Monday, July 27, 2015

 

Sermon: Philippians 3:7-4:1


Audio of this sermon is availabe here

7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ - yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15 All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained. 17 Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. 18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. 4:1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends! (NIV)


Any spirituality – whether Atheist, Buddhist or Christian - has three, organically related parts: Beliefs, Attitudes and Actions. To alliterate, spirituality is about the integration of Head, Heart and Hands.

First of all, our minds believe various things to be true or false. For example, we believe that Jesus is the crucified and resurrected Lord who will transform ‘our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.’

Second, our hearts make a response to what our minds believe. For example, we consider everything we once prized to be ‘garbage’ in comparison to ‘the surpassing worth of knowing Christ’. Actually, the NIV is rather tame at this point. The Jubilee Bible 2000 is on target when it speaks more bluntly of ‘my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung’!

This combination of head and heart, of a belief that and a belief in, is what the Bible means by ‘faith’. Contrary to recent New Atheist propaganda from the likes of Richard Dawkins, Christian ‘faith’ is not a matter of ‘blind faith’. Rather, Christian faith is ‘a trust in and commitment to what we have reason to believe is true.’[i] 

Making time to investigate, at an appropriate level, the reasons for believing Christianity to be true is a biblical part of Christian discipleship. Paul not only describes his own ministry in Philippians 1:7 as ‘defending and confirming the gospel’ but in Colossians 4:6 he commands Christians to ‘be ready to give answers to anyone who asks questions.’ (NIV) Listen to Professor William Lane Craig’s impassioned plea for Christians to learn to ‘give answers’ - he says: 

'Christian teenagers are intellectually assaulted with every manner of non-Christian worldview coupled with an overwhelming relativism. If parents are not intellectually engaged with their faith and do not have sound arguments for Christian theism and good answers to their children’s questions, then we are in real danger of losing our youth. It’s no longer enough to teach our children simply Bible stories; they need doctrine and apologetics. It’s hard to understand how people today can risk parenthood without having studied apologetics… It’s insufficient for youth groups and Sunday school classes to focus on entertainment and . . . devotional thoughts. We’ve got to train our kids for war. We dare not send them out to public high school and university armed with rubber swords and plastic armor. The time for playing games is past.'[ii] 

Let me encourage you to look up Craig’s Reasonable Faith website and to consider coming to the next Reasonable Faith? course here at Highfield, which starts on Sunday 11th October.

Third, Christ-centred faith, the combination of Head and Heart, influences behaviour. As James writes: ‘Faith without deeds is dead’ (James 2:26). Thus, to have Christian faith means ‘trusting, holding to, and acting on what one has good reason to believe is true, in the face of difficulties.’[iii] 

Now, in Philippians 3:7-4:1, Paul takes Christians from ‘the surpassing worth of knowing Christ’ to how we can ‘stand firm in the Lord’ in the face of difficulties. Philippi was ‘a favourite location for settling Roman soldiers whose term of service in the army had ended’[iv], and the Greek term for ‘stand firm’ is ‘the same as that for a soldier standing fast in the shock of battle . . . or a combatant in a Roman amphitheatre fighting for his life.’[v] This is a metaphor for the spiritual warfare of Christian discipleship. As Paul says in Ephesians: 'our struggle is not against human opponents, but against rulers, authorities, cosmic powers in the darkness around us, and evil spiritual forces in the heavenly realm. For this reason, take up the whole armour of God so that you may be able to take a stand whenever evil comes.' (Ephesians 6:12-13, ISV)

Paradoxically, Paul’s Philippian battle-plan for standing firm is a matter of pressing on and ‘straining toward what is ahead’!

