Plymothian

Kelli and Peter sitting on a camel with the Temple Mount in the background

The last two days I have been looking through the Olivet Discourse.  The disciples walk up the Mount of Olives and they look back across the valley to the temple complex and they marvel at the great stones that have been used to build such a magnificent building.  Jesus responds with the simple truth that quite soon these stones will no longer be standing one upon the other.  The disciples are marveled and ask when these things will occur and when the end of all time will occur.  Jesus lists various signs of apocalypse and doom, but he lists them in ways that show these terrible events to be quite common in history.  These things will happen, but te end is yet to come.  When Jesus does come no-one will need to tell anyone about it.  The event will be obvious like lightning or circling vultures.

The thrust of Jesus’ message has two main points.  One is that people must live in a state of readiness.  Jesus could return at any time.  If one tried to guess when that was, in order to modify their behaviour for the moment, it would show in some way that their heart was wrong.  The heart of the disciple lives in great anticipation of the Lord’s coming.  It is like a lover who looks out of their window each morning hoping and wanting for their absent lover to arrive home at any time.

Matthew 25 contains three parables that have the same main thrust.  The idea in the parable of the virgins, the talents and the sheep and goats  is that those who are rejected did not know the master.  At the end of all time the measure of all things is not what was done, but who it was done for.  It is not whether we obeyed God but whether we knew the God we thought we served.  Do you know God?

Prayer

Dear God, I want to know you.  I want to have a personal relationship that grows daily.  I want to gain insight from biblical study and I want to grow closer through prayer.

Questions

1. What signs of the end times does Jesus cover?
2. How does Jesus want for us to prepare for the end times?
3. What do the last three parables convey about the most important thing relating to final judgment?
4. Are you anticipating the second coming or is it far from your mind?
5. How can you cultivate a life that knows Jesus more?

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ² according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, ⁷ so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, ⁹ obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

¹⁰ Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and enquired carefully, ¹¹ enquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. ¹² It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

¹³ Therefore, preparing your minds for action,^[a] and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ¹⁴ As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, ¹⁵ but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, ¹⁶ since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” ¹⁷ And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, ¹⁸ knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. ²⁰ He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you ²¹ who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

²² Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, ²³ since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; ²⁴ for

And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

And this is the word that was preached to you.

Grass

The grass of a Mediterranean climate sprouts up in a warm, wet winter, but then it burns away in a hot, dry summer.  People are beautiful, they are made in the image of God.  Look in the eyes of a wizened 80-year-old and you see something that demands respect.  However, people who reach 80 live with a strong sense of their mortality, unless they are fools.  Existentialists are aware of death, but they choose to make sense of life in the face of the absurd idea that all life ends in death.  Nihilists take a darker view, since life ends in death it is utterly meaningless, it is ‘sound and fury signifying nothing.’  The Book of Ecclesiastes seems nihilist at first glance (https://theplymothian.me/2011/09/02/ecclesiastes-intro/) .  ‘”Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless,” writes the author of Ecclesiastes.  However, when we push further we see that meaningless means ‘vaporous’.  Vapour, steam, or mist is around just for a short while and then disappears.  Grass grows for a season and then it dies away.  People have relatively short lives when compared to the age of the earth and the eternity of God.

In contrast with our meaningless existence there is gravity and substance in the things that endure.  A transient person needs rooting in an eternal principle.  we find vain attempts at this when an atheist says, “Life is the chemical reaction that occurs in the brain.  When we die all life ceases.  We may be remembered by loved ones that we leave behind, but that is the end of the life we live.”  Notice how the atheist wants to be remembered by loved ones.  The memory of the community gives weight to their existence that they do not have.  However, if we embody the living word then we have an existence that is meaningful beyond our present life. We become part of the redemption plan which is the gospel.  People are happier and more fulfilled when living for something beyond themselves.  They are able to see beyond the limitations of being grass.

Prayer

Death will come to me sooner than I think.  Help me to be ready for the passing years to be done, for my beauty to have withered.  Help me to trust in the eternal word and step into eternity full of faith and hope.

Questions

1. How is a person like grass?
2. How are the eternal and temporal contrasted?
3. What is the ‘word’ in this passage?
4. What have older people told you about life?
5. How are you able to learn from the idea that you are grass, but that you trust in the word?

²² Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, ²³ since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

Pure Heart

The pure heart loves.  The love in this passage is a pure, brotherly love.  The pure heart does not seek to defend itself, hide itself, or justify itself.  It seeks to spend itself, sacrifice itself, expose itself.  The pure heart, therefore must know pain.  The pure heart must find peace on the other side of working through its fears.  It is bold and brave.  It is vulnerable but courageous.

