Why Shouldn’t We Trust the Non-Canonical Gospels Attributed to Matthias?

By J. Warner Wallace 11/8/2017

     The New Testament describes the Apostle Matthias as the man who joined the remaining eleven apostles and replaced Judas after Judas committed suicide. In Acts 1:21-22, Matthias is described as “one of the men who have accompanied (the disciples) during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among (them), beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from (them).” If this is true, Matthias would have been an eyewitness to the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. History records at least one ancient text attributed to Matthias, but is this non-biblical text reliable? Was it really written by Matthias? There are four attributes of reliable eyewitness testimony, and the first requirement is simply that the account be old enough to actually be written by someone who was present to see what he or she reports. The ancient texts attributed to Matthias were written too late in history to have been written by the man we know as Matthias, and like other late non-canonical texts, these errant document were rejected by the leaders in the early Church. In spite of this, the manuscripts we are about to examine still contain small nuggets of truth related to Jesus.  Although they are legendary fabrications written by authors who altered the story of Jesus to suit the purposes of their religious communities, much can still be learned about the historic Jesus from these late texts:

     The Traditions of Matthias (110-160AD) | The Traditions of Matthias is described by Clement of Alexandria in a letter (Miscellanies written in 210AD) and many scholars suspect that it is the same text known as the Gospel of Matthias and mentioned by Origen, Eusebius, Ambrose, and Jerome. While the manuscript is lost, there are still three small quotes from Clement’s letter that are available to us. The text may have contained a narrative of Jesus’ life along with teachings, but it is difficult to know from what little we have today.

     Why Isn’t It Considered Reliable? | Scholars believe that The Traditions of Matthias was written far too late to have been penned by the Matthias mentioned in the Book of Acts. From the few passages available to us in Clement’s letter, it is apparent that it was used by Gnostic believers such as the Basilideans. According to Hippolytus, the leader of the group, Basilides, learned “secret words” from Matthias that had supposedly been passed down to him from Jesus himself. This is consistent with how early Church leaders described The Gospel of Matthias. Eusebius lists The Gospel of Matthias with the Gospels of Thomas and Peter as heretical works known to the early Church. The Gospel of Matthias is also listed as heretical in the Decretum Gelasianum, the Catalogue of the Sixty Canonical Books, and in a list of false books that were used by Nazarene Christians.

     How Does It Corroborate the Life of Jesus? | With so little available to us, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions, but the quotes do seem to affirm that Jesus was a wise teacher known commonly as the “Word”, “Lord” and “Savior”, who selected (found) those who were previously lost from God and taught a moral code of conduct that his disciples sought to embrace.

     Where (and Why) Does It Differ from the Reliable Accounts? | The author of Matthias (presumably the Apostle Matthew), describes a moral ethic that considers the world to be evil, sinful and filled with pleasures of the flesh that are to be rejected. The text also appears to place an extraordinary high value on the acquisition of knowledge as way to “increase the soul”. This is to be expected if, in fact, this text is a late creation of a Gnostic sect. Clement affirms this in describing its use by Marcion, Valentinus and Basilides.

James "Jim" Warner Wallace (born June 16, 1961) is an American homicide detective and Christian apologist. Wallace is a Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview and an Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Biola University in La Mirada, California. He has authored several books, including Cold-Case Christianity, God’s Crime Scene, and Forensic Faith, in which he applies principles of cold case homicide investigation to apologetic concerns such as the existence of God and the reliability of the Gospels.

• Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels

• God's Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe

• Alive: A Cold-Case Approach to the Resurrection

• Cold-Case Christianity for Kids: Investigate Jesus with a Real Detective

• Keeping Your Kids on God's Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith

• Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith

Bourne Again Our Relentless Search for Identity

By J.A. Medders 7/28/2016

     What comes to mind when you think about yourself is one of the most important things about you. In particular, what comes to your mind when you think about who you are in Christ is of greater importance.

     As a pastor, I’ve found that most problems are traceable to uncertainty about our identity. We have forgotten who we are in Christ (2 Peter 1:9). When we forget our identity, like Jason Bourne, we should be relentless until we know it again.

     Bourne, one of the great action heroes of our day, is a highly trained agent — to understate it — capable of winning a fight with nothing more than a rolled up magazine or a ballpoint pen. He is armed with unrivaled skill and know-how for every situation he faces.

