Tag Archives: outsiders

DEAR BROTHERS

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DEAR BROTHERS

Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders; make the use of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. He is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here (Col. 4: 5-9).

Who are the outsiders, and how must we treat them?

There is a tendency to regard people who are not yet believers in Jesus as outsiders and therefore, enemies. They are ‘outside’ and we are ‘inside’, therefore we regard ourselves as better than they, We are going to heaven and they are going to hell, so it does not matter if we treat them badly!

Who said so? This is not how Jesus treated people who had not yet come to faith in Him. To Him, they were lost sons and potential brothers, and He used every opportunity to invite them to come home. He said that His mission was to seek and save the lost.

Paul said, ‘Make the most of every opportunity.’ He did not tell us to dangle them over the fires of hell and bash them with the Bible. He said that we are to use every opportunity. Every opportunity to do what? I think he meant every opportunity to be kind and generous towards them so that they will have glimpses of Jesus in the way we treat them. Then we can share the good news with them that they can also become part of God’s forever family.

Paul’s generous love encircled everyone, especially the members of God’s family, regardless of who or what they were as far as the world was concerned. Take, for instance, Onesimus whom he included in his closing greeting as a ‘faithful and dear brother’.

Onesimus was immortalised in Paul’s letter to Philemon as a runaway slave who came home to the Father through Paul’s influence. He wanted to remain in Rome and serve Paul, but Paul knew that he had an obligation to send him back to Philemon to whom he rightfully belonged. It was up to his owner, not Paul, to decide his fate. It was his right to have him put to death, but Paul pleaded with Philemon on his behalf, to treat him with mercy, especially since he had become a faithful and dear brother.

Without hesitation, Paul put Tychicus and Onesimus on the same level. After all, had he not previously stated that there was no difference between slave and free in God’s kingdom? Social status no longer applied because people of every colour and culture had become brothers and one in Christ. Onesimus was the acid test and Paul accepted him as one of God’s people because he had also become a new person in Christ.

Paul would not allow the churches to forget him simply because he was shut up in prison. Through those who came and went, he kept contact with the family of God so that they would not forget to pray for him. Apostle though he was, he was not above the need for prayer. Through the love and prayers of his fellow believers all over the Roman Empire, he would not succumb to the pressures of persecution and torture and deny his faith in Christ or his hope in the gospel.

Paul was not only a believer in his own right. He was also aware of his responsibility to model Jesus to those who looked up to him as an example. He needed God’s grace in his human weakness as much as everyone else did. He was not above admitting his need and asking for prayer for himself and his ministry. It was important to him to keep his fellow believers informed about his circumstances and even his anxieties and fears so that they would know how to intercede for him.

How important it is for us to pray for our spiritual leaders too! They are not above temptation, and have to face pressures that the man in the pew will never experience. Criticism and judgment come easily to those who do not walk in their shoes. How do they react to those who are never satisfied with what their spiritual leaders do and how they perform, and tell the world about their gripes? They must answer to the Lord, not to their critics.

Paul’s counsel to us is to pray for them. Every pastor needs prayer far more than he needs public condemnation. They are ‘dear brothers’ just like Onesimus, the runaway slave.

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.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – STRANGERS TO GRACE

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STRANGERS TO GRACE

“That’s when you’ll find yourselves out in the cold, strangers to grace. You’ll watch Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets march into God’s kingdom. You’ll watch outsiders stream in from east, west, north and south and sit down at the table of God’s kingdom. And all the time you’ll be outside looking in – and wondering what happened. This is the Great Reversal: the last in line put at the head of the line, and the so-called first ending up last.” Luke 13:28-30.

This rejection of unbelievers makes terribly sad reading for those who have experienced grace, the unimaginable favour of God that takes worthless sinners and makes them over into beloved sons, all because the rejected ones have not taken seriously what Jesus was saying.

Imagine getting to the end of the road, so sure you are right, only to find that Jesus was right and you were wrong and now there’s no going back. The Pharisees and religious leaders were so cock-sure of themselves that they exterminated Him on the strength of their conviction, only to find that what He predicted happened – He rose from the dead and proved them dead wrong!

“Consider, therefore, the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in His kindness.” Romans 11:23 (NIV).

God’s offer of kindness in forgiving sin, wiping the slate clean and starting all over again is extended to everyone without exception, but He never forces His kindness on anyone. He has provided the sacrifice – His own Son, Jesus – and made the offer, but it is up to us to take what He offers seriously or pooh-pooh His grace and face the consequences.

God’s sternness is reserved for those who are foolish enough to brush aside His provision as though He were either a liar or irrelevant. If His warnings fall on persistently deaf ears, we have no-one but ourselves to blame when we hear His sorrowful words, ‘Go away. I never knew you.” For those who have a conscience (and who hasn’t, except that many pay no attention to it), there is no excuse because conscience is God’s inner voice built into us at conception.

“When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong…” Romans 2:14, 15.

