Tag Jesus

The Gospel is About a Who, not a How

Todd R 1 Comment

In chapter 9 of John’s gospel he records a story of Jesus healing a man who was born blind.  In John’s story, Jesus made some mud out of saliva and dirt, then put the mud on the man’s eyes.  Then Jesus tells the man to go wash off the mud in a pool.  When the man does this, his blindness is gone!

Because this man was born blind and had begged in the temple area for years, the miracle was hard to deny as a claim that Jesus was the Messiah, but many of the people put their focus on the wrong question: the how of the miracle.  Four times in the chapter someone asks how the man’s eyes were healed, as if the method of the healing was the important part.  Some of “The neighbors and those who had seen him before” asked “how were your eyes opened?” [1]  Then some Pharisees asked the man how he was healed.  In both cases, the man formerly blind explained what Jesus had done.

Then, because Jesus had healed the man on the Sabbath and because practicing medicine on the Sabbath was against traditional Jewish regulations, the Pharisees asked, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?”[2]  The Pharisees kept looking for an explanation.  A scientific or natural explanation.  Perhaps this wasn’t the same man who was born blind.  So they found his parents, “and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’”[3]

The better question is who healed the man born blind, but the Pharisees didn’t want to deal with that question.  They had already made up their minds that Jesus wasn’t from God.  So, they focused on the how, on the method.  People still do this today, as Warren Wiersbe wrote: “We want to understand the mechanics of a miracle instead of simply trusting the Savior, who alone can perform the miracle.”[4]

Modern people want scientific explanations because they think nothing exists outside of scientific understanding and when something doesn’t fit that worldview it is denied or explained away.  We want to fit miracles within our pre-existing understanding of the world.  And when we can’t, we resist any way we can.  In the case of the Pharisees and Jesus, “they cast him out.”[5]  Anything to avoid the real question: who is this person who can do things that don’t fit into our narrow view of the universe?  Comparing John’s gospel to modern events, we see this is nothing new.

However, if Jesus is who He said He was – God the Son – no miracle should be unbelievable because God has absolute control over His own creation.  If Jesus is God, He exists outside of our universe and so obviously can’t be explained by using scientific laws that describe this universe.  But we continue to resist.  When people want to avoid dealing with their God, they still stick to the “how” question to avoid the more important question of “who.”

If you’re struggling to understand the miraculous stories of the Bible, make sure you’re asking the right (“who”) questions.  If you’re talking to an unbeliever having the same struggles, make sure they’re asking the right questions, because: If Jesus is who God is, every how is possible, including the greatest miracle: the salvation of anyone who would believe in Him.  And, Jesus can heal anyone who is blind to this reality.

[1] John 9:8-10
[2] John 9:16
[3] John 9:19
[4] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Alive (John 1-12) (1986).  P. 143
[5] John 9:34

Why We Pray

Todd R 1 Comment

Why do Christians pray, and why should they pray?  We probably pay a lot more attention to what we are praying than why, and maybe sometimes we don’t pray because we don’t think its necessary.  This may happen when we don’t know the why.

There are many reasons (many “whys”) we could think of for why Christians should pray, and here are some:

Do we pray to tell God what we want or need?  No, because the Bible tells us[1] that God already knows what we need.  He already knows everything, including knowing what we need better than we do, as our Creator.

Do we pray to convince God we are worthy and deserve His audience?  No, because on our own we are unrighteous sinners and only deserve separation from God.  Jesus has already accomplished everything we need to be able to approach God.

Do we pray so that God will love us more?  No, God’s love is based on His own character, not our actions.  He can’t love us more, and won’t love us any less, than He does.  That He gave His Son to die on the cross for us proves this.

So, why?

Before teaching His disciples how to pray using what we now call the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus said to them: “Pray then like this.”[2]  We often think of the Lord’s Prayer as instruction on how to pray, but maybe miss that Jesus told His disciples to pray.  It’s something He wants us to do, and regularly.

We pray because Jesus tells us to.  “Pray then like this” said Jesus because God desires a relationship with us and a big part of that relationship should be time spent in prayer.

Thomas Becon, an English cleric and Protestant reformer in the 1500’s, wrote this about prayer[3]: “For God neither for our worthiness nor for our unworthiness heareth us; but for his commandment and promise sake. He hath commanded us to pray; therefore ought we to pray. For if we should never pray till we were worthy of ourselves before God to pray, so should we never pray: but we therefore pray, because God hath commanded us so to do. Our worthiness is the humble confession of our unworthiness; and our obedience unto the commandment of God to pray maketh us most worthy.”

