Category Archives: Church Conflict

Romans 12, How to Live Together, 5.5

19 Sunday Dec 2021

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The Incarnation

5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, 

                        “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, 

but a body have you prepared for me; 

            6           in burnt offerings and sin offerings 

you have taken no pleasure. 

            7           Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, 

as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’ ” 

Hebrews 10:5–7.

There is a tendency among human beings to either deny there is a soul, or to deny the body matters and the spirit is all. But the Scripture will have none of that.

The importance of the human being is seen when consider the most spiritual topics, God. While God does not have a body like a man; the Son of God became incarnate as a man (while in manner being degraded in any manner as God). The Incarnation is a mystery beyond all mysteries. But is also the basis of how we must understand all other things:

The incarnation of God, therefore, is the supreme mystery at the center of our Christian confession, and no less at the center of all reality. Consequently, all conceptions of reality that fail to see and savor that all things hold together in Christ, and that he is preeminent in all things, can never be anything but abstract conceptions of virtual realities—that is, invariably hollow and ultimately vacuous concepts pulled away from reality.

John C. Clark and Marcus Peter Johnson, The Incarnation of God: The Mystery of the Gospel as the Foundation of Evangelical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 12.

There are many things which could be said of the Incarnation, but one thing which must be understood is the profound importance of the human body. To battle on our behalf, it was first necessary for the Son of God to have the body of a human being, and that the human body was the location of that conflict. Consider this verse:

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, [he shares our nature]

that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, [he destroys death from the position of a human body]

Hebrews 2:14. Think of how the Scripture speaks of our Savior. His announcement into this world is an announcement of being born a human being:

30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 

Luke 1:30–33.  Jesus is born. He is wrapped in cloth. He is laid in a manager – and at the end of his life he will again be wrapped in cloth and this time laid in a tomb. 

The crucifixion is the killing of his body. And the resurrection is the resurrection of his body.  And he is Ascended, reigning forever in a body.

The proof of the Resurrection is that his body is no longer in the tomb:

5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” 

Matthew 28:5–7. When he proves to the Disciples he has risen, it is the proof of his body:

24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” 

26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 

John 20:24–29. That body is the residence of all our blessing:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

Ephesians 1:3. Indeed our salvation is bound upon with the identification of our body with his:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrectionlike his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:1–11. Our life is a participation in the life of Christ, in his death, in his burial, in his resurrection.  

The presentation of our bodies in a living sacrifice is premised upon this union with Christ. We can offer no sacrifice apart from him:

24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. 

Hebrews 9:24–28. The sacrifice of his body is the only sacrifice for sin; a sacrifice never to be repeated. It is a sacrifice rendered “once.” 

We can only understand the sacrifice of our body in light of the sacrifice of his body and our union to that sacrifice. 

Indeed, it is in our union to Christ, a union which is not merely some intellectual proposition, but a sort of union which involves the body of our Ascended Incarnate Lord and our body is the premise of our sacrifice:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

John 14:6 We cannot offer something to the Father but in the life of the Son. We know the Father in knowing the Son. “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” John 14:9. Now these are deep waters in which it is very easy to get lost and drown. For our purposes we need merely assert that our approach to God is only in Jesus Christ, not around him. 

Jesus has made a way for his by taking our nature, by being found in a body which was offered as a sacrifice – and which was received for the forgiveness of sin. We participate in that life, that sacrifice, that resurrection. To participate in that life entails a life our body.  

What you must understand, the human body is the battlefield upon which God defeated his enemies. We participate in that victory in the identification of our life in this body with the life of the Incarnate Son of God. This identification is so great, that the Church, the sum of the redeemed are referred as the Body of Christ. 

The logic of Paul’s argument of how we are to live—and that manner of life is the nature of the “living sacrifice” commanded—is wholly premised upon our identification in the body of Christ. 

The Incarnation makes the life of the Church possible and is the basis for that life.

Seeing more clearly how the life of our body is joined up with the life of Jesus will be the next point.

How to Live Together, Romans 12, Chapter 5.1 “You are not your own”

07 Tuesday Dec 2021

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“Present your bodies”. Romans 12.1

When you come to a text there a number of questions you can ask in your effort to understand what the text “means.” There is the direct question of “what does is the proposition set forth here?” In our text, we have the obvious question of what does “body” mean:

Present your bodies 

Does he mean bones and blood as opposed to something else? And on this point, the commentators are agreed that body means the entire person:

It is consistent with this that he goes on to refer to your bodies; by ‘body’ (σῶμα) Paul means the whole human person, including its means of expressing itself in common life (cf. 6:6, 12)

C. K. Barrett, The Epistle to the Romans, Rev. ed., Black’s New Testament Commentary (London: Continuum, 1991), 213. Or, as a translator’s handbook as it:

Yourselves is literally “your bodies,” but in such a context Paul is using “bodies” as a reference to one’s entire self (NEB “your very selves”). This is similar to the meaning in 6:13, 19.

Barclay Moon Newman and Eugene Albert Nida, A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1973), 233.

But there is a second question which is more interesting in this place. That question is why does Paul use the word “body” to refer to the entire person. Paul could have present your “heart” or your “mind” or your “soul” or your “self”; but instead he writes, present your body.

Paul is a remarkably precise writer, and so we must take the use of the word “body” seriously. What is the point of writing “body” in this place?  In the next sentence he will write about transforming our “mind”; why is it then our body we present?

On that question, fewer commentators have an observation; but the observations which they make are open up some useful questions:

The use of the term bodies is interesting, for Paul surely expected Christians to offer to God not only their bodies but their whole selves. Indeed, Leenhardt takes it here to mean “the human person in the concrete manifestation of his life”. Many others take up a similar position (NEB, “your very selves”). But we should bear in mind that the body is very important in the Christian understanding of things. Our bodies may be “implements of righteousness” (6:13) and “members of Christ” (1 Cor. 6:15). The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19); Paul can speak of being “holy both in body and in spirit” (1 Cor. 7:34). He knows that there are possibilities of evil in the body but that in the believer “the body of sin” has been brought to nothing (6:6); sin does not reign in the believer’s body (6:12). Grace affects the whole of life and is not some remote, ethereal affair.

Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), 433–434. And so this comment tells us we should consider what else Paul has to say when uses the word “body” to describe our life. Calvin opens up some areas of consideration:

But there is throughout a great suitableness in the expressions. He says first, that our body ought to be offered a sacrifice to God; by which he implies that we are not our own, but have entirely passed over so as to become the property of God; which cannot be, except we renounce ourselves and thus deny ourselves.

John Calvin, Romans, electronic ed., Calvin’s Commentaries (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1998), Ro 12:1. This observation comes from Paul’s other comments concerning our “body”. 

And, with the encouragement of these men, we will consider some of what else Paul has to say about the “body” in the hope that such consideration will help us understand what Paul is doing here in his effort to give encouragement and direction to the members of a church as to how we can possibly live together in love. As we will see, there is something irreplaceable in the presentation of our bodies in a sacrifice, holy, living, and acceptable to God. 

How to Live Together, Romans 12, Chapter Four, “An Impossible Request”

02 Thursday Dec 2021

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Chapter Four

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, 

Romans 12:1.

An Impossible Request

There is a belief so common in our age that it is invisible: There is a real you, an authentic you hidden in there. That authentic you is good and right. The trouble is that the “authentic-you” and the “public you” can’t always match up. It’s hard to be who you “really” are, and so you pretend and twist yourself into all sorts of shapes to get along. But this process of twisting and hiding comes at a cost. And so you find yourself depressed or anxious or anger or even manipulative as you try to negotiate this difference between the authentic-you and the public-you.

The Scripture has a different view of things. We should be authentic in our public life. This means that we should tell the truth and not seek to manipulate others. As Jesus says, “Let what you say be simply, ‘Yes’ or “No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” Matt. 5:37 We need to avoid hypocrisy. So, you might think Scripture and therapy have the same view of things.

But Scripture does something quite different than therapy: Rather than seeking to help you be comfort in the expression of your authentic-self, Scripture directs transformation of that “authentic-you”.  Be authentic in the sense of having integrity; but do not settle for who you are at present.

This idea of comforting and aiding the “authentic-you,” is another way of “suppressing the truth” which Paul condemns in Romans 1:18. “I’m just this way!” is no defense to the Scripture’s instruction.

