Misunderstanding the Messiah

14 King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some said, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.” 15 But others said, “He is Elijah.” And others said, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” 16 But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” 17 For it was Herod who had sent and seized John and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because he had married her. 18 For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” 19 And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death. But she could not, 20 for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly.

21 But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. 22 For when Herodias’s daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests. And the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you.” 23 And he vowed to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, up to half of my kingdom.” 24 And she went out and said to her mother, “For what should I ask?” And she said, “The head of John the Baptist.” 25 And she came in immediately with haste to the king and asked, saying, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” 26 And the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her. 27 And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison 28 and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother. 29 When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. – Mark 6:14-29 ESV

In the middle of his account of Jesus’ commissioning and sending of the 12 disciples on their first official missionary journey, Mark inserts the story of John the Baptist’s death. At first glance, placing this event here in his gospel narrative seems odd and out of place, but it offers important insight into the atmosphere surrounding Jesus and His ministry.

Jesus had warned His 12 disciples that they would encounter a wide range of reactions as they preached and performed miracles throughout Galilee. Some would gladly receive them, while others would refuse to have anything to do with them. Although Jesus’ reputation had spread throughout the region, confusion and even conflict over His identity remained. Some believed He was their long-anticipated Messiah. Others concluded that He must be a prophet sent by God, with some declaring that He was actually Elijah. According to 2 Kings, Elijah did not die but was taken up to heaven by God (2 Kings 2:11-12, so some assumed that Elijah had simply reappeared on earth.

Then there was the rumor that Jesus was actually the resurrected John the Baptist. This is why Mark mentions John’s death at this point in his narrative. To make the rumor of John’s return make sense, Mark had to explain how John died. Mark’s last mention of John the Baptist was in Chapter 1.

John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. – Mark 1:4-5 ESV

In that same chapter, Mark recounts John baptizing Jesus but never mentions him again until this point. The apostle John revealed that John the Baptist knew his ministry and mission were short-term in nature. He had been given the divine privilege of announcing the coming of the Messiah, but once Jesus appeared, John the Baptist knew his job was done. He even rejoiced in the diminishing nature of his role.

“I am filled with joy at his success. He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.” – John 3:29-30 NLT

But John the Baptist didn’t just hang up his camel-hair coat and retire; God decommissioned him, and Mark details his fate. To explain why people assumed Jesus was John the Baptist returned from the dead, Mark had to reveal how Mark died in the first place. As the story makes clear, John’s death was tragic and unexpected.

At this point, Mark introduces Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. Herod was the Roman-appointed ruler of northern Israel. Mark calls Herod a king, which was not uncommon at the time. But Herod was not a descendant of David, and most Jews did not recognize him as Israel’s official king. He was little more than a puppet king, who served at the discretion of Caesar. As the story unfolds, this pseudo-sovereign would later play a significant role in Jesus’ life.

Herod was a wicked man who coveted power and would do anything to solidify and maintain his lofty position. He was one of the sons of Herod the Great, who ruled over Israel when Jesus was born. After Herod the Great’s death, the Romans appointed Herod Antipas and his brother, Philip, to rule over their father’s former lands. In a sense, the brothers became competitors, each vying for Caesar’s favor and hoping to expand and solidify their power and influence. The Jewish historian Josephus records that Herod Antipas fell in love with his brother’s wife, Herodias. He divorced his own wife and convinced Herodias to leave Philip and marry him instead. This kind of behavior by a “king” of Israel was unacceptable, and John the Baptist publicly called out Herod for this and other indiscretions.

John also publicly criticized Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, for marrying Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for many other wrongs he had done. So Herod put John in prison, adding this sin to his many others. – Luke 3:19-20 NLT

John the Baptist accused Herod of violating God’s laws concerning divorce and remarriage.

“It is against God’s law for you to marry her.” – Matthew 14:4 NLT

But his outspoken criticism of this powerful man resulted in his imprisonment. Herod had heard enough from John and decided to curtail his criticism by locking him away.

Matthew’s gospel states that this turn of events left John confused and questioning the very nature of Jesus’ identity. He began to doubt whether Jesus was who he had thought Him to be. He even sent some of his disciples to seek clarification.

John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” – Matthew 11:2-3 NLT

John had believed Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, but his sudden and unexpected imprisonment seems to have caught him off guard. Perhaps John didn’t think things would end this way. If Jesus was the  King of Israel, would He not defeat the Romans and remove Herod from power? John was having a difficult time reconciling his imprisonment with his belief that Jesus was the anointed one of God. But all of this was part of God’s sovereign plan. In His wisdom and according to His providential will, God orchestrated every event in John’s life. Unbeknownst to him, John was living out his very statement: “I must become less and less.” Little did John know he would sacrifice his life so his ministry would not be a distraction. His role was to herald the Messiah’s arrival. But now that Jesus was here, John’s job was complete, and God would call him home.

John’s death reveals volumes about the decadence and immoral nature of Herod and his unlawful wife. This woman was furious with John over his humiliating comments about her, and she longed to see him dead. When she discovered that her husband had imprisoned John, she began to scheme how to take advantage of the situation and ensure that John never left the prison alive. Her chance came when Herod threw a lavish birthday party for himself and invited “his court officials, military commanders, and leaders of Galilee” (Mark 6:21 NLT). Part of the night’s entertainment was a dance performed by his own stepdaughter, Salome. It seems likely that her mother set this young girl up. It was part of a carefully orchestrated plot to eliminate John the Baptist. Pleased by Salome’s dancing, Herod offered her a reward,

“Ask me for whatever you want and I will give it to you.” He swore to her, “Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.” – Mark 6:22-23 NLT

When Salome sought her mother’s input, Herodias told her to request the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The queen saw her chance to seek revenge and took full advantage. She knew Herod would have to keep his word, having made his brash, unwise offer in front of all his guests. Reluctantly, Herod gave in to Salome’s strange request. He immediately ordered John’s execution and had his head placed on a platter and presented to his stepdaughter as a reward for her dancing. Ultimately, Herodias received the gruesome gift.

This brings Mark’s little diversion full circle. The death of John the Baptist must have haunted Herod for some time. When he heard rumors about Jesus, he began to wonder whether John had returned from the dead.

“John, whom I beheaded, has been raised!” – Mark 6:26 NLT

This statement is filled with fear and foreboding. Herod must have had nightmares about his unlawful execution of John. He had ordered the death of a man for speaking the truth. As a convert to Judaism, Herod knew his marriage to Herodias was unlawful. Yet, due to his own pride and arrogance, Herod made a rash vow and unintentionally sealed the fate of this innocent man. Now he had to live with the consequences.

But this entire section of Mark’s gospel is less about Herod’s actions and John’s death than about Jesus’ identity. Sometime later, Jesus would ask His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13 ESV). Their response reflects the diversity of opinions about Jesus, including Herod’s. 

“Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” – Matthew 16:14 ESV

But when Jesus asked for their opinion, only Peter spoke up, proclaiming, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16 ESV). Jesus blessed Peter for his bold assertion but didn’t credit him for answering correctly. Instead, His Heavenly Father revealed His identity to Peter. One disciple gave the right response, but Jesus commanded all of them to keep it to themselves. 

Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. – Matthew 16:20 ESV

This prohibition against proclaiming His true identity seems strange. Why would Jesus prevent His disciples from declaring who He was? The answer is simple: they misunderstood the Messiah’s role. They expected a conquering king who would lead them to victory over the Romans and reestablish the Davidic dynasty and Israel’s dominance in the region. So, when Jesus began to reveal the truth about His mission, the disciples became conflicted.

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. – Matthew 16:21 ESV

This news confused His disciples because it didn’t fit their narrative about the Messiah. Dismayed by Jesus’ words, Peter “took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you’” (Matthew 16:22 ESV). Peter didn’t like what he heard. Jesus’ talk of death didn’t track with Peter’s understanding of the Messiah’s role. After Jesus had blessed Peter for his correct answer, he had to rebuke him for his lack of understanding. 

“Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” – Matthew 16:23 ESV

Herod had misidentified Jesus, but so had Peter. Their understanding of Him was either incorrect or incomplete because they were using human reasoning to determine His identity. Herod didn’t want to consider Jesus to be a king because that would make Him a competitor for the throne. Peter refused to accept Jesus’ talk of death because He had no use for a dead Messiah. Everyone had opinions about Jesus, but no one understood who He was. Peter had given the right answer, but still had a long way to go before He understood what it meant.  

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Only Believe

35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37 And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. 38 They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40 And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. 41 Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. 43 And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat. – Mark 5:35-43 ESV

While reading Mark’s narrative about the woman’s miraculous healing, it is easy to forget about Jairus. This poor man was forced to bide his time and wait for Jesus to finish His conversation with the woman. Witnessing her miraculous healing must have bolstered his faith in Jesus, but it was probably hard for him to hide his frustration at the unexpected delay. As a concerned father, he would have seen his daughter’s circumstance as more pressing and immediate. The woman had lived with her chronic condition for 12 years, and she could have waited a bit longer. After all, his daughter was dying.

But the chronology of these two events is critical. The woman’s decision to touch Jesus’ garment caused what appeared to be an unexpected delay that seems to have compromised Jesus’ plans and placed Him in a difficult situation. While He had been dealing with the woman, the young girl had died. Mark records that the news of her death came abruptly and bluntly.

While he was still speaking to her, messengers arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. They told him, “Your daughter is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.”– Mark 5:35 NLT

The delay had been costly. Yes, the woman received healing from her debilitating medical condition, but it had been at the expense of the young girl’s life. It seems Mark wanted his readers to wrestle with the conflicting emotions this sad scene stirred up. Immediately, one is forced to ask what would have happened if the woman had not touched the edge of Jesus’ garment. What if she hadn't been able to force her way through the crowd and touch Jesus? There would have been no delay, and the young girl might still be alive. What thoughts must have been running through Jairus' mind as he was forced to process this devastating news? Was he angry with Jesus? Did he blame the woman?

Mark gives no answers; he simply mentions that Jesus overheard the messengers delivering the fateful news to Jairus. But rather than expressing His sorrow over Jairus’ loss or apologizing for the untimely delay, Jesus told the grieving father, “Do not fear, only believe” (Mark 5:36 ESV).

Let the weight of this statement sink in. Jairus has just heard that his 12-year-old daughter is dead, and the one man whom he believed could heal her is telling him not to believe. In a sense, Jesus encouraged Jairus not to allow this news to frighten or upset him, but to replace his fear with faith. 

But Jairus had believed. He came to Jesus, knelt at His feet, and begged Him to help his dying daughter.

“My little daughter is dying,” he said. “Please come and lay your hands on her; heal her so she can live.” – Mark 5:23 NLT

He had believed that Jesus could do something about her condition, but now, it was too late. She was dead, and Jairus must have struggled to control his frustration and anger at this callous-sounding comment from Jesus. The time for believing was gone.

This scene is similar to one John records in his gospel. He tells of another delay that resulted in death. Jesus had been called to the home of His dear friend Lazarus. Mary and Martha, Lazarus's sisters, sent Jesus a message saying Lazarus was ill. But upon hearing this news, Jesus delayed His departure for two days, then informed His disciples, “Lazarus has died,  and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him” (John 11:14-15 ESV).

When Jesus finally arrived in Bethany, He was told that Lazarus's body had been in the tomb for four days. Martha, Lazarus’ sister, expressed her disappointment and frustration with Jesus.

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” – John 11:21 ESV

Mary echoed her feelings.

 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” – John 11:32 ESV

But what did Jesus tell His disciples when He heard the news of Lazarus’ passing?

“…for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.” – John 11:15 ESV

Jesus delayed His departure on purpose; two days had been more than enough time for Lazarus to die and be buried. Jesus deliberately created an apparently hopeless scenario that even His disciples would have viewed as beyond His power to remedy. But Jesus had delayed so that they might believe. He wasn’t surprised by the news of Lazarus’ death, and He wasn’t concerned that, after four days, the body of Lazarus would have already begun to decay. He stepped up to the tomb, commanded the stone to be rolled away, and confidently shouted, “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:43 ESV), and John records, “the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth” (John 11:44 NLT). The words Jesus spoke to Martha just before this incredible event must have been ringing in her ears.

“Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” – John 11:40 NLT

So, when Jesus told Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe,” He meant it, because He knew what He was about to do. If Jairus continued to believe despite the circumstances, he too would see God's glory.

Amazingly, the grieving father faithfully accompanied Jesus and three of His disciples to his home. When they arrived, they found a scene of great sorrow with “people weeping and wailing loudly” (Mark 5:38 ESV). The mourning process had already begun, and the funeral preparations were already well underway. But Jesus interrupted the proceedings with a question and a comment: “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s only asleep” (Mark 5:39 ESV).

His words must have come across as either painfully callous and insensitive or simply misinformed. Either way, the people responded with derisive laughter. But Jesus ignored their reaction and had them removed. Then, accompanied by the deceased girl’s parents and His three disciples, Jesus entered her room. As Jairus and his wife wept and the disciples watched in disbelief, Jesus took the little girl's hand and spoke to her. “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up!” (Mark 5:41 NLT).

And according to Mark’s account, the transformation was instantaneous.

And the girl, who was twelve years old, immediately stood up and walked around! They were overwhelmed and totally amazed. – Mark 5:42 NLT

She went from being fully dead to being fully alive — in an instant. And her amazing transformation was as if she had simply been awakened from sleep. For Jesus, restoring the dead girl to life had been no more difficult than waking someone up. It’s no coincidence that Jesus used the waking-sleeping analogy in both of these death-to-life scenarios. Even though Jesus knew Lazarus had died, He told His disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him” (John 11:11 ESV).

For Jesus, death was no obstacle. As John wrote in his gospel account, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4 ESV). Jesus would later refer to Himself as “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6 NLT). As the Son of God, Jesus was the author of all life. He was the Creator-God who gave life to all things, and He would soon prove Himself to be the conqueror of death.

These two events were meant to encourage His disciples to believe that He was who He claimed to be. As impressed as they were by His calming of the storm and His exorcism of the demons, this miracle must have left them completely shocked. Mark simply says they were overcome with amazement.

They couldn’t believe their eyes because they had just witnessed Jesus do the impossible. Peter, James, and John must have been eager to tell their companions what they had just seen. But before they could rush out the door and spread the news of this amazing miracle, Jesus cooled their enthusiasm. He commanded them not to tell anyone what they had seen, and this prohibition applied to the parents as well.

Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anyone what had happened, and then he told them to give her something to eat. – Mark 5:43 NLT

Jesus operated on a divine timeline, and His mission followed a tightly orchestrated schedule that was part of God’s preordained plan. As a student of human nature, Jesus knew that if news of this miracle got out, people would attempt to make Him their king. It would prove He was the long-awaited Messiah who possessed the power to raise the dead to life and would have no problem defeating the Romans. But Jesus’ hour had not yet come. He had more ministry to accomplish and much more training to complete with His disciples.

This incredible miracle was meant to give His disciples undeniable proof of His power and authority, and to clarify the nature of His mission. He had not come to be their King, at least, not yet. He had not come to destroy the Romans or restore Israel's political fortunes. No, He came to restore the spiritually dead to new life, and that was the message He communicated to Martha just before restoring her brother to life.