God has no pleasure in tossing people onto the eternal rubbish dump (called hell), but He has no option but to uphold His word and confirm our choices. Like seeds, God has put endless potential into every life. Look at an apple. What do you see? A tasty fruit, or a forest-in-the-making? It depends on your perspective. God looked at Abraham and saw a nation. It’s all about potential. His greatest sorrow is to have to discard people eternally because of wasted potential.

He has woven into human beings (that’s us too), the potential to become sons of God with all the rights and privileges Jesus has as God’s Son. He has actually named His sons heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, reigning with Him in eternal glory! Why pass that up for a stubborn refusal to take Him seriously?

Hence Jesus’ warning, “Before your day-to-day choices are confirmed forever,” He said, “take the trouble to verify My credentials, My trustworthiness and My promises, and act on what you discover.”

Once again, it’s your choice…

THE BOOK OF ACTS – OUTSIDERS IN – INSIDERS OUT

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OUTSIDERS IN – INSIDERS OUT

“Paul and Barnabas didn’t back down. Standing their ground they said, “It is required that the Word of God be spoken first of all to you, the Jews. But seeing that you want no part of it — you’ve made it clear that you have no taste or inclination for eternal life — the door is open to all the outsiders. And we’re on our way through it, following orders, doing what God commanded when He said,

‘I’ve set you up as a light to all nations. You’ll proclaim salvation to the four winds and seven seas!’

“When the outsiders heard this they could hardly believe their good fortune. All who were marked out for real life put their trust in God — they honoured God’s Word by receiving that life. And this Message of salvation spread like wildfire all through the region.” Acts 13:46-49 (The Message).

What is this thing called “God’s Word”? According to ancient rabbinic teaching, God’s Word is a manifestation of Himself in another form. This means that what God says is who He is in words that humans can understand. His Word, therefore, carries the same authority as God Himself.

Unlike humans who can say one thing and be something else, God’s Word cannot contradict Him and therefore what He says is what He is. He cannot lie because He cannot say anything contrary to who He is. That makes God’s Word reliable, trustworthy and unchangeable and allows us to understand what He requires because He has made His will known to us through the medium of language.

Paul and Barnabas were dealing with two groups of people. The Jews who were God’s covenant people were custodians of God’s Word entrusted to them in a covenant relationship sealed with blood. The Gentiles were associated with the Jewish religion but were considered “outsiders” because they had no claim to the covenant or the promises of God.

Written into the Old Covenant was the promise that the time would come when Messiah would open the door to Gentiles to have a share in the covenant and in the blessings promised to Abraham. Because of Jewish prejudice, this group of Jews and many others that Paul encountered on his journeys, refused to honour God’s Word by believing the message and receiving their Messiah. They pooh-poohed Paul’s teaching and turned violently against him with full intention of killing him.

The Gentiles, on the other hand, gladly received their message and honoured God’s Word by believing the truth and entering into all the benefits of this new life. Part of the Jewish resistance to the message must surely have been their refusal to accept that Gentiles could share in this salvation on equal terms with them.

When Paul announced that, because of their persistent rejection of the good news he was proclaiming, he would no longer waste his time preaching to deaf ears, and offering God’s gift of salvation to people who had no desire for it, they went ballistic. How dare he take what they thought was exclusively theirs and give it away freely to the despised “outsiders”!

But that is exactly what God intended them to do from the beginning and which they failed to do because they did not honour God’s Word themselves and they thought that they were better than everyone else. Instead of embracing God’s grace and gladly sharing it with anyone who would believe, they shut themselves out of the new covenant and all the blessing promised to them through their revered ancestor, Abraham.

God’s Word gives us glimpses into His big heart. When we take what He says seriously and act on it, we both honour Him and we also gain access to everything He has said. What fools we would be to pass that up in favour of our own paltry opinions!

Dear Brothers

Bible Study, , ,

DEAR BROTHERS

Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders; make the use of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. He is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here (Col. 4: 5-9).

Who are the outsiders, and how must we treat them?

There is a tendency to regard people who are not yet believers in Jesus as outsiders and therefore enemies. They are ‘outside’ and we are ‘inside’, therefore we regard ourselves as better than they, We are going to heaven and they are going to hell, so it does not matter if we treat them badly!

Who said so? That is not how Jesus treated people who had not yet come to faith in Him. To Him they were lost sons and potential brothers, and He used every opportunity to invite them to come home. He said that His mission was to seek and save the lost.

Paul said, ‘Make the most of every opportunity.’ He did not tell us to dangle them over the fires of hell and bash them with the Bible. He said that we are to use every opportunity. Every opportunity to do what? I think he meant every opportunity to be kind and generous towards them so that they will have glimpses of Jesus in the way we treat them. Then we can share the good news with them that they can also become part of God’s forever family.

Paul’s generous love encircled everyone, especially the members of God’s family, regardless of who or what they were as far as the world was concerned. Take, for instance, Onesimus whom he included in his closing greeting as a ‘faithful and dear brother’.