As Paul says in Romans 12:2, “be transformed by the renewal of your mind”.  This is precisely the opposite of our therapeutic culture. 

This is completely consistent with the doctrine of the Fall. The therapeutic culture takes what we see around us and what we see in ourselves as “normal.” The present age with its values and judgments is “normal.” What most people do and accept is “normal.” What we want and desire “by nature” is normal.  

The Scripture presents a strikingly different picture. This world is anything but normal. The world is under a curse. Paul refers to our time as “this present evil age”. Gal. 1:4. John tells us to “not love the world neither the things in the world.” 1 John 2:15.

Jesus explains that our standard operating system is the source of trouble, not the means of our deliverance:

14 And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” 17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus, he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” 

Mark 7:14–23.

Rather than seeing our heart as intrinsically good, Jesus speaks of it as a source of “defilement”. What need is not to protect our authentic self; rather we need to be fundamentally changed from the inside-out. This is not therapy but rather transplant surgery. 

The therapist could not offer something so radical, because the therapist cannot provide a place outside of this present evil age. The therapist is bound up inside of this world. Moreover, we lack the power to change our own hearts. It is not “natural” to love your enemies.

But we will not rely upon our own power. Instead, we will rely upon the Spirit God who uses the Word of God to create and transform the People of God. 

But what about ….

You might think, but don’t other religions speak about change? Not in the way which the Scripture does. For example, Eastern religions such as Buddhism or Hinduism may speak about detaching yourself from the “illusion” of this life. But that is not really seeking a change of your heart. It is instead a call to renounce the creation – and thus also to renounce the Creator. What Christianity calls for a transformation of who you are by means of a new relationship with the Creator not a rejection of the creation.

I appeal to you

Depending upon the translation before you, Paul is either “urging” or “appealing” to the Romans. It is an interesting word, whose exactly meaning depends upon the context. It has the sense of calling to some-one but the range of meaning can run comforting another to admonishing. Since Paul adds that he is calling to them “by the mercies of God,” the sense must be in terms of comfort or encouragement rather than rebuke.

So, while the effect is to give instruction, these are not the words of a drill sergeant making demands but of a wise friend directing your action toward something better. This is a favorite expression of Paul. It is the position of one stands ahead of us on the way and who calls us up to himself, “I urge you, then, be imitators of me.” 1 Corinthians 4:16.

We should probably read this command in Romans 12:1 with Paul desire for the Romans expressed earlier in the letter

11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— 12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 

Romans 1:11–12.  That phrase “be mutually encouraged” is our word, again. Paul is writing to the Romans to encourage them; not to crush them. And if there is correction in direction, it is correction for our happiness and holiness.

We must keep in the mind, the encouragement, the appeal, of Paul: he wants our good. If fail to understand his goal and his love, the whole will be discouraging. 

It could sound discouraging, because it sounds so unrealistic. When you read through the instruction of this chapter, Paul is requiring responses which seem self-defeating and contrary to all experience – even our experience in Church.

Paul encourages true humility. 

We all know the modestly boastful person, the one who “puts himself out there” and is given public and “prestigious” “ministry” assignments (that we can actually think about ministry in terms of prestige demonstrates how wrong we can be). A 2005 interview of Eugene Peterson by Christianity Today contained a section which illustrates this point perfectly”

Do we realize how almost exactly the Baal culture of Canaan is reproduced in American church culture? Baal religion is about what makes you feel good. Baal worship is a total immersion in what I can get out of it. And of course, it was incredibly successful. The Baal priests could gather crowds that outnumbered followers of Yahweh 20 to 1. There was sex, there was excitement, there was music, there was ecstasy, there was dance. “We got girls over here, friends. We got statues, girls, and festivals.” This was great stuff. And what did the Hebrews have to offer in response? The Word. What’s the Word? Well, Hebrews had festivals, at least!


Still, the one big hook or benefit to Christian faith is salvation, no? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Is this not something we can use to legitimately attract listeners?


It’s the biggest word we have—salvation, being saved. We are saved from a way of life in which there was no resurrection. And we’re being saved from ourselves. One way to define spiritual life is getting so tired and fed up with yourself you go on to something better, which is following Jesus.
But the minute we start advertising the faith in terms of benefits, we’re just exacerbating the self problem. “With Christ, you’re better, stronger, more likeable, you enjoy some ecstasy.” But it’s just more self. Instead, we want to get people bored with themselves so they can start looking at Jesus.


We’ve all met a certain type of spiritual person. She’s a wonderful person. She loves the Lord. She prays and reads the Bible all the time. But all she thinks about is herself. She’s not a selfish person. But she’s always at the center of everything she’s doing. “How can I witness better? How can I do this better? How can I take care of this person’s problem better?” It’s me, me, me disguised in a way that is difficult to see because her spiritual talk disarms us.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/march/26.42.html?paging=off

But Paul is not after a veneer of humility which gives greater room for a heart of pride. Paul is going after the death of one form of life. He is going to call this an actual sacrifice. Since we live in a world without animal sacrifices, we use the word to refer to inconveniences, but Paul has slaughter in mind.  

Paul encourages blessing those who cause us injury; and we all have seen church leaders use their office to control, manipulate, and take revenge upon others all with an air of holiness. And yet he suffers no consequence; because if the “pastor” does it, it must be okay. 

And so, Paul’s instruction seems not merely beyond our ability but beyond our experience. It would be easy to think, why should I be the only one who practices humility or loves an enemy or holds my tongue. He gossips and I suffer in silence!

But all the failures in the world—our own, and the failure of others—should not discourage us from following Paul. This instruction is for our encouragement. 

How can such hard things be an encouragement?

In John 15, Jesus speaks of how all of spiritual vitality comes from “abiding in” him. He is the vine and we are the branches. How then do we abide in him?

9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 

John 15:9–10

It is an expression of love to Christ 

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 

John 14:15. If we do not keep his commandments, we do not love God:

 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. 

John 14:24

Our knowledge of Christ is in keeping his commandments:

3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. 

 1 John 2:3–6. 

These commandments are not burdensome:

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 

1 John 5:3.

It is required of us:

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ 

Matthew 7:21–23. 

It is the only wise way to live in this world:

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” 

Matthew 7:24–27

The life of the church described in Romans 12 is a life of self-sacrifice; but it is the life to which we have been called:

19 For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 

1 Peter 2:19–21.

But isn’t this “legalism”? The short and the long answer is , “No.”  A faith is merely a vaguely held personal opinion is not real faith:

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 

James 2:14–17. Would anyone believe a man who says he loves his wife and yet has never come home in 20 years? Our obedience earns us nothing. But we were saved to bring about this obedience:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. 

Ephesians 2:10 (ESV) 

But this is too difficult

We have considered the mercy of God is, so we need not go over that again. Here we need to understand something different: that mercy of God becomes a basis upon which God call us to be merciful. In Colossians 3, Paul gives a series of instructions for the life of the church which are parallel to much of Romans 12, but there is something interested embedded in the middle of this list:

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 

Colossians 3:12–14.  At end of verse 13 we see, “as the Lord has forgiven you.” That mercy of God is the basis for our mercy to others; the love of God is the basis of our love for others; the forgiveness of God is the basis of our forgiveness for others.

Here is the connection between God’s actions and our own.

While God could simply make demands upon us (he, being our Creator would have such a right), he does not require of us anything which he first does not provide. God does us good, and then asks us to imitate him in doing good:

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. 

Matthew 5:43–48. God gives life and breath and rain to even those who hate him, those who were unjust. Think of it: When Jesus was being falsely accused and murdered, God had to keep his murders alive and give them sufficient reason to kill. 

There is something more here: God not only leaves us an example to follow (1 Peter 2:21), but he gives us a life in which such actions and affections are possible. The love of God transforms us and causes to live a different life:

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 

2 Corinthians 5:14. And the act of coming to know Christ we are transformed into his image: the one who died for us:

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 

2 Corinthians 3:18.

God provides a basis for what he commands of us. But there is more. Another reason we balk at this life of humility is that it feels we will do this work for nothing. I am humble, he boasts and look at all the good which comes to him!

But the Lord does not see it the same way:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 

2 Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 

Matthew 6:1–4. And that reward will be worth the wait:

6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 

 1 Peter 1:6–7. So let the Pharisee parade his works before others; you wait for the Lord’s reward and you await the Lord’s judgment:

So the last will be first, and the first last.