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” – John 11:25-26 ESV

Thanks to Jesus, the young girl and Lazarus were alive. But their new lives were temporary and not permanent. They would both face death again, which meant that they needed to experience the new birth Jesus described to Nicodemus.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again [from above]  he cannot see the kingdom of God.” – John 3:3 ESV

The real resurrection from death to life was yet to come. But it would require Jesus to sacrifice His life as payment for men's sins. Jesus didn’t want news of this miracle to spread because He was on a mission to provide resurrection life, not just restoration from death. Both the young girl and Lazarus received new life from Jesus, but it wasn’t the kind of life He came to provide. Because of their sins, they were still under the condemnation of eternal separation from God. But Jesus changed that when He willfully went to the cross as the sinless sacrifice that satisfied the just demands of His Holy Father. The author of Hebrews wrote, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22 NLT). But the apostle Paul explained, “Sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 14:56-57 NLT). 

Jesus came not just to provide new life, but eternal life — a never-ending, uninterrupted existence with God the Father and His Son. This new existence would not become available until Jesus completed His mission by giving His life as atonement for mankind's sins. His death, burial, and resurrection would be the means by which sinful men and women could be restored to new life, but it would require belief, just as Jesus had told Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26 NLT). But the question that needs to be answered is, “Do you believe this?”

“For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day.” – John 6:40 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Sanctification, Suffering, and Scripture

10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. 12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.– 2 Timothy 3:10-17 ESV

Timothy found himself surrounded by false teachers and foolish people whose lack of spiritual discernment led them to accept their heresy as truth. But Paul would not let his young disciple lose hope or abandon his ministry objectives. Timothy still had work to do. The gospel must be preached, new believers must be educated in the teachings of Christ, the truth of God’s Word must be defended, and the promises of God must be believed – at all costs.

If Timothy needed encouragement or an example to follow, he only had to look to the life of Paul, his mentor and friend. After all, Paul wrote this letter while confined to prison in Rome, and he was there solely because of his faith in Christ and his commitment to preaching the gospel. Those who opposed his message falsely accused him and despised him so much that they would do anything to see him eliminated. A group of 40 Jews had even made a pact, sealed by an oath, that they would not eat until they had personally assassinated Paul.

The next morning a group of Jews got together and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. There were more than forty of them in the conspiracy. They went to the leading priests and elders and told them, “We have bound ourselves with an oath to eat nothing until we have killed Paul. So you and the high council should ask the commander to bring Paul back to the council again. Pretend you want to examine his case more fully. We will kill him on the way.” – Acts 23:12-15 NLT

So, just in case his memory had lapsed, Paul provided Timothy with a sobering reminder that his own ministry experience had been anything but easy. From the moment he received his commission from Christ, Paul faced opposition, persecution, and suffering. But he had done so with patience, faith, love, and steadfastness. This was not a display of arrogant pride or boasting on Paul’s part; he was simply reminding Timothy of what he had already witnessed with his own eyes. Paul recounts three occasions when he suffered persecution for doing what he had been called to do. The first took place in Antioch of Pisidia. There, Paul and Barnabas preached the gospel of Jesus Christ in the synagogues and saw many people come to faith.

Many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, and the two men urged them to continue to rely on the grace of God. – Acts 13:43 NLT

But they also met with increasing opposition on the part of the Jews.

But when some of the Jews saw the crowds, they were jealous; so they slandered Paul and argued against whatever he said. – Acts 13:45 NLT

And it wasn’t long before their jealousy and slander turned to acts of physical violence.

Then the Jews stirred up the influential religious women and the leaders of the city, and they incited a mob against Paul and Barnabas and ran them out of town. – Acts 13:50 NLT

Railroaded out of Antioch by the Jews, Paul and Barnabas made their way to Iconium. But as Luke records in Acts, their relocation did little to improve their popularity. 

The same thing happened in Iconium. Paul and Barnabas went to the Jewish synagogue and preached with such power that a great number of both Jews and Greeks became believers. Some of the Jews, however, spurned God’s message and poisoned the minds of the Gentiles against Paul and Barnabas. But the apostles stayed there a long time, preaching boldly about the grace of the Lord. And the Lord proved their message was true by giving them power to do miraculous signs and wonders. But the people of the town were divided in their opinion about them. Some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles.

Then a mob of Gentiles and Jews, along with their leaders, decided to attack and stone them. When the apostles learned of it, they fled to the region of Lycaonia—to the towns of Lystra and Derbe and the surrounding area. And there they preached the Good News. – Acts 14:1-7 NLT

But things took a rather odd and nearly deadly turn in Lystra. Their miraculous healing of a crippled man caused the inhabitants of Lystra to mistake them for gods in human form. They even tried to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas, mistaking them for the Greek gods Zeus and Hermes. But Paul took the opportunity to declare the good news, calling their audience to “turn from these worthless things and turn to the living God” (Acts 14:15 NLT).

But the crowds remained undeterred by Paul’s words, still convinced that they were gods. Then, a contingent of Jews from Antioch and Iconium showed up, whose accusations against Paul and Barnabas transformed the adoring crowd from worshipers to executioners.

Then some Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowds to their side. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of town, thinking he was dead. But as the believers gathered around him, he got up and went back into the town. The next day he left with Barnabas for Derbe. – Acts 14:19-20 NLT

Paul reminds Timothy, “You know all about how I was persecuted in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra—but the Lord rescued me from all of it” (2 Timothy 3:11 NLT). Paul miraculously walked away from his own stoning and made his way to Derbe, where he continued to faithfully proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. Then, according to Luke, Paul and Barnabas retraced their steps, returning to the very cities where they had faced opposition and Paul had been stoned and left for dead.

After preaching the Good News in Derbe and making many disciples, Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia, where they strengthened the believers. They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God. – Acts 14:21-22 NLT

The inhabitants of these three cities must have been shocked when Paul and Barnabas showed back up. But no one would have been more surprised than those who had placed their faith in Christ as a result of the teaching of these two men. They must have assumed they would never see Paul and Barnabas again. But not only did they return, but they also provided a living lesson in what it means to suffer for Christ. It is likely that Paul still displayed the cuts and bruises from his stoning in Lystra.

And Paul reminds Timothy of the message he delivered to the faithful in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch: “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12 NLT).

The reality of the Christian life is that the godly will suffer while the ungodly will appear to prosper. False teachers will continue to deceive and mislead the innocent and immature. The wicked will appear to get away with their ungodly behavior, even flourishing, while those who follow Christ find themselves facing trials and difficulties of all kinds.

But Paul encourages Timothy to remain faithful at all costs, reminding him to consider the history of his own conversion and calling. Timothy was raised by a godly mother and grandmother who saturated his life with the Scriptures. That immersion in the Old Testament prepared Timothy to understand the truth about Jesus and His claim to be the Messiah of Israel.

You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. – 2 Timothy 3:15 NLT

Timothy knew Jesus fulfilled all the Messianic passages in the Hebrew Scriptures. He was the Son of David and the long-awaited Messiah, and He was Timothy’s Savior. Just as Scripture prophesied Jesus’ first coming, it also revealed that Jesus would come again one day. That’s why Paul reminds Timothy to keep trusting God’s written Word because it reveals the truth concerning His Living Word.

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. – Acts 3:16-17 NLT

Things wouldn't be easy. Living the Christian life would not be a walk in the park. But Paul wanted Timothy to know that he could endure whatever came his way because he could trust in the Word of God. It had the power to instruct, discipline, encourage, and equip God’s people. It was divinely inspired and, therefore, spiritually empowered to help every believer not only survive but thrive. Sanctification, suffering, and Scripture are three non-negotiables in the life of the believer. Salvation will result in our transformation into the likeness of Christ. That process will involve suffering and persecution; it comes with the territory. But Scripture, which reveals God's redemptive plan made possible through faith in Christ, also provides everything we need to live godly lives as we await His Son’s return.

Father, this message is a difficult one for us to hear. We don’t want to think about suffering. In fact, we avoid it at all costs. Instead, we pursue ease and comfort, hoping to create our own little heaven on earth where pain, persecution, and problems have no place. But Your Son said, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows” (John 16:33 NLT). He reminded His disciples, “I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19 ESV). So, Paul is right when he warns Timothy that “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12 ESV). It is an inescapable fact that following Christ will bring down the wrath of the enemy. Satan hates us, and the more we serve God and reflect the character of Christ, the more intense his attacks will become. Our sanctification infuriates him because it proves the truth of the gospel. As we become more like Christ, we reflect the power of the Holy Spirit, the reliability of God’s promises, and the hope of eternal life. Yet, the temptation is to view suffering and persecution as unwanted, undesirable anomalies that have no place in the life of a believer. The enemy wants us to reject them as unacceptable and to see them as unwelcome “gifts” from an unloving God. But Paul describes our persecution, pain, and suffering as small and short-lived, and reminds us, “Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” (2 Corinthians 4:17 NLT). Yes, the pain is real, the suffering hurts, and the persecution is difficult to accept, but as Paul promises, “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment” (Romans 5:3-5 NLT). Amen 

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

There’s Always Room For Growth

6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.  – 2 Timothy 3:6-9 ESV

After assuring Timothy that the spiritual condition of the world was going to get worse before it got better and providing him with a detailed description of the moral state of its inhabitants, Paul warned him, “Stay away from people like that!” (2 Timothy 2:5 NLT). They may appear to be religious and even claim to be followers of Christ and faithful members of the local church, but their behavior will reveal that they love pleasure more than God. They will be worldly, controlled by their sin natures, and driven by their passions, rather than living under the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

In his letter to the believers in Galatia, Paul provided yet another list of characteristics that would mark such people.

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. – Galatians 5:19-21 NLT

While Paul’s words apply to any church in any age, he had someone specific in mind when writing to Timothy. A group of false teachers exhibiting the characteristics in verses 2-5 was negatively influencing the church in Ephesus. These self-loving, pleasure-seeking, ego-driven individuals were preying on the weak and vulnerable in the church.

They are the kind who work their way into people’s homes and win the confidence of vulnerable women who are burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by various desires. – 2 Timothy 3:6 NLT

What Paul describes is a predatory mindset that seeks out the spiritually and emotionally immature. These pious-sounding individuals were actually self-proclaimed purveyors of doctrinal error who purposefully targeted the weaker brothers and sisters in the congregation. Paul emphasizes their particular emphasis on “weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions” (2 Timothy 3:6 ESV).

It is important to remember that the early church was made up of converts from all walks of life, including men, women, slaves, freemen, Gentiles, and Jews. The church was a melting pot of the rich and the poor, and the educated and the illiterate. Some people had come to faith in Christ while their spouses remained unsaved. Paul makes that point clear in his first letter to the church in Corinth.

And if a believing woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to continue living with her, she must not leave him. For the believing wife brings holiness to her marriage, and the believing husband brings holiness to his marriage. – 1 Corinthians 7:13-14 NLT

Just a few verses earlier in the same letter, Paul commanded anyone who had become a believer to remain married to their unbelieving spouse.

But for those who are married, I have a command that comes not from me, but from the Lord. A wife must not leave her husband…And the husband must not leave his wife. – 1 Corinthians 7:11, 12 NLT

If a believing woman had lost her husband, she was particularly vulnerable, lacking a spiritual partner in her quest for godliness. She could not expect her husband to provide any spiritual leadership or support. Because of the prevailing cultural constraints of the day, many women were uneducated and ill-equipped to see through the doctrinal error promoted by these false teachers.

Paul uses an interesting Greek word to describe these women: gynaikarion. It appears nowhere else in the New Testament and is a non-flattering term that means “little women.” Various Bible translations use different English words to convey the term's original meaning: vulnerable, weak, gullible, silly, foolish, and idle.

But Paul seems to have viewed these women as spiritually immature and still “burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by various desires” (2 Timothy 3:6 NLT). These false teachers were taking advantage of the situation, targeting the less spiritually informed in the congregation to sway opinion and recruit converts to their way of thinking.

Paul essentially described these women as “little” or childish in their faith. They were immature and lacked the wisdom to see through the false teachers' deception. In Paul’s first letter to the believers in Corinth, he warned them about unknowingly doing damage to their weaker brothers and sisters. In their case, the issue involved eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols. The more mature believers understood that the meat, available for purchase at the local market, was of high quality and completely harmless. But the less mature believers, most of whom had been idol worshipers before coming to faith in Christ, viewed the meat as tainted and unholy. So, when they saw their fellow believers eating or serving this meat at their meals, they were appalled and confused. This led Paul to write: “take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak” (1 Corinthians 8:9 NLT).

The weaker or less mature believer will always be more susceptible to false teaching because they lack biblical knowledge to help them discern the difference between falsehood and truth. Their understanding of basic Bible doctrine is rudimentary and easily manipulated. Paul describes these women as being spiritually hungry but lacking in discernment.

Such women are forever following new teachings, but they are never able to understand the truth. (2 Timothy 3:7 NLT).

What Paul describes is a timeless problem that is not relegated to the first century. A new believer’s hunger for spiritual truth is a good thing, but can become dangerous when there is no one to provide wisdom and discernment. A young child will satisfy their physical hunger with whatever appeals to them, with no regard for its nutritional value. In the same way, immature Christians can feed their spiritual appetite with sermons, books, podcasts, and teachings that do more harm than good. They can fill up on spiritual “junk food” that appeals to their senses but leaves them in a weakened state because it is devoid of truth.

And Paul accuses the false teachers of feeding these spiritually childlike women a steady diet of lies and half-truths that left them spiritually malnourished and starving. Paul compares the false teachers to the Egyptian magicians who tried to counter Moses' miraculous plagues with their own brand of supernatural conjuring. Paul names two individuals not mentioned in the Old Testament but preserved through Jewish oral tradition. Jannes means “the rebel,” while Jambres means “the opponent.” Like the court magicians who opposed Moses' efforts, the false teachers were spinning their own version of the truth. But Paul pulls no punches in exposing them because they were “corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith” (2 Timothy 3:8 ESV).

The Egyptian magicians could only produce counterfeit miracles that simulated the work of God. And the false teachers could only offer up spiritual-sounding platitudes that lacked substance and led to spiritual starvation. Eventually, their deception will be exposed, and their erroneous teaching will lose its grip on the weak and vulnerable.

… they won’t get away with this for long. Someday everyone will recognize what fools they are, just as with Jannes and Jambres. – 2 Timothy 3:9 NLT

A steady diet of junk food may sound appealing, but will eventually lead to poor health. And the immature believer who fills their spiritual tank with the latest faith-fad and quick-fix religious trend will find themselves suffering from malnutrition and in need of something of substance. The weak and immature are to grow up, and the spiritual infant is expected to make steady progress toward maturity. Spiritual growth is a normal part of the Christian life, as Paul and the author of Hebrews make clear.

Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ. I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. – 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 NLT

You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong. – Hebrews 5:12-14 NLT

The best antidote to spiritual immaturity is the truth of God’s Word. Each Christ-follower is to feed on the truth and allow it to transform them from an infant in Christ to a fully mature believer “who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15 NLT). Like an infant that craves its mother’s milk, believers should long for the life-transformative nourishment of the Word of God.  

