Paul the Ambassador (06/04/22)

It may be that my attention turns to Paul at this point primarily because of having spent some time reading background on the man.  I would have to say I have long found his writing most compelling, and his example almost heroic.  There is a certain genius to the man that shines through in his presentation of ideas, his defense of truth.  And yet, that genius doesn’t leave him remote or aloof.  He is a humble man even in his pride, if one can accept that possibility.  He is, as are most of us, a complex individual with many facets, and these facets can at times seem to be at odds one with another.

But what particularly resonates with me, I suspect, is the way in which multiple threads of culture combine in this man.  He is a Roman citizen and shows a demonstrable appreciation for Roman law and the Roman concern with justice.  He appeals often to imagery drawn from the ever-present Roman military.  And this, in spite of the typical resentment against that military presence that one might expect from those who lived in what amounted to conquered lands.  At the same time, he is a Greek citizen, well-versed in Greek culture, as was the bulk of the western world at that juncture.  He doesn’t reject it, but embraces it in spirit.  It renders him curious and investigative.  It imparts to him a deep love of truth, of reality, far and away beyond what one might receive from rabbinic education.  And yet, he can add this as well.  He is a Jew, a Jew of the Jews, as he says, and a Pharisee of Pharisees.  He has learned from one of the best, being a student taught by Gamaliel.  But his is not the insular, isolationist Judaism of the Jerusalem native, but rather a Hellenistic Judaism, able to adapt to the world as it is, yet without abandoning all that goes into making a Pharisee a Pharisee.

The ISBE article observes that it is quite reasonable to suggest that Pharisaism found its purpose fulfilled in Paul.  They had begun as a movement seeking to pursue true holiness, seeking full obedience to Mosaic law in every least aspect of life.  They wanted to be pure, the called out ones.  Paul had found the necessary path to that desired end.  Or, we should more rightly say, that Way found him.  The Way met him and altered forever the course of his life.

Now, let’s understand.  That change of course did not consist in erasing his past.  It did not require forcible rejection of everything he had learned up to that point.  It required adapting those ideas to deeper truths, to be sure, and yes, we will insist that with the birth of the new man, the old man is passing away.  But that is the old man of sin.  There was nothing sinful about lawful concerns for justice, nor in appealing to his civil rights as a citizen of Rome.  There was nothing sinful about familiarity with Greek philosophy, or Greek approaches to teaching.  There was nothing sinful about being Greek.  No, nor was there something inherently sinful about being a Pharisee either.  It was not the cultural influence that rendered a sinner a sinner, anymore than it was the mere physical reality of being a descendant of Abraham in the flesh that rendered one a child of God’s kingdom.

In Paul, then, we have a very cosmopolitan man of his times, blending the best of these cultures in his character, and the whole then infinitely improved by the presence of the indwelling Spirit of God.  The article concludes at one point, “He is what he is because of original endowments, the world of his day, and his experience of Jesus Christ.”  I observed when I read that, and maintain it now, that this is an apt description of each and every one of us.  We can have our arguments as to how much is down to inheritance, how much to environment, and how much to instruction, but however much is attributable to which, we are who we are because of who we have been.  But always with this, the experience of Jesus Christ.  In some form, in some fashion, each of us who finds himself a Christian has had experience of Jesus Christ.

Some, in those earliest days, had the privilege of personal acquaintance in the flesh.  Some had walked with Him, talked with Him, shared life with Him for those few brief years.  Some, like Paul, knew Him only in passing, only by reference.  But there came that moment of realization, however it came, that here in Jesus Christ one had met more than a man and more than a legend.  Here, one had met the very living Son of the living God.  One had, in a word, met God.  That’s going to change a person.  But it doesn’t erase personality.  You can see it in the writing of any of the Apostles or their representatives.  Their personalities come through.  Peter is distinctly Peter in his letters, as John is distinctly John.  These are flesh and blood men, with flesh and blood thoughts and emotions.  And they speak from flesh and blood minds, albeit minds informed of the Holy Spirit.