How is such a heart cultivated?  Without eternal resources to spend a giving heart will be spent.  Love is a gift from God.  Without acknowledging and approaching the giver there can be little in terms of confidence.  Humans break.  Humanity is inconsistent, foolish, proud, and vain.  Even our greatest confidante, support and guide, if they are human, can be taken away in an instant.  Love is only eternal because it flows from the eternal heart of God.  How is it that God knows how to endure pain, spend himself, and sacrifice himself?  Of course, Jesus has the purest of hearts.  Gratitude creates a pure heart.  Humility creates a pure heart.

If a heart loves in earnest, love must be sincere.  It must hate what is evil.  It must turn away from self-serving corrupt practices and cling to what is good.  The passion for the good of others will carry the pure heart into many storms.  Insincerity is a veneer that covers a cold heart, an aching heart, or the absence of a heart.  Sincerity wants the best and shows it by action when times become hard.  It attends small group for the sake of the others present, even when there are reasons to stay at home.  It prays for others with heartfelt concern, even when tiredness and fatigue would bid us to sleep.  It seeks God’s truth in scripture, not for the benefit that it brings in daily living, but primarily for the relationship it develops between the individual and God.  As that relationship becomes central to all of life, so the impurities of the heart are melted away and it blazes like the sun superheated by renewal and rebirth.

Prayer

Have mercy on me,^[a] O God,
    according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
    blot out my transgressions.
² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
    and cleanse me from my sin!
³ For I know my transgressions,
    and my sin is ever before me.
⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned
    and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
    and blameless in your judgement.
⁵ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
    and in sin did my mother conceive me.
⁶ Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
    and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
⁷ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
    wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
⁹ Hide your face from my sins,
    and blot out all my iniquities.
¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and renew a right^[b] spirit within me.
¹¹ Cast me not away from your presence,
    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and uphold me with a willing spirit.
¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    and sinners will return to you.
¹⁴ Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
    O God of my salvation,
    and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
¹⁵ O Lord, open my lips,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶ For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
    you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
¹⁸ Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
    build up the walls of Jerusalem;
¹⁹ then will you delight in right sacrifices,
    in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
    then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Questions

1. How does one purify their soul?
2. What two qualifiers describe how Christians love?
3. How does being born again change how one loves?
4. How are you aware of your heart’s purity?
5. How do you behave in accordance with a pure heart?

¹⁷ And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, ¹⁸ knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

Ransomed

A prisoner sits in their cell without hope of reprieve.  They are awaiting the death sentence.  Each day is sapped of joy because they know the inevitable truth that they will be executed.  It is not as if the prisoner sits there because they do not deserve the sentence.  Each prisoner on this death row has deep shame and guilt that they can not shake.  The shame is in the knowledge that nothing good dwells in them.  The guilt rests on them because the judge has spoken truth, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  So the prisoner sits in their dark cell waiting for the inevitable.  They are without hope.  Nothing they can do will free them.

Mercy comes in the form of a ransom.  The price of the guilt is paid.  The shame is removed.  The payment is in the form of an exchange.  A stranger comes in with a face that looks glad to see the accused.  He embraces the condemned even though they are guilty.  He informs them that he has taken the guilt and shame and they do not have to be executed.  However, there is more than mercy, he has purchased grace.  The prisoner can leave the cell and live a life without shame or guilt.

Jesus has purchased for us our freedom to live a new life.

Some of us still feel as though we have to sit in the cell.  It is the perception we have had for so long.  We have let others dull our senses to God’s truth with accusations and verbal abuse.  Others have told us we are not worth much.  However, there is someone who has taken our place so that if we exchange his life for our freedom he pays the ransom.  We are worth that much.  However, Jesus demonstrates the extent of his love in that he paid the price and took our place when we were still rightly condemned.  We were not in the cell unjustly.  Justice has been suspended in our case because it has been completely transferred to another.

Now we need to throw aside the old, defeated persona of who we once were.  We need to enter more fully each day into the victorious, successful, bold, and joyful identity that is ours.

Prayer

The price is paid,
Come let us enter in
To all that Jesus died
To make our own
For every sin
More than enough He gave
And bought our freedom
From each guilty stain

The price is paid
Alleluia
Amazing grace
So strong and sure
And so with all my heart
My life in every part
I live to thank You for
The price You paid

The price is paid
See Satan flee away
For Jesus crucified
Destroys his power
No more to pay
Let accusation cease
In Christ there is
No condemnation now

The price is paid
And by that scourging cruel
He took our sicknesses
As if His own
And by His wounds
His body broken there
His healing touch may now
By faith be known

The price is paid
‘Worthy the Lamb’ we cry
Eternity shall never
Cease His praise
The church of Christ
Shall rule upon the earth
In Jesus’ name we have
Authority

Questions

1. How does the accused feel about the judge who rightly condemns them?
2. Why does the fear of God not get taken by Jesus?
3. From what have the recipients of the letter been ransomed?
4. What behavior patterns have you been ransomed away from?
5. How do you respond to being ransomed from the reasons for guilt and shame?

