Romans Chapter 11 cont'd
Then have the Jews spiritually stumbled never to rise again? No way! In fact, through their fall, a door of salvation has opened wide for the Gentiles in order to strategically provoke the Jews to jealousy. And if through their failure and loss of spiritual status, the nations of the world have been so richly blessed, what will their restoration bring to the earth?
Now I address you Gentiles, given the fact that I, as a Jew, have been specifically called to be a divine messenger to the Gentiles and therefore have special insight into this issue. I long that my work among the Gentiles might stir some of my Jewish people to a jealousy that will set them up to be saved. For if their temporary rejection has led to the reconciling of the other nations to God, their future return to God will invoke nothing less than resurrection power!
Comments:
A main point that Paul makes in Romans 11...that the Jews (generally speaking) as a people group did not receive Jesus as Messiah...and that this choice opened the doors spiritually for the gentile world to accept him and be grafted into the ancient Abrahamic covenant...only makes sense if we capture the intrigue and drama of the meta-narrative of "God's Big God-Story" that Paul has been rehearsing.
The Father originally intended for the entire Jewish nation to serve the others nations as a "kingdom of priests" and extend the gracious blessing of Abraham to the world. Yet, they institutionalized, formalized and nationalized their corporate life thereby effectively reducing and enculturating the kingdom of God in such a way that it walled off the gentile nations from coming to the living God. So, for instance, God, in response, chose only one tribe of their twelve to then embody the priesthood. He didn't ultimately put his hope on the "seeds" of Abraham to fulfill the promise, but rather progressively focused in on the "seed" of Abraham...the promised Messiah...the Faithful Israelite who was to come.
God placed his salvific stock in a second Adam, a covenant mediator greater than the angels, a prophet greater than Moses, a general greater than Joshua, a king greater than his father David and a priest greater than Aaron/Levi. His dealings with Israel would center on preparing a cultural/historic/national "womb" from which the Messiah would come forth and provide a prophetic backdrop that would provide the nations with a convincing "reason to believe" when his Day would come. God would incarnate his very Word, who co-created with him the heavens and the earth, into human flesh in order to win the day for broken and wayward humanity. The Author himself became the Lead Character of the salvation story. There was and is no other human being worthy to take the book of human history and destiny and open it's seals.
However, Paul is quick to also remind us that the story is not over yet and that powerful divine promise yet hovers over the heads of the Jewish people. There is another thrilling twist in the plot of the grace of God at work among the nations before the end of the end times. The Jewish nation...ethnically speaking...will be substantially and mysteriously stirred to a spiritually jealousy through the compelling witness of both their separated brothers and the gentiles who have become united in truly following Messiah Jesus. A remnant of ethnic Jews (that will embody the fulfillment of the divine promise to Abraham) will come to faith in God's chosen Messiah...Jesus of Nazareth...and be grafted in again to the rich and eternal covenant of God's grace. (The fact that they are still a people group at all, after having no homeland for so many centuries, is already a powerful divine sign and wonder in the earth.)
Those of us to have come to faith in Christ should take courage and heart from the fact that in our generation, more Jews have come to Jesus...along with the millions of Asians, Africans, Indians, Arabs and many indigenous people groups of the earth who have also come to him (despite the rise of post-Christian culture in the West)...than at any other time in history. The harvest fields are ripe and Christ Jesus will receive the reward of his suffering and see the ramifications of his resurrection. The Father will himself see to this (Ps 2; Ps 110).
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Romance of Romans-Part 69
Romans Chapter 11 cont'd
In the same way today, there is a remnant of believing Jews who are a testimony of God's gracious choice. Now we've got to be consistent in our thinking. Salvation by grace and salvation by works are, by definition, mutually exclusive. We can't have it both ways. On this issue it's "all or none". So yes, what I am saying here is that the Jews, as a whole, have not obtained what they have been seeking, but a divinely select remnant of Jews have now obtained it through Messiah Jesus and the rest of the nation has become spiritually blinded. The prophetic scripture confirms this, "God has given them a spirit of slumber, they have eyes but cannot see, and ears but they cannot hear." David also prophesied this, "May their fellowship circle be deluded by a false security as a judgment for their hardness. Let their eyes be blinded and their ability to walk uprightly be taken from them."