Matthew 20:16. 

What of those who have harmed you? It feels like injustice: the wrongdoer gets away with his wrong. But God has already anticipated that concern:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 

Romans 12:19.

An Entirely New Way of Living

We are called to a way of life far more transformative, with far greater demands than we seem to imagine. The baseline, the given for the world into which we were born is fundamentally at odds with the life of this new world. It is as if you were born in the depths of the sea but now must live in outer space. 

Read this section from the Sermon on the Mount and do not try to soften the words, do not try to reconcile these statements with what is “possible” but just consider them as they must have sounded to those who first heard them:

2 “And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: 

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 

5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 

6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 

8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 

9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 

10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Matthew 5:2–12. How can being poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungering, merciful, pure, peacemaker, persecuted, reviled, slandered be at all “good” things as we normally count good things? Or look at this language from 1 Peter

18 Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. 19 For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 

1 Peter 2:18–21. If you are a servant and if you are beaten and if it was done to you unjustly you are called to endure this with grace! If you are the victim of injustice, you are called upon to respond in a manner which seems impossible. You are supposed to love these people:

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:43–48. How does one “love” an enemy? None of this is to deny injustice, maltreatment. None of this pretends like any of this easy. It will require a kind of death. It is impossible, if we remain the people we were at the moment of salvation. 

This is a manner of life so very radical and demanding that it seems an impossible way to live, even among the people of God. 

It will be a manner of life in which God may take us to the point of despair so that he can rework our lives to be fit for his kingdom:

5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. 

8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 

2 Corinthians 1:5–10. 

Our redemption begins a life; it is not the end-point. That is why we are called to have a new mind; we must become different people on the inside and only as that thing which we experience ourselves to be changes will follow in this way:

17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:17–24. 

We are being called to give away an entire way of understanding the world. This is more dangerous and difficult than walking to the South Pole or walking on the moon. It is a thing which is impossible for a human being alone; and is only possible to the extent that the Word of God and the Spirit of God transform our minds that we can become conformed to the new life which has been given to us. 

And so, there is a way in which Paul’s language of appeal defines this path. We are not slaves being driven down a road. He does not command this manner of life, because it is only fit for those who love Jesus; who will take up a cross and follow. This must be willing: and if it is not willing, then let us stop saying we love Jesus and would die with him.  Far too often we are like the disciples who all fled on the night of Jesus’ betrayal. So particularly stalwart will wait until they are in the high priest’s courtyard before we run off. 

And yet we are called to those same disciples, who after the coming of the Spirit were willing to risk life and freedom for Jesus. Jesus has risen from the dead and has overcome the world, sin, and death. Let us live like that is true. 

O Sacred Head Now Wounded

1 O sacred Head, now wounded,
with grief and shame weighed down,
now scornfully surrounded
with thorns, thine only crown!
O sacred Head, what glory,
what bliss till now was thine!
Yet, though despised and gory,
I joy to call thee mine.

2 What thou, my Lord, hast suffered
was all for sinners’ gain.
Mine, mine was the transgression,
but thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
’Tis I deserve thy place.
Look on me with thy favor,
and grant to me thy grace.

3 What language shall I borrow
to thank thee, dearest Friend,
for this, thy dying sorrow,
thy pity without end?
Oh, make me thine forever,
and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never
outlive my love to thee.

How to Live Together, Romans 12, Chapter Three “Jesus Loves Even Me”

01 Wednesday Dec 2021

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Chapter Three

If there is only one song I can sing

When in his presence I see the great King

This will my song for eternity be

O what a wonder that Jesus loves me

Jesus Loves Even Me

Jesus Loves Even Me

Friends on the Beach

After two hours of flight, the jet lost power. Kept aloft by the power her massive engines, the mass of metal and plastic stuffed with hundreds of human bodies lost its will to fly. All those human beings experienced terror which they could not have imagined; the complete helplessness of being alone with gravity overtook their minds. 

The pilots who somehow kept their wits, managed to bring the airplane to a sort of landing along the beach. 

When the missile came to a halt, broken into pieces, scattered over half a mile, the dead stayed silent. The wounded moaned and cried in pain. The living untangled themselves and poured onto the beach to find the other living souls. 

At first, they have a profound basis for fellowship, they talk of their experience in being saved from death. They work together to rescue others. Even though in most areas of their lives they remain perfect strangers, in this one new world they are connected in ways which transform how they understand one-another. 

Those who watch a concert together or cheer for the same sports team have known something of this intimacy. But here, it is deeper: we have together comes to the gates of death and were not taken.

This creates intimacy which they would not have otherwise gained except for years of friendship.

Then overtime, the overwhelming sense of joy and terror which had thrown them together begins to fade. The differences which had kept them strangers before begin to resurface – only this time it is mixed the intimacy of having shared an escape from death.

By being both extremely close and strangely distant, the distinctions which are unimportant among strangers become matters of the gravest consequence. Things which would be overlooked among those who had never spoken become the basis for the sharpest quarrels. 

Cliques develop; the divisions of live from before the airflight become the basis for new divisions among those who survived. 

This is the Church—only it is far more vicious among the church, because we can justify our prejudice and our unkindness with the thought, I am serving God: you are working against God. 

If only we kept in mind the unspeakable grace of our salvation, the depth of sin and despair, the greatness of God’s mercy, how different would be the life of the church. But when we forget how we came to be here; when we begin to take our salvation for granted; when we fail to see the end will be glory; then how easily we slide and how dangerous we can become.

The Mercies of God

If a look at human madness is grim, an eye upon the mercy of God is unmitigated joy. To consider ourselves without God is a matter of profound sorrow and hopelessness:

remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Ephesians 2:12. 

But to be in Christ, to be reconciled to God, to know the mercy of God, that is a matter of joy:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5:1–2.

This hope in the glory of God is focus of our lives. To open a Christian hymnal is centuries of praise for mercy of God, And Can it Be, O Sacred Head Now Wounded, There is a Fountain. Anyone who claims to know Christ and is not constantly struck by the wonder: How could Jesus love me? What endless depths of love must the Father have to give his Son? How can the Spirit so patiently work upon my heart?

There is mercy in God, a mercy which lies beyond all compare, a mercy which produces in our heart, “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” 1 Pet. 1:8

So just as we cannot understand the commands of Romans 12 without a clear understanding of the persistence of indwelling sin, so also, we will never be able to fulfill the commands without a certain knowledge of the boundless mercy of God.

As we will learn, one of the chief reasons commands to not think of ourselves too highly, and to bless those who persecute us, seem unreasonable, even impossible is because we do not rightly esteem the mercy of God. 

The mercy of God begins at the Fall of Adam.

The command was unambiguous and without appeal, “for on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.” Gen. 2:17 How Adam understood death, when it was not a thing he had experienced, we can only imagine. For us who have watched a parent or child or friend die, the finality and darkness of death is unquestioned. Once one has stood at the side of a grave, or closed another’s eyes with heartbreak, we know death.  It is our inheritance which the executor will always convey.

But something happened when Adam sinned. There was certainly a death, because the relationship to God was severed. But the curtain of bodily death did not fall in an instant. Instead, God pronounced judgment, inflicted penalties, and drove the first pair from the Garden, but he did end Adam’s bodily life in that moment. 

In fact, in the midst of that judgment, God showed his love toward all his creation. Notice the scene: There is the Serpent who we will come to know as the Arch Rebel against God. There is Adam and Eve fresh from their rebellion. God without question could have ended the existence of all three of them, but he does not:

God’s willingness to preserve the fallen spiritual creatures in spite of their rebellion is matched by his desire to keep the human race in being. This is a mystery that can only be explained only by his deep love for his creatures. Looked at in a purely rational light, it would not have been surprising if God had decided to wipe us out and start again.

(Gerald Lewis Bray, God Is Love: A Biblical and Systematic Theology (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2012), 473)

God then begins to pour grace and mercy onto his creation. He makes a promise in the midst of his first judgment:

       I will put enmity between you and the woman, 

and between your offspring and her offspring; 

                he shall bruise your head, 

and you shall bruise his heel.” 

Genesis 3:15. Someone will come and bruise the head of the serpent. God is thereafter lavish in mercy. He calls the idolator Abram to a knowledge of him and showers promises upon Abram. Gen. 12:1-3. He redeems Israel from Egypt because he wants to. He choses David because he wants to. 