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. – 1 Peter 2:2 BSB

Father, we each began our faith journey as spiritual infants, totally dependent upon the wisdom and care of others to ensure our safety and growth. But there came a time when we had to learn to self-feed and stand on our own. This transition from total dependence on others to spiritual adulthood and independence is natural and normal. But it can’t happen without a steady diet of Your  Word, which “is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 2:15 BSB). The truth of Your Word serves as spiritual nourishment that strengthens our faith, increases our resistance to falsehood, and transforms us into fully devoted followers of Christ, “mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13 NLT). When we make spiritual maturity our highest priority, “then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth” (Ephesians 4:14 NLT). That is the goal, and it is achievable because You make it possible. Never let me become complacent about my spiritual growth or satisfied with where I am in my faith journey. Give me an unsatiable appetite for Your Word so that I can continue to grow more like Christ the older I get. Amen 

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

How Firm a Foundation

14 Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 16 But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. 19 But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” – 2 Timothy 2:14-19 ESV

Paul wasn’t afraid to name names and call out individuals for their unfaithfulness or failure to remain committed to the cause of Christ. First, he mentions Phygelus and Hermogenes, two individuals who abandoned him in Asia. Now he brings up another pair, Hymenaeus and Philetus, whom he accuses of “swerving from the truth” (2 Timothy 2:18 ESV). These individuals taught that the resurrection had already taken place, which caused confusion and doubt among the faithful.

Paul’s mention of Hymenaeus and Philetus was intended to provide Timothy a concrete example of what he meant by “irreverent babble” or quarreling about words. Paul had just instructed Timothy to take what he had been taught and “teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others” (2 Timothy 2:2 NLT).

One of Timothy’s primary responsibilities as a minister of the gospel was to provide those under his care with sound instruction and a Christ-like model to follow. Because the body of Christ was still in its infancy, it suffered a serious leadership void, and many people were ignorant about spiritual matters. Those who had come to faith in Christ knew little beyond their original understanding of the gospel message. They had eagerly embraced Paul’s message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, but beyond that, they had little knowledge of what living out their faith in Christ should look like in daily life. Many expected their salvation experience to bring a trouble-free, blessing-filled life because of their newfound relationship with Yahweh. Yet, instead, they found themselves suffering persecution, facing difficulties, and discovering that the Christian life was not a walk in the park.

To make matters worse, some had taken it upon themselves to serve as teachers, providing “instruction” in spiritual matters that left their students more confused than comforted. Conflicting messages and competing opinions were causing discord in the church, with people “fighting over words” (2 Timothy 2:14 NLT), and Paul deemed these arguments useless because they produced nothing of value.

Amid the confusion and competing agendas, Timothy was to be a source of sound teaching, “rightly handling the word of truth” and providing those under his care with accurate information about spiritual matters. That meant Timothy had to stick to the script; he was not free to ad-lib or add to the teaching he had received from Paul. When it came to the gospel, there was no place for conjecture or personal opinion. For Paul, the gospel was about more than the message of salvation; it included the whole divine process of redemption, from salvation to sanctification, and ended with the believer’s glorification.

…those whom He predestined, these also He called; and whom He called, these also He justified; and whom He justified, these also He glorified. – Romans 8:30 BSB

I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. – Philippians 1:6 NLT

Like the apostle Peter, Paul expected every believer to “grow into a full experience of salvation” (1 Peter 2:2 NLT). He told the believers in Ephesus “to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15 ESV). Salvation was to result in sanctification or ongoing spiritual maturity, which will ultimately culminate in the believer’s glorification or final transformation into the likeness of Christ.

Paul expected Timothy to teach these truths faithfully and accurately. If he did, Timothy would have no reason to be ashamed, and time would vindicate the veracity of his message. But those who “teach man-made ideas as commands from God” (Matthew 15:9 NLT) will eventually be exposed as fakes and frauds, guilty of “worthless, foolish talk that only leads to more godless behavior” (2 Timothy 2:16 NLT).

Paul describes this false, man-made teaching as a disease that can spread throughout the body of Christ with deadly consequences. He uses Hymenaeus and Philetus as examples of those who propagate such lies. Out of ignorance, these two men had drawn erroneous conclusions regarding Paul’s teaching about the resurrection of the dead. They claimed this future event had already taken place. Not understanding the true nature of the resurrection, they had over-simplified and spiritualized it, falsely assuming that they were already experiencing it. It’s likely they used Paul’s words to the Romans to justify their conclusion.

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his….Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. – Romans 6:4-5, 8 ESV

Paul had even told Timothy, “If we have died with him, we will also live with him” (2 Timothy 2:11 ESV). So these men assumed the resurrected life referred to the “newness of life” Paul referred to. This teaching was leaving believers with the false impression that all the promises associated with the resurrection of the dead were to be expected in this life, not the one to come, and this claim left the suffering and persecuted believers in Ephesus confused and concerned.

This is why Paul told Timothy, “If we die with him, we will also live with him. If we endure hardship, we will reign with him” (2 Timothy 2:11-12 NLT). He called this a trustworthy statement, a promise supported by the full weight of God’s glory and goodness. To support his claim that God could be trusted to complete what He began and fulfill all that He has promised, Paul turned to the Hebrew Scriptures, citing two Old Testament passages.

God’s truth stands firm like a foundation stone with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and “All who belong to the Lord must turn away from evil.” – 2 Timothy 2:19 NLT

Paraphrasing Numbers 16:6 and Numbers 16:26, Paul illustrated the timeless nature of God’s promises; He always does what He says He will do. God’s words have an eternal quality, spanning the centuries and assuring all who hear and obey them that He is trustworthy and true.

Despite the teaching of men like Hymenaeus and Philetus, the believers in Ephesus had no reason to doubt their salvation. Just because things weren’t turning out like they expected, they had no cause for fear or doubt; the Lord knows those who are His. They could rest in the promise that they would remain firmly held in the loving grasp of God all the way to the end. Their only responsibility was to turn away from evil. They didn’t have to strive to remain saved, and they weren’t under obligation to continually earn their right standing with God through additional good works. They simply needed to live out their salvation in daily life, allowing the Spirit of God to produce fruit in their lives through His power, not their own.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

“Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.” 

— “How Firm a Foundation,” 1787, author unknown (“K—”)

Father, standing on Your promises isn’t always easy. You have promised to give us the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, but it doesn’t always feel like that power is readily available. Your Son promised us abundant life, yet it sometimes feels as if this life misses the mark. Life isn’t always easy or fulfilling and living the Christian life can be a real challenge. But You have promised that we will experience sanctification, our ongoing transformation into the likeness of Your Son. How You bring it about is part of the problem because You sometimes use trials and troubles to reveal our weakness and illustrate our need for You. I think of Your words to Paul: ““My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT). And his response still blows me away.

“I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NLT). 

I want to stand firm on Your promises, fully confident that You will finish what You began in my life. I have already experienced the transformative power of the gospel and You are far from done. My sanctification is ongoing and my future glorification is on schedule because You are faithful. Amen. 

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

All For One, And One For All

12 When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. 13 Do your best to speed Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way; see that they lack nothing. 14 And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful.

15 All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. – Titus 3:12-15 ESV

The early community of Christ was close-knit. Paul had traveled from one end of the known world to the other and planted churches in ethnically and geographically diverse regions, yet these far-flung congregations all shared a bond of unity. Wherever they were, these fledgling communities of faith were in the minority and faced extreme opposition. To unbelieving Gentiles, Christians were nothing more than a splinter sect of the Jewish religion that followed the teachings of an itinerant Jewish rabbi. But to the Jews, Christians represented a dangerous heresy that rejected the Mosaic Law and dismissed the rite of circumcision. So, wherever Paul and his companions preached the gospel and saw its message of faith in Christ take root, they encountered strong opposition fueled by extreme antagonism.

These new congregations of believers were often ostracized and isolated from their former communities, and lacked mature spiritual leadership, so Paul felt a strong sense of responsibility to provide them with instruction and encouragement. He wanted them to know they were part of a much larger community of faith spreading around the world. His letters formed a kind of literary highway system linking these distant and disparate congregations together. His growing network of spiritual disciples included men like Timothy, Titus, Artemas, Tychicus, Zenas, and Apollos, each of whom played a vital role in ministering to the distant Christian communities. These men provided much-needed spiritual training to the faithful, but they also served as Paul's eyes and ears, giving him insight into what was happening within the body of Christ around the world.

Paul was constantly traveling from one place to another, fulfilling his commission to take the good news of Jesus Christ to the nations. But he left a part of his heart in every city, town, and village where the gospel found converts. In many cases, his first visit to a city was his last. His travels didn’t always allow him to circle back and check in on the churches he helped to plant. In time, his lengthy imprisonment in Rome would completely curtail his efforts to minister to those whom he loved like his own children. But Paul never left them without adequate spiritual nourishment or oversight. He desperately wanted them to know that they were all in this together and were part of a much larger family of faith that God was planting around the world. For Paul, it was essential that each of these churches understood their role within the bigger picture. Rather than focus their attention on their particular circumstances, they were to see themselves as members of the growing body of Christ.

Paul firmly believed that when an individual came to faith in Christ, they were to align themselves with a local faith community. They were not to act as a free agent, operating Lone Ranger style, independent and isolated from other Christians in their community. This corporate mentality was essential to the spiritual well-being of the individual and the community. For Paul, it went well beyond geographic confines. He often used the metaphor of the human body to illustrate the interconnected and interdependent nature of the body of Christ.

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit. – 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 NLT

The concept of a global church made up of people from all walks of life, every conceivable economic background, and diverse ethnic makeups was revolutionary. And this new admixture of individuals into a mutually beneficial community of faith was making a radical impact on the world. The church was growing, people were noticing, and Paul was obsessed with getting his expanding family of faith to understand their need for one another. He encouraged an attitude of generosity and selflessness and praised the churches in Macedonia for their gracious giving toward the needs of the church in Jerusalem.

For I can testify that they gave not only what they could afford, but far more. And they did it of their own free will. They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in Jerusalem. They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do. – 2 Corinthians 8:3-5 NLT

Paul went on to encourage the believers in Corinth to follow the example of the Macedonian churches.

Right now you have plenty and can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal. – 2 Corinthians 8:11 NLT

And Paul wanted the believers on Crete to have the same attitude, telling Titus, “let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful” (Titus 3:14 ESV).

The church is a living organism, not an organization. It is an interactive, interdependent collection of individuals formed into a worldwide community that reflects the unity of the Godhead. And the letter that Paul wrote to Titus is as applicable today as it was in the 1st Century in which he penned it. His call to Christlikeness, humility, submission, service, and an unwavering commitment to the truth is as vital today as it ever was. The words Paul used to open his letter still apply.

I have been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives. – Titus 1:1 NLT

Father, Paul had such a clear sense of calling and exhibited an unwavering commitment to accomplish his mission to spread the gospel to the four corners of the world. He was a man obsessed, but for a good cause. His former zeal to eradicate the followers of Jesus had been dramatically altered into a passion to tell the world about Your gift of grace made possible through the death and resurrection of Your Son. But Paul was more than an evangelist, He was a loving pastor who served as a powerful motivational coach to all those he led to Christ. I am challenged by his determiniation to raise the bar of expectation for Christ followers. He refused to accept the status quo or turn a blind eye to those willing to settle for a lukewarm and fruitless faith. I am also motivated by the way he incessantly trained up the next generation of men to carry on the mission after his departure. Even while he was in prison, the work went on because he had raised up faithful men to stand in the gap and continue the work. I want to be that kind of leader. I want to dedicate my life to the cause of Christ, teaching and training others to fall in love with Your Word and live out their faith with confidence, power, and perseverance. Keep me from becoming distracted or defeated. Constantly remind me of my weakness and Your strength. Help me to number my years and to live each one of them for Your glory and the good of others. Amen. 

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Wanted: Godly Leaders

10 For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. 11 They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. 12 One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. 15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. 16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. – Titus 1:10-16 ESV

Like Timothy, Titus was one of Paul’s protégés. He was a Greek Gentile whom Paul had led to Christ and who joined the apostle on several of his missionary journeys. Over time, Titus earned Paul’s trust and was sent on his own mission endeavors, including the island of Crete, where he was to appoint elders and establish some sense of order among the congregations there.

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. –  Titus 1:5 NLT

As he had done with Timothy, Paul gave Titus advice on how to deal with false teachers, a recurring problem in the fledgling churches on Crete. Titus found himself ministering in a place where the reputation of the inhabitants was far from stellar. Paul even quoted Epimenides, a 6th-century BC philosopher and religious prophet from Crete who held a low view of his fellow Cretans.

Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. – Titus 1:12 ESV

“In his poem Cretica, Epimenides accuses the Cretans of being liars and evil beasts because they claim to host a tomb of Zeus, the chief of the gods. Since Zeus “lives and abides forever,” the Cretans must be liars. Paul quotes from this same poem in his sermon to the Areopagus in Acts 17:28. Crete also claimed to be the birthplace of Zeus, known in antiquity as the Dictaean Cave, which legend placed on the slopes of Mount Ida, Crete’s tallest mountain. Reputedly from Knossos, Epimenides was supposed to have the gift of prophecy, which was bestowed on him after he allegedly slept for 57 years in a cave sacred to Zeus.” – Currid, John D., and David W. Chapman, editors. ESV Archaeology Study Bible. Crossway, 2018

Paul concurred with Epimenides’ assessment and went out of his way to paint a less-than-flattering picture of the people of Crete. He described them as  “insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party” (Titus 1:10 ESV).

Evidently, the false teachers were not the only people of poor repute on Crete; some members of the local church were, too. That’s why Paul spends a great deal of time in his letter focusing on good works. He wanted Titus to understand just how important good character and moral behavior were in the life of a believer.

Paul commanded Titus to deal harshly and firmly with those whose lives were marked by laziness and lying. He didn’t want his young disciple to tolerate the disorder and chaos these kinds of people were bringing into the church. He told Titus to “rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (Titus 1:13 ESV). Rebuking and restoration were both part of Titus’ ministry on Crete.

Paul’s objective was for these individuals to become “sound in the faith,” because they were spreading false and deceptive ideas concerning faith in Christ. Paul’s use of the term “faith” refers to eternal salvation made possible through belief in Jesus Christ as Savior. The false teachers were confusing and even contradicting what Paul, Titus, and others had taught regarding what it means to have faith in Christ, experience forgiveness of sins, and have a restored relationship with God.

Rather than teaching faith alone in Christ, these false teachers proclaimed novel messages about salvation that contradicted the gospel Paul and the other apostles proclaimed, weakening the faith of the Cretan believers. These new converts to Christianity no longer knew who or what to believe, leaving their confidence in the gospel in doubt.

One of the qualifications for elders that Paul gave Titus was “he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9 ESV). Elder candidates were to be knowledgeable of the truth so that they might refute falsehood and rebuke those who taught it. As far as Paul was concerned, sound faith was totally dependent upon sound doctrine.

