TILL HE COMES Blog

The trick to writing a book, I’m discovering, is not in figuring out what to say, but rather, figuring out what not to say. Often, too much needs to be said, but not all of it can (or should) go into a book.

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Book Update: I’m having troubling making headway on chapter 2. It’s evolving into a beast. It looks like I will need to make it two chapters, which means the intro I have already posted will actually be the intro for chapter 3 (If I end up keeping it at all…). Also, I am rethinking the entire first chapter. I fear it might be too…condemning. I want to say what I think and feel, but do it in a loving way. However, I don’t want to be bland and boring. If I write, I want to keep myself interested as well as the reader. That first chapter had a little kick to it. I probably won’t know what to do with it until the book is finished. So anyway, I may repost the intro to the new chapter 2 soon.

On Life. We’re moving. That’s a chore. I think by our last count, it’s twelve moves in twelve years. Or is it thirteen now?

I’m refreshing my Greek and Hebrew by teaching it some guys at work. I figured I put all that time and tears into learning the languages, I should keep them up. I’m actually getting tutored in Hebrew by a Jewish fellow, and we are planning on reading Genesis together, and then move over to the Gospel of John (yes, in Hebrew). I found it for FREE at http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/docs/13_GinsburgHebrewNT.pdf

Speaking of John, I continue to read it with Jamie and Bill. We had the craziest discussion last night from John 13. I tell you, if you have never read Scripture with somebody who has never read it before, you are missing out. Be warned though…you must be ready for foul language, coarse jokes, and heretical ideas. But friendships develop, and we get to talk about Jesus. Awesome.

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Mike and Gina Makidon are friends of ours from Texas. They are headed for Guatemala as missionaries, and as you may (or may not) remember, Guatemala has a special place in the hearts of Wendy and I. We tried to adopt a little girl from there, but the country stopped all adoptions before we could bring her home. It was heart-wrenching for us.

Anyway, I am thrilled that Mike and Gina are headed there. Mike is starting a newsletter and a blog, and I encourage all of you to go on over and check it out. He is currently posting some great insights from the book of Jonah.

Here is the link: Spirit and Truth Blog.

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I believe that God can (and does) perform miracles in this world at various times and places, often (but not always) in response to the prayers of His people.

However, as followers of Jesus, we need to realize that God often wants to work in and through us in “non-miraculous” ways, which are actually quite miraculous. It all depends on our Spirit-inspired creatively and our definition of a “miracle.” Let me give some examples.

Many churches pray for God to heal people who have cancer. But maybe God wants you and your church to love and entertain children who have cancer. Or maybe God wants you to set up free medical clinics for cancer victims in your community. Or maybe you can offer help to people who smoke and eat too much cancer-causing foods.

Many churches have building funds, and ask the people to pray about how much God wants them to give to it. But maybe, rather than pay for a new church building, God wants you to feed the poor in your community. The average church building costs at least $1,000,000. Do you know how many people that would feed? At $10 per meal, that’s 100,000 people you could feed! Not even Jesus fed that many!

Maybe, rather than praying for God to miraculously keep troubled marriages together, you can set up free marriage counseling through your church, which includes things like free babysitting, budgeting help, anger management, conflict resolution, and other things that married couples struggle with. For a couple in trouble, another couple offering to help is a miracle.

Maybe, rather than praying for God to bring people to your church to fill the pews on Sunday morning, you can go to their houses and change the oil in their car, mow their lawn, or help replace shingles on the roof.

These are just a few ideas. The possibilities for miracles in your community are endless. But most often, they don’t occur by praying for them. Pray if you want to, but I say, “Stop praying for miracles, and just go be one.” It’s true…maybe you can’t feed 500 people…but you can feed one, and you will be a miracle to that person.

This post is based on the Grace Commentary for Luke 4:31-37.

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Ingrown toenails are painful. They make it difficult to walk and wear shoes.

There is also such a thing as an ingrown gospel, and it is just as painful.

The gospel, by its very nature, demands input from outside and demands to be put out in culture. If your gospel is not taking you out into the world to love, serve, and befriend those who would not “fit” in your church, and if you never allow someone from the outside to criticize or challenge your life, or your church, you have an ingrown gospel.

And if you are never taking the gospel into other cultures, settings, and situations to see how the gospel both transforms and redeems that culture,  and is itself transformed by the culture, you have an ingrown gospel.

For many Christians, the gospel is only about their own salvation. They know they are saved because they have believed in Jesus for eternal life, and while they wait to get swept up into heaven at death or the rapture, they sit around with painted smiles, singing hymns and attending church. Such a life is not a gospel life. This is not being a gospel light, but gospel lite. If the light is the gospel, the church has become a basket, not to carry it in, but to hide it from the world (see Matt 5:15).

