NOTE: Scroll down past the indices to see the latest articles.
Because the popularity of Sunday Morning Greek Blog has tripled in the last three years, I’m building an index and pinning it to the top of the page. I will add to it from time to time to fill it out a little more. I hope this helps visitors to the blog navigate the over 150 posts and pages I have available on the site. Don’t forget that you can use the search feature for the site as well. If you’re looking for a specific Scripture reference, I usually type out the whole Bible book name in the title.
Top Non-Bible Topic Post
In late April 2023, I published a post on a non-Bible topic analyzing an oft-debated viral equation that is poorly understood. At the end of June, the post went viral and has continued to dominate the top spot by a 5 to 1 margin for 2023, and it is my most-viewed post of all time in the blog’s 13-year history. It is an outlier for the regular subject of this blog, so I include it separately here.
“Lawfare” may be the political “term du jour” but it is hardly a new concept. The first known use of the word has been traced back to 1975, and at the time it referred to actions of an aggressor designed to try to declare military actions against them illegal by using human shields or other uses or misuses of the law to achieve military objectives. It has also been used to describe the attempts of some to question US military actions taken against terrorists, especially after 9/11. In the current climate, it refers to frivolous or unfounded legal action against those who’ve either committed no crime or whose actions did not deserve the level of retribution “the law” has thrown at them.
This doesn’t just affect political candidates or others who go against an “approved” narrative either. Some of you may have heard last week about a woman who was arrested in New York because she changed the locks on the doors of a house she owned to try to get rid of a squatter, someone who had illegally invaded her home and attempted to take possession of it by fraudulent means. The process to eject such people from a home you legally own can take up to two years in some places, and the owner is responsible for spending the money to prosecute the squatter and prove they legitimately own the home, all the while being denied access to their home. “The process is the punishment,” even if you’ve done nothing to deserve it.
As we come to our passage this morning from Luke, Jesus is being arrested after being betrayed by Judas and a violent confrontation in which Peter (at least according to John’s gospel) cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant, Malchus. Jesus, even while under arrest, reaches out to heal the servant. Peter follows the crowd at a distance to the high priest’s home late that night. Our passage focuses on Peter’s actions outside the residence, but we’ll get to that in a bit. Luke doesn’t give us as much insight into what happened inside the high priest’s home, but other Gospel writers do. It’s there that we see some of the “lawfare” waged against Jesus.
Matthew puts Jesus before the Sanhedrin that evening, while Luke records the concluding element of the all-night trial happening the morning after. The High Priest and the rest of the council sort of back into prophesying that Jesus is the Son of God, especially with Jesus turning the tables on them in Matthew 26:64: “You have said so.” Basically, Jesus is saying that just by them entertaining the possibility that he is the Son of God, they themselves have committed the blasphemy they are accusing Jesus of. In John 11:51, we’re told that the High Priest had unwittingly prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, so he’s again unwittingly confirming Jesus’s true nature and purpose.
Another element of their lawfare was the apparent illegality of the trial. The very judges that condemned Jesus were the same one who bribed Judas to betray him. Technically, they should have been disqualified from judging him. Jewish custom of the day, as recorded in their other writings at the time, forbade capital punishment trials from taking place after sunset. Furthermore, their customs forbade such trials from beginning on the day before the Sabbath, because their custom did have an element of compassion to it in that you couldn’t decide a capital punishment case in one day, and a unanimous verdict was considered possible evidence of conspiracy. Jesus was never given any chance to have an advocate for his defense, either, which was another violation.[1]
All of this was done to fulfill the Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah 53, especially vss. 7–8, which said:
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.[2]
One last thing about the trial of Jesus that night. Jesus quotes the Messianic Psalm 110 about being seated at the right hand of God. Psalm 110 is the most-quoted psalm in the New Testament, especially the first four verses:
1 The Lord says to my lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.”
2 The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying,
Psalm 110 was also a popular psalm to discuss among the early church fathers in their writings in the first four centuries of the Christian era as proof of Jesus’s messiahship and, especially as used in later parts of the New Testament, proof of his resurrection. Most Jews were not keen on having the Messiah sit at the right hand of God in heaven. They simply saw that as a reference to the authority of the human descendant of David who would sit on the throne. However, at least one prominent rabbi and his followers did use this passage and another one in Daniel to argue that the Messiah indeed was divine in nature. (For an in-depth study of this passage in relation to its use by early Christian writers, see Ronald Heine’s excellent book Reading the Old Testament With the Ancient Church (Baker, 2007) available from Logos Bible Software if you have an account with them or in ebook format through Christian Book Distributors.)
Now we know that at Jesus’s arrest, the disciples scattered, fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy in 13:7: “Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.” Mark’s account of the arrest has a detail none of the other gospel writers have, that of a young man fleeing naked from the scene of the arrest. Some scholars have suggested that this was Mark himself, the author of that gospel. Even though the gospels say all the disciples scattered, we do know that Peter was able to follow the crowd that had arrested Jesus at a distance, which is where we pick up our main gospel passage this morning.
Now Peter knew from the Last Supper that Jesus had predicted he would deny knowing him three times before the rooster crowed but leave it to bull-headed Peter not to take heed to that, or at least, not to worry about any possible fallout from that. Or maybe it just went right over his head, thinking “Of course I won’t deny him!” The very fact that Jesus predicted that means Jesus knew his trial would be conducted illegally at night. If Jesus had predicted something like that about me, I might have been inclined to go shut myself in a cave somewhere and not speak to or be seen by anyone. But then, wouldn’t that in itself have been a form of denial? Even though Peter was arguably the most well known and the most vocal of the apostles, and thus the most recognizable, he still tried to conceal himself in a crowd outside the high priest’s home.
Sure enough, several in the crowd recognized Peter, first for his appearance and second for his Galilean accent when he protested and denied knowing Jesus. Each time someone called him out as one of Jesus’s followers, the rooster cleared its throat for that fateful crow. Had Peter somehow hoped Jesus’s prediction would be wrong? Or did Peter not realize that roosters always crow around sunrise? I don’t think the crow of the rooster was really a surprise to Peter, though. I believe he knew in his heart his denials, his lack of strength of character to acknowledge that he was a Christ-follower, were piercing his soul and conscience. Two weeks ago, when I spoke on the passage about being ashamed of Christ, I covered this, so I won’t go into again here.
However, I want to look forward a bit to see how Peter came out on the other side of this. Peter apparently had no idea what was going on with the trial of Jesus inside the high priest’s home. If he had been inside the house and had seen how the Sanhedrin was treating him, I wonder if Peter would have spoken up at that point, especially since there was no love lost between the Sanhedrin and the apostles at that point. If two people could have spoken in his defense, the whole thing might have turned out differently. But we know it wasn’t meant to end that way, because as Jesus had been telling his people and as the high priest had predicted, Jesus would have to die for our redemption.
Therein lies the irony of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. A rigged trial ultimately led to our real redemption. Not only was the trial rigged on the Jewish side, but once the Sanhedrin had wrongly convicted Jesus of blasphemy, they knew they couldn’t be the ones to put him to death. Only Rome had the authority to do that. So when they turned him over to Pilate and Herod, did they do so under the charge of blasphemy? Of course not! The Romans didn’t care about their religious disputes. Instead, the Sanhedrin changed the charges to usurpation, that Jesus was claiming to be the king of the Jews. That, they knew, would earn him the death sentence “In the Name of Roman Injustice” (INRI, get it?). The Sanhedrin had to stir up the crowd before Pilate to the point of making him fear a riot in order for Pilate to pronounce the flogging and the death penalty on Jesus, even though the gospels reveal some hesitation on his part to do so.
Jesus was crucified shortly thereafter. The typical method of crucifixion involved breaking the legs of the crucified so they could not push themselves up to breathe, but by the time the guards had gotten around to Jesus, he had already suffocated, according to John’s account (19:31–37). The fact that they only pierced his side but didn’t break his legs[4] was a fulfillment of two prophecies (Psalm 34:20; Zechariah 12:10). The water and blood that flowed from his side was a medical indication that Jesus was in fact dead.
Hebrews 9 gives the ultimate treatise on why blood needed to be shed in order for purification to take place and a covenant to be established. In vs. 19, we’re told that a diluted mixture of the calves’ blood and water was sprinkled on all the people to sanctify them for the new covenant under the Ten Commandments. Verse 22 says that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Jesus was the perfect, unblemished lamb of God because he never sinned. Although his body had been thrashed by a cat of nine tails whip, he had no bones broken, so he met the qualifications for the Passover lamb, which happened when God delivered the Jews from slavery in Egypt.
Here’s another connection you may not have considered. In Leviticus, Moses says that certain types of sacrifices, both meat and grain, could be eaten by the priests. When Jesus instituted communion at the last supper, he identified the bread and the wine as his body and blood. When we take communion, that is our way of connecting with the body and blood of Christ, not in the Catholic sense of the elements becoming the body and blood of Christ, but in the sense that we, like the priests, are partaking in the sacrifice first-hand. That’s why we consider communion a “sacrament,” because if we understand its true meaning and the reality behind it, we know that such an act has redemptive power for us. As one Scottish Presbyterian minister in the 18th century said when a woman who was not a member of his congregation asked if she could take communion, the minister replied, “Tak’ it; it’s for sinners.” There’s a spiritual benefit for each of us when we take communion, especially with a proper understanding of its meaning.