Comments:
Throughout Romans, Paul has been retelling and re-framing the Big God-Story of international history and the history of Israel through the lens of hindsight provided by the Person and Work of Jesus Christ and his gospel. New realities and spiritual dynamics in both heaven and earth were inaugurated when Messiah came, bled the ground red and rose again...prophecies came to pass, paradoxes were resolved, mysteries were unveiled and choices of human hearts took on new weight. God, in Christ, had come "in person" onto the scene of the human drama to show forth a newly integrated puzzle picture that was only understood in its bits and pieces before this essential fulfillment of all that the Hebrew prophets foretold came to pass. Honestly, wouldn't we expect some new insights into the scriptures if God were to come among us and explain them himself? And so...he did.
Heb 1
1Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
Paul has been laying out some heavy news regarding the spiritual condition of both Jews and gentiles who are without Christ. For some, what he has been saying about Israel seemed blatantly contrary to the promises God made to their nation in the past. There is an implied generalized accusation hanging over the apostle, that if what he is saying is true, then God himself is a deceiver and this, of course, is nonsense. This categorization allowed many Jews (and gentiles) to scoff at the gospel and quickly dismiss it as an error. (Isn't it amazing how a little strategic spin on "truth" by the reorganization of "facts" can lead whole people groups astray?!)
In the passage above, Paul quotes Dt 29 and Ps 68 to defend his points biblically. Aspects of Ps 68 that refer to the sufferings of the Messiah Jesus on the cross may be cryptic in nature. But the reference to Dt 29 and the larger context of both chapters 28 and 29 go right to the main and plain heart of the covenantal contract that God initiated with Israel after he had delivered them from slavery in Egypt.
People in that culture clearly understood the sovereignty of a conquering king and his method of exercising his right to unilaterally dictate the terms of the national covenant that contained both the blessings of cooperation and the curses of non-cooperation. There is nothing cryptic about Dt 28 and 29, except in how it would actually play out in the distant future in the Big God-Story of the Messiah's coming and the implications of his gospel for all the nations of the earth. (By the way, the use of the word gospel in the NT was borrowed from the Greek world. It was used to refer to the messengers, "evangelists", who were personally sent ahead of a king to announce his soon arrival to the cities he intended to visit in person. It wasn't primarily "good" news...it was, even more essentially, "big" news.)
Dt 28:
68And the LORD will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer."
This little sentence above hints at the danger of a future situation in which the nation would be capable of violating the will of God's heart to the point that it could appear that he was not being faithful to his promise to save the nation. This is the stern and sober warning embedded in the covenant promises outlined in the context of Dt 28-29. For Jesus, Paul and the apostles to declare that the warnings of Moses had come to pass in their generation can never be construed as anti-Semitic or unbiblical. Just read again what Moses himself prophesied.
Dt 28
1"And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God...
15"But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you...
Dt 29:4 But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear... (When the writers of the NT quote an OT verse, it is often like a button that we might push on our computer screen that opens up a new window of text that sheds more light on the text we are presently reading. I belive that Paul's quote in Romans 11 of Dt 29:4 should obviously lead us back to the whole context of Dt 28-29. And these passages give prophetic insight into and biblical context for the main points that Paul goes on to make in Romans 11.)
22And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the LORD has made it sick— 23the whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger and wrath— 24all the nations will say, 'Why has the LORD done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?' 25Then people will say, 'It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, 26and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them. 27Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book, 28and the LORD uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as they are this day.' 29"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
In the time of Jesus, much of the Jewish leadership and nation put their trust in their many religious and cultural traditions, thereby becoming self-righteous...others had compromised and mixed their faith with the corrupt Roman culture...while still others had turned to violence in seeking to establish the kingdom of God. These biases blinded them to receiving God's sent One and even from understanding the prophecies or heeding the clear warnings of their own patriarchs and prophets.
But many others, both Jews and gentiles, welcomed, believed and received Jesus for who he was and is and began a revolution that was paving the way for the renewal of all creation through the salvation of God in Christ Jesus the Lord.
