Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians from a Roman jail, to encourage them to continue forward in the faith. In it, he wrote: “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made [Christs righteousness] my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”[1]
In Paul’s life, “what lies behind” includes overseeing the stoning of Stephen recorded in Acts 7:57-58, and “ravaging the church, and entering house after house, [dragging] off men and women and committ[ing] them to prison.”[2] We all have different shameful things in our past, but God forgets them. His purpose is to always make us more like Christ, even when we struggle to move forward. The prize is worth it, therefore we “press on toward the goal,” even if our current situation is discouraging and seems hopeless. After all, Paul knew that even prison was temporary and God could wash away all the sins of his past, present, and future to make him righteous like Christ.
From earliest times, debate has raged over whether God’s word can be taken literally. Since the serpent asked, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”[1] people have debated if the world was created in 6 days. If Moses really parted the Red Sea. If Jonah really spent 3 days inside a great fish. And so on. Talk about whether the Bible means what it says often focuses on the miraculous events within.
But what about verses like Ephesians 4:29? “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” When Paul wrote that, did he literally mean “no corrupting talk,” or just to aim for less crude language than the average person? Did Paul mean each word needs to “fit the occasion,” or to repeat whatever catchphrase seems to work in most situations? Did Paul mean everything we say should “give grace” to others, or is it ok if sometimes we want to look good or only appear gracious? Do we need to always build up those who hear us? Did Paul “actually say” what he wrote in Ephesians 4:29?
Failure to meet our ideals does not mean that we should change them.
We might reply that this is an impossible standard, but Jesus in Luke 18:19 said “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” In that one statement, Jesus testifies that no one is good (everyone misses the mark), and also that He is God in the flesh, come to save us from failing to meet the standard.
So yes, Ephesians 4:29 should be taken literally, but we should also take literally that only Jesus can meet the standard, and that He did meet the standard. Failure to meet our ideals does not mean they are the wrong ideals and that we should change them. Holiness is holiness.
G.K. Chesterton wrote in his book Orthodoxy that “it does not matter (comparatively speaking) how often humanity fails to imitate its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitful. But it does frightfully matter how often humanity changes its ideal; for then all its old failures are fruitless.”[2]
In film editing, “the cutting room floor” refers to pieces of physical film that (in pre-digital times) were cut out of the movie and left lying on the floor. When writing this blog, one of the hardest things to do is to cut out parts or phrases I care deeply about, but sometimes it’s necessary, because my words aren’t always Ephesians 4:29 words. Finding these failures can be fruitful if I learn from them and move closer to the ideal. In real-time, daily conversation it’s even harder, but to take Ephesians 4:29 literally, we all have to figuratively ask:
What are we willing to leave on the cutting room floor today?
[1] Genesis 3:1 [2] Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy (1908). P. 163.
Below are the chapters to read this week if you’re following along in my Bible in a year schedule, divided into morning and evening readings. Follow along any way you want: you can just do the evening reading, flip the morning and evening, or read it all. Whatever works for you and your schedule! It doesn’t have to be Bible in a Year for everyone.
This week we read Lamentations and Philippians, then start Ezekiel. Most of the rest of the morning readings this year will alternate between Ezekiel and the minor prophets, and the rest of the New Testament.
Monday, September 30 Morning: Lamentations 1-2 Evening: Job 28
Tuesday, October 1 Morning: Lamentations 3-5 Evening: Job 29
Wednesday, October 2 Morning: Philippians 1-2 Evening: Job 30
Thursday, October 3 Morning: Philippians 3-4 Evening: Job 31
Friday, October 4 Morning: Ezekiel 1-2 Evening: Job 32
Saturday, October 5 Morning: Ezekiel 3-5 Evening: Job 33
Sunday, October 6 Morning: Ezekiel 6-8 Evening: Job 34
A recent post was about Jeremiah’s comparison of false religion to a broken cistern, with God alternatively being “the fountain of living waters.”[1] Jeremiah lived when most of God’s people – including most of the priests and prophets – had turned from Him to follow other gods. As Jeremiah remained faithful, correctly predicting that Jerusalem would fall to Babylon, he was persecuted, including this instance in Jeremiah 38:6, where King Zedekiah’s officials “took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.”
Since God is “the fountain of living waters,” the only path to eternal blessing, it’s incredibly ironic that Jeremiah, one of the few remaining faithful prophets and therefore a rare source of God’s “living waters,” should be cast into a cistern with no water. Perhaps it was broken. King Zedekiah thought he could silence the “living waters” Jeremiah represented by casting them into a cistern, trading truth for falsehood.