Therefore, pray, and often.

“Pray without ceasing” – 1 Thessalonians 5:17

[1] Matthew 6:8, 6:32, Luke 12:30
[2] Matthew 6:9a
[3] McKim, Donald K.  Everyday Prayer with the Reformers (2020).  P. 65.

Love When Bad Things Happen

Todd R 2 Comments

Fellow travelers,

Sometimes things happening in the world grab our attention and make us assign more significance to them than they deserve.  Sometimes these are natural phenomena, like earthquakes, comets, or eclipses, and sometimes they are manmade phenomena, like wars.

One reason we do this is that passages in the Bible like Mark 13:5-23 describe what events will happen before Jesus returns again.  We want Him to return!  While it’s right to anticipate with excitement that Jesus is coming back, it’s important to sort out such passages by what is describing what will happen (descriptive truth) and what God tells us to do when these things happen (prescriptive truth).  In all circumstances, the God’s primary commandments for us are to love God and to love our neighbor, even if they are our enemy.  No phenomena should pull us off that path, and Mark 13:5-23 recommends that.

In the table below, I paraphrase and categorize Mark’s message into what is descriptive vs. prescriptive truth:

DescriptivePrescriptive
Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’See that no one leads you astray
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, and nation will rise against nationDo not be alarmed
Earthquakes and famines in various locationsBe on your guard
You will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sakeBear witness before them and do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say
Brother will deliver brother over to death and you will be hated by allEndure
False christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wondersBe on guard

To Jesus, none of the things in the descriptive column are new information.  All were included in His plan from eternity past.  The actions He recommends are not new information either.  The “Prescriptive” column tells us not to panic, but to endure, to keep doing what we should be doing before these bad things happened – Love God, love your neighbor, even if your neighbor is your enemy.

On the other hand, false christs and prophets will tell us current events are unprecedented and a fulfillment of prophecy and they will tell us what we should do.  The false prophet takes the descriptive of evil in the world and creates their own false prescriptive.  They recommend an incomplete and inaccurate narrative of current events as an ultimate solution.  Their own Babel which God must “come down” from heaven to even see (Genesis 11:5).  But the true Christ calmly says, “be on guard; I have told you all things beforehand”. (Mark 13:23). The true Christ comes down from heaven and demonstrates how to create a true ladder back to heaven, offering forgiveness to all, even those who refuse to accept it or practice love.  He will be thoroughly and eternally glorified by manifesting His kingdom as the only eternal kingdom, ruled by love, not by panic over current events.

No matter what we see happening in the news or in the world, Jesus knew it was coming and He told us that in any circumstance we should obey and glorify Him, through love for Him and neighbor.  He doesn’t panic and neither should we.

Amen.

Jesus Overcomes Tribalism

Todd R 2 Comments

The Bible is a book for all people, in all times and places, and its lessons hold eternal value.  Yet the Bible was also written in particular times and places and knowledge of those contexts is sometimes assumed rather than explained.  For instance, in the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, we read the phrase, in parenthesis: “(For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)”. We also read that Jesus and His disciples “had to pass through Samaria.”  Hate is a difficult thing to measure or quantify, but the story assumes we know something about how intense the Jews’ hate for Samaritans was.

According to Warren Wiersbe, “So intense was [the Jews’] dislike of the Samaritans that some of the Pharisees prayed that no Samaritan would be raised in the resurrection!”[1]  This hate was so strong that many Orthodox Jews would travel much longer routes around Samaria to avoid setting foot in it.  They thought the dirt itself would contaminate them.  Why all this hate?

One reason for this hate was genetic.  Anyone who reads the Old Testament knows there are many extensive genealogies.  To the Jew, it was very important to know which of the original 12 tribes you descended from and that your ancestors had not intermarried with people of other religions.  But Samaritans genealogies were not pure enough for them.  Much of Samaria was populated with the descendants of poorer Jews left behind by the Assyrians, many of whom had intermarried with foreigners the Assyrians planted there.  So, Jews in Judah looked down on Samaritans because of their mixed genealogy.  The Samaritans were considered “half-breeds.”