In the same way today, there is a remnant of believing Jews who are a testimony of God's gracious choice. Now we've got to be consistent in our thinking. Salvation by grace and salvation by works are, by definition, mutually exclusive. We can't have it both ways. On this issue it's "all or none". So yes, what I am saying here is that the Jews, as a whole, have not obtained what they have been seeking, but a divinely select remnant of Jews have now obtained it through Messiah Jesus and the rest of the nation has become spiritually blinded. The prophetic scripture confirms this, "God has given them a spirit of slumber, they have eyes but cannot see, and ears but they cannot hear." David also prophesied this, "May their fellowship circle be deluded by a false security as a judgment for their hardness. Let their eyes be blinded and their ability to walk uprightly be taken from them."
Comments:
Throughout Romans, Paul has been retelling and re-framing the Big God-Story of international history and the history of Israel through the lens of hindsight provided by the Person and Work of Jesus Christ and his gospel. New realities and spiritual dynamics in both heaven and earth were inaugurated when Messiah came, bled the ground red and rose again...prophecies came to pass, paradoxes were resolved, mysteries were unveiled and choices of human hearts took on new weight. God, in Christ, had come "in person" onto the scene of the human drama to show forth a newly integrated puzzle picture that was only understood in its bits and pieces before this essential fulfillment of all that the Hebrew prophets foretold came to pass. Honestly, wouldn't we expect some new insights into the scriptures if God were to come among us and explain them himself? And so...he did.
Heb 1
1Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
Paul has been laying out some heavy news regarding the spiritual condition of both Jews and gentiles who are without Christ. For some, what he has been saying about Israel seemed blatantly contrary to the promises God made to their nation in the past. There is an implied generalized accusation hanging over the apostle, that if what he is saying is true, then God himself is a deceiver and this, of course, is nonsense. This categorization allowed many Jews (and gentiles) to scoff at the gospel and quickly dismiss it as an error. (Isn't it amazing how a little strategic spin on "truth" by the reorganization of "facts" can lead whole people groups astray?!)
In the passage above, Paul quotes Dt 29 and Ps 68 to defend his points biblically. Aspects of Ps 68 that refer to the sufferings of the Messiah Jesus on the cross may be cryptic in nature. But the reference to Dt 29 and the larger context of both chapters 28 and 29 go right to the main and plain heart of the covenantal contract that God initiated with Israel after he had delivered them from slavery in Egypt.
People in that culture clearly understood the sovereignty of a conquering king and his method of exercising his right to unilaterally dictate the terms of the national covenant that contained both the blessings of cooperation and the curses of non-cooperation. There is nothing cryptic about Dt 28 and 29, except in how it would actually play out in the distant future in the Big God-Story of the Messiah's coming and the implications of his gospel for all the nations of the earth. (By the way, the use of the word gospel in the NT was borrowed from the Greek world. It was used to refer to the messengers, "evangelists", who were personally sent ahead of a king to announce his soon arrival to the cities he intended to visit in person. It wasn't primarily "good" news...it was, even more essentially, "big" news.)
Dt 28:
68And the LORD will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer."
This little sentence above hints at the danger of a future situation in which the nation would be capable of violating the will of God's heart to the point that it could appear that he was not being faithful to his promise to save the nation. This is the stern and sober warning embedded in the covenant promises outlined in the context of Dt 28-29. For Jesus, Paul and the apostles to declare that the warnings of Moses had come to pass in their generation can never be construed as anti-Semitic or unbiblical. Just read again what Moses himself prophesied.
Dt 28
1"And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God...
15"But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you...
Dt 29:4 But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear... (When the writers of the NT quote an OT verse, it is often like a button that we might push on our computer screen that opens up a new window of text that sheds more light on the text we are presently reading. I belive that Paul's quote in Romans 11 of Dt 29:4 should obviously lead us back to the whole context of Dt 28-29. And these passages give prophetic insight into and biblical context for the main points that Paul goes on to make in Romans 11.)
22And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the LORD has made it sick— 23the whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger and wrath— 24all the nations will say, 'Why has the LORD done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?' 25Then people will say, 'It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, 26and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them. 27Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book, 28and the LORD uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as they are this day.' 29"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
In the time of Jesus, much of the Jewish leadership and nation put their trust in their many religious and cultural traditions, thereby becoming self-righteous...others had compromised and mixed their faith with the corrupt Roman culture...while still others had turned to violence in seeking to establish the kingdom of God. These biases blinded them to receiving God's sent One and even from understanding the prophecies or heeding the clear warnings of their own patriarchs and prophets.