As 2 Corinthians 11:24-26 makes abundantly clear, Paul knows a little something about having faith despite external difficulties. As he says earlier in the same letter: ‘this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure’ (2 Corinthians 4:17). Yet the difficulties we face in following Christ aren’t primarily external. Paul knows that having faith means facing-up to the difficult internal realities of our own sinful nature. We must begin by realizing that we have not already obtained all Christ has called us to: 'Striving for perfection through intellectual and spiritual enlightenment was a common religious ideal in Greco-Roman antiquity… Paul had seen such ideas infect the church at Corinth, where some believers claimed that they had already been perfected by their spiritual knowledge...'[vi] 

While disciples of Christ must desire that sinless perfection that is our heavenly destiny, and must pursue both maturity and maturation in Christ in the meantime, discipleship begins with the realization that we can’t gain salvation by perfectly obeying the law of right and wrong, but only through the ‘salvation’ or ‘righteousness’ that ‘comes from God on the basis of faith.’ Taking our stand on this faith we can ‘leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God’ (Hebrews 6:1).

Note that while Paul considers himself to be a mature Christian - ‘All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things’ - he also says ‘I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of [that] for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.’ In other words, while ‘our citizenship is in heaven’ we aren’t there yet! Nevertheless, ‘God has called us heavenwards in Christ Jesus’.

The term translated as ‘citizens’ could ‘refer to a distinct ethnic group that lived away from its homeland and was governed by its own constitution – a “city within a city.”[vii] So, how are citizens of heaven to cope with living in a foreign land? How should we handle the tension of desiring heavenly perfection whilst knowing we are sinners? How can we ‘stand firm in the Lord’, trusting and acting on what we have good reason to believe is true, despite external and internal trials? Paul says we should join together in following his example: 'Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.'

The imagery here ‘comes from the athletic arena… where runners would fix their eyes on the post that marked the end point of the race and winners received a prize’ (a ‘wreath of dry celery’ worn as a crown).[viii] Instead of ‘going for gold’ one supposes that ancient Greeks talked about ‘going for celery’! What Paul means is that we can and should ‘forget’ the difficulties of discipleship in light of ‘the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus’, where ‘forgetting’ isn’t a matter of failing memory, but a deliberate choice to live out the gospel. The Greek translated as ‘forgetting’ can mean to forget ‘in the sense of neglecting… given over to oblivion…’[ix] This ‘forgetting’ is an attitude of the heart to the effect that, on the basis of knowing Jesus, we will live as forgiven sinners; that we will shift our goals from ‘earthly things’ towards our heavenly goal. Indeed, as Nicky Gumbel says: 'Like a runner, the Christian must not look back . . . We cannot live on past successes or rest on former laurels. Nor should we be bogged down by past failures, despair over past sins or bitterness over past wrongs done to us. We are not to dwell on the past.'[x] 

Paul explains that to ‘know Christ’ is to know ‘participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death’. As Paul writes in Romans 8:17: ‘we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.’ (NIV) Again, Paul writes: 'we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives… So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus…' (Romans 6:4 & 11, NLT)

Taking our stand upon true beliefs about our sin and God’s grace, in combination with the appropriate heart response to these truths, we can choose to ‘forget’ what is behind and to ‘press on’ to what lies ahead, ‘the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward in Christ Jesus.’ And although we can’t experience the fullness of our ‘prize’ until the new heavens and earth, Paul says we can draw ever nearer to God through knowing Christ Jesus as we await the fullness of his coming: ‘As all of us reflect the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, we are becoming more like him with ever-increasing glory by the Lord’s Spirit.’ (2 Corinthians 3:18, ISV)

In sum, to be mature disciples we need to believe our identity lies in the death and resurrection of Jesus, we need to set our hearts upon the prize for which God has called us heavenwards in Christ, and in the light of knowing where we come from – forgiveness - and where we are going – glory - we need to strive to live as citizens of heaven on earth, despite the ‘light and momentary troubles’ (2 Corinthians 4:17) this inevitably involves. As the writer of Hebrews says: 'let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.' (Hebrews 12:1-3, NIV)

So, let’s join together and follow Paul in ‘going for celery’!

