Tag Archives: interesting scriptures

Especially those who believe

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1 Tim. 4:10 reads:

For to this end we toil and struggle, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe.

2 Tim. 4:13 reads:

When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments.

Oh and it is worth noting that though we have two different English phrases in the verses above (NRSV) that we only have the same phraseology in Greek:
especially: malista
above all: malista

Scriptures like this push me away from being in the exclusivist camp. I have hope (and I think because of what I read of the character of God, faith) that if Timothy would do his best to get as many books to Paul (?) God will do his ‘best’ to get as many people benefiting from Jesus’ death as possible.

How many will be saved (he is the Saviour of all)? Does the Scripture indicate potential, well unless one has a view of limited atonement that is not too controversial. Does it mean he will save / is saving all? A little more controversial.

The first Scripture above taken by itself is ambiguous, if the second Scripture helps us at any level with the interpretation then it gives us an optimism that the saving work of Christ will personally extend beyond those who are ‘believers’.

Certainly, for me, the future landscape (who will participate in the age to come / life of the New Jerusalem) is more complex than ‘only those who have prayed the sinner’s prayer’. And that raises another question – will all of those who have prayed that prayer participate?

Hebrews 2

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I was meditating on this scripture about freedom from the fear of death. I realise that I am about to take it in a way that is beyond the purpose in Hebrews yet the application I think works. (I have been so long since writing on ‘Interesting Scripture #…’ that I have dropped those titles.)

Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. (Heb. 2:14-15)

So we have a series here:

  • the devil who has the power of death – certainly not meaning the devil can come along and kill whoever he wishes – rather that death as a realm is the result of sin and therefore under the rule of the devil in that sense.
  • This results in slavery
  • The slavery is implemented through a fear of death

So this is where I am applying this Scripture. In a time of major shifts it will be brave people who have seen that self-preservation cannot be the way forward. They must be willing to trust in the God of resurrection to take them through, and I am thinking of this not at a personal level but at a corporate level. Where are those involved in the structures of society that know the dear of death / failure, the need to survive and succeed has been broken?

I was recently in a discussion about how do we know who we can work with for transformation. This was the text that came to mind. We need to find those who are not bound by fear of loss, nor are they committed to the preservation of the corporate. Slavery can only be broken by a refusal to submit to the call for corporate self-preservation. Otherwise we are serving the ‘it’ and will be found to be in slavery to a power greater than the ‘it’.

Interesting Scripture # 20

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Where do prophets go to die?

I love Sundays (and all other days) the day when Jesus rose, affirmed as Son of God by the Father, carrying human destiny out of the grave. I am so happy to be predestined in him and able to taste glory now. (No I don’t read interpretations into Paul’s phrases about predestination… seems simple to me: Jesus is the one who carries destiny, so in him I am destined.) But the Scriptures I have been mediating on are about where prophets are to die.

Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! (Luke 13: 33-34).

Earlier in Luke we read that Jesus set out resolutely to go to Jerusalem (Lk. 9:51). He was determined that his death was to take place in Jerusalem. The city that had sought to live above the prophetic (Jeremiah), and so now by the time of Jesus was opposed to the prophetic and killed prophets. Jesus said “because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem” (NRSV), yet Paul set his face to go to Rome, making his appeal to Caesar. He did not look, nor expect, to be killed in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem for Jesus and Rome for Paul

Both symbolise places of power, centres of control. Jerusalem symbolised religious power and Rome political and economic power. Jerusalem had lost its call, with the Temple falling under judgement as it was no longer a house of prayer for the nations. It was not a source for reconciliation but for division. Jerusalem was compromised (and the priesthood were very willing to sacrifice Jesus so that the Romans would allow them to keep the Temple). So in going to Jerusalem Jesus sets choices out very starkly. Choose him or maintain the status quo. His death though spells the end of that system – symbolised by the Temple curtain ripped in two.

So on to Paul… Interestingly his route to Rome is via Jerusalem. In Acts 21:11,12 Agabus gives Paul a word:

And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, this is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.” When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem.

He travels to Jerusalem but it is the catapult to get him to Rome. He refuses to go back to Jerusalem (Acts 25:1-3) but rather appeals to Caesar Acts 25:8-12 with the famous words “I appeal to Caesar”. Agrippa says that Paul had no case to answer to Caesar… and he was right. However, Paul knew that Caesar had a case to answer.

To shift economic and political power it is necessary that religious power is broken (see Ephesus – no city in the New Testament is shaken without the final sign being the shaking of economic power… en route religious power is confronted). Christianity was never designed to be a good state religion. How can it be? Our allegiance is not to a system, nor to a state, nor to a constitution. It is to Jesus alone.