But many others, both Jews and gentiles, welcomed, believed and received Jesus for who he was and is and began a revolution that was paving the way for the renewal of all creation through the salvation of God in Christ Jesus the Lord.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Bridgeport Church
There's a great new church that has begun in the arts district of Kansas City founded by a young pastor, Samuel Newby, whom we have known since he was very young. His wife, Anna, and our daughter-in-law, Beka, grew up as best friends in NW Arkansas as well...life is sometimes a small circle of providential connections. Bridgeport Church is off to an amazing start and we have sensed the Lord's involvement with this new initiative in a strong way.
Last weekend, I had the chance to share a message I titled, Find Yourself, for the first time with this young congregation. I thought maybe you'd like to check it out along with some of the other messages on their simple and beautiful website.
A couple of weeks before our son, Sam, also had a chance to share a message with the Bridgeport crew.
http://www.bridgeportchurch.org/audio/01%20Michael%20Sullivant%20Teaching%201.mp3
Last weekend, I had the chance to share a message I titled, Find Yourself, for the first time with this young congregation. I thought maybe you'd like to check it out along with some of the other messages on their simple and beautiful website.
A couple of weeks before our son, Sam, also had a chance to share a message with the Bridgeport crew.
http://www.bridgeportchurch.org/audio/01%20Michael%20Sullivant%20Teaching%201.mp3
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The Romance of Romans-Part 68
Romans Chapter 10/11
But did God give fair warning to the Jews about this irony of the Gentiles receiving something from God that they would reject? Actually he did! He prophesied through Moses, "I will make you jealous by blessing the outsiders, and I will make you angry by blessing those who are ignorant." Again he clearly spoke through Isaiah, "I will be discovered by those who aren't seeking me and I will reveal myself to those who didn't even ask." But about the Jews he sighed, "I have been stretching out my helping hands to a nation who just take me for granted- familiarity has bred contempt!
CHAPTER 11
So has God rejected the Jews wholesale? No way! I myself am a Jew, a natural descendant of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin. No, God has not given up on his chosen people. Remember the lesson of Elijah who miscalculated the number of faithful Jews in his own day and complained to God in prayer, "Lord, they have killed all the prophets and torn down all your altars. I am the only faithful one left in the land and they are now trying to kill me!" But God corrected his limited view by answering, "I have reserved for myself seven thousand people who have not compromised their faith to worship Baal." In the same way today, there is a remnant of believing Jews who are a testimony of God's gracious choice.
Comments:
Here at the end of chapter 10 and throughout chapter 11, Paul comes back around to address this vital question/theme that is woven into the fabric of his entire letter: If the life and message of Jesus the Messiah implies that Jews are not automatically in a right relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by being faithful to their religious traditions...then God must somehow be unfaithful to his own scriptural promises to the Jewish people, or an outright liar...unthinkable and unbelievable blasphemy.
Yet, throughout Romans, Paul has gone to great lengths to reframe these promises and remind his readers of very specific prophecies from the Jewish scriptures (like the two above that came through Moses and Isaiah) that warned the Jewish nation of the peril of not recognizing the Messiah when he would actually arrive on the scene. His point is that the Person and Work of Jesus confirmed and fulfilled the very scriptures that had been neglected, overlooked and edited out of the minds of the Jewish teachers and leaders...and therefore, the Jewish nation...by the time of Christ's appearance. The message of Jesus is anything but either unscriptural or anti-Jewish...he is and was the hope of Israel and thereby...every person, people group and the whole of God's creation.
True Jewish-ness or being a part of biblical "Israel", as Paul has set forth over and again in this incisive letter, is simply not about ethnicity...it is about, and was always foreseen as, a divinely sovereign and grace-based supernatural birth that results in a spiritual heart transplant for anyone who truly believes in Messiah Jesus. Besides...just to remove two more obstacles to faith...there has always been a "remnant" of enthic Jews who have believed in and followed Jesus that, by itself, ranks as a sign of God's faithfulness to his prophetic promises to the ancient patriarchs and king David. Furthermore, a powerful case can be made that there are yet-to-be fulfilled prophecies about many more ethnic Jews coming to embrace Jesus as Messiah who will, through faith in him, return to the commonwealth of Israel before the return of Jesus. Even in our own generation, many thousands of ethnic Jews all over the world have come to faith in Jesus.
