Luke-8-9

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Living Reasonably in an Unreasonable Age

By Don Bailey 1/01/2016

     Before my call to pastoral ministry, I worked in a family garden center business. There I witnessed firsthand the growth of the modern consumer mentality. In the 1980s, large garden center chain stores had adopted the 100 percent money-back guarantee for a customer’s dead plant. Soon, our small family business met with more demanding and unreasonable customers. A man would approach our storefront with a dead azalea and a soured countenance. “Do you think,” I might ask, “that while you were in the Bahamas, your plant might have suffered a lack of water?” The angry retort would invariably follow, “You sold me a bad plant, and I want a new one!” Truthfully, we had always given another plant to such a customer in the past. But the former gift of grace became the customer’s right of entitlement.

     When the Apostle Paul writes to the Philippians in 4:5, “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone,” he entreats believers to lay down selfish entitlement attitudes. The word translated “reasonable” is sometimes rendered “gentle” or “moderate.” This does not mean moderate in passion for God’s honor and the cause of Christ. Nor does it mean gentle as a doormat when civic rights are assaulted. Remember Paul’s assertion of his rights as a Roman citizen in Acts 22? Instead, the Apostle urges that we lay aside the notion that we need to exercise our advantages to the detriment of others. Unreasonableness leads to the kind of personal friction he addresses in this epistle between Euodia and Syntyche (Phil. 4:2–3).

     How might Christians live reasonably before all men in this increasingly unreasonable age? To begin with, we should continually cast our gaze upon the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul soars with this thought in Philippians 2:5–11: how truly amazing it is that the very Son of God, with all of the rights of deity, did not press His divine rights in His humanity. But being born in the likeness of men, he took on the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

     This same Jesus was so confident of His own authority that He washed the feet of His disciples (John 13:1–11). He did this as a living demonstration of this divine reasonableness that serves others before demanding service (Mark 10:45). In doing so, He impressed upon His disciples that His kingdom is not one of lording authority over others for personal aggrandizement (Matt. 20:25; Mark 10:42; Luke 22:25).

     Unless we continually place our faith in the person of Jesus Christ as He is presented in the Gospels, we will never make sense of laying aside our consumer mentality in our families, churches, and greater community. We must know — and remind ourselves — that Jesus experienced death and hell for our sakes before we will give up the self-seeking advantage of this world. We will live as new creations of a different sort than our pagan neighbors only when the fuel of our gospel imaginations remind us that our feet were dangling singed over the fires of hell, and that we have been liberated from the futile ways handed down by our forefathers (1 Peter 1:18).

     Living reasonably before all men begins at home. The Apostle Paul follows his exhortation to believers to make known our reasonableness with these words: “The Lord is at hand” (Phil. 4:5). Commentators debate whether Paul had in mind primarily the temporal nearness of the Lord in His imminent return or the omnipresence of the Lord as a reminder that He is close in His abiding presence. Both are undoubtedly true and certainly not mutually exclusive.

     Yet we should also think pastorally in application. The Lord’s sanctifying work shines brightest before those nearest us. We who have been bought with a price should make known our reasonableness to husbands and wives, parents and children, coworkers and neighbors. When a husband seeks the honor of Christ ahead of his own wife’s submission, his wife will more likely respect him. We will make known the sacrificial nature of Jesus when we bear burdens with those who share our pew in worship. Likewise, the consistent thread of New Testament instruction on how to live before an unbelieving world stresses the down-to-earth duties of prayer, love, good deeds, wisdom, tranquility, hard work, and sacrifice (Col. 4:5; 1 Thess. 4:11; 1 Peter 2:12, 14–15).

     An adage I heard in seminary with respect to preaching the gospel is apt in applying Philippians 4:5 to our everyday lives: “If you aim at everyone, you speak to no one. Aim at someone, and you speak to everyone.” It is far easier and more glamorous to aim at changing the world than serving those at hand. Ask, “Where am I over-pressing my sense of need at the expense of others?”

     Repent daily. Protect the weak. Sacrifice comfort. Forgive neighbors. Love enemies. Practice generosity. When we believers relinquish our perceived “due” and find rest in the grand privileges we possess as sons and daughters of God, the light of the gospel beams brightly before a desperate and dark world.

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Rev. Don Bailey is associate pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla.

Ministering Women Luke 8:2-3

By Alexander Maclaren 1826-1910

     The Evangelist Luke has preserved for us several incidents in our Lord’s life in which women play a prominent part. It would not, I think, be difficult to bring that fact into connection with the main characteristics of his Gospel, but at all events it is worth observing that we owe to him those details, and the fact that the service of these grateful women was permanent during the whole of our Lord’s wandering life after His leaving Galilee. An incidental reference to the fact is found in Matthew’s account of the Crucifixion, but had it not been for Luke we should not have known the names of two or three of them, nor should we have known how constantly they adhered to Him. As to the women of the little group, we know very little about them. Mary of Magdala has had a very hard fate. The Scripture record of her is very sweet and beautiful. Delivered by Christ from that mysterious demoniacal possession, she cleaves to Him, like a true woman, with all her heart. She is one of the little group whose strong love, casting out all fear, nerved them to stand by the Cross when all the men except the gentle Apostle of love, as he is called, were cowering in corners, afraid of their lives, and she was one of the same group who would fain have prolonged their ministry beyond His death, and who brought the sweet spices with them in order to anoint Him, and it was she who came to the risen Lord with the rapturous exclamation, ‘Rabboni, my Master.’ By strange misunderstanding of the Gospel story, she has been identified with the woman who was a sinner in the previous chapter in this book, and her fair fame has been blackened and her very name taken as a designation of the class to which there is no reason whatever to believe she belonged. Demoniacal possession was neither physical infirmity nor moral evil, however much it may have simulated sometimes the one or the other.

     Then as to Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, old Church tradition tells us that she was the consort of the nobleman whose son Christ healed at Capernaum. It does not seem very likely that Herod’s steward would have been living in Capernaum, and the narrative before us rather seems to show that she herself was the recipient of healing from His hands. However that may be, Herod’s court was not exactly the place to look for Christian disciples, was it? But you know they of Caesar’s household surrounded with their love the Apostle whom Nero murdered, and it is by no means an uncommon experience that the servants’ hall knows and loves the Christ that the lord in the saloon does not care about.

     And then as for Susanna, is it not a sweet fate to be known to all the world for ever more by one line only, which tells of her service to her Master?

     So I will try to take out of these little incidents in our text some plain lessons about this matter of Christian service and ministry to Christ, with which it seems to be so full. It will apply to missionary work and all other sorts of work, and perhaps will take us down to the bottom of it all, and show us the foundation on which it should all rest.

     Let me ask you for a moment to look with me first of all at the centre figure, as being an illustration of-what shall I say? may I venture to use a rough word and say the pauper Christ?-as the great Pattern and Motive for us, of the love that becomes poor. We very often cover the life of our Lord with so much imaginative reverence that we sometimes lose the hard angles of the facts of it. Now, I want you to realise it, and you may put it into as modern English as you like, for it will help the vividness of the conception, which is a simple, prosaic fact, that Jesus Christ was, in the broadest meaning of the word, a pauper; not indeed with the sodden poverty that you can see in our slums, but still in a very real sense of the word.

     He had not a thing that He could call His own, and when He came to the end of His life there was nothing for His executioners to gamble for except His one possession, the seamless robe. He is hungry, and there is a fig-tree by the roadside, and He comes, expecting to get His breakfast off that. He is tired, and He borrows a fishing-boat to lie down and sleep in. He is thirsty, and He asks a woman of questionable character to give Him a draught of water. He wants to preach a sermon about the bounds of ecclesiastical and civil society, and He says, ‘Bring Me a penny.’ He has to be indebted to others for the beast of burden on which He made His modest entry into Jerusalem, for the winding sheet that wrapped Him, for the spices that would embalm Him, for the grave in which He lay.

     He was a pauper in a deeper sense of the word than His Apostle when he said, ‘Having nothing, and yet possessing all things, as poor, and yet making many rich.’ For let us remember that the great mystery of the Gospel system - the blending together in one act and in one Person all the extremes of lowliness and of the loftiness which go deep down into the very profundities of the Gospel, is all here dramatised, as it were, and drawn into a picturesque form on the very surface; and the same blending together of poverty and absolute love, which in its loftiest form is the union in one Person of Godhead and of manhood, is here for us in this fact, that all the dark cloud of poverty, if I may so say, is shot through with strange gleams of light like sunshine caught and tangled in some cold, wet fog, so that whenever you get some definite and strange mark of Christ’s poverty, you get lying beside it some definite and strange mark of His absoluteness and His worth. For instance, take the illustration I have already referred to-He borrows a fishing-boat and lies down, weary, to sleep on the wooden pillow at the end of it; aye, but He rises and He says, ‘Peace, be still,’ and the waves fall. He borrows the upper room, and with a stranger’s wine and another man’s bread He founds the covenant and the sacrament of His new kingdom. He borrows a grave; aye, but He comes out of it, the Lord both of the dead and of the living. And so we have to say, ‘Consider the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich.’

     The noblest life that was ever lived upon earth - I hope you and I think it is a great deal more than that, but we all think it is that at any rate - the noblest life that was ever lived upon earth was the life of a poor man. Remember that pure desires, holy aspirations, noble purposes, and a life peopled with all the refinement and charities that belong to the spirit, and that is ever conscious of the closest presence of God and of the innate union with Him, is possible under such conditions, and so remember that the pauper Christ is, at the least, the perfect Man.

     But then what I more immediately intended was to ask you to take that central figure with this external fact of His poverty, of the depth of His true inanition, the emptying of Himself for our sakes, as being the great motive, and Oh! thank God that with all humility, we may venture to say, the great Pattern to which you and I have to conform. There is the reason why we say, ‘I love to speak His name,’ there is the true measure of the devotion of the consecration and the self-surrender which He requires. Christ gave all for us even to the uttermost circumference of external possession, and standing in the midst of those for whose sakes He became poor, He turns to them with a modest appeal when He says, ‘Minister unto Me, for I have made Myself to need your ministrations for the sake of your redemption.’ So much, then, for the first point which I would desire to urge upon you from this incident before us.

     Now, in the next place, and pursuing substantially the same course of thought, let me suggest to you to look at the love - the love here that stoops to be served.

     It is a familiar observation and a perfectly true one that we have no record of our Lord’s ever having used miraculous power for the supply of His own wants, and the reason for that, I suppose, is to be found not only in that principle of economy and parsimony of miraculous energy, so that the supernatural in His life was ever pared down to the narrowest possible limits, and inosculated immediately with the natural, but it is also to be found in this - let me put it into very plain words - that Christ liked to be helped and served by the people that He loved, and that Christ knew that they liked it as well as He. It delighted Him, and He was quite sure that it delighted them. You fathers and mothers know what it is when one of your little children comes, and seeing you engaged about some occupation says, ‘Let me help you.’ The little hand perhaps does not contribute much to the furtherance of your occupation. It may be rather an encumbrance than otherwise, but is not there a gladness in saying ‘Yes, here, take this and do this little thing for me’? And do not we all know how maimed and imperfect that love is which only gives, and how maimed and imperfect that love is which only receives, so that there must be an assumption of both attitudes in all true commerce of affection, and that same beautiful flashing backwards and forwards from the two poles which makes the sweetness of our earthly love find its highest example there in the heavens. There are the two mirrors facing each other, and they reverberate rays from one polished surface to another, and so Christ loves and gives, and Christ loves and takes, and His servants love and give, and His servants love and take. Sometimes we are accustomed to speak of it as the highest sign of our Lord’s true, deep conviction that He has given so much to us. It seems to me we may well pause and hesitate whether the mightiness and the wonderfulness of His love to us are shown more in that He gives everything to us, or in that He takes so much from us. It is much to say, ‘The Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister’; I do not know but that it is more to say that the Son of man let this record be written: ‘Certain women also which ministered to Him of their substance.’ At all events there it stands and for us. What although we have to come and say, ‘All that I bring is Thine’; what then? Does a father like less to get a gift from his boy because he gave him the shilling to buy it? And is there anything that diminishes the true sweetness of our giving to Christ, and as we may believe the true sweetness to Him of receiving it from us, because we have to herald all our offerings, all our love, aspirations, desires, trust, conformity, practical service, substantial help, with the old acknowledgment, ‘All things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee.’

     Now, dear friends, all these principles which I have thus imperfectly touched upon as to the necessity of the blending of the two sides in all true commerce of love, the giving and bestowing the expression of the one affection in both hearts, all bears very directly upon the more special work of Christian men in spreading the name of Christ among those who do not know it. You get the same economy of power there that I was speaking about. The supernatural is finished when the divine life is cast into the world. ‘I am come to fling fire upon the earth,’ said He, ‘and oh, that it were already kindled!’ There is the supernatural; after that you have to deal with the thing according to the ordinary laws of human history and the ordinary conditions of man’s society. God trusts the spread of His word to His people; there will not be one moment’s duration of the barely, nakedly supernatural beyond the absolute necessity. Christ comes; after that you and I have to see to it, and then you say, ‘Collections, collections, collections, it is always collections. This society and that society and the other society, there is no end of the appeals that are made. Charity sermons - men using the highest motives of the Gospel for no purpose but to get a shilling or two out of people’s pockets. I am tired of it.’ Very well; all I have to say is, first of all, ‘Ye have not resisted unto blood’; some people have had to pay a great deal more for their Gospel than you have. And another thing, a man that had lost a great deal more for his Master than ever you or I will have to do, said, ‘Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach amongst the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ.’ Ah! a generous, chivalrous spirit, a spirit touched to fine issues by the fine touch of the Lord’s love, will feel that it is no burden; or if it be a burden, it is only a burden as a golden crown heavy with jewels may be a burden on brows that are ennobled by its pressure. This grace is given, and He has crowned us with the honour that we may serve Him and do something for Him.

     Dear brethren! of all the gracious words that our Master has spoken to us, I know not that there is one more gracious than when He said, ‘Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature’; and of all the tender legacies that He has left His Church, though there be included amongst these His own peace and His own Spirit, I know not that there is any more tender or a greater sign of His love towards us and His confidence in us than when departing to the far country to receive a kingdom and to return, He gave authority to His servants, and to every man his work.’

     And so, in the next place, let me ask you to look for a moment at the complement to this love that stoops to serve and delights to serve-the ministry or service of our love. Let me point to two things.

     It seems to me that the simple narrative we have before us goes very deep into the heart of this matter. It gives us two things-the foundation of the service and the sphere of the service.

     First there is the foundation-’Certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities.’ Ah, there you come to it! The consciousness of redemption is the one master touch that evokes the gratitude which aches to breathe itself in service. There is no service except it be the expression of love.

     That is the one great Christian principle; and the other is that there is no love that does not rest on the consciousness of redemption; and from these two-that all service and obedience are the utterance and eloquence of love, and that all love has its root in the sense of redemption-you may elaborate all the distinct characteristics and peculiarities of Christian ethics, whereby duty becomes gladness. ‘I will,’ and ‘I ought’ overlap and cover each other like two of Euclid’s triangles; and whatsoever He commands that I spring to do; and so though the burden be heavy, considered in regard to its requirements, and though the yoke do often press, considered per se, yet because the cords that fasten the yoke to our neck are the cords of love, I can say, ‘My burden is light.’ One of the old psalms puts it thus; ‘O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; Thou hast loosed my bonds; and because Thou hast loosed, therefore O hear me; speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.’