But these false teachers were teaching “what they ought not to teach” and all “for shameful gain” (Titus 1:11 ESV). Paul refers to them as being from the circumcision party, a reference to Jews who expressed faith in Christ, but who taught that Gentiles must keep the Law of Moses and undergo the rite of circumcision in order to be saved. Paul fought this heresy with every fiber of his being. His fear was that, based on their reputation, the Cretans would easily accept this false teaching and end up “devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth” (Titus 1:14 ESV).

The Cretans were easily swayed by the “commands” or teachings of these people. They readily accepted what they had to say about circumcision, abstinence from certain foods, the keeping of Jewish feasts and festivals, and adherence to the Mosaic law. But Paul warned Titus that these false teachers were nothing less than hypocrites and were to be avoided at all costs.

Such people claim they know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good. – Titus 1:16 NLT

Paul made it clear that the real problem with these false teachers was their hearts.

Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are corrupted. – Titus 1:15 NLT

They were obsessed with the externals: keeping laws and commands and adhering to rituals and religious rules. During His earthly ministry, Jesus encountered another group of well-respected individuals with a similar outlook. On one occasion, a group of Jewish religious leaders approached Jesus and asked why His disciples didn’t follow their man-made tradition of ceremonial hand-cleansing before they ate. Jesus politely listened to their thinly veiled accusation and then responded with a stinging rebuke.

“And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God? For instance, God says, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ In this way, you say they don’t need to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,

‘These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship is a farce,
    for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’” – Matthew 15:3-9 NLT

Jesus went on to say: “It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth” (Matthew 15:11 NLT).

Those self-righteous religious leaders had missed the point. They were so busy keeping external rules that they missed the real issue: the condition of their hearts. Paul knew that the false teachers who were so negatively impacting the churches on Crete were suffering from the same problem. Their minds and consciences were defiled, and their hearts were hardened to the truth regarding faith in Christ. They were convinced that there had to be more to salvation than faith alone in Christ alone. Judaism began as a faith-based relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but over time it became a system of rigid rules and religious rituals focused on self-righteousness. But Paul describes these Jewish believers as defiled, unbelieving, wrong, and dangerous. So, Titus was to rebuke these false teachers sharply, and chastise the Cretans for so readily accepting their lies.

Sound doctrine and sound faith go hand in hand. The Word of God is not open to interpretation, and we are not free to add to the gospel or alter the truth of God in any way. We are not to tolerate those who attempt to mislead by misinterpreting the Word of God. That is why Paul told Titus that an elder must “have a strong belief in the trustworthy message he was taught; then he will be able to encourage others with wholesome teaching and show those who oppose it where they are wrong” (Titus 1:9 NLT).

Paul had written something similar to Timothy, stating that the purpose of his letter was that he would “know how people must conduct themselves in the household of God. This is the church of the living God, which is the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15 NLT). The church and its leaders were to adhere to and uphold the truth of God, especially as it relates to the message and means of salvation. There is no other gospel except the one we have been given: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31 ESV).

We live in the midst of an ungodly world, and there is an ongoing need for godly individuals who will step forward and provide leadership and protection for the flock of God. The church needs men of character who are led by the Spirit of God and committed to the Word of God because disorder and disruption are all around us. That’s why qualified leaders are in great need, even today.

Father, it is hard to believe, but liars and deceivers exist in the church. We don’t like to admit it, but the enemy has done a masterful job of infiltrating the flock of God, with his agents of deceit masguerading as sheep and propagating his clever-sounding lies disguised as truth. That is why we need godly leaders who know Your Word and are willing, ready, and able to defend it at all costs. The danger is real because the subtle lies of the enemy are difficult to spot. They sound good and cause the innocent and unsuspecting to wander from the path of righteousness. That’s why we need men and women who are dedicated to rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15) and devoted to the care and protection of Your flock. Continue to raise up leaders like Paul, Titus, and Timothy, and give us the wisdom to recognize and appoint them. The church belongs to You and we want to steward its care well. Amen. 

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Right Stuff

5 This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— 6 if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. 7 For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, 8 but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. 9 He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. – Titus 1:5-9 ESV

One of the first things Titus was to focus on was appointing elders for the local churches in Crete. As Paul’s letter will shortly disclose, disorder and doctrinal disruption plagued the believers on the island. Paul will describe those causing these problems as “rebellious people who engage in useless talk and deceive others” (Titus 1:10 NLT).  He will accuse them of “turning whole families away from the truth by their false teaching” (Titus 1:11 NLT). To make matters worse, they were doing so for financial gain. That’s why Paul reminds Titus that he has been left in Crete to “complete our work there and appoint elders in each town as I instructed you” (Titus 1:5 NLT).

Paul gave Titus a two-part commission. His first priority was to put in order, or complete, what was lacking or left undone.  Some issues in the church needed to be addressed, and Paul spends much of his letter explaining exactly what they were. But the second part of Titus’ commission was the task of appointing elders, and Paul knew Titus would need help. A big reason for the lack of order was the void of qualified leaders. If any organization lacks reputable, responsible leadership, someone will rise to fill the void, and those who step into a leadership vacuum will use their power and influence to take charge. Evidently, that was exactly what was happening on Crete.

So Paul told Titus to address the problem by appointing men to help him lead the local body of believers. The responsibilities were too great for one man to handle alone, but Paul insisted that Titus was not to settle for second best. Those Titus appointed to lead the church had to meet certain qualifications to even be considered.

But Paul’s description of the qualifications has everything to do with character and little to do with biblical knowledge, academic aptitude, business savvy, or even leadership skills. Instead, Paul mentions qualities and characteristics visible to all who knew these men. Titus was to look for outward evidence of an inward transformation that had taken place in these men's lives because of their relationship with Christ and their knowledge of the Word of God.

Each of them was to have “a strong belief in the trustworthy message he was taught,” so that he might “be able to encourage others with wholesome teaching and show those who oppose it where they are wrong.” (Titus 1:9 NLT). In other words, they had to know the truth of the gospel and the realities of God and His redemptive plan for man. That was the only way they could refute falsehood and defend the good news from attack. Men with worldly leadership qualities would be insufficient because they would be engaged in spiritual warfare.

Paul appears to contrast the character of these future church leaders with those who were doing harm to the church. Those who would lead the body of Christ had to be men who were above reproach or blameless, but this doesn’t suggest perfection or sinlessness. The Greek word Paul used is anegklētos, and it conveys the idea that these men were to have no glaring character flaws. They were not to live in a way that would cause people to point fingers in accusation, harming the reputation of the church.

They were to be loving husbands with reputations for faithfulness. They were to be fathers who had proven themselves capable leaders at home, with believing children who modeled lives of moral integrity and obedience. This suggests that Paul was recommending that Titus look for older men with children who had been in Christ long enough to demonstrate godly character.

Paul went on to say that an elder candidate “must not be arrogant or quick-tempered; he must not be a heavy drinker, violent, or dishonest with money” (Titus 1:7 NLT). Instead, he was to “enjoy having guests in his home, and he must love what is good. He must live wisely and be just. He must live a devout and disciplined life” (Titus 1:8 NLT).

It’s interesting to note that Paul was so specific in his list of qualifying character traits and went out of his way to list disqualifying characteristics as well. Arrogance, anger, greed, violence, and alcohol abuse would all be huge detriments to godly leadership. They were outward signs of someone under the control of the flesh, not the Spirit. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul provides an even more detailed list of characteristics that mark someone living according to their sinful nature.

…sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division,  envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these… – Galatians 5:19-21 NLT

A man who is controlled by his own flesh will make a poor leader; he will be disruptive and, potentially, destructive. The church on Crete already had enough negative influences affecting it, so Titus needed to find godly men whose lives reflected their reliance on the Spirit’s control. He would need help to deal with the disorder and negative moral influences within the churches on Crete. He couldn’t handle it on his own, so Paul encouraged him to find the right kind of men to lovingly lead the flock of God, provide much-needed discipline, and model the character of Christ for all those around them.

One of the main qualifications these men were to have was a love for the gospel. Paul tells Titus that each of them “must have a strong belief in the trustworthy message he was taught” (Titus 1:9 NLT). They were to remain committed to the good news that had transformed their lives: the message of salvation through grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone.

But there were those in Crete who were preaching a different message, something Paul labels a false gospel. In their version of the gospel, Jesus was not enough. Some of these purveyors of a false gospel were promoting the need for Gentiles to be circumcised. Paul refers to them as members of the “circumcision party.” These were Jews who had come to faith in Christ and believed salvation was available only to those who followed the Mosaic Law and adhered to the rite of circumcision. Paul will remind Titus that people were “listening to Jewish myths and the commands of people who have turned away from the truth” (Titus 1:14 NLT).

The men Titus chose to assist him in leading the church had to be committed to the truth of the gospel message; they were not to accept or tolerate alternative versions. As shepherds of God’s flock, they were to refute all false gospels and destructive heresies. These men were not to function as a board of directors or view themselves as figureheads or members of an ad hoc advisory board for Titus. They were called to be overseers, shepherds, and pastors of the flock of Jesus Christ who were godly in character and bold in their witness.

Paul had a strong view of eldership because he knew these men were indispensable to the church's spiritual well-being. That is why he told the elders in Ephesus: “So guard yourselves and God’s people. Feed and shepherd God’s flock—his church, purchased with his own blood—over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as leaders” (Acts 20:28 NLT).

We live in an ungodly world, and there is an ongoing need for godly men to step forward and provide leadership and protection for God's flock. The church needs men of character who are led by the Spirit of God and committed to the Word of God. Disorder and disruption are all around us, and that’s why qualified men are in great need, even today.

Father, godly leadership is still in high demand today. The attacks on the gospel have not ceased, they have only grown more intense. But You made provision for the battle. You have provided the church with apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers whose responsibility is to equip Your people to do Your work and build up the church, the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12) The leaders are there, but we must search for them. However, the temptation is to look for those who meet the worldly criteria for leadership. We tend to choose those who are successful and charismatic. We gravitate toward the natural-born leader who has demonstrated his abilities in the business world. But while we fixate on outward appearance, You look at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). You choose those whose hearts are in line with Your own. They may not look like leaders to the world, but because they share Your heart, they will be hospitable, lovers of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined (Titus 1:8). Those are the kind of men You provide and we need. So, help us raise our expectations and look for those You have already provided. They are already in place; we just need to find them. Amen. 

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Gospel of the Glory

3 As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, 4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. 5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

8 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, 10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, 11 in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. – 1 Timothy 1:3-11 ESV

The book of Acts records that Timothy accompanied Paul on his third missionary journey, including a lengthy stay in Ephesus. During their time there, Timothy witnessed his mentor ministering to the Jewish residents of this prosperous Roman city. As usual, Paul’s efforts met with mixed results.

Paul went to the synagogue and preached boldly for the next three months, arguing persuasively about the Kingdom of God. But some became stubborn, rejecting his message and publicly speaking against the Way. So Paul left the synagogue and took the believers with him. Then he held daily discussions at the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for the next two years, so that people throughout the province of Asia—both Jews and Greeks—heard the word of the Lord. – Acts 19:8-10 NLT

Timothy had a front-row seat to Paul’s zealous preaching and teaching ministry in the bustling environs of this cosmopolitan melting pot. He must have been awestruck by Paul’s supernatural ability to do the inexplicable and impossible.

God gave Paul the power to perform unusual miracles. When handkerchiefs or aprons that had merely touched his skin were placed on sick people, they were healed of their diseases, and evil spirits were expelled. – Acts 19:11-12 NLT

Timothy would have recalled a particular incident in Ephesus involving seven Jewish brothers who tried to emulate Paul’s Spirit-imbued power by attempting to cast out a demon. They seemed to believe that they could replicate Paul’s miraculous crowd-drawing power by simply mimicking his words.

They tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus in their incantation, saying, “I command you in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, to come out!” – Acts 19:13 NLT

But they were in for a rude awakening; the demon they tried to cast out questioned their identity and credentials, saying, “I know Jesus, and I know Paul, but who are you?” (Acts 19:15 NLT). Then Luke records the bizarre scene that transpired.

…the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, overpowered them, and attacked them with such violence that they fled from the house, naked and battered. – Acts 19:16 NLT

But this incident had a sobering effect on the city. Luke reports that news of the demonic attack “spread quickly all through Ephesus, to Jews and Greeks alike. A solemn fear descended on the city, and the name of the Lord Jesus was greatly honored. Many who became believers confessed their sinful practices” (Acts 19:17-18 NLT). 

The impressionable young Timothy would have been deeply impacted by these events. He stood back and watched as the gospel message radically transformed the lives of the people in Ephesus. This city was a hotbed of sorcery and witchcraft, and the gospel message began to make an impact on those who embraced these pagan practices. Luke records, “A number of them who had been practicing sorcery brought their incantation books and burned them at a public bonfire” (Acts 19:19 NLT).

While many were coming to faith in Christ, others in the city saw Paul and his companions as a threat to their religion and way of life. After Paul sent Timothy on to Macedonia, a riot broke out in the city of Ephesus, spurred on by the guild of the local silversmiths who had seen a dramatic decrease in their sale of idols. They enlisted the other craftsmen in town and launched a crusade against Paul. Demetrius, one of the local Ephesian silversmiths, delivered a fiery speech accusing Paul of damaging their businesses and the reputation of their beloved God, Artemis.

“…this man Paul has persuaded many people that handmade gods aren’t really gods at all. And he’s done this not only here in Ephesus but throughout the entire province! Of course, I’m not just talking about the loss of public respect for our business. I’m also concerned that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will lose its influence and that Artemis—this magnificent goddess worshiped throughout the province of Asia and all around the world—will be robbed of her great prestige!” – Acts 19:26-27 NLT

Eventually, Paul was forced to leave Ephesus for the region of Macedonia. But these events would have a dramatic impact on Timothy's life. When he eventually returned to Ephesus, he knew he was facing an uphill battle. Paul’s letter to him was meant to provide encouragement and support in a hostile environment. Paul had given Timothy a very difficult assignment.

When I left for Macedonia, I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those whose teaching is contrary to the truth. – 1 Timothy 1:3 NLT

Paul emphasized the state of the local church in Ephesus because it had been infiltrated by men promoting doctrines that contradicted the words of Jesus and the teachings of Paul. The apostle reminded Timothy of the purpose of his ministry:  “…that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith” (1 Timothy 1:5 NLT). But things in Ephesus had taken a turn for the worse. The influence of the false teachers had already begun to take effect, leaving the believers in Ephesus focusing on the wrong things.

The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith.

…some people have missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions. – 1 Timothy 1:6 NLT

Timothy’s job was to confront these false teachers and correct the misguided members of the local congregation who were buying into their rhetoric. These purveyors of manmade doctrines wanted “to be known as teachers of the law of Moses,,” but Paul said, “they don’t know what they are talking about” (1 Timothy 1:7 NLT). They were making stuff up as they went along and yet billed themselves as experts in the law of Moses.

