New Testament Archives - Page 159 of 205

Ephesians: Walk in Love, Light, and Wisdom

Joe Harby on May 3, 2015

Introduction

Paul has been telling us how, as a result of what God has done for us, we should now live our lives. And one of the dominating images that he has used has been the action of walking. “Walk worthy. . .”(4:1) “No longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles
walk. . .” (4:17). And now he tells us how we should walk. We should walk in love (5:2), light (5:8), and wisdom (5:15).

Walk in Love v. 1-7

Children imitate their parents. Walking faithfully is a matter of remembering who your Father is. Are you a child of God (5:1) or a child of the enemy (5:6). There are two ways of living contrasted here – a life of giving yourself away (5:2, cf. Gal. 2:20) or a life of resenting what others haven’t given you (5:3). Christ has modeled for us self-emptying love that God has for us. This is the sweet aroma of Christ (5:2), which we become when we give ourselves away to others (2 Cor. 2:15).

Walk in Light v. 8-14

The judgment given in the last section, that no fornicator, unclean person, or covetous man will inherit the kingdom of God, comes across as pretty extreme. But now we see that this is a judgment that includes forgiveness (5:8, cf. 1 Cor. 6:11). Paul reminds the Ephesians once more that they have passed from death to life (5:14), but adds to this the image of “light.” Christians must walk in the light (cf. 1 John 1:5-10).

And light will expose the things done in darkness (5:11). This does not mean we are called to “darkness sting operations” (although we are called to confront sin – Mat. 18:15, Gal. 6:1). Light does not run from darkness, rather darkness flees from light. By being light in the world, the darkness of the world is expose or made manifest.

Walk in Wisdom v. 15-21

Again, Paul gives us two ways of living. There is a dissolute lifestyle, characterized by drunkenness, foolishness, and dissipation (5:17-18). There is a trajectory to this life. It begins with foolishness, that is giving in to not thinking about the result that your actions are causing or cultivating the habit of giving up half way through the math problem. It gives way to dissipation, that is wasting away all that you have. And it ends with a self- centered aloneness.

On the other side, we see Paul describing a pursuit of wisdom, which corresponds in a certain way to drunkenness (cf. Acts 2:13). But it is an intoxication that leads to wisdom (instead of foolishness), to a wiser use of all things (instead of dissipation), and to a deep union with your fellow saints (instead of the self-centered aloneness).

On Christian Disobedience #2

Joe Harby on April 26, 2015

Introduction

With regard to our duties of civil obedience and submission, we have to consider the express teaching of the Bible. But we must do this in context, which means we have to set a contextual stage. This context is important in two respects—the broader context of doctrine and theology, and the second is the context of express examples.

The Text

“And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard’” (Acts 4:18-20).

The Idea of Covenant

Apart from an understanding of the concept of covenant, no sane understanding of the relationship between church and state is possible. The covenant is the theme which ties all Scripture together, and so if one does not understand how to think covenantally, the Bible will always remain a disjointed series of inspirational passages, or a monstrosity jerry-rigged into an alien system. Understanding the covenant is central to an understanding of our civil duties for obvious reasons. For example, the word federal in the phrase federal government comes from the Latin word foedus, which means covenant. How did this happen? The reason this is crucial is that covenants have stipulations and terms. (There is also a Latin homonym foedus which means stinky, but that is another sermon for another day.

Under the Old Covenant

The examples of Scripture on this subject are manifold, and we do not have time to consider all of them. But before considering any, however, we must remember what the Bible tells us what such examples are for. We are sometimes too glib in telling some of our hermeneutically loose brethren that we should not make doctrine from narrative. Actually, we should not make doctrine from narrative lightly (Rom. 15:4). While we may not do it foolishly, we are required to do it. Consider . . . Ehud—in the days of Ehud, the people had been oppressed by the Moabites for eighteen years. But the Lord raised up a deliverer for them ( Judg. 3:15-25). Deborah—this godly woman was raised up as a judge during the time when Jabin, king of the Canaanites, had ruled over Israel for twenty years ( Judg. 4:1-7). At her command, an army was gathered to revolt. Gideon—the Israelites had been oppressed by the Midianites for seven years. Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress in order to hide his livelihood from oppressive taxation. The angel of the Lord appeared to him there and hailed him as a mighty man of valor ( Judg. 6:11), showing that angels can have a sense of humor.

