Year: 2008

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Bible

The Evil One

To the Thessalonians Paul writes that God will strengthen and protect them from the evil one. This promise and assurance applies to all who follow Jesus.

This excites and comforts me, because I want to be protected.

But that ’s only half the of the promise. The other part is that we will be strengthened.

To be protected is passive; it is easy and safe.

To be strengthened is more active; it reminds us that we will undergo trials, temptations, and attacks from the enemy—and for this, we will be made strong in order to withstand it.

Standing strong is not easy or safe; it is hard and risky. But we don ’t need to endure it alone, for God gives us the strength we need.

[1 Thessalonians 3:3]

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

Imitate Me

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul tells readers to follow his example and to the Corinthians he writes, imitate me. [Philippians 3:17 and 1 Corinthians 4:16] This strikes me as bold and audacious, arrogant and presumptuous.

This seemingly brash statement, however, is illuminated when he later instructs readers to imitate him as he imitates Jesus. [1 Corinthians 11:1] I’m certainly more comfortable ”with that. After all, Jesus provides us with the ultimate example, which we are wise to follow.

To take this line of thinking one more step, Jesus asserts that he ”can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing.” [John 5:19] Therefore, he is imitating God the Father.

So, when we encounter the command in Ephesians 5:1 to ”be imitators of God”—who we have never seen—we are not taken aback. Paul imitates Jesus, Jesus imitates God, and there are ample examples about both of them in the Bible. 

So through Jesus and Paul, we know God’s character and are thus able to imitate him.

This begs the question, is our life lived as one worthy of being imitated?

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

Grace and Mercy

Are grace and mercy the same thing? That might seem so, since they are both good things that God gives us. However, in some respects they are opposites. Consider these simple definitions:

Grace is getting what you don’t deserve.

Mercy not getting what you do deserve.

For example, if I were to give you $100, that would be an example of grace. You didn’t deserve it, didn’t earn it, and I wasn’t obligated to give it to you. Grace is something that is freely given to people who don’t merit it.

On the other hand, if you hit my car, you would need to pay to have it fixed. Or I could forgive you; that would be mercy. You should rightly repair my car, but I willing choose to let you off the hook and not hold you accountable.

God shows us grace when he gives us good things that we didn’t earn and don’t deserve.

Also, God shows us mercy when he doesn’t hold us accountable for the wrong things we do.

Since it is through Jesus that we can receive both grace and mercy, you might consider them to be opposite sides of the same coin. So maybe they’re the same after all.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

How Does Salvation “Work”?

In one of Paul’s letters, he says something that is quite curious and strange.  He tells readers to “work out your salvation.” [Philippians 2:12]

Ugh?  Didn’t Paul also write that we are saved through faith and not by our “work” (that is, not of our own doing or striving)?  [Ephesians 2:8-9]

So, if we can’t earn our salvation, why do we need to work it out?  Is Paul confused?  Is he schizophrenic?  Is this a paradox?

Actually, I think it’s a matter of timing.

First, we need to follow Jesus — by faith.  We don’t need to do anything else to get God’s attention or earn his affection.  There is no working involved in being made right with God.  That means it’s a gift — we didn’t buy it and can’t earn it; it was given.

The second part is our response.  Out of sheer gratitude for the gift, we can opt to respond by behaving differently.  I think this is what it means to “work out our salvation,” that is, to cultivate it or complete it.

Consider what if I gave you a million dollars.  Would your attitude towards me change?  I think so.  You might want to find out more about me, learn why I did it, and maybe help me in my future philanthropic efforts.

In essence you might be working out my gift to you.  It’s still a gift, but one that evokes a grand response.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

Pouring Out the Drink Offering

During a time of war, there is a curious story of King David.  He mentions that he is thirsty for water from a specific well.  Three of his mighty warriors break through enemy lines, draw water from that well, and return to David with it.

However, instead of drinking it with gratitude, David pours it out on the ground as an offering to God.  [1 Chronicles 11:17-19 and 2 Samuel 23:13-17]

Apparently, he felt that the risk the men took was so great that he was not worthy to taste the water, offering it to God instead.

This action may have parallels to the Old Testament instruction to give a “drink offering” to God.  The drink offering was a libation of wine that was poured over the altar or used with meat offerings as part of the Jewish worship rituals.

Instructions for its use occur over 45 times in the Jewish law, with 19 other references in the Old Testament.

Since Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament worship practices, it is not surprising for there to only be two mentions of drink offerings in the New Testament.  Both were made by Paul, referring to his willingly pouring out his life as a drink-offering to God.  [Philippians 2:17 and 2 Timothy 4:6]

It is important to understand that while the Old Testament believers presented their drink offerings ritualistically out of obligation and compulsion, Paul — being freed from the law by Jesus — willing and gladly presented his own life as a drink-offering to God.