     So much then for the foundation-now for the sphere. ‘Ah,’ you say, ‘there is no parallel there, at any rate. These women served Him with personal ministration of their substance.’ Well, I think there is a parallel notwithstanding. If I had time I should like to dwell upon the side thoughts connected with that sphere of service, and remind you how very prosaic were their common domestic duties, looking after the comfort of Christ and the travel-stained Twelve who were with Him-let us put it into plain English-cooking their dinners for them, and how that became a religious act. Take the lesson out of it, you women in your households, and you men in your counting-houses and behind your counters, and you students at your dictionaries and lexicons. The commonest things done for the Master flash up into worship, or as good old George Herbert puts it -

     ‘A servant with this clause
     Makes drudgery divine;
     Who sweeps a room, as for Thy cause,
     Makes that and th’ action fine.’

     But then beyond that, is there any personal ministration to do? If any of you have ever been in St. Mark’s Convent at Florence, I dare say you will remember that in the Guest Chamber the saintly genius of Fra Angelico has painted, as an appropriate frontispiece, the two pilgrims on the road to Emmaus, praying the unknown man to come in and partake of their hospitality; and he has draped them in the habit of his order, and he has put Christ as the Representative of all the poor and wearied and wayworn travellers that might enter in there and receive hospitality, which is but the lesson, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.’

     And there is another thing, dear friends. Do we not minister to Him best when we do the thing that is nearest His heart and help Him most in the purpose of His life and in His death? What would you think of a would-be helper of some great reformer who said: ‘I will give you all sorts of material support; but I have not a grain of sympathy with the cause to which you have devoted your life. I think it is madness and nonsense: I will feed you and house you and make you comfortable, but I do not care one rush for the object for which you are to be housed and fed and made comfortable.’ Jesus Christ let these poor women help Him that He might live to bear the Cross; He lets you and me help Him for that for which on the Cross He died; ‘This honour have all the saints’; The foundation of our service is the consciousness of redemption; its sphere is ministering to Him in that which is nearest His heart.

     And then, brethren, there is another thing that does not so immediately belong to the incident before us, but which suggests itself to me in connection with it. We have tried to show the motive and the pattern, the foundation and the sphere, of the service: let me add a last thought-the remembrance and the record of it.

     How strange that is, that just as a beam of light coming into a room would enable us to see all the motes dancing up and down that lay in its path, so the beam from Christ’s life shoots athwart the society of His age, and all those little insignificant people come for a moment into the full lustre of the light. Years before and years afterward they lived, and we do not know anything about them; but for an instant they crossed the illuminated track and there they blazed. How strange Pharisees, officials, and bookmen of all sorts would have felt if anybody had said to them: ‘Do you see that handful of travel-stained Galileans there, those poor women you have just passed by the way? Well, do you know that these three women’s names will never perish as long as the world lasts?’ Stop!! Think about that!! When I put this on my web page years ago I blew past that, but now it is very heavy to my spirit. Consider it. So we may learn the eternity of work done for Him. Ah, a great deal of it may be forgotten and unrecorded! How many deeds of faithful love and noble devotion are all compressed into those words, ‘which ministered unto Him’! It is the old story of how life shrinks, and shrinks, and shrinks in the record. How many acres of green forest ferns in the long ago time went to make up a seam of coal as thick as a sixpence? But still there is the record, compressed indeed, but existent. Lily tells me of a dream she had of this large house and a box that God had that contained the tears of His saints. We just have no idea what awaits us when we graduate from this life.

     And how many names may drop out and not be associated with the work which they did? Do you not think that these anonymous ‘many others which ministered’ were just as dear to Jesus Christ as Mary and Joanna and Susannah? A great many people helped Him whose deeds are related in the Gospel, but whose names are not recorded. But what does it matter about that? With many ‘others of my fellow - labourers also,’ says St. Paul; ‘whose names’- well, I have forgotten them; but that is of little consequence; they ‘are in the Lamb’s book of life.’ And so the work is eternal, and will last on in our blessed consciousness and in His remembrance who will never forget any of it, and we shall self-enfold the large results, even if the rays of dying fame may fade.

     And there is one other thought on this matter of the eternity of the work on which I would just touch for an instant.

     How strange it must be to these women now! If, as I suppose, you and I believe, they are living with Christ, they will look up to Him and think, ‘Ah! we remember when we used to find your food and prepare for your household comforts, and there Thou art on the throne! How strange and how great our earthly service seems to us now!’ So it will be to us all when we get up yonder. We shall have to say, ‘Lord, when saw I Thee?’ He will put a meaning into our work and a majesty into it that we know nothing about at present. So, brethren, account the name of His slaves your highest honour, and the task that love gives you your greatest joy. When we have in our poor love poorly ministered unto Him who in His great love greatly died for us, then, at the last, the wonderful word will be fulfilled: ‘Verily I say unto you, He shall gird Himself and make them to sit down to meat and will come forth and serve them.’

Maclaren's expositions of holy scripture. COMPLETE SET

Grief and the Christian

By Elizabeth Groves 1/01/2009

We worship a big God. He is sovereign and powerful. We are in His hands, and nothing happens to us by chance. That’s good news. But in grief, if that is all we remember about God, it might actually make the pain worse, rather than better. It might leave us thinking, like Mary and Martha (John 11:21, 32), “Lord, you could have stopped this, and you purposely didn’t. Why?” God’s sovereignty might leave us more angry than comforted.

So we need to remember some other things, too.

Jesus Defeated Death

      God hates death even more than we do. That’s part of the reason Jesus came. The wonderful news for us is that when Jesus broke death’s power by dying and rising from the dead, He did it not only for Himself but also for all who are united to Him (Heb. 2:14–15).

     That means that those who die in Christ are more alive than ever and are experiencing life, joy, and glory beyond anything we can imagine, right now, in God’s very presence. It may seem that the Lord did not “heal” or “protect” them, but in fact He has healed and protected them in a much fuller, deeper, more permanent way.

     When our oldest child went away to college, I expected to spend weeks feeling weepy from missing him. But he was so happy there, and I was so happy for him, that I found I wasn’t nearly as sad as I had expected. Similarly, when we know that our loved one is free, alive, and worshiping the Lord face-to-face with joy and abandon, it helps lessen our sadness.

We Grieve with Hope

     First Thessalonians 4:13 says, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” Notice that the text does not say that we shouldn’t grieve, just that we should grieve differently than those who have no hope.

     Even in the context of hope, we still grieve, and that is appropriate. Jesus Himself wept at His friend’s tomb. The Bible does not dismiss or minimize grief, and we shouldn’t underestimate its impact. But we grieve differently than those without hope.

     Let’s say I don’t know Jesus, and I believe there is no further existence after death. Then if my husband dies, he really is lost to me. Every single thing that made him who he was — his quirky sense of humor, his passion for people (and basketball and popcorn), his warm smile, his open heart, all of it — is gone forever. That grief is a black hole.

     But for those who die in Christ — and for those who grieve in Christ — the picture is very different.

     The sorrow of missing loved ones is still incredibly painful, but the separation is only temporary. We will see them again. That is an entirely different picture.

God Is with Us

     In the midst of grief, it is critical for us to remember that the God who is sovereign and mighty is also Immanuel — God with us.

     When our grief is debilitating and it feels impossible to function, God does not sit aloof in heaven. He does not leave us to figure out how to handle grief on our own or how to cast about for resources to get through it. He walks every step of the journey with us.

     Jesus came and lived as a human in this broken world. He gets it. He knows the tormenting thirst and weakness of life’s final hours. As our High Priest who fully understands our heartaches, He intercedes for us (Heb. 7:25), as does His Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:26). He calls us friends (John 15:15) and promises that He will never leave nor forsake us (Heb. 13:5), that His Spirit will dwell in us (John 14), and that He will give us peace (14:27; 16:33) and even joy (15:11; 16:22).

     What we need most in the midst of grief is God Himself. He will meet us, give us Himself, fill the void left by our loved ones, warm our hearts, lift our burdens, and draw us into the sweet balm of fellowship with His Spirit. And as our Father tenderly swaddles us in His love, our love for Him will grow, our faith and trust will deepen, and even amid the heartache of grief we will praise Him with deep and true joy.

     This is something the Lord does by His Spirit, through His Word, prayer, and the fellowship and love of His people. Those means of grace are not “tasks” for our to-do list — more burdens placed on our grief - weary shoulders. They are His love for us. If in your grief you struggle to pray or read the Bible, ask someone to pray for you and read the Bible to you. Grief is really, really hard. It hurts like crazy. But the Lord has broken death’s power, and therefore His children who have died are with Him. And He is with us. And before you know it, we will be together with Him and with them. That removes death’s sting—it really does. Even in the rending ache of grief, with the Holy Spirit’s help, we can hang on to Jesus and grieve with the hope that His death and resurrection bought for us.

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Elizabeth W.D. Groves is lecturer in Biblical Hebrew at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. She is author of Grief Undone: A Journey with God and Cancer.

Where Are You God?

By Alex Aili 10/28/2016

“I’ve tried to believe in God. I want to believe, I really do, but I just can’t. He…just wasn’t there.”

     The silence of God is a problem for many. It is for me. I’d like to be confident that the One who created me is involved with my life. If this Christian thing is a “heaven or hell” deal, I’d expect to see some clear signposts or messages from God if he truly wants to save people.

     But, as many ex-Christians will say, “God just wasn’t there.” Seriously, what kind of psychopath lays out the choice between Heaven or Hell that’s contingent on whether we believe or not, but then conceals himself to make it easier for people to disbelieve–and go to hell?

     Obviously, I don’t assume to know God’s mind, but there’s a problem when we think God doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s a simple misunderstanding: if God made himself known in the ways many want him to, then that would require him to betray his intentions for us. According to the Judeo-Christian tradition, God didn’t make us like the animals who only do what comes naturally (Gen. 1:26-27); he gave us the capacity to relate with him (Psa. 8:4-6), but that inevitably means we can refuse if we so choose (and we did; Gen. 3:6-7). And whether it’s “easier for people to disbelieve” or not does not depend on God’s presence or absence, but on whether people love something else more than God. Sin is the problem, and God can’t give us himself unless its dealt with.

     What would happen if God made himself known to us to the extent that doubts no longer exist? Would we believe, or die because of our sin? Would we retain our individuality, or would we be brainwashed and traumatized at the overwhelming presence of him? God wants us to be souls, not computer programs, but relating with him has become so much harder because of our sin. This issue isn’t simple. We’re free-willed, but we’re also finite (2 Cor. 4:7) and sinful. Put it all together and we simply can’t handle what we think we can.

     If we could play God for a day, what realities would we create? One where everyone goes to Heaven? Would we be free-willed? And how do we know that these alternative realities would incubate the type of traits Heaven requires? How could we, as free-willed people, know love, courage, compassion, heroism, mercy, justice, forgiveness, truth and goodness unless we lived in a world with hate, fear, disdain, indifference, cowardice, injustice, guilt, falsehood and evil? We can’t know darkness unless we know light, or right unless we know wrong.

     Further, what if the greatest good is to know God? Well, how could we know him unless we have some sort of actual, experiential knowledge of everything he is not? I assume God doesn’t want posers in Heaven, but unless we live in our current world and experience the light and the darkness, goodness and evil, then posers are what we’ll be.

     God’s silence teaches us that the world within and without is truly dark, but it also teaches us that the yearning for him is just as true (Eccl. 3:11), for to see something as truly dark is to know there’s something that’s truly light. Faith is the element that refuses to believe there’s only darkness even when that’s all we see. Faith looks at the hole and knows something can fill it.

     The most important element in this equation is God’s omniscience. He knows what he’s doing. He knows why he’s “hiding.” If we’re smart enough to imagine alternative realities, then we’re smart enough to know that a Being of God’s magnitude already considered them all and set the current one in motion to suit his purpose. And if we’re wise enough to understand how finite we truly are, then we should be content with never finding answers, as the book of Job reminds us; after pages of rants from Job and his “friends,” God disregards it all with a single question: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? (Job 42:3)

     Frederick Buechner’s words are insightful here: “God is absent from all Job’s words about God, and from the words of his comforters, because they are words without knowledge that obscure the issue of God by trying to define him as present in ways and places where he is not present, to define him as moral order, as the best answer man can give to the problem of his life. God is not an answer man can give, God says. God himself does not give answers. He gives himself.”

     God giving us what we think we need is sometimes the worst thing for us. We’re ontologically weak, and therefore unable to relate with him in the ways we wish we could. As we wait for God, we’re left to echo the laments of the Biblical poets:

     “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psa. 22:1)

     “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psa. 10:1)

     “Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy?” (Job 13:24).

     “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psa. 13:1)

     “Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?” (Psa. 44:23-24)

     “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psa. 10:1)

     It’s not dangerous to admit your weakness or lack of faith (Mark 9:24). In fact, I believe that’s the point: “when we were dead in our sins, [God] made us alive” (Eph. 2:5). We’re dead without God. We’re not meant to be anything substantial outside of Christ (2 Cor. 4:7), which is why Christianity dwells on him. We’re supposed to have faith in God, not faith in our faith. It’s never been about what we do, but about what God’s doing in and through us (Phil. 1:6; 1 Thess. 5:24; see also Eph. 2:4-6; Col. 2:9-14). The same is true when we wrestle with God’s silence, for from the silence comes the growth of faith. God’s “absence” is the best training ground for trusting God. As Paul says, “who hopes for what he sees?” (Rom. 8:24).

     Those times I wonder if “this Christian thing is even true” are the times my faith grows, for it forces me to return to the core of Christianity (1 Cor. 15:1-8) to reevaluate the logic and evidence, thus reinforcing the reasonableness of it. But even if we get doctorates in Christian apologetics, there’s still mystery and uncertainty because we just can’t know God’s mind. Muscles strengthen through work, not inactivity, and so does faith. Waiting for God in the silence puts true faith to work.

     Now whenever God chose to reveal himself in the age of Scripture, he didn’t come barging in as Creator God, glory on full throttle, expecting us to see him as he is (John 1:18; 1 Tim. 6:16; 1 John 4:12). That’s why he goes covert. As the Bible records, the Creator lives up to his name. He appears in dreams/visions (Num. 12:6), bushes (Exod. 3; or rather an angel via the bush), storms (Exod. 19:16), angels (Luke 1:11), donkeys (Num. 22:38), and most notably, Jesus (Heb. 1:2). The Word became flesh (John 1:14) because if it didn’t, we’d probably explode from the immensity of who he is (as suggested by Isa. 6: ; Rev. ). We need sunglasses for driving into the sun, and we need God to be sneaky for us to comprehend what he’s trying to give us. God relates with images, visions, donkeys, angels, symbols and parables because humanity’s eyes needed time (centuries, in fact) to adjust to the light.

     The silence of God is the most brutal, yet most fruitful, method for procuring faith and individuality in humans. Only when God is absent do we become individuals because when he’s “gone” we’re forced to confront the hole he left behind and figure out who we are and what kind of person we’re going to be when God’s nowhere to be found. When he’s silent, the loudest voice is our own–our fears, guilts, misdeeds.

     Perhaps the sin is the chief culprit after all. As humans, we tend to flock to anything that tries speak louder than the silence, but little do we know that these false gods are just trying to distract us from what God is saying in his silence. But thank God the silence will never be silent, for within the incessant silence lies our redemption. When the emptiness becomes too much to bear, the wholeness he brings becomes irresistible. Buechner nails this when he says the Gospel is bad news before it is good news because God must strip us in order to clothe us. What’s good news if we’ve never heard of bad news? “It is out of the absence of God that God makes himself present,” he says.

     So yes, the silence of God is a problem for me, but so is raising children, getting up for work, telling the truth, staying fit, keeping friends, saving money, and a host of other disciplines that, by all appearances, are “good.” Biblical faith can be unstable at times, and it can coexist with doubt in the same way they coexist when someone walks without crutches for the first time. There are doubts, but faith is stronger because they’re walking (even when the ground gets unstable).