David—this mighty man refused to raise his hand against the Lord’s anointed (1 Sam. 24:5-7). But he also refused to do what the Lord’s anointed wanted him to do (1 Sam. 19:16). Jehoida—an evil woman Athaliah had made herself queen by murderous means. But Jehoida was a godly priest and he defied her de facto rule. He secretly raised the surviving heir and in a coup d’etat had the boy Joash crowned (2 Kings 11:13- 16). Of course the tyrant called his behavior treasonous.

Under the New Covenant

But too many Christians are still infected with the idea that the Old Testament has nothing to do with New Testament saints. But this is infection, not biblical doctrine, and besides, nothing changes in the New Testament. God rather than men—great issues are involved in all of this. Obedience to men must be first and foremost obedience to God. If it is not, then obedience to authority is defiance of Authority (Acts 4:19). And this is where we find the principle so well-articulated in the American War for Independence. Resistance to tyrants is submission to God. Peter’s jailbreak—nor are we bound to just simply take whatever punishment is meted out (Acts 12:5-8). Evading arrest and running road blocks—we also have the freedom, under Christ, to resist by hiding (Matt. 10:23; 2 Cor. 11:32-33).

The Sovereignty of God

This issue is too important for us to approach in a piecemeal fashion. We must understand all our duties in the light of God’s revelation to us. Exhaustive sovereignty—nothing occurs outside God’s purposes, plans, and authority. No ultimate earthly authority— certain things follow from this. If God is immanent in His authority (and He most certainly is), then no human authority or sovereign is ultimate. All are under covenantal constraints. The immediacy of our duties—it also follows that we must render obedience to God directly in every aspect of our lives. We obey the authorities over us because He says to, not because they do. We always are to obey, when we obey, in the Lord.

Ephesians: The New Man

Joe Harby on April 19, 2015

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No Longer Walking as the Gentiles Walk (v. 17-19)

Because of what Christ has done for you, there is no longer any good reason for you to act like the unsaved Gentile. This is a life characterized by the futile mind, darkened understanding, alienated from God, ignorant, blind, past feeling, lewd, unclean, and greedy. But you are these things “no longer” (v. 14, 17).

As Peter tells us, you’ve spent enough time there (1 Pet. 4:1-3). Now it’s time to be done with the lusts of the world and to give ourselves to the will of God.

Put Off, Put On v. 20-24

The Christian motivation for obedience is the result of understanding who you are (1 Pet. 4:1, Rom. 6:4-7). The lusts that want to rob you of Christ are deceitful. They enslave you by telling you lies. Remembering who you are in Christ will always be one of the most powerful weapons for putting to death the works of the flesh.

But we are called to put off that old, dead man. Put him off and put on the new man in true righteousness and holiness.

The New Man v. 25-32

Remember that we have been seeing Paul continually bring up this image of a “man” or a “body” throughout Ephesians. At one moment this man is Jesus, the incarnate Son of God. But at other moments, the “man” or “body” being described is the church.

When we think of putting on the “new man,” we tend to think of private, spiritual disciplines that happen in the secret places of our hearts. But it is interesting to note the disciplines that Paul lists when we are putting on the “new man.”

Don’t lie to one another. Don’t get angry at one another. Don’t steal from one another. Instead, look for ways to give to each other. Speak with edification to one another. Get rid of bitterness and anger. Forgive one another.