Getting back to Peter: he experienced real redemption in several ways after Christ rose from the dead. Jesus appeared to the disciples the very night of the day he was resurrected, and they all received the same blessing and commission from Jesus. John records his encounter with Jesus at the Sea of Galilee after Peter had apparently returned to the life of a fisherman. He asked Peter three times, once for each denial, if he loved him, and Peter emphatically said he did. Peter would go on a few weeks later to deliver the Pentecost sermon that started it all, the birthday of the church. History (or is it tradition?) has it that Peter was eventually crucified upside down on a cross because he didn’t feel worthy of the same kind of crucifixion Jesus suffered.
As Lent comes to a close this week and we embark upon the Easter season and look forward to our birthday celebration of Pentecost, let us not forget the sacrifice of our savior on the cross, and the provisions he made for us upon his resurrection and in the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost. We have a great Savior who has done great things for us, so let us not be ashamed to proclaim his name and his salvation to the world. Amen.
[4] The leg bone of the Passover lamb in Exodus was not to be broken either (Ex 12:46).
Postscript: I want to include the study note from Mark 14:53–15:15 from the 2011 version of Zondervan’s NIV Study Bible, because it contains a harmonization of the various Gospel accounts of Jesus’s trials.
Jesus’ trial took place in two stages: a Jewish trial and a Roman trial. By harmonizing the four Gospels, it becomes clear that each trial had three episodes. For the Jewish trial, these were: (1) the preliminary hearing before Annas, the former high priest (reported only in Jn 18:12–14, 19–23); (2) the trial before Caiaphas, the ruling high priest, and the Sanhedrin ([Mk] 14:53–65; see Mt 26:57–68; Lk 22:54–65; Jn 18:24); and (3) the final action of the council, which terminated its all-night session ([Mk] 15:1; see Mt. 27:1; Lk 22:66–71). The three episodes of the Roman trial were: (1) the trial before Pilate (15:2–5; see Mt 27:11–26; Lk 23:1–5; Jn 18:28–19:16); (2) the trial before Herod Antipas (only in Lk 23:6–12); and (3) the trial before Pilate continued and concluded (15:6–15). Since Matthew, Mark, and John give no account of Jesus before Herod Antipas, the trial before Pilate forms a continuous and uninterrupted narrative in these Gospels.
The original document will remain available, because it has been my most popular print file download in the past few years. This new document adds features from Logos Bible Software, for which I am now an Affiliate partner. Use the link below for a 10% discount on various Logos packages and five free digital books.
My original PEMDAS article has received quite a bit of traffic in the 11 months since I posted it. I’m well over 10,000 views at this point, which for the narrow appeal of my usual topics on this blog, is significant for me. It represented about one-third of the total views I had last year overall. The article has generated enough discussion that has allowed me to continue to fine-tune my arguments and further solidify my position that, bottom line, juxtaposed multiplication takes priority over any signed operations. I want to present a couple different views here, neither of which I feel has been adequately disputed by those who think showing me a page from a grade school math textbook is enough to convince me my arguments are faulty. I’ll start with an even stricter interpretation of PEMDAS then what the online PEMDASians apply, and then I’ll discuss the linguistic and syntactical arguments that has yet to be refuted by the paltry evidence the PEMDASians try to put forth.
A Stricter(!) Application of PEMDAS
(NOTE: This section is modified from post I made on Facebook to a different expression with similar issues.)
To refresh your memory, here is the expression in question:
8 ÷ 2(2 + 2)
Let’s start at the parentheses level of PEMDAS, shall we? The first step is simple enough. Add 2 + 2 to get 4, leaving us with:
8 ÷ 2(4)
You’ll notice that we have parentheses around the 4, so we need to perform the function syntactically suggested by the parentheses, multiplication, to remove them. Notice I say “syntactically,” because math isn’t just about numbers, signs, and symbols; it’s about how those are arranged in an expression. This is the fatal error that the PEMDASians make: They fail to acknowledge the implicit relationships suggested by the presence of the parentheses.
The presence of the parentheses represents two issues: First, the juxtaposition itself implies parentheses around BOTH juxtaposed numbers as a single unit of value. We see this with mixed numbers, where the horizontal juxtaposition of a whole number and a fraction IMPLY addition, yet we treat the mixed number as one value. You’d be hard pressed to find a textbook that always puts parentheses around a mixed number in any expression. We also see this with fractions. Keep in mind that a fraction is not always intended to be a division problem. The figure 3/4 (diagonally juxtaposed with a solidus; or its display equivalent with vertical juxtaposition separated by a fraction bar or vinculum) would typically be pronounced “three-fourths.” The expression “3 ÷ 4” would be pronounced “3 divided by 4.” There is a qualitative difference between the two expressions, and we cannot assume that one substitutes for the other. It would be rare, but not unheard of, to see such a fraction with parentheses around it in an expression, because the fraction, like the mixed number, represents a single value.
The logical conclusion from this line of reasoning is this: If a juxtaposed mixed number is considered a single value and a juxtaposed fraction is a single value, then juxtaposed cofactors that use parentheses around one or more of the numbers to distinguish the values of the cofactors (i.e., “2(4),” “(2)(4),” and “(2)4”) all represent a single value of “twice four” as opposed to “24,” which represents “twenty-four” with no intervening parentheses.
If you accept my first point above, then, this second point is moot, but I’ll address it anyway. We can’t get rid of the parentheses (remember, we’re still in the parentheses step) until we perform the function inherent in the parentheses. The PEMDAS charts get it wrong when they interpret “inside the parentheses” as only what is in-between the parentheses. “Inside” also means “inherent in the nature of,” so the function of the parentheses must be performed as well in the absence of any extant sign. The parentheses are still present, so we’re still in the parentheses step of PEMDAS. It’s at this point that the PEMDASians want to just simply replace the parentheses with a multiplication sign. But where in the parentheses step does it allow that kind of substitution? You have a syntactical relationship between the 2 and the (4) that simply disappears if one makes such a substitution. That substitution is not a valid or necessary math function when evaluating the written expression! Yes, you must use the multiplication key on a calculator if you really need to use one for this type of problem, but that is a matter of technology and not of math theory. The only way to address the parentheses at this point in the process and finish the parentheses step in PEMDAS is to perform the implicit multiplication first, because the juxtaposition creates an implied set of parentheses around the 2(4). Only then are we done with the parentheses step and are left with the simplified expression:
8 ÷ 8
Which of course equals 1.
Still not convinced that substituting the multiplication sign for the parentheses isn’t valid (except when you’re entering it into a calculator, but we’re not using a calculator here), then consider this. The relationship between the two 8’s is that of a dividend to a divisor only. We wouldn’t look at the way that is written and say 8 is the numerator and the other 8 is the denominator. It’s not written that way. We could only do that if we used a vinculum or fraction bar. As such, then, the vinculum, which is a juxtapositional symbol implying division, creates a unique relationship between the two numbers not implied by the obelus. As such, it’s not a valid substitution! With the vinculum, the numbers represent a part of a whole or the whole divided into parts. (I work in a field that requires a significant amount of government reporting on data, and they are always speaking of the populations in terms of which set is the numerator and which set is the denominator.) If the vinculum is such a juxtapositional tool that it creates or represents a unique relationship between the two numbers, then the parentheses serves the same purpose for multiplication. The 2(4) can’t be reduced to a simple multiplication. Depending on the context in which such an expression might arise, it may refer to a single quantity, like a bundle of 2 packages of golf balls with 4 balls in each package (8 golf balls).
Therefore, the only way one can claim that 8 ÷ 2 is somehow the term multiplied by what is in parentheses is to unequivocally declare it so by putting it in parentheses or constructing it as a block fraction using a vinculum vertically centered on the (2 + 2). As I said above, an expression using the obelus is NOT syntactically or linguistically equivalent to a fraction using the same numbers. Since the PEMDASians have failed to clarify the function of 8 ÷ 2 by enclosing it in parentheses, they do not have any solid ground to stand on to insist the answer is 16.
Explaining the Linguistic and Syntactical Arguments
(NOTE: This is copied from a response I made on the original article, with a few minor edits.) When I say there is a “linguistic” or “syntactical” component to the given expression, what I’m talking about is how Merriam-Webster defines the term: “The study of human speech including the units, nature, structure, and modification of language.” I take “speech” to mean the written word as well as the spoken word, especially since as a preacher I’ve gotten into the habit of writing out my sermons so I can make more intentional use of my language as opposed to speaking extemporaneously. And in the context of this article, I don’t just mean words alone, but any symbols or figures that we use to communicate, calculate, or cantillate (how’s THAT for an alliteration!): numbers, punctuation, “character” words (e.g., ampersand, &), mathematical and scientific symbols, proofreading symbols, and even music notation.
All of these elements of language, and linguistics more broadly, have their place in their appropriate contexts, and they are subject to their own respective set of rules for putting them together in a coherent form that communicates the message and meaning we intend subject to the rules and conventions of their respective contexts. When someone composes a musical score, the main melody or tune is subject to certain patterns that follow the chords that underlie the melody. If the tune doesn’t match the chords, it sounds, well, discordant. The notes of the melody, harmony, or even a descant are not strictly random. They typically have some relationship with the chord, and often playing a note that doesn’t exactly fit the chord prefigures a change in the chord or even a change in the key signature. Intentional discordancy is not without significance either, as it can communicate chaos or irrationality.