But did God give fair warning to the Jews about this irony of the Gentiles receiving something from God that they would reject? Actually he did! He prophesied through Moses, "I will make you jealous by blessing the outsiders, and I will make you angry by blessing those who are ignorant." Again he clearly spoke through Isaiah, "I will be discovered by those who aren't seeking me and I will reveal myself to those who didn't even ask." But about the Jews he sighed, "I have been stretching out my helping hands to a nation who just take me for granted- familiarity has bred contempt!
CHAPTER 11
So has God rejected the Jews wholesale? No way! I myself am a Jew, a natural descendant of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin. No, God has not given up on his chosen people. Remember the lesson of Elijah who miscalculated the number of faithful Jews in his own day and complained to God in prayer, "Lord, they have killed all the prophets and torn down all your altars. I am the only faithful one left in the land and they are now trying to kill me!" But God corrected his limited view by answering, "I have reserved for myself seven thousand people who have not compromised their faith to worship Baal." In the same way today, there is a remnant of believing Jews who are a testimony of God's gracious choice.
Comments:
Here at the end of chapter 10 and throughout chapter 11, Paul comes back around to address this vital question/theme that is woven into the fabric of his entire letter: If the life and message of Jesus the Messiah implies that Jews are not automatically in a right relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by being faithful to their religious traditions...then God must somehow be unfaithful to his own scriptural promises to the Jewish people, or an outright liar...unthinkable and unbelievable blasphemy.
Yet, throughout Romans, Paul has gone to great lengths to reframe these promises and remind his readers of very specific prophecies from the Jewish scriptures (like the two above that came through Moses and Isaiah) that warned the Jewish nation of the peril of not recognizing the Messiah when he would actually arrive on the scene. His point is that the Person and Work of Jesus confirmed and fulfilled the very scriptures that had been neglected, overlooked and edited out of the minds of the Jewish teachers and leaders...and therefore, the Jewish nation...by the time of Christ's appearance. The message of Jesus is anything but either unscriptural or anti-Jewish...he is and was the hope of Israel and thereby...every person, people group and the whole of God's creation.
True Jewish-ness or being a part of biblical "Israel", as Paul has set forth over and again in this incisive letter, is simply not about ethnicity...it is about, and was always foreseen as, a divinely sovereign and grace-based supernatural birth that results in a spiritual heart transplant for anyone who truly believes in Messiah Jesus. Besides...just to remove two more obstacles to faith...there has always been a "remnant" of enthic Jews who have believed in and followed Jesus that, by itself, ranks as a sign of God's faithfulness to his prophetic promises to the ancient patriarchs and king David. Furthermore, a powerful case can be made that there are yet-to-be fulfilled prophecies about many more ethnic Jews coming to embrace Jesus as Messiah who will, through faith in him, return to the commonwealth of Israel before the return of Jesus. Even in our own generation, many thousands of ethnic Jews all over the world have come to faith in Jesus.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The Romance of Romans-Part 67
Romans Chapter 10 cont'd
But how will they be able to call on him if they don't know what to believe? And how will they know what to believe if they don't first hear the good news? How can anyone hear the good news without hearing it through a preacher? And how can anyone preach the good news without being commissioned by God to do so? But he has commissioned people to preach it, as the scripture says, "How beautiful are the messengers who bring to others the good news of peace and the joyful report of God's good gifts for people!" But not everyone who has heard it has welcomed the good news. As Isaiah laments, "Who has believed our report?"
So then, faith happens in response to truly hearing the word of God. So I ask you, has God's word really gone forth? Yes it has! As the psalmist points out, "all creation resonates with God's message to all the peoples of the earth."
Comments:
This section of Romans 10 reminds me of a book written by the brilliant historian/theologian and Anglican bishop, N. T. Wright, called Simply Christian. God is using him in a wonderful way to engage our postmodern and postChrisitan culture with the essence of true faith. He is generous, wise, engaging and compelling. The well-known author of vampire lore, Anne Rice, came back to faith in Jesus by reading his books. I even saw him recently on The Colbert Report...it was really hilarious. He is sneaking into all kinds of venues...major universities included.