[i] J.P. Moreland, ‘Living Smart’ in Paul Copan & William Lane Craig (ed.’s), Passionate Conviction (B&H Academic, 2007), p. 22.
[ii] William Lane Craig, ‘Apologetics: Who Needs It?’, www.reasonablefaith.org/christian-apologetics-who-needs-it#ixzz3fxRxJeqZ
[iii] David Marshall & Timothy McGrew, ‘Faith and Reason in Historical Perspective’ in True Reason (ed.’s Tom Gilson & Carson Weitnauer: Kregel, 2013), p. 125.
[iv] Frank Thielman, ‘Philippians’ in Clinten E. Arnold ed. Zondervan Illustrated Background Commentary: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon (Zondervan, 2002), p. 45-46.
[v] Nicky Gumbel, A Life Worth Living (Alpha, 2004), p. 92.
[vi] Thielman, ‘Philippians’ in Clinten E. Arnold ed. Zondervan Illustrated Background Commentary: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon (Zondervan, 2002), p. 63.
[vii] ibid, p. 64.
[viii] ibid, p. 63 & 65.
[ix] Joseph H.J. Thayer, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Hendrickson, 2012), P 240.
[x] Nicky Gumbel, A Life Worth Living (Alpha, 2004), p. 83.

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# posted by Peter S. Williams @ 5:08 pm
 

Sermon - Mark 4. 35-41


Audio of this sermon is available here 

35 On that day, when evening had come, He told them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the sea.”
36 So they left the crowd and took Him along since He was already in the boat. And other boats were with Him. 37 A fierce windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But He was in the stern, sleeping on the cushion. So they woke Him up and said to Him, “Teacher! Don’t you care that we’re going to die?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Silence! Be still!” The wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 Then He said to them, “Why are you fearful? Do you still have no faith?”
41 And they were terrified and asked one another, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey Him!” (HCSB.)






Before immersing ourselves in this passage, it’s worth noting that in the 1980’s a drought exposed a well-preserved first-century fishing boat in the mud of the Sea of Galilee, giving us a good idea of the sort of vessel featured in this story:

Under the direction of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, archaeologists began a race against time to carefully extract the boat from the mud before the waters returned… Pots and lamps found inside the boat dated it to the first century. Carbon-14 testing further confirmed the dating. The design of the boat was typical of fishing boats used during that period on the Sea of Galilee. In the back of the boat was a raised section like the one where Jesus could have been sleeping, as indicated in the Gospel accounts. The boat could accommodate 15 people including crew. This archaeological discovery confirms the description given in the Bible.[i] 

Writing around the middle of the first century, and probably drawing upon the eye-witness testimony of the apostle Peter, Mark presents his account of one of the more unusual miracles of Jesus. The miracle is unusual because it’s not a healing or an exorcism. Rather, it’s a ‘nature miracle’, like Jesus walking on the water or feeding the five thousand, which highlights God’s power over nature.

I’d like to clear aside a traditional reading of this passage that I think is a miss-reading, here represented by the introduction to Mark 4:35 f in William Neil’s One Volume Bible Commentary:

'Four stories are now added showing the power of the Messiah over the demon world. Mark makes no distinction between the stilling of the storm (4: 35-41) and the healing acts of Jesus. All are evidence of his authority over Satan’s domain. Jesus uses the same word: "be muzzled", in exorcising the demon who caused the storm, as he does in the case of the demoniac in 1:25.' (William Neil’s One Volume Bible Commentary, Hodder & Stoughton, 1962, p. 365.)

Jesus’ use of one word several chapters ago is a thin foundation upon which to build an interpretation. It seems to me that in fact only two of the four stories in this section of Mark clearly have to do with Satan (the daemoniac and the woman with the issue of blood). Moreover, there’s no evidence elsewhere in scripture that demons can control the weather.

