Tag: Father

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Bible

Is This a Test?

The Bible is chocked full of strange and perplexing tales.

One such story is when God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. What father in his right mind would kill his son? However, Abraham is intent on obeying God regardless of the cost.

Three days later we find him up on a mountain, with Son Isaac tied up and laying on the alter. With a knife in hand, Abraham raises his arm, ready to plunge the dagger into Isaac. Just then, God says in effect, ”Wait, don’t do it; I was just seeing if you would really obey me.”

Wow, that was close. Then God provides a ram to be sacrificed instead of Isaac. Abraham proved himself faithful to God, and Isaac was spared.

Fast forward several centuries to Jesus. Jesus is himself getting ready to die; he is going to be sacrificed. Surely, he knows the story of Abraham and Isaac; every Jew knows that story.

I suspect he is wondering if his loyalty and obedience to God are being tested just like Abraham, for he says, ”Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

However, God didn’t say, ”Hold on, this was just a test of your obedience”; there was no one else to take his place. It was Jesus’ job and his purpose to die for the wrongs of the world in order to make us right with God.

Jesus obeys; Jesus dies; we live.

[See Genesis 22:1-14 and Luke 22:42.]

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.

Categories
Bible

Quoting from the Bible

When you pray, be careful what you pray—I’m serious, be very careful.

In the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples (also called “The Lord’s Prayer” or the “Our Father”), one part says:

“Forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors.”

Some translations use the word “sins” or “transgressions” in place of debts, but the intent is the same.

The request is that God will forgive us…to the degree we forgive others.

That is, if we forgive fully, we are asking God to forgive us fully. However, if we only forgive partially—keeping grudges, holding on to ill-feelings, or harboring hate—then we are asking God to only forgive us partially.

Our lack of forgiveness towards others could limit the amount of forgiveness we receive. Ouch!

So when I pray that prayer, I do so carefully and with some trepidation; some days, I even want to skip that part!

However, skipping it is not the answer. A better solution is to be steadfast and diligent in forgiving others—then we can likewise expect the same from 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.