So prophets had made pigrimages to Jerusalem where they were killed, culminating in the death of Jesus. All people (and prophets) must go there. If relgion can buy someone that is the end of the journey. But if they cannot be bought by that power, and although some damage can be done in Jerusalem, they should not stay focused there. That power is broken; there is no Temple curtain. The goal is the centre, that place that takes on the name ‘kingdom’ that offers success to the kings of this world, and total financial freedom to the merchants of the seas. Rome for Paul, Babylon in name to one and all.

Where are they to die post Jesus and Jersualem?

(A reminder to me to do some more videos on Revelation…) In Revelation 18:20 we read the answer to that:

And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on the earth.

A shift has taken place. Thank you Jesus: it is finished. You died never to die again.

Thank you also Paul. It is not finished… not yet.

Interesting Scriptures #19

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Been reading through Luke’s Gospel in the ol Español, and was very struck by the section – so won’t quote it all, from Luke 19:28-21:38. Not sure how it all fits together… but we have the entry to Jerusalem through to the Coming of the Son of Man. Seems to be some sort of mirroring:

The large central part begins with Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and ends with a prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem, he cleanses the Temple and ends up speaking of its destruction. Maybe somethign like the following?

A Weeps over Jerusalem

B Cleanses the Temple

C His authority to teach is challenged in the Temple

D Wicked tenants parable and the chief corner stone

E Render to God and render to Caesar

F Resurrection and the reality of the Living God

E Whose son is Christ – son of David?

D Scribes and how they devour widow’s houses

C Widows offering in the Temple

B Destruction of Temple foretold

A Destruction of Jerusalem foretold

Maybe there is the classic chiasmus in this passage. The part that struck me this morning was the following. What precipitates the Temple system coming down? We have Scribes who devour widow’s houses… end result is of course poor widows. Now one of those comes to the Temple and puts her money into it. What a picture! Religion robs her, and yet she is finding a way of expressing something of her faith in God through her sacrificial giving. (Is religion the opiate of the people, to quote a certain person; or does it touch the marginalised and give them some hope. Or, more likely does it do both. I write this as we approach a desperate week in Spain of ‘Holy week’ with endless processions and penance.)

Now here is my question – does her money into the system contribute to its downfall? As with Babylon – and we are also working our way (again) through the last book of our canon – does it have to have the life of the oppressed devoured within it to bring it down? There we read that it was the blood of the prophets and saints that was found in her. Jesus said that in the era that was to complete the law and prophets that no prophet could die outside of Jerusalem. Are those marginalised still being devoured in ‘Jerusalem’? Are we living in an era of not simply the façades opening up, but of systems of oppression coming down? And will they come down without – in her was found the 2 coins of the widow?

Interesting Scriptures #17

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And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11,12).

I grew up on this one, and am very grateful for that. The five-fold (or four-fold) ministry emphasis was something that shaped me. The church had to have the foundations laid by apostolic and prophetic ministry. I still believe this, and maintain that we need apostolic foundations to be laid in every generation. However, apostolic foundations are not laid where there is a building but where there is no building. Hence, Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles. He could not change the Gospel, but he had to determine under God how that Gospel would be applied in a new setting. Today, in the most rapidly changing world there is an urgent need for apostolic work.

So where do we expect to see apostles? Or maybe we need to ask if we will even ‘see’ them.

A second aspect – for I have labelled this an ‘interesting’ Scripture, is whether Paul intends us to understand two entities: a five-fold ministry and a body, or whether he is thinking that there is a body and the body is a five-fold ministry? Certainly later he lays out his vision, that ‘when each part is working properly, [this] makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.’ If he saw the ministry gifts as separate to the body he did not see this as his vision, so there is some weight to consider that he saw the body as being the five-fold ministry. If not – he at least saw the body as becoming the five-fold ministry.

And because I started with some comments about ‘apostles’ let me end with something I will need to pick up another time. How different a calling is from a title, and I am glad the writer of these Scriptures (laying on one side who the author actually was) did not describe himself as ‘Apostle Paul’.

Interesting Scripture(s) #16

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Tensions – yet again!!!

Scripture is such a challenge and then understanding how to interpret language (biblical and our own) so often leaves us with a tension. So I had a little dialogue recently (and a big one yesterday on another subject that is buzzing – but another time on that) via email about a very important aspect: spiritual mothers and fathers.

So the biblical tension:

And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ (Matt. 23:9).

For although you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (1 Cor 4:15).

Parents are not called to produce children
Maybe a Jesus / Paul tension? Maybe they are addressing slightly different aspects. Whatever our conclusion, it seems good when there is a tension in Scripture for it should at least slow us down, and make us very hesitant about launching into an understanding of this too quickly. So…

I was recently with a couple who have parented many, fostering, looking after asylum seekers, picking up people and releasing them. Maybe I could call them ‘parents / fathers / mothers’ and maybe we should not do so. But here are a few thoughts on some foundational issues:

The purpose of parents is not to produce children

If that is what happens we will only have a one-generational phenomenon. They are here to produce parents. God is not the God of (and excuse the masculine language) the God of father Abraham, son Isaac, and grandson Jacob; no, he is the God of father Abraham, father Isaac and father Jacob.