In the first section of this book, the kind and erudite bishop posits that there are four basic universal longings of the human heart that anyone can identify with: relational connection, beauty, justice and spirituality. He compares these longings to an "echo" of a voice that is reverberating throughout history and creation. In the second section of the book, he presents Jesus as the original "voice" that created the echo and then, in his incarnation, puts a face to the voice. Jesus then personally bears and takes away the guilt and shame of all humanity...only to rise again to impart new life to the earth. The third section of the book is all about the people of God who have been ushered into the reality of the new creation inaugurated by Jesus...and their journey to reflect his love, beauty, justice and reality to God's broken, but beloved world.
The witness of creation testifies of its Designer through a gracious general divine revelation that the content of the gospel of Jesus more fully and specifically reveals, explains and confirms. These two witnesses are ordained by God and necessary in order for the whole world to come to know the love of God and return to him in loving friendship. There is a story told about the great American lady, Helen Keller, who was born deaf, blind and dumb and thereby totally cut off from communications with everyone and all that was around her. When she finally learned to communicate through the extreme and patient efforts of Annie Sullivan, her teacher...and she first heard about Jesus Christ...she said this: "I already know him, I just didn't know his name. Thank you for telling me his name."
What an honor it is to tell the people of the world (both the people God brings our way and also sends us to) about the love of God in Jesus. Let's unashamedly tell of his love, beauty, justice and nearness.
But how will they be able to call on him if they don't know what to believe? And how will they know what to believe if they don't first hear the good news? How can anyone hear the good news without hearing it through a preacher? And how can anyone preach the good news without being commissioned by God to do so? But he has commissioned people to preach it, as the scripture says, "How beautiful are the messengers who bring to others the good news of peace and the joyful report of God's good gifts for people!" But not everyone who has heard it has welcomed the good news. As Isaiah laments, "Who has believed our report?"
So then, faith happens in response to truly hearing the word of God. So I ask you, has God's word really gone forth? Yes it has! As the psalmist points out, "all creation resonates with God's message to all the peoples of the earth."
Comments:
This section of Romans 10 reminds me of a book written by the brilliant historian/theologian and Anglican bishop, N. T. Wright, called Simply Christian. God is using him in a wonderful way to engage our postmodern and postChrisitan culture with the essence of true faith. He is generous, wise, engaging and compelling. The well-known author of vampire lore, Anne Rice, came back to faith in Jesus by reading his books. I even saw him recently on The Colbert Report...it was really hilarious. He is sneaking into all kinds of venues...major universities included.
In the first section of this book, the kind and erudite bishop posits that there are four basic universal longings of the human heart that anyone can identify with: relational connection, beauty, justice and spirituality. He compares these longings to an "echo" of a voice that is reverberating throughout history and creation. In the second section of the book, he presents Jesus as the original "voice" that created the echo and then, in his incarnation, puts a face to the voice. Jesus then personally bears and takes away the guilt and shame of all humanity...only to rise again to impart new life to the earth. The third section of the book is all about the people of God who have been ushered into the reality of the new creation inaugurated by Jesus...and their journey to reflect his love, beauty, justice and reality to God's broken, but beloved world.
The witness of creation testifies of its Designer through a gracious general divine revelation that the content of the gospel of Jesus more fully and specifically reveals, explains and confirms. These two witnesses are ordained by God and necessary in order for the whole world to come to know the love of God and return to him in loving friendship. There is a story told about the great American lady, Helen Keller, who was born deaf, blind and dumb and thereby totally cut off from communications with everyone and all that was around her. When she finally learned to communicate through the extreme and patient efforts of Annie Sullivan, her teacher...and she first heard about Jesus Christ...she said this: "I already know him, I just didn't know his name. Thank you for telling me his name."
What an honor it is to tell the people of the world (both the people God brings our way and also sends us to) about the love of God in Jesus. Let's unashamedly tell of his love, beauty, justice and nearness.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Romance of Romans-Part 66
Romans Chapter 10 cont'd
But the righteousness based on believing God has a different dynamic according to the scripture, "You don't need to ascend into heaven." (Neither can you make the Messiah come down from heaven.) "You don't need to descend into the grave." (Neither can you raise Messiah from the dead.) Only God could do such things. But what does it say? "God's salvation which we preach to you is within your reach- it's very near. It's in your mouth and in your heart." He has already accomplished it for you, just believe it!
If you will confess with your mouth, Jesus as your Lord, believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be forgiven and declared righteous by God. For it is by believing in our hearts and verbally affirming our faith in Jesus, that we receive God's free gift of salvation. Remember, the scripture says, "Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed." God is loving and generous and he is the Lord of all ethnic groups. He will respond to the penitent cry of absolutely anyone who will call on the name of Jesus Christ and save them from their sins.
