Tag Archives: Church

On This Rock

Bible Study, , ,

ON THIS ROCK

Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ Then He ordered His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Messiah (Matt. 8: 17-20).

What a golden moment . . . and what a mess we westerners have made of it! 

Before Jesus’ words can make real sense to us, we need to put ourselves into His sandals and the sandals of His disciples, taking note of where they were and what His words meant in the language and culture of first-century Hebrews and not twenty-first-century western Greek-thinking so-called theologians.

Where were they? They were in the middle of the “red-light” district of northern Israel. There were sexual orgies going on of the most depraved kind – people co-habiting with goats to worship their god. This was not the place for Jews to get their entertainment. Jesus deliberately took His disciples there to give them a taste of what went on in the real world and then to ask them an in-you-face question, “Who do you say that I am?” If they thought He was just a human, albeit a mighty spiritual one like their prophets of old, then He would be powerless to make an impression on the godless world.

Peter blurted it out. “You are the Messiah.” Well done, Peter! In a rare flash of insight, which Jesus acknowledged as from the Father, he recognised in Jesus something far more than just a man. Now the disciples were ready to receive the next part of their commission to continue the work that Jesus had begun.

No need to spiritualise here. The very environment provides the explanation of Jesus’ words.

“You are Peter – just a little stone, powerless in yourself to do anything. You cannot change what you see going on here. Look around you, Peter. What do you see? Terrible things happening because people have rejected the knowledge of the true God, and created their own gods as an excuse to indulge the lusts of their sinful natures? Yes, Peter, but right here, on this huge rock where the images of their gods are displayed, I will build my church. Nothing will be able to withstand the power of the truth, not even their stupid idea that the cave over there from which water flows is the gate of Hades.”

What will make the difference? Well-meaning but misinformed Christians have latched onto Jesus’ words and turned them into the fanciful doctrine about “spiritual warfare”. Binding the devil and loosing the Holy Spirit! Really? Yes, this is spiritual warfare but not the kind that is carried on in the name of truth.

It was every rabbi’s right, whose s’mikah – authority – was recognised and acknowledged, to teach his own yoke – his understanding of what the Torah permitted or did not permit as a way of life. A rabbi with authority taught his disciples his yoke and expected them in turn to continue to teach his yoke to their disciples without changing it in any way. They were given the authority to interpret the Torah in the disposition of their rabbi.

Jesus was a rabbi with authority to teach His yoke. Instead of interpreting the Torah in the tradition of the other rabbis with authority who had gone before Him, men like Gamaliel, Hillel and Shammai who added rules to rules, making their yoke impossibly enslaving because of their legalism, Jesus said that His yoke was easy and His burden was light (Matt. 11: 28-30) because He was gentle and humble in heart. He taught and practised the mercy and compassion of God in place of the rules of a demanding God who punished those who broke them.

Jesus clashed with the religious authorities who did not like the God He represented. But, His yoke of mercy would break down the hardest resistance, transforming the hearts and lives of people, and replacing their godless ways with loyalty and obedience to Him as His followers accurately represented Him and practised His yoke.

At that moment, when Peter confessed his recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus conferred on His disciples the authority to interpret His yoke (the keys of the kingdom) and to teach His would-be followers what the Torah meant according to the disposition of Messiah. They were to “bind” on people the truth which had already been authorised in heaven and “loose” them from the lies which kept them in bondage to legalism which was not the true message of the Torah.

In this way, through the work of the Holy Spirit in them, not by praying “binding and loosing” prayers, people would be rescued from the dominion of Satan. Jesus said that it is the truth that sets people free. The Holy Spirit convinces people of the truth and brings life to their dead spirits.

Real “spiritual warfare” takes place through the truth. We do not fight by shouting at the devil or doing imaginary “binding and loosing”. Jesus waged war with error by speaking the truth and so must we. Our most powerful weapon, the sword of the Spirit, is the yoke of Jesus taught in the disposition of Jesus, gentle and humble in heart.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my Blog site – www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

 

Supreme In Everything!