When Israel rebels with the Golden Calf, God relents at the intercession of Moses. Moses then in awe of this God seeks to the glory of God. God grants his wish – as much as Moses can bear—and passes by Moses proclaiming his name:

5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. 

Exodus 34:5–8. The accent is upon the mercy, the forgiveness of God. As James will write, “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” James 2:13

When Israel finally becomes so stubborn in her rebellion that the northern tribes are gone to Assyria and then Judah taken to judgment in Babylon, when it seems that the mercy of God has failed, he promises a new and better covenant:

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” 

Jeremiah 31:31–34.

It is that New Covenant which Paul proclaims in Romans. We can only think about the barest outlines. First, grants blessing received by faith, not earned by work:

4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 

       7        “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, 

and whose sins are covered; 

       8        blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” 

9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 

Romans 4:4–9. Paul will insist elsewhere upon the utter graciousness of this gift:

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 

Ephesians 2:4–9.  Faith is the means by which one grants love and friendship to another. If someone promises you friendship, you can only receive it by faith and trust. If a young man bursting with love were to tell his beloved of his inmost heart and if she were to disbelieve him, no love would come to her. 

Among friends, among those who love, this rarest of gifts is exchanged by faith. One’s wrath does not need to be believed, by love must be received. 

No God faces an insolvable problem when he seeks to bestow mercy upon those have sinned against him. If God were merely to forgive, God would be unjust. If God does not forgive, God is unmerciful.

But God is both just and justifier, both perfect judge and full of mercy. He does this by an exchange whereby God, God the Son, obeys on our behalf and pays the penalty on our behalf:

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. 

Romans 5:6–11. And the proclamation of this exchange Paul saw as the key to his ministry:

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

2 Corinthians 5:16–21.

There is astounding mercy: We utterly wretched, dead in our trespasses and sin, rebels, zombies a life in death, have found mercy and made righteous by life and death of Christ: a life and death credited to us; while our sin and misery are credited to him. 

Would you die for a friend? Would die for an enemy? Would you die to save someone who hated you? Would you give you son to do for your enemies so that your enemies would reconciled to you. Do you even begin to understand what that means?

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” 

John 3:16. Once, when my infant son lay near death, I thought how I would willingly give my own life to save his. I thought further how I could give anyone else to save him. And as I had this thought it struck me, that the Father gave his Son to save me—his enemy. Do nothing to soften the depth of that gift. You cannot say, He is God and I am human. The Father loves the Son more than we love anything. The Son is worthy of more than any son of ours. The degradation to the Son to submit himself to the law, to be saddled with sin, to be struck in death, are things we cannot understand.

Glory Makes Reconciliation

The mercy of God is a movement from election to glory:

29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 

Romans 8:29–30.  If you have been redeemed, you will be glorified. If you are in Christ, nothing in creation can keep you from being forever with Christ:

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Romans 8:38–39. If you have received mercy from God in Jesus Christ, that mercy cannot be lost. If you are in Christ, you will without question receive “praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” 1 Pet. 1:7.

One thing which will make the commands of Romans 12 seemingly impossible is because not one human being upon this planet can begin to fathom the depth of the Father’s love as shown in his Son. We lack the capacity to contemplate so things as they deserve.

And yet God calls us to think of his love and mercy. He welcomes our poor musing. 

We contemporary Christians are in such a hurry to do something for God that we never take the time to think about this wonder: not to do something, but just to gaze upon this mystery and be humbled. 

And then we have the greater mysteries: Why did God choose me? It is not because we have earned a thing. We do not value this mercy. Why did God not save the one next to you? We think ourselves so clever in complaining that God does not save all. That is nothing. Why did God save any. But God has chosen “to the praise of his glorious grace.” Eph. 1:6. This is a love which nothing can end, no power can sever. Rom. 8:38-39.

Until you have settled in your mind, the depth of your sin—even now persisting—and the unfathomable mercy of God, continuing uphold you, you will either reject or twist the commands which Paul gives for the life of the church.

So when you look to this commands and you see your flesh pinched by “I don’t want to do that,” or “I don’t think I can.” Think to yourself: Ah, there is my indwelling sin; there is that sin which continues to dog me like a cough which one cannot shake, an infection of the soul which will never ease. When you feel yourself rebel at these instructions, think, God loves me and has shown such mercy to me and all that he asks is that I love those for whom Christ died and that I show mercy on those who continue to rebel against the will of God. You must think, I will love not because this human deserves such love but because Christ deserves such honor. The mercy I have received is the mercy I will show, even to my enemies.

1. Stop and take the time to merely think about the mercy of God. Contemplate the love of the Father in the death of Christ. When you look upon the cross, think to yourself, this is how deeply the Father loves me.

2. How many times has God shown mercy on your sin, today?

3. How often have you refused to show mercy to others? Think of one occasion.

4. Memorize the words of this hymn, And Can it Be:

  1. And can it be that I should gain
    An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?
    Died He for me, who caused His pain—
    For me, who Him to death pursued?
    Amazing love! How can it be,
    That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
    • Refrain:
      Amazing love! How can it be,
      That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
  2. ’Tis myst’ry all: th’ Immortal dies:
    Who can explore His strange design?
    In vain the firstborn seraph tries
    To sound the depths of love divine.
    ’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
    Let angel minds inquire no more.
  3. He left His Father’s throne above—
    So free, so infinite His grace—
    Emptied Himself of all but love,
    And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
    ’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
    For, O my God, it found out me!
  4. Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
    Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
    Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray—
    I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
    My chains fell off, my heart was free,
    I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
  5. No condemnation now I dread;
    Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
    Alive in Him, my living Head,
    And clothed in righteousness divine,
    Bold I approach th’ eternal throne,
    And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

How to Live Together, Romans 12, Chapter Two, “The Emperor of the United States”

30 Tuesday Nov 2021

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Chapter Two

       The heart is deceitful above all things,

      and desperately sick; 

      who can understand it?

Jeremiah 17:9

The Emperor of United States

Note: The purpose of this chapter is not to discourage but to diagnose. An accurate sight of our disease is the first step in a cure.  What must be kept in mind is that God has provided a remedy, and that the purpose of Romans 12 is to present and apply that remedy. 

Also, the topic of this chapter should help you be sympathetic with yourself and with others. As you come to realize just how powerful and dangerous are the world, the flesh, and the Devil; and come to see how disordering sin is to the human heart; you can look at yourself and others and think, Yes, sin can lead even the “best” of people into a very bad place. 

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Rom. 7:25a. There is rescue, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven.” Ps. 33:1a

John Newton writes:

You have one hard lesson to learn, that is, the evil of your own heart: you know something of it, but it is needful that you should know more; for the more we know of ourselves, the more we shall prize and love Jesus and his salvation. I hope what you find in yourself by daily experience will humble you, but not discourage you: humble you it should, and I believe it does. Are not you amazed sometimes that you should have so much as a hope, that, poor and needy as you are, the Lord thinketh of you? But let not all you feel discourage you; for if our Physician is almighty, our disease cannot be desperate; and if he casts none out that come to him, why should you fear? Our sins are many, but his mercies are more: our sins are great, but his righteousness is greater: we are weak, but he is power

John Newton and Richard Cecil, The Works of John Newton, vol. 2 (London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1824), 140–141.

Norton I

In 1859, Joshua Abraham Norton presented himself to the world, most particularly the people of San Francisco, as Norton I, Emperor of the United States. He issued currency, awarded titles, and dissolved the United States of America on July 16, 1860.

His delusion, which followed an ill-fated attempt to corner the rice market in California, was a matter of amusement to the city and seemingly of little harm to him. San Francisco played along and continued honor their monarch even after his death. 

Joshua Norton was completely a mystery to himself: he was no monarch; he was an immigrant to tried to strike it rich only to be thwarted by ships filled with rice coming from Peru. And yet, to himself he was king of the country. 

He is little different than the poor, deranged people who frequent the bus stop across the street from work and engage in extended conversations with the air. He seems to have been far more genial than most lunatics, but his error was equally as profound. He simply believed much that was wrong about himself.

Yet his trouble did not end with his confused self-assessment: he was wrong about the world around him. He thought the people of San Francisco his subjects, when they were merely his audience; and participants in a quite different play than that imagined by Norton.

Whether it is especially pertinent that only Emperor of the United States was a madman I will leave to others; but I will press one point: his fault is common. To take a phrase from the poet Dylan Thomas, the fault is “commoner than water.”