Onesimus was immortalised in Paul’s letter to Philemon as a runaway slave who came home to the Father through Paul’s influence. He wanted to remain in Rome and serve Paul, but Paul knew that he had an obligation to send him back to Philemon to whom he rightfully belonged. It was up to his owner, not Paul, to decide his fate. It was his right to have him put to death, but Paul pleaded with Philemon on his behalf, to treat him with mercy, especially since he had become a faithful and dear brother.

Without hesitation, Paul put Tychicus and Onesimus on the same level. After all, had he not previously stated that there was no difference between slave and free in God’s kingdom? Social status no longer applied because people of every colour and level had become brothers and one in Christ. Onesimus was the acid test and Paul accepted him as one of God’s people because he had also become a new person in Christ.

Paul would not allow the churches to forget him simply because he was shut up in prison. Through those who came and went, he kept contact with the family of God so that they would not forget to pray for him. Apostle though he was, he was not above the need for prayer. Through the love and prayers of his fellow believers all over the Roman Empire, he would not succumb to the pressures of persecution and torture and deny his faith in Christ or his hope in the gospel.

Paul was not only a believer in his own right. He was also aware of his responsibility to model Jesus to those who looked up to him as an example. He needed God’s grace in his human weakness as much as everyone else did. He was not above admitting his need and asking for prayer for himself and his ministry. It was important to him to keep his fellow believers informed about his circumstances and even his anxieties and fears so that they would know how to intercede for him.

How important it is for us to pray for our spiritual leaders too! They are not above temptation, and have to face pressures that the man in the pew will never experience. Criticism and judgment come easily to those who do not walk in their shoes. How do they react to those who are never satisfied with what they do and how they perform and tell the world about their gripes? They must answer to the Lord, not to their critics.

Paul’s counsel to us is to pray for them. Every pastor needs prayer far more than he needs public condemnation. They are ‘dear brothers’ just like Onesimus, the runaway slave.

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.

 

Outsiders In – Insiders Out

Bible Study, , ,

OUTSIDERS IN – INSIDERS OUT

“Paul and Barnabas didn’t back down. Standing their ground they said, “It is required that the Word of God be spoken first of all to you, the Jews. But seeing that you want no part of it — you’ve made it clear that you have no taste or inclination for eternal life — the door is open to all the outsiders. And we’re on our way through it, following orders, doing what God commanded when He said,

‘I’ve set you up as alight to all nations. You’ll proclaim salvation to the four winds and seven seas!’

“When the outsiders heard this they could hardly believe their good fortune. All who were marked out for real life put their trust in God — they honoured God’s Word by receiving that life. And this Message of salvation spread like wildfire all through the region.” Acts 13:46-48 (The Message).

What is this thing called “God’s Word”? According to ancient rabbinic teaching, God’s Word is a manifestation of Himself in another form. This means that what God says is who He is in words that humans can understand. His Word, therefore, carries the same authority as God Himself.

Unlike humans who can say one thing and be something else, God’s Word cannot contradict Him and therefore what He says is what He is. He cannot lie because He cannot say anything contrary to who He is. That makes God’s Word reliable, trustworthy and unchangeable and allows us to understand what He requires because He has made His will known to us through the medium of language.

Paul and Barnabas were dealing with two groups of people. The Jews who were God’s covenant people were custodians of God’s Word entrusted to them in a covenant relationship sealed with blood. The Gentiles were associated with the Jewish religion but were considered “outsiders” because they had no claim to the covenant or the promises of God.

Written into the Old Covenant was the promise that the time would come when Messiah would open the door to Gentiles to have a share in the covenant and in the blessings promised to Abraham. Because of Jewish prejudice, this group of Jews and many others that Paul encountered on his journeys, refused to honour God’s Word by believing the message and receiving their Messiah. They pooh-poohed Paul’s teaching and turned violently against him with full intention of killing him.

The Gentiles, on the other hand, gladly received their message and honoured God’s Word by believing the truth and entering into all the benefits of this new life. Part of the Jewish resistance to the message must surely have been their refusal to accept that Gentiles could share in this salvation on equal terms with them.

When Paul announced that, because of their persistent rejection of the good news he was proclaiming, he would no longer waste his time preaching to deaf ears, and offering God’s gift of salvation to people who had no desire for it, they went ballistic. How dare he take what they thought was exclusively theirs and give it away freely to the despised “outsiders”!

But that is exactly what God intended them to do from the beginning and which they failed to do because they did not honour God’s Word themselves and they thought that they were better than everyone else. Instead of embracing God’s grace and gladly sharing it with anyone who would believe, they shut themselves out of the new covenant and all the blessing promised to them through their revered ancestor, Abraham.

God’s Word gives us glimpses into His big heart. When we take what He says seriously and act on it, we both honour Him and we also gain access to everything He has said. What fools we would be to pass that up in favour of our own paltry opinions!