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SUPREME IN EVERYTHING!

And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in haven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross. (Col. 1: 18-20)

What does ‘supreme’ mean? The dictionary says, ‘Highest in rank or authority’ or ‘greatest of the great’. How does Jesus fit the criteria?

He, not some lower-ranking god who is far removed from God, is the Creator of the universe. The consistent witness of the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments is that Jesus is the Creator of all things. It was Jesus who, in the Old Testament, was called ‘the angel of the Lord’, and who, as Jesus Himself said, appeared to Moses at the burning bush (John 8: 58); and to Isaiah in the temple. (Isa. 12: 39-41)

It was Jesus, whom the Bible called ‘the Word’ (John 1: 1), through whom God created the universe and everything in it, both seen and unseen, and to whom God gave the authority to rule (Eph. 1: 22) for the sake of the church. Jesus is the beginning or initiator of Creation and the sustainer of all things. He holds everything together by His powerful word. (Heb 1: 3)

Just as Jesus is the initiator of Creation, so also He is the initiator of the New Creation, the church. The church came into being through Him. He shed His blood to reconcile God’s alienated children to Himself and to bring them back into His household to be His beloved family once again. The church is the visible representation of His kingdom on earth. He is the supreme Head of the church. (Col. 1:18)

He is also the firstborn from among the dead. He raised dead people to life again during His sojourn on earth but they were doomed to die again because of sin. Jesus’s resurrection from the dead signified that He had beaten sin. Sin killed Him but sin could not hold Him in the grave. Without the resurrection, His death would have been no different from the death of any other human. His death would have been proof that the devil still has the power of death.

But death could not hold Him in the grave. He busted out of death into a resurrection life that can never die again. He became the prototype of all those who believe in Him, the firstborn from among the dead. He fulfilled the requirements of the firstfuits, which guaranteed God’s blessing on the rest of the harvest.

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfuits of those who have fallen asleep. For, since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. (1 Cor. 15:20-21)

The resurrection is the final proof that all Jesus ever said, did or promised is authentic. Because He lives, we shall live also. (John 14: 19) Paul was writing to counter the nonsense people were teaching for which they had no authority except the fanciful imagination of human minds. He not only had the backing of the ancient Scriptures but also the historical truth of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection to write what he wrote and teach what he taught without fear of contradiction.

What other religious teacher could claim what Jesus claimed and then pull it off to prove that He spoke the truth? Did Buddha, Mohammed, Joseph Smith or any other person who made great claims, ever do that? Did any of them say they would be killed and raise again? To try to disprove the words and works of Jesus, some even declare that the Bible has been corrupted and is no longer the truth. On what grounds? No amount of maligning the record can disprove the resurrection.

Millions of people throughout the centuries after Christ have trusted Jesus’s word and committed their lives into His hands. The early Christians and many since have paid for their faith with their lives. Even today, thousands die brutal deaths rather than deny their faith. Why? Are they sacrificing themselves for a lie? No. They are convinced that Jesus spoke the truth and they have staked their destiny on it.

Jesus said to her (Martha), ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ (John 11: 25, 26)

SCRIPTURE TAKEN FROM THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Herod On The Warpath

Christian Life, , ,

HEROD ON THE WARPATH

“That’s when King Herod got it into his head to go after some of the church members. He murdered James, John’s brother. When he was how much it raised his popularity with the Jews, he arrested Peter — all this during Passover Week, mind you — and had him thrown in jail, putting four squads of four soldiers each to guard him. He was planning a public lynching after Passover.

“All the time that Peter was under heavy guard in the jailhouse, the church was praying for him most strenuously.” Acts 12:1-5 (The Message),

Opposition to the church was turning ugly. Up to this point it was a religious struggle but for some reason King Herod chose to get involved. The evidence points to a man who would do anything to gain popularity, even stooping to murder to “suck up” to the Jews. This was the same Herod who tried to get some entertainment out of Jesus when He was on trial for His life.

