christianity, Bible - Galatians, Culture, Grace, Pastoral Theology, Preaching, Wisdom
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Achan as a Type of the False Gosel

November 11, 2010 — Leave a comment

In responding to a question in the previous post on the word “anathema” it occurred to me that Paul may have the Jericho/Achan story in mind when he applies the word to those who preach a false gospel.

Three things:

1. As I note in my reply in the comments, the story is interesting for how the word “devoted” (anathema) is used. The city of Jericho is wholly devoted to the Lord (Josh. 6:17) which means it is to be utterly destroyed. However, the gold and silver and utensils are “devoted” to the Lord and this means that they are to be put into His treasury (Josh. 6:18-19). Of course Achan steals the “devoted” treasures and thus becomes “devoted” (Josh. 7:12-13), and he and his family are completely destroyed (like Jericho).

2. Given the fact that the word is not terribly common in the OT (used only 23 times) and it is used prominently in the story of Achan (eleven times in Joshua 6-7) and twice more in the OT to refer to Achan’s sin (Josh. 22:20, 1 Chr. 2:7), it would not be difficult to hear the story of Achan in the word “anathema.”

3. While it does seem to mean something like “cursed” in a more generic sense in some contexts in the NT, there may be some parallels between Galatians 1 and the Achan story that suggest Paul may have had this in mind. The “false gospel” being preached in Galatia is the Judaizing heresy, that Christians must become Jews, but Jesus has already declared the destruction of the temple, the complete destruction of Jerusalem. And God is building a new temple, a new Jerusalem out of His people where His Spirit now dwells. In this new temple, the people of God are the plunder, the devoted treasures that are to be taken into His treasury. But the Judaizers are trying to steal that plunder for themselves. They are acting like the original inhabitants of Jericho, defying the Lord God of Israel and greedily hording the treasures that rightfully belong to Jesus. Thus, Paul could see the preachers of this false gospel as acting like Achan, bringing sin into the camp, acting like the Jews/temple which are already “devoted” to destruction, and Paul therefore rightfully calls upon God to “devote” these false preachers to destruction. If they want to horde the people of God like the Jewish leaders, then they will be destroyed like the Jewish leaders.

In Bible - Galatians, Bible - Joshua
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Anathema

November 10, 2010 — 3 Comments

In the Septuagint, “anathema/cursed” is used to describe those cities/people/objects which are wholly devoted to the Lord. And frequently, they are devoted to complete destruction (e.g. Num. 21:3, Dt. 7:26, 13:16, 20:17, Josh. 6:17-18, 7:1-13).

Paul uses this word when he says that he wishes he could be “cursed” from Christ for the sake of the Jews (Rom. 9:3) and then later with regard to those who do not love the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 16:22, cf. 1 Cor. 12:3). The only other use of the word seems to be in Galatians 1 where Paul is describing those who preach another gospel (Gal. 1:8-9).

In Bible - 1 Corinthians, Bible - Deuteronomy, Bible - Galatians, Bible - Joshua, Bible - Numbers, Bible - Romans
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