But Paul is something special, isn’t he?  He comes out of a city at the junction of East and West, and it shows in his ways.  It produced this man, Paul, with his unique combination of Greek and Jewish, of scholar and rabbi.  He was, in a word, uniquely prepared for the commission which Jesus had in mind for him.  Now, this should wake us up just a bit.  We have, to this day, those who would advocate that the Church must restore the Jewish style of teaching to have her vigor, that the Greek influences upon the church have been to her detriment, and somehow opposed to God’s intent.  But look at this vessel he chose to establish that church!  “He is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and sons of Israel” (Ac 9:15).  Thus sayeth the Lord!  The God of Providence has prepared him for just such a time, for just such an assignment.

God, it seems, was not particularly offended by Greek philosophy, nor by their love of Truth.  Why would He be?  God IS Truth.  God, ultimately, had determined that this Paul would be born of a Jewish family with Roman citizenship in the Greek city of Tarsus with all its Asian influences.  This wasn’t a mistake, and it wasn’t an accident.  It was preparation.  And so, we are presented with Paul, a man in whom intellectual acumen meets spiritual enlightenment, in whom eastern and western ways combine to mold the mind of the man.  And we discover him to be multi-faceted in his character, almost to the point of being self-contradictory.  But I would have to maintain, almost.  He is no more or less self-contradictory than any of us.  We all have our multiplicity of concerns, of moods, of interests. 

So, yes, we find Paul to be humble, yet at the same time clearly self-confident.  We see that he can he had his moments of depression, and also that he was oft-times scaling the heights of a victorious spirit.  He could be stern, some would argue off-putting, particularly in defending the truth of the Gospel against falsehoods.  But he was also a most tender caretaker of those whom he taught.  He was, as the article in the ISBE observes, ‘keenly intellectual and profoundly mystical’.  He was a brilliant scholar, a wise rabbi, a skilled statesman.  He had the skills to present his case before one and all, and to do so without becoming combative, but rather, arguing from reason, explaining with care, as he would instruct, “speaking the truth in love” (Eph 4:15).  In short, he was an imaginative and passionate leader, with wisdom to organize, authority to command, and a passion and affection perfectly adapted to attract and encourage his converts.

Indeed, it is that last, that passionate affection which shines through in this passage, a matter I want to explore further in the next portion of this study.  Given modern sensibilities, it comes across as being almost too strong.  Oh, how I have longed to see your faces once more!  I have been orphaned from you this short time, but it seems long, and I desire so much to be with you.  It sounds almost a love letter, doesn’t it?  And some, no doubt, would attempt to make it out to be just that, suggesting some sort of impropriety is veiled beneath.  But then, such people want to find those same thinly veiled eroticisms in every author, as if the entirety of ancient society was in fact homo-erotic and supportive of the very sort of perversity that is so rampant today.  Far from it!  Rather, these were men comfortable in their own skin, and deeply concerned for their fellow man, which is to say humanity at large, or at least that portion of humanity which could be accounted brothers and sisters in the faith.  And Paul’s Christianity knew no bounds as to who might in fact be such a brother or sister.

So, once again appealing to that ISBE article, what we have in Paul is a passionate concern for the spiritual well-being of his converts that really does exceed that of a mere pastor, or perhaps we had better say such a passionate concern as ought to prove exemplary to the pastor.  It is a concern that approaches the passion of a mother or father for their child, a passion that approaches that of spouse for spouse.  We’re not considering arousal here, but passionate concern.  There is, if you will, a certain fierceness of care that applies in regard to such near relations that rarely if ever finds application at wider range.  And yet…

And yet, we are called into this new family, with bonds stronger than that of parent and child, stronger than that of husband and wife.  As Table Talk brought to mind this morning, “These are My mother, My brothers and sisters” (Mk 3:33).  Look around you this Sunday.  Consider well those near strangers in the pews around you.  These are your brothers and sisters.  These are those who ought to have that same fierce care as you have had for your children as they grew, that you have for your husband or wife.  Indeed, more so, if it be the case that spouse or child has rejected our Lord and Savior.  Oh, I don’t suggest we give up on these wandering individuals.  Far from it!  It may well be that they are wandering sheep whom our Lord would see found and restored to His fold.  And it may well fall to us to be His ambassadors to them, His undershepherds seeking to see them safely back.  But if they will not have it, then our first loyalty must yet be to Him Who called us out of our darkness, out of their darkness, and into His marvelous light.  Yet even then, we can pray.  Even then, we can appeal to our loving Lord that He might yet save them, and make them, as He has us, His own.