Having disposed of James to the delight of the anti-Christian Jews, he turned on Peter, planning a public display of his sadistic power after the Passover. Was he suspecting a rescue attempt by the believers? He set a guard out of all proportion to the possibility of one man making a bid to escape!

But there was another power at work which Herod had not taken into account — the church at prayer. While Peter was asleep under guard in the prison, the church was awake and storming the gates of heaven.

One wonders why James had perished but Peter was given time. Is there a powerful lesson in this story for us? Perhaps James’ death caught the church off guard. It was a surprise attack and the church did not have time to mobilise prayer to save him. Peter’s imprisonment, however, bought them time to respond by entreating the intervention of God for him.

Herod might have had a measure of authority on earth but the church at prayer was a power to be reckoned with. Way back in Acts 4, when persecution first broke out against the apostles, Peter and John, the church was learning how to handle the conflict between the kingdom of God and the dominion of darkness.

They engaged the enemy, not flesh and blood but spiritual forces, with the spiritual weapons at their disposal. In Acts 4 we have a record of their prayer — an affirmation that they understood who was in charge, “your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed”, and who was under attack, and an entreaty that He be vindicated through them. If that was the flavour of their prayer then, it would have been the same now.

This was not so much Peter’s life in danger as Jesus being challenged by an inconsequential little human who thought he was in charge. This was the same spirit that energised David to go after Goliath. He saw the heathen giant’s challenge not as merely against the Israelites but against the God whom the Israelites represented. Because the Israelite army did not see it that way, none of them had the courage to take the Philistine champion on. David was not concerned about his own tender age or inexperience. He knew he was covered by the power of a covenant-keeping God!

The Apostle Paul’s experience was a face-to-face encounter with Jesus to answer for his own actions against Him. “‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?'” Acts 9:4b (NIV), but he was persecuting the church, not Jesus, so he thought. Likewise, Herod had unwittingly taken Jesus on by attacking church leaders and history would prove that he would come off second best.

The church understood that Jesus identified with His Body so closely that any attack on them was an attack on Him. Prayer that engages God with the right motive, to promote and uphold His honour, is the most powerful force in the world. God will do whatever it takes to intervene for His own sake because His mercy is His glory on display.

The Church At Work

Christian Life, , ,

THE CHURCH AT WORK

“It was about this time that some prophets came to Antioch from Jerusalem. One of them named Agabus stood up one day and, prompted by the Spirit, warned that a severe famine was about to devastate the country. (The famine eventually came during the rule of Claudius). So the disciples decided that each of them would send whatever they could to their fellow Christians in Judea to help out. They sent Barnabas and Saul to deliver the collection to the leaders in Jerusalem.” Acts 11:27-30 (The Message).

This was the church at work, doing life together across racial, cultural, social and even geographical divides. The church in the Roman Empire was a culture within a culture, living as a family unit in a hostile, anti-God environment, caring for and supporting one another and sharing their resources so that everyone had enough.

The prophetic ministry was part of this family life, not a kind of Christian “fortune-telling” to satisfy curiosity about the future but to prepare for disaster in advance in the same way as God prepared Egypt through Pharaoh’s dreams and Joseph’s interpretation.

Generosity was taught to the Israelites in the constitution of the Old Covenant. God taught them how to take care of one another so that there would be equality and a minimum of poverty among the people. They were to leave the corners of their fields for the poor to glean. They were to set up freed slaves with enough to save them from sliding back into poverty and inevitable slavery again.

Their system of tithes and offerings took care of all those for whom they were responsible – their high priest, their priests, their families and the poor, the widow, the orphan and the alien. They did not leave the care of the needy to the government. Their government operated through their religious system under God.

