Kingdom dynamics

A Profitable Practice

Abreham G

All scripture is God breathed and is profitable for teaching/doctrine, reproof, correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God might be complete/thoroughly equipped for every good work.

(2 Tim 3:16-17)

A friend once made a suggestion that this verse is theologically connected to Genesis 2:7. God breathed into Adam and he became a living being who could do God’s will. In the same way the scriptures have God’s breath in them. They do God’s will as they communicate God’s redemptive purpose to humanity. That makes them unique from many other classical or modern literary works.

As Christians we mostly resort to this verse to prove and defend the divine origin of holy scriptures. However, the benefit of scriptures will not be understood or appreciated until one gets into a serious conversation with what they teach. This is true of other aspects of life as well.

Let us for a moment consider the word profitable (Gk hophelimos) and how Paul used it in his writings. In fact we find this word only in the Pastoral Epistles (I & II Timothy and Titus). In all its occurrences it is associated with a life pattern that requires discipline and consistency. For instance in 1 Tim 4:8 it appears twice. There Paul discussed the benefit of bodily exercise/gymnastics (Gk. gymnasia). He stressed that godliness has a far superior benefit than gymnastics. The other instance is Titus 3:8 where Paul encouraged Titus to confidently teach believers to show their faith in good deeds, which, according to him, are profitable for men (and women). Gymnastics or godliness or engaging in good deeds are virtues that require daily discipline and perseverance. Likewise growing in the faith requires engaging with the scriptures. There is no other way. We cannot wish ourselves into spiritual maturity without making effort to go deeper into the word of God.

The scriptures bring us closer to hearing God’s voice. They sensitize us even to the extent of feeling heaven’s heartbeat. They help us identify where God is going and how we are to follow him. They make us discern between the holy and the profane, the honorable and the mundane. God uses the scriptures to change and shape us so that we may be more like him and less like us.

The irony however is that less and less Christians are interested in a serious dialogue with scriptures. What many prefer is memorizing a couple of verses for personal evangelism and defense of their faith (or denominational stance). I too have been there. There were days when my friends and I were armed with a couple of verses and invade the streets. God indeed used those days to win people to his kingdom. My fear is that the concern for evangelism and apologetics (defense of the faith) is affecting the way we approach Scripture reading (like the way evangelistic concerns shaped our congregational worship). We tend to be versities, good at quoting verses, leaving aside the grand scheme of things. When the concern shifted from evangelism to health and wealth, we continued treating the Bible as a guide book on how to be healthy and wealthy. We made the scriptures what we want them to be instead of becoming what they want us to be.

Yet there remained some fundamental questions that need answers. What is the place of holy scriptures in God’s purpose of redemption? How does God use them to accomplish that purpose? How are scriptures to be read, understood and applied? What are some of affirming reading/s of scriptures? By affirming, I mean a reading that is theologically affirming to the beliefs of the Church of God, a reading that fosters love and devotion for God and one another, all in all, a Christian (however broad the term is) reading of scriptures. I cannot discuss these questions in this article. I just want to highlight the larger issues that revolve around the Scripture.

Coming back to II Timothy, Paul was imprisoned in Rome because of his faith and ministry to the gentiles (2 Tim 1:11, 16-17). He was charged with a serious offense for which he could face execution (2 Tim 2:9, 4:6-8). He was alone, chained and deserted by his friends (2 Tim 1:15 and 4:16). Moreover, there were pseudo ministers everywhere who were leading believers into apostasy. These final moments looked bleak. His sole comfort was that there were others who would continue in the ministry of the gospel. Timothy was one of them. But where would Timothy go for sound teaching/doctrine for himself and the people he was responsible for? How would he be corrected and reproved? Definitely, he would not go to Judaism or Greek mythology. Paul did not advise him to move into that direction. Instead he encouraged him to be a devout student of scriptures. Because he could not find any credible repository of the faith other than the holy writings.¹ A man of God becomes perfect for every good work through the instruction, reproof, and correction of holy scriptures. Timothy, his fellow ministers and the people of God at large have no where to turn to for teaching/doctrine, correction, reproof and instruction in this new life called Christianity, except the holy scriptures. Through them God informs, challenges, and transforms us. Would we preserve in them!

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading (of scriptures), to exhortation, and to teaching/doctrine, . . . Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching/doctrine; persevere in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those hearing you. (1 Tim 4:13 and 16)

1      Paul himself was a student of the scriptures. In 2 Timothy he frequently alludes to the Old Testament. In chap. 2:19 the rebellion of Korah and his allies (Numbers 16), in chaps. 2:22 and 3:15-17 the appeal of wisdom for young Israelites (Proverbs 1-9), in chap. 4:6 the sacrificial rituals of Leviticus, and in chap. 3:8-9 the opposition of Pharaoh’s magicians (Exodus 7:11 and 8:7) are some of these allusions. With regard to the last reference there is a debate among biblical scholars concerning its implications. Paul mentioned the names of Jannes and Jambres, two magicians in Pharaoh’s court who opposed Moses and Aaron. We do not find their names in the Book of Exodus. They are found in Rabbinic literatures of antiquity. Some take this inclusion as Paul’s endorsement of traditions as having equal footing with scriptures. I think that is an overstretch. 