It was his intentional act of sacrifice and service.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

The Armor of God

In the Bible, there is the instruction to “put on the full armor of God.”

To the casual reader, this might seem like a call to arms or a provocation for military action.

Yet I don’t see this as a militant statement, but merely a memory aid to help people remember key items needed to prevail in spiritual conflict, namely: truth, righteousness, sharing the gospel, faith, salvation, and the word of God (the only offensive tool of the group).

Paul, in Ephesians 6:11-17, seems to be painting a word picture using the soldier of the day (which readers would have been most familiar with) connecting his essential gear with these key spiritual elements.

Then, to recall Paul’s list of six items, readers needed only to envision a soldier in uniform and associate each spiritual element with its physical counterpart.  For example:

  • Belt: truth
  • Breastplate: righteousness (that is, right living)
  • Shoes: a readiness to share the gospel of peace
  • Shield: faith
  • Helmet: salvation
  • Sword: the word of God (the spoken word of God)

It’s not about a physical fight (which many people have missed throughout the ages), but instead a spiritual conflict for which followers of Jesus must be prepared to engage in using: truth, righteousness, sharing the gospel, faith, salvation, and the Bible. 

This is what is meant by the metaphor of the armor of God.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

Making God in Our Image

It is popular in today’s society for people to form their own religious beliefs and define their own personal spirituality.  On the surface this seems right, fair, and appropriately open-minded.  It is the epitome of tolerance and acceptance.  It is also dangerous.

If I decide that there is no hell, does that mean it doesn’t exist, thereby keeping me from it?  If I decide that doing good things can earn God’s attention and eternal favor, does that negate the punishment I deserve for the wrong things that I do and the need to be made right with the creator?

In a more down-to-earth example, what if I determine that there is a justifiable reason (that is, “extenuating circumstances”) to speed, does that protect me from a speeding ticket or remove the consequences for the accident that I may cause?  Of course not!

Too many people take a bit of this religion and that religion, stir in some popular opinion, and top it off with their logic and self-interest.  The result is not a bona fide religion or cohesive belief system, but false hope in a false belief, which produces only good feelings and nothing else.

In essence, this popular approach is an effort to make God in our image.  We forget that he created us in his image.

[See Psalms 100:3 in The Message.]

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

Karma

It is a sort of universal law of cause and effect.

There is a seemingly karma-like verse in the Bible, which appears to paraphrase this idea.  It says, “You reap what you sow.”

However, in looking at the text preceding it, we see that the premise behind this concept is not a universal law, but rather a just God who will not let the unjust forever get off scot-free or the righteous not eventually be rewarded.

In the Amplified version expands on this nicely, allowing the fuller impact of the original language to be felt:

“Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.) [He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God.] For whatever a man sows, that and that only is what he will reap.” [Galatians 6:7]

So what at first glance appeared to be a restatement of karma is really the reflection of the character of a God who is fair and just.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

Categories
Bible

A Little Bit of Yeast

I did a word study on the usage of yeast in the Bible.  Here is what I found:

Yeast is used symbolically to represent influence, usually negatively.  Just as a little bit of yeast, permeates dough and produces a noticeable result, so to does influence, be it good or bad.

  • The Bible contains many references to not using yeast in various religious practices, which symbolically shows the removal of sin.
  • Paul compares false teaching to yeast.
  • Another negative connotation is when Jesus says, beware of the yeast of the Pharisees (which is hypocrisy) and also the Sadducees and Herod.
  • In seemingly the only positive usage of yeast in the Bible, Jesus says that the Kingdom of God (that is, the Kingdom of Heaven) is like yeast.
  • In a final reference to yeast Paul uses it as a metaphor for boasting.  Paul talks about getting rid of bread with old yeast (malice and wickedness) and using new bread without yeast (sincerity and truth).

[Check out where these references to yeast are found.]

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.

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Bible

By Law or By Faith

In what initially seems to be shocking statement, Jesus says that if we want to have eternal life, we must follow the commandments in the Old Testament (Matthew 19:17).

Of course, this is impossible, because if we break even one law, one time, we are found guilty and therefore separated from God.  Clearly, following rules is not the solution.

So what is?  The realistic answer is that we need to turn from our wrong-doing and follow Jesus by faith, who took the hit for our law-breaking, making us right with God.  Even Abraham, was made right with God through his faith, not by following a bunch of rules (Galatians 3:6).

For further contemplation, this contrast between the law (following rules) and faith (following Jesus) is expanded upon and explained in greater detail in Galatians 3, especially verses 10-11,19, and 21-22.  Also see Ephesians 2:8.

A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.