In the early church resources were used serve, not to hoard. What they had they did not regard as exclusively theirs. It was on loan from God to be used for the common good. Human nature is still today what it was then — enslaved by greed. There was one clear test of a new heart — how did they treat their possessions?

The Apostle Paul accurately diagnosed the root of all evil in the world as not money but as the love of money. Jesus made it clear that it is impossible for anyone to serve two masters, God and Mammon. Mammon is not money per se; it is the demonic stronghold that money sets up in the heart of a greedy person. When the love of money grips a person’s heart, believer or not, he cannot be a lover of God

Since Jesus spoke more about money than anything else, it must be true that our attitude to, and the way we handle our money is the measure of our commitment to Him. The money and possessions God entrusts to us are a part of our equipment with which we show the love of God to fellow believers and to the unbelieving world.

Love is a very practical thing. John put it this way: “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” 1 John 3:17 (NIV).

The generosity of the believers in the early church was spontaneous. They did not have to be cajoled, bullied or begged to share their resources with brothers and sisters in Judea. It was their first response to the approaching famine.

The eighth commandment, “You shall not steal,” is as much about withholding from those who need your help as it is about taking what does not belong to you. God indicted His own people through the prophet Malachi. “‘Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse — the whole nation of you — because you are robbing me.'” Malachi 3:8, 9 (NIV)

How many robbers are sitting in our churches, believing they are disciples of Jesus but under a curse and excluded from the kingdom because they are takers and not givers. .

What Now?

Bible Study, , , ,

WHAT NOW?

“Dear Theophilus, in the first volume of this book I wrote on everything that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day He said goodbye to the apostles, the ones He had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven. After His death He presented Himself alive in many different settings over a period of forty days. In face-to-face meetings, He talked to them about things concerning the kingdom of God.” Acts 1:1-3 (NIV).

It is fitting that we continue the story of Jesus as Luke did to his friend, Theophilus. We are indebted to him for his meticulous record. Without it we would never know the sequel to the Jesus-story and how the first disciples took on the Roman Empire and, through the promised Holy Spirit, so securely planted the message of the truth about Jesus that it infiltrated the known world of their day and still continues to change lives through their writings.

Luke made sure that Theophilus understood that Jesus spent forty days with His disciples after the resurrection, tying up all the loose ends so that they would know exactly what to preach and teach after He left them. His theme was the kingdom of God. There was no doubt that He was alive and that He would continue to be fully involved with them as they carried out His instructions and lived out His life in a hostile environment.

Unlike so much of current preaching and teaching which ignores the bigger picture and makes the gospel all about us, He put His life and death into the perspective of God’s realm and rule in the lives of people. It was not about them. It was about Him, His purpose for coming and their on-going mission to proclaim Him to the world.

He would have warned them that their task was a dangerous one. Like Him they would have to face the hostility of the Jewish leaders who had put Him to death as well as the Caesars whose claims demanded the worship and allegiance that was due Him alone.

These arrogant Roman emperors, in particular Caesar Augustus, “believed that he was god incarnate on earth, the prince of peace who had come to restore all of creation…His priests offered sacrifices and incense to rid people of their guilt. One of his popular slogans was “There is no other name under heaven by which men can be saved than that of Caesar.” Another phrase they used was “Caesar is Lord.” Throughout the Roman Empire, the Caesars called on people to worship them as the divine saviours of humankind…” (Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, Zondervan 2005, page 162)

The implications are obvious. Into this world came the “Jesus movement” in a remote corner of the empire that was giving them no end of trouble. These people claimed that their leader was a rabbi, that He had announced the arrival of the kingdom of God, that He had been executed by the Roman authorities for treason, and that His followers claimed that He was alive. Now they were claiming that He, not Caesar, is Lord!

Their opposition would be ruthless ad relentless but the message had to go out. The apostles had to know it, be convinced of it, believe it and proclaim it not matter what the consequences. This was the final mission of Jesus before He returned to the Father. For forty days He instructed them until He was sure that they were ready to take on the world!