Sunday, December 23, 2012

John 1


In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, John is writing to Jews and Gentiles alike.  He masterfully uses a term “word” (Gk. “logos”) that held meaning in both cultures.  The Greek word Logos, for the Greek is wisdom, which in Stoic thought logos, wisdom, and reason are synonymous terms for the impersonal, governing entity over the universe.  In Jewish culture logos or wisdom is the Law of Moses, as revealed by God at Mt. Sinai.  John using this term brings the two cultures together in the conversation, and he then takes them to the next level.  The Logos of God is Jesus, the word of God in the flesh.  In this John establishes, for the Jews, that Jesus is not only the Messiah, but that He is God in the flesh.  For the Greek, John establishes that the logos of God came in the flesh, personally, in the person of Jesus.  He takes the application of these two cultural mindsets and joins them in the lineage of the family of God, as “all who receive Him; He gave the right to become the children of God.” (ESV, John 1:12)  In this there are none left out.  There is no ethnic lineage that qualifies one more than the other for the favor of God through the word become flesh.  He is available for all.  And He withholds nothing from those who will believe in His divinity and receive the gift of God, the word in the flesh sent to make the fullness of the grace and love of the Father known to all. (John 1:17, 18)             

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The church is a whore!?

"The church is a whore, but she is my mother."  Some say Augustine said this, others say maybe Martin Luther.  Still others say neither, as there is no where found a written reference to either making the statement. 

That being said, I find it interesting that this statement is popularized in our generation.  Many of us have the scars, wounds, and gangrenous hanging limbs that are a result of being hurt by church leaderships, and, at times, the unintended injuries inflicted by the lack of leadership in the church.  It is not difficult to find the flaws in the church, but then again if you put any group of people together the issues and flaws that become evident are in direct proportion to the number of people in the group.  People equal problems.  We all have them, and they usually show up when we are with other people.  My question is what do we do with wounds that have been inflicted by others?

We can model ourselves as victims and bury our head, or we can seek healing, which inevitably will involve other people.  Many will blame God for what has been done in His name, but is that not burying our head?  If our faith in the character, grace, and love of God was contingent on how other Christians, whom God loves, act out of their own wounds, then were we putting our trust in God?  Does God fail when people fail?  And if so, does God fail when we individually fail?  Is it God who fails if I enter into a mid-life crisis and decide that it is time to leave my family to open a bar in Honalulu?  I don't think anyone would try and console me by saying, "It wasn't your fault, it was God's." 

If people's failings are God's fault then the only thing that we can pin on Him is that He didn't make us perfect.  Which, actually, He did, but we failed.  And if that is the case then it is God's fault for giving us the choice, or the ability to choose.  Which He did.  He gave us options, set up an order that holds us responsible for our actions, said I love you, and gave us a way out of the consequence of our bad choices.

At any rate, the church is a conglomeration of people who have been (and are being) made better by the grace of God, and even in the process of being made better we do stupid things to one another, leaving each other hurt and full of questions.  We are all hypocrites and actors on a stage, to one extent or the other.  We are all hiding behind some form of mask.  So, do we hate the church, that technically we are a part of if we confess Jesus, for her hypocrisy, or do we continue to look to be conformed to the image of Christ?  He said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:44-45 ESV) 

I will never forget what Randy Clark said to the student body when I was a student at Elim Bible Institute, "will you love My church even when it hurts you?"  (Randy Clark did say this too, I was there)  Possibly a much better quote than the one attributed to Augustine, but the idea is similar. 

I have scars that have made me who I am today, and I have wounds that I am working through.  By the grace of God those wounds will become scars, and I will be able to helps others who are wounded.  And in the midst of looking to help others I'll inevitably get hurt again and those wounds will need to become scars.  But I commit to love the church anyway.  If not only because He loved me when I was His enemy, then because I will need someone to love me even though I hurt them.  

 

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Why we worship, 1 Peter 2


1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

For the ancients, it was more often, less of an issue the character of the deity that they worship, but the important thing ,in the Greco-Roman world, was what the deity had accomplished that directly benefited those who worshiped.  Peter draws on this in 1 Peter 2 as he cites Isaiah 43:20-21, “The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise” and Exodus 19:4-6, “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; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”  While Peter is speaking to Gentile Christians he refers to them in the same way that God referred to Israel while in the wilderness.  Peter recognizes just as Paul did when he said, “there is neither Jew nor Greek” in Galatians 3:28 that there are not two separate nations established under their own covenants with God but one.  They have not replaced the Jewish nation, but we have joined them in the promise. 

During the Passover feast, it is celebrated the time when God brought the Jews out of slavery in Egypt into covenant with Himself, “from darkness into great light.”  In this same way the Gentiles have been included into the benefits of the covenant, and Peter ties the Gentile Christians in with the promised restoration, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people” citing Hosea 1:10. In addition when Peter says, “once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” he is citing the promise to Israel in Hosea 2:23, which now includes all those who believe in Christ by faith unto salvation.

As a result of the accomplishment of the one true God we are compelled to worship, setting aside “all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander” (1 Peter 2:1) and Peter calls us to as “sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” (1 Peter 2:11)  All this so that God will be glorified through us.  He is glorified through us as we “present your (our) bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your (our) spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1)  We are compelled to worship because of what He has done.  We pursue purity in our lives so that those in society that wish to condemn us may be given reason to glorify God by our lives.