The Word of God in the life of the believer.

In step with the truth of the Gospel

Galatians 2:14a, “But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel …” (ESV)

“Conduct … in step” here in the Greek text “orthopodousin” meaning “be consistent with” or “make progress toward.” (We get orthopedic from this, but there is no connection in meaning).

Here is a paraphrase,

“But when I saw that they were not living consistent with the grace of God, nor were they making progress in applying the principles of grace in all their human relationships, it became obvious to me that they were not in step with the truth of the gospel.”

Paul’s controversy with people who were rejecting the grace of God by making rules and Law to include some (Jewish believers) and excude others (Gentile believers), came to a crisis-point. But the crisis came not out of debate with them about doctrine (though that did have an impact on the resolution), but because he observed in their lives that they weren’t living by the grace of God and the truth of the Gospel.

There is a lot here, but let’s draw one principle:

Those who live by grace can tell by the way you are living if you have the truth of the gospel at the center of your life or not. The way you treat others gives you away.

What you believe about the gospel, and whether what you believe is true or false, is displayed for all to see in how you live and in who you love.

Resource:

From James Montgomery Boice, on Galatians 2:14 (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank Gaebelein, 1976, 447).

“It is not enough merely to understand and accept the gospel, as Peter did, nor even to defend it, as he did at Jerusalem. A Christian must also practice the gospel consistently, allowing it to regulate all areas of his conduct.”

Toad flax in marsh intwined with grasses

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Bible Study

The Word in Proclamation and in Lives.

Old Testament foundation (all text from ESV):

Deuteronomy 8:3 — And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
* This verse is picked up by Jesus in his temptation with Satan. The larger point is that the Word is the source and sustenance of human life, “live by” shows that the Word is indispensable.

Psalm 119:11 — I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
*The Word helps to fight against sin. Ignorance of the Word or rebellion against it, result in sin.

Psalm 119:81 — My soul longs for your salvation;
I hope in your word.
*The Word gives hope. It is true and its promises can be trusted for the future.

Psalm 119:105 — Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.
*The Word gives guidance in decisions, and where choices must be made.

New Testament

Acts 6:4 — But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
*The leaders of the early church were engaged in prayer and study.

Romans 10:13 — So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
*The Word of Christ could be “the Word that Christ proclaims.” It could be “Christ is the Word that is proclaimed.” It could be “the Word of God” which is the Word of Christ” when taught becomes effectual in the lives of people who believe.

1 Corinthians 1:18 — For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
*The Word of the Cross is the Gospel. There is no exclusion about what touches the Cross and what doesn’t. Even Old Testament promises and prefiguring of the work of Christ (in sacrificial system and in Kingly rule) are the Word of the Cross. More specifically, it deals with the teaching about the Cross of Christ, his sacrifice and death for sinners. It also includes his death and his resurrection and finally, his ascension to Heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:2 — and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
*Paul preached the Word to the Corinthians. The content of that message was also to be received by those who believed. It was a test of true and saving faith that those who believed would accept Paul’s “Word” as the very Word of God.

Ephesians 1:13 — In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
*The Word of Truth directs our attention to the factual accuracy and efficacy of the Word of God. It is true. It is effective. It accomplishes the purpose for which God sent it.

Ephesians 6:17 — and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,
*Sword of the Spirit and the Word of God. The work of the Spirit of God is bound up with the ministry of the Word of God. The Word gives material that the Spirit can apply and work into the understanding and heart of the believer in Christ. The Word also in consistent with the purposes of the Spirit. What the Spirit does will always be consistent with the teaching of the Bible. The Spirit of God will never be at odds with the teaching of the Bible.

Philippians 1:14 — And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
*Speaking the Word does require courage, especially in times of confrontation and danger. We are encouraged to be bold.

Philippians 2:16 — holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
*The Word of Life. The Word of God brings life, it tells about life, it is effective unto salvation when it is proper proclamation of the Gospel of God.