When we write a sentence, we generally expect a subject and verb to be close together and to arrange direct and indirect objects appropriately with any modifiers or prepositions, and so forth. For example, consider the difference between the three sentences, which have the exact same words.
I eat fish only on Friday.
I eat only fish on Friday.
I only eat fish on Friday.
Sentence #1 is truly ambiguous, because the placement of “only” can be taken either way. Is it “Fish is the only thing I eat on Friday” (akin to Sentence #2) or “Friday is the only day I eat fish” (akin to Sentence #3)? Does that sound familiar in the context of this post? More on that in a bit.
In the original article, I make reference to the relationship between the definite article, noun, and adjective in a Greek adjectival phrase. The position of (or absence of) the definite article impacts how the phrase can be interpreted. I’ll use transliterated words to demonstrate.
kalos logos [beautiful word]
ho kalos logos OR logos ho kalos [the beautiful word]
ho logos kalos OR kalos ho logos [the word is beautiful]
In Greek, Phrase #1, which has no definite article (the indefinite article “a” can fairly be implied absent other contextual clues), would be considered ambiguous by itself. We would need contextual clues to know whether it means “a beautiful word” or “a word is beautiful.” (Greeks do not have to use a form of the copulative verb “to be” if that is the only verb in the sentence.) In Phrase #2, the definite article precedes the adjective, which means the adjective is attributive, that is, it directly modifies the noun (“The beautiful word”). It doesn’t matter if the noun is first or last; it’s attributive either way. Phrase #3 has a predicate construction. This means that the noun is the subject of a sentence, and the adjective would come after the verb in that sentence. In this case, it doesn’t matter where the adjective is, although there may be a nuanced implication one way or the other. Either way, the translation is still “The word is beautiful,” so no difference there.
Given those three examples (music, English adverb placement, and Greek definite article placement), I think anyone who’s reading this is starting to see the bigger picture of how linguistics (in this case, specifically syntax) influences mathematics as well, especially in the context of the expression at hand. So let me use the expression in the same way I used the sample phrases above:
8 ÷ 2(2 + 2) = 1 (in my worldview and the worldview of those who are of the same mind) OR 16 (in the competing worldview)
(8 ÷ 2)(2 + 2) = 16 (in both worldviews; NOTE: if the expression had been written with (8 ÷ 2) as a block fraction with a vinculum centered vertically on the (2 + 2), there would be no argument that it equals 16; see text for my critique of that, however.)
8 ÷ (2(2 + 2)) = 1 (in both worldviews)
Expression A seems unambiguous from the perspective of one’s worldview then. But are both worldviews equally valid? We can make arguments from our respective worldviews to try to convince the other side, but it is very difficult to convince one to change their worldview without a powerful defining event that shakes their worldview to the core. Otherwise, we’re comfortable with our ways. I happen to think that several of the arguments I’ve made to support my worldview are quite devastating to the competing worldview, but alas! there has been very little evidence of any change of heart among their hardliners.
Just like the position of adverbs and definite articles, so then is the generous use of parentheses needed to clearly avoid the ambiguity of the given expression. But let me make yet another appeal here for the case that the given expression, in light of my demonstration here, is not really ambiguous at all. The juxtaposition of the 2 to (2 + 2) is akin to Phrase #2 in my Greek examples above. The attachment between the two places them in an attributive relationship (the 2 is the definite article; the (2 + 2) is the adjective). The 2 directly modifies the (2 + 2) by telling us how many of that quantity we need to divide by and keeps the monomial on one side of obelus without an extant multiplication sign. In other words, it isn’t separated from its cofactor by the “action” of the obelus. There is no need for the extant multiplication sign because the relationship is clearly defined. If one were to place a multiplication sign between the 2 and (2 + 2), that would emphasize that the 2 and (2 + 2) are not cofactors and sever the relationship between them. This would make the expression like Greek Phrase #3 above, where the modifier is divorced from what it modifies modified and dragged kicking and screaming all alone into the action of the obelus. That which appeared to modify the (2 + 2) now modifies the 8. The implications of the expression change by substituting the multiplication sign. Additionally, in the case of Greek Phrase #3, if we would add the implied copulative verb where it is not technically needed, that would also place emphasis on the verb and suggest a more nuanced meaning.
Greek verbs demonstrate a similar phenomenon; most Greek verb forms have an ending that tells you what “person” [1st, 2nd, 3rd, or I/we; you/you; he, she, it/they] is the subject of the verb. If there is no explicit subject accompanying the verb, the corresponding pronoun is implied [“He eats”]. If a Greek pronoun is used as the subject, that implies emphasis [“He himself eats”]; so an extant multiplication sign emphasizes the function of the sign over the relationship between the two cofactors when the multiplication is implied by parentheses. The bottom line for the Greek phrases, then, is when you add a word that isn’t necessary for the base form of what you’re communicating, you alter the meaning of what you’re communicating. You also alter the meaning when you add a multiplication sign that isn’t necessary for the basic calculation of the given expression.
This may seem kind of heady to some, but I hope I’ve made my position a little easier to understand. My worldview and what I consider the strength of my arguments here and elsewhere, along with a ton of historical evidence, do convince me that the given expression is unambiguous and has no need for extra parentheses to understand the answer to be 1. For those who think writing ambiguous expressions is somehow educational and instructive when you know there are those who think otherwise, I declare that you have met your match in me. Game over. Checkmate!
This message was preached on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year B (March 10, 2024), at Mount View Presbyterian Church. Text is lightly edited for publication.
“Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?” I think most of us remember that classic line from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana, Sallah, and several workers have just opened up the roof of a long-buried crypt that was home to the Ark of the Covenant to reveal a “moving floor” about 30 feet below them. Indiana drops a torch down to reveal why the floor was moving: thousands of snakes. Of course, the best line in the movie comes right after that, though, delivered by John Rhys-Davies: “Asps, very dangerous. You go first.”
The Israelites must have had a similar response to Moses and to God when they had finally pushed God to his limit with all their complaining in their 40-year wilderness journey. The story is told in Numbers 21:4–9. They were impatient; they didn’t have any “real” bread; no water; and they hated what God had provided for them. Basically two million disgruntled souls who were trying to rough it out, knowing in their hearts they had to keep going for their children, because they had already lost their shot at dwelling in the Promised Land. God sent a bunch of poisonous, or “fiery” snakes to bite them. Some of them died, but the people pleaded with Moses and with God to save them from yet another judgment for their disbelief and unfaithfulness.
God told Moses to fashion what in Hebrew is called a saraph (שָׂרָף śārāp̄), a bronze serpent that itself must have had a fiery appearance in the desert sun, and put it on a pole so the Israelites who were bitten could look upon it and live. However, it did nothing for those who had already died. This bronze serpent was not an idol originally but rather something akin to a sign of judgment on the Israelites. It couldn’t save them from the pain of being bitten by the snakes, but it would save them from the poison that had entered their bodies. Something else was absorbing the fatal penalty of their disbelief. It’s a bit of a mystery why the word for the winged angels, or seraphim, of Isaiah 6 is also translated snake or serpent elsewhere. Regardless of the specifics of what it looked like, it must have fostered some measure of fear among the Israelites. “You can look at the scary bronze snake, or you can die from the real ones.”
As we read in our gospel passage this morning from John 3:14 and following, Jesus uses this story as a comparison to his own ultimate purpose for his incarnation. Even at the very beginning of the gospel, we get a preview of Jesus’s crucifixion and death even as Jesus has just finished speaking to Nicodemus about being “born again.” Jesus would be lifted up, but not as a king on a throne, a powerful warhorse, or carried on litter, but as a crucified savior on the cross. Look at the frightening image of what our own “poison,” our sin, has done to him and believe in God’s ultimate salvation, or walk away thinking it’s all over with and the cause is lost. Fortunately for us, the disciples did not choose the latter course of action.
This brings us to one of the most beloved and well-known verses of the Bible, John 3:16. “16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”[1] Most Bible translations put this paragraph from verses 16–21 on Jesus’s lips, but the NIV seems to think this verse and what follows is commentary added by John as he writes the gospel story. That’s a moot point, however, because regardless of who said it, it’s still true, right? Nevertheless, it seems to make sense to put these words in Jesus’s mouth, given he says some very similar things later in this gospel.
We can break verses 16–21 into two distinct sections. Verses 16–18 speak of “condemnation,” or the “perish” part of vs. 16. Verses 19–21 hearken back to the opening verses of John’s gospel by saying Jesus is the light. Let’s look at the condemnation section first and the conditions around that.
Notice first that Jesus says God’s purpose is that those who believe in him will inherit eternal life. This would have stuck in the craw of the Sadducees because a consequence of not believing in the resurrection was not believing in eternal life in God’s kingdom. Of course, this early on, the Jews may not have fully grasped that concept yet since many were expecting a physical kingdom and the overthrow of Rome. Eternal life is the opposite of “perish.” “Perish” at least refers to a spiritual death of sorts here, but it may also include physical death and perhaps even one’s own “extinction.” Jesus seems to have said this a slightly different way in Matthew 10:28: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”[2]
Jesus also affirms the negative of this is NOT true, that is, it was NOT God’s purpose to have Jesus condemn the world, as such condemnation would lead to death. Only God the Father does the condemning. Although Jesus would have his fiery moments with the often times smug religious leaders of his day, his ultimate purpose was to get people to see a more excellent way, that of loving one another.
