THE BIBLE SPEAKS
By
GWTW
Background Scripture:
1 Corinthian 12:3-21; Ephesians 4:1-16.
Devotional
1 Corinthians
12:4-20.
If you are old enough, some of you
may remember that “GWTW” was the acronym for the epic motion picture, “Gone
With The Wind.” Even if you were not yet born when it premiered in 1939, you
probably have seen the movie, read the book or at least heard of it.
The title refers to what happened
when our nation disintegrated in a monstrous, bloody Civil War, that like a
mighty hurricane devastated our land and its peoples. Although the war itself
lasted only four years, the brokenness has lasted 140 years and is still healed
only in part.
Christians have been involved in our own spiritual civil war that has
lasted for millennia, dividing followers of Jesus into warring factions that
bring shame to the Good News of Jesus Christ. The unity to which Ephesians
testifies is gone with the winds of congregational factions and denominational
schisms, demonstrating to the world a fractured body of Christ.
WINDS OF DOCTRINE
Ephesians is read in every Christian church, but we do not pay much
attention to its admonition to “attain
to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature
manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; so that we
may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind
of doctrine” (Eph.. 4:13,14). It’s not the understanding, but the doing
of it that is the hard part.
Actually, it is “hard” only because there is something in human nature
that thrives on dissention and division. A chronic illness confined an elderly
Scotsman to his house. Daily he sank closer to death, until, one day, his wife
came saying, “Och, the minister’s here from the kirk to pray with you.” With a
surprising burst of energy, the man bellowed, “I dinna want to pray with him, I
want to argue with him!”
Given the choice, many would choose argument instead of prayer.
Argumentation is often the fruit of prideful ego, arrogance and hostility, a
contradiction to our calling as Christians: “I… beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been
called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another
in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”(4:1-3).
ONE !
We may delight in the “otherness” that separates us from other Christians
and we may seek out isolated texts to justify our divisions, but Ephesians
drives home the unity of our calling: “There
is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that
belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of
us all…” (4:4-6). Don’t try to justify dissention on the writer’s
reference to “one faith,” because in the New
Testament “faith” rarely means “creed” or “mental
belief,” referring not to what the mind is thinking, but to the commitment of
mind, body and spirit in which we entrust ourselves to God..
The late Thomas Merton once wrote: “”I hope I
will be able to give up controversy some day…When one gets older…one realizes
the futility of a life wasted in argument, when it should have been given
entirely to love.” Our experiences of Christ may vary greatly, our means of
expressing his power in our lives may be spoken in many different words, but
the love that binds us to him must also bind us to one another.
His Church is meant to be the one
shining example in the world of a people widely divergent, obviously unalike,
who, nevertheless, despite the winds of apparent differences can live and work
together in love and humility for the sake of something much bigger and more
ultimate than their individual egos and differences.
THE BIBLE SPEAKS
By
HOLIER
THAN THOU
Background Scripture:
Galatians 2:11—3:29.
Devotional
Romans 10l5-17.
Fresh from seminary, I believed that a
true Christian congregation would be a spiritual sanctuary free of strife. In
reading the Book of Acts, I had paid attention only to the positive depictions
of congregational life. Both Acts and Paul’s letters, however, depict the early
churches with good times and bad, love and conflict, unity and division. Like
ours.
These conflicts involved, not just a few disgruntled souls, but also some
top leaders, namely Peter and Paul. Their dispute was not a trivial matter, so “… when Cephas (Peter) came to
“Condemned” because, contrary to
his expectations, at Joppa Peter had witnessed God bestowing the gift of the
Holy Spirit on the Gentiles and he acknowledged: “…but God has shown me that I should not call any man common or
unclean” (Acts 10:28).
PETER DREW BACK
Because of Peter’s testimony, the
leaders in
Still, when various
Jewish Christians visited the church at
The followers of Christ who were Jews had been taught that they were of
the chosen people of God and they still practiced the various forms of Jewish
religious life, including circumcision. One of the consistent themes in the Old
Testament is the conviction that God will save the people of
GRACE,
NOT MERIT
Paul’s dispute with Peter was not just a
matter of Jewish and Gentile customs, of differences in lifestyle. The heart of
the dispute was the unspoken but well understood and shared assumption that
Jewish Christians were on a higher plane of righteousness than Gentiles. The
problem was not that they continued to live by the laws of
justified”
(Eph.