Another reason was religious.  When the Samaritan woman said “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship” in John 4:20, she was referring to an alternative Judaism.  Among other differences, the Samaritans had a center of worship on Mount Gerizim, with its own temple.  They even re-wrote parts of the Pentateuch to justify this.[2]  To Israel, Jerusalem was the only center of worship.  Sacrifices to Yahweh were only to be offered there, and every male was supposed to make a pilgrimage there three times every year.  There was to be no rival temple, and therefore the Samaritans (in the Jewish mind) had cut themselves off from the true worship of Yahweh and should be shunned.

John has to write that Jesus “had to pass through Samaria” because doing that was unusual, especially for a Jewish rabbi like Jesus.  But then Jesus went there, simply being in Samaria was a strong statement that Jesus didn’t care for the hateful tribalism.  But not only did He go there, He interacted with its people, at a time when “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”  Jesus was and would continue to break down these barriers.  In the four gospels, Jesus preached to the Jews first, then to the “half-breed” Samaritans, then to full Gentiles, and the apostles followed the same pattern in Acts.  This sequence progressively illustrated that the gospel is for all tribes of people.

What does this mean for us today?  Hate like what the Jews felt for Samaritans is rampant and if Jesus could overcome that hate, He can overcome any hate.  Any reasons we have for hating, or even disliking people just because of what group or tribe they belong to aren’t good enough reasons. 

But tribal rivalries are everywhere we look: national and regional, political and economic, cultural and ethnic, musical and athletic, and every other dimension we can imagine.  But no tribal loyalty is more important than the obligation to love God and love our neighbor, no matter who they are.

The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3:38-39 –

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Not only does this describe the love God has for us in Jesus, but it also describes the love we should have for others.  Nothing should get in the way, including any religious, racial or other differences.

Jesus overcomes tribalism, and so should His people.

[1] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Alive (John 1-12) (1986).  P.65.
[2] Edersheim, Alfred.  The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (1886).  P. 274-5.

The Narrow Door

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Many people think the God of the Old Testament is a God of judgement, and the God of the New Testament is a God of love, but I’m not sure these people are paying attention.  The whole Bible speaks to us of the same God.  The Old Testament is full of stories about God pursuing His people, calling them to come back to Him because He loves them.  Likewise, the New Testament has many passages like Luke 13:24-27, in which Jesus says:

“Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.  When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’  Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’  But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’”

Not only does Jesus here pass judgement on “workers of evil,” but many other places point forward to a time where Jesus will come again to judge the earth in righteousness and justice.  But that may not be the scariest part of the verses above from Luke.  In these verses, Jesus isn’t talking about just any “workers of evil,” but He’s talking specifically about people who think they’re following Jesus.

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

These verses are a response to someone asking Jesus: “Lord, will those who are saved be few?”[1]  His response to the question isn’t “yes, they will be few” but more like “yes, because many are trying to get there the wrong way.”  These people say, “We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets”?  In my reading, this phrase is like saying “we go to church.”  In church we “ate and drank” with Jesus in communion.  When we listen to sermons, it was like “you taught in our streets.”  They were around Jesus all the time and doing what other Christians do, but as 20th century evangelist Billy Sunday said, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.”

We can’t get salvation by our own efforts, even if we do all the “right things” but only through what Christ has already done.  Christ’s work is the “narrow door” and anything else will be a closed door when Jesus returns in judgement.  Part of what we call the visible church is going to be shut out. Jesus says many in the church “will seek to enter and will not be able.”  These are people seeking salvation, who “knock at the door” but don’t get in.

Does this mean we should spend a lot of effort on figuring out who is and who isn’t a true Christian?  It doesn’t, but it does mean we all should examine ourselves, which is what I think Jesus expected from His audience when He said these things.  As James asked “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?”[2] I ask myself, since I call Jesus my Lord, what things do I do only because He wants me to?  Do I do more than hang around Jesus and His people?  Do I do things that earn me nothing in return, but which please God?  This is what I think is meant by Paul when he wrote in Philippians 2:12 “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”  Although our salvation is free, and can only be earned by Jesus Himself, if we believe in Him then He is our Lord.  We should fear Him and do works that please Him.

Therefore, “strive to enter through the narrow door” of Jesus’ righteousness that was opened for us on the cross, but know that we won’t be the same on the other side.  We will be forever changed.

[1] Luke 13:23
[2] James 2:14