Jesus also says that people must “believe” or “have faith” in him. To some, that may sound like a simple mental assent to acknowledge Jesus as Savior. But the Greek word for believe (πιστεύω pisteuō) implies much more than that. It’s not just head knowledge, but heartfelt action as well. Another well-known passage from Romans 8:1–2 puts it this way: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”[3] The “therefore” in Romans 8:1 refers to the arguments Paul has put forth in the first seven chapters of Romans, where Paul speaks of counting ourselves dead to sin (Romans 6:11), about the significance of our baptism (6:1–10), and about how our suffering for the sake of righteousness produces perseverance, character, and hope (5:3–5), among other things, all of which are demonstrated in the way we live our lives. Notice also how Paul describes Jesus’s role in all this in 5:15: “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many.”
We also see this in Hebrews 5:11–6:12, where the author says the new believers can’t keep living on baby food. They’re in danger of falling away if they don’t grow their faith and do the hard things and the necessary things that lead to maturity. It’s spiritual “adulting.” Ephesians 2:8–10 says we’re saved by grace because we are God’s workmanship, created to walk in the good works he’s prepared in advance for us to do. Jesus’s half-brother James says faith without works is dead and useless (2:20). The works don’t save you, but they demonstrate your faith. The more you practice that, the stronger your faith becomes and the less likely you’ll fall away.
Those who have a strong, active faith don’t need to fear condemnation, then, as Jesus says in 3:18. On the flip side, if you know you’re not doing much to grow your faith, those seeds of doubt and condemnation can start to take root and grow. Consider this: those who have been called by God are partners with God in showing his love. Jesus brings this home in the last three verses of our passage today when he says, “This is the judgment.” By judgment, he means here is the standard by which you will be judged. Let’s see what that standard is.
The standard, of course, is Light, or more appropriately, the Light of the world, Jesus, and his message. Jesus uses the word light (φῶς phōs) five times in verses 19–21. This hearkens back to the opening of John’s gospel, where John describes Jesus in verse 9 as “The true light that gives light to everyone.” In the first nine verses of John’s gospel, John uses the word light six times. The word is found 12 more times from chapters 5 through 12, with half of those occurrences at the end of chapter 12. But starting in chapter 13, where Jesus washes the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper, neither John nor Jesus ever mention the word light again in the remainder of his Gospel.
In the three chapters of John where the word light is used the most, we do see Jesus repeating John’s opening words in chapter 1 and his own words from chapter 3, no doubt for emphasis. Listen to the similar language from the three chapters, and you’ll pick up on why John stops using the word light after chapter 12 (all passages from NIV):
John 1:5: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
John 1:9: “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”
John 3:19: “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”
John 3:21: “Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
John 12:35: “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you.”
John 12:36: “Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.”
In those last two verses from John 12 I just read, Jesus emphasizes to his disciples to take advantage of every moment they have left with Jesus as he approaches his trial and crucifixion. By this point, it seems the disciples are starting to have some sense of what is about to happen, but they’re still in a fog about it. They do and will have the light, but there is no way they can anticipate the gut wrench from the events about to unfold among them.
Jesus’s final mention of light comes in John 12 46–47, and this is a fitting verse to wrap up this message, because Jesus repeats what he said about him self in our passage this morning.
46 “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.
47 “If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.[4]
Even though Jesus did not come to judge, I know it must have broken his human heart each time someone rejected his message. Jesus came to show God’s love and compassion to those oppressed under a strict religious legalism. But he also was not afraid to say and do the hard things to confront evil among his people and in the world around him. He knew he couldn’t give people hope if he also didn’t break the old order and establish a new kingdom in the hearts of his followers. As we approach Easter, let us be lights in this world of darkness to draw people to the hope of Jesus. Amen.
Abstract: This article looks at the Eighth Commandment (“Do not steal”), the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment in the Bill of Rights (prohibitions against excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment), and how cancel culture and the radical Left’s “lawfare” are violations of those sacred rights and obligations. (NOTE: Copublished on both my sites: Sustainable America and Sunday Morning Greek Blog.)
Background and Basis
Why do so many want the Ten Commandments and depictions of Moses receiving the tablets on Mount Sinai displayed in public buildings? Is it because that event is the most accessible ancient account we have of any kind of law making or law giving, especially as it relates to a standard established by someone beyond ourselves? Is it because many people recognize that our standards of behavior and our culture should not come from the fleeting whims of flawed mankind? Is there a difference between being a “Christian Nation” and a nation founded on enduring Judeo-Christian values?
How are those of us who are followers of Christ to understand Paul’s exhortations in Romans 13:1–7 and 1 Peter 2:13 about being “subject to [human] governing authorities,” especially if those authorities themselves show no evidence of following Christ or even respecting a Judeo-Christian worldview? The United States is, after all, a nation founded on the concept that “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them” “to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station” that all other nations have. The Founding Fathers appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of [their] intentions” and cite the “Authority of the good People of these Colonies” to declare their independence from the British Crown.
The result of the Declaration of Independence is that the United States adopted the foundational governing document, the U.S. Constitution, in which the United States agrees to “guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government” (Article IV, Section 4). Given what both these founding documents say in regards to our form of government, what responsibilities do we bear as we live and work in this Republic?
Because the United States is supposed to be a Republic (“if you can keep it”; Ben Franklin), the Representatives we elect by a democratic process govern at the consent of the governed. So we DO have a say in what our government does and how our government acts. We have a God-given RIGHT to freedom of speech and religion; we have a right to bear arms; we have a right to petition the government for a redress of grievances; we have a right to be protected against unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause.
One important caveat here that I’ll address later: Nowhere in these two documents is the United States ever described as a “democracy.” In a democracy, all citizens vote on everything. We do not have a true democracy in that sense. True democracies in Ancient Greece often led to the power flowing to those who had money and influence and not to the benefit of the people.
One of the practices in those democracies, ostracism, is at the heart of my discussion in the article today. This article compares the Eighth Commandment (by Protestant enumeration), the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and demonstrates how the ancient practice of ostracism by mob rule has crept back into our political landscape, in spite of the Founding Fathers’ attempts to squelch such practices in the Constitution.
The Eighth Commandment in Context
The Eighth Commandment (Exodus 20:15), at least according to Protestant enumeration, simply states “You shall not steal.” It’s just two words in Hebrew; there’s no object of the verb, direct or indirect. However, the two commandments that follow, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor” and “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, etc.”[1] may give us some clues about the extent of the command, namely, that it is intended broadly not to just include petty theft, but more serious misdemeanors and felonies.
The fact that the last two items focus on “your neighbor,” along with the extended part of the Sabbath commandment, suggests that the focus of the commandments is primarily about what happens within the covenant community of Israel. “Neighbor” is not just the person who lives next door or across the street. A neighbor is someone who is part of your covenant community. They could live near you, or they could be a resident of your town or city, big or small; they could be your coworker; they could be a fellow church member.
One need only to look at Exodus 21 to see that this is a reasonable conclusion. I have written more extensively about this in my post Does the Structure of Exodus 21:1–27 Tell the Patriarchs’ Story?, so I won’t go into too much detail here. I’ll focus on a couple things here. First, “You shall not murder” is not a general prohibition against any form of homicide. It excludes killing in war or self-defense. It focuses primarily on terminating the life of someone unjustly or out of anger, not on accident (see Exodus 21:12–14).
The two edicts about attacking and cursing your parents in 21:15 and 17 are worthy of capital punishment as well, even though they say nothing about whether the parents were killed. Exodus 21:16, however, gives us the important clue for understanding the severity with which the Eighth Commandment is treated. The word used for “steal” in Exodus 20:15 is the same word used for kidnapping in 21:16 (word-for-word translation): “Anyone who steals a man is to be put to death.” This idea suggests to some scholars that perhaps the original commandment had something to do with a more serious form of stealing that could result in the death penalty, but that is not a debate to be solved here.
I mentioned the Ninth and Tenth Commandments. The Tenth Commandment appears to be addressing more of a thought crime, a crime of desire. But many commentators believe “coveting” not only addresses your thoughts, but any illicit plans you might be considering to obtain the things you covet. In other words, coveting is “planning the heist,” fulfilling your desire to “steal” what is not yours. So you can see how the Ninth Commandment also might play into that; trumping up a charge against your neighbor so you can get something that is otherwise rightfully theirs. Proverbs 3:29–30 reflects the tone of these last three commandments:
What conclusions can we draw from this? First, kidnapping, or “stealing a man,” is about removing someone from their covenant community, especially if you sell them off into slavery as Joseph’s brothers did to him. Joseph’s fate was eventually his family’s fate as famine forced them relocate to Egypt after they learned Joseph had risen to power in Egypt. After the memory of Joseph’s heroic rescue of Egypt through their own famine faded, the Egyptian rulers enslaved the Israelites, thus preventing them from returning to their Promised Land for a time.
Second, murder, of course, removes a person from the covenant community permanently and has additional community issues for the deceased’s family. It may force the family to relocate to a safer place, especially if they are also targets of the murderer. It is the ultimate form of stealing: stealing someone’s very existence.