It is a fault which inflicts everyone: we are all born quite wrong about ourselves, and wrong about the world: 

This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

Ecclesiastes 9:3. We are all born “in Adam,” who is the source of all madness in the species. Rom. 5:19.

Think of the madness of Adam. He could not claim that he was uncertain of God; that he lacked “evidence.” He could not complain that God must be defective because there is evil in the world. The conversation with God was unquestionably clear; the instruction plain. Gen. 2:16-17.

And yet, despite the plainness of his direction and unquestioned instruction of God, Adam took the advice of his wife who had gained her knowledge from a serpent. Granted the serpent was subtle, but we must marvel at the absurdity of the whole. 

Adam given lordship of the creation, direct conversation with God, and no want of any sort, fell for the instruction snake. 

God had spoken to Adam, Adam had communicated to Eve. A snake had spoken to Eve and Eve communicated that to Adam. 

If the result were not the death of every descendent of Adam, not the ravage of disease and war, not the plagues of pestilence, and the sorrow of a mother as her infant dies; if the result were not the endless evil which flows through history like sewage, the story of the serpent would be comical. 

But it is not funny in the least. It is a horror of sorrow. The absurdity makes it even more bitter. 

And so, Cain murdering his brother, and the brothers selling Joseph, and viciousness of Sodom, and the murder of the infants by the Pharoah who knew not Joseph, and the corruption of the time of the Judges and the thousand other horrors of history all flow from the moment with the serpent.

God cursed the serpent and brought judgment upon the humans: The relationship of mother and child would be pain, husband and wife would be contest; work would be on the vicious terms of sweat, boredom, unending; the very ground itself would become an enemy. The ground by nature grows that which we cannot eat; it takes tillage to keep an apple tree or a tomato vine in suitable shape. 

We are people subject to incurable madness, madness among people of incurable madness, in a creation we were created to rule and which escapes our control at every turn.  Our bodies decay. Our senses deceive. 

Even our minds: the very way that we think has been subjected to the ravages of Adam’s sin. 

You see to be born is to be born under the law and under the curse. The sin of Adam put everyone born on the planet under a death sentence. We are fragile creatures, beset on every side; and we are under a curse. We are born under the wrath of God.

This is too much for anyone to bear. Who can truly know the wrath of God and rest at ease? No one rests as a volcano explodes. No one rests when a lion attacks. No one rests as they swim in the ocean knowing a shark is near. No one rests knowing we are under the wrath of God. 

And so, we suppress:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Romans 1:18 This is no rare condition but the default response of our race. John Calvin begins his Institutes of the Christian Religion with the observation that, “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 35.) And, “[I]t is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.” (Id., at p. 37) We do not know God and so we do not know ourselves (and from there, we know nothing correctly).

The results have been catastrophic. It begins with this refusal to concede the principle point of reality: God is, and we are under his condemnation. Much like a Jenga tower where a key block has been removed, the whole mechanism of human psychology plummets with the refusal to see ourselves in the right relationship to God:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Romans 1:21. Paul then details our descent into madness:

They became futile in their thinking.

The futility is that by rejecting the truth of God, we can never think rightly about God:

It is in the “reasonings” of people that this futility has taken place, showing that, whatever their initial knowledge of God might be, their natural capacity to reason accurately about God is quickly and permanently harmed.

(Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 107.) Our lives will be marked first and foremost by the nature of our relationship to God.

If we cannot think rightly about God, then we cannot think rightly about ourselves—or about anything else.  We will be deformed human beings if we are not in right relationship to God:

Every sinner is aware of the discomfort in his environment. The existentialists, and those psychologists and psychiatrists who are ininfluenced by them, have described this awareness as alienation and an undifferentiated angst .3 But the unbeliever fails to articulate the true nature of the problem. He knows something is wrong in himself and in this world, but the very thing that creates the problem—his separation from God—also makes it impossible to conceptualize the issues in those terms. The unregenerate man is an uncertain man; he has no absolutes, no standard outside of himself and his ever-changing opinions and values. Down deep inside he is never sure about the life he lives; he can’t be because his basic antagonism with his environment constantly unsettles him. He is unhappy and uncomfortable in his environment because he finds himself at odds with it. 

Jay Edward Adams, A Theology of Christian Counseling: Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling (Grand Rapids, MI: Ministry Resource Library, 1986), 39–40. And so, being alienated from God:

Their foolish hearts were darkened.

The heart is what a human is: it not limited to body, to thought, to emotion, or to soul. It is that which makes us as we are. But this central control of the human life is here said to be (1) foolish and (2) darkened. 

To begin to understand this clause we can consider what Paul writes elsewhere:

17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 

Ephesians 4:17–19. Whatever else this foolishness and darkness may mean, we know that it pours forth as sinfulness. It does not love what should be loved; it does not shun what should be shunned. It runs to its own destruction.

Nor can we trust in our conscience: “Conscience is sometimes deceived through ignorance of what is right, by apprehending a false rule for a true, an error for the will of God: sometimes, through ignorance of the fact, by misapplying a right rule to a wrong action. Conscience, evil informed, takes human traditions and false doctrines, proposed under the show of Divine authority, to be the will of God.” James Nichols, Puritan Sermons, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 13.

Having fallen to this state, we fall still further. Rather than worship God, by nature, we worship the creature. We set up idols based upon our own deformed desires. We give ourselves to these images, destroying ourselves for honor or fame, money or love, power or revenge, and so on. Not all idols stand upon a fixed altar. The most dangerous idols are those erected in the “factory” (to use Calvin’s apt phrase) of our foolish hearts. 

And from here, the steps fall further: we do not know right, we do not think right, we do not love or fear right, and so we are given over, given over, given over. 

This degradation ends unspeakable horrors:

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. 

Romans 1:28–32. And just a bit further, in chapter 3 where Paul rightly says this anatomy of sin has infected us all (Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned”), he sums up human character, outside of God’s redemption as follows:

9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: 

                        “None is righteous, no, not one; 

            11          no one understands; 

no one seeks for God. 

            12          All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; 

no one does good, 

not even one.” 

            13          “Their throat is an open grave; 

they use their tongues to deceive.” 

                        “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 

            14          “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 

            15          “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 

            16          in their paths are ruin and misery, 

            17          and the way of peace they have not known.” 

            18          “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 

Romans 3:9–18

At this point, you may think to yourself: that is all fine and good, but what is that to me? I have certainly passed beyond that madness and sin. 

At this point, return to Romans 1:28. One of the results of the madness of sin is a “debased mind.”  The word here translated “debased” is the Greek work a-dokimos. There are a number of words which Paul could have used, and here he used this peculiar word. This matters because Paul uses the related word dokimos in Romans 12:2:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 

Romans 12:1–2. 

The root idea of the word has to do with testing: Is something true or fit. As a verb it means to test or try. In Luke 14:19, someone wishes to “examine” his new oxen. Proverbs 27:21 in the ancient Greek translation speaks of silver and gold tested by fire.  A man who is such, has been tested and found fit. 

In Greek, placing an “A” before a word has the effect of “Not”: a theist believes in God; an A-theist does not.

We are given over to a mind to a heart which is not trustworthy: it does not know how to value anything rightly; and it itself is tested and found wanting. 

Look earlier in Romans 1:28. The clause “just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God” contains this same word, to test: “see fitto acknowledge”. We do understand God rightly, therefore, we are unable to understand anything correctly. We do not worship God; we will worship sticks and stones. We do not love the life offered by God in Christ; we will love our own death and destruction. We cannot know our ourselves, because we do not know God: therefore, would mind is worthless, and it cannot rightly test anything.

Think of just worthless the mind of man who does not rightly know God will be. They murdered Jesus, “None of the rulers of this age understood this, for it they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” 1 Cor. 2:4.

In a word, we are mad: We do not know who we are (because we do not understand either ourselves or God) and therefore we do not understand anything else correctly (worshipping the creature rather than the Creator).

There is a great deal which could be said of this mind, but for us we must see one thing: The “debased mind” given in Romans 1:28 is in the process of being renewed as shown by Romans 12:2. 

This renovation in Romans 12:1-2 is the reversal of Romans 1. 

Here is where the trouble then arises: the human being so brutally laid out in Romans 1-3 is to put to an end, that “old self” is crucified with Christ. Rom. 6:6 But we also know that this crucifixion is not the end but only the beginning of a transformation.