Finally, Mark’s account simply doesn’t read like Jesus is responding to a satanic assassination attempt! Jesus doesn’t address himself to a demon, but to the wind and the sea: ‘39 He… rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Silence! Be still!”’ Yes, Jesus’s command anthropomorphized nature; but who among us hasn’t rebuked a computer when it fails to work?! Our rebuke doesn’t mean we think the computer is demon-possessed and neither does Jesus’ command for the wind to ‘shut up’.

So, if that’s not what’s going on in the calming of the storm, what is happening? I think we can better appreciate Mark’s story if we think about the biblical understanding of miracles. The New Testament uses various Greek words to describe miracles, including:


·      Dunamis – an act of power (‘Dunamis’ is the root of English words such as ‘dynamic’ and ‘dynamo’)

·      Teras – a wonder

·      Semeion – a ‘sign’

Michael Poole brings these terms together when he explains that: ‘Dunamis focuses attention on the cause of a miracle in the power of God. Teras refers to its effect, and Semeion to its purpose.’[ii] As a nature miracle, Jesus’ calming of the storm is clearly an act of dunamis. One effect of this teras is obviously to rescue the boats and their occupants; but another effect of the miracle is to leave Jesus’ disciples as frightened or awestruck of him as they had been of the storm he stilled. You see, the significance – the semeion – of this miracle is definitely not a comforting message about how those who carry Jesus in the boat of their lives can find peace in knowing that he will calm all the storms of life and rescue them from danger (an application William Neil’s commentary unfortunately makes)! For one thing, such a take-home message clearly wouldn’t be true. Plenty of people find life all the stormier, and sometimes shorter, for being a Christian.

So what was it that put the fear of God in to the disciples on this occasion? Jesus’ command of wind and wave would surely have brought to mind the following verses from Psalm 107:

‘Others went out on the sea in ships, they were merchants on the mighty waters. They saw the works of the Lord, his wonderful deeds in the deep. For he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves. They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away. They reeled and staggered like drunken men; they were at their wits’ end. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.’ (Psalm 107: 23-29)

You see, it’s not demons that scripture describes as controlling the sea, but the Lord God of Israel who, directly or indirectly, lifts the waves up high or stills the storm. And here is Jesus, addressing himself to the storm as God. In other words, Jesus’s miracle of calming the storm is an enacted claim to divinity – and one that carries with it powerful supernatural evidence of its truth. And that’s why the disciples end the story as much in ‘fear’ or ‘awe’ of Jesus as they were of the storm he stilled. Amen.



[i] Ralph O. Muncaster, 101 Reasons You Can Believe: Why the Christian Faith Makes Sense (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 2004), p. 72-3.
[ii] Michael Poole, Miracles: Science, The Bible & Experience (London: Scripture Union, 1992), p. 32.

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# posted by Peter S. Williams @ 4:48 pm

Monday, September 22, 2014

 

Sermon - Matthew 9:9-13 (The Calling of Matthew)


 An audio of this sermon is available here.


Matthew 9:9-13 (Holman Christian Standard Bible):

9 As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and He said to him, “Follow Me!” So he got up and followed Him.
10 While He was reclining at the table in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came as guests to eat with Jesus and His disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 But when He heard this, He said, “Those who are well don’t need a doctor, but the sick do. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”


File:The Calling of Saint Matthew.jpg
Calling the Apostle Matthew. Artist A.N. Mironov.
Matthew’s gospel was probably published in the late 50’s or early 60’s of the first century AD, within thirty years of Jesus’ crucifixion in AD 33. Atheist Richard Dawkins claims that ‘Nobody knows who the four evangelists were, but they almost certainly never met Jesus.’[1] Concerning the New Testament gospels, Dawkins is sure that ‘not one of them’ was written ‘by an eyewitness.’[2] However, according to New Testament scholar Craig L. Blomberg: ‘a good case can still be made for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the authors of the Gospels that have traditionally been attributed to them’.[3]