     In the first Bourne film, he wakes up from a failed mission, not remembering who he is, but quickly realizing all he is capable of doing. Bourne is determined to find out who he is. He doesn’t seem to care that he can do things James Bond only dreams of doing; he wants to know who he is.

     Identity Comes Before Activity | Herein lies the parable for the Christian life: we are often more drawn to what we can do for Jesus, rather than who we are in Jesus.

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J.A. Medders is the lead pastor of Redeemer Church in Tomball, Texas, where he lives with his wife Natalie and their two kids. He is the author of Gospel Formed: Living a Grace-Addicted, Truth-Filled, Jesus-Exalting Life and blogs at jamedders.com.

True Leadership Is Sacrifice, Not Privilege

By David Mathis 11/10/2016

     It is one of the filthiest lies Satan whispers in the ear of our comfortable and entitled generation.

     From before we can even remember, we have been indoctrinated, at nearly every turn, with the idea that being “a leader” means getting the gold star. Leadership is a form of recognition, a kind of accomplishment, the path to privilege. Being declared a leader is like winning an award or being identified among the gifted.

     Leadership is a form of success. And since you can do whatever you dream, and can achieve whatever you set your mind to, you too can be a leader — at home, at work, in the community, in the church. Why would you settle for anything less? Leadership means privilege, and no generation has considered itself more entitled to privilege than ours.

     The Lie About Leadership | The world’s spin on leadership is in the air of our society, felt in the subtext of our adolescence, and reinforced in our public elections. We are swimming in it everywhere we turn. Why follow when you can lead? Why contribute to the glory of another when you can be the chief beneficiary instead?

     As novel and inspiriting as it may seem, it’s a very old deception. From the garden, to the history of Israel, to the Middle Ages, to our innate notions about leadership today, the natural, human, sinful way to think about leadership is to be king of the hill. To view leadership as the ascent to honor and privilege, rather than the descent to attend to the needs of others.

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David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for desiringGod.org, pastor at Cities Church in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, and adjunct professor for Bethlehem College and Seminary. He is a husband, father of four, and author of Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines.

4 Unexpected ways to address a suffering marriage

By Professor Khaldoun A. Sweis

     So my wife and I get into it! What a surprise. Early on in our marriage, I did what any insane, first-year married man would do, I took her to marriage counseling to fix her. What happened next, was not what I expected.

     The marriage counselor told me that it was a good thing we were fighting; in fact, it was the couples who did not fight that he was most concerned about. He turned on me to get my act together as the leader and father I should be. And a great deal of what he said was right, even though it was hard to swallow it.

     They say that there are three rings, the engagement ring, the wedding ring and the suffering… | All joking aside, marriage is a gift of God and a reflection of his very image. When your marriage is suffering, what are some simple ways, (and it is never that simple) to deal with it?

     First, we are not created to be alone. | Other people make us who we are and even don’t want to be. The company we keep does make a difference on the life we live. There is no psychologist who would disagree with this theory. We are not made to be alone. In fact, as Jim Rohin said, you are “the average of the five people you most spend most time with!” That does not mean you have to get married. No it is better to remain miserable single than miserable married! 🙂 Again, Im joking. Jesus never married and he was as complete as you can be as a human being. So getting married is not the be all of life. But it is important and a blessing if you take that journey. If you are married or single, being alone is not a good thing, check out Genesis 2:18 where God says this about Adam.

(Ge 2:18) 18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” ESV

     Did you know that even God was never alone? Before he created everything, God, was and is a community in unity in the blessed external Trinity. | So, if your marriage is suffering, and you feel alone in it, stop doing it alone. Find people who are doing it right, get close to them and start to make some changes.

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Love Her More and Love Her Less

By John Piper 5/29/1995

     For Karsten Luke Piper At His Wedding to Rochelle Ann Orvis May 29, 1995

The God whom we have loved, and in
Whom we have lived, and who has been
Our Rock these twenty-two good years
With you, now bids us, with sweet tears,
To let you go: "A man shall leave
His father and his mother, cleave
Henceforth unto his wife, and be
One unashaméd flesh and free."
This is the word of God today,
And we are happy to obey.
For God has given you a bride
Who answers every prayer we've cried
For over twenty years, our claim
For you, before we knew her name.