     The silence of God is a dark forest that everyone eventually stumbles into, multiple times, but I suppose those who make it out don’t care why it was there because through it all they just learned to love God more.

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Alex Aili

Terms for the Covenant

By R.C. Sproul 1/01/2016

     Reformed theology, as many have said, is covenant theology, for the concept of covenant has shaped the development of Reformed thinking. We should expect as much because of our doctrine of sola Scriptura, which says that the Bible is the only infallible authority for Christian faith and practice. Therefore, we want to structure all theological understanding according to Scripture. This demands covenant theology, since covenant is an organizing principle in Scripture.

     Given the importance of the biblical doctrine of covenant, all Christians should have at least a basic understanding of what the Bible means by the term covenant. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word we translate as “covenant” is berith, and it was used for centuries by the ancient Israelites. However, after Alexander the Great conquered the Eastern Mediterranean world and brought with him the Greek language, many Jews became more familiar with Greek than with Hebrew. Consequently, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament was made during the third century B.C. We know this translation as the Septuagint,   ( See article below to better understand what the Septuagint is.) on and it had a tremendous impact on the writers of the Greek New Testament.

     One challenge that the Jews who produced the Septuagint faced was the decision about how best to translate the Hebrew term berith or “covenant,” since there wasn’t any Greek word that precisely matched the Hebrew term. Eventually, the word chosen by the Septuagint translators was the Greek word diathēkē, and this was adopted by the New Testament writers, who, for the most part used diathēkē for the concept of “covenant.”

     Some confusion arises here, however, because the Greeks used the word diathēkē in the sense of “testament.” That’s because a testament in Greek culture, at least at that time, included several nuances that made it different from the Hebrew concept of covenant. First, in Greek culture, a diathēkē—a testament—could be changed at any time by the testator while the testator was still alive. The testator could make up his last will and testament and then get irritated at his heirs and write them out of his will. And that continues to this day, for we know that people are sometimes disinherited, or written out of the will of a friend or family member. But that’s significantly different from a diathēkē—a testament or covenant—made by God. When God makes a covenant with His people, He can punish them for covenant breaking, but He never cancels the covenant promises He has made.

     Another difference between the Greek understanding of diathēkē as a testament and the Hebrew understanding of berith as a covenant is that in the Greek world, the benefits of the testament, or diathēkē, did not accrue until after the testator died. Obviously, when God makes a covenant, His people don’t have to wait for Him to die to inherit the blessings of that covenant, because He’s incapable of dying.

     Given those two great weaknesses, why did the Septuagint translators and the New Testament authors choose the Greek word diathēkē (“testament”) to translate the Hebrew berith,/ (“covenant”)? Because it was a better choice than the alternative Greek term—synthēkē. That word features the prefix syn-, which we see in such English terms as synonym, syncretism, and synchronization. It simply means “with.” And the idea of a synthēkē in Greek culture was an agreement between equal partners, an agreement with the consent of peers. The Jewish translators wanted to maintain that the covenants that God makes with His people are made between a superior and a subordinate, not between two equal parties. So, the word synthēkē was rejected.

     The Septuagint translators and New Testament authors chose diathēkē because in its original use, before the Greeks came to use it to mean “testament,” it had reference to what is called “the disposition for one’s self.” A diathēkē had to do with an individual’s disposition of his goods orproperty for himself; that is, it referred to his sovereign determining of his heirs. To this day, that’s how we understand the concept of a testament or will. That aspect of disposition is an element that reflects the Hebrew concept because in His covenant, God sovereignly determines to give promises to whom He will give promises.

     He made a covenant with Abraham, not Hammurabi. He chose the Jews, not the Philistines. He entered into a covenant relationship with them and said, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” That’s a choice God made, not the Jews. So, even though the Greek word diathēkē includes aspects that don’t overlap with the Hebrew notion of a covenant, it carries the key notion of sovereign determination.

     This might seem pedantic, but there’s one important point to take away from this discussion. If God’s covenant were a synthēkē made between two equal parties, all would be lost. Our role in maintaining the covenant relationship would be fully equal to His. But we are sinners who cannot keep covenant perfectly. A synthēkē would mean no salvation. A diathēkē is different. Because it is God’s sovereign administration with an unequal party, the onus for the fulfillment of the covenant’s promises is on the greater party — the Lord Himself. He swore by Himself to uphold the covenant (Gen. 15; Heb. 6:13–20). His honor is on the line, and if He fails, His glory suffers. But we know that God cannot fail, that He will not surrender His glory (Isa. 48:11). In the Lord’s diathēkē, or covenant, He guarantees the fulfillment of His Word for His name’s sake, which means the redemption of His people is secure.

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Robert Charles Sproul, 2/13/1939 – 12/14/2017 was an American theologian, author, and ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. Dr. R.C. Sproul was founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian education and discipleship organization located near Orlando, Fla. He was also copastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., chancellor of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Dr. Sproul has contributed dozens of articles to national evangelical publications, has spoken at conferences, churches, and schools around the world, and has written more than one hundred books. He also served as general editor of the Reformation Study Bible.

R.C. Sproul Books | Go to Books Page

Matthew, Author of the Gospel of Matthew?

How Do We Know Matthew Was the Author of the Gospel of Matthew?

By Jonathan Morrow 10/28/2016

     We live in a culture that has questions about the Bible. And that’s OK–because questions, if the goal is truth, will lead to a stronger faith. I have seen this time and again. (But how we question the Bible is critically important)

     But as Christians we also are called to respond to challenges which threaten to undercut our faith (Jude 3; 1 Peter 3:15). And in case you haven’t noticed, the Bible is a BIG target so there are lots of challenges!

     The Skeptical Challenge of the Authorship of the Gospels

     Skeptics like to raise doubts and new “hidden” or “lost” information about the Gospels. Why? Because that is where all the information about Jesus is. And if you can undermine confidence in biblical authority there, then that weakens the overall authority of Christianity. Why? Because Christianity rises or falls with Jesus.

     Here’s the basic argument of the Bible skeptic meant to raise doubt:

     “Did you know that we don’t know who wrote the Gospel of Matthew? In fact, this Gospel is anonymous–(i.e., there is no formal claim to authorship within the document itself). The early church for political reasons wanted to exclude certain writings it didn’t like and so used an Apostle’s name (i.e., Matthew) to generate authority so this version of Christianity could win.”

     One of the new challenges in this generation is that arguments like this used to stay locked up in stuffy ivory towers. The effect was that everyday Christians never encountered them. Enter social media and youtube. Now these “sophisticated” arguments are available for the masses. And in our culture with a general distrust of authorities, conspiracy theories are then off and running.

     How do we respond?

     3 Reasons Why the Apostle Matthew Wrote the Gospel of Mathew

     New Testament Scholars like Darrell Bock, D.A. Carson, and Michael Wilkins (among plenty of others) have done a lot of excellent work. Here is just a short summary of the evidence for why we can be confident that Matthew, wrote the Gospel of Matthew, even though this Gospel is technically anonymous.

     (1) First, regarding Matthew, “there is no patristic evidence that anyone else was ever proposed as the author.”

     (2) Second, Papias, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, and Origen all affirm Matthean authorship.

     (3) Third, the literary evidence reveals that Matthew was the most popular Gospel in the earliest period of the church and it was circulated widely.

     2 Objections to Matthew as Author

     There are two common objections to his authorship. First, it is argued that Matthew, an apostle himself, would not have relied so heavily upon Mark, who was not an apostle, when composing his Gospel. But since we have very good evidence that Peter stands behind Mark’s Gospel, Matthew would have had no issue utilizing the recorded testimony of Peter.

     The other common objection is that the Greek is too good to have been written by Matthew. However, Matthew was likely trilingual (Aramaic, Greek, and Latin) by growing up as a Jew in the region of Galilee, and as a tax collector he would have been required to know Greek well.

     Does it Matter if Matthew is the Author?

     Let me make one last point: Our goal is to say (and defend) what the Bible says—no more and no less. In the case of Paul writing a letter that bears his name, we are compelled to defend his authorship as a matter of biblical integrity. However, when it comes to the four Gospels, there is no one specifically to defend (i.e., because it is technically anonymous).

     As a thought experiment, let’s say it was somehow discovered that Andrew wrote what we now know as the Gospel of Matthew in the 1st century? Would that mean that there is an error in the Bible? Actually, no, because no claim of authorship was technically made in this document (the same logic would hold for the book of Hebrews)

     So the bottom line? We have good reason to believe that Matthew is the author of this Gospel. I go into more detail for the authorship, reliability, and claims of the Gospels here.

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--- Jonathan Morrow

What Is the Septuagint?

By Ryan Reeves 8-12-2018

WHY SHOULD CHRISTIANS CARE ABOUT THE SEPTUAGINT?

     The Septuagint is quite possibly the most important translation of the Bible. It is the oldest translation of the OT into another language. It was considered by Philo and Josephus to be on an equal footing with the Hebrew Bible. It was preferred to the Hebrew by the Early Christian Church. And it sheds much-needed light on the development of the New Testament.

     Still, many Christians today have little to no knowledge of it.

     What is the Septuagint?

The Septuagint

     The term Septuagint is often thought of as the Greek version (or translation) of the Hebrew Bible, much like the Vulgate is the Latin version or the Peshitta is the Syriac version. But, technically speaking, there is no such thing as “the Septuagint.” If you own a modern copy of the Septuagint (e.g., Rahlfs or Brenton editions), it is an “eclectic” edition, that is, a collection of the best and most reliable Greek manuscripts reconstructed to approximate the original translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek.

     So, when scholars use this term, it does not refer to a single text. Rather, it refers to a collection of Greek translations produced by numerous scribes over the course of a few hundred years and, in all likelihood, composed in different locations. Today, the term is usually used to refer generally to the various Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible, as well as some additional books, such as Tobit, Maccabees, and Sirach, to name a few.

     Though somewhat legendary in character, the Letter of Aristeas (second-century BCE) preserves some valuable information on the origins of the Septuagint. It tells us that an Egyptian king, Ptolemy Philadelphus (reigned from 285-246 BCE), commissioned a translation of the Hebrew Bible for his library in Alexandria. Seventy-two translators from Jerusalem were subsequently sent to the Island of Pharos to translate the Torah into Greek.

     The term Septuagint, meaning “seventy,” actually refers to the seventy-two translators—six from each tribe of Israel—involved in translating the Pentateuch from Hebrew to Greek in the third-century BCE (seventy-two is rounded down to seventy, hence the Roman numeral LXX). The rest of the Hebrew Bible was translated from Hebrew to Greek by various hands over the next century or so.

     Why the need for a Greek translation of the Old Testament?

The Hebrew Bible

     Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language as early as the exilic or post-exilic period (cf. Neh 13.24), and Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Jewish people. With the rise of Alexander the Great and the Greek empires, the Jews in the diaspora were Hellenized, and for some Jews, especially those living in Ptolemaic Egypt, Greek became the primary language. Thus, it became necessary for the Scriptures to be translated into Greek.

(Ne 13:24) 24 And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people.   ESV

     It is important, therefore, to remember that the Septuagint is first and foremost a translation. One of the key areas of study for Septuagint scholars today is the method(s) of translation adopted by scribes. For example, did the translator of a given Old Testament book take a more literal approach or an approach closer to dynamic equivalence?

     Scholars agree that some books are literal translations and others are paraphrases, much like the Living Bible. Given that Greek manuscripts are the earliest witnesses to the Hebrew Old Testament, a more literal manuscript can be helpful for textual criticism. The non-literal translations, however, may shed light on the theology, philosophy, or religious practices of the Jewish faith in the late Second Temple period.

The Septuagint helps us better understand the New Testament

     A Greek scholar once remarked, “A single hour lovingly devoted to the text of the Septuagint will further our exegetical knowledge of the Pauline Epistles more than a whole day spent over a commentary.” The hyperbole notwithstanding, few would dispute the broader point: the Septuagint is an invaluable resource for Christians interested in the New Testament (NT).

     There are some obvious ways in which the Septuagint has influenced the New Testament. For example, the title for Jesus in the NT, “Christ” [Christos], is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word maschiach, “Anointed One,” in the Septuagint. Words we are all familiar with, such as “glory” [doxa], “Lord” [kurios], and “gospel” [euangelion], derive special meaning from the LXX.

     One of the most important areas of study relating to the Septuagint is the use of the OT in the NT. The reason for this is that most of the direct citations of the OT in the NT match the Septuagint, not the Hebrew Bible (or Masoretic Text [MT]). There are approximately 300 OT passages that are directly quoted or strongly alluded to in the NT.

     In most of these cases, the NT writers did not cite the OT text word-for-word but paraphrased the OT texts using Jewish exegetical techniques. However, in cases where the OT is cited word-for-word, the NT writers quote the Septuagint over the MT approximately 75 percent of the time (according to some scholars, that percentage climbs to over 90 percent, depending on how one defines “citation”).

     This raises several important questions. Did the NT authors cite the Septuagint to make a particular theological point that could only be made from the Greek translation? Or is the apparent preference of the Septuagint simply a matter of using the translation of the OT that corresponds to the language in which the biblical author was writing? This would be like how modern preachers cite the ESV or NIV translation in a sermon, irrespective of the translational nuances and exegetical differences.

     An interesting case in point is the citation of Isa 7.14, the famous words of the prophet Isaiah to Ahaz, in Matt 1.23:

     Hebrew: “Behold, the young woman [‘almah] shall conceive.”

     Septuagint: “Behold, the virgin [parthenos] shall conceive.”

     Matthew 1.23: “Behold, the virgin [parthenos] shall conceive.”

(Mt 1:23) 23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,   ESV

     Matthew cites the Septuagint (not the Hebrew) word for word, which suggests that the language of the virgin birth of Jesus is derived, in part, from the Septuagint.

     Of course, each text must be studied independently and carefully, but the preponderance of Septuagint citations in the NT and key theological terms demand that we take the Septuagint seriously.

The Septuagint helps us better understand Jewish theology

     The Septuagint also sheds light on the theology and worship practices of the Jewish people in the Second Temple period (the period leading up to New Testament times).

     For example, in the Septuagint version of the Pentateuch, the Hebrew word for altar [mizbeah] is rendered by thysiasterion when referring to the Jewish altar but by bomos when speaking of pagan altars. This shows that the translators may have had a theology motive — they wanted to distinguish between Jewish and non-Jewish practices.

     Scholars disagree on the extent to which theological interpretations occur in the Septuagint, especially where the Greek translation diverges significantly from the Hebrew Bible. Some have argued that the translator’s primary purpose was to translate the Scriptures and make it accessible and intelligible for his audience, similar, perhaps, to how a modern-day Bible translator might approach his or her task.

     Others have maintained that the translator’s job was more theological or exegetically motivated, to reinterpret and actualize the Scriptures for his immediate community and with reference to contemporary circumstances and events.

     An example that illustrates this debate is the Greek translation of the Servant Song in Isaiah 53:10, which is noticeably different from the MT:

     MT: “Yet it was YHWH’s will to crush him, to cause him to suffer.”

     LXX: “And the Lord desires to cleanse him from his blow.”

(Is 53:10) 10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;   ESV

     Why did the Septuagint translator render the Hebrew word “crush” by the Greek word “cleanse”? One scholar suggests that the translator is lessening the suffering of the Servant in order to avoid associating YHWH with a “demonic” action.

     Another theory is the translator did not know the meaning of this relatively rare word, and that “cleanse” is simply a mistranslation or an educated guess. A third possibility is that the translator was looking at a Hebrew text that presented a different word here.