Kingdom dynamics

I’d Rather Have Jesus 

I’d Rather Have Jesus is a song written by Rhea F. Miller with the tune written by George Beverly Shea. This poem, written in 1922, was left on a piano in the Shea home by Bev Shea who wanted her son to find it and change the course of his life.

The words, I’d rather have Jesus, moved George so much and spoke to him about his own aims and ambitions in life. He sat down at the piano and began singing them with a tune that seemed to fit the words. Shea’s mom heard him singing it and asked him to sing it at church the next day.

George’s life direction did change. He was offered a popular music career with NBC, but a few years later chose to become associated with evangelist Billy Graham and sang this hymn around the world.

This is one of my favorite songs. I hope it reminds us of our commitment for Christ. Enjoy!

The Lyrics 

I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold;
I’d rather be His than have riches untold;
I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands,
I’d rather be led by His nail pierced hand.

Than to be a king of a vast domain
Or be held in sin’s dread sway,
I’d rather have Jesus than anything
This world affords today.

I’d rather have Jesus than men’s applause;
I’d rather be faithful to His dear cause;
I’d rather have Jesus than world-wide fame,
I’d rather be true to His holy name.

He’s fairer than lilies of rarest bloom;
He’s sweeter than honey from out of the comb;
He’s all that my hungering spirit needs,
I’d rather have Jesus and let Him lead.


 http://www.allaboutgod.com/id-rather-have-jesus.htm

Kingdom Dynamics

The Leap of Faith

Abreham G.

Now YHWH said to Abram,

“Go forth from your land,

and from your relatives,

and from the house of your father 

to the land which I will show you. 

And I will make you for a great nation, 

and I will bless you,

and I will make your name great,

and you shall be a blessing. 

And I will bless those that bless you, 

and those that curse you I will curse, 

and all the families of the earth will be blessed in you”

The story of Abraham and his wife Sarah is filled with suspenseful episodes that engage readers of biblical narratives. To begin with, God called Abraham to bless him, to make him a great nation and a dispenser of divine blessing (Genesis 12:1-3). To be a dispenser of God’s blessing to the families of the earth! That is a big surprise. Until this moment we have not seen God bestowing this privilege on any other patriarch. In fact dispensing blessing is God’s sole prerogative. He blessed Adam and Eve, the first family (Genesis 1:28). He also blessed Noah and his sons with the same blessing as Adam and Eve (Genesis 9:1). After Genesis 12 God was set out to bless all peoples through this man named Abram, later Abraham. For convenience I will use Abraham in this article.

What is the nature of this blessing? In both Gen 1:29 and 9:1 God’s blessing is associated with his creational purpose. He made humans in his own image and likeness (Genesis 1:28). That makes humans unique as they bear God’s image. Hence the multiplying, filling the earth, and the exercise of dominion, the heart of God’s blessing in both occasions, are closely tied to this image idea. God’s desire was to see his image bearers fill the earth and rule it as he would have ruled. Sin temporarily disrupted this plan. God began to restore creation to himself through a process called recreation/redemption. And that process involved a seed through whom redemption is to take effect. That is why the pages of Genesis are dominated with the idea of seed, choice/election, blessing, and sibling rivalry. As the story of Genesis progresses, in the twelfth chapter we stumble on Abraham, a patriarch who is going to play a major role in this grand divine scheme of seed, election, and blessing. The nature of the blessing, therefore, is creational/redemptive in essence. Thus, Abraham (and his seed, Israel who utterly failed its calling) was called to be the channel through whom God would bring all nations to his redemptive purpose. In fact Jesus Christ the seed of Abraham fulfilled that purpose. It is through him that all nations of the earth come to know and worship the God of Abraham.

Abraham with such a noble and divine mission had a problem of his won. The author of Genesis does not want readers to miss that point. He makes it clear that Abraham has no seed because of his wife Sarai.

Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran; and Haran became the father of Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans. Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; . . .Sarai was barren; she had no child. Genesis 11:27-30).

Before we know of God’s plan for Abraham, the author puts the spotlight on his troubles. The man who is called to bless others lacked the blessing, the seed with whom God would establish his covenant. God kept assuring Abraham that he would give him offspring and land (Genesis 12:2; 7, 13:15-16). But what Abraham was experiencing is far from the truth. He was advancing in age and Sarah’s barrenness didn’t seem to budge. Nothing makes sense until we come to Genesis 15.

And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”  And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:3-6)

At the end of Gen 15 Abraham did not get a child. What he had was rather a promise of an heir and a covenant by which God bound himself to give the land of the Amorites to his seed. But Abraham stopped questioning God and worrying about his problem. Because he found rest in God as one who has gotten all that God promised him. For that God applauded him. He considered his faith in YHWH as righteousness.