Seems so many ‘moves’ of God are short-lived. Institutionalism is not produced by a title but whenever a position is assumed. That position can be re-enforced by a title or ordination or whatever, but as soon as i am in a position above / beyond someone we are headed for problems. (And yes, honour is given to those who have walked ahead, but honour and inordinate loyalty are headed for a collision. If we cannot give a horizontal ‘no’ we will never be able to give an unreserved vertical ‘yes’.)

I had the wonderful privilege to live in a three-generational house, and I made it clear that if we struggled to get on then I would be the one to leave. The reason was simple: it was not about rights or wrongs, but about the future.

Second children are to produce parents

Maturity is relative. Eat dinner with a 2 year old and if some of her dinner ends on your pristine clothes don’t chide the child. Accept the level of maturity. Eat dinner with a 42 year old and if now your clothes are splattered with her food, take note she has a problem. There might be less food spilt but the expectation is rightly higher: maturity is relative.

I am convinced that as I gain a few years that I have to be more flexible, more willing to leave the past, more willing to risk than ever before. Otherwise how can I be growing in maturity?

So I also think that ‘children’ have to provoke parents. Some of that will be through: ‘no we won’t relate like this’… children have to force parents to grow up and to let go. Compliance and submission are not bed-fellows.

I am not too sure how to reconcile the Jesus / Paul statements. I am uncomfortable with a lot of ‘fathering’ (and it is normally masculine language) language. But we need those who aspire to be totally willing to parent the orphan and to be parented by those who quickly mature and force us to keep moving on.

Interesting Scripture #15

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For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.
1 Tm. 4:10
Intriguing and provocative is this Scripture. Into the debate on Universalism it is certainly one to be grappled with. What does it mean ‘all people’ and then what is the significance of the contrast with ‘especially’. We have the same language in 2 Tim. 4:13 ‘bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all (same word: especially) the parchments.’

The logical implication of the latter Scripture is bring the books, as many as you can, and if you leave any behind make sure you do not leave the parchments behind. They must be brought, and pack the case full with as many others as possible. So if there is a parallel based on the same language, I guess we could suggest the following possibilities.

Those who believe are saved… and maybe there is room for some to be ‘brought’ along as well… but that there is the possibility that all cannot be ‘brought’ along.

So inconclusive, provocative as so much of the Bible is. Some years ago I came across the following 2 statements, and have found them helpful and seem to accord with the Scripture we are looking at:

  • all who receive Christ are saved
  • all who reject Christ are lost

But do those two statements include the entire human race?

or, perhaps we could suggest that we have to lean toward: all are saved except for those who reject Christ, rather than all are lost except for those who receive Christ.

Interesting Scripture #14

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You have also heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not break your vows; you must carry out the vows you make to the Lord.’ But I say, do not make any vows! Do not say, ‘By heaven!’ because heaven is God’s throne… Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one.
Matthew 5:33-37.
So much of the Sermon on the Mount seemed like new laws when I used to read them. And the approach to the material was a big divide between the Anabaptist and Reformers. The former taking them seriously and many times as law, the latter (a little overstated here) ignoring the stringent demands they pose.

Not swearing an oath. I served on a jury in a UK court once and it was very interesting. 10 swore on the Bible, while I and an atheist asked to affirm!!

A few months earlier I had the opportunity to question an Anabaptist (Alan Kreider) about this Scripture, and he certainly put a different slant on it for me, which led to me taking the position I did with respect to jury service.

He said as a follower of Jesus, consider the following: You are under his authority. You have to be known as a ‘truth-teller’, your ‘yes’ has to be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ a ‘no’. If there is any discrepancy then you are denying your discipleship calling. If the way to enforce your honesty is to swear on something – including the Bible – then you are in danger of denying the authority you claim to live under.

That put a whole new perspective on it all. And a whole new challenge with respect to following Christ. I know there can be counter arguments. What kind of vow did Paul take, for example. But for me since that time I want to be clear that only Jesus has my allegiance – no denomination, no expression of the body, no nation, nothing. As a citizen of heaven his Lordship relatives everything else, including swearing oaths.

I believe: sin is not good

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These are not deep systematic theology posts, but an attempt to put down some core beliefs. Jesus died for our sins, and through his death I am saved. But defining sin? That is a challenge. ‘He will save his people from their sins’ (Matt. 1:21) is not a general evangelical Scripture but a very specific Scripture into the people of Israel who need deliverance from Exile, so that God might return to be with them again. Sin is breaking the law – but what law(s)? After all the law – in all its forms – was given to Israel within the context of their covenant. And of course there is a continuation, but we cannot simply draw an unbroken line.

