New Testament Archives - Page 158 of 205

Ephesians: As to the Lord

Joe Harby on June 7, 2015

Introduction

In the second half of Ephesians, Paul fleshes out the practical implications of the half. Note that it is not as if Paul had some important theological truths to share (ch. 1-3), followed by a laundry list of unrelated points to make about practical Christian living (ch. 4-6). Chapters 4-6 are deeply connected to 1-3, as the necessary implications of the preceding chapters. We live in a certain way because of how we have been saved.

Children and Parents v. 1-4

We are saved by being brought into a Father/Son relationship. And so, in our families, the relationship between parents and their children says something about what we believe our salvation to be like.

Children – The fifth commandment instructs children to honor their parents, and Paul explains that this is the first commandment to bring with it a special promise – long life in the land. It is worth noting that Paul represents the command to “honor” with a command to “obey.”

Parents – Parents are commanded to raise their children in the training and admonition of the Lord. Be very clear about this. God’s objective for our parenting is that we raise kids steeped in the Gospel, such that they grow up to love God. There are a world of tools that are available to you in reaching this objective (education styles, parenting methods, financial principles, etc). But the tendency of the sinful heart is to replace God’s objective with your own manmade objectives.

This is why Paul warns parents about the danger of provoking their children to wrath (Col. 3:21). The Christian home shouldn’t be exasperating.

Servants and Masters v. 5-9

Similarly, our salvation is described in terms of us having a new master. This means that how we act when service is owed is another declaration of our faith in the Gospel.

Paul recasts how we think about work. We are to imagine ourselves, not working for another man, but for Jesus Christ himself (Col. 3:22-4:1). How would you handle this job if Jesus were the boss? But Paul is saying something stronger than “as if ” Jesus were the boss. He is saying that Jesus actually is the boss that we are serving. This is really the essence of what it means to have a biblical worldview in your vocation. This is a principle that we are to use whether slave or free (v. 8). And it changes not just how we serve, but how we lead.

On Christian Disobedience #3

Joe Harby on May 31, 2015

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Introduction

We continue to consider the increasingly relevant subject of Christian resistance to tyranny. But as we look to the Scriptures, beware of the danger of excitement over “right- wing red meat.” If ever a conflict with the magistrate comes, it must be a plain matter of submission to divine authority, and not an obvious example of a scofflaw who has just recently discovered a few Bible verses. It must be a matter of an upright man standing before a lawless throne, and not two dogs fighting over a piece of meat.

The Text

“If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath . . . Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 12:18–13:10).

Milestone’s in Paul’s Argument

Not only is general context important in understanding “Romans 13,” but it is also crucial to grasp the much-neglected immediate context.

Lovers of Peace: effective resistance will never be accomplished through those who love rabble-rousing (v. 18).

Give Place to Wrath: Paul opposes the spirit of vigilantism. Do not avenge yourselves, but return good for evil (vv. 20- 21). This is not inconsistent with calling the cops. In fact, it requires calling the cops. God is the one who executes wrath and vengeance (v. 19), and He does it through His deacons, discussed in the next few verses. God says “vengeance is mine,” not “vengeance is bad.” Note here that we are talking about vengeance, and not emergency self-defense. It has been rightly observed that when every second counts, the police are only minutes away.

Subject to Authority: we must not even think about resistance until we have learned this demeanor. Where must we learn it? First, we learn in godly families and churches. Learn the basic tune before you attempt the part with the difficult harmonies and complicated words.

Do Right: the existing authorities are the ordinance of God (v. 2), established to reward righteousness and punish evil. Therefore do what is right—the Christian is to be a model citizen. Too often resisters say they hate the tyranny, but what they really hate is the very idea of authority. But if we love God, we must hate all evil (Ps. 97:10), and we must also love and honor true authority (1 Pet. 2:13-17).

Love through the Law: nevertheless, Paul’s conclusion is not “do whatever they say.” His conclusion is that we are to give ourselves over to loving one another, and this is measured by means of the holy law of God. We keep the Ten Commandments, and whatever other commandment there might be,as we love. This is the requirement of God. We are to obey the magistrates to the extent it is consistent with this charge. This boundary is not just limited to major issues like “preaching the gospel.” It applies to anything that is covered by the revealed will of God.