Upon salvation, we do not immediately shed our foolish thoughts, or wicked habits, or sinful desires. We may have shut the door, but we can still see the Tempter through the window. 

We have not achieved the reason and sobriety which will one-day be ours. We are like a carpenter who has purchased a rotten house and board-by-board replaces the planks, resets the doors, puts on a roof. In the end, it will be the same house, but not the same house. And someday “we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:2. But today, we are being renewed into that image. Col. 3:9-10.

We must keep this infirmity in mind when we consider the instruction given Romans 12. A due since of our frailty and infirmity, of our absolute dependence is critical to reading these words correctly. 

We will always be tempted to think we have judged all things rightly and that the one with whom we have conflict is wrong. One thing I have learned by experience, is the most just is usually the one must ready to see his or her own sin, to seek reconciliation. The one who is smugly certain of no error, who is convinced of his own perfection is the one who is most mad and furthest from command of God. If you are not frightened that perhaps I may be in sin here, then you are most certainly in danger. 

And so, to end, we are born mad: We misunderstand ourselves and our God. This foolishness of heart, which reaches thoughts, and desires, and behaviors, make loving God and loving neighbor seemingly impossible. 

Ask yourself the following questions: Perform an examination of your own heart and life.

And do not be discouraged when see that you have cause to repent. In repentance, we renew our love to God. In repentance, we defeat the Tempter. In repentance, we are forgiven of all sin. The most dangerous sin, is the sin for which we will not repent. Look for the sin, that you may drag it from its hiding place and give room for God’s blessing.

1. We are commanded to love our enemies. Without trying to weasel out of the word “love” and without pretending like there are none who have hurt or of whom you are fearful, can you say you love them?

2.  We are to drag the log out of our own eye before seek the speck in our brother’s eye. When you have conflict, do you begin with your own repentance? Do you begin with a clear sight of the enormity of your own sin (and to sin as a believer is worse than to sin as an unbeliever, because you sin against light)?

3.  Paul was willing to die for the Gospel and the glory of Christ. Are you willing to be inconvenienced for the Gospel? 

4.  Peter writes of a servant being wrongfully misused and suffering unjustly at the hands of a cruel master: and to do so without revenge. When you are mistreated by another, do you suffer it gracefully? Do you bless those who persecute you?

5.  When you minister to others and do some good, do you make sure that everyone knows how righteous you are? Or do you seek to hide it and wait for God to give you a reward? If you did good and another got public credit, would you fume or would you graciously commend the whole to God?

We continue the same through the commands to not sin: Have you lusted, coveted, envied, gossiped, harbored bitterness?  Have you believed false reports about another? I am here looking at those sins of the tongue and mind which are so easily excused as a “prayer request” or easily concealed because they take place in your heart beyond the sight of all.

Surely you see how much remanent sin still clings to you. Surely you see how great your own fault.

Or one last test. What if your entire live since coming to faith were displayed for all: Every word, every deed, every thought, every desire, every intention, every glance. What if your heart were laid bare?

Only if you can see the continued horror of sin as it still pours out of your heart can you begin to comprehend the next clause we will consider, 

The mercies of God.

From The Valley of Vision

SOVEREIGN LORD,

When clouds of darkness, atheism, and
        unbelief come to me,
I see thy purpose of love
  in withdrawing the Spirit that I might prize
    him more,
  in chastening me for my confidence in
    past successes, that my wound of secret
      godlessness might be cured.
Help me to humble myself before thee
  by seeing the vanity of honour
as a conceit     of men’s minds,
    as standing between me and thee;
  by seeing that thy will must alone be done,
    as much in denying as in giving
   &nbsp  ;spiritual enjoyments;
  by seeing that my heart is nothing but evil,
    mind, mouth, life void of thee;
  by seeing that sin and Satan are allowed power
    in me that I might know my sin, be humbled,
      and gain strength thereby;
  by seeing that unbelief shuts thee from me,
    so that I sense not thy majesty, power, mercy,
      or love.
Then possess me, for thou only art good
  and worthy.


Thou dost not play in convincing me of sin,
Satan did not play in tempting me to it,
I do not play when I sink in deep mire,
  for sin is no game, no toy, no bauble;
Let me never forget that the heinousness of sin lies
  not so much in the nature of the sin committed,
  as in the greatness of the Person sinned against.
When I am afraid of evils to come, comfort me,
    by showing me
  that in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch,
  but that in Christ I am reconciled, made alive,
    and satisfied;
  that I am feeble and unable to do any good,
  but that in him I can do all things;
  that what I now have in Christ is mine in part,
  but shortly I shall have it perfectly in heaven.

How to Live Together, Romans 12, Chapter 1, “Therefore”

29 Monday Nov 2021

Posted by in Church Conflict, Romans

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Chapter One

Therefore

Therefore

Romans 12:1

The Christian Church is a strange thing. It brings together those people who never would otherwise never be in one place. The church has been the church of the master and the church of the slave. It is the church of the wealthy and the impoverished. It is the church of the well-educated and the uneducated. It is the church the sophisticated and the unsophisticated. The drug addict who had spent years on the streets sits with the eminently cautious and respectable. Every ethnicity under heaven is equally welcome and has come under the shelter of the great Lord’s wings.

These people who by nature would have nothing to do together as friends and equals are brought together and told to love one another and confess their sins to one another and to bear one-another’s burdens. No matter who we were before we came in, we are called as equals in salvation:

27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Galatians 3:27–29. And:

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Colossians 3:11. This is a matter which is beautiful in contemplation, but in practice … in practice, it is often lacking. In the end, we will all praise the Lord in perfect harmony. Rev. 5. But today we are in transition. We move fitfully. We begin well, and fail miserably. We pledge our love and friendship, and then turn with the unkindness which can only be exchanged by those who have been friends and family.

The most foolish of petty distinctions, the least cause for pride, the slimmest of prestige can bring out the worst in human nature. The desire to be esteemed by men, and the desire to get vengeance upon those who hurt us (whether that hurt is real or merely perceived by an excessive pride), are fertile ground for sin to overturn the work of God. 

Most of can easily give a catalogue of those who have wronged us, but we are given no instructions to force others to reconcile with us. There is something wrong with so many churches – but we cannot start with the wrongs of others. We must start with ourselves:

Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. 

Matthew 7:1–5.  Only when we have a clear view of our sin and failure can we go to our brother to remedy the wrong:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 

Matthew 18:15. How we will make that approach will be considered later in Romans 12. For now, our attention begins ourselves. 

To paraphrase Kierkegaard, when we read this text we must realize it is written to us and it is about us: you must think, this is written to me, and is about me. Paul is going to make extraordinary demands upon the church, but he makes these demands upon all those who are in the church so that he can heal the breach which has arisen in Rome. 

If we are suffering from a breach in the church, then this chapter gives us instruction on how to heal that breach. If we seek to avoid a breach, then this chapter tell us what we must be if we are to avoid a breach. 

The whole begins with  the  idea: “therefore”. 

Therefore

Romans 12 begins a new section of Romans and is marked by this “therefore.” What has gone before is generally theological propositions: an extended explanation of the power of God to rescue the damned. Paul begins this declaration of God’s good news with the word:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 

Romans 1:16. And having begun with the power of God, he ends with praise to the wisdom of God in exercising this power:

33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 

            34          “For who has known the mind of the Lord, 

or who has been his counselor?” 

            35          “Or who has given a gift to him 

that he might be repaid?” 

36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. 

Romans 11:33-36. If read this story of God’s salvation and do not end with a burst of praise, then we have not understood it aright. 

If we understood what God had done, then what would naturally flow would be the death of sin. (Rom. 8:13, Col. 3:1-7) Our lives would be conformed to Christ. (Col. 3:9-10) We would blossom with the fruit of the Spirit:

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. 

Galatians 5:22–26. But notice there in verse 25: Paul having spoken in the most glowing terms of what the Spirit will do in our lives issues a warning

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. 

Why is that necessary?  And this is not simply something to do with Galatians alone; nor is it merely Paul. Consider this is Peter’s first epistle:

22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for 

                        “All flesh is like grass 

and all its glory like the flower of grass. 

                        The grass withers, 

and the flower falls, 

            25         but the word of the Lord remains forever.” 

And this word is the good news that was preached to you. 