These are all disciplines for living within the corporate body of Christ. The new man that we are putting on is simultaneously Christ and the Church. We shouldn’t pit the individual renewal against the corporate manifestation of this renewal.

Surveying the Text: Revelation

Joe Harby on April 12, 2015

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Introduction

The book of Revelation is written in a genre that we in the modern world no longer use, and consequently it can be a very difficult book for us to understand. G.K. Chesterton said that John the apostle saw many strange monsters in his vision, but none so strange as any one of his commentators. And Ambrose Bierce said that it was a book in which St. John concealed all that he knew. The revealing, he said, is done by the commentators, who know nothing. So as we attempt to survey this book in one message, the goal will be to tread lightly, but with some hope of edification.

The Text

“I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:16–17).

Defining Our Terms

The images from Revelation are quite familiar. But the language of those images is not, and one of factors in the difficulty is found in how the entire book is set. There are four basic options. The first is the idealist view. In this understanding, the book is a giant parable in the sky, with no actual historical anchors. The second is the futurist view, in which the book is understood to be talking about events at the end of the world, which is of course in our future. The third is the historicist view, which understands the book of Revelation as finding its fulfillment down throughout church history, like an unrolling carpet. And the last is the preterist understanding (preter referring to the past), which locates the fulfillment of most of the book in the first century (i.e. in the prophet’s future, but in our past).

My approach here is preterist, with the exception of the last two chapters, which I think must be read in a historicist fashion.

And Another Thing . . .

Another major factor in interpreting this book is found in when you believe it was written. There are two basic schools of thought—one holds that it was written in the nineties, during the reign of Domitian. The second view, the one I hold to, is that it was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, and is in fact all about that destruction. If you locate the book after the leveling of Jerusalem, it is difficult to understand what the book could possibly be about, thus opening the door to killer bees, atomic blasts, and nefarious computers in Brussels. The late date depends largely on external evidence. Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, a disciple of John, says the vision “was seen not very long ago, almost in our own generation, at the close of the reign of Domitian.” Domitian died in 96 A.D. The evidence for an early date depends largely on internal evidence. “Things which must soon take place,” etc.

A Sampler

One of the advantages of approaching your study of this book with a preterist understanding is that the past happened the way it did, and there is little opportunity for any funny business. By way of contrast, the future is infinitely malleable. Your creative interpretation can always fit exactly . . . until it doesn’t. Here are three examples of how the fulfillment of Revelation can be understood in a preterist way. All of these examples have to do with numbers.
42 months—the dragon gave power to the beast, and it says: “And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months” (Rev. 13:5). The beast, which is Rome, is given power to persecute the saints for 42 months. Nero set the city of Rome on fire, and when suspicion fell on him, he blamed the Christians for it, and launched the first Roman persecution of the church. That persecution lasted from November of 64 A.D. and it continued until June 8, 68 A.D. It lasted for 42 months.

666, the number of man—“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (Rev. 13:18). Notice that John knew who he was talking about, and he expected some of his readers to be able to figure it out. Recall that the practice of gematria was common then. So why would it take someone who had “understanding”? If you transliterate the Greek of Nero Caesar into Hebrew, it added up to 666. And if you go from Latin into Hebrew, you get 616, which some manuscripts of Revelation have, even though it is not nearly so spooky.

5 are fallen—“And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns . . . And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space” (Rev. 17:3, 9–10). Rome was renowned as the city of seven hills. We know instantly what is meant by the Big Apple, or the Windy City, or the Big Easy. It was the same kind of thing here. But the seven heads are seven kings, not just seven hills. So let us count—Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius. There are the five, and the one that is “now” is Nero.

Back to the Text

The dragon hates the woman, and the dragon has always hated the seed of the woman (Rev. 12:1ff). But the seed of the woman will crush the head of the seed of the serpent. And thus we have the main characters in this cosmic drama—we have the antagonist, Satan, and we have the Christ and we have the woman. And so it is that both the Spirit and the bride issue an invitation to all mankind—who have only two choices. Either you remain with the serpent, or you come and drink the water of life freely. We know the course of wisdom here because we are told how the story ends.