Let us, then, resolve to take this complex man as the example God made him to be.  “Follow me, as I follow Christ” (1Co 11:1).  Hold to the truth, just as he delivered it to us.  God caused him to be author of much of Scripture in the New Testament for a reason, and those who would reject his writing as being insufficiently Jewish, or some personal bending of the Gospel to his own purposes do a great disservice both to themselves and to God.  For our part, let us learn from Paul to love both the Greek and the Jewish education presented to us in these words God has seen fit to record for our benefit.  And let us benefit from both the Greek and the Jewish, that we may be taught in full of all that God would seek to make known to us.  Then, let us resolve to live it, and to impart it to a world in need around us.  For this is ever our commission and our purpose.  Like Esther, like Paul, you have been fashioned for just such a time as this.  You are no accident of circumstances, but a vessel carefully prepared by a master craftsman to serve your specific purpose.

Paul's Love Language (06/08/22-06/09/22)

In this passage Paul really does set forth a depth and a tenderness of connection between himself and this group of believers.  He speaks of being bereft by his absence, using a term, aporphanisthentes, which has its primary meaning in the idea of being orphaned.  The Lexham translation has it, “We were made orphans by separation from you, brothers.”  You could almost go to the point of something in us died with that separation, but that might take it too far.  But there is that feeling of significant loss.  The loss of contact with you has hit us like losing our parents.  It hurts.

And yes, it’s only been for a short while, a season perhaps.  As with much of this short passage, Paul’s use of language displays his familiarity with the culture in which he dwells and to which he writes.  This is not just trying to put Jewish thought in Greek words.  It’s something of a command of the language.  This separation has been for kairon horas.  As we see throughout the several translations, the combination of these two terms supplies the sense of a short season.  The YLT supplies the idea of ‘having been taken from you for the space of an hour’.  But I wonder how much of the original sense of these two words remains in some way.  We have kairon, which usually has about it the idea of a specific time or season which has a specific purpose.  It is the right time, the due time.  Horas has the idea of a specific, generally brief time, an hour or a day.  So, the separation has not been so long as all that, but it has felt long, and left a longing to restore fellowship.

It may have been ever so necessary that this separation transpire, and to be sure, God has His reasons, and therefore, God’s man can but accede to His will and turn himself to that purpose.  And yet, physical separation need not mean termination of the relationship.  Out of sight is not, for Paul, out of mind.  He makes that plain as well.  This bereaving separation has been prosepe, not kardia.  Most literally, that translates as ‘in face, not in heart’.  Though we cannot see you, cannot be face to face with you, yet our heart remains with you, and we have you in our hearts.

Go back to the beginning of this epistle.  “We give thanks to God always for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers, constantly recalling your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Th 1:2-3).  He’s not adding rhetorical flourish here.  He means just that.  You are in our hearts.  You are by no means forgotten by us.  We have not seen you converted and moved on.  We weren’t only in it for the money.  What money?  We never asked for any, did we?  We didn’t even take so much as a meal from you in payment for our preaching.  Far from it!  No.  This is an epistle from the heart, that heart which remains with them even though bereft of their immediate company.

And what has been the heart’s response?  We were that much more determined to see our desire to see your faces again satisfied.  We were preissoteros, which Strong delivers as more superabundantly.  You know, that same sense in which our cup overflows with the superabundance of blessings poured out upon us by our Lord.  That sort of overflowing abundance of purpose.  And it was applied to espoudasamen.  We made all speed, made every effort.  This was our epithumia.  In other settings, we might see that as lust, longing desire for the forbidden.  Normally, I think we hear this term with a certain degree of sexual connotation to it, particularly given that sense of forbidden desire.  Oh, and our flesh knows just how potent such forbidden desires can be.  As a choice of words, then, it is powerful in this context.  But don’t read that sensuality into it in this case.  It is an intensity of longing to reestablish fellowship, and yes, as the failure of those efforts to achieve his ends has shown, it was indeed forbidden, at least to Paul.

