Month: December 2024

Week 51  James 4

Verse eleven has three sentences:
Don’t speak evil against each other.
If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law.
But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you.
The third sentence is the one I’m interested in: a guy’s job is to look at the Lord’s law and to do it (not to judge whether it applies to him).
I check the sentence in a couple of other versions:
When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it
If you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it.
The question is: when it comes to the Lord’s law what’s my role?
And there are two (basic) answers: a) my job is to assess & evaluate a law – weigh it’s pros & cons – and then decide whether to do what it says. Or else b) my job is to look at a law and then do what it says.
I think what James is driving-at is that if I get to choose whether I’ll do a law or not do it then I’ve become The Law Decider (in other words…I in actual fact am now The Lawmaker).
It’s hard to know how many people choose a) but James’ recommendation is pretty clear: the smart choice is b) – doing what the law says.

Note: quote from James 4:11 (NLT NIV & NASB)

Week 50  2 Thessalonians 1

Yesterday I saw a couple of common features about people who will eventually end up in hell. The first was that they did not know God. The second was that they did not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. There might be other circumstances that land a person in hell but Paul only mentions these two at this point.
Anyway today I was thinking about a different question: what is hell like? I found three things:
1. Hell is a place of everlasting destruction (which I think means a permanent state of ruin where there’s no chances for renovation or rebuild)
2. In hell people will be shut out from the presence of the Lord
3. People will also be shut out from the glory of the Lord’s might.
After reading the verse in my version I decided to do a confirmatory double-check (and in the end I octuple-checked it). The other versions I looked at were pretty consistent.
1. They all used either the phrase eternal destruction or everlasting destruction
2. They all agreed that hell was a place away from the Lord
3. They all agreed that in hell there wouldn’t be any evidence of the Lord’s glorious power or might.
No mention of flames. No pitchforks. No torture. No horned demons.
But it was a permanent destination that was a long long way from the Lord.

Note: quotes from 2 Thessalonians 1:8 9 (NIV). Comparison versions: NASB NLT Phillips Amplified Common-English KJV (21st C) RSV & WEB

Week 50  2 Thessalonians 1

There’s lots of people who figure that hell doesn’t exist. For people who do one question about what it is: how does a guy get there?
Paul offers a short (and incomplete) answer in this verse. He says when the Lord returns to earth: he will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.
(I checked a couple of other bible versions and they use slightly different words for “punish”. For instance retribution. Penalty. Judgment. Justice. Like that. Alternate words…same general idea.)
My sense is that this “punishment” isn’t a freaking-out kind of blood-thirsty vengeance. It’s more like restitution. Compensation. Indemnification. I’m getting what I earned.
The idea is that if I’ve steadily & consistently repudiated the Lord – disregarded his prompts & turned-my-back on him & dismissed him – then I get to go on steadily & consistently repudiating the Lord for the long-term.
The converse – though Paul doesn’t say it here – is that if I’ve steadily & consistently endorsed the Lord – listened to him & tried to follow his prompts – then I get to steadily & consistently endorse & listen to & follow the Lord for the long-term.
So during my lifetime I get to determine my future. And then I end-up getting what I chose.

Note: quote from 2 Thessalonians 1:8 (NIV). I compared NIV’s “punish” with NASB NLT Amplified & Phillips.

Week 49  2 Thessalonians 1

Paul told the church people in Thessalonica he was praying for God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of the way you live…This is all made possible because of the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.
When it comes to me successfully living a worthy and good life it’s the Lord who makes it all possible.
Thinking about it from the other side I figure it’s completely possible to live a fairly worthy life on my own. I can make good lifestyle choices (follow the Golden Rule & be helpful kind generous selfless sympathetic & like that). I figure there are lots of people who live good lives. Good lives lived independently.
Paul doesn’t actually call it this but I think his view would be that living a good life – an independent good life – would be a Life of Limited Goods (goods with in-built ceilings). Paul wasn’t talking about that kind of life. There’s two features to the life he was talking about: a) it honoured Christ & b) it was made possible (only) by the grace of God.
Is it possible to live a good life minus the Lord? For sure. But it would be a different kind of good life. Not Paul’s. Same word. Different meaning.