     Perhaps you can see why Septuagint scholars love digging into this translation!

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE SEPTUAGINT AND THE HEBREW OLD TESTAMENT

     One issue for scholars is the fact that there are differences between the Septuagint and the Hebrew Bible in every book of the Old Testament. Most of these differences are negligible, but some are quite significant, involving entire paragraphs, if not chapters, of a particular biblical book.

     For instance, large differences are discernible in the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11; there are significant pluses and minuses (phrases or verses that are added or omitted) in most of the books of the Old Testament, but especially in Numbers, Joshua, Samuel, and Kings. Major chronological and editorial structures are transposed in Samuel and Kings. The Septuagint Psalter adds an extra Psalm (Psalm 151), and the Septuagint copy of the book of Jeremiah is significantly shorter (1/8th) than the Hebrew. And lastly, the books of Daniel and Esther have significant sections added to the Greek versions.

     Determining the earliest or “original” text is a complex process fraught with challenges. Nevertheless, scholars engaged in textual criticism record and analyze the differences between Greek and Hebrew manuscripts (among others). They reckon these differences with the various stages of the Old Testament books in order to determine the reliability of and relationship between manuscripts.

     These studies have been incorporated into the critical editions of the Hebrew Bible (e.g., BHS, BHQ, HUBP) and Greek Bible (Cambridge or Göttingen Septuagint) and have sometimes influenced our modern translations.

     When modern translators work on an English translation these texts are used to determine the best translations of the Old Testament books. There is much work yet to be done.

     The importance of the Septuagint cannot be emphasized enough. It sheds much-needed light on important words and theological concepts in both the Old and New Testaments. It helps us understand better the religious and political context in which Jesus and the New Testament authors lived; it has helped scholars determine which manuscripts are most reliable, which in turn leads to reliable translations of the Old Testament; and it gives us greater insight into the church fathers, who often quoted the Septuagint over the Hebrew Bible . So, although I would not recommend selling everything you have, I say with Hitzig, “Go buy a Septuagint!”

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Ryan Reeves is Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also serves as Dean of the Jacksonville campus. He and his wife Charlotte have three children. You can follow him on Twitter.

What Good Can Come from Suffering?

By Vaneetha Rendall Risner

     “It’s never God’s will for his children to suffer.”

     I hear that statement frequently from both Christians and non-Christians as they interpret the character of God. Why would a loving God not want his children to be happy?

     I understand that reasoning. I too want to be happy. I don’t want my close relationships destroyed. Or my health ruined. Or my livelihood taken away.

     Yet in the manifold wisdom of God, as I look at Scripture, I see clearly how God uses suffering for our good. And for our eternal joy. Which is far deeper than any fleeting happiness.

     Isaiah 30 speaks beautifully to how God uses suffering, regardless of how it comes. Speaking to the Israelites, who have been disciplined for their disobedience, Isaiah says,

He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!” (Isaiah 30:19–22)

     God may give us the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but with them come extraordinary promises. Assurance that he hears and answers our prayers, the ability to see him and sense his presence, clear direction for our decisions, power to destroy sin and strongholds — these are staggering gifts.

     God Hears and Answers

     When we are suffering, we can be confident that God hears our desperate pleas. The Maker of heaven and earth is listening attentively, waiting for us to call out to him. It doesn’t need to be an eloquent prayer. Just a sincere cry for help.

     And as soon as the Lord hears our cry, he answers us. Immediately. He responds as soon as our plea for mercy goes out.

     But honestly, in the midst of suffering, I have often felt the opposite. I have felt that God was ignoring my cries because my situation wasn’t changing. As I was begging God for deliverance, things were getting worse. But God has gently reminded me that his answers can be “yes,” “no,” or “wait.” And though I may not understand it, I know that God will always give me what is best for me, when it is best for me.

     He Gives Us Himself

     God uniquely gives us his presence in suffering. The Lord, our Teacher, doesn’t hide himself anymore. Even though God never leaves us, we are often unaware of his presence. We may go about our day-to-day life, oblivious to the fact that God goes with us. But in suffering, God’s presence is unmistakable. It is as though he removes the veil that hides his face from us, and we find ourselves in the very throne room of God.

     For me, this is an uncommon feeling. While I know that God is always with me, I rarely experience God’s presence in an unmistakable, spectacular way. I have felt close to him while reading Scripture, praying, sitting in silence, and praising God in community, yet there is something special about his unveiled presence in suffering.

     I will never forget those supernatural encounters with God. The joy I felt in those moments, moments that were surrounded by excruciating circumstances, is still vivid. Those times are anchors for me, for whenever God seems vague and distant, I remember how he revived my soul in my deepest suffering.

     God Gives Us Clear Direction

     Years ago I was walking through another dark valley. Physical and emotional pain overwhelmed me, making it hard to even think or process. But at the same time, pain strangely made me more attentive to God’s voice. I could ignore the noise around me and focus on what God was saying.

     God was gracious as I leaned on him in ways I never had before. I asked for advice, and God gave it. He directed my steps as I walked. Through fellow believers, through circumstances, through prayer, but mostly through reading his word, I learned to recognize his ways. And his voice. I just had to listen.

     Listening for me requires reading the Bible, since that is where I hear God most often. It is through Scripture that God spoke most clearly as he comforted me, convicted me, and guided me. He used passages that felt loved and familiar, as well as those that had once seemed dry and boring. As I read them, he breathed life into the words, bringing fresh insight, wisdom, and direction.

     God Helps Us Destroy Our Idols

     Lastly, Isaiah 30 shows us that suffering helps us destroy our idols. While I don’t worship carved idols, I have taken idols into my heart (Ezekiel 14:3), which can be even more dangerous. I have worshiped approval, respect, success, and having a perfect family. I thought they would make me happy. But when they were taken away, the power of those idols diminished.

     All of my suffering has involved loss. Loss of things I valued. Loss of what I loved. Often they were good things, sometimes wonderful things, but none of them were as good as God himself. And so even though I grieved their loss, I saw how God could give me joy without them. Because my joy became rooted in him.

     While I wouldn’t choose adversity, it has been an unparalleled gift in my life. Has it been hard? Yes. But has it been worth it? Absolutely.

     I can honestly echo Joni Eareckson Tada’s words, “I wouldn’t trade places with anybody in this world to be this close to Jesus.”

Vaneetha Rendall Risner

Jerusalem Was Jewish 1,300 Years Before Birth of Islam

By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz 10/27/2016

     “At that time they shall call Yerushalayim the throne of Hashem; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of Hashem, to Yerushalayim; neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart.” Jeremiah 3:17 (The Israel Bible™)

     A 2,700-year-old papyrus that is the oldest known non-Biblical Hebrew reference to Jerusalem has been found, announced the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) on Wednesday. The papyrus, originally stolen by antiquities thieves, was put on display in Jerusalem on Wednesday, coinciding with the second UNESCO resolution attempting to deny Judaism’s connection to its most holy city – a connection this ancient artifact so graphically proves.

     The two lines of writing on the tiny scrap of papyrus (4.3 inches by 1 inch) are surprisingly clear: “From the king’s maidservant, from Naharta, jars of wine, to Jerusalem.”

     The scroll was originally plundered from a cave in Nahal Hever in the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea by antiquities thieves. Professor Shmuel Ahituv of Ben-Gurion University studied the papyrus when it was first recovered. He spoke at the IAA press conference, noting that on the papyrus, the name of the city was spelled with a letter ‘yud’, as it is in modern Hebrew. Pronounced ‘Yerushalayim’, Ahituv noted that it is spelled this way only four times in the entire Bible.

     Ahituv also noted that papyrus, made from the pith of the papyrus plant, was more expensive than the more common clay. The text specified a “female servant of the king” sending the wineskins to “Yerushalem”, suggesting the shipment was sent by a prominent woman to a person of high status in the capital.

     Dr. Eitan Klein, deputy director of the IAA’s Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery, emphasized in an interview with the Jerusalem Post that the papyrus indicates the importance of Jerusalem to ancient Israel.

     “It underscores the centrality of Jerusalem as the economic capital of the kingdom in the second half of the 7th century BCE,” he said.

     IAA director Israel Hasson explained to the Jerusalem Post that ‘Naharta’ mentioned in the text is located on the border between the traditional lands of Ephraim and Benjamin.

     And it went down from Janoah to Ataroth, and to Naarah, and reached unto Yericho, and went out at the Jordan. Joshua 16:7.

     Radiocarbon dating determined the papyrus was from the seventh century BCE, at the time of the First Temple, making it only one of three Hebrew papyri from that period and predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by hundreds of years. Orthography (the study of letters and language) confirmed this date. The especially arid environment preserved the papyrus remarkably well.

     The recovered document emphatically disproves the Palestinian claim to Jerusalem, a precondition that has been a stumbling block preventing negotiations with Israel. This battle-cry has been taken up by UNESCO in two resolutions initiated by the Arab nations granting Islam a religious monopoly on the Temple Mount. This Hebrew papyrus proves that Jerusalem was the Jewish capital 1,300 years before Mohammed, the father of Islam, was born.

     The papyrus even carries another clear indication that Jerusalem was originally a Jewish, and not Muslim, city: its subject is wine, a flourishing industry in ancient Israel and an essential part of the Temple service – and a substance expressly forbidden in Islam. Muslims would be hard-pressed to explain their part in this wine deal.

     Speaking at the dedication of the Adelson School of Entrepreneurship at IDC Herzliya, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made use of the papyrus when discussing UNESCO’s “distorted, scandalous” decision.

     “This was a document, a shipping invoice, that was sent over 2,700 years ago from Na’arat, near Jerusalem, and it says in ancient Hebrew, and this is the critical word, but you can see it in Hebrew, ‘[me-a]mat ha-melekh me-Na’aratah nevelim yi’in Yerushalima’. ‘From the king’s maidservant, from Na’arat, jars of wine, to Jerusalem’,” Netanyahu translated.

     “Here is a letter from the past to UNESCO. It is written ‘Yerushalima.’ It explains, in Hebrew, our connection to Jerusalem and the centrality of Jerusalem. A servant of the king, certainly a king of Judah. It is from over 2,700 years ago – Jerusalem. Not in Arabic, not in Aramaic, not in Greek or Latin – in Hebrew.”

     In her remarks at the IAA press conference announcing the recovery of the papyrus, Sports and Culture Minister Miri Regev (Likud) echoed the prime minister and spoke to the future. “The discovery of the papyrus on which the name of our capital Jerusalem is written is further tangible evidence that Jerusalem was, and will remain, the eternal capital of the Jewish people,” said Regev.

     “It is our duty to take care of the plundering of antiquities that occurs in the Judean Desert, and no less important than this is exposing the deceit of false propaganda, as is once again happening today in UNESCO.

     “The Temple Mount – the very heart of Jerusalem and Israel – will remain the holiest place for the Jewish people, even if UNESCO ratifies the false and unfortunate decision another 10 times.”

Click here to go to source

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz is a features writer for Breaking Israel News. He made Aliyah to Israel in 1991 and served in the IDF as a combat medic. Berkowitz studied Jewish law and received rabbinical ordination in Israel. He has worked as a freelance writer and two works of fiction, The Hope Merchant: Free Wish with Every Purchase and Dolphins on the Moon, are available on Amazon. He lives in the Golan Heights with his wife and their four children.

Read The Psalms In "1" Year

Psalm 119

Your Word Is a Lamp to My Feet
119 BETH

119:17 Deal bountifully with your servant,
that I may live and keep your word.
18 Open my eyes, that I may behold
wondrous things out of your law.
19 I am a sojourner on the earth;
hide not your commandments from me!
20 My soul is consumed with longing
for your rules at all times.
21 You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones,
who wander from your commandments.
22 Take away from me scorn and contempt,
for I have kept your testimonies.
23 Even though princes sit plotting against me,
your servant will meditate on your statutes.
24 Your testimonies are my delight;
they are my counselors.

ESV Study Bible

Fox's Book Of Martyrs

By John Foxe 1563

     In the morning the inquisitor, with three other ecclesiastics, returned, when the former asked the prisoner what difficulties he had on his conscience that retarded his conversion; to which he answered, 'he had not any doubts in his mind, being confident in the promises of Christ, and assuredly believing his revealed will signified in the Gospels, as professed in the reformed Catholic Church, being confirmed by grace, and having infallible assurance thereby of the Christian faith.' To these words the inquisitor replied, "Thou art no Christian, but an absurd heretic, and without conversion a member of perdition." The prisoner then told him that it was not consistent with the nature and essence of religion and charity to convince by opprobrious speeches, racks, and torments, but by arguments deduced from the Scriptures; and that all other methods would with him be totally ineffectual.

     The inquisitor was so enraged at the replies made by the prisoner, that he struck him on the face, used many abusive speeches, and attempted to stab him, which he had certainly done had he not been prevented by the Jesuits; and from this time he never again visited the prisoner.

     The next day the two Jesuits returned, and putting on a very grave, supercilious air, the superior asked him what resolution he had taken. To which Mr. Lithgow replied that he was already resolved, unless he could show substantial reasons to make him alter his opinion. The superior, after a pedantic display of their seven sacraments, the intercession of saints, transubstantiation, etc., boasted greatly of their Church, her antiquity, universality, and uniformity; all of which Mr. Lithgow denied: "For (said he) the profession of the faith I hold hath been ever since the first days of the apostles, and Christ had ever his own Church (however obscure) in the greatest time of your darkness."

     The Jesuits, finding their arguments had not the desired effect, that torments could not shake his constancy, nor even the fear of the cruel sentence he had reason to expect would be pronounced and executed on him, after severe menaces, left him. On the eighth day after, being the last of their Inquisition, when sentence is pronounced, they returned again, but quite altered both in their words and behavior after repeating much of the same kind of arguments as before, they with seeming tears in their eyes, pretended they were sorry from their heart he must be obliged to undergo a terrible death, but above all, for the loss of his most precious soul; and falling on their knees, cried out, "Convert, convert, O dear brother, for our blessed Lady's sake convert!" To which he answered, "I fear neither death nor fire, being prepared for both."

     The first effects Mr. Lithgow felt of the determination of this bloody tribunal was, a sentence to receive that night eleven different tortures, and if he did not die in the execution of them, (which might be reasonably expected from the maimed and disjointed condition he was in) he was, after Easter holy-days, to be carried to Grenada, and there burnt to ashes. The first part of this sentence was executed with great barbarity that night; and it pleased God to give him strength both of body and mind, to stand fast to the truth, and to survive the horrid punishments inflicted on him.

     After these barbarians had glutted themselves for the present, with exercising on the unhappy prisoner the most distinguished cruelties, they again put irons on, and conveyed him to his former dungeon. The next morning he received some little comfort from the Turkish slave before mentioned, who secretly brought him, in his shirt sleeve, some raisins and figs, which he licked up in the best manner his strength would permit with his tongue. It was to this slave Mr. Lithgow attributed his surviving so long in such a wretched situation; for he found means to convey some of these fruits to him twice every week. It is very extraordinary, and worthy of note, that this poor slave, bred up from his infancy, according to the maxims of his prophet and parents, in the greatest detestation of Christians, should be so affected at the miserable situation of Mr. Lithgow that he fell ill, and continued so for upwards of forty days. During this period Mr. Lithgow was attended by a negro woman, a slave, who found means to furnish him with refreshments still more amply than the Turk, being conversant in the house and family. She brought him every day some victuals, and with it some wine in a bottle.

     The time was now so far elapsed, and the horrid situation so truly loathsome, that Mr. Lithgow waited with anxious expectation for the day, which, by putting an end to his life, would also end his torments. But his melancholy expectations were, by the interposition of Providence, happily rendered abortive, and his deliverance obtained from the following circumstances.