Colossians 3:16 — Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
*The Word of Christ can be a presence in our hearts. It delineates what we are taught, how we admonish and on what basis, and it gives wisdom. The Word also gives examples of songs and hymns and spiritual songs by which praise is rendered to God.

2 Timothy 2:15 — Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
*Rightly handling the Word of Truth means that the Bible is not misinterpreted. Verses are understood, as much as is possible, from the understanding of the writer’s intention, and the contemporary reader’s understanding. Applications can be much broader, but the understanding of the text of Scriptures comes when it is read in context, in history, and with the best understanding of the circumstances in which it is written.

Hebrews 4:12 — For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
*The Word of God is like a living power. It acts. It moves. It teaches. It rebukes. It makes alive (by the Spirit). It is alive. Not like a person or spirit is alive, but it acts and moves, it is effective. The living qualities of the Word could be from the connection to the work of the Spirit of God in and through it.

James 1:22 — But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
*The Word demands our obedience, and it forbids our neglect. We are to hear its message and do what it says. Hearing without doing is condemned.

1 John 1:1 — That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—
*The Word of Life is Jesus Christ. It is also the Word about Jesus Christ. The message of the Gospel brings life to those who are dead spiritually.

1 John 2:14 — I write to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.
*The presence of the Word of God brings victory over the evil one.

Walk through Word Verses

Aside
Bible Study

Reasons to be happy.

Psalm 32:1-2, (a very loose paraphrase turning the Psalm into a praise prayer, based on the Hebrew text).

“How happy is the person whose willful and rebellious sins God has carried far away; even his ugliest failures and his refusal to live in God’s way, God has chosen to hide them all from his sight.

How happy is the person against whom the LORD will never record one of his wicked deeds, God will not remember against him even one unkind word that he has spoken. God will not write down that person’s most hateful or filthy thoughts. Even in the most secret places of that person’s life, God determined that he would not search out within him, nor would he try to find something so small as an unspoken lie hiding secretly, deep within that person’s heart. That is how great God’s mercy is!

All the sins that person committed, all kinds of sin and every last one of them, have been carried away and completely covered by God’s redeeming love. That is why this person is so happy.”

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Glory of God

Before the love of God, first holiness

Gleanings from Martyn Lloyd-Jones on 1 John.

“I can say it with reverence that before I begin to think and consider the love of God and the mercy and compassion of God, I must start with the holiness of God. I go further; unless I start with the holiness of God my whole conception of the love of God is going to be false ….” (Fellowship with God, 1993, 107).

The love of God is a wonderful truth and one that we depend upon for our redemption. But considering the love of God apart from his holiness is to sin against that love and it is to insult the essential nature of God. The holiness of God must never be separated from God’s Person as some embarassing anomaly in his character that needs apology instead of worship. No. You cannot understand God or redemption or his love apart from his holiness. The holiness of God is essential to who God is, his Person, and all his attributes.

Our modern day offer of the love of God to sinners is sweet and often faithful, but to say that God loves the sinner and to say nothing else, leaves aside the matters of how God loves and to what cost did he love us, and in protection of what qualities in himself does he love those that are to be saved. The holiness of God is where we must begin if we are to understand his redeeming love.

Lloyd-Jones speaks to this:

“I suggest that if you do not start with the holiness of God you will never understand God’s plan of salvation, which is that salvation is only possible to us through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary’s hill. …  If God is only love and compassion and mercy, then the cross is surely meaningless, for if God is love alone, then all he needs to do when man sins is to forgive him. But the whole message is that the cross is at the center, and without that death, God, I say with reverence, cannot forgive. … but if I start with the holiness of God I see that the incarnation must take place; the cross is absolutely essential, and the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit and every other part of the great plan as well.” (p. 108)

It is commonplace to use the cross as the symbol of God’s love. God’s redeeming love is certainly there (John 3:16); but in order to redeem people first the holiness of God must be satisfied. If sinful humans are to be made righteous (holy, pure, acceptable to God) then it is holiness that must be protected and appeased.