The Deacons of God

Now remember the broad context of the Bible as we consider this. The authorities established by God are men, and therefore cannot be treated as an absolute authority. Nor does Paul require this of us in the context of this passage.

First consider the word diakonos. The civil authorities are called God’s deacons three times in this section (twice in v. 4, and once again in v. 6.). In other words, they have an authority above them, and that authority has expressly charged them with a specific task. That task is the administration of justice as defined by God. Paul assumes throughout this particular discussion that the assigned task is being faithfully discharged.

Put another way, he is not talking about a situation when the civil authority is penalizing the righteous and mandating celebration of iniquity. A deacon is a steward. He is entrusted with something, and is not the inventor of that something.

Second, consider the reason for taxes. The reason we pay taxes is that the recipients of these taxes are God’s deacons, attending continually to the administration of justice. Third, we obey for conscience sake. We submit for the Lord’s sake (1 Pet. 2:13). We are directed by conscience, and not because we granted any final authority to our earthly rulers. We obey because God says to, to the extent God says to.

When to Just Say No

To the extent a regime is in high revolt against Heaven they forfeit the investiture of the Lord. Nevertheless, because of the deceitfulness of our own hearts, even when we have determined the general right of resistance, we must take care to pick our battles carefully. A refusal to resist can be as principled before God as drawing a line. Do not accept the privilege and then make a “flaming battle for liberty” out of your reluctance to pay the bill. If you did a lot of dancing, then don’t do a lot of objecting when it comes to the piper-paying.

So Then . . .

Focus on the meaning of marriage. Sodomy is not what a federal judge says it is. Sodomy is what the Lord who rained fire from heaven on the Cities of the Plain says it is. It has been the good pleasure of God to send us this particular challenge in the “glorifying” professions—photography, floral decorations, cake baking.

Remember the politics of child-bearing. We have many duties with regard to our children are given directly to us, without any civil middle man. This includes all questions of spanking, nurture, conscription, education, and, on their side, suicidal birth control and abortion. “In a multitude of people is the glory of a king, but without people a prince is ruined.” (Proverbs 14:28, ESV)

Be jealous for the liberties of the church. The church answers to her Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. He has said we are to preach the gospel to every creature, baptize the nations, and teach them all. He did not say to ask permission from others, or to make sure we got a license.

Pentecostal Boldness (Pentecost 2015)

Joe Harby on May 24, 2015

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Introduction

On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of God was poured out in abundance. That initial baptism of the Holy Spirit was followed, throughout the book of Acts, and throughout church history, with repeated fillings of the Spirit. When the Spirit fills a man already Spirit-baptized, the result is power, authority, logic on fire, and boldness.

The Text

“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:8–13).

Summary of the Text

Peter is the spokesman. He is the one who, just a few weeks before, had denied the Lord repeatedly. Christ not only forgave him, but had also empowered him. Peter was naturally impetuous, but this was something else entirely. So here Peter is filled with the Spirit. When filled with the Spirit, he stands up and he reasons with them (v. 9ff). If they wanted to know how a lame man was healed, Peter would tell them. Remember that Peter is here speaking to Annas, Caiaphas, et al. The last time they had an opportunity to hear Peter speak, he was cursing and swearing. Do you want to know how the lame man was healed (v. 9)? He was healed by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth (v. 10). Lest there be any mistake, Peter adds, “whom ye crucified” and whom God raised from the dead. This man was healed in the name of the man whom they had murdered, and whom God had vindicated through resurrection. What a message! What a congregation! What a preacher! This is the stone the (you) builders rejected, and which is now the cornerstone (v. 11). There is no salvation anywhere else, there is no other name (v. 12). This is the sign of the Spirit’s presence—the name of Jesus is being honored. But there is more. This is the signature of the Spirit’s presence—the name of Jesus is proclaimed with boldness (v. 13).