Comments:
So...this is the golden nugget of the gospel of Jesus. An old righteousness (eternally old!)...God's righteousness...has now come near and become astoundingly accessible to all people groups and each individual person within them...because he has brought it to us in Person. It's the only "righteousness" that will do...ours is like filthy rags...until he clothes us with his...until his becomes personally ours by trusting Jesus from our deep heart.
It simply isn't about our power, goodness, talent, greatness, accomplishments, sensitivity, social status, wealth, religious background, race or gender. True salvation for the human being is totally tied to the Father sending his Son, Jesus, into this world. Jesus showed us the Father's nature and will in his earthly life and ministry. Jesus bore the guilt and shame of the sins of all humanity and died on the cross. The Father raised Jesus from death to life on the third day by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our essential spiritual transformation...even these many years later...is activated very simply: God did this for us in Jesus...we believe it...we openly confess it to God himself and any who might hear our voice...and the miracle occurs...God's own righteousness...God's very eternal life...is infused into our souls by the same power that raised Christ from the dead.
My dear friends...whatever heights of spiritual life you have scaled or aspire to mount...please never forget or neglect this Rock from which true spiritual life is hewn. Come back to him again and again and again...come daily...come hourly...come moment by moment by breathing out subterranean prayers as you take on the tasks, endure the trials and drink in the simple joys of life...and lean into the Righteous One who is the very source of your life.
But the righteousness based on believing God has a different dynamic according to the scripture, "You don't need to ascend into heaven." (Neither can you make the Messiah come down from heaven.) "You don't need to descend into the grave." (Neither can you raise Messiah from the dead.) Only God could do such things. But what does it say? "God's salvation which we preach to you is within your reach- it's very near. It's in your mouth and in your heart." He has already accomplished it for you, just believe it!
If you will confess with your mouth, Jesus as your Lord, believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be forgiven and declared righteous by God. For it is by believing in our hearts and verbally affirming our faith in Jesus, that we receive God's free gift of salvation. Remember, the scripture says, "Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed." God is loving and generous and he is the Lord of all ethnic groups. He will respond to the penitent cry of absolutely anyone who will call on the name of Jesus Christ and save them from their sins.
Comments:
So...this is the golden nugget of the gospel of Jesus. An old righteousness (eternally old!)...God's righteousness...has now come near and become astoundingly accessible to all people groups and each individual person within them...because he has brought it to us in Person. It's the only "righteousness" that will do...ours is like filthy rags...until he clothes us with his...until his becomes personally ours by trusting Jesus from our deep heart.
It simply isn't about our power, goodness, talent, greatness, accomplishments, sensitivity, social status, wealth, religious background, race or gender. True salvation for the human being is totally tied to the Father sending his Son, Jesus, into this world. Jesus showed us the Father's nature and will in his earthly life and ministry. Jesus bore the guilt and shame of the sins of all humanity and died on the cross. The Father raised Jesus from death to life on the third day by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our essential spiritual transformation...even these many years later...is activated very simply: God did this for us in Jesus...we believe it...we openly confess it to God himself and any who might hear our voice...and the miracle occurs...God's own righteousness...God's very eternal life...is infused into our souls by the same power that raised Christ from the dead.
My dear friends...whatever heights of spiritual life you have scaled or aspire to mount...please never forget or neglect this Rock from which true spiritual life is hewn. Come back to him again and again and again...come daily...come hourly...come moment by moment by breathing out subterranean prayers as you take on the tasks, endure the trials and drink in the simple joys of life...and lean into the Righteous One who is the very source of your life.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The Romance of Romans-Part 65
Romans Chapter 10
Dear brothers and sisters, I long with all my heart and pray to God for the Jews to come to faith in Jesus. I have to give them credit, they have a zeal for God, but they are unenlightened. Since they are ignorant of God's righteousness and are trying to establish their own, they have not submitted themselves to receive the truth about the righteousness of God. This good news of Christ puts a final end to people ever thinking that they have to earn God's righteousness by their efforts.