Timothy, we know, did indeed return, for it is his reunion with Paul after that mission which has given rise to our letter here.  So, the entire ‘we’ was not forbidden the restoration of fellowship.  Silas may have been back as well.  We don’t know, because nothing specific is said of his activities during this period.  But what we do know is that Paul, personally, was unable to return.  We’ll get to that in the next part.  But the overall impact of this last part of Chapter 2 is to put on clear display the tender care and concern of Paul for his converts.

And this, perhaps, brings us to another point of application to consider.  How does it feel when we find it necessary to separate from a brother or sister we have known?  Perhaps some necessity of life has led to them moving away or perhaps it is we who have relocated.  Or perhaps one or the other has found it needful to depart the church not due to relocation but due to issues of doctrine, or something less significant that loomed too large to be tolerated.  Let us suppose a relatively benign cause for the separation.  Perhaps a family or an individual has merely been absent for a season due to travel or illness or some such.  Do you notice?  Does it occur to you to reach out and discover what’s going on with them, to let them know their absence has in fact been noticed?  And if it does at least occur to you that so and so has been away rather a long while, do you do anything by way of acting on your concerns?

Look at this display before us.  Paul, one senses, is almost in tears with the frustration of being unable to return and spend more time with this church.  Of course, he is ever and always God’s man, and as God directs, so he will do.  But he’s not inhuman.  He’s not devoid of emotions, nor of the need, the very human need for fellowship.  Yes, he has the comradery of his immediate coworkers, at least on occasion.  He had just come from that period in Athens, where it seems he was pretty much on his own entirely, but by and large, we usually find him with a small circle of fellow travelers alongside.  But there is a hurt, a sadness of sorts, for the necessity of being away from these wonderful folk.  It’s not just Thessalonica, nor even just Macedonia, though it seems clear that these are his greatest achievements for the gospel to date.  We don’t find them battling quite the way those churches in Asia Minor did.  He isn’t faced with the need to defend the faith so much, to put out fires of doubt and disorder.

Honestly, if this letter had come later in his ministry one would see that much more cause for his desire to be with this group.  They were solid.  They weren’t a problem needing attention, but a body of growing, steadfast faith.  They would be a relief and a pleasure to be among in a way that could not be said so much regarding Galatia, or Corinth.  We could add Colossae in there, but there isn’t quite the same personal connection involved in that instance.  Point is, Paul really misses these folks.  And it holds for all the churches.  He has a deep, intimate connection to these people, even those ones in Colossae whom he didn’t really know quite so personally.  He knew them as individuals, not as credits in his work ledger.  He knew specifics.  He knew their needs and their strengths.  And where he was serving more actively, we can safely assume he knew them that much more.

So, again, what of us?  Can we say the same?  I know that for my part the answer is sadly no.  I mean, there are those who have touched my life rather deeply along the course of this Christian walk, men like Dennis, like Jeff, like Peter, like Paul.  There are the pastors who have been significant in my growth, particularly Pastor Rafoul and Pastor Dana, and, though known for so brief a time, Pastor Barnest.  But by and large, if I’m honest, it wasn’t so long before all attempt at maintaining connection ceased.  Indeed, for the most part, it was like a switch had been thrown:  Relationship on; relationship off.  Now, I can argue that this is pretty much how I am with other folks outside the church as well, but that’s hardly an argument for saying it’s okay that this is so.

Paul sets an example for us here.  His care for these people, though he’s been gone some months now, remains that of a parent for his own children.  His example, though, is not of special Paul.  It is of our Lord’s own care.  He is, after all, an Apostle, an ambassador of Christ Jesus, as we were reminded yesterday, a slave of our mutual Lord.  But a slave cares more of necessity than of heartfelt concern.  Sure, there might develop a certain tenderness of a tutor for the child he teaches.  I don’t think that was uncommon at all, that a sort of bond would form in such cases.  But still, it is not the bond of parent and child – at least that bond that ought to pertain between parent and child.  It is not the bond we might feel towards our siblings, even.  And if that slave is sold off, or the child grows and heads off into a life of his own, those bonds will fade quickly enough, to be replaced by new bonds, perhaps, new connections.