For example, despite being one of the twelve apostles, Matthew - ‘Levi son of Alphaeus’ (cf. Mark 2:13-17) - was hardly a leading figure, and he’d been a tax collector, which meant he’d collaborated with the pagan forces of the occupying Romans and had probably lined his own pockets in the process. By contrast, ‘the later second-through fifth-century apocryphal Gospels . . . are all (falsely) ascribed to highly reputable, influential early Christians to try to make them appear as authoritative and credible as possible.’[4]

New Testament scholar Timothy Paul Jones agrees the evidence suggests the source behind Matthew’s gospel was indeed ‘a tax collector named Matthew. . .’[5] Jones goes on to note that: ‘Tax collectors carried pinakes, hinged wooden tablets with beeswax coating on each panel. Tax collectors etched notes in the wax using styluses; these notes could be translated later and rewritten on papyrus.’[6] So, when Matthew’s gospel reports Jesus calling Matthew, when it describes Jesus ‘reclining at [Matthew’s] table’ with other ‘tax collectors and sinners’, and when it recounts Jesus’ sarcastic response to the disapproving Pharisees, we‘ve reason to believe we are in touch with an eye-witness report.

What does Matthew’s report tell us about Jesus’ diagnosis of the human condition? And what does it tell us about Jesus’ self-understanding?

Jesus diagnoses humanity as suffering from a ruptured relationship with God. The presenting symptoms of this rupture are plain to the judgmental, pointing fingers of the Pharisees, displayed for all to see in the ‘tax collectors and sinners’ to whom Jesus daringly extends table fellowship. And the Pharisees are right. Matthew and his tax collecting friends had no pretension to being ‘holier than thou’. The ‘sinners’ reclining at the table with Jesus really were sinners. Indeed, the term translated as ‘sinners’ means people who openly impugn or neglect the Law, and as Matthew 21:31-32 indicates, that probably included prostitutes.

Yet the sinful neediness of these ‘tax collectors and sinners’ led them to accept the counter-cultural invitation to dinner with Rabbi Jesus. When we look deeper into Jesus’ habit of extending table-fellowship to social outcasts, we see that Jesus was foreshadowing the heavenly banquet at which he will dine in a radically inclusive fashion with followers from all the people-groups of the world. Blomberg explains:

one could speak of these meals as enacted prophecy or symbolic of the kingdom’s surprising inclusions. . . no one is saved apart from repentance and faith in Jesus. But precisely to enhance the possibilities of genuine repentance for those alienated by standard Jewish separationism, Jesus ‘mixes it up’ with the notorious and the riff-raff of his world. Scarcely fearing that he will be morally or ritually defiled by them, in many instances he winds up leading them to God and to true ceremonial and spiritual wholeness.[7]

The Pharisees don’t like Jesus’ inclusive approach to ‘sinners’, and that’s where they go wrong. The Pharisees do have pretensions of being ‘holier than thou’, pretensions that speak of the sinful pride at the heart of the ruptured relationship between man and God. That pride presents differently in the Pharisees than in the ‘tax collectors and sinners’, but there is it, hollowing out their ‘holier than thou’ religion. And so Jesus tells the Pharisees to reflect upon a quotation from the 8th century B.C. prophet Hosea, an appropriate source in the situation given that Hosea was commanded by God to marry a prostitute and to forgive her adultery. Here is Hosea 6:4-6 (NIV):

“What can I do with you, Ephraim?
    What can I do with you, Judah?
Your love is like the morning mist,
    like the early dew that disappears.
Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets,
    I killed you with the words of my mouth—
    then my judgments go forth like the sun.
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
    and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

Jesus wanted the Pharisees to see that going through the religious motions without the sort of loving acknowledgement of God that flows through your life as mercy or love for others – avails nothing. In other words, the Pharisees need to agree with G.K. Chesterton’s famous letter to the Times:

Dear Sir: Regarding your article ‘What's Wrong with the World?’ I am. Yours truly, G.K. Chesterton.

For as Jesus says in Matthew 5:3-7:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.