1 Peter 1:22–25. The glorious work of salvation which flows out in love and purity. But Peter immediately issues a command for the believers to not harm one-another:

2 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—

1 Peter 2:1-2.  The apostle proclaims the unspeakable joy of salvation, and then pivots immediately to the believers: stop hurting one-another. Stop your lying. Stop your hypocrisy. Stop you envy. Stop your slander.

The new life in Christ is utterly incompatible with the gossiping, envying, slandering tongues we acquire as standard equipment at our birth:

            The wicked are estranged from the womb; 

they go astray from birth, speaking lies. 

Psalm 58:3. And so that you don’t for a moment think that applies to others and not to you, consider the words of David in his great Psalm of repentance:

            Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, 

and in sin did my mother conceive me. 

Psalm 51:5. We are brought forth in iniquity. By the sheer grace of God, we are saved. But sadly, we fail to automatically live a life “worthy … of the gospel of Christ.” Phil. 1:27. 

The day of salvation is a day of birth. John 3:3. Salvation is a good seed in the good soil. The day of salvation is the beginning, not the perfection. As John Newton was to write to an unknown person on March 18, 1767:

Remember, the growth of a believer is not like a mushroom, but like an oak, which increases slowly indeed but surely. Many suns, showers, and frosts, pass upon it before it comes to perfection; and in winter, when it seems dead, it is gathering strength at the root.

John Newton and Richard Cecil, The Works of John Newton, vol. 2 (London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1824), 141.

We will not be effortlessly transformed into that which we are called to be.  It will be rough work, flesh killing work.  When grown, we will be the perfect rose shimmering with dew in the morning sunlight, pure and undefiled. But today, we are not the rose in bloom, but the seedling breaking through the crust of the earth, and straining toward the light:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 

1 John 3:2. Here, in this world, we still need instruction. Adam needed instruction in Paradise; sadly, he refused what he was told. Israel needed instruction when she was rescued in Egypt. And we today need instruction. We  will circumstances which will force us to love those who have sinned against us. We will need encouragement. And we will instruction on precisely how to perform this work. 

When you come to these words of Romans 12, you be tempted to draw – just like the Israelites drew back when God called them to enter the promised land filled with giants. It is for this reason that the writer of Hebrews, who calls for us to strive for peace and holiness, applies a warning to us:

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, 

                        “Today, if you hear his voice, 

            8           do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, 

on the day of testing in the wilderness, 

            9           where your fathers put me to the test 

and saw my works for forty years. 

            10         Therefore I was provoked with that generation, 

                        and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; 

they have not known my ways.’ 

            11         As I swore in my wrath, 

‘They shall not enter my rest.’” 

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 

Hebrews 3:7–12. You could think of yourself as an Israelite rescued from Pharoah, called to enter the Promised Land.  But here in the “wilderness of this world” (as John Bunyan calls our home), we are in danger. We are freed from the dominion of sin, but not its presence. We are freed from captivity to the madness of sin, but our minds must still be renewed. Are hearts by nature are monsters in rebellion against God, but we have been brought into the household of God and our rebellious hearts must be tamed. 

And so Paul in Romans, having unfolded the manifold wisdom of God in salvation now turns to the Romans and calls them to be transformed:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:1–2.  Since you have been rescued, you are called upon to learn to live in this in this humanity, this new family. The implication of the Gospel is this new life: That is why Paul joins the implication to the doctrine, the application to the knowledge. 

But we will not rightly understand this application if we do not have it firmly grounded in the Gospel. We must rehearse a two points which Paul emphasizes in these transitional verses: “the mercies of God,” and “the renewal of your mind.” 

We will take those two ideas in reverse order, because we need to understand the nature of the difficulty in rightly understanding and praising the mercies of God. Also, Paul in Romans begins with the trouble of our mind, and then moves himself to the mercy of God.

The Right Way to Shake off a Viper.8 (Embrace your defamations)

14 Thursday May 2020

Posted by in Church Conflict, Church History, Cotton Mather, Uncategorized

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The previous post from this book may be found here. 

Embrace Your Defamations, as affording you precious opportunities to exemplify a patience that shall glorify God; and imitate the exemplary patience of your admirable Savior.

Usually defamations are little more than provocations. Nothing so unusually easily and provokes Men to intemperate passion as to be reproached. The old pagans and Stoics that could bear everything else found reproach to be insupportable. This would make them roar as load as waves on the Aegean shore.[1]

He was a great and a strong man and a scholar, yea, a master of better philosophy who yet complained, Reproach has broken my heart. For patience to get the upper hand of passion on this occasion, and moderate it, and regulate it, verily this is a more perfect work of Christianity.[2]

Sir, if you may be so happy as to attain unto it, you may, instead of being troubled say, I am happy that I ever had the occasion! Upon the first advice of any abuse offered to you, resolve, I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue; I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while I have before me what the unbridled mouth of wickedness has uttered of me .[3]

But make your application to the God of all grace,[4] for the grace to keep this resolution. If you resist the first impression, the first resentments, which you may too readily feel upon vile reproaches, you have gained a great point; you have steered clear of abundance of sin; you will be more able afterwards to carry on a strain of lovely patience, and merit the judge’s motto, prudens qui patiens: a prudent man is a patient man.

Let me beseech you, after this, to maintain most exact watch, a most severe guard upon yourself, lest while the waters of strife are broaching, your provoked spirit may at any time speak unadvisedly with your lips. The meekest man in the world[5], you know, did so.[6]

My friend, your calumnious adversaries furnish you with valuable opportunities to adorn the doctrine of God your Savior[7] and do such things as are done by none but those that may lay hold on the comforts of eternal life. The blessed Eliot’s three words, bear, forbear, forgive: Now, now is the time for them to come into exercise.

All tendencies to revenge upon your enemies the wrongs which they have done you must now be abhored, be suppressed; must be looked upon as worse things than the worst of your enemies’ [bad acts]. ’Tis probable they may be such people as may deserve to have much evil spoken of them. However, ’tis now decenet for you to be more sparing in speaking of it than you would have been if you had suffered nothing from them. Leave that just work to others; there is hazard lest you overdo, or least some revengeful glance of your own do work in it, if you go meddle with it.

On the other side, if you know any good of those that have spoken ill of you, be you not adverse to speak that good and not ill-pleased if you hear it spoken by others.

How famous, how precious is the name of Calvin for the answer which he gave when he was told that angry Luther put some hard names upon him. An answer so recited, so esteemed by all the world that there is no need now of my telling any of my neighbors what it is.[8]

But be sure that your heart stand always in awe of that word: Proverbs 20.22, “Say not thou, I will recompense evil.” And Romans 12.17, “Recompense to no man evil for evil.”

Athenagoras, I remember, gives this description of the primitive Christians, “’Tis counted an indifferent thing for a man to revile another, by whom he has been first reviled. But we Christians do speak as well as ever we can of them that speak nothing but evil of us.”[9]

And Justin Martyr bears just witness for them, “We don’t ask that they who haveh most accused us, and abused us, and falsely spoken evil of us may be punished for it; no ’tis punishment enough to be left unto such folly and rashness.”[10]

Oh! Do not look upon this generous patience as impracticable or a lesion only for the Elohim whose dwelling is with flesh![11] Rather, look upon it as an unmanly weakness to be unable to bear the ill words of other men. It is a pretty remark when Abishai could not bear the railing tongue of Shimei.[12] Says David unto him, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah? Now, Zeruiah was their mother. Why, the sons of Zeruiah? He seems to intimate you have more of your mother than of your father in you. You talk as if you were of the weaker sex. If you had the souls of men in you, a few ill words would not be such an intolerable grievance to you.

If you will harken to me, you shall take little notice of the affronts that are offered you: For the most part they are not worth your notice.

When the famous Doctor Sands was ignominiously carried on a lame jade through the city of London, a base woman in scorn threw a stone at him and hit him full on the breast. He took no other notice of it, but only made this mild answer, “Woman, I pray God forgive thee.” This was notice enough.

[1] Aegean: Greek. The reference is to the Iliad, Book 1, line 34 where the priest Chryses sits by the roaring sea.

[2] James 1:2–4 (AV)

2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

[3] Psalm 39:1.

[4] 1 Peter 5:10.

[5] Numbers 12:3 (AV) Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.