When we come to God for his love and forget how his holiness was working throughout our redemption, his glory is robbed. God’s love is wonderful and we should celebrate it, but we find God’s love much richer and more sublime, deeper and more substantive when we consider the holiness of the God who loves us.

The focus on the love of God divorced from holiness gives us great news about a small God who just wants some friends. Focus on the holiness of God in redemption and we have an incredible God who went to extraordinary lengths to save his people while first defending and then exalting his holiness. Salvation not only makes God new friends, it makes his friends holy, like he is holy. When God acts in defense of his holiness first, and in love of men second, he is most glorious and worthy of all praise. When the holy God loves, people who trust him are most loved. 

To recover the glory of God we must begin with his holiness. If God never loved anyone he would still be holy. The miracle of redemption is that sinful people can be reconciled with a holy God. Start with holiness. Then go to love.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Fellowship with God; Studies in 1 John, Vol. 1, Wheaton, Crossway Books, 1993, 107-108. 

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Bible Study

A Walk through Romans seeking glory.

Glory appears 15 times in Romans.

Romans 1:23 — the indictment against sinful men is that they have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images” (of lesser things).

Romans 2:7 — the believers in Christ are described as those who “by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality,” and to them God gives “eternal life.” The quest for “glory, honor, and immortality” would appear to be only fulfilled by coming to know the person of God. And the quest for those qualities must necessarily end a journey that will bring them before the face of God. There is no true honor, certainly no qualitative glory, and most certainly no immortality, apart from God.

Romans 2:10 — those who believe are described as those who will receive “glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.” The glory of God is what the Christian is seeking and it is that which they are destined to experience directly. The joy for the Gentile is that we are now included in the same hope of glory as the Jews were promised before Christ came.

Romans 3:7 — the glory of God’s justice and holiness is displayed in the judgment against national Israel for their sins and their departure from the LORD who had called them to be his own possession. Paul takes it to the personal level to show that God’s truth is confirmed even when he is condemned as a sinner. The question is “Why shouldn’t I just keep sinning, if this magnifies and extols the glory of God in his judgment against my sin? (That is addressed in Romans 6:1.) And some argued that God’s glory is magnified by his judgment of Paul’s personal sin. So, they asked, why is that a bad thing? And why should Paul be condemned when this is working for the greater glory of God (in his judgment against his sin)? These questions appear to have filtered down from spurious teachers who were bringing a great deal of confusion to the early church. Paul’s doctrine of grace was being used by some as a license to do anything they desired; some even saying that God would be glorified the more if they increased in their sin.

Romans 3:23 — sinning is defined as “falling short of the glory of God.” It would seem obvious that no human being could measure up to the perfect standard of the glory of God. But there may be here a recognition of our failure to live in subjection to the glory of God, under his authority, obedient to his commands, and morally like God is some respect. This failure to live under glory is our rebellion against God and coming short of his purposes.

Romans 4:20 — Abraham gives glory to God as he grows strong in his faith.

Romans 5:2 — so far from falling short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), Christians now rejoice in “hope of the glory of God.” What we once failed to achieve, now, through Jesus Christ and by faith in him, are now in possession of the hope of the glory of God. This would not be the glory of God as God, but the moral nature of his glory, that extols his nature and the displays his holiness. Believers don’t become glorious in the same fashion by which God is glorious in his nature and splendor. But we share in the nature and the splendor of the glory of God because we will become like him morally, and in the things that we do that bring him honor through our obedience to his Word and our love for him. We share in the divine nature morally, in our character and loves, but we do not put on his divinity, see 2 Peter 1:3-12. Faith in Christ is the means by which we obtain this experience of sharing in the glory of God and the hope of it.

Romans 6:4 — Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. This was a display of the nature and purpose of God and his judgment of sin and his love for his elect people. It may seem strange to our ears that Christ was raised from the dead “by the glory of the Father,” but this is how Paul states it.

Romans 8:18 — Paul moves to the future glory that shall be received and experienced by those who are redeemed by the Cross of Jesus Christ. Though we have sufferings in this current moment, they are “not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.”