Third, false accusations, trumped up charges, overcharging someone, or even fabricating charges where there was no harm to anyone can cause reputational damage such as to bring shame or reproach on a person where none is deserved. Middle Eastern cultures, including Judaism, place a great deal of importance on the concepts of honor versus shame. Shame can force you out of your “in group” and cause you to relocate from your covenant community. When the penalties, especially monetary penalties, exceed the nature and seriousness of the alleged crime, this gives the appearance of targeting someone for reasons other than justice.
Those who conspire to violate any or all of these three (at least) commandments work together creating a platform for ostracism. The term “ostracism” reflects the practice in ancient Athens around the 5th century B.C.E. and is based on the use of the pottery shards (ostraka) used to cast votes for those whom they wanted ostracized. But the practice is more ancient than that.
For example, Pharaoh’s enslavement of the Hebrews (Exodus 1:8–14) was a form of ostracism because he feared the power of their growing population. Pharaoh couldn’t control their growing population by enslavement, so he took the ostracism to the next level and ordered the midwives to kill any Hebrew boys as soon as they were born (Exodus 1:15–19), but the midwives rightly had ethical problems with this practice of infanticide (read “post-birth abortions”) and refused to follow through. As a final plague, God punished the Egyptians with Pharaoh’s own edict and killed all the Egyptian first-born males and first-born cattle.
By now, if you’re political aware of what’s transpiring in the 2024 presidential campaign, you’ve probably already figured out where I’m going with this. Let me cut to the chase, then, and switch to discussing the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Eighth Amendment in Context
The Eighth Amendment is short and to the point about the God-given right it enshrines: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” It doesn’t take much of a leap of faith or the exercise of political analysis to see how this Amendment in our Bill of Rights can be understood in terms of the Eighth Commandment. Let me offer another caveat here before I dive in: If someone has committed criminal acts, and there is sufficiently demonstrated probable cause to demonstrate that is the case, then the use of the law to prosecute such persons or entities is fully justified; what I’m discussing here is when such probable cause has not been demonstrated or it’s clear that there is political “lawfare” at work.
When the power of the law is unjustly wielded for political purposes, this is a clear violation of the Eighth and Ninth Commandments. Many people who were peacefully ushered into the Capitol on January 6, 2021, by Capitol Hill police holding the doors open for them are still in jail to this day for their supposed “insurrection.” One man who entered peacefully and conducted himself peacefully committed suicide because the Justice Department trumped up the charges against him without any solid video evidence or other damning evidence.
The J6 protestors were removed from their respective covenant communities simply because they wanted a chance to be heard when they were clearly being ostracized, minimalized, and villainized by the Democrats and media who couldn’t see the obvious corruption right before their eyes. Their “Stop the Steal” signs were evidence of how widely and sincerely We the People did not trust the conduct of the election in several States. We the People believe the election was stolen through nefarious means. None of the challenges raised were ever judged on their merits. This article may eventually be ostracized just for me saying this.
Of course, the latest example of this is the excessive bail imposed on President Trump (with interest accruing daily) on his NY “fraud” trial for acts that had no victims, no financial loss for anyone involved, and positive reviews from those who had financial interactions with him. There was no jury, Trump was often not allowed to defend himself, and only two people were involved in the prosecution: a DA who campaigned on “getting Trump” and a judge who had made documented biased statements against Trump. Their bilateral action against Trump without a jury of peers guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. That is a clear violation of both constitutional law and the biblical commandments. The intent is clear and has been confirmed by the statements of those involved: they don’t want the American people to vote for a popular candidate. They’re trying to run him out of New York and Florida, trying to remove him from his childhood home and his current covenant community.
[I added the following paragraph on 03/04/24 based on a comment from BereanCrossroads. Check out that blog for your encouragement. Much thanks, BC!] The story of Naboth’s Vineyard is a pretty close parallel to what is happening to President Trump with respect to his alleged fraud trial in NYC. I’m kicking myself a bit for not making this connection, especially since one of my better sermons in my early years of preaching was telling that story from the perspective of Ahab. The story is found in 1 Kings 21. King Ahab wanted Naboth’s beautifully curated vineyard, but he was not willing to give up his family’s land and inheritance. Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, arranged a feast for Naboth, but also hired two “scoundrels” who falsely accused Naboth of blasphemy, which led to Naboth’s stoning. Ahab and Jezebel seized his vineyard after that. Ahab humbled himself afterwards but that didn’t last long. Both he and Jezebel suffered the fates that Elijah had prophesied for them (1 Kings 22:29–40; 2 Kings 9:30–37). The story is a perfect example of the what the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Commandments prohibited. You don’t need me to tell you who in the Trump fraud case represents the three main characters of the story of Naboth’s Vineyard.
Cancel Culture
Cancel Culture is a modern-day “revival” of the ancient practice of ostracism. I can remember as far back as the 1990s when I was a campus minister at Northern Illinois University when the buzz-phrase then was “Political Correctness.” You couldn’t say you didn’t agree with mainstreaming homosexual “marriage” without getting the accusation of “hate speech” hurled against you. The problem has gotten much worse since then, with individuals and organizations from all walks of life have been fired from their jobs, deplatformed from YouTube and Twitter, and demonetized by Internet payment services just for expressing political opinions contrary to a certain political point of view or for questioning some of the restrictions and analyses related to COVID. In a nation that has freedom of speech and religion and other God-given rights, we should not have to worry about any consequences for expressing our opinions and beliefs unless they represent a clear and present danger to others.
Cancel Culture is a grievous evil being perpetuated on our society and an obvious violation of both the Eighth Commandment and the Eighth Amendment. Getting fired, being deplatformed, or being demonetized for expressing your political opinion is “cruel and unusual punishment” in a free society. The interesting thing about the Eighth Amendment is that it doesn’t say anything about who is restricted from inflicting “cruel and unusual punishment.” So it just doesn’t apply to the courts. It applies to anyone who perpetuates Cancel Culture.
Lord, let the faithful arise and confront the evils in our society. Let your truth be proclaimed to all people. May your kingdom come and your will be done. In Jesus’s name, AMEN!
Scott Stocking
My opinions are my own.
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[1] Catholics and Lutherans combine the first two commands (no other gods, no idols) into one and split the “covet” commandments into two, making the one about coveting the house the ninth commandment and the one about coveting everything else the tenth commandment.
Message preached second Sunday of Lent, February 25, 2024, at Mount View Presbyterian Church in Omaha, NE.
Think for a moment about the things people give up for Lent: Chocolate, coffee or other caffeinated beverages, maybe adult beverages, or something that might take more discipline like trading in turf for surf on Fridays or not watching TV. But should Lent really be about giving up things that maybe aren’t so good for us physically or spiritually anyway? Why not instead give up those things that distract us from our commitment to Christ? For those not familiar with the seasons of the church calendar, it may be best to first answer the question, “What is Lent?”
The word Lent itself simply means springtime. For those of us in the northern parts of the northern hemisphere, that seems like a funny thing to call it, because it starts in the dead of winter, anywhere from the middle of February through first week of March, typically. But it does end just before Easter, or Resurrection Sunday as some call it, so that is springtime for us.
Because it typically starts in the dead of winter, the acts of denial typically associated with Lent may not have been a deliberate choice in the early and formative years of church polity. Winters were probably pretty harsh for some. But the fact that Lent looked forward to a time of emerging from the darkness and coldness of winter into the light and life of spring was certainly a means of hope and a renewed sense of purpose. But it wasn’t just a meteorological hope: Lent as a religious holiday always looks forward to the eternal hope we have because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
As we come to our passage today, we see Jesus is beginning to experience some frustration with his closest followers. Peter has just made the good confession that Jesus is the Messiah when the other apostles couldn’t figure that out. Up to this time, the disciples had been holding out the hope that Jesus would finally be the political leader the Jews had been expecting to come throw off the chains of Rome and allow them to live as a free people again. But Jesus knew he had to set them straight on just what his kingdom was going to be like. He knew freedom was coming, but it wouldn’t necessarily be from Roman rule. He knew blood must shed, but it wouldn’t be the blood of Romans. He was looking for a kingdom that would not be limited by a geographical region because it would rise up in the hearts and souls of his followers. But just because this kingdom wouldn’t come by war doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be difficult.
This is why Jesus starts teaching his disciples and followers about his upcoming suffering. He wants his disciples to be ready as well, as they will not be immune to suffering and persecution. Peter, ever the fireball, rebukes Jesus for talking about suffering and rejection. After all, Peter thought Jesus would use his divine power to take care of Rome once and for all. Yet Jesus rebukes Peter harshly for thinking like this: “Get behind me, Satan!” O you of little faith. When James and John ask if they can sit at the right and left hand of Jesus, that must have broken his heart as well. Even Judas, we’re told, is “helping himself” to the group’s funds at this point, presumably thinking he might be the minister of finance in the kingdom he thought was coming. Jesus was realizing their human frailty didn’t allow them yet to see what kind of kingdom he would raise up.
What’s interesting about v. 31–32 in our gospel passage this morning is that, when Jesus talks about what he must suffer and at whose hands he must suffer, never once does Jesus mention Rome. Jesus said he would suffer at the hands of the religious leaders of his day, not at the hands of Rome. Did you ever notice that little detail? Apparently the disciples didn’t notice that little detail either when he said it, because they went on thinking the kingdom would be all about confronting Rome. That’s why Jesus must tell them two or three times about his suffering and death in the last half of the gospel accounts.