     It happened that a Spanish gentleman of quality came from Grenada to Malaga, who being invited to an entertainment by the governor, informed him of what had befallen Mr. Lithgow from the time of his being apprehended as a spy, and described the various sufferings he had endured. He likewise told him that after it was known the prisoner was innocent, it gave him great concern. That on this account he would gladly have released him, restored his money and papers, and made some atonement for the injuries he had received, but that, upon an inspection into his writings, several were found of a very blasphemous nature, highly reflecting on their religion, that on his refusing to abjure these heretical opinions, he was turned over to the Inquisition, by whom he was finally condemned.

     While the governor was relating this tragical tale, a Flemish youth (servant to the Spanish gentleman) who waited at the table, was struck with amazement and pity at the sufferings of the stranger described. On his return to his master's lodgings he began to revolve in his mind what he had heard, which made such an impression on him that he could not rest in his bed. In the short slumbers he had, his imagination pointed to him the person described, on the rack, and burning in the fire. In this anxiety he passed the night; and when the morning came, without disclosing his intentions to any person whatever, he went into the town, and inquired for an English factor. He was directed to the house of a Mr. Wild, to whom he related the whole of what he had heard pass the preceding evening, between his master and the governor, but could not tell Mr. Lithgow's name. Mr. Wild, however, conjectured it was he, by the servant's remembering the circumstance of his being a traveller, and his having had some acquaintance with him.

     On the departure of the Flemish servant, Mr. Wild immeidately sent for the other English factors, to whom he related all the paritculars relative to their unfortunate countryman. After a short consultation it was agreed that an information of the whole affair should be sent, by express, to Sir Walter Aston, the English ambassador to the king of Spain, then at Madrid. This was accordingly done, and the ambassador having presented a memorial to the king and council of Spain, obtained an order for Mr. Lithgow's enlargement, and his delivery to the English factor. This order was directed to the governor of Malaga; and was received with great dislike and surprise by the whole assembly of the bloody Inquisition.

     Mr. Lithgow was released from his confinement on the eve of Easter Sunday, when he was carried from his dungeon on the back of the slave who had attended him, to the house of one Mr. Bosbich, where all proper comforts were given him. It fortunately happened that there was at this time a squadron of English ships in the road, commanded by Sir Richard Hawkins, who being informed of the past sufferings and present situation of Mr. Lithgow, came the next day ashore, with a proper guard, and received him from the merchants. He was instantly carried in blankets on board the Vanguard, and three days after was removed to another ship, by direction of the general Sir Robert Mansel, who ordered that he should have proper care taken of him. The factor presented him with clothes, and all necessary provisions, besides which they gave him two hundred reals in silver; and Sir Richard Hawkins sent him two double pistoles.

     Before his departure from the Spanish coast, Sir Richard Hawkins demanded the delivery of his papers, money, books, etc., but could not obtain any satisfactory answer on that head.

     We cannot help making a pause here to reflect how manifestly Providence interfered in behalf of this poor man, when he was just on the brink of destruction; for by his sentence, from which there was no appeal, he would have been taken, in a few days, to Grenada, and burnt to ashes; and that a poor ordinary servant, who had not the least knowledge of him, nor was any ways interested in his preservation, should risk the displeasure of his master, and hazard his own life, to disclose a thing of so momentous and perilous a nature, to a strange gentleman, on whose secrecy depended his own existence. By such secondary means does Providence frequently interfere in behalf of the virtuous and oppressed; of which this is a most distinguished example.

     After lying twelve days in the road, the ship weighed anchor, and in about two months arrived safe at Deptford. The next morning, Mr. Lithgow was carried on a feather bed to Theobalds, in Hertfordshire, where at that time was the king and royal family. His majesty happened to be that day engaged in hunting, but on his return in the evening, Mr. Lithgow was presented to him, and related the particulars of his sufferings, and his happy delivery. The king was so affected at the narrative, that he expressed the deepest concern, and gave orders that he should be sent to Bath, and his wants properly supplied from his royal munificence. By these means, under God, after some time, Mr. Lithgow was restored from the most wretched spectacle, to a great share of health and strength; but he lost the use of his left arm and several of the smaller bones were so crushed and broken, as to be ever after rendered useless.

     Notwithstanding that every effort was used, Mr. Lithgow could never obtain any part of his money or effects, although his majesty and the ministers of state interested themselves in his behalf. Gondamore, the Spanish ambassador, indeed, promised that all his effects should be restored, with the addition of 1000 Pounds English money, as some atonement for the tortures he had undergone, which last was to be paid him by the governor of Malaga. These engagements, however, were but mere promises; and although the king was a kind of guarantee for the well performance of them, the cunning Spaniard found means to elude the same. He had, indeed, too great a share of influence in the English council during the time of that pacific reign, when England suffered herself to be bullied into slavish compliance by most of the states and kings in Europe.

Foxe's Book of Martyrs

The Continual Burnt Offering Philippians 1:21

The Continual Burnt Offering (Philippians 1:21)

By H.A. Ironside - 1941

October 27

Philippians 1:21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.    ESV

     These words express, as none others could, the secret of Paul’s wonderful missionary activity and his deep devotion to the will of the Lord. From the moment when divine grace arrested him on the Damascus road to his last hour on earth, he had yielded his heart wholly to the blessed One who had saved him. Life meant only one thing for him: the opportunity to become better acquainted with the Lord Jesus Christ and to serve Him wholeheartedly. Nothing else seemed worthwhile. All that earth could offer was but as rubbish compared to this (Philippians 3:7-9). He had learned to look at everything below the skies in the light of the cross of Christ (Galatians 6:14). Now he looked forward eagerly to the end of the way, when he should be with Christ and receive at His hand the recognition of His approval of his service.

Philippians 3:7–9 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order 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 comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—

Galatians 6:14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.   ESV

Though absent, I have known His love,
And by His mercies daily prove
The wonders of His grace,
He, whom not having seen, I love,
Will call, and in His home above
I’ll see Him face to face.
With patience, in His love I’ll rest,
And whisper that He knoweth best,
And I am satisfied.
Then, clinging to that guiding hand,
A weakling, in His strength I’ll stand
Though I be sorely tried.
Though burdened with a load of care,
He’s promised me the strength to bear
The trials that appall;
So, hiding pain away from sight,
I’ll let my life be fair and bright,
While waiting for His call.
--- Robert R. Pentecost

The Continual Burnt Offering: Daily Meditations on the Word of God

#1 John MacArthur

Devotionals, notes, poetry and more

UCB The Word For Today
Who’s your Saul?
(Oct 27) Bob Gass

‘Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name.’

(Ac 9:15) 15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. ESV

Saul of Tarsus was the last person on earth you’d ever have expected to become a Christian, much less the author of half the New Testament. Describing his life before he met Christ, he wrote, ‘I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it’ (Galatians 1:13 NKJV). So, when God called Ananias to go and pray for Saul, he wasn’t too keen on the idea: ‘“I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.” But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel”’ (Acts 9:13-15 NIV 1984 Edition). Ananias knew what Saul had done to the church. What he was about to learn, however, is that God was at work in Saul’s heart. Within a few short years God would use Paul to touch the world, but first He used Ananias to touch Paul. Has God given you a similar assignment? Has He given you a Saul? If so, don’t give up on him or her. When other people write them off, give them another chance. Ananias didn’t know about Paul’s encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road. God can go where you can’t, and get through to a person when you’re unable to reach them. Always remember: God never sends you where He hasn’t already been. So, by the time you reach your Saul, who knows what you’ll find?

Jer 50
Heb 1

UCB The Word For Today

American Minute
by Bill Federer

His wife and mother both tragically died on Valentine’s Day, 1884. Depressed, he left New York to ranch cattle in the Dakotas. He organized the first Voluntary Cavalry, known as the “Rough Riders,” which captured San Juan Hill. He was Vice-President under William McKinley, in 1901 became America’s youngest President. His name was Teddy Roosevelt, born this day, October 27, 1858. President Roosevelt warned: “The thought of modern industry in the hands of Christian charity is a dream worth dreaming. The thought of industry in the hands of paganism is a nightmare beyond imagining. The choice between the two is upon us.”

American Minute

The Soul of Prayer
by P.T. Forsyth, (1848-1921)

II.     Let us beware of a pietist fatalism which thins the spiritual life, saps the vigour of character, makes humility mere acquiescence, and piety only feminine, by banishing the will from prayer as much as thought has been banished from it. “The curse of so much religion” (I have quoted Meredith) “is that men cling to God with their weakness rather than with their strength.”

     The popularity of much acquiescence is not because it is holier, but because it is easier. And an easy Gospel is the consumption that attacks Christianity. It is the phthisis to faith.

     Once come to think that we best say “Thy will be done” when we acquiesce, when we resign, and not also when we struggle and wrestle, and in time all effort will seem less pious than submission. And so we fall into the ecclesiastical type of religion, drawn from an age whose first virtue was submission to outward superiors. We shall come to canonize decorum and subduedness in life and worship (as the Episcopal Church with its monarchical ideas of religion has done). We shall think more of order than of effort, more of law than of life, more of fashion than of faith, of good form than of great power. But was subduedness the mark of the New Testament men? Our religion may gain some beauty in this way, but it loses vigour. It may gain style, but it loses power. It is good form, but mere aesthetic piety. It may consecrate manners, but it improverishes the mind. It may regulate prayer by the precepts of intelligence instead of the needs and faith of the soul. It may feed certain pensive emotions, but it may emasculate will, secularize energy, and empty character. And so we decline to a state of things in which we have no shocking sins—yes, and no splendid souls; when all souls are dully correct, as like as shillings, but as thin, and as cheap.

     All our forms and views of religion have their test in prayer. Lose the importunity of prayer, reduce it to soliloquy, or even to colloquy, with God, lose the real conflict of will and will, lose the habit of wrestling and the hope of prevailing with God, make it mere walking with God in friendly talk; and, precious as that is, yet you tend to lose the reality of prayer at last. In principle you make it mere conversation instead of the soul’s great action. You lose the food of character, the renewal of will. You may have beautiful prayers—but as ineffectual as beauty so often is, and as fleeting. And so in the end you lose the reality of religion. Redemption turns down into mere revelation, faith to assent, and devotion to a phase of culture. For you lose the power of the Cross and so of the soul.

     Resist God, in the sense of rejecting God, and you will not be able to resist any evil. But resist God in the sense of closing with God, cling to Him with your strength, not your weakness only, with your active and not only your passive faith, and He will give you strength. Cast yourself into His arms not to be caressed but to wrestle with Him. He loves that holy war. He may be too many for you, and lift you from your feet. But it will be to lift you from earth, and set you in the heavenly places which are their who fight the good fight and lay hold of God as their eternal life.

--- Forsyth, P. T. (1848-1921).

The Soul of Prayer

Lean Into God
Compiled by Richard S. Adams

The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats,
politicians, and business leaders.
They have done the best they could, no doubt.
But this is an age for spiritual heroes-
a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith
and in spiritual character and power.
The greatest danger to the Christian church today
is that of pitching its message too low.
--- Dallas Willard The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.
--- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation.
--- Maya Angelou

... from here, there and everywhere

History of the Destruction of Jerusalem
Thanks to Meir Yona

     CHAPTER 2.

     How Titus Exhibited All Sorts Of Shows At Cesarea Philippi. Concerning Simon The Tyrant How He Was Taken, And Reserved For The Triumph.

     1. Now at the same time that Titus Caesar lay at the siege of Jerusalem, did Vespasian go on board a merchantship and sailed from Alexandria to Rhodes; whence he sailed away in ships with three rows of oars; and as he touched at several cities that lay in his road, he was joyfully received by them all, and so passed over from Ionia into Greece; whence he set sail from Corcyra to the promontory of Iapyx, whence he took his journey by land. But as for Titus, he marched from that Cesarea which lay by the sea-side, and came to that which is named Cesarea Philippi, and staid there a considerable time, and exhibited all sorts of shows there. And here a great number of the captives were destroyed, some being thrown to wild beasts, and others in multitudes forced to kill one another, as if they were their enemies. And here it was that Titus was informed of the seizure of Simon the son of Gioras, which was made after the manner following: This Simon, during the siege of Jerusalem, was in the upper city; but when the Roman army was gotten within the walls, and were laying the city waste, he then took the most faithful of his friends with him, and among them some that were stone-cutters, with those iron tools which belonged to their occupation, and as great a quantity of provisions as would suffice them for a long time, and let himself and all them down into a certain subterraneous cavern that was not visible above ground. Now, so far as had been digged of old, they went onward along it without disturbance; but where they met with solid earth, they dug a mine under ground, and this in hopes that they should be able to proceed so far as to rise from under ground in a safe place, and by that means escape. But when they came to make the experiment, they were disappointed of their hope; for the miners could make but small progress, and that with difficulty also; insomuch that their provisions, though they distributed them by measure, began to fail them. And now Simon, thinking he might be able to astonish and elude the Romans, put on a white frock, and buttoned upon him a purple cloak, and appeared out of the ground in the place where the temple had formerly been. At the first, indeed, those that saw him were greatly astonished, and stood still where they were; but afterward they came nearer to him, and asked him who he was. Now Simon would not tell them, but bid them call for their captain; and when they ran to call him, Terentius Rufus 2 who was left to command the army there, came to Simon, and learned of him the whole truth, and kept him in bonds, and let Caesar know that he was taken. Thus did God bring this man to be punished for what bitter and savage tyranny he had exercised against his countrymen by those who were his worst enemies; and this while he was not subdued by violence, but voluntarily delivered himself up to them to be punished, and that on the very same account that he had laid false accusations against many Jews, as if they were falling away to the Romans, and had barbarously slain them; for wicked actions do not escape the Divine anger, nor is justice too weak to punish offenders, but in time overtakes those that transgress its laws, and inflicts its punishments upon the wicked in a manner, so much more severe, as they expected to escape it on account of their not being punished immediately. 3 Simon was made sensible of this by falling under the indignation of the Romans. This rise of his out of the ground did also occasion the discovery of a great number of others of the seditious at that time, who had hidden themselves under ground. But for Simon, he was brought to Caesar in bonds, when he was come back to that Cesarea which was on the seaside, who gave orders that he should be kept against that triumph which he was to celebrate at Rome upon this occasion.

     The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem, by Flavius Josephus Translator: William Whiston

The War of the Jews: The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem (complete edition, 7 books)

Proverbs 27:19
by D.H. Stern

19 Just as water reflects the face,
so one human heart reflects another.

Complete Jewish Bible : An English Version of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B'Rit Hadashah (New Testament)

My Utmost For The Highest
A Daily Devotional by Oswald Chambers

                The method of missions

     Go ye therefore and teach (disciple) all nations.
--- Matthew 28:19.

     Jesus Christ did not say—‘Go and save souls’ (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of God), but—“Go and teach,” i.e., disciple, “all nations,” and you cannot make disciples unless you are a disciple yourself. When the disciples came back from their first mission, they were filled with joy because the devils were subject to them, and Jesus said—‘Don’t rejoice in successful service; the great secret of joy is that you are rightly related to Me.’ The great essential of the missionary is that he remains true to the call of God, and realizes that his one purpose is to disciple men and women to Jesus. There is a passion for souls that does not spring from God, but from the desire to make converts to our point of view.