Boldness Hungers for More Boldness

They had healed a lame man. There was a commotion, and they were hauled in to give an account before the bloodiest men in Jerusalem. Peter preached straight up the middle. The authorities were stymied, and so they threatened them and let them go. When they were let go, they returned to their company and prayed. What did they pray for? “And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word” (Acts 4:29 ). And when they prayed for this, what did God give them? It wasn’t the day of Pentecost any longer, but nevertheless what He gave them was a mini-Pentecost. “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31). Having just faced down the chief criminals of all human history, they concluded that what they needed was more boldness.

Boldness is not a trick or a technique. It is not a homiletical style. Boldness is more than waving your arms when you preach. Boldness is what happens when the Spirit signs His name to the message. It is His signature. It means that He is present and active. When the gospel is preached, we should want far more than for the Spirit to be fifty miles away, murmuring that what we just said was technically accurate. We should want the Spirit to be present, close, and in motion.

More Than a Local Excitement

“According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, butthat with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death” (Phil. 1:20).

Whatever happens, this should always be our longing. Decades later, the apostle Paul still includes it among his prayer requests. “And for me, that utterance may be given unto me,that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel” (Eph. 6:19). The apostle is not here asking to have his stage fright taken away, or to have the Spirit remove his butterflies.

Boldness is not something that can only happen when there are enemies and adversaries. Boldness is what attracts the enemies and adversaries. If a preacher on the north coast of Alaska were given boldness, the entire machinery of the secular establishment would be deployed to shut that man down.

Vertical and Horizontal

Now the only possible way for us to have a Pentecostal boldness before the world is for us to have a justified boldness in the heavenly places. Before we can have boldness about God in the presence of man, we must have boldness as men in the presence of God. And that is not possible apart from the blood of Jesus Christ, and the free grace of justification in His resurrection. Consider these truths.

“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus . . . Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:19–22).

We can only go out to our fellow man when we are able to come into the presence of God.

The apostle John tells us the same thing.

“Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

Those who have boldness in the day of judgment are able to “be” in this world. This is what enables us to bear witness, to testify. And not only to testify, but to do so with boldness.

Ascension Humility (Ascension Sunday 2015)

Joe Harby on May 17, 2015

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Introduction

On Ascension Sunday, we mark and remember the coronation of the Lord Jesus Christ. This crowning was the coronation of the ultimate example of humility. Now the Bible teaches us that in Christ, we are kings and priests (Rev. 1:6; 5:10). We will rule with Him, and in Him (Rev. 2:26-27). And the Scriptures also teach that our path to our little thrones will be just like His path to His great throne (2 Tim. 2:12). This means that we need to make a point of studying what actual humility is like, and how it actually desires what God promises us.

The Text

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:5–11).

Summary of the Text

We are told in the previous verse that our gaze should be outward—we are not to spend our time gazing on our “own things,” but rather on the “things of others” (v. 4). In doing this, we are not starting from scratch. We should have a mind within us that was previously in Christ Jesus (v. 5). If pressed for an explanation of what He did, Paul explains that though he was in the form of God (morphe, characteristic shape), He did not consider His equality with God something that He should grasp (v. 6). Rather, He emptied Himself and took the form (morphe) of a servant, that servant form being the likeness of men (v. 7). And being found in human shape (schema), He humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross (v. 8). As a consequence of this great act of obedience, God has exalted Him highly and given Him a name that is above every name (v. 9). The result of this gift is that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow—in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth (v. 10). Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and this in turn will redound to the glory of God the Father (v. 11).

Humility is Ambitious

If God did not want us to be motivated by thought of reward, then why did He offer so many of them? In this passage, God sets before us the exaltation of Jesus, pointing to that as part of the story. When we are told to imitate Him in His humility, we are being directed to the glorious destination of all such humility. Jesus didn’t tell us to ban seats of honor at weddings; He taught us a trick for how to get into them (Luke 14:7-11). But there is a trick within the trick. The trick is that we have to die. Jesus didn’t say to rip out the chief seats in the synagogues—He pointed out the inglorious behavior of those who loved those seats (Luke 20:45-47). He promised us long life in the land if we honored our fathers and mothers (Eph. 6:1-4). But we have to pursue our inheritance of land the way He instructs (Luke 14:25-26; Mark 10:29-31). So we honor our fathers and mothers rightly by hating them rightly.