So, Jesus diagnoses the heart of the human problem as a problem of sinful pride that blocks relationship with God. His application of this diagnosis to religious people as well as to ‘tax collectors and sinners’ should drive us all to those opening words from the ‘Sermon on the mount’ in Matthew 5.

But what of Jesus’ self-understanding? Jesus clearly casts himself in the role of God. Jesus extends table fellowship to sinners as a parable of God’s kingdom in which he takes the role of host. Having described himself as ‘a doctor’ for ‘the sick’ who has ‘come to call . . . sinners’ into God’s kingdom, Jesus references Hosea (whose very name means ‘He saves’). Consider Hosea 6:1-3 (NIV):

Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
    but he will heal us;
he has injured us
    but he will bind up our wounds.
After two days he will revive us;
    on the third day he will restore us,
    that we may live in his presence.
Let us acknowledge the Lord;
    let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises,
    he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
    like the spring rains that water the earth.”

Thus the Son who would die and rise ‘on the third day’ announces he has come to ‘call sinners’ into his kingdom. Amen.



[1] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantam), p. 122.
[2] Richard Dawkins, The Magic of Reality: How we know what’s really true (London: Bantam, 2011), p. 262.
[3] Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels (Leicester: Apollos, 1997), p. 365.
[4] Craig L. Blomberg, Making Sense of the New Testament, p. 24.
[5] Timothy Paul Jones, Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP, 2007), p. 119.
[6] Timothy Paul Jones in Why Trust the Bible? (Torrance, California: Rose, 2008), p. 72.
[7] cf. Craig L. Blomberg, ‘Jesus, Sinners and Table Fellowship’ www.ibr-bbr.org/files/bbr/bbr19a03.pdf

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# posted by Peter S. Williams @ 10:50 am

Monday, July 28, 2014

 

Sermon - Matthew 13:31-33


An audio of this sermon is available here.

Discussing Jesus' use of parables, theologian Robert H. Stein notes that: 'Jesus repeatedly used illustrations from daily life. These often contain a distinctly Palestinian or even Galilean flavour. This was originally intended to make the parables more understandable to Jesus' audience, but today it serves also to authenticate them. It is clear, for example, that the Sower [Matthew 14:4 ff.] reveals a Palestinian method of farming in which sowing preceded plowing.' (Bruce M. Mezger & Michael D. Coogan ed.'s, The Oxford Companion to the Bible, p. 567-568.) Hence 'most scholars agree that in the parables one stands on the bedrock of authentic Jesus tradition.' (Ibid, p. 568.)

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he said:

9 …you should pray like this:
‘Our Father in heaven,
Your name be honoured as holy.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.’ (Matthew 6: 9-10, HCSB)

First, note that this teaching gives us a definition of 'kingdom'. Your 'kingdom' is where 'your will is done'. God's kingdom is where his perfect will (not just his permissive will) is done.

Second, notice that to a certain pre-Christian may of thinking, this might appear to be a very strange teaching. What sort of a god proclaims that he has a kingdom that isn’t really here yet? What sort of a god tells those who believe in Him to ask that His will be done on earth as in heaven, rather than simply imposing his will with some smiting (preferably with brim stone)? As it turns out, the sort of god who gives these strange teachings is the sort of God that Jesus claims to reveal and to be. As Psalm 103:3 says: 'The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.' (KJV) He is the sort of God who becomes incarnate of a virgin teenage mother and is born in backwater Bethlehem. He is the sort of God who prefers to elicit our loving obedience by suffering for us than to have us suffer the ultimate consequence of our sin. As Joel 2:13 puts it: 'Let your remorse tear at your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful. He is not easily angered; he is full of kindness and anxious not to punish you.' (TLB)

Jesus' use of parables - in what we might call a Socratic teaching style - is wholly in keeping with his suffering-servant-king approach to the task of revelation. parables are designed not to force a message upon the casual listener. whilst yet revealing their meaning to those with sufficiently humble ears to hear. jesus would much rather entice the humble than browbeat the lofty. The Pharisees demand a miracle of Jesus for their personal satisfaction. He calls them a 'wicked and adulterous generation' who will be given no sign 'except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.' (Matthew 12:39-40, NIV.)