     The challenge to the missionary does not come on the line that people are difficult to get saved, that backsliders are difficult to reclaim, that there is a ‘wadge’ of callous indifference; but along the line of his own personal relationship to Jesus Christ. “Believe ye that I am able to do this?” Our Lord puts that question steadily, it faces us in every individual case we meet. The one great challenge is—Do I know my risen Lord? Do I know the power of His indwelling Spirit? Am I wise enough in God’s sight, and foolish enough according to the world, to bank on what Jesus Christ has said; or am I abandoning the great supernatural position, which is the only call for a missionary, viz., boundless confidence in Christ Jesus? If I take up any other method, I depart altogether from the method laid down by Our Lord—“All power is given unto Me …, therefore go ye.”

My Utmost for His Highest

The Truce
the Poetry of R.S. Thomas

                The Truce

That they should not advance
  beyond certain limits left --
  accidentally? -- undefined;
  and that compensation be paid
  by the other side. Meanwhile the
  peasant -- There are no peasants
  in Wales, he said, holding
  his liquor as a gentleman
  should not--went up and down
  his acre, rejecting the pot
  of gold at the rainbow's
  end in favour of earthier
  values: the subsidies gradually
  propagating themselves on the guilt
  of an urban class.
          Strenuous
  times! Never all day
  did the procession of popular
  images through the farm
  kitchens cease; it was tiring
  watching. Such truce as was
  called in the invisible
  warfare between bad and
  worse was where two half-truths
  faced one another over
  the body of an exhausted
  nation, each one waiting for
  the other to be proved wrong.

Frequencies

3 / REASON and TRADITIONAL AUTHORITY WITHIN HALAKHAH and PHILOSOPHY
Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest

     To Maimonides, Hillel and Shammai, as opposed to their students, were in agreement not because they possessed a common tradition, but because they had a similar method of reasoning. Their agreement was not necessary but was the contingent outcome of their similar approaches to law. The logical possibility always existed that Hillel and Shammai would disagree. In fact, Maimonides shows that in specific cases they did disagree:

     But as for their saying that when the disciples [of Hillel and Shammai] who had insufficiently studied, increased, dispute increased, this matter is very clear, for when two people are identical in understanding and in study and knowledge of the principles [Usul] from which they learn, there will not occur at all between them disagreement in what they learn by one of the hermeneutic principles, and if there will be disagreements they will be few, just as we have never found disagreements between Hillel and Shammai other than in a few laws, for their methods of study in all that they would learn by one of the principles were similar to one another, and also the correct general principles which were held by one were held by the other.

     Only in the domain of law based on Sinai was there no possibility for disagreement. By not distinguishing between tradition-based law and reason-based law, men such as Ibn Daud must relegate the arguments in the Talmud to minute details which in principle could have been avoided had the students “waited upon their masters sufficiently.” Maimonides does not censure the students of Hillel and Shammai because he believes that their disagreements stem from their differing mental capacities and methods of interpretation. The similarity of approach of their masters, Hillel and Shammai, was lost by the students:

     And when the study of their students became less and the methods of argument became weakened for them in comparison to Shammai and Hillel, their teachers, disagreement befell them during the give-and-take on many issues, because each one of them reasoned according to the power of his intellect and according to the principles known to him. And one should not blame them for this, for we cannot compel two people who are arguing to argue according to the level of the intellects of Joshua and Pinḥas. Also we are not permitted to have doubts regarding that about which they differed insofar as they are not as Shammai and Hillel or above them, for God Almighty did not obligate us to do so; but He obligated us to listen to the wise men, wise men of any generation whatsoever, as He said, “[you shall] appear before the levitical priests, or the magistrate in charge at the time, and present your problem” (Deut. 17:9). And in this manner befell disagreement, not that they erred in their receiving of tradition and one’s tradition is true and the other’s false. And how clear are these matters to one who reflects on them, and how great is this fundamental principle in the Torah.

     The rabbis of the tradition could be trusted as transmitters of the tradition, despite the occurrence of disagreement in the Talmud, because they understood when they were appealing to reason and when to authoritative tradition. No disagreement ever occurred regarding laws based on authority. But, given the epistemological features of laws emerging from reasoning, disagreement was entirely legitimate. The text which Maimonides uses to justify the existence within Halakhah of laws developed by human reasoning is the same text which removed the prophet from participating as a prophet in halakhic debates and judgments. The appeal of the prophet to the authority of God is incompatible with the logic of legal deliberation. The prophet offers no room for disagreement. The appeal to the authority of God allows either for acceptance or for rejection, based upon whether one is either loyal or disloyal. To affirm loyalty to God, yet also to disagree with what the prophet proclaims, makes no sense.

     At stake in Maimonides’ position is the logical status of legal reasoning. To Maimonides, legal rationality differs both from demonstrative proof and authoritative dictates. In authoritative appeals, only one position is valid: The authority—God—either said or did not say what the prophet claims. Similarly, in demonstrative proof, only one position is acceptable. The conclusion of a demonstrative inference whose premises are true, must also be true; whatever conclusions contradict this demonstrated conclusion must be false. One who disagrees with a demonstrated conclusion is either obstinate or irrational. Maimonides writes in the Guide:

     For in all things whose reality is known through demonstration there is no tug-of-war and no refusal to accept a thing proven—unless indeed such refusal comes from an ignoramus who offers a resistance that is called resistance to demonstration.

     In legal reasoning, however, when one is not simply transmitting a law based on authority, arguments are involved which support conclusions outside of strict entailment. Legal arguments make a position reasonable, sometimes even more reasonable than a rival position. They do not demonstrate that the contradictory is impossible. A judge may issue a verdict on the basis of arguments presented to him, yet he may still feel the weight of counter-arguments which could justify a future appeal of his decision. Since legal argumentation lacks the logical status of demonstrative proof, the procedure of deciding legal issues on the basis of majority rule is rationally comprehensible. In arguments based on demonstrative inference or on questions of fact, such procedure is unjustified and clearly absurd.

     Maimonides, the master of legal rabbinic thought, understood the logical status of legal argumentation. He was well aware of those conditions under which it would make sense to speak of rational disagreement. Only one conclusion is valid when the appeal is to the authority of tradition or to demonstrative reason. The text, “And [you shall] appear before the levitical priests or the magistrate in charge at the time,” is the paradigm-text. By declaring the legitimacy of laws grounded in human reasoning, it prevents the prophet from appearing among scholars of the Halakhah and arguing from a base of prophetic authority. In the house of learning where scholars debate legal matters, one must follow the procedure of legal adjudication to decide which opinion shall prevail:

     … even if one-thousand Prophets who are as Elijah and Elisha would interpret any interpretation, and one-thousand-and-one wise men interpret the opposite of that interpretation, “After the many to follow” (Ex. 23:2) and we follow the position of the one-thousand-and-one wise men, not the position of the one-thousand outstanding Prophets. And thus the Sages say, “By God! Even if Joshua, the son of Nun, had told it to me by his own mouth I should not have obeyed it and not have accepted it!”… even if one-thousand Prophets who are as Elijah and Elisha would interpret any interpretation, and one-thousand-and-one wise men interpret the opposite of that interpretation, “After the many to follow” (Ex. 23:2) and we follow the position of the one-thousand-and-one wise men, not the position of the one-thousand outstanding Prophets. And thus the Sages say, “By God! Even if Joshua, the son of Nun, had told it to me by his own mouth I should not have obeyed it and not have accepted it!”

Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest

Take Heart
October 27

     None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. --- 1 Corinthians 2:8

     When one hears people—passionate in their dislike of any innovation in theology or in religious thinking, declaring it is loyalty to Christ that makes them take their stand, the fact stares at us that it was such people—in their day quite sure that they too were right and working for God’s honor—who crucified our Lord.   The Galilean Accent - Being Some Studies in the Christian Life   In every age since then, they have continued doing it—old, angry, ill-conditioned Prejudice—with his deaf ears and his inhospitable heart.

     Are our hands clean? It is easy to lose the gallant spirit that follows truth unflinchingly wherever truth may lead.

     In the New Testament, however high the writers pitched their thoughts of Christ, they found these thoughts couldn’t meet the facts from their own experience, that they must make their thinking of him ampler still, and they kept doing it joyously. And it is a poor tribute to Christ to say that we have come to the end of him and know everything in him there is to know.

     Suppose in our time a young man suddenly emerged out of an obscure village, a trades worker who had never been much out of his own valley and, talking in that provincial accent of his, told us that our accredited teachers were in many ways wrong and our religion largely obsolete, that he had come to show us a more excellent way, a truer faith—would we listen to him any more than they did then? Do we listen when he does send his messengers to us with some new light? “Christ,” said Tertullian, “did not call himself the custom, but the truth.” And while we are all loyal worshipers of custom, truth has few real disciples. Always it has had to fight its way to victory through hostile minds, distrustful and suspicious.

     “I observe,” wrote Jonathan Edwards in his diary, “that old men seldom have any advantage of new discoveries, because these discoveries are beside a way of thinking they have long been used to. If ever I live to years I will be impartial to all pretended discoveries and receive them, if rational, how long soever I have been used to another way of thinking.” Such an entry in the diary of Caiaphas or Annas, lived out, would have saved us the Cross. Glancing up awestruck at what sins like ours can do, let us, too, pledge ourselves to that, praying God for the open mind that recognizes Jesus when he comes.
--- Arthur John Gossip

Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers

On This Day October 27
My Very Heart Melted

     At the 1771 Methodist Conference in England, John Wesley said, “Our brethren in America call for help. Who is willing to go over?” Francis Asbury, five-foot-six, 150 pounds, sat listening. For months the young man had longed to visit America. So I spoke my mind, and made an offer of myself. It was accepted by Mr. Wesley, who judged I had a call.

     Asbury returned home to break the news to his parents. Though it was grievous, they consented to let me go. My mother is one of the tenderest parents in the world; I believe she was blessed in the present instance with Divine assistance to part with me.

     He sailed on September 4. For three days I was very ill with the seasickness; and no sickness I ever knew was equal to it. But he soon recovered enough to gather his thoughts: I will set down a few things that lie on my mind. Whither am I going? To the New World. What to do? To gain honor? No, if I know my own heart. To get money? No: I am going to live to God, and to bring others so to do.

     Asbury arrived in America on October 27, 1771. This day we landed in Philadelphia where we were directed to the house of Mr. Francis Harris who kindly entertained us and brought us to a large church where we met with a considerable congregation. The people looked on us with pleasure, receiving us as angels of God. When I came near the American shore, my very heart melted within me, to think from whence I came, where I was going, and what I was going about. I feel that God is here. …

     Asbury never returned to England. He plunged into the American wilderness, traveling day and night for years, in all kinds of weather, through all kinds of hardship. He traveled 270,000 miles and wore out one horse after another. All he owned was carried in two saddlebags. When Asbury arrived in America there were fewer than 80 Methodist preachers and 14,000 members. When he died there were 2,000 preachers and 200,000 members.

     We are not preaching about ourselves. Our message is that Jesus Christ is Lord. He also sent us to be your servants. The Scriptures say, “God commanded light to shine in the dark.” Now God is shining in our hearts to let you know that his glory is seen in Jesus Christ.
--- 2 Corinthians 4:5,6.

On This Day 365 Amazing And Inspiring Stories About Saints, Martyrs And Heroes

Morning and Evening
Daily Readings / CHARLES H. SPURGEON

          Morning - October 27

     “It is a faithful saying.” --- 2 Timothy 2:11.

     Paul has four of these “faithful sayings.” The first occurs in 1 Timothy 1:15, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” The next is in 1 Timothy 4:6, “Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation.” The third is in 2 Timothy 2:12, “It is a faithful saying—If we suffer with him we shall also reign with him”; and the fourth is in Titus 3:3, “This is a faithful saying, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.” We may trace a connection between these faithful sayings. The first one lays the foundation of our eternal salvation in the free grace of God, as shown to us in the mission of the great Redeemer. The next affirms the double blessedness which we obtain through this salvation—the blessings of the upper and nether springs—of time and of eternity. The third shows one of the duties to which the chosen people are called; we are ordained to suffer for Christ with the promise that “if we suffer, we shall also reign with him.” The last sets forth the active form of Christian service, bidding us diligently to maintain good works. Thus we have the root of salvation in free grace; next, the privileges of that salvation in the life which now is, and in that which is to come; and we have also the two great branches of suffering with Christ and serving with Christ, loaded with the fruits of the Spirit. Treasure up these faithful sayings. Let them be the guides of our life, our comfort, and our instruction. The apostle of the Gentiles proved them to be faithful, they are faithful still, not one word shall fall to the ground; they are worthy of all acceptation, let us accept them now, and prove their faithfulness. Let these four faithful sayings be written on the four corners of my house.

          Evening - October 27

     “We are all as an unclean thing.” --- Isaiah 64:6.

     The believer is a new creature, he belongs to a holy generation and a peculiar people—the Spirit of God is in him, and in all respects he is far removed from the natural man; but for all that the Christian is a sinner still. He is so from the imperfection of his nature, and will continue so to the end of his earthly life. The black fingers of sin leave smuts upon our fairest robes. Sin mars our repentance, ere the great Potter has finished it, upon the wheel. Selfishness defiles our tears, and unbelief tampers with our faith. The best thing we ever did apart from the merit of Jesus only swelled the number of our sins; for when we have been most pure in our own sight, yet, like the heavens, we are not pure in God’s sight; and as he charged his angels with folly, much more must he charge us with it, even in our most angelic frames of mind. The song which thrills to heaven, and seeks to emulate seraphic strains, hath human discords in it. The prayer which moves the arm of God is still a bruised and battered prayer, and only moves that arm because the sinless One, the great Mediator, has stepped in to take away the sin of our supplication. The most golden faith or the purest degree of sanctification to which a Christian ever attained on earth, has still so much alloy in it as to be only worthy of the flames, in itself considered. Every night we look in the glass we see a sinner, and had need confess, “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” Oh, how precious the blood of Christ to such hearts as ours! How priceless a gift is his perfect righteousness! And how bright the hope of perfect holiness hereafter! Even now, though sin dwells in us, its power is broken. It has no dominion; it is a broken-backed snake; we are in bitter conflict with it, but it is with a vanquished foe that we have to deal. Yet a little while and we shall enter victoriously into the city where nothing defileth.

Morning and Evening

Amazing Grace
October 27

          RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD!

     William P. Merrill, 1867–1954

     … that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the Gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. (Philippians 1:27, 28)

     Our world is filled with much physical and social suffering. Often we prefer to close our eyes to these painful situations that are all around us. It is much more comfortable to associate only with those who live as we do. This kind of attitude within the church will turn any body of believers into nothing more than a religious club.

     If we want to represent our Lord with integrity, we must not compartmentalize the church’s mission. Soul winning and social responsibility are woven intrinsically together and constitute an inherent part of the ministry. A starving person needs both his stomach as well as his soul cared for. Christ’s earthly ministry is a prime model of an ideal balance of caring for body as well as the soul of needy individuals.

     The author of this call-to-action text, William Pierson Merrill, was a Presbyterian minister. He served churches in Philadelphia and Chicago, and he pastored the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York until his retirement in 1938. Merrill wrote “Rise Up, O Men of God!” especially for the brotherhood movement within the Presbyterian churches in 1911. Merrill was also a prolific writer of hymn texts and theological books.

     An important secret of individual happiness is to be employed continually in doing something of value, to be “done with lesser things,” to be totally involved in serving “the King of kings.” And even the cup of water given in Christ’s name will not go unrewarded (Matthew 10:42).

     Rise up, O men of God! Have done with lesser things; give heart and mind and soul and strength to serve the King of kings.
     Rise up, O men of God! His kingdom tarries long. Bring in the day of brotherhood and end the night of wrong.
     Rise up, O men of God! The Church for you doth wait, her strength unequal to her task; rise up, and make her great!
     Lift high the cross of Christ! Tread where His feet have trod. As brothers of the Son of man, rise up, O men of God!