So let me take another tack. To sin is to miss the mark, it is to never discover the reason for which we are born (Walter Wink is someone who suggests this take on the word). I like that approach. The core tragedy is that we are made for God, and to reflect his glory. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. From this waywardeness Jesus has saved us. Saved us from the alienation we experience, first at the vertical / heavenly level with respect to God; then the alienation at a horizontal level.

This seems to accord well with the opening chapters of Genesis. Alienation: God / human; male / female; earth / people; familiar discord and murder; angelic / human; national / language strife.

Then God called Abraham. Walk a different path. Be an alien in the land. Become an outpost of heaven. Be a light to the nations… Then comes Jesus, and in his light we begin to see again. We can enter through his death – because his death is our death – into reconciled life. We begin on the journey of discovering the reason for which we were born.

Interesting Scripture #13

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Now the whole earth had one language and one speech… Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
Gen 11:1-7

This very interesting take on this Scripture I heard from a wonderful guy in Sweden who is working in city development. He was not exegeting the text, simply using it to illustrate a point, and one that made an impact on me.

The inevitable result of towers that are built is the confusion of language. As soon as there is a distance between people on the vertical scale language will suffer. Communication will go. Hierarchy confuses language, because language itself is taken captive with the result of raising some and lowering others.

The language at the top of the tower is one language, at the bottom another. The reversal of course is at Pentecost:
“we hear, each of us in our own native language?”

Interesting Scripture #12

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In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up…
Acts 1:1,2
All that Jesus began to do and to teach. The Gospel record is not a record of what he did, but simply the start of what he is doing. (Although there is a translation that suggests something along the lines of this being a record ‘from the beginning’ of what he did and taught, the structure seems clear: ‘erxato ho iesous poiein’ with Jesus as the subject of the verbal phrase: began to do…)

So this is indeed a challenge. From birth to ascension is only the beginning of his work and teaching. The clear implication is that if Theophilus is to read this second volume he will read about Jesus and his continuing ministry of acts and speech. Makes sense of the voice of Jesus to Saul of Tarsus:

Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?

The identification between Master and disciples is intimate. This is why my preferred term for the community of faith is the ‘body of Christ’. Not simply body ministry within the confines of building and set times, but with the provocation for the body to do as Jesus did, and to teach as he did. Jesus only doing what he saw his Father doing and saying what he heard him say.

A daily provocation is this Scripture. A godly person said to Gayle one day… ‘eventually you will end up doing what we are doing,’ meaning by that a Sunday service, cells for discipleship and the like. Well maybe. But let’s all accept that as a compromise, maybe a necessary one for the time being. But let’s not accept that was the direction we were expected to move in when the opening verse of the post-ascension to pre-parousia book was written.

Great days ahead. Let any necessary compromises simply be temporary.

Interesting Scripture #11

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Understanding some Scriptures are very personal and this is one such text. In 2004, Sue had been diagnosed with cancer and I remember the time when a group of people were about to pray for her. Before the prayed she said: I do not want you praying for me to stop me dying, for we are all dying. I want you to pray for me if you discern that I want to live.

I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.
Deut. 30:19.
The first part shocked me – as she said it I thought of course we will pray to stop you dying, but as she continued this scripture came to mind. It does not say ‘avoid death and you will live’, but choose life. In choosing life we often have to embrace death. Jesus words to the (married) couple on the way to Emmaus calling them to grasp that he had to suffer and then enter into his glory (Luke 24:26).

The big picture of life and death, but the daily choices we make. Avoidance or choice? Avoid trouble for a good life, or choosing life, maybe with many inconveniences, but finding a rich reward.

A few months ago I had a dream in which I along with a few others were captured. We were to be fed into a machine by these guards. At a moment my chains along with an older person next to me fell off. I paused for a moment thinking what is the right thing to do. But said to him, come let’s get out of here, we have been freed, but you must not run because of a fear of death – otherwise you will not be safe.

This was very profound. There is a time not to confront certain things – see Paul not going into the riot in Ephesus, or being let down in a basket to escape from the city. But the motivation is not the preservation of our lives, it cannot be in reaction to fear.

When to confront, when to walk away? Choose life. The choice is not motivated by self-preservation. (While watching the New Orleans flooding I said, ‘Lord how do we minimise the loss of life in these situations’. I did not expect a reply, but as clear as an audible voice could be I heard: when the church lives at the level of self-preservation it will release a loss of life into the community’.) In choosing life we might confront and die. In the life of Paul there came a point where he made some strong choices, even against advice. Choosing life led him into prison, and probable death in Rome.

Yes we are all dying, so we choose life.