And now you ask that I should write
A poem - a risky thing, in light
Of what you know: that I am more
The preacher than the poet or
The artist. I am honored by
Your bravery, and I comply.
I do not grudge these sweet confines
Of rhyming pairs and metered lines.
They are old friends. They like it when
I bid them help me once again
To gather feelings into form
And keep them durable and warm.

And so we met in recent days,
And made the flood of love and praise
And counsel from a father's heart
To flow within the banks of art.
Here is a portion of the stream,
My son: a sermon poem. It's theme:
A double rule of love that shocks;
A doctrine in a paradox:

If you now aim your wife to bless,
Then love her more and love her less.

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John 16

By Don Carson 3/26/2018

     The coming of the Holy Spirit, the “Counselor” or Paraclete, is dependent on Jesus’ “going away,” i.e., his death by crucifixion, subsequent resurrection, and exaltation (John 16:7; cf. 7:37-39). This raises important questions about the relationship between the Spirit’s role under the old covenant, before the cross, and his role this side of it. That is worthy of careful probing. Here, however, John’s emphasis on the Spirit’s work must be made clear.

     At the end of John 15, the Counselor, we are told, will bear witness to Jesus, and to this task to which the disciples of Jesus will lend their voices (15:26-27). The prime witness falls to the Spirit. In John 16:8-11, the Counselor convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He does so because Jesus is returning to the Father and no longer exercises the role of convicting people himself.

     If the Holy Spirit bears witness to Jesus in 16:8-11, in 16:12-15 he brings glory to Jesus by unpacking Christ to those who attended the Last Supper (the “you” in v. 12 cannot easily be taken in any other way, and controls the other instances of “you” in the rest of the paragraph; cf. also 14:26). As Jesus is not independent of his Father, but speaks only what the Father gives him to say (5:16-30), so the Spirit is not independent of the Father and the Son: “He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears” (16:13). His focus is Jesus: “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you” (16:14). And of course, even here what belongs to Jesus comes from the Father: “All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you” (16:15).

     The reason why Jesus himself has not unpacked everything about himself and his mission to the disciples is that they are not yet ready to bear it (16:12). Even this late in their discipleship, they cannot quite integrate in their own minds the notion of a King-Messiah and the notion of a Suffering Messiah. Until that point is firmly nailed down, the way they read their Scriptures — what we call the Old Testament — will be so skewed by political and royal aspirations that they are not going to get it right.

     How much of the Spirit’s work focuses on Jesus Christ — bearing witness to him, continuing certain aspects of his ministry, unpacking his significance!

Don Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and co-founder (with Tim Keller) of The Gospel Coalition. He has authored numerous books, and recently edited The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Eerdmans, 2016).

John 17

By Don Carson 3/27/2018

     John 17 is constantly cited in ecumenical circles. Jesus prays for “those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you… to let the world know that you sent me” (17:20-23). The implication is that by supporting the ecumenical movement wholeheartedly one is bringing to pass the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer.

     It is an important prayer. But note what else he prays for in this chapter:

     (1) Jesus prays that God will protect his first disciples from “the evil one,” especially now that he himself is being removed from the scene (17:11, 15). Perhaps he is especially thinking of the terrible blows to their faith as their Master is crucified and buried.

     (2) Jesus prays that his disciples will be sanctified by the truth — understanding well that God’s word is truth, and that the very purpose of his own sanctification (i.e., he “sanctifies” himself — sets himself apart for his Father’s holy purposes — by obeying his Father and going to the cross) is that they may be sanctified (17:17-18).

     (3) Jesus prays that both these first disciples and those who will ultimately believe through their message will be “in us [i.e., ‘in’ the Father and the Son] so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (17:21).

     (4) Jesus declares he wants all those the Father has given him to be where he is, and finally to see his glory, the very glory the Father gave him because the Father loved him from “before the creation of the world” (17:24).

     In addition, of course, Jesus prays that his disciples may all be one. It would be nice if all those who emphasize this petition emphasized the other petitions no less — or, for that matter, that all those who emphasize, say, the second petition in the list above also emphasized the prayer for unity.

     The question to ask, however, is whether Jesus’ prayers are answered. Does not Jesus elsewhere attest that he knows full well that the Father always “hears” him (11:42)? Certainly the Father protected all of the earliest disciples, except, of course, for Judas Iscariot, whom even Jesus in his prayer acknowledges is “doomed to destruction” (17:12). The other petitions are likewise being answered, and will be finally answered at the consummation. This is true also of Jesus’ prayer for unity: real Christians attest a profound unity, a real unity, regardless of hierarchical structures and often in defiance of ecumenical initiatives, in answer to Jesus’ prayer. This often attracts others to the Gospel. We must hunger and strive for the fulfillment of all of Jesus’ petitions.