     For Today: Deuteronomy 11:13–32; John 12:26; Acts 20:28; 1 Corinthians 16:13; Ephesians 6:7

     Determine by word and example to be a challenge to the members of your church by being more aggressively involved in an outreach ministry to your community. Reflect again on this musical truth ---

Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions

The Existence and Attributes of God
Stephen Charnock

     V. The Use, 1. Of Information. If wisdom be an excellency of the Divine nature; then,

     1. Christ’s Deity may hence be asserted. Wisdom is the emphatical title of Christ in Scripture (Prov. 8:12, 13, 31), where wisdom is brought in speaking as a distinct person; ascribing counsel, and understanding, and the knowledge of witty inventions to itself. He is called also the power of God, and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24). And the ancients generally understood that place (Col. 2:3), “In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” as an assertion of the Godhead of Christ, in regard of the infiniteness of his knowledge; referring wisdom to his knowledge of divine things; and knowledge to his understanding of all human things. But the natural sense of the place seems to be this, that all wisdom and knowledge is displayed by Christ in the gospel; and the words, ἐν αὐτῶν, refer either to Christ, or the mystery of God spoken of, (ver. 2). But the Deity of Christ, in regard of infinite wisdom, may be deduced from his creation of things, and his government of things; both which are ascribed to him in Scripture. The first ascribed to him (John 1:3): “All things were made by him;” and without him was not any thing made, that was made.”

     The second (John 5:22): “The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son;” and both put together (Col. 2:16, 17). Now since he hath the government of the world, he hath the perfections necessary to so great a work. As the creation of the world, which is ascribed to him, requires an infinite power, so the government of the world requires an infinite wisdom. That he hath the knowledge of the hearts of men, was proved in handling the omniscience of God. That knowledge would be to little purpose without wisdom to order the motions of men’s hearts, and conduct all the qualities and actions of creatures, to such an end as is answerable to a wise government; we cannot think so great an employment can be without an ability necessary for it. The government of men and angels is a great part of the glory of God; and if God should entrust the greatest part of his glory in hands unfit for so great a trust, it would be an argument of weakness in God, as it is in men, to pitch upon unfit instruments for particular charges; since God hath therefore committed to him his greatest glory, the conduct of all things for the highest end, he hath a wisdom requisite for so great an end, which can be no less than infinite. If then Christ were a finite person, he would not be capable of an infinite communication; he could not be a subject wherein infinite wisdom could be lodged; for the terms finite and infinite are so distant, that they cannot commence one another; finite can never be changed into infinite, no more than infinite can into finite.

     2. Hence we may assert the right and fitness of God for the government of the world, as he is the wisest Being. Among men, those who are excellent in judgment, are accounted fittest to preside over, and give orders to others; the wisest in a city are most capable to govern a city; or at least, though ignorant men may bear the title, yet the advice of the soundest and skilfullest heads should prevail in all public affairs: we see in nature, that the eye guides the body, and the mind directs the eye. Power and wisdom are the two arms of authority; wisdom knows the end, and directs the means; power executes the means designed for such an end. The more splendid and strong those are in any, the more authority results from thence, for the conduct of others that are of an inferior orb; now God being infinitely excellent in both, his ability and right to the management of the world cannot be suspected; the whole world is but one commonwealth, whereof God is the monarch. Did the government of the world depend upon the election of men and angels, where could they itch, or where would they find perfections capable of so great a work but in the Supreme Wisdom? His wisdom hath already been apparent in those laws, whereby he formed the world into a civil society, and the Israelites into a commonwealth. The one suited to the consciences and reasons of all his subjects, and the other suited to the genius of that particular nation, drawn out of the righteousness of the moral law, and applicable to all cases that might arise among them in their government; so that Moses asserts, that the wisdom apparent in their laws enacted by God, as their chief magistrate, would render them famous among other nations, in regard of their wisdom, as well as their righteousness (Deut. 4:6, 7, 9). Also, this perfection doth evidence, that God doth actually govern the world. It would not be a commendable thing for a man to make a curious piece of clock-work, and take no care for the orderly motion of it. Would God display so much of his skill in framing the heaven and earth, and none in actual guidance of them to their particular and universal ends? Did he lay the foundation in order, and fit every stone in the building, make all things in weight and measure, to let them afterwards run at hap-hazard? Would he bring forth his power to view in the creation, and let a more glorious perfection lie idle, when it had so large a field to move in? Infinite wisdom is inconsistent with inactivity.   ( I really like that! ) All prudence doth illustrate itself in untying the hardest knots, and disposing the most difficult affairs to a happy and successful issue. All those various arts and inventions arnong men which lend their assisting hand to one another, and those various employments their several geniuses lead them to, whereby they support one another’s welfare, are beams and instincts of Divine wisdom in the government of the world. He that “made all things in wisdom” (Psalm 104:24), would not leave his works to act and move only according to their own folly, and idly behold them jumble together, and run counter to that end he designed them for; we must not fancy Divine wisdom to be destitute of activity.

     3. Here we may see a ground of God’s patience. The most impotent persons are the most impatient, when unforeseen emergencies arise; or at events expected by them, when their feeble prudence was not a sufficient match to contest with them, or prevent them, But the wiser any man is, the more he bears with those things which seem to cross his intentions, because he knows he grasps the whole affair, and is sure of attaining the end he proposeth to himself; yet, as a finite wisdom can have but a finite patience, so an infinite wisdom possesses an infinite patience. The wise God intends to bring glory to himself, and good to some of his creatures, out of the greatest evils that can happen in the world, he beholds no exorbitant afflictions and monstrous actions, but what he can dispose to a good and glorious end, even to “work together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28); and, therefore, doth not presently fall foul upon the actors, till he hath wrought out that temporary glory to himself, and good to his people which he designs. The times of ignorance God winked at, till he had brought his Son into the world, and manifested his wisdom in redemption, and when this was done he presseth men to a “speedy repentance” (Acts 17:30); that, as he forbore punishing their crimes, in order to the displaying his wisdom in the designed redemption; so when he had effected it, they must forbear any longer abusing his patience.

     4. Hence appears the immutability of God in his decrees. He is not destitute of a power and strength to change his own purposes, but his infinite perfection of wisdom is a bar to his laying aside his eternal resolves and forming new ones (Isa. 46:10); he resolves the end from the beginning, and his counsel stands; stands immovable, because it is his counsel. It is an impotent counsel, that is subject to a daily thwarting itself. Inconstant persons are accounted, by men, destitute of a due measure of prudence. If God change his mind it is either for the better or the worse; if for the better, he was not wise in his former purpose; if for the worse, he is not wise in his present resolve. No alteration can be without a reflection of weakness upon the former or present determination. God must either cease to be as wise as he was before, or begin to be wiser than he was before the change, which to think or imagine is to deny a Deity.

     If any man change his resolution, he is apprehensive of a flaw in his former purpose, and finds an inconvenience in it, which moves him to such a change, which must be either for want of foresight in himself, or want of a due consideration of the object of his counsel, neither of which can be imagined of God without a denial of the Deity. No, there are no blots and blemishes in his purposes and promises. Repentance, indeed, is an act of wisdom in the creature, but it presupposeth folly in his former actions, which is inconsistent with infinite perfection. Men are often too rash in promising; and, therefore, what they promise in haste, they perform at leisure, or not at all: they consider not before they vow, and make after-inquiries, whether they had best stand to it. The only wise God needs not any after-game: as he is sovereignly wise, he sees no cause of reversing anything, and wants not expedients for his own purpose; and as he is infinitely powerful, he hath no superior to hinder him from executing his will, and making his people enjoy the effects of his wisdom. If he had a recollection of thoughts, as man hath, and saw a necessity to mend them, he were not infinitely wise in his first decrees: as in creation he looked back upon the several pieces of that goodly frame he had erected, and saw them so exact that he did not take up his pencil again to mend any particle of the first draught, so his promises are made with such infinite wisdom and judgment, that what he writes is irreversible and forever, as the decrees of the Medes and Persians. All the words of God are eternal because they are the births of righteousness and judgment (Hos. 2:19); “I will betroth thee to me forever, in righteousness and judgment.” He is not of a wavering and flitting discretion: if he threatens, he wisely considers what he threatens; if he promises, he wisely considers what he promises; and therefore is immutable in both.

     5. Hence it follows that God is a fit object for our trust and confidence: for God being infinitely wise, when he promises anything, he sees everything which may hinder, and everything which may promote the execution of it, so that he cannot discover anything afterwards that may move him to take up after - thoughts: he hath more wisdom than to promise anything hand over head, or anything which he knows he cannot accomplish. Though God, as true, be the object of our trust, yet God, as wise, is the foundation of our trust. We trust him in his promise; the promise was made by mercy, and it is performed by truth; but wisdom conducts all means to the accomplishment of it. There are many men, whose honesty we can confide in, but whose discretion we are diffident of: but there is no defect, either of the one or the other, which may scare us from a depending upon God in our concerns. The words of man’s wisdom the apostle entitles “enticing” (1 Cor. 2:4), in opposition to the words of God’s wisdom, which are firm, stable, and undeniable demonstrations. As the power of God is an encouragement of trust, because he is able to effect, so the wisdom of God comes into the rank of those attributes which support our faith. To put a confidence in him, we must be persuaded, not only that he is ignorant of nothing in the world, but that he is wise to manage the whole course of nature, and dispose of all his creatures, for the bringing his purposes and his promises to their designed perfection.

     6. Hence appears the necessity of a public review of the management of the world, and of a day of judgment. As a day of judgment may be inferred from many attributes of God, as his sovereignty, justice, omniscience, &c., so, among the rest, from this of wisdom. How much of this perfection will lie unveiled and obscure, if the sins of men be not brought to view, whereby the ordering the unrighteous actions of men, by his directing and over-ruling hand of providence, in subserviency to his own purposes and his people’s good, may appear in all its glory! Without such a public review, this part of wisdom will not be clearly visible; how those actions, which had a vile foundation in the hearts and designs of men, and were formed there to gratify some base lust, ambition, and covetousness, &c. were, by a secret wisdom presiding over them, conducted to amazing ends. It is a part of Divine wisdom to right itself, and convince men of the reasonableness of its laws, and the unreasonableness of their contradictions to it. The execution of the sentence is an act of justice, but the conviction of the reasonableness of the sentence is an act of wisdom, clearing up the righteousness of the proceeding; and this precedes, and the other follows (Jude 15); “To convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds.” that wisdom which contrived satisfaction, as well as that justice which required it, is concerned in righting the law which was enacted by it. The wisdom of a sovereign Lawgiver is engaged not to see his law vilified and trampled on, and exposed to the lusts and affronts of men, without being concerned in vindicating the honor of it. It would appear a folly to enact and publish it, if there were not a resolution to right and execute it. The wisdom of God can no more associate iniquity and happiness together, than the justice of God can separate iniquity from punishment. It would be defective, if it did always tamely bear the insolences of offenders, without a time of remark of their crimes, and a justification of the precept, rebelliously spurned at. He would be unwise, if he were unjust; unrighteousness hath no better a title in Scripture than that of folly. It is no part of Wisdom to give birth to those laws which he will always behold ineffectual, and neither vindicate his law by a due execution of the penalty, nor right his own authority, contemned in the violation of his law, by a just revenge: besides, what wisdom would it be for the Sovereign Judge to lodge such a spokesman for himself as conscience in the soul of man, if it should be alway found speaking, and at length be found false in all that it speaks? There is, therefore, an apparent prospect of the day of account, from the consideration of this perfection of the Divine nature.

     7. Hence we have a ground for a mighty reverence and veneration of the Divine Majesty. Who can contemplate the sparklings of this perfection in the variety of the works of his hands, and the exact government of all his creatures, without a raised admiration of the excellency of his Being, and a falling flat before him, in a posture of reverence to so great a Being? Can we behold so great a mass of matter, digested into several forms, so exact a harmony and temperament in all the creatures, the proportions of numbers and measures, and one creature answering the ends and designs of another, the distinct beauties of all, the perpetual motion of all things without checking one another; the variety of the nature of things, and all acting according to their nature with an admirable agreement, and all together, like different strings upon an instrument, emitting divers sounds, but all reduced to order in one delightful lesson; — I say, can we behold all this without admiring and adoring the Divine wisdom, which appears in all? And from the consideration of this, let us pass to the consideration of his wisdom in redemption, in reconciling divided interests, untying hard knots, drawing one contrary out of another; and we must needs acknowledge that the wisdom of all the men on earth, and angels in heaven, is worse than nothing and vanity in comparison of this vast Ocean. And as we have a greater esteem for those that invent some excellent artificial engines, what reverence ought we to have for him that hath stamped an unimitable wisdom upon all his works! Nature orders us to give honor to our superiors in knowledge, and confide in their counsels; but none ought to be reverenced as much as God, since none equals him in wisdom.

     8. If God be infinitely wise, it shows us the necessity of our address to him, and invocation of his Name. We are subject to mistakes, and often overseen; we are not able rightly to counsel ourselves. In some cases, all creatures are too short-sighted to apprehend them, and too ignorant to give advice proper for them, and to contrive remedies for their ease; but with the Lord there is counsel (Jer. 32:19), “He is great in counsel, and mighty in working;” great in counsel to advise us, mighty in working to assist us. We know not how to effect a design, or prevent an expected evil. We have an infinite Wisdom to go to, that is every way skilful to manage any business we desire, to avert any evil we fear, to accomplish anything we commit into his hands. When we know not what to resolve, he hath a counsel to “guide us” (Psalm 73:24). He is not more powerful to effect what is needful, than wise to direct what is fitting. All men stand in need of the help of God, as one man stands in need of the assistance of other men, and will not do anything without advice; and he that takes advice, deserves the title of a wise man, as well as he that gives advice. But no man needs so much the advice of another man, as all men need the counsel and assistance of God: neither is any man’s wit and wisdom so far inferior to the prudence and ability of an angel, as the wisdom of the wisest man and the most sharp-sighted angel, is inferior to the infinite wisdom of God. We see, therefore, that it is best for us to go to the fountain, and not content ourselves with the streams; to beg advice from a wisdom that is infinite and infallible, rather than from that which is finite and fallible.

     Use 2. If wisdom be the perfection of the Divine Majesty, how prodigious is the contempt of it in the world? In general, all sin strikes at this attribute, and is in one part or other a degrading of it: the first sin directed its venom against this. As the devils endeavored to equal their Creator in power, so man endeavored to equal him in wisdom: both indeed scorned to be ruled by his order; but man evidently exalted himself against the wisdom of God, and aspired to be a sharer with him in his infinite knowledge; would not let him be the only wise God, but cherished an ambition to be his partner. Just as if a beam were able to imagine it might be as right as the sun; or a spark fancy it could be as full fraught with heat as the whole element of fire. Man would not submit to the infinite wisdom of God in the prohibition of one single fruit in the garden, when by the right of his sovereign authority, he might have granted him only the use of one. All presumptuous sins are of this nature; they are, therefore, called reproaches of God (Num. 15:30), “the soul that doth ought presumptuously, reproacheth the Lord.” All reproaches are either for natural, moral, or intellectual defects. All reproaches of God must imply either a weakness or unrighteousness in God: if unrighteousness, his holiness is denied; if weakness, his wisdom is blemished. In general, all sin strikes at this perfection two ways.