[6] Numbers 20:10–13 (AV)

10 And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? 11 And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also. 12 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them. 13 This is the water of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with the LORD, and he was sanctified in them.

[7] Titus 2:10 (AV) Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.

[8]  In a 1544 letter from John Calvin to Heinrich Bullinger, he wrote, “Often have I been wont to declare, that even though [Martin Luther] were to call me a devil, I should still not the less esteem and acknowledge him as an illustrious servant of God.”

[9]

Allow me here to lift up my voice boldly in loud and audible out-cry, pleading as I do before philosophic princes. For who of those that reduce syllogisms, and clear up ambiguities, and explain etymologies,or of those who teach homonyms and synonyms, and predicaments and axioms, and what is the subject and what the predicate, and who promise their disciples by these and such like instructions to make them happy: who of them have so purged their souls as, instead of hating their enemies, to love them; and, instead of speaking ill of those who have reviled them (to abstain from which is of itself an evidence of no mean forbearance), to bless them; and to pray for those who plot against their lives? On the contrary, they never cease with evil intent to search out skilfully the secrets of their art,and are ever bent on working some ill, making the art of words and not the exhibition of deeds their business and profession. But among us you will find uneducated persons, and artisans, and old women, who, if they are unable in words to prove the benefit of our doctrine, yet by their deeds exhibit the benefit arising from their persuasion of its truth: they do not rehearse speeches, but exhibit good works; when struck, they do not strike again; when robbed, they do not go to law; they give to those that ask of them, and love their neighbours as themselves.

 

Athenagoras, “A Plea for the Christians,” in Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (Entire), ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. B. P. Pratten, vol. 2, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 134.

[10]

For all are called Christians. Wherefore we demand that the deeds of all those who are accused to you be judged, in order that each one who is convicted may be punished as an evil-doer, and not as a Christian; and if it is clear that any one is blameless, that he may be acquitted, since by the mere fact of his being a Christian he does no wrong. For we will not require that you punish our accusers; they being sufficiently punished by their present wickedness and ignorance of what is right

 

Justin Martyr, “The First Apology of Justin,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 165.

[11] That is, Jesus.

[12] The incident can be found in 2 Samuel 16. David is fleeing with his people from the rebellion of Absalom. While leaving the city, Shimei stops along the road and mocks David.

Bruce Baugus: The Disease of Ambition

18 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by in Church Conflict, Uncategorized

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I suspect we do a poor job distinguishing between the two types of ambition or recognizing the perversity of eritheia. Selfish ambition, at least to a certain degree, is not only an acceptable sin in our culture but a seemingly necessary one to succeed in the world. It may also be incentivized in a church culture caving into the temptation to elevate the public image of success above qualities like quiet and steady faithfulness in relative obscurity, a work-ethic rooted in giving and helping rather than getting and keeping, and a willingness to go without and sacrifice for the good of others.

We cannot esteem worldly success without neglecting godliness and overlooking spiritual maturity. Worldly success is not a bad thing, but it is not to be confused with being above reproach or enjoying a good reputation and it may indicate little more than selfish ambition–the disease of greatness. In ministers and congregations it may even dress itself in claims of kingdom growth, public witness, administrative acumen, evangelistic fruitfulness, entrepreneurial spirit, and so on. These are all highly desirable objects, but sin can twist each one into a pious-sounding cover for eritheia.

I suspect this is the primary root of most church conflict: There is selfish ambition which dresses itself up as something good and spiritual. Read the whole thing

Horatio Alger at Church

09 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Church Conflict, Church History, Ministry

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The following question comes from a long article in the Journal of Pastoral Theology (3.3, 1979) by Harvie Conn. Conn discusses how a church has a “model” for ministry;  an often unarticulated self-understanding of what a church is, does, and how it functions. A great of the discussion is how to make change (do more evangelism for instance) when the inherited culture stands against that change. 

In the diagnostic section, Conn quotes this question (cited to Dr. Ward at Michigan State):

Pride and status. Has leadership become something of an end in itself? Have the teachings of Christ about servanthood become culturally clouded by the Horatio Alger syndrome: one begins low in order to become great? How real is the danger in ministry that servanthood becomes a temporary or transient period of initiation or demonstration of eligibility? Is leadership defined too often not by service but by privileges?

This question struck me, because it points to a poison I have seen destroy too many churches and harm too many Christians. It is a poison from the broader world and culture. Because it is so common in our world it can become nearly invisible in our church.

Conflict Springs From Justice

25 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by in 1 Samuel, Church Conflict, Uncategorized

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This is the (draft) introduction to first chapter of a short book on Church Conflict. The goal of this book will be to train a congregation to avoid conflict. And, while nothing can perfectly protect against sin, there is a great deal which can be done to encourage a congregation in patterns of behavior and thought which can make conflict more difficult to maintain and easier to resolve.

We will go very wrong in thinking about conflict in the church, if we think that conflict is necessarily and always evil: even though the conflict we experience is almost always evil.

Conflict springs from a desire for what is good: It begins with the love of some-thing, and then the desire for the protection and promotion of that-object.  Since we are fighting for what we love, we are fighting for justice.  When we rightly love what is true and beautiful, our defense of that thing, that person, that right is just. Conflict springs from the apparent love of justice.

But sin has perverted our loves and has perverted our sense of justice.  Sin has taken something good (the desire to protect the good, true and beautiful) and turns it into evil.  Conflict is powerful and destructive because it is the misuse of something good and necessary.

Conflict also covers itself with the language of virtue: If you are fighting for what is right, you are fighting for virtue. When conflict comes within the Church, it uses spiritual language: conflict takes on sin, love, God, et cetera. Therefore, our opponent in church conflict can easily be portrayed as the enemy of God!

The church at Corinth fell into terrible fights among factions, with each party claiming to be most godly:

11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 1 Corinthians 1:11–13 (ESV)

When love of justice and the language of God’s side come together it not surprising that conflict can take deep root in a congregation.

 An Example of Righteous Conflict

King Saul’s story in Scripture is marked with conflict. His first official act as King was an instance of righteous conflict, instigated by the Spirit of God. First, there was a problem, a foreign King, Nahash the Ammonite threatened the city of Jabesh-gilead with slavery and the lose of each citizens’ right eye:

5 Now, behold, Saul was coming from the field behind the oxen. And Saul said, “What is wrong with the people, that they are weeping?” So they told him the news of the men of Jabesh. 6 And the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and his anger was greatly kindled. 7 He took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hand of the messengers, saying, “Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen!” Then the dread of the Lord fell upon the people, and they came out as one man. 1 Samuel 11:5–7 (ESV)

Here there conflict – there is open war. But the conflict is wholly just on the side of Saul. Our text tells us that Saul’s anger, aroused by his sense of justice, was stirred by “the Spirit of God”.

This instance teaches that conflict is not necessary evil – at least that it is not necessarily the case that both parties involved in a conflict are wrong. Here, Saul was wholly just in his anger and the conflict against the Ammonites was a righteous act.

 

How Sin Hijacks our Sense of Justice

But not all conflict is righteous. The conflict which troubles us is unjust conflict, particularly the conflict where both parties are in sin. As explained above, conflict springs from a sense of offended justice. Where sin hijacks our sense of justice and leads us to seek to protect that which is evil, our participation in conflict is itself sin.

This is the first step in sinful conflict: our sense of justice, of right and wrong is altered. Do do this, sin hijacks our desire and our language. We see both perversions in the life of Saul.

In 1 Samuel 15, God commands Saul to destroy the perpetual enemy of Israel, the Amalekites. Saul brings the battle, but he does not utterly them. He spares “best” from destruction:

9 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction. 1 Samuel 15:9 (ESV)

Those things which Saul (and the people) desired as “best” – the objects of his lust – these were kept alive in direct disobedience to God.  Saul desired something more than the glory of God. Perversion of desire is the first step in sinful conflict.

Saul then takes the next step, perversion in language: rationalizes his sin (which makes Samuel out to be the one who is contrary to God):

13 And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” 14 And Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?” 15 Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.”

1 Samuel 15:13–15 (ESV)

Saul uses spiritual language, the language of justice and virtue to dress up his sin. And, if Saul’s opponent had not been a prophet of God, Saul (who made a decent argument and who argued from a position of power) would have won. At the very least, Saul would have been able to prosecute the conflict for quite a while (as Saul did in the case of David).

Below, we will examine the details of how conflict perverts love and justice to sinful ends.