In the early days of the church, it was easy for anyone to portray themselves as an expert. There were no seminaries and no established criteria for examining anyone’s leadership credentials. Just about anyone could declare themselves a spokesman for Jesus Christ, promoting their own agenda and dogma. But Paul warned Timothy that the basis for judging sound teaching was “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” (1 Timothy 1:11 ESV). If anyone taught anything that contradicted the gospel of Jesus Christ, they were to be avoided like the plague. This was a pervasive problem in the early church. In fact, Paul warned the believers in Galatia about this very thing.

You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.

Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you. I say again what we have said before: If anyone preaches any other Good News than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed. – Galatians 1:6-9 NLT

He accused the believers in Corinth of succumbing to the same false rhetoric.

You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed. – 2 Corinthians 11:4 NLT

So, Paul repeated the same warning to Timothy, preparing him to do battle with the flagrant falsehoods being propagated by the self-proclaimed teachers of a pseudo-gospel. They were to be exposed for what they were: liars and deceivers, and their false teaching was to be rejected and replaced with the pure, life-transforming power of the gospel.

Father, in Paul’s day, they had no New Testament. Whether he realized it or not, he was in the process of writing the letters that would form a large portion of the completed canon of Scripture. At this point in time, the gospels had not yet been penned by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, so the teachings of Jesus were being dessiminated by word of mouth, with the apostles serving as the primary spokemen for the gospel message. This left the door open for others to declare themselves to be teachers who spoke for Jesus. Since there was no written documentation of Jesus’ teachings, these individuals devised their own doctrines and created their own interpretations of Jesus’ sayings.

We see the same thing happening today, despite the fact that we have the completed canon of Scripture. There are still those who teach man-made doctrines that “lead to meaningless speculations, which don’t help people live a life of faith in God” (1 Timothy 1:4 NLT). They twist the words of Jesus and force them say what they want them to say. As Jesus said, “they teach man-made ideas as commands from God” (Matthew 15:9 NLT). That is why we need to know Your Word and to treat it with honor. We need to rightly divide the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). As Paul told Titus, we must “hold firmly to the faithful word as it was taught” so we can “encourage others by sound teaching and refute those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9 BSB). Never let me lose my love for Your Word and keep me committed to studying it, applying it, and teaching it to others. Amen. 

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

New and Improved

17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. – Ephesians 4:17-24 ESV

Futile minds. Darkened understandings. Alienated from God. Ignorant. Hardened hearts. Callous. Slaves to sensuality. Greedy for more impurity.

Paul doesn’t exactly portray unbelievers in a flattering light. But his purpose seems to be less about exposing the sinful nature of the lost than about reminding the Ephesian believers of their pre-conversion state. Prior to coming to faith in Christ, they had been in the same condition: Lost and alienated from God.

Verse 17 is directly linked to verse 1 of this same chapter. Paul opened up the chapter by telling them, “I…urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” Now he is telling them how not to walk. The Greek word translated “walk” is περιπατέω (peripateō), which means “to make one's way, progress,” and was most often used by Paul to refer to living life. Paul was encouraging the believers in the church in Ephesus to live differently because they had been called by God. Rather than living selfish, self-gratifying lives like they did before, they were to conduct themselves in such a way that it honored the One who had called them and restored them to a right relationship with Himself.

Paul’s emphasis on his readers’ previous lost condition was intended to emphasize their supernatural calling by God. In their former state, their minds were a big part of the problem. Without Christ, their minds were futile, which in the Greek means “devoid of truth and appropriateness.” Their understanding was darkened. In other words, their thoughts, feelings, and desires were “covered with darkness.” That is why the apostle John opened his gospel with the words, “In Him [Jesus] was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4-5 NASB).

Without God’s help, men are incapable of seeing the Light. They are covered in and blinded by darkness. Like a person trapped in a dark room who suddenly finds himself exposed to daylight, their eyes are unable to see clearly or distinctly. Their eyes are so accustomed to darkness that the light is painful to them. John goes on to say, “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him” (John 1:8-9 NASB).

Paul reminds his readers that they were once “alienated from the life of God” (Ephesians 4:18 ESV). The Greek word Paul used means to “shut out from one's fellowship and intimacy” (“G526 - apallotrioō - Strong's Greek Lexicon (KJV).” Blue Letter Bible). They had no concept of what it meant to know God or have a relationship with Him. It was King David who wrote:

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
    there is none who does good.

The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
    to see if there are any who understand,
    who seek after God.

They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
    there is none who does good,
    not even one. - Psalm 14:1-3 ESV

No one truly seeks God. They might search for their particular version of God, but they are incapable of seeing or comprehending the one true God. That is why Paul wrote to the believers in Rome, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (Romans 1:22-23 ESV). And Paul makes it clear to the Ephesians that their former alienation from God had resulted from their own ignorance and hardness of heart. The ignorance Paul speaks of is not just a lack of knowledge, but a moral blindness. And that, coupled with their hardened hearts, rendered them incapable of knowing God or His truth. Their perceptions had been dulled, and their minds blunted. As a result, they found themselves addicted to sensuality and insatiably drawn to increasingly more impurity. 

And Paul’s point seems to be that no one who finds themselves in that condition chooses to seek after God or has the mental wherewithal to choose Christ. No one with a darkened, hardened, futile mind would naturally seek what God has offered to them in Christ; it would make no sense. Which is why Paul told the Corinthian believers, “When we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense” (1 Corinthians 1:23 NLT). Paul told the Ephesians, “That is not the way you learned Christ!” In other words, they had not come to know Jesus through their own human thinking; they learned about Him through what Paul called the foolishness of preaching.

God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. – 1 Corinthians 1:21 NLT

It was the proclamation of the Word of God and the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit that made the message of salvation by grace through faith in Christ comprehensible to them. Paul reminded them that “the truth is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:21 ESV). And that truth called for them to “throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God — truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:22-24 NLT).

Their old natures were corrupt and deceived. Their new natures, provided to them by the indwelling Holy Spirit, were capable of new thoughts, attitudes, and actions. As a result, they were to walk in a manner worthy of their calling – holy, set apart, distinctively different, empowered by the Spirit, and in keeping with the will of God.

Change is non-optional for believers. Spiritual transformation is not up to us to choose or reject. Failure to grow spiritually should raise serious doubts about one’s salvation or, at least, expose an ignorance of Christ’s teachings. That is why Paul added the following phrase: “assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:21 ESV). Coming to faith in Christ should produce change. We have been filled with the Holy Spirit and have received new natures that should crave and desire the things of God. He desires that we be holy and righteous, and we should long for the same things.

Our new natures, lived within the context of the body of Christ, should produce a community that is unlike anything the world has ever seen. Called and committed believers, empowered by the Spirit of God and living as brothers and sisters in Christ, should form “a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21 ESV). Our lives, lived together in unity, should prove to the world that the gospel is true and that reconciliation with God brings reconciliation with others. 

Father, You demand Your people to be holy, just as You are. But that isn’t some unattainable goal You’ve set just to frustrate and confuse us. As Peter said, You have given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). You have placed Your Holy Spirit within us, provided us with Your Word to teach and guide us, surrounded us with godly individuals to lead us, and created the church as a household of faith to ensure our spiritual well-being. We have been redeemed, renewed, forgiven, cleansed, consecrated, set apart, filled with the Spirit, and transformed into new creations. Yet, many of us live as if nothing has happened and no change has take place. Our lives appear unchanged and remarkably similar to those who don’t know Christ. We cherish our salvation because us promises us eternal life, but we treat it as mothing more than a get-out-of-jail-free card that keeps us out of hell. But Paul would have us remember that salvation should be followed by sanctification; our transformation into the likeness of Christ. That is why he told us to “let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.” (Ephesians 4:23-24 NLT). But those were Your words, not his. That is Your desire for each of Your children, and I am one of them. With David I pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10 ESV). I want to live as who You have called me to be; right here, right now, and for eternity. Amen

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Power to Change

8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. – Romans 8:8-11 ESV

Paul has made it clear that we are to live according to the Spirit of God who lives within us, not according to our old, sinful nature. But as he so honestly confessed in Chapter 7, there will be times when we find ourselves giving in to that old nature, doing the very things we do not want to do.

If we attempt to live holy lives apart from the indwelling Holy Spirit, our minds, while well-intentioned, will give in to our fallen flesh. That is why Paul opens up verse nine with the statement: “You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.” In other words, those who place their faith in Christ have died along with Him on the cross. And because they died with Him, their spiritual natures have been set free from the control of their earthly bodies.

Christ “condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:3-4 ESV). To walk according to the Spirit simply means to live in submission to His will and in dependence upon His power. When Paul says, “you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit,” he is not suggesting that our sin nature is gone and all fleshly desires are done away with. He is saying that God has provided us with a new way of living in keeping with His will; it is the law of the Spirit of life that has set us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).

Paul reminds his readers that, because they have placed their faith in Christ, they have the Spirit of God living within them. NOT to have the Spirit is to be unsaved and unjustified before God.

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. – Romans 8:9 ESV

God gives the Holy Spirit to every believer at their conversion. Paul told the believers in Ephesus, “When you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him” (Ephesians 1:13-14 NLT). It is the indwelling presence of the Spirit that provides proof of our justification before God. He places His Spirit within us, signifying our new status as His children and providing us with a new capacity for holiness that is no longer flesh-dependent, but Spirit-empowered.

While we still live in earthly bodies that are destined for death, the Spirit provides us with life because we are now righteous in God’s eyes. We are no longer under condemnation because of our sin, but have been forgiven and justified before God. Not only that, but we have received the guarantee of eternal life; never-ending fellowship with God, as well as abundant life here and now. Jesus said, “The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life” (John 10:10 NLT).

Satan, our enemy, wants to rob us of life. He wants us to live according to our old sin-enslaved nature, which is driven by the passions of our earthly bodies. But Jesus died so that we might have true life, and the Spirit provides us with the power to enjoy that life, right here, right now. Zane Hodges nailed it when he wrote, “. . . whenever you see a Christian living the Christian life, you are witnessing a resurrection miracle!” (“The Death/Life Option,” Grace Evangelical Society News).

Because we have been made right with God through the death of Christ and have received the Spirit of God as proof of that newly restored relationship, we can conduct our lives in obedience to God’s will. Paul put it this way in an earlier chapter: “For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives” (Romans 6:3 NLT).

We have the Spirit-empowered capacity to live differently. We can actually live holy lives, not based on our feeble human effort, but because we have the Spirit of God within us. And as Paul reminds us, the Spirit who lives in us is the very same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. 

The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. – Romans 8:11 NLT

Paul wanted his readers to focus on the reality that a day was coming when they would be given new, resurrected bodies. When Christ returns, all believers will experience ultimate freedom sin, sickness, and pain. Death will no longer be a looming reality hanging over our heads like a sword. The apostle John provides us with the much-needed reminder that, despite the troubles and difficulties of this life, our future glorification awaits us.

Dear friends, we are already God's children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. – 1 John 3:2 NLT

And while we wait for that day to come, we can still walk in newness of life. We can enjoy an abundant, rich, and satisfying life on this earth, even while saddled with these earthly bodies and our old, sinful natures. Why? Because we have resurrection-inducing power available to us in the form of the Holy Spirit. He is not dormant or biding His time until the Lord returns. He is alive and active in every believer, providing guidance, encouragement, and a death-to-life kind of power that makes our transformation into the likeness of Christ possible.

Father, it’s amazing to think that the same Holy Spirit who raised Jesus back to life is resident within me. The truth is, I seldom think about the Spirit. In fact, I treat Him like a redheaded stepchild, seldom giving Him the time of day or the honor and respect He deserves. Holy Spirit, You live in me and yet I act as if You are not even there. I tend to ignore You and even when I sense Your promptings and hear Your convicting voice in my ear, I choose to plead ignorance and give in to the desires of my flesh. But You remain steadfast in Your commitment to my transformation. You do not give up and You never vacate the premises. You are a permanent resident in my life and for that I am grateful. You have proven Your power, time and time again. You have made lasting changes in my life. You have taught me so much about the Father, and opened my eyes to the truth found in the Scriptures. And I know You are far from done. One day You will give me the glorified body I need to spend eternity with You, the Father, and the Son. But as I wait for that day. please continue to pour out Your resurrection power in my life so I might shine as a light in the darkness of this world. Amen

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.22

It Is Never Wrong To Do What Is Right

5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 6 I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. 7 But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. 8 For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. 9 For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. 10 For this reason I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down. – 2 Corinthians 13:5-10 ESV

At first glance, it may appear that Paul is calling on the Corinthians to examine themselves to see if they are truly saved. But in reality, Paul is calling on them to do the right thing because they are saved. They have Christ within them and, therefore, they have all they need to do what God would have them do. The real issue here is sanctification, not salvation. Paul wants them to live out the reality of their position as children of God. He wants their behavior to match their confessed belief in Christ. He has no doubt that they have the capacity to do the right thing. It is more a matter of commitment. Are they willing to do what is right?

Paul is praying that they will be and assures them that he “cannot do anything against the truth, but on for the truth” (2 Corinthians 13:8 ESV). He is unwilling to act in a way that would be contrary or detrimental to the gospel.

It is essential to understand that much of what Paul has said throughout this letter has been in defense of his apostleship. There were those who cast doubts about his qualifications. So when he asked them to examine themselves, he was really challenging them to take a long, hard look at their lives to see whether they themselves are not the very proof they are looking for. In other words, their changed lives were the greatest testimony to Paul’s calling they would ever find. The gospel message he had brought to them had been effective, resulting in their conversions and proving his calling as a messenger of Jesus Christ.

But they had struggled in their sanctification and had hit some tough spots along the way. Since Paul’s initial visit, divisions and disunity had erupted in the church. There were some moral indiscretions that had gone unpunished and remained unconfessed. Paul had already told them that he feared he would find them still struggling with the same old issues of “quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder” (2 Corinthians 12:20 NLT). So he let them know that he was praying for their restoration. Not only that, he was writing in a very blunt, in-your-face style because, when he arrived, he didn’t want to have to spend all his time playing bad cop. His goal was to build them up, not tear them down. He wanted to see them continue to grow in their salvation, increasing in their knowledge of Jesus Christ and developing an ever-deeper dependence upon God, resulting in a desire to do His will, to do the right thing.

In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul reminded them that God’s will for them was their holiness or sanctification.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification… – 1 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV

In his first letter, the apostle Peter told his readers that it was God’s will that they do good.

For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. – 1 Peter 2:15 ESV

Doing good (what is right) and holiness go hand in hand. Our sanctification or growth in Christlikeness should have an outward expression. It should manifest itself in godly living (doing what God would have us do). That is Paul’s prayer for the Corinthians. He wants them to live out their faith by stepping out in obedience to God's will.

We do good, not to win God’s favor, but because we have been the recipients of His favor. We do what is right, not to make God love us, but because He loved us enough to send His Son to die for us. Doing what is right brings God’s blessing. Doing what is wrong brings His discipline. Both are motivated by His love for us. But Paul would prefer that we learn to live obediently, doing what God deems best, even when it makes no sense. Paul would have us enjoy the benefits of a life lived within the will of God, faithfully doing what He deems to be right and good.