     1. As it defaceth the wise workmanship of God. Every sin is a deforming and blemishing our own souls, which, as they are the prime creatures in the lower world, so they have greater characters of Divine wisdom in the fabric of them: but this image of God is ruined and broken by sin. Though the spoiling of it be a scorn of his holiness, it is also an affront to his wisdom; for though his power was the cause of the production of so fair a piece, yet his wisdom was the guide of his power, and his holiness the pattern whereby he wrought it. His power effected it, and his holiness was exemplified in it; but his wisdom contrived it. If a man had a curious clock or watch, which had cost him many years pains and the strength of his skill to frame it; for another, after he had seen and considered it, to trample upon it, and crush it in pieces, would argue a contempt of the artificer’s skill. God hath shown infinite art in the creation of man; but sin unbeautifies man, and ravisheth his excellency. It cuts and slasheth the image of God stamped by divine wisdom, as though it were an object only of scorn and contempt. The sinner in every sin acts, as if he intended to put himself in a better posture, and in a fairer dress, than the wisdom of God hath put him in by creation.

     2. In the slighting his laws. The laws of God are highly rational; they are drawn from the depths of the Divine understanding, wherein there is no unclearness, and no defect. As his understanding apprehends all things in their true reason, so his will enjoins all things for worthy and wise ends. His laws are contrived by his wisdom for the happiness of man, whose happiness, and the methods to it, he understands better than men or angels can do. His laws being the orders of the wisest understanding, every breach of his law is a flying in the face of his wisdom. All human laws, though they are enforced by sovereign authority, yet they are, or ought to be, in the composing of them, founded upon reason, and should be particular applications of the law of nature to this or that particular emergency. The laws of God, then, who is summa ratio, are the birth of the truest reason; though the reason of every one of them may not be so clear to us. Every law, though it consists in an act of the will, yet doth presuppose an act of the understanding. The act of the Divine understanding in framing the law, must be supposed to precede the act of his will in commanding the observance of that law. So every sin against the law, is not only against the will of God commanding, but the reason of God contriving, and a cleaving to our own reason, rather than the understanding or mind of God: as if God had mistaken in making his law, and we had more understanding to frame a better, and more conducing to our happiness: as if God were not wise enough to govern us, and prescribe what we should do, and what we should avoid; as if he designed not our welfare but our misfortune. Whereas, the precepts of God are not tyrannical edicts, or acts of mere will, but the fruits of counsel; and, therefore, every breach of them is a real declamation against his discretion and judgment, and preferring our own imaginations, or the suggestions of the devil, as our rule, before the results of Divine counsel.

      While we acknowledge him wise in our opinion, we speak him foolish by our practice; when, instead of being guided by him, we will guide ourselves. No man will question, but it is a controlling Divine wisdom, to make alterations in his precepts; dogmatically, either to add some of their own, or expunge any of his: and is it not a crime of the like reflection to alter them practically? When we will observe one part of the law, and not another part; but pick and choose where we please ourselves, as our humors and carnal interest prompt us; it is to charge that part of the law with folly, which we refuse to conform unto. The more cunning any man is in sin, the more his sin is against Divine wisdom, as if he thought to outwit God. He that receives the promises of God, and the “testimony of Christ, sets to his seal, that God is true” (John 3:33). By the like strength of argument, it will undeniably follow, that he that refuseth obedience to his precepts, sets to his seal that God is foolish. Were they not rational, God would not enjoin them; and if they are rational, we are enemies to infinite wisdom, by not complying with them. If infinite prudence hath made the law, why is not every part of it observed; if it were not made with the best wisdom, why is any part of it observed? If the defacing of his image be any sin, as being a defaming his wisdom in creation, the breaking his law is no less a sin, as being a disgracing his wisdom in his administration. ’Tis upon this account, likely, that the Scripture so often counts sinners fools, since it is certainly inexcusable folly to contradict undeniable and infallible Wisdom; yet this is done in the least sin: and as he that breaks one tittle of the law, is deservedly accounted guilty of the breach of the whole (James 2:10), so he that despiseth the least stamp of wisdom in the minutest part of the law, is deservedly counted as a contemner of it, in the frame of the whole statute-book. But, in particular, the wisdom of God is affronted and invaded.

     1. By introducing new rules and modes of worship, different from Divine institutions. Is not this a manifest reflection on this perfection of God, as though he had not been wise enough to provide for his own honor, and model his own service, but stood in need of our directions, and the caprichios of our brains? Some have observed, that it is a greater sin in worship to do that we should not, than to omit what we should perform. The one seems to be out of weakness, because of the high exactness of the law; and the other out of impudence, accusing the wisdom of God of imperfection, and controlling it in its institutions. At best, it seems to be an imputation of human bashfulness to the Supreme Sovereign; as if he had been ashamed to prescribe all that was necessary to his own honor, but had left something to the ingenuity and gratitude of men. Man has, ever since the foolish conceit of his old ancestor Adam, presumed he could be as wise as God; and if he who was created upright entertained such conceits, much more doth man now, under a mass of corruption, so capable to foment them. This hath been the continual practice of men; not so much to reject what once they had received as Divine, but add somgthing of their own inventions to it. The heathens renounced not the sacrificing of beasts for the expiation of their offences (which the old world had received by tradition from Adam, and the new world, after the deluge, from Noah). But they had blended that tradition with rites of their own, and offered creatures unclean in themselves, and not fit to be offered to an infinitely pure Being; for the distinction of clean and unclean was as ancient as Noah (Gen. 8:20), yea, before (Gen. 7:2).

     So the Jews did not discard what they had received from God, as circumcision, the Passover, and sacrifices; but they would mix a heap of heathenish rites with the ceremonies of Divine ordination, and practise things which he had not commanded, as well as things which he had enjoined them. And, therefore, it is observable, that when God taxeth them with sin, he doth not say, they brought in those things which he had forbidden into his worship; but those things which he had not commanded, and had given no order for, to intimate, that they were not to move a step without his rule (Jer. 7:31): “They have built the high palaces of Tophet, which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart;” and (Lev. 10:1); Nadab’s and Abihu’s strange fire was not commanded; so charging them with impudence and rashness in adding something of their own, after he had revealed to them the manner of his service, as if they were as wise as God. So loth is man to acknowledge the supremacy of Divine understanding, and be sensible of his own ignorance. So after the divulging of the gospel, the corruptors of religion did not fling off, but preserved the institutions of God, but painted and patched them up with pagan ceremonies; imposed their own dreams with as much force as the revelations of God.

     Thus hath the papacy turned the simplicity of the gospel into pagan pomp, and religion into politics; and revived the ceremonial law, and raked some limbs of it out of the grave, after the wisdom of God had rung her knell, and honorably interred her; and sheltered the heathenish superstitions in christian temples, after the power of the gospel had chased the devils, with all their trumpery, from their ancient habitations. Whence should this proceed, but from a partial atheism, and a mean deceit of the Divine wisdom? As though God had not understanding enough to prescribe the form of his own worship; and not wisdom enough to support it, without the crutches of human prudence. Human prudence is too low to parallel Divine wisdom; it is an incompetent judge of what is fit for an infinite Majesty. It is sufficiently seen in the ridiculous and senseless rights among the heathens; and the cruel and devilish ones fetched from them by the Jews. What work will human wisdom make with divine worship, when it will presume to be the director of it, as a mate with the wisdom of God! Whence will it take its measures, but from sense, humor and fancy? as though what is grateful and comely to a depraved reason, were as beautiful to an unspotted and Infinite Mind. Do not such tell the world, that they were of God’s cabinet council, since they will take upon them to judge, as well as God, what is well-pleasing to him?

     Where will it have the humility to stop, if it hath the presumption to add any one thing to revealed modes of worship? How did God tax the Israelites with making idols “according to their own understanding” (Hos. 13:2)! imagining their own understandings to be of a finer make, and a perfecter mould than their Creator’s; and that they had fetched more light from the chaos of their own brains, than God had from eternity in his own nature. How slight will the excuse be, God hath not forbidden this, or that, when God shall silence men with the question, Where, or when did I command this, or that? There was no addition to be made under the law to the meanest instrument God had appointed in his service. The sacred perfume was not to have one ingredient more put into it, than what God had prescribed in the composition; nor was any man upon pain of death to imitate it; nor would God endure that sacrifices should be consumed with any other fire than that which came down from heaven. So tender is God of any invasions of his wisdom and authority. In all things of this nature, whatsoever voluntary humility and respect to God they may be disguised with, there is a swelling of the fleshly mind against infinite understanding, which the apostle nauseates (Col. 2:18). Such mixtures have not been blessed by God: as God never prospered the mixtures of several kinds of creatures, to form and multiply a new species, as being a dissatisfaction with his wisdom as Creator; so he doth not prosper mixtures in worship, as being a conspiracy against his wisdom as a Lawgiver. The destruction of the Jews was judged by some of their doctors to be, for preferring human traditions before the written word; which they ground on (Isaiah 29:33): “Their fear for me was taught by the precepts of men.” The injunctions of men were the rule of their worship, and not the prescripts of my law. To conclude, such as make alterations in religion, different from the first institution, are intolerable busy bodies, that will not let God alone with his own affairs. Vain man would be wiser than his Maker, and be dabbling in that which is His sole prerogative.

The Existence and Attributes of God

Luke 8-9
Jon Courson

Luke 8:1-39
Jon Courson

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12-05-1990

Luke 8:40-9:25
Jon Courson

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12-12-1990

Luke 9:23-62
Jon Courson

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12-26-1990

Luke 8:1-21
Jon Courson

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03-12-2017

Luke 8:22-25
Jon Courson

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April 2, 2017

Luke 8:26-39
Jon Courson

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June 4, 2017

Luke 8:41-56
Picture Perfect Families
Jon Courson

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July 9, 2017

Luke 9:1-27
Jon Courson

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July 19, 2017

Luke 9:28-46
Jon Courson

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July 26, 2017

Jon Courson

Luke 8-9
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 8:1-21
The Challenge of Hearing
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 8:22-56
Trusting He who has all authority
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:1-17
How big is your God?
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:18-26
Denying Self
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:27-36
A Preview of the Kingdom of God
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:37-55
The Natural Man
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:57-62
Putting Jesus First
Paul LeBoutillier

Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 8-9
Brett Meador | Athey Creek

Brett Meador | Athey Creek

Luke 8:22-25
s2-459 | Why Become A Christian

click here
November 5, 2023

Luke 8
m2-468

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November 8, 20233

Luke 9:23-24
s2-460 | What Does It Mean To Take Up Your Cross?

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November 12, 2023

Luke 9
m2-469

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November 15, 2023

Brett Meador

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Lean-Into-God

Where Do You Lean?

10/27/2023 Yesterday Tomorrow

Luke 8 - 9

Luke 8

Luke 9

What I'm Reading

Living Reasonably in an Unreasonable Age

Ministering Women Luke 8:2-3

Grief and the Christian

Jesus Defeated Death

We Grieve with Hope

God Is with Us

Where Are You God?

Terms for the Covenant

How Do We Know Matthew Was the Author of the Gospel of Matthew?

What Is the Septuagint?

WHY SHOULD CHRISTIANS CARE ABOUT THE SEPTUAGINT?

The Septuagint

The Hebrew Bible

The Septuagint helps us better understand the New Testament

The Septuagint helps us better understand Jewish theology

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE SEPTUAGINT AND THE HEBREW OLD TESTAMENT

Jerusalem Was Jewish 1,300 Years Before Birth of Islam

Read The Psalms In "1" Year

Fox's Book Of Martyrs

The Continual Burnt Offering (Philippians 1:21)

October 27

Devotionals, notes, poetry and more

Luke 8:1-39 Jon Courson click here 12-05-1990

Luke 8:40-9:25 Jon Courson click here 12-12-1990

Luke 9:23-62 Jon Courson click here 12-26-1990

Luke 8:1-21 Jon Courson click here 03-12-2017

Luke 8:22-25 Jon Courson click here April 2, 2017

Luke 8:26-39 Jon Courson click here June 4, 2017

Luke 8:41-56 Picture Perfect Families Jon Courson click here July 9, 2017

Luke 9:1-27 Jon Courson click here July 19, 2017

Luke 9:28-46 Jon Courson click here July 26, 2017

Luke 8:1-21 The Challenge of Hearing Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 8:22-56 Trusting He who has all authority Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:1-17 How big is your God? Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:18-26 Denying Self Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:27-36 A Preview of the Kingdom of God Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:37-55 The Natural Man Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:57-62 Putting Jesus First Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 8:22-25 s2-459 | Why Become A Christian click here November 5, 2023

Luke 8 m2-468 click here November 8, 20233

Luke 9:23-24 s2-460 | What Does It Mean To Take Up Your Cross? click here November 12, 2023

Luke 9 m2-469 click here November 15, 2023

Israel At War Is the world spiraling into a WWIII? TV7 Israel News October 27, 2023

Luke 09 Paradox Principles for Life Gary Hamrick

The Demoniac Doug Greenwold | Preserving Bible Times

Christ Fulfills the Law John MacArthur

The Order of the Resurrection John MacArthur

Strength Perfected in Weakness John MacArthur

Fail-Proof Christian Ministry John MacArthur

Testimonies to the Resurrection John MacArthur

The Betrayed Christ Protects His Own John MacArthur

Shepherds' Conference 2016 - Session 1 John MacArthur

Jesus’ Unjust Trial, Peter’s Shameful Denial John MacArthur

Through Adam, Death John MacArthur

Through Christ, Life John MacArthur

The Eyewitness Account of Creation John MacArthur

Children, Obey Your Parents John MacArthur

Pastors Point Of View (PPOV) 275 Prophecy UpdateAndy Woods October 27, 2023

Lean-Into-God

Lean-Into-God

Luke 8:1-39
Jon Courson

click here
12-05-1990

Luke 8:40-9:25
Jon Courson

click here
12-12-1990

Luke 9:23-62
Jon Courson

click here
12-26-1990

Luke 8:1-21
Jon Courson

click here
03-12-2017

Luke 8:22-25
Jon Courson

click here
April 2, 2017

Luke 8:26-39
Jon Courson

click here
June 4, 2017

Luke 8:41-56
Picture Perfect Families
Jon Courson

click here
July 9, 2017

Luke 9:1-27
Jon Courson

click here
July 19, 2017

Luke 9:28-46
Jon Courson

click here
July 26, 2017

Luke 8:1-21
The Challenge of Hearing
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 8:22-56
Trusting He who has all authority
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:1-17
How big is your God?
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:18-26
Denying Self
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:27-36
A Preview of the Kingdom of God
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:37-55
The Natural Man
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 9:57-62
Putting Jesus First
Paul LeBoutillier

Luke 8:22-25
s2-459 | Why Become A Christian

click here
November 5, 2023

Luke 8
m2-468

click here
November 8, 20233

Luke 9:23-24
s2-460 | What Does It Mean To Take Up Your Cross?

click here
November 12, 2023

Luke 9
m2-469

click here
November 15, 2023

Israel At War
Is the world spiraling into a WWIII?
TV7 Israel News

October 27, 2023

Luke 09
Paradox Principles for Life
Gary Hamrick

The Demoniac
Doug Greenwold | Preserving Bible Times

Christ Fulfills the Law
John MacArthur

The Order of the Resurrection
John MacArthur

Strength Perfected in Weakness
John MacArthur

Fail-Proof Christian Ministry
John MacArthur

Testimonies to the Resurrection
John MacArthur

The Betrayed Christ Protects His Own
John MacArthur

Shepherds' Conference 2016 - Session 1
John MacArthur

Jesus’ Unjust Trial, Peter’s Shameful Denial
John MacArthur

Through Adam, Death
John MacArthur

Through Christ, Life
John MacArthur

The Eyewitness Account of Creation
John MacArthur

Children, Obey Your Parents
John MacArthur

Pastors Point Of View (PPOV) 275
Prophecy UpdateAndy Woods

October 27, 2023