In today's scripture reading, Paul charged the young Timothy (he was probably 52 years of age according to this reverence):
"Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction." (2 Timothy 4:2)
Now I had always remembered (incorrectly) "preach the word in season and out of season" but the bible verse actually says "be prepared in season and out of season" (to preach the word). It's similar to these verses in 1 Peter 3:15,16 "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. "
The thing is I have problem preaching the word to everyone I meet and at all times. My approach is to know someone well enough to then drop "hints". Some people I know have no problem just telling others about the gospel but I have difficulty with that. That's why 1 Peter 3:15 speaks to me. However, in very few occasions do I find others asking me about my faith. Well, maybe they don't actually have to ask about my "faith". I do get a lot of questions on why I changed my profession from being an engineer to being a doctor. The truth is I switched because of having become a Christian and wanting to serve God in the mission field. I just have to explain that with "gentleness and respect".
More on 2 Timothy 4. Some background:
Paul wrote 2 Timothy from a dark and damp Roman prison cell, just before his death in AD 67. The Roman emperor Nero had been slowly descending into madness since his ascent to the throne in AD 54, a process exacerbated by the great fire of Rome in AD 64 that burned half the city. With the residents of Rome in an uproar, Christians became a convenient target for Nero, who used believers as scapegoats for his city’s own lack of preparedness. Paul was one of those caught up in this persecution and was beheaded by Roman officials soon after writing this letter.
By the time Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, the young pastor had been ministering to the church at Ephesus for four years, and it had been almost that long since he had received his first letter from Paul. Timothy had been a faithful servant to Paul since he had left home with the apostle more than a decade earlier. Since then, Timothy had ministered alongside Paul for the duration of both the second and third missionary journeys, in places such as Troas, Philippi, and Corinth. Timothy was not unfamiliar to the Ephesians when he settled in Ephesus to minister, having served there alongside Paul for a period of close to three years on Paul’s third missionary journey. Paul wrote again to this young leader in the church at Ephesus to provide him encouragement and fortitude in the face of difficulties and trials.
(Insight for Living)
Clearly Timothy was a seasoned preacher already. Paul was facing great adversity in a jail cell in Rome. He wrote these last words to more or less say goodbye. He had fought the good fight (2 Timothy 4:6-8 and also how he ended his last letter to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:12). He had discharged his duties as Jesus ambassador (2 Corinthians 5:20) faithfully.
Can I say that about myself? Am I always prepared? Do I always live like I have "reason for the hope that I have"? Do I have a clear conscience that I am not peddling God's word for profit (2 Corinthians 2:17)? Can I honestly say that "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21)?
Lastly, I looked up the Greek words for "in season and out of season" - they are eukairōs and akairōs from the root word kairos (translated as time). They can also be translated as opportune and inopportune. The Message translation simply says "proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch."
Okay Lord, I am on the lookout for opportunities to share the good news. Lead me, Holy Spirit, to someone today. Maybe I will speak with one of the old boys at the reunion this evening. May your Name be blessed by at least one more person today!
Thursday 29 October 2015
Friday 23 October 2015
Qualification for Church Leaders
I have said it before. Keeping my regular discipline of scripture reading, prayers and writing this blog is very hard when traveling - especially traveling to Asia. Between being jet-lagged and keeping a busy schedule, it's really hard to focus on what God has been saying to me through His Word.
Anyway, I read yesterday (which is Friday in Canada - with a 12 hours difference) 1 Timothy 3 (I have provided three of my favorite translations side by side on this link), which mainly talked about the qualification for church leaders. But the bottom of the chapter always puzzles me. The title to the paragraph is "Reasons for Paul’s Instructions" and it says (1 Timothy 3:14-16):
Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. 16 Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great:
He appeared in the flesh,
was vindicated by the Spirit,
was seen by angels,
was preached among the nations,
was believed on in the world,
was taken up in glory.
Verse 16 (which I put in bold) just seems out of place. It suggests that true godliness (of church leaders) springs from knowing this mystery, which is described in a poem of some sort. So beyond the list of qualifications, like "above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money." etc., which seems like a very long list of lofty characters, the secret to be that leader must start with a thorough understanding of some essential elements of the faith. These elements are: Jesus' incarnation, authentication by the Spirit, something about being seen by angels and the (gospel) message reaching and trusted around the world, and ultimately, Christ's resurrection and ascension.
I did a little digging around on commentary on 1 Timothy 3:16 and really found very little. The main debate seems to center around the King James Version which renders 1 Timothy 3:16 like this:
"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."