Coal Fires and Fish (Easter 2015)

Joe Harby on April 5, 2015

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Introduction

The physical presence of the Lord Jesus, alive after the resurrection just as He promised He would be, transforms everything. We can see this very clearly in the fall and restoration of the apostle Peter after the resurrection of Jesus.

The Text

“And the servants and officers stood there, who had made a fire of coals; for it was cold: and they warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them, and warmed himself” (John 18:18).

“And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits,) dragging the net with fishes. As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread” (John 21:8-9).

Overview

These two verses are just a few pages apart, and the Greek for the charcoal fire is identical (anthrakian). The apostle John is a very careful writer, and the contrast that is built in here is no accident. We are being invited to compare and contrast the two settings.

The first fire was built by the enemies of Christ (18:18), and the second was built by Jesus Himself (21:9). Peter was present in both settings, and he was present because of something that had been said by the apostle John (18:16; 21:7). Jesus was present in both settings. In the first He was on trial for His life (John 18:27; cf. Luke 22:61), and in the second He has conquered death (21:1). In the first, Peter denied the Lord three times, just as Jesus had predicted (18:17, 25, 26), and fell into sin. In the second, he affirmed his love for the Lord three times, more humbly than before, and was reinstated to ministry (21: 15, 16, 17). In the first, Peter received something from wicked men (warmth), and in the second he received something from the Lord (food, and forgiveness). In the first, Peter does not compare favorably with the disciple that Jesus loved—John was more influential “at court,” John didn’t deny the Lord, and John didn’t run away. In the second, Peter has all such comparisons put to rest for him (John 21:21-22). “What is that to you?”

153 Fish and Big Ones Too

Paying attention to the number of fish caught is not a mystical or spooky reading of the text–—it is a literary reading of the text. It is reading with your eyes open. The issues are placement, foreshadowing, parallelism, conventions, and so on. To illustrate the difference, consider another detail from this text—when Jesus called out to His disciples fishing about 100 yards offshore, He told them to put their nets down over the right side of the boat, which they did. When they had done so, the result was a huge haul. This was a way of Jesus identifying Himself. When He had first called them to ministry, He had called them away from their nets (Matt. 4:18-22) so that they could become fishers of men. And when Jesus had done a similar miracle like this one before, the response that Peter had had was that of being overwhelmed with his own sinfulness (Luke 5:8). The first time the miracle had made him aware of his sinfulness; the second time he was living in an awareness of his sinfulness, with the memory of his denials and blasphemies still raw, and this same miracle calls him out of it.

This scene in John has a return to both elements—Jesus deals wonderfully with Peter’s sin and fall, and Jesus recommissions him to ministry as a fisher of men. He tells him three times to “feed the sheep” (21:15, 16, 17). We should also have no trouble seeing the fish as emblematic of the coming haul at Pentecost. The nations were to be brought into the boat, and Jesus indeed made His disciples fishers of men. In this case, Peter had jumped out of the boat, and the others had brought the fish in. But Peter is soon to rejoin them in the work. I like to imagine Peter standing on a wall in order to preach at Pentecost, and to see him cast his gospel net over the right side.

But what is it with the specific number of fish? This is a good place to illustrate the difference between a careful literary reading and mystical reading. This number has had a goodly amount of ingenuity to be spent on it. Some of it has been fanciful, some of it pretty pedestrian, and some of it sober. But the sober reading is still astonishing.

Bear With Me

The pedestrian reading is that 153 is mentioned because that’s how many fish there were, darn it, and John was simply interested in adding an irrelevant little detail. He put that in for “local color.”