Long ago Moses described the dynamics of the kind of righteousness that is earned, "The person who tries to earn righteousness must be totally consistent." But the righteousness based on believing God has a different dynamic according to the scripture, "You don't need to ascend into heaven." (Neither can you make the Messiah come down from heaven.) "You don't need to descend into the grave." (Neither can you raise Messiah from the dead.) Only God could do such things. But what does it say? "God's salvation which we preach to you is within your reach- it's very near. It's in your mouth and in your heart." He has already accomplished it for you, just believe it!
Comments:
Self-justification is, and has always been, a powerful force in human nature...and it shows itself in many forms. It is rooted in our attempts to avoid the thoughts, emotions and consequences of both guilt and shame. These too are powerful forces in human life...and our attempts to handle them impel us to all sorts of strange gyrations.
In the insightful book by the Arbinger Institute, The Anatomy of Peace, the team of authors identify four "boxes" in which we tend to place ourselves rather than squarely facing our weaknesses or failings...the "I'm-Better-Than" box; the "I'm-Worse-Than" (ironic) box; the "I-Deserve" box and the "I-Must-Be-Seen-As" box. Climbing into (or just living within) these boxes for fear of having our failures exposed, is all about us saving our sense of pride by erecting a defensive shell to wrongly protect our fragile egos. (I personally prefer a box fort with two connecting rooms!) Oh the wars...personal ones all the way to international ones...that have been waged throughout history because of these forces.
The gospel of Jesus provides us with a simple way off of this dizzying merry-go-round of living a life of self-justification that saps so much of our energy. Here is the reality. We aren't intrinsically better or worse than anyone. We don't actually "deserve" anything except..and I say this with tears in my heart...God's judgment. And finally, only God sees us for who we really are...and that's what truly matters...because we can't ultimately control how other people may perceive us and how they do won't matter in the end.
The horrific "price" we pay for this...and I say this with my tongue clearly in my cheek...is to humble ourselves like children, agree with God and simply trust in Jesus Christ--who he is and what he has done. The miracle of God's love and peace and joy then comes upon us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, I long with all my heart and pray to God for the Jews to come to faith in Jesus. I have to give them credit, they have a zeal for God, but they are unenlightened. Since they are ignorant of God's righteousness and are trying to establish their own, they have not submitted themselves to receive the truth about the righteousness of God. This good news of Christ puts a final end to people ever thinking that they have to earn God's righteousness by their efforts.
Long ago Moses described the dynamics of the kind of righteousness that is earned, "The person who tries to earn righteousness must be totally consistent." But the righteousness based on believing God has a different dynamic according to the scripture, "You don't need to ascend into heaven." (Neither can you make the Messiah come down from heaven.) "You don't need to descend into the grave." (Neither can you raise Messiah from the dead.) Only God could do such things. But what does it say? "God's salvation which we preach to you is within your reach- it's very near. It's in your mouth and in your heart." He has already accomplished it for you, just believe it!
Comments:
Self-justification is, and has always been, a powerful force in human nature...and it shows itself in many forms. It is rooted in our attempts to avoid the thoughts, emotions and consequences of both guilt and shame. These too are powerful forces in human life...and our attempts to handle them impel us to all sorts of strange gyrations.
In the insightful book by the Arbinger Institute, The Anatomy of Peace, the team of authors identify four "boxes" in which we tend to place ourselves rather than squarely facing our weaknesses or failings...the "I'm-Better-Than" box; the "I'm-Worse-Than" (ironic) box; the "I-Deserve" box and the "I-Must-Be-Seen-As" box. Climbing into (or just living within) these boxes for fear of having our failures exposed, is all about us saving our sense of pride by erecting a defensive shell to wrongly protect our fragile egos. (I personally prefer a box fort with two connecting rooms!) Oh the wars...personal ones all the way to international ones...that have been waged throughout history because of these forces.
The gospel of Jesus provides us with a simple way off of this dizzying merry-go-round of living a life of self-justification that saps so much of our energy. Here is the reality. We aren't intrinsically better or worse than anyone. We don't actually "deserve" anything except..and I say this with tears in my heart...God's judgment. And finally, only God sees us for who we really are...and that's what truly matters...because we can't ultimately control how other people may perceive us and how they do won't matter in the end.
The horrific "price" we pay for this...and I say this with my tongue clearly in my cheek...is to humble ourselves like children, agree with God and simply trust in Jesus Christ--who he is and what he has done. The miracle of God's love and peace and joy then comes upon us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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