Apparently the word God did not exist in the original text. Most translations (like the NIV above) just uses "He" presumably meaning Jesus.
Well, Jesus should be our mentor if we aspire to become a church leader. And it should be our greatest aspiration to serve the Lord in His church, which is God's household, the church of the living God, and the pillar and foundation of the truth. What a privilege!
Anyway, I read yesterday (which is Friday in Canada - with a 12 hours difference) 1 Timothy 3 (I have provided three of my favorite translations side by side on this link), which mainly talked about the qualification for church leaders. But the bottom of the chapter always puzzles me. The title to the paragraph is "Reasons for Paul’s Instructions" and it says (1 Timothy 3:14-16):
Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. 16 Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great:
He appeared in the flesh,
was vindicated by the Spirit,
was seen by angels,
was preached among the nations,
was believed on in the world,
was taken up in glory.
Verse 16 (which I put in bold) just seems out of place. It suggests that true godliness (of church leaders) springs from knowing this mystery, which is described in a poem of some sort. So beyond the list of qualifications, like "above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money." etc., which seems like a very long list of lofty characters, the secret to be that leader must start with a thorough understanding of some essential elements of the faith. These elements are: Jesus' incarnation, authentication by the Spirit, something about being seen by angels and the (gospel) message reaching and trusted around the world, and ultimately, Christ's resurrection and ascension.
I did a little digging around on commentary on 1 Timothy 3:16 and really found very little. The main debate seems to center around the King James Version which renders 1 Timothy 3:16 like this:
"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."
Apparently the word God did not exist in the original text. Most translations (like the NIV above) just uses "He" presumably meaning Jesus.
Well, Jesus should be our mentor if we aspire to become a church leader. And it should be our greatest aspiration to serve the Lord in His church, which is God's household, the church of the living God, and the pillar and foundation of the truth. What a privilege!
Friday 16 October 2015
The Hope of Christ's Return
It took me about ten years as a Christian to begin to look forward to meeting Jesus face to face. I knew Jesus loves me and He died for my sins on the cross. But to go so far as to look forward to death was quite a stretch. I know many good Christians who don't want to die, at least not imminently or prematurely. As I began to stop being so afraid of death, and ever so gradually, started longing for the future departure from this earth, I was more free to live this life fully, as God intended for me. I became less obsessed on hording material goods and earthly success, and more inclined to live for God. This is not to say I have arrived. It has been a long journey and there is still more to be done - like stop worrying about the pain of death itself. Do I get to choose how I will die? Where is my faith in God on this? Am I not in His loving care?
I have been reading the Book of Thessalonians. The overview from Insight for Living is helpful. Let me quote the "big idea" here:
"Impressed by the faithfulness of the Thessalonians in the face of persecution, Paul wrote to encourage the Christians in that community with the goal that they would continue to grow in godliness. Paul knew that the people had been exposed to errant teaching from those in opposition to the way of Jesus Christ and the grace of God. And Paul also understood that unless the young church continued to mature in its faith, the danger would only increase over time. With that in mind, Paul taught the people that any spiritual growth would ultimately be motivated by their hope in the ultimate return of Jesus Christ. Paul was never interested in simply telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, for he knew that what ultimately inspired change was a life of consistently walking in the power of God’s Spirit. And so to a group of young Christians with questions and uncertainties, Paul offered the hope of Christ’s return, providing both comfort in the midst of questions and motivation to godly living."
Of some interest to me is to speculate how Jesus will return. Some bible teachers (including the author of the overview above) speak of Christ's return as His coming to take us back with Him to heaven, like He comes down from heaven to pick us up and then takes us back to heaven with Him (making a U-turn). I remember NT Wright making an interesting point in one of his books (I think it is "Surprised by Hope" - I had written a couple of blogs on this book before). He said that Jesus will come, not to pick us up to take us back to heaven, but to come to earth with the "welcome party" to stay with us on earth. That's why it is important to learn a way of godly living on earth because we will be doing it on earth for eternity! It certainly makes sense to me. It changes the way I think about the importance of our current life on earth - not to earn our way to heaven, but to learn God's way to live on earth for eternity!
This is the way Paul describes Christ's return in this famous chapter in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18:
"Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words."
The passage certainly can be interpreted both ways: He comes to pick us up and takes us to heaven; or those who are alive joining those who rise from the dead will welcome Jesus in the air to bring Him back to earth to spend the eternity with Him.
Either way will bring hope and perspective to death itself. Death is but a brief sleep!