Romans 8:21 — the redemption of all creation is an overflow of the glory that is given to the children of God. It is by the “freedom of the glory of the children of God” by which “creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption.” Our glory will redeem all of creation, even though it is a subsidiary glory, and not a glory that we possess in ourselves, but we receive from God.

Romans 9:4 — Israel holds “the adoptions, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.” These all were in possession of the nation of Israel by the call of God to Israel to be his covenant people. These were fulfilled in Christ and expanded to all nations and peoples.

Romans 9:23 — the promise that God pours into his “vessels of mercy” — meaning both Jew and Gentile were to receive the mercies and grace of God by Jesus Christ. These were prepared beforehand, clearly spoken of in the Old Testament, and fulfilled by Jesus Christ and initiated to the Gentiles by the Apostle Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Romans 11:36 — Paul summarizes the themes of Romans in a benediction that concludes, “to [God] be glory forever. Amen.”

Romans 15:7 — The welcome of Christ for Jewish and for Gentile believers alike, without distinction, was unfettered. Both could come into the glorious presence of God through faith in Christ. Paul applies this principle and brings it down to individual relationships, making it the central rule of respect and acceptance of others within the Church. “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” The example of Christ in salvation, receiving both Jew and Gentile, is the principle and rule for the manner by which Christians are to welcome one another.There are to be no distinctions, or any other external difference caused by race or nationality, or other human differences. What is central is faith in Jesus Christ. That alone is what matters.

Romans 16:27 — the final prayer in Romans, “to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen.”

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Philosophy of ministry., The Word of God in the life of the believer.

The Strong and the Weak

Surveying key issues in Romans 14 and 15. Strong and Weak Vs Faithful.

Paul gives instructions to those who are strong to be kind to the weak, in Romans 14:1. Then in Romans 15 (after a little summary) he tells everyone to get along for Christ’s sake.

When reading the instructions to the “strong” it was very easy to think of all those “weak” people out there and to conclude that the duty of the strong (like me or perhaps like you) is to put up with “them.” But it is interesting that Paul never defines who the strong ones are and who are the weak.

Have you not noticed that sometimes we are strong and sometimes we are very weak? Paul seemed to know that people who think they have it together have to be given a stringent reminder to be kind to people who don’t.

Is it not true that when we fail, and act like a weak person, at that moment we depend on the “strong” to put up with our non-sense? We depend on the strong, whoever they are, to cut us slack, to bend over backwards, to give us grace, and to be quick to forgive us, when we are full of ourselves?

Romans 14:19, “So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual up-building,” and you could add, “no matter who you think you are.”

Paul zeroes in on faith as the test of how we may consider what makes up strength and what makes up weakness. When you are living by faith, when your choices are informed by faith, when you are expressing your faith verbally and in the way you live, then that is good and acceptable. You can be weak (in the way you act and in your understanding) but if your faith is true and your heart is given to God, others can put up with you. It is when you don’t live by faith and when you fail to believe God’s promises or trust his Person, that you get into trouble, and putting up with you at that point in your life is a waste of light and power. When you are faithless, even the strong can’t help you and they shouldn’t.

Paul’s instructions don’t give the weak permission to act like jerks. His wisdom doesn’t give the strong permission to overlook stupid and gross sins in those who are “weak.” There is a place of commonality between strong and weak and that place is our faith.

The church today seems too concerned to incorporate people into their system and programs, into their way of thinking and their alien god-speak and other strange dialects that we hear being spoken among the religious, and not concerned enough about teaching people who truly and savingly believe in Christ to simply get along with each other with true and unvarnished love.

We are called to accepted one another like Christ accepted us (see Romans 15:7, “Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”) The strong want the weak to shape up. The weak are tired of being left on the outside.

Those who have been purchased by the blood of Jesus are accepted by HIM. The command is simple: If Christ received you, receive each other. This is a picture of the Church that Jesus is building.

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Philosophy of ministry.