Jesus tells the parables of growth in Matthew 13:31-33 in the midst of rejection. He wants to encourage his disciples not to judge the kingdom of God by present appearances, for the kingdom is a growing reality. As theologian R.T. France explains:

the… parables of growth focus on the paradox of insignificant or hidden beginnings and a triumphant climax. In Jesus’ ministry this was a real issue: for those outside the disciple group it affected the credibility of an announcement of God’s reign which had apparently little to show for it; for the disciples there was the natural impatience to see God’s kingdom in all its glory, and the total eradication of all that opposed it. (Matthew, IVP Academic, 1985, p. 231.)

These parables deal with the inaugurated but not yet fully flourishing nature of God’s kingdom on earth. And despite the intervening centuries, this is a reality that Christians face as inhabitants of God’s kingdom today:

31 Jesus told them another story:
The kingdom of heaven is like what happens when a farmer plants a mustard seed in a field. 32 Although it is the smallest of all seeds, it grows larger than any garden plant and becomes a tree. Birds even come and nest on its branches.
33 Jesus also said:
The kingdom of heaven is like what happens when a woman mixes a little yeast into three big batches of flour. Finally, all the dough rises. (CEV)

At the present moment, the kingdom appears small, but it's greatness will be seen. At the present moment, the gospel is opposed by many for failing to agree with their worldly agendas; but the gospel is God's blessing for the whole world and will lead to the transformation of the whole world in the new heavens and earth. At the present moment, even today, the kingdom can look insignificant, like yeast compared to flour by volume when baking bread. Three measures of meal was about 40 liters, which would make enough bread for 100 people. So, just like yeast, the kingdom of God has a powerful effect over time.

We experience this in our own lives and communities of discipleship as we put on the glory of Christ over time: 'we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.' (2 Corinthians 3:18, NIV.) As Jessee Jackson once said: I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient with me. God is not finished with me yet.' (www.searchquotes.com/search/God_Is_Not _Done_With_Me_Yet/.)

The mustard seed was proverbially minute, though not literally the smallest seed; and Jesus literally says it grows ‘greater than the vegetables’, contrasting the full-grown shrub of about 3 meters with other garden produce. Indeed, Jesus’ imagery calls to mind Daniel 4:10-12 (HCSB):

10 In the visions of my mind as I was lying in bed, I saw this:
There was a tree in the middle of the earth,
and its height was great.
11 The tree grew large and strong;
its top reached to the sky,
and it was visible to the ends of the earth.
12 Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit was abundant,
and on it was food for all.
Wild animals found shelter under it,
the birds of the air lived in its branches,
and every creature was fed from it.

In other words, the kingdom of God will provide refuge not just for Jews but for Gentiles as well. Its fruit, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of eternal life, is meant for all. At the present time that fruit may seem insignificant, but it is ripening, and the great harvest is coming. Thanks be to God for his word!

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# posted by Peter S. Williams @ 12:04 pm

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

 

Sermon - John 3:1-15


An audio podcast of this sermon is available here.

 Today’s gospel reading is John 3:1-15, but I think the best way to unpack this passage is to incorporate it into my comments:

There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Him [Jesus] at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one could perform these signs You do unless God were with him.” (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Extra-biblical literature tells us of two first century Jewish Nicodemus’s, both belonging to the Gurion family. The portrait of Nicodemus in John corresponds well with what is know of this family. John’s Nicodeumus might well have been uncle to one Naqdimon ben Gurion mentioned in the Talmud.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. This has often been interpreted as a secret assignation, but may simply refer to the natural time for Torah study. Either way, Nicodemus had seen the miraculous signs and he wants a better understanding of the message to which those signs point.

Many find themselves in Nicodemus’s sandals; intrigued but baffled by Jesus, needing time to get to grips with his message, but willing to spend that time because they see enough about Jesus to think that time spent trying to understand him will be time well spent.