Father, Your will is for my holiness, not my happiness. Your desire is that I live righteously, according to Your standards, not those of a fallen world. You’ve given me Your Spirit to guide, convict, and instruct me. His power makes obeying Your commands possible, and Your Word is “a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105 NLT). You’ve placed me within the body of Christ so that I might have enjoy the community of like-minded believers who comfort and challenge me in my walk and provide me with opportunities to use the gifts You have given me. Yet, I live in a world where the pursuit of personal satisfaction takes precedence over sanctification, happiness trumps holiness, and selfishness is more important than selflessness. Don’t let me give in to the temptation to make this life all about me. Continue to show me how to do what is good and right, because that is Your will for me, and You alone know what is best.  Amen

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Truth About Falsehood

8 I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. 9 And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. 10 As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. 11 And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!

12 And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. 13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. – 2 Corinthians 11:8-15 ESV

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul had been forced to argue in defense of his apostleship. He had once again found himself under attack by individuals who questioned the validity of his claim to be an apostle of Jesus, and he strongly defended himself.

Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. – 1 Corinthians 9:1-2 ESV

The believers in Corinth were all the evidence he needed to prove he had been sent by the Lord. He was an authentic messenger of Jesus Christ, and yet, while living among the Corinthians, Paul chose not to exercise the rights of an apostle. He reminded them, “the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:14 ESV). However, he had not asked them to fund his stay or help him in any way financially. But he insisted on his right to do so. 

This is my answer to those who question my authority. Don’t we have the right to live in your homes and share your meals? Don’t we have the right to bring a believing wife with us as the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers do, and as Peter does? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have to work to support ourselves?

What soldier has to pay his own expenses? What farmer plants a vineyard and doesn’t have the right to eat some of its fruit? What shepherd cares for a flock of sheep and isn’t allowed to drink some of the milk? – 1 Corinthians 9:3-7 NLT

In the book of Acts, Luke records how Paul sustained himself while living in Corinth.

Then Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he became acquainted with a Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently arrived from Italy with his wife, Priscilla. They had left Italy when Claudius Caesar deported all Jews from Rome. Paul lived and worked with them, for they were tentmakers just as he was. – Acts 18:1-3 NLT

Paul had paid his own way and had been aided by others who willingly chose to fund his work in Corinth. He had not burdened the Corinthians by asking them to provide for any of his ministry among them. Which is what led Paul to make the following dramatic claim:

I “robbed” other churches by accepting their contributions so I could serve you at no cost. And when I was with you and didn’t have enough to live on, I did not become a financial burden to anyone. For the brothers who came from Macedonia brought me all that I needed. I have never been a burden to you, and I never will be. – 2 Corinthians 11:8-9 NLT

Paul’s claim to have “robbed” the other churches by taking their aid was based on his not having ministered to them in return. He took their money but used it to fund his ministry elsewhere, something they perfectly understood and approved. But it obviously bothered Paul. He felt an obligation to return their generosity by ministering to them as well. However, he was grateful that their gift had allowed him to stop working and concentrate all his efforts on sharing the gospel while in Corinth.

It seems that Paul’s critics were accusing him of duplicity. He had at one time refused to accept support, but then had accepted the gift from the Macedonians. They saw this as a sign of Paul’s hypocrisy. And yet, these false teachers had evidently been accepting support for themselves.

Paul was not going to apologize for his actions. In fact, he said, “what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do” (2 Corinthians 11:12 ESV). He would not stoop to their level, and he would not allow them to compare themselves to him. He had already accused them of preaching a different gospel and a different Jesus. So, Paul pulled no punches, accusing these men of being “false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:13 ESV).

Paul had taken the gloves off, claiming these men to be in league with Satan himself. This was not a gentlemanly debate, but all-out war. Paul was not just defending his ministry, but the integrity of the gospel itself. And like a shepherd, he was protecting his flock by fending off the attacks of dangerous predators. What made these men particularly deadly was that they were like sheep in wolves' clothing. They were cunningly deceptive and had won the confidence of the Corinthians by appearing as something other than what they really were. Jesus had warned about these kinds of men.

Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions. – Matthew 7:15-20 NLT

These men had disguised themselves as “servants of righteousness,” but they intended to harm God’s people. Their messages sounded safe and in line with what Paul had taught, but there were dangerously subtle differences based on a carefully crafted mixture of truth and falsehood. They were teaching Jesus, but it was a slightly variant version. They were teaching grace alone, but with a dose of good deeds mixed in.

There will always be those who infiltrate the church, disguising themselves as servants of righteousness, but who are actually servants of Satan. Their words are deceptive, and their outward appearance is convincing, but their fruit is deadly. The book of Jude describes them in stark, but realistic terms.

…they are like dangerous reefs that can shipwreck you. They are like shameless shepherds who care only for themselves. They are like clouds blowing over the land without giving any rain. They are like trees in autumn that are doubly dead, for they bear no fruit and have been pulled up by the roots. They are like wild waves of the sea, churning up the foam of their shameful deeds. They are like wandering stars, doomed forever to blackest darkness. – Jude 1:12-13 NLT

Be on the alert for them and don’t be deceived by their subtle lies masquerading as truth. Have nothing to do with them because their deeds are deadly.

Father, our enemy is dangerous because he operates as an “angel of light,” disguising and delivering his message in subtle ways that make it difficult to discern where the lie stops and the truth begins. As he did with Eve in the garden, he always mixes just enough truth with his falsehoods to make it sound palatable and acceptable. Yet, he remains the father of lies and the great deceiver. However, You have given us Your Word and the indwelling Holy Spirit to make sure we can recognize the real thing from the counterfeit. But it is easy to get lulled into a sense of over-confidence and complacency and forget that our enemy“prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour ” (1 Peter 5:8 NLT). Keep us on the alert and ever vigilant so that we are never caught by surprise. Help us to stand strong against him and firm in our faith because, as John wrote, “greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4 BSB).
 Amen

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Subtle Lie of a Pseudo-Savior

1 I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! 2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. 5 Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. 6 Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things.

7 Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? – 2 Corinthians 11:1-7 ESV

The debate Paul was waging with his adversaries in Corinth was about far more than his authority or who would get credit for the spiritual state of the Corinthian church. This was about deception. Those who opposed Paul and his ministry were actually leading the Corinthians astray. They were proclaiming another Jesus, promoting a different Spirit, and preaching a different gospel.

What bothered Paul the most was that the Corinthians “put up with it readily enough” (2 Corinthians 11:4b ESV). Maybe it was because these “super-apostles,” as he sarcastically referred to them, were skilled in speech and the Corinthians found themselves easily swayed by their rhetoric. With Paul physically out of the picture, it was easy for them to dismiss his message and discredit his ministry because he was not there to defend himself. Which is what led him to write this letter. Paul was forced to remind them of their long-standing relationship with him.

He begged them to bear with a “little foolishness” as he recounted his role in their “betrothal” to Christ. What made it all so foolish was that he had to take time to remind them at all. After all, he had been the one to introduce them to Christ in the first place. Like a father of a bride, he had given them in marriage to Jesus, and his goal was to keep them pure until the day their marriage was consummated.

It was not enough for Paul that they came to know Christ; he wanted them to remain pure until the day Christ returned for them or called them home. Yet, he found that they had been easily deceived. He even compared them to Eve, whom Satan deceived and led astray from the truth of God in the garden. Her deception resulted in her banishment from the presence of God. Paul feared that the Corinthians, due to their willing reception of the false teaching of his critics, would be “led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3 ESV).

It is important to note that, as Satan led Eve to question the veracity and reliability of God’s word, so these false teachers were causing the Corinthians to question the very heart and soul of Paul’s gospel message. They were offering a different gospel that promoted a different Jesus. While Paul does not elaborate on what their message was, it is clear that they were leading the Corinthians astray. The apostle John describes such people as having the spirit of the Antichrist.

But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here. – 1 John 4:3 NLT

I say this because many deceivers have gone out into the world. They deny that Jesus Christ came in a real body. Such a person is a deceiver and an antichrist. – 2 John 1:7 NLT

Paul doesn’t elaborate on whether these people were denying the incarnation of Jesus or questioning His death and resurrection. But it is clear that their message was in direct opposition to the one that Paul had preached, and they had found the Corinthians to be a willing and receptive audience. This was particularly disturbing to Paul because he had sacrificed so much to ensure that they heard the unadulterated gospel. He brought them the good news of Jesus, free of charge and with no strings attached. He had not demanded that they idolize him or treat him like a god. He humbled himself so that they might be exalted to a right relationship with God through a proper knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Paul took a backseat, playing the role of God’s humble servant and spokesman. He had simply been the messenger, the bearer of good news. Now, to hear that the Corinthians so easily accepted another version of the gospel was disturbing and disconcerting. But Paul was not one to sit back and let his work among the Corinthians go to waste. He loved them too much.

The gospel is always under attack, and most often from within. Satan is the great deceiver, and he would much rather promote a slightly false version of the truth than an outright lie. He tends to blend truth with just enough falsehood to make it palatable and plausible, but just as deadly. He is more than willing to have people accept Jesus, as long as it is a slightly different Jesus. He loves the idea of Jesus as a good man who lived a life worthy of emulation. He likes to promote Jesus as the great teacher and moral prophet. He prefers a Jesus who was nothing more than a martyr to a cause.

But the Jesus Satan promotes is never the Son of God and Savior of the world. He is never the selfless, spotless sacrifice that paid the penalty for man’s sins. He is never the source of man’s justification and the power behind his sanctification. He is never the resurrected and ascended King of kings and Lord of lords who sits at the right hand of God the Father and is one day going to return. However, that is the Jesus of the gospel, and any other Jesus is false and unworthy of our attention and affection.

Father, the enemy is subtle and seductive. He rarely demands our outright worship of him, but instead, he tempts us to serve a pseudo-Savior who bears a striking resemblance to the Jesus of the gospels but who looks a lot more like a self-help guru and a motivational speaker than the Son of God. Satan offers an emasculated, powerless version of the Messiah who is overly tolerant, permissive, and offers a form of moralistic, therapeutic deism that replaces true heart transformation with feel-good behavior modification. Paul refused to put up with false gospels or facsimiles of the real Jesus. He wouldn’t tolerate man-made versions of the way, the truth, and the life. For Paul, there was only one Jesus who offered one path to reconciliation with God. The message of salvation was simple and in no need of alteration or assistance. Would you protect us from the lies of the enemy and restore our dedication to the purity of the gospel message? Help us to stand firm on the truth, refusing to accept any other gospel or any other Jesus than the One Your sent. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand: all other ground is sinking sand. Amen

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Lost Need a Savior, Not a Friend

14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
    and I will be their God,
    and they shall be my people.
17 Therefore go out from their midst,
    and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
    then I will welcome you,
18 and I will be a father to you,
    and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.” – 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 ESV

There is a huge difference between being a conduit through which God’s redeeming grace can flow to the lost and becoming, as Paul describes it, unequally yoked with them. It was Paul’s desire that the Corinthians be gracious and loving to all, but he feared that they would turn the love of God into tolerance and His graciousness into an inappropriate excuse to associate with the ungodly.

Paul had already witnessed their unacceptable handling of the man in their congregation who was having an affair with his stepmother. Rather than mourning over this man’s immoral behavior, they had arrogantly approved of it, allowing him to remain a part of their fellowship. But Paul read them the riot act, boldly stating, “You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.” (1 Corinthians 5:2 NLT).

Paul’s concern was that the Corinthians would interpret his appeal to grace as an invitation to accept anyone and everyone, regardless of their behavior or lifestyle. Paul understood that we must meet people where they are to share the gospel with them, but that the power of the gospel would not allow them to remain in that same state, unchanged. The good news of Jesus Christ is transformative and life-altering.

Associating with the lost is necessary if we want to share with them the hope available to them through faith in Jesus Christ. But Paul differentiates between casual acquaintances and unhealthy associations. His concern is when a believer develops a close, overly accommodating relationship with an unbeliever. This passage often gets applied to the marriage context, and rightfully so. But it has more far-reaching applications, covering everything from business partnerships to close friendships. The imagery Paul uses is that of a yoke, a common farming implement that teams two animals to pull a plow. The idea of being unequally yoked involved putting two different animals with different temperaments in the yoke together, such as an ox and a donkey. These two animals have different physical characteristics and personalities and would not naturally associate with one another. So, if they were yoked together, they would pull at different speeds and actually fight one another, making the work inefficient and unacceptable to the farmer. Their efforts would be wasted, and the farmer’s goal of plowing the field would be thwarted.

This is what Paul has in mind when he tells the Corinthians not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers; such a partnership is unacceptable and antithetical. He compares it to light and darkness or righteousness and lawlessness. Unbelievers, by virtue of their unredeemed state, serve a different master, so why would a follower of Christ willingly align themselves with a child of Satan? Yes, that sounds harsh, but the apostle John reminds us of its reality.

Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God. So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God. – 1 John 3:7-10 NLT

Paul is not suggesting that believers avoid all relationships with the lost; that would be impossible. In fact, in his first letter to the Corinthians, he clarified a statement he had made that had been misunderstood and misapplied.

When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people. – 1 Corinthians 5:9-11 NLT

Paul warns them against developing or maintaining unhealthy alliances with the lost. To do so would be counterproductive and put them in a position where their allegiance to Christ would be strained and hampered. Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are the temple of God, and uses a variety of Old Testament texts to drive home his point. Just as God had chosen the people of Israel to be His people, believers have been hand-picked by God to be members of His family. They have been separated by and consecrated to God. So God expects them to disassociate themselves from the other nations that surround them. That is what Paul means when he writes, “Therefore, come out from among unbelievers, and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:17 NLT).

The apostle Peter encourages us to consider ourselves as aliens and strangers on this earth, living as if we don’t belong here, because our real home is in heaven.

Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world. – 1 Peter 2:11-12 NLT

We are citizens of a different Kingdom and answer to a different King, and while we are on this earth, we serve as His ambassadors, accomplishing His will by doing His work. That will become increasingly more difficult, if not impossible, if we align ourselves with those who do not share our allegiance to Him. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians in his first letter: “But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them, and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others” (1 Corinthians 2:14-15 NLT).

As children of God, we are to constantly submit ourselves to the will of God and serve Him at all times. But if we allow ourselves to become unequally yoked to a non-believer, either through marriage, friendship, or a business partnership, we will find ourselves in constant conflict. We will discover that our “plowing partner” has an agenda that competes with rather than complements our own. Rather than working together, we will fight one another, accomplishing little of God’s Kingdom work.

It is one thing to share the gospel with a lost individual, but it is another thing altogether to do life with them. We should love the lost and be willing to share the hope of Christ with them, but we must never forget that, in their unredeemed state, they are still enemies of God, living in rebellion against Him. Our goal should be their redemption, not a compromised relationship with them. Our purpose in associating with them is that they might know the love of God and be set free from their slavery to sin and death. But ignoring their sin just to enjoy their friendship is dangerous for us and, ultimately, a sign of a serious lack of love for them.