In some regards, I suppose we can insist this is only normal.  After all, a man can maintain only so many true friends, for friendship requires effort.  But we are called to greater effort here.  “These are My mother, My brothers.”  These are your mother, your brothers.  Care for one another.  What do you suppose Paul’s concern for edification entailed, if not care for one another?  What is the idea behind counting others as more important than yourself, or being servant to all, if not that care?  And why?  Because Jesus, your Lord, your King, your Savior, your Teacher, cares.  He cares for you.  He cares about them.  And He has set you to be His agents, His instruments by which to administer that care for one another.

It is one of the sorrows, I have to admit, of my term as elder that in spite of the multiple years I spent in that office, I could not say that I had any deep knowledge or concern for those who found themselves on my shepherding list.  I could argue there were too many, or that it simply proved impossible to even identify some of them, let alone get to know them.  I could write it off as just part of my introverted nature, that I was and am unlikely to really make much attempt.  I could excuse myself because time simply did not permit.  But the simple truth of the matter is that little attempt was ever made to do anything about this.  It really didn’t require much of any obstacle to prevent me connecting. 

And here I wonder why I feel so little connection of late.  It’s not a great mystery, is it?  One wants easy answers to the dilemma.  One wants to point fingers elsewhere.  That’s certainly preferable to shouldering the blame in oneself, after all.  But there’s no place to transfer this burden, no other to hold blamable.  There is, however, One who is closer than a brother, Who will gladly set to work that I might more readily, more fully represent Him Who saved me.  Perhaps if I asked Him, and set myself open to truly follow His direction, things might change, eh?

Well, Lord, I’m asking.  I confess I have my doubts as to my willingness, but such as I am able to be, I am in fact willing.  Help me, my King, my Brother, to break out of this shell, to set aside concerns for awkwardness or discomfort, and truly connect with this body of which You have long since made me a part.  And, though I truly doubt it is the case, should it be needful in Your view that I separate and move on, direct and find me again willing to follow as You lead.  But if this continues to be the body into which You would have me knit, then guide me, that I may be about that which is pleasing in Your sight; that I might grow in this area of connection and concern for my fellow limbs.

Opposition (06/07/22)

One part of the genius of Scripture is seen in the way we can look at Paul’s epistles alongside the book of Acts and find such correlation between them, or the way we can consider the several gospels, each with its own unique authorship and perspective, and see that indeed, they do tell us the same history, even with their distinctions in detail.  At the same time, where this confirming witness is lacking it can lead to questions, can’t it?  I mean, it’s hardly proof of falsehood that Luke did not see it serving his purpose to include particular details in his account of those early years, but it gives pause nonetheless.  Why doesn’t Acts mention these occasions when Paul tried to head back to Thessalonica?

Perhaps it is that brief stay in Berea that is in view, and the opposition really is noted, but not its roots in Satan.  If we look at the brief record of events as we have them in Acts 17, we see that the team passed through a couple of places en route from Philippi to Thessalonica, without any suggestion that they stopped to preach there for a time.  Perhaps they served as overnight stops for the weary traveler, or perhaps they simply mark the route taken.  But departing Thessalonica, they went to Berea, ‘and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews’ (Ac 17:10).  So, perhaps the more intriguing question for us is, did they do so in those other places?  But here, there is clear purpose in Luke’s mention of the event, and that is to contrast the reception Paul had in that synagogue to the response he met with in Thessalonica.  He concludes, “These were more noble-minded, for they received the word with great eagerness, and examined the Scriptures daily to confirm whether what we were saying was indeed so” (Ac 17:11).

But opposition arose again, and had its immediate source back in Thessalonica, in the first synagogue mentioned, where Paul had spoken for three weeks, reasoning with them to little or no avail (Ac 17:2-4).  So great was their jealousy at the loss of members due to his teaching, that they had come even to Berea to stir up trouble.  And while it proved possible for Silas and Timothy to remain, Paul was too readily recognized, and they sent him off by sea to get him out of harm’s way (Ac 17:15). 