… but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, ¹⁶ since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Holy

Jesus was set apart by God the Father for a special purpose.  He was holy.  God changes the things that he sets apart for himself.  They become holy.  They begin to reflect more of God’s nature.  This does not mean that being holy includes being proud or lording it over others.  Being holy means that you are living by a different standard than the rest of society and that standard has been dictated by God.  Plenty of people want God’s love, grace and mercy, but they must choose holiness if they want those things.  People must choose to live a life that is free from sin and corruption.  Beyond that, the Christian’s life must show that they pursue God with everything they have.

John D. Watts writes:

Holy also applied to persons who were to meet God. The priests had to undergo special rites that sanctified and purified them for service in the Temple. God wanted all His people to share His presence. They had to be instructed in the character and actions what would accomplish that. The Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-25 ) commands the people to obey God’s laws in all parts of life in order to be “holy: for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2 ). Here holiness is seen to include a moral character as well as cultic purity. Sin and disobedience works the opposite and has to be cleansed or atoned by sacrifice (Leviticus 1-7 ; Leviticus 16:1 ).

An understanding of holiness is needed for New Testament study to appreciate the cross and the results of God’s work through the cross. The Gospels make clear that Jesus came to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21 ; Luke 1:31-35 ). The crucifixion is portrayed as Christ shedding His blood and giving His body for the remission of sins (Matthew 26:26-29 ; Mark 14:22-25 ; Luke 22:19-20 ). Faith in Christ is portrayed as acceptance of His full atonement for sin (1 John 2:2 ; 1 John 3:5 ; Revelation 5:9 ).

The Holy Spirit is the agent of holiness for the church and its leaders (Acts 1:8 ; Acts 2:4 ; Acts 5:32 ; Acts 13:2-4 ). He keeps the church pure (Acts 5:1-11 ). He promotes holiness in its members (1 Corinthians 6:19 ; 1 Thessalonians 4:7 ).

Christians are called to holy living (1 Corinthians 1:2 ; 1 Corinthians 3:17 ). They are saints who lead godly, righteous lives. Being sanctified, or made holy, is a work of the Holy Spirit on the basis of Christ’s atonement that calls for obedient submission from those who have been saved. Christians are holy because of their calling in Christ, because of His atonement for their sins, and because of the continual ministrations of the Holy Spirit. They are holy inasmuch as they receive and submit to these saving and sanctifying agents.

Prayer

I don’t feel naturally inclined to call myself ‘holy’.  It seems presumptuous.  However, you have declared us holy and you require a more moral life as a result.  Help me to follow through on this desire.

Questions

1. Why is a person to be holy?
2. What does holy mean?
3. In what ways would early Christian conduct be different from the ancient norms?
4. How do ‘holy’ Christians set themselves apart by their actions today?
5. How does  God want to make you more holy?

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance …

Non-Conformist

The Christian does not conform to the patterns of this world, but is transformed by the renewing of their minds.  In so doing they show what God’s will is.  This is not just the will of God for the individual, but it is the will of God for society.  The prevailing standard of truth dictated by the state in western governments is that same-sex marriage is an acceptable variation on marriage.  The Bible does not know this to be the case.  In fact, in Romans 1, the acceptance of same-sex attraction seems to indicate that society has declined in the life of the mind and the body.  In our society we have discarded the evidence of our eyes for an evidence of the mind.  If my mind is in turmoil because of same-sex attraction but my body has a specific gender, I must go with the ‘truth’ of the mind and not the body.  This decision shows a gnostic trend.  Also, although God has revealed in his word what the standards are for sexual intimacy, we have abandoned those because we know better than our creator.  The creator says that it is possible to feel desires that tend toward sin, but our society uses arguments like, “How can something that feels so right be so wrong?” 

High school Christians who hold to the biblical standard on sexual purity are derided by those who know little about scripture and how it is interpreted.  They say that people in the Bible were polygamists, rapists, and attracted to their own sex (look at Sodom).  However, they fail to see which passages are descriptive and which are proscriptive.  They say the Bible doesn’t say much about same-sex intercourse.  The Bible says less about bestiality.  This is because there are actions, which in Jewish culture, it would seem like you didn’t really need to spell out.  If a Christian points out that the body is designed for two people of opposite genders to have sex within marriage, they will be looked down upon.  If they do not hire people, or act in line with their conscience, they will be guilty of hate crimes.  This is one area where Christians are to be non-conformist in Western culture.