Father, we have to be very careful how we interpret and apply Your Son’s command to love our enemies. He wasn’t calling us to compromise our convictions or excuse their behavior; He was encouraging us to love them enough to tell them the truth about the gospel. That may require that we offend or upset them, and may have to face their wrath or rejection. But if we allow friendship to trump our calling to proclaim the good news, we do them more harm than good. By failing to tell them the truth about sin and their need for a Savior, we condemn rather than befriend them. The proverb is right when it states, “An open rebuke is better than hidden love. Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy” (Proverbs 27:5-6 NLT). Give me the boldness to speak truth even when it may result in the loss of a friend. Show me how to love well, never allowing compromise to supersede my commitment to Your Word and my calling to be an ambassador of the gospel. Amen

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Gift of God's Presence and Power

20 Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. 21 In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” 22 Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers. 23 If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. – 1 Corinthians 14:20-25 ESV

By elevating the gift of tongues to a primary position, the Corinthians had revealed their spiritual immaturity to Paul. They viewed speaking in tongues as a sign of spirituality and pursued and practiced that gift to the detriment of the body of Christ. So Paul called them out and encouraged them to “grow up” in their thinking. It is one thing to be innocent about evil, but they acted like children when it came to the gifts God had given to the church. They were enamored by the more showy, flamboyant gifts and allowed jealousy, pride, and envy to characterize their use of the gifts, rather than for the mutual edification of one another.

One of the most important distinctions Paul makes about the gift of tongues concerns its purpose. He quotes a passage from Isaiah 28 to show that tongues “are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers” (1 Corinthians 14:22 ESV). The context of the Isaiah passage is that God sent Isaiah to warn the people of Israel of the Assyrian invasion. He had been calling them to repent and return to Him as their God, but they had stubbornly refused the prophet's messages. Isaiah had been speaking to them in their own language, but they had refused to listen. So Isaiah warns them that God would send the Assyrians and “by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the Lord will speak to this people” (Isaiah 28:11 ESV). Their unbelief and stubbornness were going to force God to punish them by sending them into captivity, but even then, they would not repent.

Paul is trying to get the Corinthian believers to think logically and maturely about their view of tongues. He even uses a real-life scenario to make his point. “If unbelievers or people who don’t understand these things come into your church meeting and hear everyone speaking in an unknown language, they will think you are crazy.” (1 Corinthians 14:23 NLT). In other words, if tongues is the superior gift they seem to think it is and everyone in the church practiced it at the same time, what would unbelievers think when they walked in the door and experienced the chaos and confusion firsthand? They would most likely conclude that these followers of Christ had lost their minds.

Rather than witnessing Christians living and worshiping together in unity, they would walk into a scene of confusion and chaos driven by a spirit of competition. Instead of hearing a clearly articulated and understandable delivery of the gospel message, they would walk away convinced that Christianity was no different than the pagan religions with which they were already familiar. It is important to note that Paul is describing a time of corporate worship, when the body of Christ gathered for worship and mutual edification.

Acts 2 records the scene in which the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, and the disciples received the gift of tongues. After Jesus’ ascension, they returned to Jerusalem and gathered in a room just as Jesus had instructed them. 

Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, a distance of half a mile.  When they arrived, they went to the upstairs room of the house where they were staying…They all met together and were constantly united in prayer, along with Mary the mother of Jesus, several other women, and the brothers of Jesus. – Acts 1:12-13, 14 NLT

Luke records that “120 believers were together in one place” (Acts 1:15 NLT), and that they used this gathering for prayer and mutual encouragement. They had no idea what was going to happen next, but they were faithfully following the Lord’s final words.

“Now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.” – Luke 24:49 NLT 

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” – Acts 1:8 NLT

As they prayed and waited, the day came when the promise was fulfilled. 

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability. – Acts 2:1-4 NLT

And Luke goes on to record the purpose behind this one-of-a-kind event. 

At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers.

They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! – Acts 2:5-8 NLT

In this instance, each of the disciples spoke in a different foreign tongue simultaneously. It was a scenario much like the one Paul described in his example. But the reason behind this miraculous event was simple. There were thousands of foreigners who had come to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost. Luke provides an incomplete list of their ethnicities.

Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. – Acts 2:9-11 NLT

Attracted to the cacophony of the disciples using their newly acquired, Spirit-empowered language skills, each of these visitors to Jerusalem was shocked to hear the familiar sounds of their own language. And because they could hear the message in their own language, they were able to say, “We all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” (Acts 2:11 NLT). 

The pouring out of the Spirit of God created a unique situation that enabled thousands of people to hear the word about Jesus and prepare them for Peter's message. And the result of his impromptu, Spirit-filled sermon was that 3,000 people came to faith in Christ.

On that day, the gift of tongues had a distinct, divinely ordained purpose, directed by the Holy Spirit. But this occasion was not intended to be the norm; it was not a prescribed form of worship for the early church. And yet the Corinthians had childishly elevated tongues to a superior position, misunderstanding its purpose and missing the point behind what God was trying to do in their midst.

Ultimately, Paul was interested in heart change. He compares tongues to the gift of prophecy, describing another scenario in which a lost person attends the corporate worship service. This time, rather than confusion and chaos, they hear the truth being proclaimed through the gift of prophecy. And Paul describes the result of this hypothetical scene.

They will be convicted of sin and judged by what you say. As they listen, their secret thoughts will be exposed, and they will fall to their knees and worship God, declaring, “God is truly here among you.” – 1 Corinthians 14:24; 25 NLT

When the truth of God is understandable, it results in undeniable heart change. Revelation brings about redemption. Lives are changed when the Word is clearly articulated and understood. For Paul, edification and evangelism were the primary purposes behind the gifts when the church gathered. There was a proper place and time for the gift of tongues, but it had to be Spirit-determined and directed. Choosing to use the gifts because of their apparent spiritual superiority reveals a childish, short-sighted perspective. A more mature outlook views the gifts as given by God and as up to Him to use as He sees fit, with the ultimate purpose of building up the body of Christ.

Father, when we are Spirit directed and empowered, we can accomplish great things. But as soon as we attempt to use the Spirit’s power for our own benefit or to position ourselves as more spiritual than others, we miss the point. You gave these outpourings of the Spirit’s power as gifts to the body of Christ, not individuals. They are all meant to edify others, not to glorify self. When used as You intended, the gifts strengthen the church. But when we attempt to personalize and hijack them for our own benefit, they become divisive and destructive. When we use them for our own glory, we take what is rightfully Yours. Open our eyes to the truth concerning the gifts and help us treat them with reverence and respect. We are simply stewards of the gifts You have given and we want to use them in a way that builds up the body of Christ brings You honor. Amen

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Committed to the Cause

1 For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain. 2 But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. 3 For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5 For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. – 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 ESV

Paul was under constant pressure to defend his apostleship because he was not one of Jesus’ original 12 disciples. However, as Paul points out, he had received his commission to take the gospel to the Gentiles directly from Jesus Christ Himself. But his opponents, of which there were many, questioned the validity of his claim to be an emissary of Christ. So, they attempted to undermine his ministry by raising doubts concerning his authority to speak and the veracity of his message. He was just a man, they claimed; his message was not from God, but was nothing more than the self-delusional rants of a self-appointed apostle.

This forced Paul to constantly validate his ministry and message. In the opening line of his letter to the Galatian church, Paul wrote: “Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” (Galatians 1:1 ESV). Just a few verses later, Paul told them:

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. – Galatians 1:11-12 ESV

And Paul went on to explain to them how that revelation came about.

For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles… – Galatians 1:13-16 ESV

Luke, the author of the Book of Acts, confirms Paul’s description of that event and provides us with further details.

Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers. So he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them—both men and women—back to Jerusalem in chains. – Acts 9:1-2 ESV

But while on his way to Damascus, fully intending to continue his persecution of the followers of Jesus, Paul had a life-changing encounter.

As he was approaching Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?”

“Who are you, lord?” Saul asked.

And the voice replied, “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting! Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” – Acts 9:3-6 ESV

Paul (Saul was his Hebrew name), having been blinded by the light and bewildered by this unexpected change in his itinerary, made his way to Damascus. In the meantime, God appeared in a vision to Ananias, a Christ-follower living in the city, informing him to lay hands on Paul to restore his sight. Ananias expressed his reluctance because of Paul’s reputation for animosity against Christians, but God insisted that this was all part of His divine plan for Paul.

“Go, for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel. And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’s sake.” – Acts 9:15-16 ESV

And years later, Paul would stand before King Agrippa and recount the story of his conversion on the road to Damascus. And he would add the words of the message he received when Christ confronted him.

“But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” – Acts 26:16-18 ESV

But what does all this have to do with chapter 2 of the book of 1 Thessalonians? Everything. In this chapter, Paul reminds the believers in Thessalonica of the day when he and Silas had first appeared in their city more than a year earlier. In the interim, and in his absence, enemies of Paul had been spreading rumors and suggesting that he was not what he claimed to be. They had been casting dispersion on both his message and his motives.

Yet Paul reminds them that he and Silas had arrived in their city after having been beaten and imprisoned in Philippi. The city officials in Philippi had forced them to vacate the premises because their presence had resulted in a riot, and Paul reminds the Thessalonians, “But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict” (1 Thessalonians 2:2 ESV).

If Paul had claimed to be an apostle simply to seek fame or fortune, he had been far from successful. His assertion of apostleship had earned him little more than rejection and suffering everywhere he went. He wanted the believers in Thessalonica to know that his only motivation was to declare to them the gospel of God – even in the midst of conflict.

Paul had the same message for the believers in Galatia. If he was simply out to gain the favor of men, he was failing miserably. In fact, if Paul had wanted to win a popularity contest, the last thing he would have done was present himself as an apostle of Christ preaching a controversial message of sin, judgment, and salvation. That’s why Paul told the Galatians, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10 ESV).

And Paul assured the Thessalonian believers that, despite what others were saying, he and Silas had been anything but deceptive or dishonest in their motivation.

For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive… – 1 Thessalonians 2:3 ESV

They had not set out to please men, seek glory, or get rich. But they had been approved by God and entrusted with the gospel message. That’s why, when they had suffered in Philippi, they hadn’t abandoned their mission, but continued their efforts to spread the gospel, even in the face of extreme opposition and personal pain. If Paul and Silas had been in it for what they could get out of it, they would have thrown in the towel a long time ago. But as Paul makes clear, their motivation had been and continued to be heartfelt and God-ordained.

Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else. – 1 Thessalonians 2:4-6 NLT

Paul was anything but a people-pleaser, and his message was far from politically correct. He was an in-your-face, no-holds-barred kind of guy who delivered the message of the gospel unapologetically, making no attempt to water it down or make it more palatable and acceptable.

In delivering the gospel to the Gentiles, Paul had faced opposition from the Jewish believers in Jerusalem, who still questioned the validity of uncircumcised Gentiles having access to salvation. If nothing else, they believed these Gentiles had to first convert to Judaism. But Paul had stood his ground, demanding that the gospel message put no such requirements on Gentile converts. Salvation was based on God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Paul had also faced opposition from the Gentiles, who resisted his efforts to convert their people to this new religion or cult, called The Way. Paul’s message of the gospel was resulting in conversions among the Gentiles, leading these new believers to walk away from their false gods and their old ways of life to serve the one true God. Because the gospel brought about life change, these conversions were having an influence on the local communities and their economies. And, according to Luke, that’s exactly what happened in the city of Ephesus.

Many who became believers confessed their sinful practices. A number of them who had been practicing sorcery brought their incantation books and burned them at a public bonfire. The value of the books was several million dollars. – Acts 19:18-19 NLT

The gospel was powerfully transformative; it changed lives. That was why Paul was committed to carrying out his God-ordained mission to share the gospel with both Jews and Gentiles. He was motivated by love and compassion, not greed or fame. And he reminded the Thessalonians that he and Silas had come to them like innocent children, free from guile and with no ulterior motives. They had displayed the same love as a mother who feeds and cares for her children. She does so sacrificially and willingly, and not for what she can get out of it.

Paul assured them, “We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too” (1 Thessalonians 2:8 NLT). They gave their lives away. They sacrificed, and rather than demanding payment for their services, they willingly shared all that they had. They risked all for the sake of the gospel and the salvation of the handful of Thessalonians who had heard and received it. And Paul would gladly do it again.

Father, What a picture of commitment to one’s calling. In fulfilling His God-given commission, Paul faced all kinds of opposition and rejection, and, yet, he never gave up. He had his motives questioned, his message maligned, and his ministry undermined at every turn. But, like the Energizer Bunny, he kept going and going and going. He wasn’t out to please men or pad his portfolio. Fame and fortune meant nothing to him. He was sold out to the calling of Christ and determined to tell others about the One who had radically and permanently changed his life. Give me that same passion and desire to make the gospel my highest priority. Keep me from making it about me or allowing the enemy to distract me from the call to make disciples of all the nations. Amen.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Peace In the Midst of the Storm

1 Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me,

To the churches of Galatia:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. – Galatians 1:1-5 ESV

Paul wrote this letter to followers of Christ living in the southern portion of the Roman province of Galatia. The churches there were likely founded by Paul on his first missionary journey, so he had a vested interest in the spiritual well-being of their congregations. Since these relatively new churches were located in a Greek-speaking Roman province, they would have consisted primarily of Gentile converts to Christianity. This is not to say that there were no Jews in their fellowships, but it seems more likely that Paul is writing to those who had little or no understanding of Judaism Jesus’ role as the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. 

Based on the content of Paul’s letter, it appears that these Gentile converts to Christianity had come under the influence of Judaizers. These were individuals of Jewish descent who expressed belief in Jesus as the Messiah, but who also demanded strict adherence to all Jewish religious laws and customs. Paul refers to these individuals throughout the letter and not in flattering terms.

But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” – Galatians 2:14 ESV

The word Judaizer comes from the Greek verb Ἰουδαϊκῶς (ioudaikōs) which means “as do the Jews.” The Greek word for Jew is Ἰουδαῖος (ioudaios) and the similarity is obvious. In the verse above, Paul is setting up a contrast between the lifestyles of Gentiles and Jews but his primary point is the not-so-subtle teaching of these Judaizers who were demanding that true faith in Christ required conversion to Judaism and adherence to all its laws and customs. 

Since Paul’s last visit to the region, these men had infiltrated the churches in Galatia, claiming to be Christ-followers but teaching a different brand of salvation than the one Paul had proclaimed on his first missionary journey.  These Judaizers seem to have popped up wherever Paul planted churches and their presence caused much confusion and consternation to the new converts that Paul left behind. And because of Paul’s constant travels, he was left with no other recourse than to address this issue through the use of letters.

Because of the vital importance of his letter’s content, Paul opens up with a brief defense of his apostleship. There seemed to be no shortage of individuals who were willing to question or even deny the validity of his claim to being an apostle. After all, every other apostle had been a disciple of Jesus. They had been personally chosen by Him and spent three years of their lives following and learning from Him. But Paul was a latecomer who claimed to have been appointed an apostle by the resurrected Lord. Luke records the testimony of Paul as he shared it before King Agrippa:

“I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’” – Acts 26:12-18 ESV

Paul’s fantastic “Damascus road experience” was constantly coming under question by those who opposed him. They denied he had the right to speak on behalf of Christ as one of His apostles. It’s likely they raised doubts about the veracity of Paul’s claims and peppered him with questions. They probably demanded verification and evidence that any of Paul’s “testimony” ever took place.