So humility is defined by what we are ambitious for, and not by whether we are ambitious. Those who pretend to want nothing at all are those who have entered on a deep course of self-deception. “Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God” (John 12:42–43, ESV). There are two, and only two, possibilities for us. We will either love the glory that arises from man, or we will love and seek after the glory that comes from God. We were created to pursue glory, and so we can do nothing else. Because we are fallen, it is easy to pursue the wrong kind of glory—but the problem is not that it is glorious, but rather because, at the end of the day, it is not glorious.

“Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath” (Rom. 2:6–8).

In short, there is a way of striving for glory, seeking it, that is not self-seeking. It is to follow the path that Jesus established.

So Humility is Not Craven

Humility is a perfection of grace, and so it is not surprising that the devil wants to counterfeit it. Just as he offers counterfeit glory, so also he offers a counterfeit path for getting there. But true humility does not crawl; it is not a quadruped. C.S. Lewis captured the biblical view perfectly when he said this: “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” Remember our text—we are to be thinking of the things of others. That is not the same thing as thinking of our “own things,” provided we do it with a morbidly self-critical eye. The egoistic self has an enormous gravitational pull; it is an ego-centric black hole. And so it is that we find the possibility of someone thinking about himself all the time, and believing for that entire time that he is being humble. But this self-focus is arrogance and pride, not humility. If you are in the center of that little television screen in your brain all the time, it does not matter if you see a creeping little worm or a glowing celebrity. The problem is pride.

Back to the Ultimate Example

Jesus did what He did for the joy that was set before Him (Heb. 12:2). The glory that Jesus now has is the glory that we have been promised. We are not told to wait and think about something else until the glory is dropped on top of us. No, we are told, commanded, summoned, to pursue that glory. And that is how we can understand affliction rightly. The Puritan Thomas Bridges said it well when he said that affliction is nothing but a dirty lane leading to a royal palace. And that lane is one that Jesus walked down, and He summons us to pursue glory by following after Him.

Ephesians: A Great Mystery

Joe Harby on May 10, 2015

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One Body

Throughout Ephesians, Paul has been using the image of a body to describe how the church and Christ relate to one another. Now he points out another place where this happens – marriage. In a marriage, the two become one body (Gen. 2:24, 1 Cor. 6:16). This has implications for how a marriage is to work.

Wives, Submit to Your Own Husbands v. 22-24

In the marriage, a wife is called to submit to the leadership of her husband, who is her head (Col. 3:18, 1 Pet. 3:1-6). There are many ways of dodging this. You can mistake domestic achievement for submission. Or you can make it entirely theoretical, without ever actually having it happen. But Scripture is clear, a Christian marriage is one where the wife is called to submit to her husband. This isn’t a claim about an innate superiority to men (Gal. 3:28, Luk. 20:35). It’s a claim about how two become one.

Husbands, Love Your WIves v. 25-29

Paul continues to explain the implications of what it means to be one body. The head is not separate from the body. In fact, the head is utterly dependent on the body, and therefore should give himself to the body. This means that the authority of the head is on display in his self-giving love (1 Pet. 3:7, Col. 3:19).

A Great Mystery v. 30-33

Throughout the last section, Paul has begun to have trouble staying on topic. He swerves back and forth between talking about what a husband does and what Jesus has done. This is because the one-flesh union of the marriage is one of God’s favorite pictures, a teaching aid, for explaining our salvation. A marriage is a picture of the Gospel.

This is why we should not be surprised that the secular world is particularly taking aim at the institution of marriage. The two becoming one, as they do when a man and woman unite themselves, is a picture of the Gospel. It is in the submission of a woman to her husband, and in the glad assumption of responsibility of a husband for his wife, that we see what Christ has done for the church.