The surprising connection between glory and joy

Everett Harrison’s wrote an article on Glory in The New International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. This article happens to be a summary of his Ph.D. thesis on “Glory” and one of the richest resources in print on the glory of God. Harrison points to the connection between glory and joy, he writes:

“Quite naturally glory is closely associated with joy. The two elements mingle in the experience of the shepherds at the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:9f, 20) and in the acclaim given Him at the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Luke 19:38) as well as the Savior’s expectation of return to the Father (Hebrews 12:2). Likewise the prospect of future glory evokes in the saints the response of joy (Romans 5:2; 1 Peter 4:13; and Jude 1:24).” (NISBE, Volume 2, 1982, p. 482.)

Glory and joy

Glory may seem to be some glimmering light from the Holy of Holies or the shouts and songs of the redeemed in Heaven. But to see glory as the source of great joy in those who experienced the presence of Christ in his day during the joyful entry of Christ into Jerusalem, and by the future glory that shall be experienced together with all those who are redeemed, and, furthermore, to know that the joy of Christ before the Father is part of the renewal of the glory of the Son and the reunion of the Trinity in the Heavenly place, all prove the wonderful and God-filled principle that glory always brings joy.

Glory is the root and foundation of all the joy we experience in Christ. It is the glory of God that celebrates the victory of Christ. It is glory that brings us to study and then to appreciate the person of God. It is glory that presses the work of salvation into our human hearts and makes them alive and able to praise and worship God. And it is glory that assures us of the truth of Christ’s rule both in us and soon over all persons and things and so we know that our future is to be filled and absolutely defined by the glory of God.

The joy we experience in Jesus Christ is a glorious joy because it is rooted in what God has done and in who he is. We are doxological (glory-centered) in all our worship. By glory we remember that our joy is not generated within the heart of man, but from God. It is not something that we possess in ourselves at all, but by Jesus Christ we are filled, as if by miracle, with the glory of God.

True joy is always linked to the actions of God; it is derived from what God has done and what he will do. By the work of glory there is absolute confidence in the work of Christ in the past, so we sing with the shepherds and angels, “Glory to God in the highest …” And we look at the work of Christ on the Cross and with much greater appreciation and far more insight that those shouting “Hosanna,” we who believe now know who the Savior is and we see that his coming to redeem was the most glorious act in all of eternity.

How can we not have joy when we read of his coming to redeem us? We understand more of his work and we now see with far greater detail the implication of his death for our salvation, and we are driven by its importance and glory to shout for joy at the display of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, especially as it shined forth in the Redeeming Cross of Christ. The Cross was the grandest display of the glory of God and therefore it is the most precious and articulate source of our joy in God. Nothing exceeds it.

The question then could be raised, If we have little joy, what do we lack? The answer is: We lack glory. If our joy is failing or fading, the way to remedy that joylessness is to study the glory of God.

When glory is grasped and when our minds understand and our hearts retain even small aspects of the glory of God (which is all we can contain), glory changes how we see everything. When glory is seen by faith we are filled so much with the work and the person of God that glory’s child — the joy of God — comes with inexpressible fullness to overwhelm our lives with a glorious joy. We cannot experience true joy apart the glory of God entering into our lives. Glory and joy are inseparable.

We fail to be joyful when we neglect or ignore the glory of God. Joylessness is a deficiency of glory. But remember, it is not joy that we seek. It is glory. It is glory that brings us joy. When we study the glory of God, we do not need to be reminded to be more joyful. We are given joy as an overflow of all that makes God glorious.

Seeing the glory of God makes us joyful. And it is always so. Glory brings us to joy.

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Bible Study

Four kinds of commands in Romans 12 and redeeming the word, “Whatever.”

This is preview of the sermon for Sunday February 24, 2013, (posted in Jan 2014) at Glorious Savior Church.This is the underlying study for the message.

There is a catechism, a teaching method, used by Paul in Romans 12, that used four different forms of the imperative. If this is a bit too technical, just skip down to the “Mundane application” section below.