Later, Jeremiah seems to recall the cistern experience in Lamentations 3:52-57, where he said:
“I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause; they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’ ‘I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’ You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’”
Returning to the book of Jeremiah, we read that Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch, heard of Jeremiah’s situation and pleaded his case: “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.”[2] This unlikely source – a foreigner – was Jeremiah’s deliverance from God to rescue Jeremiah from the well. Ebed-melech gathered 30 men, “Then they drew Jeremiah up with ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.”
Jeremiah was not the only Old Testament figure to suffer for his faithfulness. Many years earlier, King David also referred to “sinking in the mire” in the Messianic Psalm 69, verses 14-15:
“Deliver me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me.”
David knew this feeling of sinking came not because of his sin, but when he was faithfully serving his Lord. David’s “sinking in the mire” happened under these circumstances from verse 9 of the same Psalm:
“For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.”
In Jeremiah’s case, as well as David’s and that of Jesus, whom Psalm 69 foreshadowed[3], we know that cannot judge our faithfulness based on whether it improves our circumstances. When we do, we might stop being faithful because it seems we are “sinking in the mire.” Being reproached by the world and feeling down aren’t the circumstances we prefer, but “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”[4] Through these and all other circumstances, God develops in us deeper trust in Him.
Therefore, with David may we pray:
“But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.” – Psalm 69:13
And in His time, He will deliver us, perhaps in ways we don’t expect.
Coda
In 1995, Christian rock group Jars of Clay released their self-titled album, and the track “Flood” has similar themes to this post. The song was also a mainstream hit, charting as high as No. 12 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart,[5] amazing for a song that is essentially a prayer like David’s in Psalm 69.
The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah faced immense opposition, and in Jeremiah 36:20-25 is recorded an interesting story of King Jehoiakim’s attempts to destroy the prophet’s words, and by extension, God’s words. The king was unable to get his hands on Jeremiah, whose allies helped him to hide, so the king takes a different approach:
“So they went into the court to the king, having put the scroll in the chamber of Elishama the secretary, and they reported all the words to the king. Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elishama the secretary. And Jehudi read it to the king and all the officials who stood beside the king. It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the fire pot before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot. Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments. Even when Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah urged the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them.”
This wasn’t an impulsive, knee-jerk reaction to God’s word, but a deliberate, sustained act of rebellion. This took time, and there’s almost a ceremony to it, as if daring God to stop him. Many Christians today would be outraged if they witnessed something like this. People in positions of authority disrespect God regularly, but imagine if the head of your country burned the Bible publicly on TV, and nobody stopped them, or even objected? Sure, in modern times, people might object on their blog, on social media, or even on smaller TV and radio outlets, but in Jehoiakim’s example, nobody was able to challenge him. He “got away with it.”
This brings up the question of: why does God allow things like this to happen? I’ll suggest a question in response: Would it be a stronger testimony of God’s sovereignty if He had struck King Jehoiakim dead on the spot, or is it a stronger testimony that Jeremiah’s words still exist today all around the world? If the second option is better, the next question is why do we sometimes feel such outrage and lash out (perhaps on our own blog or Facebook page) at such acts? Do we trust God to deal with it, or do we worry that Jehoiakim is right – maybe God doesn’t care?
Part of the scroll Jehoiakim burned may have included these words of Jeremiah about the king himself: “With the burial of a donkey he shall be buried, dragged and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”[1] And “He shall have none to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night.”[2] Therefore God knew both that justice would be done to Jehoiakim, and also that his burning of the scroll had only symbolic and temporary effect. In contrast, God’s justice and God’s word are eternally immutable and effective. As Isaiah said: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”[3]
There’s also another question for us: if God had chosen in His sovereignty to redeem Jehoiakim, would we be angry like Jonah at the repentance of Nineveh[4], or would we praise God for His profound and measureless grace? The same grace that brought Jeremiah’s words back from the futile fire pot of King Jehoiakim. The grace that was purchased by Christ on the cross.
This word of God will stand as well: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ To the contrary, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” – Romans 12:19-21
Do we believe it?
[1] Jeremiah 22:19 [2] Jeremiah 36:30 [3] Isaiah 40:8 [4] See my earlier, short post on Jonah’s anger.
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 