Don Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and co-founder (with Tim Keller) of The Gospel Coalition. He has authored numerous books, and recently edited The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Eerdmans, 2016).

John 18

By Don Carson 3/28/2018

     When Pilate Asks Jesus whether or not he is “the king of the Jews” (John 18:33), what interests him is whether or not Jesus presents some sort of political threat. Is he one of these nationalistic, self-proclaimed “messiahs” who are intent on wresting authority from the Roman superpower? If so, he must suffer a capital sentence.

     When Jesus finally replies, his answer is like none that Pilate ever heard: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place” (John 18:36).

     One might profitably spend a lot of time pondering this response. We shall focus on four points:

     (1) The meaning of kingdom here cannot have the static sense of realm, as in “the kingdom of Jordan” or “the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” It means something closer to the dynamic sense of kingdominion, of kingly rule, for Jesus focuses on what his “kingdom” is “of” or “from,” i.e., what is the source of his kingly rule. This does not mean there is no domain to this kingdominion, no realm connected with it; there is, as we shall see. But it is not the focus of the use of the term here.

     (2) Jesus says his kingdom is “not of this world”; it is “from another place.” In other words, all the kingdoms and centers of political strength that human beings construct trace their authority, is “from another place”– and readers of this gospel know that that means from heaven, from God himself.

     (3) That is why his servants will not fight. His kingdom does not advance and become an empire the way the empires of this world achieve success, viz. inevitably with a great deal of military drive. The kingdom of God does not advance by human armies and literal warrior-saints. One wishes that those who stirred up the Crusades had meditated a little longer on this text. Apparently Pilate believed at least this part of what Jesus was saying, and therefore saw him as no political threat (18:38).

     (4) But this does not mean that Jesus is making no claim whatsoever with respect to the kingdoms of this world. He insists he is King Jesus, even if his source of authority is not in this world, and his servants will not defend him by resorting to arms. Nevertheless the time will come when all will acknowledge that he alone is Lord of lords and King of kings (Rev. 17:14; 19:16), and all the kingdoms of this world are destined to become his (Rev. 11:15).

Don Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and co-founder (with Tim Keller) of The Gospel Coalition. He has authored numerous books, and recently edited The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Eerdmans, 2016).

Significant

By Ryan Nicholson 11/9/2017

     Guilty as charged! When it started I don’t remember exactly, but it crept in slowly, like the evening shadows that change the day to night. 16 years ago my wife and I started our journey together. Our dreams were small. Find a good job, buy a house, and start a family. We were young and full of hope and gratitude: hope for a brighter future and grateful for what we had.

     The rat race had begun! Our humble beginnings turned quickly into obligation and responsibility. The daily grind of trying to make a name for ourselves began to take its toll. The hope we had just a few years earlier turned into hoping we’d have enough money in the bank to pay the rent, put food on the table, and survive. And our gratitude changed into being grateful I had a day off. I’d seen my father go through it, leave before the sun came up, and come home as it was setting. Now here I was doing the same thing. The torch had been passed, and I was losing site of where I was supposed to go with it.

     I began to feel I was better than the job I was doing, so I was going to do something about it. I was going back to school to get my degree. I was in my late 20’s and about to show the world that I wasn’t going to settle for good enough. I was going to become somebody. I enrolled at a university and was on my way to getting my Bachelor’s degree.

     The day I graduated was met with a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of “now what?” I just graduated with a four-year degree and a mountain of debt. We just bought our first house, and on the outside it looked like we were on our way, but in this show that was supposed to be about me, I was still sensing something missing. I didn’t get it. I was a Christian, put my faith in God, loved my family, and worked hard to provide. Why was I not feeling successful?

     The more I focused on why I wasn’t living up to what my potential was, the more depressed I became. Surely God put me on this earth for a reason. As I mentioned before, I was guilty as charged. I was so focused on what I wanted, I forgot what I had.

     Flash forward a couple years, my wife and I had been married for 13 years, we had an 11 year old daughter, a house, two cars, and good paying jobs. We had reached a somewhat comfortable place in our lives financially, but God had a different plan. My quest for a purpose filled life had led me to being ungrateful. I didn’t appreciate the things God had given me, so He took me back to day one.