Is that what he has in mind here?  But that only accounts for one such occasion when he might have wished to return but could not.  And even there, the only thing suggesting his desire to return is the fact that they hadn’t simply passed through on their way to greener pastures.  The text continues with brief account of Paul’s efforts in Athens, which it seems met with no success whatsoever, or minimal success at any rate, for ‘some men joined him and believed,’ (Ac 17:34) including a few at least known to Luke by name.  But there’s no suggestion that he tried to go back north.  We simply learn that he went to Corinth.

Yet, here is Paul saying how they desired to return to Thessalonica, himself personally ‘once and twice’, which is to say more than once.  Why no mention of this?  I have to suggest the simplest of reasons.  It did not serve Luke’s purpose to bring it up.  He is not, after all, composing a diary or a travelog.  He is presenting an account of the early development of the Church.  There is purpose to focusing on Peter and John at the outset, for they were important to that development.  Peter, in particular, sets the stage for Paul, and much of the earliest coverage of Paul is organized to show the parallels to Peter, until we find the account of Paul’s ministry thoroughly eclipsing that of Peter.  Is there intent in this, of moving Peter more to the background?  I don’t really think that’s the design.  We might suggest that in expanding into the regions of Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia, even into Rome itself, the Church had grown much larger than the more localized scope of Peter.  It’s not that Peter wanted nothing to do with the Gentile ministry, but it wasn’t his assignment.  They were one, the Jerusalem church and the Gentile church, and Peter and Paul had their specific duties within that united whole.  But the Church was one, and the Apostles were one.

I find no other answer to my question as to the absence of mention of any attempted return in the record of Acts.  It simply did not serve the point of that text.  And we might recall that writing materials did not come cheap, and even such as Luke, with his medical training, were not rich folk, certainly not as they trekked through the known world, finding such employments as they could to support themselves as they spread the Gospel.  Space was at something of a premium, and what did not serve the purpose would be trimmed to ensure room for what did need to be said.

So we shall have to take Paul at his word.  “Again and again I wanted to come.”  How great was my desire to do so.  Now, the Weymouth translation takes a bit of liberty here, and suggests, “at least I Paul wanted again and again to do so.”  I’m sorry.  I don’t see a basis for that, and it quite simply does not fit the tone of this letter, which, apart from this passage, and a few points in the following chapter, remains steadfastly a message from the team, not just Paul.  All three of us write.  All three of us wanted to come to you.  Timothy was able to.  We don’t know about Silas.  But Paul could not, and that had raised questions as to why not.  Well, here was answer.  Try as he might, he could not.

And here, there is reason assigned to that inability.  It wasn’t circumstance, and it wasn’t lack of interest on his part.  It was because Satan cut him off.  In its way, it can sound almost like Satan cut in on Paul’s dance, and I could almost allow such imagery given the persistent intimacy of phrasing in this part.  How we longed to see your face again!  The pain of absence was like being orphaned, so bereft were we at the necessity of departing you.  Without lapsing into anything even vaguely erotic, yet there is that feeling of absent lovers, or of what gets described as empty nest syndrome.  There’s a homesickness, we might say.  We wanted so much to be back among you, but Satan cut in.

He cut us off at every attempt.  And again, we don’t know how many such attempts there were; not so many, it would seem, that it disrupted Paul’s capacity to minister where he was, but sufficient to demonstrate to him rather conclusively that the path simply was not open to him.  And this may raise another question with us.  It may have raised a question with them, for all that.  If this God Paul served was so all-powerful, and Paul so fully His man, how could Satan do anything significant to stop him?  Was Satan, then, more powerful than this God Paul preached?  Certainly, he’d love to have it believed that this was the case.  He’s always trying to take God’s place in our thinking, and it almost feels as though Paul has played right into his hands with this comment.

But the reality is that Paul could just as readily and just as correctly have said that God was the one who did not permit his return.  This is perhaps the greater truth, and I have no doubt whatsoever that Paul understood this to be the case.  It was the same directing of the servant that had applied up in Troas, and had led Paul to visit Macedonia in the first place.  He had his ideas and plans.  God had better things in mind.  “No, Paul.  You are to go this way.”  The same has happened here.  Paul wanted to go back to where there had been successful planting, where he was appreciated, welcomed, even if there were those who hated him up there.  But God had better things in mind.  “No, Paul.  You are to go this way.”