High-schoolers often think that they are championing a cause equivalent to the human rights issues of the 60’s.  However, the two issues are not equivalent.  There is not a 100% determinism in same-sex attraction as there is with race.  Also, sexual practice is a matter of choice or mutual consent, such is not the case with race.

For biblical perspectives on same-sex attraction, please read some of the articles on Robert Gagnon’s site:  http://www.robgagnon.net/ArticlesOnline.htm

Prayer

Father, I see storm clouds rising.  We took a path of appeasement in the mainstream church.  We thought we could live and let live.  There were always those who hated gays, but we wanted to show that we loved people with same-sex attraction.  Now we see quite rapidly that the media and society are defining us as hateful for our views.  We see that the state is drafting laws that take our businesses and force sexual views in school.  We fear that religious institutions will have to hire people with sexual practices that are biblically immoral.  Protect us from changes or prepare our minds.  Save our youth from the shallow indoctrination that is occurring all around us.  Help us to be strong if we are arrested for taking a stand in this area.

Questions

1. What do people who lose sight of God focus upon?
2. How would an ancient Christian have been non-conformist in following their passions?
3. What does obedience have to do with being non-conformist?  Don’t they contradict?
4. How might the church be counter-cultural today?
5. How can we prepare our children to take a stand on issues like same-sex attraction?

… obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

¹⁰ Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and enquired carefully, ¹¹ enquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. ¹² It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

Saved

Being saved is like a game of Battleship.  We ask God whether we have dangerous habits and opinions hidden from us and from others, but known to him.  We find them and then we destroy them.  We make every thought captive to God.  Salvation is a game of seek and destroy.  We ask God to examine us and we deal with the sin he reveals.  We become open to correction from others and allow them to highlight our inadequacies.  It is easy to find the battleships of lust or anger.  It is harder to find the submarine lurking underneath why we want to spend so much time alone, or why we feel angry each time a certain person talks. In each case a little more of Christian holiness peeks through.  Do you have the courage to ask someone to point out to you something that needs working on?  I know that my mother did, and she listened to what I told her.  She has been working on the issues God has brought up for about a year.  Now she is sharing her growth with others.  As she is saved she is able to save others.  It may even be those who got saved years ago.  Now, she is part of a group that are looking below the surface and examining the secret places of the subconscious and the hidden recesses of the heart.

The Christian is saved once and for all at the point of conversion.  When a person admits that they are lost and morally bankrupt, and then they have called out to God to save them through Jesus, they are saved once and for all.  BUT that is not the total story of salvation.  Because we have been saved, we are continuously saved from our selves and the corruption that is still affecting our souls.  The spiritually immature may only be ware of a fraction of how sin influences their lives.  We tend to defend ourselves, make excuses or self-medicate.  The more mature Christian asks themselves lots of searching questions.  What does God want me to do?  What do I want to do with my life and why?  Who is God?  How does one pray, read the Bible, or praise and worship?  The most mature Christians see sin as ever present and fight to eradicate it and develop personal holiness in their lives.  They seek to understand their motives and find selfish desires.  They examine their inaction on key issues and ask how God can redeem them from passivity.  They look at relationships and the struggles they bring, and they cease defending themselves so vigorously.  They learn from interactions how to change.  This journey to holiness and purity is as much ‘salvation’ as the initial steps into the Kingdom of God.

The absence of devotions, the absence of care for the poor and the lost, and the prevalent desire for personal tastes to be met tells me that the church is in some ways unsaved.  The church today may get to heaven, but it will arrive stunted and weak.  It will arrive as the immature self-obsessed sum of its component parts.  Those who had suntans and pearly-white smiles as they gave us another tip on how to get more out of life will look foolish compared to those who pleaded with their congregations to pursue God fervently and faithfully.  What do you pursue?

Prayer

You have saved me so that I may be saved.  I want to be saved, but I cower away from admitting fault and embracing weakness.  I find it painful to admit that I might be wrong on so many issues.  It does not feel safe.  I know that ultimately I am safe when I follow you.  However, I will not be sheltered from pain.  In spite of the problem of pain, I will follow you.  In each area where I feel unloved, I will ask myself why.  In each area where I feel I am right, I will examine to see how I am wrong.  Nothing is firmly established unless it is established in you.

Questions

1. How is salvation the foundation of Christian identity?
2. How is one continuously saved as a Christian?
3. Are those who are unsaved able to change in ways that are significant?
4. How did you change when you became a Christian?
5. How are you being transformed into the new identity that you received at conversion?