     The birth of our twins forced us to relook at a lot of things. My wife all but quit her job, so she could watch them during the week. The financial strain became evident immediately. My job where I felt I gave so much of my time was getting cheap and decided not to give me my annual raise. My beloved car broke down, and I was forced to buy a cheap beater to get me to and from work. Ever take candy from a child? That was my reaction exactly.

     Yes, I loved my children very much, but as the provider of my household, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of failure. Coming home after a 12 hour day to an empty refrigerator and bare cupboards is a humbling place to be. Not to mention the final notices that began to pile up. But that is right where God needed me to be. On my knees and looking up to Him. I started this journey with hope and gratitude. Now all I had was a deep felt prayer for help.

     “Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.”

     God has a way of getting your attention, but it is never how one would expect. Like he did with Elijah, he didn’t gain my attention through an earthquake, although the earth was clearly shaking. He didn’t do it with a fire, albeit my world seemed on fire. He did it through a still small voice.

     I turned on the TV one evening to listen to the tragic news of a young boy who had been abused by his mother’s boyfriend. The details were too graphic to share, but it cost him his life. My heart broke. This beautiful young boy had been abused for years. Here was a little six year old, who never new love, died afraid and alone. And here was I, feeling sorry for myself because my life was financially difficult. Oh! That still small voice pierced like a knife. All I could utter was, “forgive me father for my ungratefulness.” If the biggest problem in my life is I didn’t like my job, and was behind on some bills, then I had a lot to be thankful for.

     I asked forgiveness for confusing success and significance. Success can’t be left behind after you pass, but significance lasts long after your life ends. I am significant to my wife, who has stood by me almost half my life. I am significant to my children who need a father to raise and guide them into what God has called them to be. I am significant to my friends and family, but most importantly, I am significant because God loves me. He didn’t send his Son to die because we were successful. He sent his son to die because we were significant.

     But the message of significance wasn’t over. Hearing such tragic news lingers and burdens the soul. Two days after hearing the tragic news, I stood in line at a convenience store waiting to pay for my drink. Ahead of me, a father stood with his two sons. The oldest was about eight or nine, and the younger one was being held in his father’s arms. I could just see the back of the younger ones head as he rested it on his father’s shoulder. He was probably around two-years old; the same age as my twins. As he picked up his head, I noticed his eyes were sunk deep into his skull. This young boy was blind, yet he was content in his father’s arms. His life would be full of challenges, but as long as he clung to his father, his sight didn’t matter.

     God used a blind child to help me see that day. To see the folly of my ways, and how truly self centered I had become. Society will have you believe you are the master of your destiny, that you need to build your own brand, and you need to be financially independent to be truly successful. But success doesn’t breed joy. Knowing you are significant to the God who made you will breed an unexplainable contentment like a blind child content in his father’s arms, fully trusting his father has his best interest in mind.

     The Bible tells us, ““God chose the lowly things of this world…” God wasn’t in the mighty wind, the earthquake, or the fire. But he was in the whisper. So, don’t seek after life’s big events to be considered successful. Seek the still small voice that made you significant.

• April 1     A Hand Delivered Letter
• July 16     Bob
• Sept 20     A Breath Away
• Sept 21     River Of Time
• Nov 11     Significant
• Dec 24     The Confirmation Of God

Read The Psalms In "1" Year

Psalm 119

119:137 Righteous are you, O LORD,
and right are your rules.
138 You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness
and in all faithfulness.
139 My zeal consumes me,
because my foes forget your words.
140 Your promise is well tried,
and your servant loves it.
141 I am small and despised,
yet I do not forget your precepts.
142 Your righteousness is righteous forever,
and your law is true.
143 Trouble and anguish have found me out,
but your commandments are my delight.
144 Your testimonies are righteous forever;
give me understanding that I may live.

The Christian Life as Pilgrimage

By Derek W.H. Thomas 3/01/2016

Who would true valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather.
There’s no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim.

A half-century ago, I sang these words in school assemblies set to music composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The words appear in Part 2 of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (Bunyan): Updated, Modern English. More than 100 Illustrations. as part of Mr. Valiant-for-Truth’s testimony. Earlier, Valiant had introduced himself to Mr. Great-heart and his companions with the words, “I am a Pilgrim, and am going to the celestial city.”