What follows won’t make much sense unless you know that in Greek the words for ‘again’, ‘anew’ and ‘from above’ are the same word: ‘anothen’. With that crucial bit of information in mind, here’s the rest of the passage:

Jesus replied, “I assure you: Unless someone is born anothen, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
“But how can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked Him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”
Jesus answered, “I assure you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
“How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.
“Are you a teacher of Israel and don’t know these things?” Jesus replied. “I assure you: We speak what We know and We testify to what We have seen, but you do not accept Our testimony. If I have told you about things that happen on earth and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about things of heaven? No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven - the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life.

So you see what happened: Jesus was saying that in order to see ‘the kingdom of God’ Nicodemus had to be ‘born anew’ or ‘from above’ by allowing God’s grace to forgive him and raise his human nature (his ‘flesh’) up into the spiritual life of God in a transformative relationship.

Jesus’ reference to water doesn’t refer to the first birth, or to baptism, but recalls the imagery of spiritual cleansing and re-birth in Ezekiel 36:25-27:

‘I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place My Spirit within you and cause you to follow My statutes and carefully observe My ordinances.’

So, according to Jesus, salvation isn’t a matter of being born into the right tribe or ethnic group, nor of slavishly practicing a set of predictable legal rules in order to pass a heavenly graduation test. Rather, salvation is a matter of allowing oneself to being caught up into the wind-like spiritual freedom of God’s spirit. Here it helps to know that the Greek word for ‘wind’ and for ‘spirit’ is one and the same word (pneuma).

Nicodemus objects that he can’t be literally ‘born again’. Some readers suppose Nicodemus is simply being rather thick and cloth-eared at this point; but I wonder if he isn’t being deliberately evasive. As John 1:11 says: ‘his own did not receive him.’ In either case, Nicodemus’ misunderstanding ironically led to the modern phrase about being ‘a born again Christian’, a phrase that metaphorically means just what Jesus meant by being ‘born anew’. Jesus uses a different metaphor in John 15:4-5:

‘Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me.’

Likewise, seeing ‘the kingdom of God’ is yet another way of talking about relationship with God in and through Jesus. The ‘kingdom of God’ is where-ever God’s perfect will is being followed, and ‘seeing the kingdom’ is equivalent to the more familiar expression in John of having ‘eternal life’. Jesus defines what he means by ‘eternal life’ in John 17:3: ‘This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent—Jesus Christ.’ Note that this isn’t a matter of merely knowing about God and Jesus as His Christ, but of actually knowing God and knowing Jesus as His Christ or Messiah.

With the phrase ‘eternal life’, the concept of unending duration is present, but it isn’t the main idea. The main idea is a certain quality of life seen in Jesus: ‘Christ is Himself both the personification and guarantee of this life.’ (Zondervan Bible Commentary). Theologian Alister McGrath comments that:

‘The “eternal life” in question must not be thought of as if it were some kind of infinite extension of everyday existence. Rather, it refers to a new quality of life, begun here and now through faith, which is consummated and fulfilled through resurrection. This eternal life is only made possible through the love of God, which is shown in the astonishing fact that he loves his world so much that his only Son should die for it.’ (NIV Bible Handbook, p. 369.)

It’s interesting to observe that Rabbinic tradition speaks of one of Jesus’ disciples being called ‘Nakkai’ or ‘Buni’, which is a Hebrew equivalent to the Greek name ‘Nicodemus’.  Moreover, Christian tradition says that Nicodemus was martyred sometime in the 1st century. This certainly chimes with the fact that, although Nicodemus didn’t receive the message of Jesus in John 3, John later tells us how Nicodemus stood up for Jesus in the Sanhedrin (John 7:50-52) and how he helped Joseph of Arimathea entomb Jesus, buying the myrrh and aloes for the burial. As John 1:12-13 says:


‘Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.’

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# posted by Peter S. Williams @ 10:20 am

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