2:16). Both the Jewish Christians who lived by the law and the Gentiles
Christians who did not were dependent, not upon the law, but the grace of God.
Paul is not saying that the Jewish Christians
should no longer live by their laws, but that they should not expect either
that they would be saved by doing so or that they were superior to Gentile
Christians who did not. So, then, what’s the good of the law? Simply, the law
can teach us what is right and what is wrong, but it cannot save us. It is like
a doctor who can run tests and diagnose our illness, but who is not authorized
to treat us. He and the law can tell us what is right and wrong, but neither
can heal us and make us whole.
We are not saved by being conservatives or
liberals, by being Protestants or Roman Catholics, by believing in the “real
presence” of Christ in Holy Communion or his “spiritual presence,” by baptizing
infants or adults only, by identifying “the Word of God” as the Bible or as
Christ himself. As William Barclay puts it, “If we are all children of God, we
must be one family.” For we “are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal.
3:28).
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THE BIBLE SPEAKS
By
BALD-FACED SECRETS
Background Scripture:
Philippians 3:3—4:9.
Devotional
Psalms 46
For about twenty years, Valere and I led
seminars on “stress management.” After one of them, a man told us that the
principles were some of the most profound and practical he had ever
encountered. Asked about their source, I replied, “Well, most of them have come
from the New Testament. And they are secrets only because people often do not
take them seriously.”
Paul’s letter to the Philippians, one of
his briefest, might well be sub-titled “Principles of joyful Christian living” and it is particularly compelling because he wrote
it from prison, hardly a setting for joy. Joyful Christian living is not
dependent upon what happens to us, but upon how we perceive and respond to what
happens to us.
Paul couldn’t help being behind bars,
but he had the opportunity to choose his attitude: “I want you to know, brethren,
that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that
it has become known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to all the rest
that my imprisonment is for Christ” (1:12). Incredibly, he saw every
adversity as an opportunity to witness. So, “Rejoice in the Lord always:
again I will say, Rejoice” (4:4). Not just when things are fine, but
ALWAYS! Joy is an attitude, not a
circumstance.
IT’S ALL
TRASH!
Paul’s religious pedigree is impressive. Still, he
exclaims, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed
I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord…I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse,
in order that I may gain Christ…” (3:5-8). Christ above all else..
Paul’s one supreme good is “that
I may know him and the power of his resurrection…” (3:10). He had been
trying to achieve a right relationship with God through accomplishments, but
none of these add up to what he is seeking. No matter how we compute it, our assets
never add up to what is necessary for the joy of God’s grace
So the Christian life is not a matter of
climbing a mountain so that you enjoy the view from the top.” Not
that I have already obtained this or an already perfect; but I press on to make
it my own.” The Christian life is not one of becoming perfect, but
pressing ever onward to perfection. And “forgetting what lies behind and straining
forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the
upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (3:12-14).
IT’S
YOUR CHOICE!
There are two gods from which we must choose:
the one is the God revealed in Jesus Christ who bids us take up our crosses and
follow him. But there are those who make another choice: “Their end is destruction, their
God is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly
things” (3:19). In the midst of the current economic crisis, I have
heard an economist say that the basic cause of our distress is that we as
individuals and as a nation have not learned to live within our means. Our
appetite for “earthly things” is insatiable.
Life is filled with both positives and
negatives. Both are real, so the only question is: on which of these we will
focus your life. Focus on the negative and your life will be negative. It is you
choice and your right, so choose!
“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever
is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is
any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these
things…and the God of peace will be with you” (4:8,9). Those are
just some of the bald-faced secrets in Paul’s letter to the Philippians..
THE BIBLE SPEAKS
By
ARE YOU
THE MISSING LINK?
Background Scripture:
2 Timothy 2:1-3; 4:1-5.
Devotional
Acts 4:13-20.
The writer of 2 Timothy speaks of the
links in Timothy’s faith: “I am
reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt faith in your grandmother
Lois and your mother Eunice and no, I am sure, dwells in you” (1:5).
I don’t personally know or have ever
heard of anyone who received his or her Christian faith without the help or
influence of someone else. That applies
even to Paul, who attributed his conversion to the dramatic experience on the
road to
As a child, I do not remember ever not
knowing there was a God, but it was my parents who told me what to call him. In
time, I attended a church that, if it didn’t contribute to my faith, at least
didn’t detract from it. Later, at the invitation of one of my junior high
teachers, I joined the choir of a United Church of Christ where he was organist
and choir director.