The first step to correcting an ingrown gospel is similar to correcting an ingrown toenail. You gotta dig it out, which can be painful.  One way to dig out the gospel is to invite input from the outside. We must invite criticism. Painful, harsh, criticism. Allow it to be anonymous even, if that will make it more honest. I know churches that actually pay atheists and people of other religions to attend their church and write a critical report of their visit. Maybe you could bring in Christians from another church tradition or from the other side of the world to come and find fault with how your church is accomplishing (or not accomplishing) your mission.

Once the criticism is received, we must not respond angrily in self-defense, but must move outside our borders, and take the gospel to others. We must bless, love, serve, encourage, heal, and restore.

This entire process is seen in Luke 4:18-30. Jesus taught the gospel in 4:18-21. He then corrected the people on how they were not accomplishing it (4:23-27). The goal, of course, was to challenge them to become participants with Him in being a blessing to the world (cf. Bailey 2008:166). Instead, they tried to kill Him (4:28-30).

How do we respond to critics? Could it be that they are right? Has it ever occurred to us that the voice of the critics may actually be the voice of Jesus?

This post is based on the Grace Commentary for Luke 4:20-30.

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Luke 4:16-19 may be my favorite passage in the entire Bible. It is certainly a key text in Luke, and, I would argue, a key text for understanding Scripture.

In it, Jesus explains His mission. He explains what He intends to do in His ministry. If you and I are followers of Jesus, we need to soak our lives in these verses so we can follow these same principles.

Many churches, Christians, and religious leaders “spiritualize” these verses so that they only deal with realities of the Spirit and the afterlife. I believe this is wrong. Jesus was not concerned only with the spiritual side of people, and neither should we. While He did help meet the deep spiritual needs of people, He was also concerned with their physical, psychological, and emotional needs. Luke 4:16-19 deals with all of these.

If we are His followers, we will focus on such things as well.

But it doesn’t mean you have to do exactly the same things Jesus did in exactly the same way. He performed supernatural miracles, whereas, we may perform the same miracles, but through science or technology. We can work to accomplish the same things Jesus accomplished – healing the sick, setting captives free, giving sight to the blind, giving liberty to the captives – but using different methods.

Most Christians are quite uncreative when it comes to “living as Jesus lived.” We see him feed 5000 people and so if we want to “follow Jesus” we think that we have to get five loaves and two fishes, and pray over them until a miracle happens. But that’s not true at all. We can still feed 5000 people, or 50,000, or 500,000 people, simply by living less selfish lives, and being more generous with our money.

For example, let’s say you spend $5 per day on Starbucks coffee and $2 for a scone. Right there you have your five loaves and two fish.

That $7 a day doesn’t seem like much. But over a work week, it comes to $35. Through an organization like Compassion International, you can feed and teach a child in a third world country for $35 per month. So with the money you save, you could give three meals a day (and a biblical education) to four children every month. Over the course of just one year, that is 4320 meals. Jesus fed 5000 people, and we call it a miracle. Each one of us can do almost the same miracle every year for the rest of our lives, simply by giving up our five loaves and two fish (coffee and a danish).

This is just one example. With a little bit of creative thinking and self-sacrifice, we could come up with similar miracles in health, finances, and education. We can accomplish the same things as Jesus did, or even greater things (John 14:12)!

This post is based on the Grace Commentary for Luke 4:16-19.

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In a previous post I wrote about how the parables of Jesus were intended to hide truth rather than reveal it. We looked at some reasons why Jesus taught this way.

But a follow-up question remains. If Jesus told parables, and parables were cryptic, can we say that the primary teaching method of Jesus was to confuse people rather than teach them? No, we cannot say that. Though disguising truth was why He told parables, parables were not the primary teaching method of Jesus. He spoke in parables to certain people, for certain occasions, to accomplish certain purposes, when teaching about certain truths.

But every other time Jesus taught, He used what some might call an “expository method.” Jesus taught through books of the Bible. The gospels reveal that nearly every week of His ministry, on the Sabbath, Jesus could be found in the synagogue, teaching the Bible to those who had gathered to hear it. We often don’t realize Jesus did this. We tend to think He just wandered about from place to place, healing people, and telling stories on mountain tops.

But the reality is that those are a few isolated incidents. His miracles and parables in the countryside get recorded and get the most attention because they were what made His ministry memorable. But nevertheless, every week, Jesus was in the synagogue, teaching the Word of God.

And how did He teach in the synagogue? Well, we know from the Bible and from many other sources that the teacher would pick a section of Scripture, would stand and read it, then sit and explain it. Jesus does this in Luke 4:16ff, Luke 6:6ff, Luke 13:10ff and many other places.