I have been reading the Book of Thessalonians. The overview from Insight for Living is helpful. Let me quote the "big idea" here:
"Impressed by the faithfulness of the Thessalonians in the face of persecution, Paul wrote to encourage the Christians in that community with the goal that they would continue to grow in godliness. Paul knew that the people had been exposed to errant teaching from those in opposition to the way of Jesus Christ and the grace of God. And Paul also understood that unless the young church continued to mature in its faith, the danger would only increase over time. With that in mind, Paul taught the people that any spiritual growth would ultimately be motivated by their hope in the ultimate return of Jesus Christ. Paul was never interested in simply telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, for he knew that what ultimately inspired change was a life of consistently walking in the power of God’s Spirit. And so to a group of young Christians with questions and uncertainties, Paul offered the hope of Christ’s return, providing both comfort in the midst of questions and motivation to godly living."
Of some interest to me is to speculate how Jesus will return. Some bible teachers (including the author of the overview above) speak of Christ's return as His coming to take us back with Him to heaven, like He comes down from heaven to pick us up and then takes us back to heaven with Him (making a U-turn). I remember NT Wright making an interesting point in one of his books (I think it is "Surprised by Hope" - I had written a couple of blogs on this book before). He said that Jesus will come, not to pick us up to take us back to heaven, but to come to earth with the "welcome party" to stay with us on earth. That's why it is important to learn a way of godly living on earth because we will be doing it on earth for eternity! It certainly makes sense to me. It changes the way I think about the importance of our current life on earth - not to earn our way to heaven, but to learn God's way to live on earth for eternity!
This is the way Paul describes Christ's return in this famous chapter in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18:
"Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words."
The passage certainly can be interpreted both ways: He comes to pick us up and takes us to heaven; or those who are alive joining those who rise from the dead will welcome Jesus in the air to bring Him back to earth to spend the eternity with Him.
Either way will bring hope and perspective to death itself. Death is but a brief sleep!
Friday 9 October 2015
The Kingdom of Righteousness
Today I read in Isaiah 33: 1-8 describing what it will be like when the Messiah King will finally come:
"See, a king will reign in righteousness
and rulers will rule with justice.
Each one will be like a shelter from the wind
and a refuge from the storm,
like streams of water in the desert
and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.
Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will listen.
The fearful heart will know and understand,
and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.
No longer will the fool be called noble
nor the scoundrel be highly respected.
For fools speak folly,
their hearts are bent on evil:
They practice ungodliness
and spread error concerning the Lord;
the hungry they leave empty
and from the thirsty they withhold water.
Scoundrels use wicked methods,
they make up evil schemes
to destroy the poor with lies,
even when the plea of the needy is just.
But the noble make noble plans,
and by noble deeds they stand."
This passage seems to be describing the coming of a king into a world where there are still rulers ruling over peoples. The righteousness that the king will bring will have important impact on these rulers and those who used to be blind and deaf (not in the physical sense) and those who are afraid to speak out. Instead of oppressing their peoples, the transformed rulers will provide and protect those who are vulnerable. The king will also call out and set right those who are foolish and bent on evil. He will reveal the lies of the ungodly who keep their followers hungry and thirsty (again not in the physical sense). But those who submit themselves to the righteous king will be called noble, who makes noble plans and live lives accordingly.
We now know that this Messiah King is Jesus. What Isaiah prophesied a long time ago is now clearly a "mystery solved". The new testament passage I read this morning also talked about this king:
" I (the apostle Paul) have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:25-27)
Christ was described as:
"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Colossians 1:15-20)
This Messiah King is capable of accomplishing the impossible. He has been given the power of God Himself. Worldly rulers are but His creation and under His authority. He is able to bring us to God through the shedding of His own blood on the cross. He has done the impossible:
"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation" (Colossians 1:21-22)
This is a direct fulfilment of Isaiah's prophesy. God has done it. Praise be to God!
"See, a king will reign in righteousness
and rulers will rule with justice.
Each one will be like a shelter from the wind
and a refuge from the storm,
like streams of water in the desert
and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.
Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will listen.
The fearful heart will know and understand,
and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.
No longer will the fool be called noble
nor the scoundrel be highly respected.
For fools speak folly,
their hearts are bent on evil:
They practice ungodliness
and spread error concerning the Lord;
the hungry they leave empty
and from the thirsty they withhold water.
Scoundrels use wicked methods,
they make up evil schemes
to destroy the poor with lies,
even when the plea of the needy is just.
But the noble make noble plans,
and by noble deeds they stand."