An imperative is a command to do something.

In Romans 12, Paul uses four kinds of imperatives (commands). These forms are: the imperatival participle, the imperatival use of adjectives, the imperatival infinitive, and the imperatival verb to express commands and authorative teaching in this final, practical section of Romans. Each of these imperatives differ in their impact on the reason, on the heart, and on the will.

The participle imperative is used to direct how we are to live in certain circumstances. For example, in loving, it should be genuine; in giving, with generosity, and the like. There are 17 of these in Romans 12. They are given like a list of Rabbinical rules, not as commands so much as a code of conduct, also presenting an easy way of memorizing many rules (in love, let your love be…” Or “In the presence of true moral evil, hate the evil.” “In trouble, hold steady.” “In praying, be constant.” “When presented with the needs of others, share with them.” The commands focus on how we are to respond in certain challenging circumstances.

The imperatives also appear as adjectives that are constructed with a descriptor (“warmly-affectionate”) and with the missing verb, “you shall be,” added to the sentence, so the imperative in translated, “You shall be warmly affectionate in your love.” But the impact is not a suggestion, it is a command.

There are 3 occasions of the adjective without the ginesthe, “you shall be” or with the negative, “you shall not be. The imperatival adjectives appear in 12:10, 11, and 16. In each case, they address the attitudes of the believer in Christ:

“Be warmly affectionate; be untiring in zeal. do not be conceited.” The adjectives create a strong appeal to our emotions, they paint a picture of an ideal of our relationships and of our duties, toward which we reach. These imperatives become a means by which we can exhort one another toward certain godly attitudes and loving relationships.

Next is the imperatival infinitive. Romans 12:15, “You ought to rejoice with those who rejoice. You ought to weep with those who weep.” There is a sense of urgency. Paul uses this construction also in Philippians 3:16 and 2 Thessalonians 3:14, but It is infrequent in the New Testament.

Miller (see reference below) postulates that the distance between Paul and his readers limited the use of the stronger imperatives and more authorative commands. This command would be something that could be done at a distance, but still have a serious intent. When a person is face to face, that is when the verbal imperative (see below) is normally used. The imperatival infinitive created a strong appeal to the human conscience. “You ought to know and you ought to do … this.” It “encodes moral duty.”

The last type of command is the (expected) grammatical imperative. Here the writer gives a direct command, as speaking with authority and a directive to the will. A choice must be made. The command begins from the will of the writer (speaker) and it is directed to the will of the reader (hearer), demanding a response, a decision, or an action to be taken. This is the most forceful and directive means of address. The final imperatives change the person of the verb from the previous plural you (“you all”) to the singular you (“you alone”), see Romans 12:20-21.

“(You alone) Feed your enemy! (You alone) Give your enemy drink!” (quoting from Proverbs 25:21-22). The stronger level of command may also be from the authority of the Word of God since it was a quotation from Proverbs. But the second person singular (you alone) continues after the quotation, suggesting that there is a personal connection with these commands.

Here is my mundane application of this little study:

The commands and exhortations must be met with the understanding and desire on the part of the hearer to comply and to do what is commanded, if they are to have any effect. This was true for the Church in Rome and it is true for your teenager.

A teenager’s famous retort to the parent who asks him to pick up his room, is, “Whatever!” But in that single word is a wholesale rejection of the command.

This study showed many ways to construct a command. Rules and code of behavior, appeal to duty, accepting the authority of the speaker (writer), and more. We, and the teenager, must ask whether we will comply with the commands we have been given.

The imperative spoken to the teenager to “Pick up your room” implies that there is the authority and the expectation that the command be followed. When the teenager says, “Whatevaaar!” they are rejecting the authority of the parent and they are saying that they will not submit their will to do what you are requiring of them. This is exactly the same as when we receive a command from God and refuse to take it to heart.