So what can Jesus do about it at this point? The Jews were not expecting a suffering Messiah, so they weren’t even paying attention to the suffering Messiah psalms or prophecies. We read the last part of Psalm 22 this morning, which is quite upbeat compared to the first part of that Psalm whose verses detail many aspects about what happened to Christ on the cross. The truth is, Jesus knew he must begin to explain more in detail about what he himself would be facing, “the baptism with which Jesus will be baptized with,” and for that matter, what John and James and the rest of the disciples would be facing.
For whatever reason, the Lent passages are a little out of order. A couple weeks ago was “Transfiguation Sunday,” and the Scripture for that Sunday was the gospel text immediately following today’s passage, Mark 9. Apart from Jesus’s words and teaching in the last part of Mark 8, the Transfiguration event should have been the first clue to Peter, James, and John that Jesus’s coming kingdom was not going to be one of this world. It would in fact be a very different kingdom and look nothing like any kingdom ever before seen on earth.
Notice after Jesus finishes rebuking Peter, the very next thing Mark records Jesus saying is that his disciples must take up their cross and follow him. The question is, how would the disciples have understood the “taking up the cross” reference if they hadn’t yet seen Jesus crucified? They knew that the cross was an instrument of Roman torture and punishment, so Jesus’s mention of it must have been somewhat concerning to them if not frightening.
His words get more concerning as he goes on. It’s not enough for one to take up their own cross, but then he starts talking about “losing” your life or your very being. The contradiction of what he was saying must have been mind blowing. If they want to keep their current life, they’ll actually wind up losing it. But if they give up their current life in favor of following Christ and proclaiming his gospel, they’ll actually find out who they truly can be in Christ and what is God’s purpose for their life.
He begins to cut at the heart of the disciples’ misleading conception that they would be “gaining the world” by following Christ, gaining positions of influence and power in an earthly kingdom. What good is it to get all that power if you forfeit who you are and what God wants of your life? O, that many of our politicians would learn that lesson, right? How much is your soul, your very being worth if you would cast it aside for earthly gain, especially when you hold that up against the value that God places on your soul?
Jesus minces no words as he closes out his teaching. It’s time to take sides. If you’re ashamed of Jesus, Jesus honors that and won’t invite you to hang out with him anymore. You won’t have to worry about being seen with someone you’re ashamed of. Is that what you want? On the other hand, if you’re “at home” with Jesus and not afraid to be identified as one of his followers, then you’ll get to join him in the eternal home prepared for you.
Before addressing the positive elements of this passage, I want to wrestle with one question about the negative element: What does it mean to be ashamed of Jesus? The concept in the Bible suggests that being “ashamed” of something is the opposite of being confident you’ve done something right or good and taking a sense of inner pride in that. Being ashamed is more akin to being disgraced, that is, wanting to hide your face from others for whatever it is you’re doing, whether it is a sinful act that deserves shame or a cowardly attitude that causes you to either not take action when you should or even worse, to outright deny the value of something. Additionally, the root of the word is also the root for the concept of strength or power in the New Testament, but for the meaning “ashamed,” the negative prefix is added ἐπαισχύνομαι (epaischynomai)[1]. So there is an underlying nuance of not having or losing strength or power when your ashamed of good things. However, the shame we experience when doing something wrong is meant to motivate us to strengthen our resolve and our character so we have the power to do better the next time.
I know I’m jumping ahead a bit in the biblical timeline, but we have two appropriate examples of shame we can point to, especially in the events surrounding the crucifixion. Perhaps you’ve probably already made the connection to Peter’s actions outside the high priest’s residence at the illegal trial of Jesus the night before his crucifixion. Not once, not twice, but three times Peter denies knowing Jesus. Those were acts of cowardice on his part, but I’ll give him credit for at least showing up there. Where were the rest of the disciples after Jesus’s arrest?
The other example that perhaps you haven’t considered as an act of being ashamed of Jesus would be Judas’s betrayal. As I said above, Judas and the other disciples were expecting an earthly kingdom. Judas seems to have become disillusioned with the direction Jesus’s teaching and ministry had taken and was ashamed that things seemed to be falling apart from a worldly perspective. Perhaps he thought that getting Jesus arrested would be just the catalyst needed to start a revolt or rebellion that would cast off Roman rule once and for all. He wasn’t the only one who hadn’t yet grasped that there was a more eternal, spiritual kingdom on the way. When what he had hoped for didn’t pan out, his own shame was so great that he went out and hanged himself. He lost any shot at redemption at that point.
Peter, it seems, gave up at the point of his denials, but fortunately for the early church and the rest of us today, he didn’t follow in Judas’s footsteps. A few days after the resurrection, Peter received forgiveness when Jesus asked him not once, not twice, but three times if Peter loved him. It was as if each yes answer Peter gave undid each of his denials at Jesus’s trial.
How can we today show that we’re not ashamed of Jesus? The most obvious thing is keep sharing the good news of Jesus. As long as this congregation is doing the work God is calling and gifting you to do, you have no reason to be ashamed about any aspect of the ministry of this church. Don’t even be ashamed of the size of your congregation. Where two or three are gathered in Jesus’s name, he’s here in our midst. Don’t be discouraged. I also want to encourage you NOT to think that this church will inevitably close its doors. God works in mysterious ways, and he can bring life to places in ways we never imagined.
The Gospel of John has a slightly different version of this passage. It’s not strictly a parallel passage, but it does involve Jesus predicting his death and has the piece in it about losing your life for the sake of eternal reward. Listen to the words of Jesus John records for us:
23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.[2]
Now of course, in this passage, Jesus is referring to himself as the seed. But if we are in Christ, we also can be the seeds that produce a whole new crop. So I would encourage you not to think of Mount View Presbyterian in terms of it being in its twilight. Think of this church as a seed that is planted here in the neighborhood of 52nd & Hartman, where you have several grade schools within a three-mile radius. I would encourage you to look beyond yourselves and see what possibilities lie ahead, because God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work in us (Ephesians 3:20). We may not see it ourselves, but I truly believe God has a long-term vision and plan for this congregation in this location.
Need more encouragement? I told you a few weeks ago in the parlor about how I’ve been recording my messages and putting them on my blog page. Well, I found out I underestimated how much impact that is having, apparently around the world. Last year, my messages were downloaded over 2,000 times by I don’t know how many people. Just so you understand how that works, someone has to send out a link to the message file on my blog, and others have to intentionally click the link to pull it up on their computer or phone and listen to it. Already this year, there have been an additional 400 downloads of these sermon files. As I said a few weeks ago, I always put on the text version of the file that I’ve preached the sermon here at Mount View.
Unfortunately, I have no idea where these people are who are downloading and listening to these sermons. But am I crazy to think that maybe someday someone might show up at our doors who says, “Hey, I thought I’d check out your church because I heard one of your messages on the Internet”? Regardless of the long-term outcome, know that people all over the world are hearing the word of God in messages preached from this pulpit. Last year alone, people from over 160 countries read at least one article or listened to at least one sermon on my blog. I don’t say this to brag about me. All I do is post the files on the Internet. I don’t do any significant promotion. This all happens by word of mouth and the power of God in fulfillment of his promise that his word never returns void. This has been a God thing through and through, and I pray that this congregation will reap the reward from that.
So I leave you with this: Do not be ashamed of your congregation, because you are the body of Christ, placed here for his purposes. Do not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation. And do not be ashamed of Jesus, who has given us life and hope in his kingdom, both now and for eternity. Amen.
[1] Swanson, James. 1997. In Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament), electronic ed. Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc. Accessed February 29, 2024, from the software. The word used here has an intensifying prefix (ἐπ’) before the more common word for “ashamed.” The root of the word appears to be *ἰσχύ, which means “to be strong, capable.” The negative prefix alpha is added to the beginning of the root and after the intensifying prefix. The complete concept of the word “ashamed” in context, then, is akin to a complete absence of strength of character to stand for one’s convictions.
I preached this message January 28, 2024, at Mount View Presbyterian Church. It’s based on the Gospel passage for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany in Year B of the Liturgical Calendar.
When was the last time you were in a hurry to finish up a task? Sometimes, we have deadlines to meet and need to ensure everything gets done just right. Those who like working under that kind of pressure may feel like they’re more focused and some extra adrenaline kicks in to help them get the job done quickly. Others may not like being in a hurry so much. They get flustered and may make mistakes or miss important items they need for whatever they’re preparing for.
The Gospel writer Mark gives us the impression that Jesus is the kind of person who was always in a hurry, and he seemed to thrive on the urgency of the situation. Now some of you might say, “Come on, Scott, how could you know Jesus was in a hurry?” Well, I’ll lay it out here for you.
The verses at the beginning of Mark’s gospel set the theme for Mark’s gospel. Listen to Mark 1:3, quoting Isaiah 40:3:
The Greek adjective for “straight” means what it says: a straight road unhindered by obstacles, the shortest distance between two points. What is of note for us today is that the adverb form of that verb, often translated “straightaway” or “immediately” in older translations, is used another 41 times in Mark’s gospel, with 10 of those occurrences in Mark’s first chapter alone, and three times in our passage this morning. Mark is letting us know that Jesus is wasting no time in embarking on that straight path, and he has no intention of stopping any time soon.