Their rejection of Paul’s claim of apostolic authority led them to deny his credentials and reject his right to preach a gospel that was based on faith alone in Christ alone. As Jews, they saw Paul as a traitor to his Jewish heritage and the religion of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It seems likely that these men also raised suspicions about Paul’s trustworthiness by reminding the believers in Galatia about his former life as a member of the Pharisees and a persecutor of the church.

But Paul vehemently defended his apostleship in virtually every one of his letters, and this one is no exception. He opens up by describing himself as “Paul, an apostle.” The title “apostle” means “a delegate, messenger, one sent forth with orders” (“G652 - apostolos (KJV) :: Strong’s Greek Lexicon.” Blue Letter Bible. http://www.blueletterbible.org).

It was a common Greek word and was not unique to Christianity. This is why Paul quickly clarified that he was an apostle “not from men nor through men” (Galatians 1:1 ESV). In other words, he had not been sent by men or had not received his message from men. What he shared he received directly from the lips of Jesus Himself. Just a few verses later in this letter, Paul explains, “I did not receive it [the gospel] from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12 ESV).

Luke records that immediately after Paul’s conversion, Jesus appeared to a disciple named Ananias and told him to go to the house where Paul staying and lay hands on him so that he might regain his sight. Jesus told Ananias, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15 ESV).

There was no doubt in Paul’s mind that he was a messenger sent from Jesus. This is why he boldly claimed that he was an apostle “through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead” (Galatians 1:1 ESV). The Greek preposition Paul used is dia and it can mean “by reason of” or “on account of” (“G1223 - dia (KJV):: Strong's Greek Lexicon.” Blue Letter Bible. http://www.blueletterbible.org).

Paul was not a self-proclaimed apostle, but a God-ordained one, by virtue of his commissioning by the resurrected Jesus. His salvation had been made possible by God and the content of his message had come directly from the Son of God. He will spend the rest of this letter defending not only his apostleship but the gospel itself. Paul was less concerned about his reputation or identity than he was with the integrity of the gospel message. He wasn’t out to win friends and influence enemies. Just a few verses later Paul denies any desire to engage in a popularity contest with the Judaizers.

I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant. – Galatians 1:10 NLT

The gospel was under attack and Paul was ready to go to war to protect it. And this deep desire to preserve the simple message of the good news compelled Paul to go on the offensive.

But there was another desire that motivated Paul. He wanted the recipients of his letter to enjoy the grace and peace of God. He wanted them to comprehend the magnitude of the remarkable gift they had received. Jesus Christ had given Himself for their sins so that they might be delivered from the present evil age. The world in which these new believers lived was hostile, anti-Christian, and intolerant of their beliefs. Many of them had already suffered persecution for having placed their faith in Christ. Some had been rejected by family members and ostracized from society. Others were under constant pressure to give up their faith or simply compromise it.

We face the same threat today. But we must remember that we have been delivered from this age. Yes, we’re still here and surrounded by increasing levels of animosity and pressure to compromise our convictions, but we are not alone. We have been given the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit and the promise of our future eternal state.  God has promised us an eternal existence in His presence, free from the effects of sin that brought pain, sorrow, and death to the world.

Yet as we wait for that day, we are to live as children of God. The apostle John reminds us, “Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3 NLT).

Paul’s call to his readers will be for them to remain steadfast. He wanted them to remain committed to the truth of the gospel and faithful to the call of Christ on their lives. It would not be easy, but it would be well worth the effort in the long run. Regardless of what they might be experiencing, they could rest in the fact that they were right in the middle of God’s will for their lives.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Fallacy of False Hope

1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel, who are prophesying, and say to those who prophesy from their own hearts: ‘Hear the word of the Lord!’ 3 Thus says the Lord God, Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! 4 Your prophets have been like jackals among ruins, O Israel. 5 You have not gone up into the breaches, or built up a wall for the house of Israel, that it might stand in battle in the day of the Lord. 6 They have seen false visions and lying divinations. They say, ‘Declares the Lord,’ when the Lord has not sent them, and yet they expect him to fulfill their word. 7 Have you not seen a false vision and uttered a lying divination, whenever you have said, ‘Declares the Lord,’ although I have not spoken?”

8 Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Because you have uttered falsehood and seen lying visions, therefore behold, I am against you, declares the Lord God. 9 My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and who give lying divinations. They shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord God. 10 Precisely because they have misled my people, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace, and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear it with whitewash, 11 say to those who smear it with whitewash that it shall fall! There will be a deluge of rain, and you, O great hailstones, will fall, and a stormy wind break out. 12 And when the wall falls, will it not be said to you, ‘Where is the coating with which you smeared it?’ 13 Therefore thus says the Lord God: I will make a stormy wind break out in my wrath, and there shall be a deluge of rain in my anger, and great hailstones in wrath to make a full end. 14 And I will break down the wall that you have smeared with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be laid bare. When it falls, you shall perish in the midst of it, and you shall know that I am the Lord. 15 Thus will I spend my wrath upon the wall and upon those who have smeared it with whitewash, and I will say to you, The wall is no more, nor those who smeared it, 16 the prophets of Israel who prophesied concerning Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for her, when there was no peace, declares the Lord God. – Ezekiel 13:1-16 ESV

The citizens of Judah wrongly assumed that nothing bad was going to happen to their great city of Jerusalem. After all, as far as they could tell, none of God’s prophecies had come to fruition, so they had nothing to worry about. He had warned of destruction but the walls still stood and the temple was fully intact. And, even if God’s judgments were to come, the common opinion was that they would happen any time soon. Any destruction that God might bring upon Judah and its capital city was reserved for some future generation. As far as they could tell, there were safe and sound.

But where did the people get their over-confident and somewhat complacent view of God’s judgment? How did they come up with these faulty conclusions concerning the prophecies that God had pronounced? Well, God provides the answers to those questions by calling out the men who were responsible for the nation’s continued disobedience.

“Son of man, prophesy against the false prophets of Israel who are inventing their own prophecies.” – Ezekiel 13:2 NLT

God accused these self-proclaimed prophets of “following their own imaginations” (Ezekiel 13:3 NLT) but claimed to be speaking on behalf of God. Yet, God had neither commissioned them nor given them any message to deliver. They were freelancers, operating in the name of God but without His permission or blessing. And the messages they were sharing were doing far more damage than good.

“They have done nothing to repair the breaks in the walls around the nation. They have not helped it to stand firm in battle on the day of the Lord. Instead, they have told lies and made false predictions.” – Ezekiel 13:5-6 NLT

Judah was in trouble. They were about to experience the righteous wrath of God because of the centuries-worth of rebellion and apostasy that characterized them as a nation. They had a track record of disobedience and had displayed a stubborn resistance to the calls of God’s prophets that they repent and return to Him in humility and brokenness.

And one of the key factors behind their long history of disobedience was the presence of false prophets, and this was not a new problem. For as long as God had been appointing men to speak on His behalf, there had been another group of individuals who claimed membership in that elite group. But they were charlatans and pretenders. God had neither sent them nor spoken to them. And yet…

“They say, ‘This message is from the Lord,’ even though the Lord never sent them. And yet they expect him to fulfill their prophecies! Can your visions be anything but false if you claim, ‘This message is from the Lord,’ when I have not even spoken to you?” – Ezekiel 13:6-7 NLT

What made these men so popular with the people was that their messages were more palatable and acceptable than the ones given by God’s true prophets. While men like Ezekiel were declaring the pending judgment of God, these individuals were promoting a contrary narrative that provided the people with false hope. In a sense, they were telling the people what they wanted to hear. “Everything’s going to be okay,” they claimed. “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” they confidently boasted. And, the citizens of Judah must have found these claims to be like music to their ears when compared with Ezekiel’s messages of doom and gloom.

The apostle Paul warned his young protégé, Timothy, that people will always have a partiality for those who tell them what they want to hear.

For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. – 2 Timothy 4:3-4 NLT

While Ezekiel was busy telling the people the truth of God – there were plenty of false prophets happy to provide the people with reassuring words and comforting, yet contradictory messages of hope. These men blatantly repudiated Ezekiel’s prophecies, declaring them to be nothing but lies but God had a different opinion.

"They were lying prophets who claimed peace would come to Jerusalem when there was no peace." – Ezekiel 13:16 NLT

They were deceiving the people by promoting a false sense of calm and assurance when calamity was right around the corner. They were putting words in God’s mouth when they hadn't heard from God at all. Rather than call the people to repentance, they promoted a lifestyle of continuing decadence, immorality, and idolatry.

But God’s indictment of them was severe. He was no longer going to tolerate their deceitful masquerade as His messengers. These self-proclaimed prophets of God were going to find themselves on the receiving end of God’s wrath.

“Because what you say is false and your visions are a lie, I will stand against you, says the Sovereign Lord. I will raise my fist against all the prophets who see false visions and make lying predictions, and they will be banished from the community of Israel. I will blot their names from Israel’s record books, and they will never again set foot in their own land.” – Ezekiel 13:9-10 NLT

They would pay dearly for their penchant for popularity and fame. While the people loved to listen to what they had to say, God had heard enough. Their false claims of peace and safety were highly appealing and caused the people to reject Ezekiel’s less-attractive message of pending judgment.

The people had manufactured unstable walls of security based on wishful thinking, and these pseudo-prophets had validated those false hopes with pleasant-sounding words of affirmation. They concealed the lies with white-washed words of false assurance, like pouring white paint on a poorly constructed wall, in the hopes that it would appear more stable and secure. But in the end, they would find their wall of lies destroyed and their 15 minutes of fame brought to an ignominious end.

“At last my anger against the wall and those who covered it with whitewash will be satisfied. Then I will say to you: ‘The wall and those who whitewashed it are both gone.’” – Ezekiel 13:15 NLT

God's Word can be difficult to understand and even harder to obey. It’s not always easy to comprehend how a loving God can come across as demanding and judgmental. We struggle to deal with the stories in the Old Testament that seem to reveal a God who is quick to anger and not afraid to destroy those who don't measure up to His high standards. Concepts like hell and judgment seem uncharacteristically unloving and therefore, unacceptable to us. So we try to come up with ways to reject or replace them.

We create our own versions of God’s message. We dumb it down, soften it up, make it more palatable, and in the end, spread a false message that is easy on the ears, but destructive to the soul.

Yes, God is love. But His love does not diminish His holiness. He cannot overlook sin or leave it unpunished. That is why He sent His Son to offer His life as payment for the sins of mankind. But if men ignore God's call to righteousness and reject the reality of His coming judgment on all mankind, they will miss out on His offer of salvation through faith in Christ. Men who see no need for salvation because there is no judgment will see no need for a savior.

In Ezekiel’s day, there were plenty of false prophets proclaiming that “all is peaceful.” Today, there are those who prefer to claim that "God is love," while ignoring the truth of His holiness and His hatred for sin. May we never stop speaking the truth of God so that others might receive the grace of God through the free gift of salvation provided by the Son of God.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Universal Body of Christ

12 When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. 13 Do your best to speed Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way; see that they lack nothing. 14 And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful.

15 All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith.

Grace be with you all. – Titus 3:12-15 ESV

The early community of Christ was a close-knit one. Despite the fact that Paul was traveling from one end of the known world to the other, and planting churches in ethnically and geologically diverse regions, they all shared a bond of unity. Wherever they were located, these fledgling communities of faith were in the minority and found themselves facing extreme opposition. To unbelieving Gentiles, Christians were nothing more than a sect of the Jewish religion. After all, the converts to Christianity followed the teachings of an itinerant Jewish rabbi. But to the Jews, Christians represented a dangerous heresy that rejected the Mosaic Law and dismissed the rite of circumcision. So, wherever Paul and his companions preached the gospel and saw its message of faith in Christ take root, they met with strong opposition fueled by extreme antagonism.

These new congregations of believers were often ostracized and isolated from their former communities, and lacked mature spiritual leadership, so Paul felt a strong sense of responsibility to provide them with instruction and encouragement. He wanted them to know that they were part of a much larger community of faith that was spreading around the world. His letters formed a kind of literary highway system linking together these distant and disparate congregations. His growing network of spiritual disciples included men like Timothy, Titus, Artemas, Tychicus, Zenas, and Apollos, who each played a vital role in ministering to the far-flung Christian community. These men provided much-needed spiritual training to the faithful, but they also served as the eyes and ears of Paul, giving him insight into what was happening within the body of Christ around the world.

Paul was constantly traveling from one place to another, fulfilling his commission to take the good news of Jesus Christ to the nations. But he tended to leave a part of his heart in every city, town, and village where the gospel found converts. In many cases, his first visit to a city was his last. His travels didn’t always allow him to circle back and check in on the churches he had helped to plant. And, in time, his lengthy imprisonment in Rome would completely curtail his efforts to minister to those whom he loved like his own children. But Paul never left them without adequate spiritual nourishment or oversight. He desperately wanted them to know that they were all in this together. They were part of a much larger family of faith that God was planting around the world and, for Paul, it was essential that each of these churches understand their role within the bigger picture. Rather than focus all their attention on their particular circumstances, they were to see themselves as members of the growing body of Christ.

Paul firmly believed that when an individual came to faith in Christ, they were to align themselves with a local faith community. They were not to act as a free agent, operating Lone Ranger style, independent and isolated from other Christians in their community. This corporate mentality was essential to the spiritual well-being of the individual and the community. And for Paul, it went well beyond geographic confines. He often used the metaphor of the human body as a way of illustrating the interconnected and interdependent nature of the body of Christ.

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit. – 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 NLT

The concept of a global church made up of people from all walks of life, every conceivable economic background, and diverse ethnic makeups was revolutionary. And this new admixture of individuals into a mutually beneficial community of faith was making a radical impact on the world. The church was growing and people were noticing. And Paul was obsessed with getting his expanding family of faith to understand their need for one another. He encouraged an attitude of generosity and selflessness and praised the churches in Macedonia for their gracious giving toward the needs of the church in Jerusalem.

For I can testify that they gave not only what they could afford, but far more. And they did it of their own free will. They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in Jerusalem. They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do. – 2 Corinthians 8:3-5 NLT

Paul went on to encourage the believers in Corinth to follow the example of the Macedonian churches.

Right now you have plenty and can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal. – 2 Corinthians 8:11 NLT

And Paul wanted the believers on Crete to have the same attitude, telling Titus, “let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful” (Titus 3:14 ESV).

The church is a living organism, not an organization. It is an interactive, interdependent collection of individuals who have been formed into a worldwide community that is to reflect the unity of the Godhead. And the letter that Paul wrote to Titus is as applicable today as it was in the 1st Century in which he penned it. His call to Christ-likeness, humility, submission, service, and an unwavering commitment to the truth is as vital today as it ever was. The words Paul used to open his letter still apply.

I have been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives. – Titus 1:1 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.