The point is that God appeals to our reason, to our emotions, and to our will, that we might become the people he wants us to be. When we cry, “Whatever!” to God we are saying that his character is not important. When we fail to listen carefully to the duties of the Christian life, or when we dismiss our duty to our enemies, or neglect to share with someone in need, we are saying, “Whatever!” to God.

Living in obedience to the Word of God creates a tender and compliant heart. Doing all that God has commanded is a sweet place to be, or a place we should long to be.

Whatever can be a wonderful word. To God we say, “Whatever you command, I will do. Whatever it is. Whatever you ask me to be, I will gladly and lovingly seek after with all my heart, for your glory. Whatever.”

Source: Neva F. Miller, “The Imperativals of Romans 12,” in Linguistics and New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Discourse Analysis, ed. David Alan Black, with Katharine Barnwell and Stephen Levinsohn.

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Understanding Christ at the focus of God's glory.

Worship or entertainment?

NOTE: Interacting with John Owen on worship. Owen wrote a short study on the purpose and practice of worship. It contained a short catechism (a set of questions and answers). It brought into focus the issue of entertainment that is driving many worship experiences today and the need for the church to seek something higher and far better in our worship of God.

Worship has a specific and glorious purpose. But we may be absolutely certain that our entertainment was never conceived, nor was it ever in the mind of God that it should become in the least or smallest degree included in, or substituted for, the true and purposeful worship of Almighty God.

Entertainment is not the worship of God in any sense. It is the worship of man.

Here is Owen’s quotation:
“That we may profitably and comfortably, unto the glory of God and our own edification, be exercised in the observation of the institutions and worship of God, we are always to consider what are the ends for which God hath appointed them and commanded our attendance unto them, that so our observance of them may be the obedience of faith. For, what end soever God hath appointed them unto, for that end are they useful and effectual, and to no other.

If we come to them for any other end, if we use them for any other purpose or with any other design, if we look for any thing in them or by them, but what God hath appointed them to communicate unto us, we dishonor God and deceive our own souls.”

Owen, John (2012-10-02). Brief Instruction in the Worship of God (John Owen Collection) (Kindle Locations 204-209). Prisbrary Publishing. Kindle Edition.

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definitions of glory

Think about what you think about.

“Frequent thoughts discover root affections.”

Stephen Charnock, Works, Vol. 5, 461. A discourse on phronein, “to think.”

“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”

Romans 12:3

The frequency of your thought is a measure of what you value and how much you love. Want to measure the strength of your faith, ask, “How often do I think of God during the day?” Wonder how strong your love for your spouse (or good friend) is? Answer: “How often during the day do I think of her/him?” Want to know what it is that I value the most in my life? Answer: “What is it that I think about the most during the day?” That will tell you what is most important and what you love the most.

“Frequent thoughts discover root affections.” Your thoughts are not without consequence. It really matters what you think. No one does anything without thought. You think and then you act. What you think about makes you who you are and it determines everything you choose.

If you were asked, “What it is that you love?” You could answer, “This is what I think about the most. This is what I truly love: (and you’d fill in the answer here).”

What you frequently think about, mull over, contemplate, consider, puzzle about, those thoughts tell you what you value and what you love the most in your life. Your frequent thoughts reveal what is most important to you. Your frequent thoughts tell you what your heart loves. You can know how much you love God, people, and things by how frequently you think about them.

There could not be a simpler or more accurate measure of the health or disease of our spiritual life than to look at the frequency with which we think about God.

The world would tell you that you can think about anything and it will have no affect on you. But that is a lie. What you think about the most, is what you love the most. What you think about is what you want. What you think about most often is what you end up doing.

Your frequent thoughts reveal your “root affections.” What you think about reveals your deepest loves. By choosing to think about God and spiritual things (his love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and much more) and to think about the Person of God (his nature and perfections, his works and his redemption), you are, by thinking about God more and more, becoming a person who loves God the most.

No one can give glory to God who does not think of God. No one can live for God if they are not considering what God wants them to do. No one can obey God if they do not think first and frequently about God. Think more about the things of God.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Philippians 4:8

Think about what you think about.

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