FUN & FAITH
Some months later, the girl I was dating told me about the great youth
fellowship at the church she attended,
There have been additional experiences,
people and influences that have helped to shape my faith, including Faith At
Work, The Order of St. Luke, the New Life Clinic, Spiritual Frontiers
Fellowship and the East Harlem Protestant Parish. All of these were links in my
chain of faith. As for people who influenced my faith,: there are far too many
to name here...
I urge you to take some time to think
about the links in your own religious experience. Who were the people who
influenced you spiritually? What were the experiences that were influential in
the formation of your faith? But equally important, ask yourself: how have I
contributed to or influenced the faith of others?
RECEIVE & TRANSMIT
Timothy was a young pastor, so it was understood that his ministry should
be one of transmitting the faith. But all followers of Jesus Christ have that
same responsibility through
means other than
preaching. Sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ is not an optional activity
for Christians who seem to like “that kind of thing.” We cannot all be
preachers and teachers in the more formal sense of the terms, but we can all be
links by which the gospel is witnessed.
Have you ever thought about the people who have transmitted faith to you?
Have you ever told anyone about your faith experience? And, if there doesn’t
seem to be much to tell, is that not a wakeup call find some way in which you
are not only a receiver but also a transmitter?
The writer to Timothy is speaking not
only to a young pastor, but to all of us who follow Christ: “You then… be strong in the grace that is in
Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to
faithful men (and women) who will be able to teach others also.” (2:1).
To be a Christian means to be a receiver and a transmitter.
So, have you been a faith link for others, or are you a link that is
missing?
THE BIBLE SPEAKS
By
STRENGTH
AND
WEAKNESS
Background Scripture:
2 Corinthians 11:16--12:10.
Devotional
1 Corinthians
1:18-25.
Our scripture passage is intriguing one
because of Paul’s use of satire to get across his message. There is a sarcastic
playfulness about his words, but nevertheless a deep seriousness, too. In 2
Corinthians 11 and 12 he uses the word “boast’ twelve times, one of them in the
past tense. He speaks of being or being thought a “fool” five times and twice
as “foolish.” “Weaknesses” are mentioned four times and “weakness” twice. All
of these negative terms he applies to himself, although he is probably merely
repeating what others may have said of him.
There has been dissention in the Corinthian church and he is making his
defense by using the very terms they have used against him. So, although some
of the Corinthians may have spoken of him as “boastful,” Paul is not really
boasting when he defends his authority as an apostle and recounts the suffering
with which he has carried out his work (11:22-28).
He is simply telling what his work
has cost him personally: imprisonments, beatings, shipwrecks, perilous days at
sea, danger from robbers, rivers, Gentiles, Jews, false brethren, sleepless
nights, hunger and exposure to the cold. No, Paul is not boasting, but
testifying, for he was able to endure all these things, not because he is a
strong and brave man in the popular sense, but because he is a servant of the
Almighty God.
THE WISE FOOL
His
detractors believed these experiences were evidence of Paul’s weakness, but he
saw them as evidences of the strength given him by God. That’s the problem with
our concepts of “strength” and “weakness.” Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jar
appeared to be weak, but, although they were struck down by assassins, their
strength continues among us. Jesus was perceived to be weak, but he proved to
be stronger than them all.
So, when Paul says he may be boasting,
he is instead testifying. When he speaks of being weak, he is witnessing to his
dependence upon the strength of God. And when he admits to foolishness, he is
referring only to the world’s habit of misinterpreting true wisdom.
His detractors have claimed experiences
of divine revelation. But Paul relates an ecstatic experience that he can
barely describe. This is his only mention of it in his letters, nor does the
Book of Acts recount it. Paul mentions it here only to refute the claims of his
detractors.
THE STRONG WEAKLING
Paul evidently had some condition in his
life that he believed God had sent t him to keep him humble. There are many
speculations as to the precise nature of this “thorn in the flesh.”
But with this
problem God was able to teach him one of the most important lessons of
Christian discipleship: “Three times I
besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, ‘My
grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” In
the midst of our own weakness we can discover the power which alone is able to
see us through. .It is the grace of God alone that gives us the power to walk
faithfully through the valley of the shadow of death. Not our strength but
God’s faithful presence,
Our real strength then is the
unconquerable power of God’s grace. So Paul, and we, can testify:” For the sake of Christ, then, I am content
with weaknesses, insults, hardship, persecutions and calamities; for when I am
weak, I am strong” (12:10).
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