A quick recap of Mark up to our current passage will help set the stage for talking about Jesus as an authoritative teacher, and how that translates to you and I teaching with authority. Jesus’s cousin John is in the wilderness preaching about the coming of the Messiah when who should show up but Jesus himself. John baptizes Jesus in the Jordan and “immediately” as Jesus came up out of the water, the Holy Spirt visibly descended on Jesus. Mark then gives just a brief statement about Jesus “immediately” going out into the desert and being tempted by Jesus.
After Jesus returns from the desert, he begins preaching a simple message in Galilee, “Repent and believe the good news!” His reputation begins to grow to the point where, in vv. 18 and 20, Simon, Andrew, James, and John all “immediately” leave their fishing boats to follow Jesus. His new followers give him a sense of legitimacy (not that he needed it) in the eyes of the Jews. His “official” ministry had begun.
So now that Jesus has laid the groundwork for his ministry, he returns to his hometown Capernaum, and “immediately” at the next Sabbath synagogue service begins teaching the good news. “Immediately” upon finishing, a man with an unclean spirit cries out that Jesus is the Lord’s Messiah, and Jesus casts out the unclean spirit. In the last verse of our passage today, we see that the end result was that news about what Jesus had done and his teaching with authority “immediately” spread throughout Galilee.
So what does it mean that Jesus “taught with authority”? Aside from being the Son of God and having a direct line to his father, we can be pretty certain that he was a regular at synagogue service growing up, so he’d heard the stories and wisdom literature of the Old Testament and the priest’s or rabbi’s exposition of those scriptures. He grew up in a carpenter’s home (probably not in poverty), so he certainly learned a trade like all other Jewish boys would have, and he had friends that he interacted with. Even as an adolescent, he had already begun to understand and empathize with human condition so that he was no stranger to our sorrows.
The synagogue was also the center for education, at least for males, in the local communities, so Jesus would have likely had a solid education as well, including some Torah training. But he had to bide his time, because 30 was the age a male was considered fully qualified to teach of his own accord in that day.
What Jesus did NOT apparently have in that day was a connection to any of the rabbinic schools who would have trained rabbis to go out to the local synagogues to teach. Nor did he have any letters of recommendation from the Pharisees or Sadducees of his day to further bolster his legitimacy. But that was okay, because he challenged all of those groups to reconsider many of their legalistic interpretations of the Old Testament and, being an outsider, he couldn’t get stripped of any of the privileges or prestige enjoyed by those groups. He was his own man. He knew what his father wanted of him, and he knew how to get there.
In those days, it was important for a teacher to have both an aura of authority and a group of followers. Without followers, people would not give him a second look as teacher; they’d think he and his message were irrelevant. And without authority, especially the authority of his miracles, it would have been easy to dismiss him as a phony and charlatan.
The difficult part of that combination is maintaining authority, because this was a huge barometer in a culture built on the principles of honor and shame. You’ve probably noticed in the Gospels that when someone tried to challenge Jesus’s authority or trap him in his words, he has a couple different ways he responds. With the average person, he tends to be more compassionate and sympathetic with his response. He knows what kind of religious legalism they live under and how that makes them feel inferior.
We see this especially in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus starts with the Beatitudes and transitions to challenging the “authorized” teaching of his day. “You have heard it said that,…but I say to you….” This is speech seasoned with salt, if you will, speaking the truth in love and compassion.
With most of the Pharisees and Sadducees, however, it’s a completely different attitude. At times he comes across as downright snarky and perhaps even a little belligerent, at least from our own perspective, when he challenges their legalistic platitudes and nitpicky “requirements” they claim to discern from God’s law. Why did Jesus, whom so many see as a man of peace, respond in this way to the religious leaders?
In a culture of honor and shame, if someone challenged your authority or demonstrated apparent hypocrisy in your teachings and you couldn’t defend yourself against those charges, that usually meant you were done for as a teacher or as an advocate for whatever it was you were promoting. Jesus knew that, of course, so when he responded, he made sure that he not only got his point across but that he also destroyed the argument of those challenging him. After all, he was calling people to follow him, so he needed a compelling reason for them to abandon their current teacher if they weren’t on the up-and-up and a compelling reason to follow him instead.
Jesus employed not just words and wisdom in his teaching, in his defense of his ministry, and in his rebuttals against the religious leaders of the day, but wonders and miracles as well to back up his authoritative words. Like the famous baseball player Dizzy Dean said, “It ain’t bragging if you can do it!”
We see, then, that Jesus’s authority as a teacher comes not only from being the Son of God, something that was not necessarily obvious to anyone who saw him, but also from the wisdom and knowledge he gained from a human perspective and his ability win over followers. But being the Son of God, he had an advantage that you and I typically don’t have when it comes to authority. He could do the miracles.
So how does that impact us today as we live out the witness of our faith and teach others about the Word of God? If you’ll remember when I was here a few Sundays ago, I said that Epiphany was a time for us to introduce people to Jesus. How can we do so with conviction and authority as the body of Christ?
One of the first things I heard about Bible colleges when I went to seminary after getting a degree from UNO was that, for all intents and purposes, a Bible college education was essentially equivalent to having grown up going to Sunday school every week and paying attention along the way. You and I are long past our Sunday school days now, but that doesn’t mean we still can’t learn from the Word of God. Regular study of God’s word, individually and collectively in groups, will always help us “be prepared in season and out of season”[2] to share the hope and encouragement of the Gospel.
I don’t know of any Bible colleges, seminaries, or churches in general who require preachers or members who want to join to fast for 40 days and nights as Jesus did! But there is value in practicing such spiritual disciplines as fasting for a short period, as you are able,[3] and prayer. Such disciplines, when done regularly, give you the spiritual “muscle memory” to develop a Christlike mind set and worldview. You will find that not only will you recognize God’s voice more clearly than ever, but that deciding to do the right thing or avoiding the bad thing will become a more natural choice for you.
You and I may never do anything close to what Jesus did when it comes to miracles, but believe or not, Jesus did give us a means of working miracles in the lives of others. It’s a little verse that says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Of all the ways people turn their lives around when coming to faith in Jesus, I can say with great certainty that it’s not just our words but how we made others feel. You’ve heard the saying: “I may not remember what you said, but I remember how you made me feel.”
One of the best stories in the Bible that makes this point is the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8. The religious leaders had brought her into the temple courts and stood her up before the crowd Jesus was teaching to. They were adamant that the woman must be stoned to death for her sin. Jesus takes his time to answer. John says Jesus bends down to write something on the ground, what we don’t know. Then Jesus stands up and says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.[4]” Then Jesus bends down again and continues writing. That was it. Jesus won. With one simple statement, he destroyed the logic behind the action the religious leaders wanted to take and telegraphed a clear message of compassion and forgiveness to the woman caught in adultery. I’m sure those religious leaders never forgot how Jesus humbled them, and some of them may have genuinely had a lasting change of heart. The woman, of course, was relieved that she was spared from the stoning, but Jesus was clear that she should not continue in her life of sin. She seems to have had a change in heart as well, as we see here later on in the gospel story. That’s the miracle of love and speaking the truth in love.
Finally, your ability and authority to teach has nothing to do with any of your innate biological makeup. The New Testament is clear, when read in the proper cultural and biblical context, that men and women could and did have teaching responsibilities in the early church. I don’t believe anything has changed in 2,000 years of church history to overturn that precedence, in spite of what some have proposed at times. I have studied this quite thoroughly and have written about it elsewhere if you’re interested. (Qualifications of Male and Female Leaders in the Church (1 Timothy); The Temple of Artemis of the Ephesians as Background for Understanding 1 Timothy 2)
We can have confidence to speak and teach the Word of God with authority as we invite people to church and introduce people to Jesus. As you go out the doors this morning, the world is your mission field. Let’s let the world know that Jesus lives and reigns in our hearts. Amen.
Several years ago, in the second year of my blog, I received a question from a reader (Bobby Smith, of Illinois at the time) on the concept of the “cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:6–7) and the Greek text behind it. He had made the point in one of his sermons that the Greek word for “cheerful” (ἱλαρός hilaros) is the root word for our English word “hilarity” and its cognates. He said he wasn’t trying to imply giving was hilarious; he was just making a verbal connection for the people. In one church I attended, they “interpreted” this by asking people to applaud the offering. I’ve heard others suggest that we laugh joyously when we give.
Just so we have an idea of what we’re working with here, let’s take a look at what “hilarity” means in good ol’ Merriam-Webster: “boisterous merriment or laughter.”[1] The adjective “hilarious” means “marked by or causing hilarity : extremely funny.”[2] Now, what does “cheerful” mean? “Full of good spirits : MERRY;… UNGRUDGING…conducive to cheer : likely to dispel gloom or worry” (note: all caps means M-W lists the word as a synonym)[3]. Note the word “merry” appears in this definition too! What is the etymological root of “cheer”? “Middle English chere face, cheer, from Anglo-French, face, from Medieval Latin cara, probably from Greek kara head, face — more at CEREBRAL”
The context of 2 Corinthians 9:7 would seem to suggest that the “ungrudging” meaning of “cheerful” is perhaps the best fit, as the verse prefaces the “cheerful giver” comment with “not reluctantly or under compulsion.”