Note: quote from 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 (NLT)

Week 49  Philippians 2

Paul makes an interesting comment about how following the Lord is a collaborative venture: continue to work out your salvation with fear and  trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
So following the Lord isn’t a one-sided affair. There’s Part 1: I work hard to do my part. And Part 2: the Lord works on his part. There’s a partnership (me working out and the Lord working in).
I don’t have comprehensive knowledge about the Lord’s side of things (what-all his working-in-me involves) – but I figure it’s safe to say that he’s taking adequate care of his part of the effort so as to (as Paul says) fulfill his good purpose.
My bigger concern (maybe my only concern) is my side of the deal. The department I’m running. Me.
I realize I have to be incentivized to work my side (I also know that having the inclination & the want-to-ness & the appetite isn’t an automatic state-of-mind for me). Plus…even with the motivation I have to actually act – do some things that are contributing to my being a follower of the Lord.
I figure that one simple & general & realistic rule on the practical side of doing-my-part is: Doing What I Can Realistically Do. One example: I can start to tell the truth regularly. That’s a fairly do-able starter. I’m pretty sure that when I’m not lying I’m working-out.

Note: quote from Philippians 2:12-13 (NIV)

 

Week 49  Philippians 2

Paul gave this advice to readers of Philippians: do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but to the interests of the others.
So…a kind of double-whammy for me:
• Don’t be motivated by my own self-centered ambition
• Consider other people to be more valuable than I am
No doubt Paul anticipated the how-do-I-do-that? question because he went on to say I have to have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.
Then to explain Christ’s mindset Paul described how Christ voluntarily took on the role of a poor labouring-class man at the bottom end of the socio-economic scale. He made himself nothing. That explanation is okay but it’s a bit tricky because it raises the complicated technical question of what-all exactly was involved in Christ’s Big Divestment? For example how do I square Jesus’ off-loading of divine qualities with his still being able to walk on water?
There’s no knowing where the question will lead. But i have to be cautious. I’ve got to remember that there’s a) The Point and then there’s b) the thing Illustrating the Point (and The Illustration can’t be bigger than The Point).
So a couple of bible reader’s reminders:
First: my focus is on The Point (which in this case is to learn humility).
Second: the illustration is there to illustrate (no matter how elaborate it is).

Note: quotes from Philippians 2:3-4 5 7 (NIV). And see the whole passage 2:3-11

 

Week 49  Philippians 1

Paul caught my attention near the end of the chapter: live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of Christ… Don’t be intimidated by your enemies. This will be a sign to them that…you are going to be saved… For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him.
I noticed two things: a) don’t be intimidated by your enemies and b) (a pretty sobering note) you get to suffer for the Lord.
I think about the connection of intimidation & suffering. I know that Paul’s style is to sometimes just throw ideas together as they come into his mind (although I don’t know for sure if his ideas are genuinely random or if I just can’t dope out the connections).
Anyway my feeling here is that the paragraph is cohesive – that intimidation & suffering are connected. Suffering-for-the-Lord is part of the mix. And oppositional intimidation is also what happens (and is one source of my suffering).
That said my preference would be to reorganize the passage so the suffering gets top billing. I prefer: you have been given the privilege of trusting in Christ and also the privilege of suffering for him. So don’t be intimidated in any way by your enemies. Instead live as a citizen of heaven. Conduct yourself in a manner worthy of Christ.
It’s a minor adjustment & a small difference. But it’s important to me.

Note: quote from Philippians 1:27-29 (NLT)

Week 49  Philippians 1

Paul begins his letter talking about the idea of progress – about advancing in my life as I follow the Lord. He says: he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. The good work that the Lord started in me will eventually come to completion at the day of Christ (by which I think Paul means the end of my life). It began with a good beginning. It’ll end up as a completed project.
When Jesus told Nicodemus he had to be born again Nicodemus was fixated on the starting point – the re-birth. He wasn’t so concerned with the (important & obvious) follow-up question: “What do I do once I’m born-again?”) Paul filled-in that gap here. In ~20 words he sketched-out the life-of-faith as a continuum: Beginning – Middle – Ending.
I start at the Beginning. I’m in the front door but really don’t know much about anything. Just groping my way along. My basically infantile existence needing a lot of help & support & back-up.
Over time I eventually move into stage two – the (important) Middle. A period of (hopefully) development & gradual advance. There’s a lot of watching-listening-observing-imitating-experimenting-questioning. There’ll be a lot of developmental trial-and-error. Progress-and-Regress. Assessment-and-Reassessment. Stops-and-Starts. Ups-and-Downs. Certainties-and-Doubts. Depending on my age when my Beginning began the Middle Phase will likely turn out to be the longest stage of my life.
And finally there’s the Ending. I’m done.

Note: quote from Philippians 1:6 (NIV). Nicodemus’ story is in John 3.