Abraham’s story is our story in the sense that we too are on a journey of faith. The author of Hebrew 11 tells us that Abraham began his journey by faith. He left the known for the unknown by faith. He made the decision to leave his comfort zone to lunge to the unknown by counting the one that called him worthy of his trust. Considering Abraham’s pagan background, faith in this new God is the only thing that made sense. His faith was not rewarded immediately. He had to wait a while to have Isaac, and as for inheriting a land it did not materialize for many generations. We too are like Abraham. We are on a journey of faith. We await the appearance of the seed of Abraham, the Christ who would make everything NEW. He is our HOPE. He is our reward for the WAY (in the early days of Christianity people who followed Christ were called people of the way- Acts 9:2, 19:9, 24:14;22) of life we have adopted. We await for the fulfillment of the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. We look forward to the day when we see him as he is and be lost in his glory. When is this happening? I do not know. But I have counted him who declared it worthy of my trust.

In another sense, we are partakers in Abraham’s blessing through his seed Jesus the Messiah. “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11). I believe this is an invitation for gentiles to have a part in the story of the patriarch. Paul in Romans 4:23-25 made it clear that our faith in the God (of Abraham) who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead shall be credited for righteousness. In Galatians 3:14 he pointed out that the blessing of Abraham that we gentiles are partaking is the promise of the Spirit. To my understanding then, the blessing is the totality of life in Christ. It is kingdom life. When I say kingdom, I am referring to the kind of life humans are allowed to enjoy as God rules. God’s kingdom is characterized by truth, justice, righteousness, love, peace, joy, prosperity, and more. However, we need to be careful not to be ahead of ourselves in thinking that we have got it all in the now. I am not denying the fact that God is ruling here in the now. We are yet to see it in its fullness at the appearing of the KING, Jesus the CHRIST. All in all, Abraham’s SEED, Jesus the Messiah, at his appearing will punish evil, in all its forms and expressions, and establish God’s physical/ political kingdom here on earth. And we will reign with him. That is why Christianity makes sense. It is a faith grounded in the revelation of God in history, Christ (his death and resurrection) being the pinnacle of the historical revelation, looking forward to a future culmination of that revelation in the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ. This is the divine plan we have become part of through the Abrahamic faith. Let us not therefore cheapen faith to a “name it claim it bonanza“, or to a magic carpet we hang on to for a flight to the world of prosperity. Scripture reading that sees money and material wealth in every passage is unwarranted, unedifying, and selfish. Good life (having our needs met) is God’s gift for every human being. I do not need any other convincing reason for this. The fact that God made us live on a blissful resource rich earth is enough. It is slackness and greed that caused the disparity we see in our world. Poor children of Abraham are not under curse nor are rich Christians uniquely favored. To read Abraham’s blessing in terms of material possession, and Abraham’s faith as the way to it is nothing but capitalism in its ugly form. Those who treat the gospel as a way out of poverty will likely abandon it once they reach there.
 

Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?
James 2:5  

Kingdom dynamics

A trustworthy logos

Abreham G

Here is a trustworthy saying (logos):

If we died with him,

we will also live with him;

if we endure,

we will also reign with him.

(2 Tim 2:11-12a)

What a powerful saying! The logos is trustworthy as a statement of great biblical truth. In a nutshell it is salvation history outlined in a concise and easy to memorize form.

The Scriptures teach that God brought everything into being through his logos. The world (this creation) is proof of the trustworthiness of God's logos. Imagine the miracle of procreation. God made it possible because he birthed it by his logos. He said “be fruitful and increase in number” (Gen 1:28). We have not ceased to multiply since then. The same God had previously said “let there be light” (Gen 1:3). Hence there was light and there is light. Everything we have come to know or will come to know is the outcome of the creative work of God's logos. The biblical teaching of creation is established on this maxim. If the old creation had come to being and is sustained by the logos of God, the new creation into which we are ushered through the gospel, is also the work of God's logos.

What then is this trustworthy logos? It is the wisdom of living in God's new creation. It involves dying and rising. If dying is the path to new life, then we should not be afraid of death! The question lies in who we are dying with. Not all dead or dying people are going to rise to new life. It is those who die with Christ are assured of living with him. We died with Christ so that we might live with him. Or else what is the significance of our baptism?

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life (Rom 6:4).

One area of interest is how this truth informs our community worship experience. Most Bible commentators believe that this section is poetic or hymnal in structure. Thus, the suggestion is that it may be one of the hymns the early church sung or a confessional baptizees proclaimed during baptisms. Whatever the case, the truth communicated serves as the foundation of new life in Christ. Indeed it is the foundation, the very essence of new creation, the glory and fullness of which we are yet to experience. And I look forward to the day when our communal worship brings us closer to re-living this truth. This was the confession of our predecessors. If we are serious enough like Paul, to worship God as our predecessors did, we will do well if we proclaim what they proclaimed. After all we are one body, one flock, one CHURCH.

Shalom