A fanciful reading is that when you add the ten of the commandments to the seven of the seven-fold Spirit, as Augustine urged, you get 17, and 153 is the triangular of 17. (Triangularmeans that if you add the numbers 17 to 16 to 15 to 14 and so on down to one, the sum is 153). The problem here is that you can also get 153 from Seventeen magazine, and that doesn’t mean that John is talking about the challenges of adolescence in a secular age. This is the kind of thing that John Calvin called “childish trifling.”

But 666 is the triangular of 36 (and 36 is 6 times 6). It is a number we instantly recognize. The biblical writers often did make some of their points with numbers, and John particularlydid. The fact that it is unusual to us doesn’t make it unusual or odd to them. We already have solid grounds for understanding the fish as representing the Gentile nations. We have that “fishers of men” call that Jesus gives Peter and Andrew, James and John. We have the fact that throughout Scripture, the sea represents the Gentiles and the land the Jews. No one in the Old Testament is shown eating fish, but in the New Testament fishing (and the eating of fish) comes to the front and center.

On the day of Pentecost, how many nations are listed? Well, 17 actually (Acts 2:7-11). And we have to remember the practice of encoding numbers in names (called gematria) was common in the ancient world. They could do this in a way that we cannot because they used the same symbols for letters and for numbers. We have Roman letters and Arabic numbers. But in Hebrew, the first nine letters corresponded to 1-9, the next nine were 10-90, and the last five were100-400. So?

Well, as one biblical scholar points out, the prophet Ezekiel promised that the time of the New Covenant would be a time of glorious fishing.

“And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many” (Eze. 47:10).

The prefix En simply means spring, and so there are two words we should consider here —Gedi and Eglaim. If we look at the numerical value of Gedi in Hebrew, we find that it is 17, and the value of Eglaim is 153. Now try reading through Ezekiel 47, with its living water from the Temple of the Church, and trees on both sides of the river, with leaves for medicine, for the healing of the nations, and see how fishers of men shall stand there, from “the Spring of 17” to “the Spring of 153.”

Ezekiel was talking about the salvation of the Gentiles under the figure of fish, and he uses these numbers. John refers to this, and it has the same meaning as the explicit meaning given to it by Jesus in Luke (fishers of men). This means that 153 is a symbolic number for the Gentile nations who will be brought into the kingdom of God.

Back to the Charcoal Fire

Remember that Peter is being restored. The antithesis is very clear here. The charcoal fire built by the enemies of Christ is not really a good place to warm yourself—and it ends with snarling, cursing, devouring, bitterness, and tears.

The charcoal fire built by Christ is built in order to feed the disciples, and then, as Peter is being restored, he is commanded (in his turn) to feed the Christians who will follow him. Post-resurrection, the Lord who feeds His disciples is as humble as He was in the upper room when He washed their feet. They come to the beach, and He is cooking their breakfast. “How do you want your eggs?”

The resurrected Christ forgives and feeds. Our responsibility is to be forgiven, to be fed, and then to forgive . . . and feed. The first charcoal fire is the fire of betrayal, treason, sin, blasphemies, crashing pride, and humiliation. The second fire is the fire of free and full forgiveness, a fire of complete reconciliation.

After Peter denied the Lord, and went out to weep bitterly over it, how many times do you think he wished he could do everything over? How many times do you think he

lamented his self-confidence and bluster? How many times do you think he wished he could go right back to the beginning of his discipleship, and follow Christ faithfully this time? And what does Jesus give him? In the miracle of the fish, this is exactly what He gives to Peter. He takes him back to the moment he was first called, and is graciously given an unspeakable gift. Here, follow me again. All is forgiven. This really is a do-over.

Come, Follow Me

And what about you? Do any of us need to experience this kind of reconciliation? The answer is yes for all of us. The Lord is not more gracious to Peter than He is to you. Do not ask about Peter what Peter asked about John—you will get the same answer. What is that to you? You follow me—but you follow Him cleansed and forgiven. As though you had never denied Him.

This sermon is modified from a sermon first preached in 2007.