This passage seems to be describing the coming of a king into a world where there are still rulers ruling over peoples. The righteousness that the king will bring will have important impact on these rulers and those who used to be blind and deaf (not in the physical sense) and those who are afraid to speak out. Instead of oppressing their peoples, the transformed rulers will provide and protect those who are vulnerable. The king will also call out and set right those who are foolish and bent on evil. He will reveal the lies of the ungodly who keep their followers hungry and thirsty (again not in the physical sense). But those who submit themselves to the righteous king will be called noble, who makes noble plans and live lives accordingly.
We now know that this Messiah King is Jesus. What Isaiah prophesied a long time ago is now clearly a "mystery solved". The new testament passage I read this morning also talked about this king:
" I (the apostle Paul) have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:25-27)
Christ was described as:
"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Colossians 1:15-20)
This Messiah King is capable of accomplishing the impossible. He has been given the power of God Himself. Worldly rulers are but His creation and under His authority. He is able to bring us to God through the shedding of His own blood on the cross. He has done the impossible:
"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation" (Colossians 1:21-22)
This is a direct fulfilment of Isaiah's prophesy. God has done it. Praise be to God!
Friday 2 October 2015
Be Imitators of God
This is in a way a follow up of what I wrote last week "Abba Father". Here in Ephesians 5:1 Paul admonished us to "be imitators of God as dearly loved children". So far we have learned that because of what Christ did on the cross, "to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God" (John 1:12-13). So as a dearly loved child, my job is to imitate God. How do I do that?
Here I find the Message Translation of Ephesians 5:1-2 quite helpful:
"Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that."
In a sermon by Robert Hudson, he drew a distinction between imitation and imitator:
"In verse 1 we have Paul talking to us about imitating God. He is not asking us to be cheap imitations that are obviously fake, he is asking us to be imitators in its truest form... What do children imitate? Children watch the people around them and learn from them. For the most part children learn their behaviors from their parents. So what is the scripture telling us to do here? Imitate God like a child imitates his or her parents. In other words we are to learn about Jesus attitudes and behaviors and imitate them. We need to be passionate about what Jesus was passionate about and do what Jesus did."
So it's Jesus attitude, behaviours, and his passion we are to imitate. I can immediately think of one:
"You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death —even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:5-8)
And what does true (not imitation) humility look like? And how do I practice it? Here the Book of Philippians has the answer:
"Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself. Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well." (Philippians 2:3-4)
It's not so easy to always treat others as more important than myself, unless,
"Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort provided by love, any fellowship in the Spirit, any affection or mercy, complete my joy and be of the same mind, by having the same love, being united in spirit, and having one purpose." (Philippians 2:1-2)
This is the preamble to practising humility like Jesus. We must be in a position of receiving encouragement in Christ, comforted by His love, having fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and regularly receiving affection and mercy.
It always boils down to this:
- spend time with Jesus
- listen to His words and be encouraged by His love
- keep watch in every day event how the Spirit works in my life and the life of others
- and regularly give thanks:
"O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever." (Psalm 136:1)
Here I find the Message Translation of Ephesians 5:1-2 quite helpful:
"Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that."
In a sermon by Robert Hudson, he drew a distinction between imitation and imitator:
"In verse 1 we have Paul talking to us about imitating God. He is not asking us to be cheap imitations that are obviously fake, he is asking us to be imitators in its truest form... What do children imitate? Children watch the people around them and learn from them. For the most part children learn their behaviors from their parents. So what is the scripture telling us to do here? Imitate God like a child imitates his or her parents. In other words we are to learn about Jesus attitudes and behaviors and imitate them. We need to be passionate about what Jesus was passionate about and do what Jesus did."
So it's Jesus attitude, behaviours, and his passion we are to imitate. I can immediately think of one:
"You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death —even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:5-8)
And what does true (not imitation) humility look like? And how do I practice it? Here the Book of Philippians has the answer:
"Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself. Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well." (Philippians 2:3-4)
It's not so easy to always treat others as more important than myself, unless,
"Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort provided by love, any fellowship in the Spirit, any affection or mercy, complete my joy and be of the same mind, by having the same love, being united in spirit, and having one purpose." (Philippians 2:1-2)
This is the preamble to practising humility like Jesus. We must be in a position of receiving encouragement in Christ, comforted by His love, having fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and regularly receiving affection and mercy.
It always boils down to this:
- spend time with Jesus
- listen to His words and be encouraged by His love
- keep watch in every day event how the Spirit works in my life and the life of others
- and regularly give thanks:
"O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever." (Psalm 136:1)
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