We’re confident then about what the English words mean, but what about the meaning of the Greek word in biblical times? The adjective appears once in the New Testament, as does the noun form (ἱλαρότης hilarotēs; Romans 12:8 “in cheerfulness”) and once in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. In Proverbs 19:12, the Greek translators use the word to translate a Hebrew word (רָצוֹן rā·ṣôn) that is commonly translated “favor” (“his favor is like dew on the grass”; contrasted with “rage” in the parallelism in Proverbs 19:12), “pleasure,” or “acceptable.”
Josephus, a first century historian, uses the word several times in contexts that shed light on its meaning in that day. Here are a few examples:
Antiquities of the Jews, Book 3, Sec. 24: but as soon as they saw him [Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai] joyful at the promises he had received from God, they changed their sad countenances into gladness (hilaros).
Ant. Jews 6.209: On the next day Jonathan came to Saul, as soon as he saw him in a cheerful (hilaros) and joyful disposition.
Ant. Jews 12.24: the king looked upon him with a cheerful (hilaros) and joyful countenance.
Ant. Jews 18.291: So Caius, when he had drank wine plentifully, and was merrier (hilaros; comparative adverb) than ordinary…
Josephus, then, seems to suggest that hilaros has to do with one’s outward appearance or disposition. This outward expression would seem to flow naturally from an inward feeling one gets from being in “good spirits,” having one’s “gloom or worry” dispelled, or knowing you’ve done the right thing or a good thing by giving out of one’s own free will.
“Hilarity” or “hilariousness” might imply to some a bit of raucousness, which is why some people may be uncomfortable with that meaning or implication of the Greek word at hand. But I do think it’s important to take the same attitude as the reader who asked me the original question did: “I was just trying to get across the idea that our giving should produce so much more than our somber, and solemn faces on Sunday.” Our response should somehow reflect the cheerfulness Paul wants us to have when giving, whether that be a laugh, applause, or, as we do in the Presbyterian church I fill the pulpit for, an offertory song (“Praise God from whom all blessings flow….”). God loves a cheerful giver because it reflects the joy we have in him and the blessings he’s given us.
In this new year, then, if you’ve made a resolution to give more to the church or to the work of God wherever that may be, add to that resolution to give more cheerfully, not begrudgingly. Then you’ll know more fully the joy that comes from a generous heart.
I preached this message January 7, 2024, at Mount View Presbyterian Church, after being called upon in the 11th hour to fill in for the scheduled speaker that day. Lightly edited for publication.
Last year you may remember that I spoke about the “epiphany” I had in diving into the celebration of Epiphany and the ancient biblical history, both the Old Testament background and the New Testament setting, behind it. I also shared with you one author’s view that the “wise men” who visited Jesus may not have been Persians, as we’ve typically assumed for many years, but perhaps Jewish scholars or priests who lived in post-exilic Jewish communities that had relocated east of the Jordan River, but not quite to the heart of Babylon. In other words, they would have had an intimate connection to the OT prophecies to such a degree as to have been willing to make the journey to see the newborn Messiah.
In the liturgical calendar, Epiphany is more than just one day of celebrating the visit of these Magi to the house (notice they were no longer in the stable) where Jesus and his family were residing. Epiphany is the season on the church calendar between Christmas and Lent and covers the early chapters of the Gospels up to Jesus’s transfiguration, which is celebrated the Sunday before Lent. The transfiguration is a seminal event in the ministry of Jesus, because it is at that point, I believe, that the disciples, at least the ones who witnessed it, began to comprehend the divine nature of Jesus and his place as the Messiah of God. And of course Lent leads us up to Easter and the resurrection of the Lord, and the Easter season that follows leads us to Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the foundation of the New Testament church.
A year ago, then, I found myself reflecting on this organization of the liturgical calendar and kept coming back to one certain conclusion: the liturgical calendar is not intended to be some legalistic formula that we follow, but rather a microcosm of our respective journeys with respect to our faith in Christ, how we come to understand his grace in our lives, and how we discover his purposes through and for our lives.
Now we know the magi went out of their way to find the baby Jesus and worship him, because they knew he was the Messiah. But what was their “takeaway” from that experience? How did it impact their lives? Would they have had the same insights that Simeon and Anna had as we saw in last week’s passage? What was the message they brought back to their people from whence they came? Unfortunately, we don’t know much more about the magi and what happened to them afterwards, because they went home by a different route to avoid the clutches of Herod.
One point about the birth of Christ we often point out is that Christ wasn’t born in a royal palace or into a royal or politically connected family. He had humble beginnings in a stable. God wasn’t completely hiding Jesus from the rich and powerful because God did honor the Magi’s heartfelt search for his son. But what we see happening in the early church after Jesus’s resurrection is that the church, the body of Christ, is now tasked with taking the Gospel message not only to the rulers of the earth, as Paul does in Acts, but to “the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” as Ephesians 3 says.
We see in the book of Acts that Paul, after his dramatic Damascus Road conversion, becomes the most prominent representative of the new Christian faith to the gentile world. From Asia Minor, whence Paul hailed, westward to Rome, Paul’s missionary journeys and the connections he made along the way were instrumental in the spread of the faith in the northern Mediterranean region. Along the way, Paul finds himself before a number of prominent Roman political figures as he’s defending himself for preaching the good news of Jesus.
To summarize, in Acts 21, Paul is arrested in Jerusalem, but when the Roman commander realized Paul was a natural-born Roman citizen, they had to change their approach to him. He was brought before the governor of the region at the time, Felix, who kept Paul in prison “as a favor to the Jews.” Felix was recalled by Rome and replaced by Festus, who was a more even-handed governor. Festus wanted Paul to stand trial before the Jews, but Paul took full advantage of his Roman citizenship and appealed to Caesar instead. Festus refers the matter to King Herod Agrippa, where Paul recounts his conversion experience. In the end, Agrippa concludes that Paul could have been set free had he not appealed to Caesar. Paul asked Agrippa if he believed what the prophets said about Jesus, but Agrippa’s famous response was, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?”
Had Jesus been born into royalty, riches, or political power, his message surely would have been lost on the world because of how corrupt and power hungry the rulers of the world were in that day and age. The evidence of the power of the Gospel, the good news that Jesus preached and lived out, is found in the body of Christ today. We are his hands. We are his feet. We are his messengers, advocates, warriors, defenders. Without this testimony of the great cloud of witnesses and the growing, flourishing church in Paul’s day, his message before the rulers of the Roman rule would have surely fallen on deaf ears.
You and I may never be arrested and brought to trial for our faith, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still testify to and before our own political leaders, be they local, county, State, or federal positions. The beauty of living in a republic, “if you can keep it” said Ben Franklin, is that we do have the freedom to speak out, even if the expression of faith is becoming increasingly less popular. Paul’s courage to speak of his faith in a time when he could have been (and was) imprisoned or even put to death should be a testimony to those of us who, at least on paper, cannot and should not be imprisoned for speaking our beliefs.
But Paul takes this one step further in Ephesians 3:1–12, which is the evergreen epistles passage for Epiphany. Listen to his words:
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—
2 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. 4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. 6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. 8 Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, 9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. 13 I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory. [1]
After confirming that the wall of separation between Jews and us Gentiles has been forever demolished and that we are, in fact, coheirs with God’s chosen people, Paul expands the audience for our evangelism “to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” In other words, when we speak forth God’s word and testify about Jesus, his one and only son, our words have eternal impact “in the heavenly realms.” When we act upon our faith, be it through service or speaking, our actions and words have eternal impact “in the heavenly realms.”
We can view Epiphany, then, as a time to introduce Jesus to those around us, whether that be through service and ministry or just the casual conversations we have in daily life. Depending on the nature of your relationships, those introductions can be very basic or go more in depth. Just as the disciples early on probably didn’t grasp the fullness of who Jesus was just based on his teachings and occasional healing, they needed more experience with Jesus. When Peter, James, and John witnessed the transfiguration, they began to understand more fully who Jesus was. Our goal should be to help people see and experience the divine nature of Jesus as well.
Once they come to accept that, it becomes more natural to talk about Jesus’s death and resurrection and what those events mean for our salvation and hope. That is, if you will, the “Lenten season” of our lives, as we remind ourselves of the sacrifice Jesus made and that he was preparing his disciples to accept when the time of his crucifixion would come. And as we remind ourselves of that and affirm or renew our commitment to Christ, we can bring others along with us as well.
In the beginning, I asked what was the “takeaway” for the magi who had worshiped Jesus and given him gifts. Although we don’t have specific examples of what they did, I think what we’ve seen here in Acts and Ephesians today is that God wanted to establish his church before any formal outreach began to earthly or heavenly rulers and authorities. Paul seems to have understood that it was the job of the church, the body of Christ, to carry out the ministry of preaching to earthly rulers so that all the world might know eventually.
If you’ve never heard this message of Epiphany before, consider yourselves introduced to Jesus! If you have heard this message before, then this is an invitation for you to introduce him to others. God loves us and wants the best for us, which is why he sent Jesus in the first place. The more we introduce others to Jesus, the more the good news of his kingdom spreads. Grace and peace to you all in this new year, and especially in this season of Epiphany. Amen.
Sunday Morning Greek Blog 