     All Christians are pilgrims heading to the celestial city. Bunyan was simply reflecting the Bible that he loved. Scripture affirms that Christians are pilgrims. In the paradigmatic covenant made with our father Abraham, God promised him Canaan as “the land of your sojournings” (Gen. 17:8). And in the New Testament, Peter reflects the same idea when he describes his readers as “elect exiles” (1 Peter 1:1; cf. 1:17, “the time of your exile”). Similarly, in reviewing the faithful believers of Old Testament history, the author of Hebrews refers to them as “strangers and exiles” (Heb. 11:13).

     The Christian life is a road trip, a journey of the most exhilarating kind. It has a starting point and a terminus. It is a metaphor of movement. Christians do not stay in one place too long, for they are set for another location. Early Christians were referred to as the followers of “the Way”—a reflection that they seemed determined to follow a different path (Acts 9:2; 24:14).

     Several issues arise. First, there is the idea of an adventure. Yes, adventure. If Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit initially shunned adventure because it upset the equilibrium of his routine way of life in the Shire, he would later record his extraordinary journey in a breathless tale bearing the subtitle There and Back Again.

     Christians explore a somewhat different journey—Here to There, perhaps. But it is nevertheless a journey equally as exciting, fraught with tales of valor and danger. There is something exciting about the Christian life. New glimpses of God’s provision, intervention, and rescue await at every turn. We have no idea what a day may bring forth (Prov. 27:1), but we may be assured that nothing happens without our heavenly Father willing it to happen. We are called to follow our Master wherever He leads us—in green pastures beside still waters, as well as in the presence of enemies and a valley of shadow and death (Ps. 23).

     My friend and predecessor at the church I now serve, a name familiar enough to readers of Tabletalk, Sinclair Ferguson, often ended his sermons with an exclamatory “Isn’t it wonderful to be a Christian!” Yes, it is a thing of great wonder, an exciting adventure every second of the way.

     Second, pilgrimage is evocative of the transitory nature of this life. “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14). “The things that are seen are transient” (2 Cor. 4:18). What does it mean to refer to this life as “transient”? The answer lies in the tension evoked in the New Testament between the “now” and the “not yet.” Christians are those upon whom “the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor. 10:11). Something of the world to come has already perforated our spacetime existence and has claimed us as citizens of another realm (Phil. 3:20).

     This perspective raises fundamental tensions. In one sense, we live here with a variety of responsibilities as citizens of this world. The reclusive life of withdrawal and abstinence is not a biblical worldview. This bizarre view of life is caricatured in Simeon Stylites the Elder, a man who climbed a pole in Syria in AD 423 and remained there for thirty-seven years until he died. This is a denial of Christianity, not its affirmation. Christians get involved in society. Christians reshape society. They are lights in dark places. A new affection has overtaken Christians that makes everything else seem paltry and trite. In the words of Thomas Chalmers, the Christian life is ignited by the “expulsive power of a new affection.”

     A third aspect of pilgrimage is a sense of direction, a goal, an end point. The journey has a destination. Christianity provides a shalom, a sense of wholeness and completeness. Christians know who they are and where they are going. Aimlessness and drift characterize so much of life without the embrace of Christ.

     Christians “look” for “things unseen” (2 Cor. 4:18, where the Greek verb “to look” suggests an intense, steady gaze). It sounds like a paradox: we look for something that cannot be seen. Glory awaits, and Christian pilgrims maintain a steady but determined discipline of facing forward. What lies ahead fills our vision and keeps us expectant. What awaits steady pilgrims surpasses expectation and defies explanation.

     “Onward and upward! To Narnia and the North!” is a statement in C. S. Lewis’ Narnia tale The Horse and His Boy. All pilgrims of the cross agree: onward and upward!

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Fox's Book Of Martyrs

By John Foxe 1563

The Continual Burnt Offering (2 Thessalonians 2:13)

By H.A. Ironside - 1941

November 11

I am not told to labor,
To put away my sin;
So foolish, weak, and helpless,
I never could begin.
But blessed truth—I know it!
Though ruined by the fall,
Christ for my soul hath suffered,
Yes, Christ has done it all.
And if I now would seek Him,—
In love He sought for me,
When far from Him I wandered
In sin and misery;
He oped my ears and gave me
To listen to His call;
He sought me and He found me—
Yes. Christ has done it all.
--- Eversfield