And the typical method of synagogue teaching was book by book, verse by verse. Typically, when Jewish Rabbis taught the Torah, they taught it straight through (cf. Neh 8:8), and this is probably how Jesus taught (cf. Luke 4:16-21; 4:31; 6:6; 13:10). Jesus “took the Old Testament Scriptures, read them, explained them, and caused the people to understand them” (Pentecost 1981:137). This practice was also used by the early church (Acts 2:42; 13:14-15; 14:1-3; 15:21; 18:4; 19:8-10; etc.). John Lightfoot records that the one who taught this way was often referred to as “an interpreter,” and the teaching as an “interpretation” (Lightfoot 1989:68; cf. 1 Cor 12:10; 14:26). This is partly because the readings were in Hebrew, while some of those in the synagogue may have only understood Greek or Aramaic. So the text was read in Hebrew, then if an interpreter was present, it would be interpreted into a language everyone could understand, and then explained and taught so it could be understood and applied. This is what Jesus did in the synagogues He visited.

Jesus taught the Scriptures every week. He read the text, explained the text, applied the text. There is no better way of understanding God and His Word.

This post is based on the Grace Commentary for Luke 4:14-15.

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Most preachers and pastors use up a large portion of their sermon with story telling and illustrations. They say that doing so makes the message more memorable and enjoyable. And besides, “Jesus told stories, and so should we.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to get annoyed at all the illustrations, stories, and witty jokes that pepper most sermons today. I want something solid to chew on and think over. If I want entertainment, I can watch a movie. And frankly, I can’t remember a single sermon story I’ve heard…let alone the sermons they went with. So for me, stories don’t make the sermon more enjoyable or memorable. But that’s just me. I understand that for lots of people, stories do help keep their attention and remember what is said. So I won’t argue with these reasons for using stories in sermons.

But I have to disagree with the idea that “Jesus told stories and so should we.”

Certainly, Jesus told stories. There’s not denying that. The Gospels are full of stories that Jesus told. We call them ‘parables.” But the Gospels also reveal that these parables were told, not to reveal truth, but to conceal it. He spoke in parables to keep people confused.

How do we know this is why Jesus told parables? Because He said so. His disciples didn’t understand most of what Jesus said either, and so one time they asked Him why He spoke in parables. His answer? “So that in seeing, they will not see, and in hearing, they will not understand” (Luke 8:10).

Why would Jesus do this? He goes on to explain to His disciples that He wants them to understand what He says, as well as anybody else who comes to Him for an explanation of His parables. In other words, Jesus wants to disciple people…especially those who realized they didn’t know it all. He provided a clear explanation of His parables to those who asked Him.

And just in case we get the idea that we should start preaching nonsense sermons, we must understand that most of the time, Jesus taught through books of the Bible. We’ll get into how we know this in the next post.

But for now, just realize that if you are ever confused about what you read in the Bible – especially with the teachings and parables of Jesus – you are in good company. In some ways, the Bible was meant to be confusing. This is so that it keeps us humble, and none of us can fully understand or grasp all of it. It keeps us coming back to God for insight, understanding, and wisdom. Not knowing it all keeps us coming back for more. It keeps us dependant upon God, coming daily to sit at His feet and learn.

Are you confused by a passage or concept in Scripture? Tell God. Ask Him to teach you. Come before Him in prayer and with an open Bible saying, “Teach me wonderful things from your Word.”

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When it comes to ministry, most churches don’t think past their parking lot.

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William Barclay, in his commentary on the Gospel of Luke (1975:42-44), records three temptations that pastors face which are parallel to the three temptations of Jesus. Pastors are tempted:

1. To bribe people with meeting their physical needs.
2. To compromise for pragmatism – the end justifies the means.
3. To give people sensations and shows.

I agree that all three are temptations in pastoral ministry, and many churches and pastors around the world have succumbed to such temptations.

I would however, slightly change the first. Jesus wasn’t tempted to make bread for others, but for Himself. It was a temptation to meet His own physical needs. Pastors face this temptation all the time. How many of us have heard this whispered in our ear: “Your private life doesn’t matter. Image is everything. Do what you want behind closed doors. Nobody is going to see.  What you do in private does not effect who you are in public.”

Or, we assert our personal rights: “I have a right to eat and take care of myself. I prove my manhood by my rights. As a leader, I have rights to certain privileges, a certain salary, a certain level of respect.” Such things are not wrong; but they are not rights either.  

So those are some of the temptations that pastors face. The way we combat them is by recognizing that as followers of Jesus, we have no rights. He surrendured His rights, and in following Him, we surrender ours as well.

This post was based on the Grace Commentary for Luke 4:1-13.

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