Why attribute it to Satan, then?  My answer would be that Paul would not have any seed of doubt planted in their minds as to God’s love for them.  If he had written that God would not permit his return, there is that question put in mind as to what God had against them.  Had they displeased Him in some manner?  Was He mad at them?  Was all lost, after all?  And given those hints we have that concerns were rising that maybe they had missed the cut, and the Second Coming had already come and gone, this was the last thing they needed to have suggested to their thinking.

So, Paul attributes to Satan the opposition, and this is true.  But it is not because he is some power on par with God, as might be seen in other conceptions of religion in that era.  It is not like there are two equal but opposing deities duking it out, and poor mankind tossed about by their conflict.  Let us understand this, and understand it fully.  Satan, for all his power relative to man, remains absolutely and utterly subordinate to God.  He may be a usurper, but because that usurpation has been permitted by the One who truly possesses the power of the throne.  What he had put on offer to Jesus was not his to give.  Indeed, I think we would have to argue that Jesus had, for that season, given it to him, and with His ascension, He had received back that which was His all along.

Satan, we learn, has been thrown down, kicked out of heaven.  Whereas he could come wandering through to chat with God previously, and to raise questions about God’s people, as we see him doing in Job, that permit has been revoked.  The Son will not grant him audience.  The Accuser has been cast down.  He is not yet powerless, nor is he a fool.  He has his wiles.  He has his followers.  He has the delusional belief that he can in fact peel away those whom Christ has redeemed, but he cannot.  “For no one is able to snatch them from My Father’s hand” (Jn 10:29).  That is our story.  But he can trouble and tempt.  He can and does pose as an angel of light, we are warned (2Co 11:14).  It’s a favorite game of his.  Mimic the good and lead into evil.  Arguably, every false religion that has ever troubled the world, or does so at this day, is part of that game.  But it is at its worst when he manages to get his deceiving minion into the pulpit of the church.  We are seeing it over and over again, those who should shepherd the church instead proving to be wolves and worse; taking their place in the place of life to spread their doctrines of death.  Woe unto them who so seek to destroy the souls of men even as they smile benignly upon them.

And again, we must remain steadfast in our realization that even with this, they can but do so much as God permits.  Satan opposes the work of the Church at every turn, as he has ever sought to oppose the eternal purposes of God in Creation.  He did so with Eve.  He did so with the temptations and trials of Joseph.  He did so with Abraham’s attempts to speed things along, with David’s failures with Bathsheba, and his failures as a father.  We could keep going.  It doesn’t stop.  But neither does the purpose of God.  Neither does the Church.  For all that we may see particular circumstances of failure, or even whole denominations led off into corrupted beliefs and practices, yet the Church does not diminish.  It but reforms.  It is but purified, with those who had the look but not the reality cleansed away, their real condition shown for what it is.  And so, the opposition of Satan is shown to be bent to the purposes of God.

The article in Fausset’s Encyclopedia observes, “Satan tempts, but cannot force, man’s will.”  Just as sin is the product of an already sinful heart, as Table Talk was noting in the article I read last night, so the succumbing to temptation is the product of a will already corrupted.  It is an evidencing of what already was, not a failure of God’s workmanship in transformation.  Satan seeks to take advantage of our natural propensities to turn us against the work of God in us.  But God is greater.  We have to know this.

There will be opposition.  There will always be opposition.  It may even prove deadly opposition.  This new life is not promise of health and wealth in the present age.  It is the assurance that, ‘even though he dies, yet shall he live’ (Jn 11:25-26).  This is the potency of life which Jesus Christ has given out to us from His very essence.  “I AM the resurrection and the life […] and everyone who believes in Me shall never die.”  And as Martha had to hear, so do we, “Do you believe this?”  In this life you have tribulations.  They will abuse you, disown you, even kill you.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.  That is the message we are given.  That is the God we love and serve.

Is there opposition?  You bet.  Is it the work of Satan?  More than likely.  Is God in control?  Absolutely.  The question for us is not what Satan is up to, but what is God telling us?  Where, Lord, would You have us to go?  What would You have us do?  If not this way, then what?

Paul, whatever else may be said of him, was wholly and entirely God’s man.  We sang the song last Sunday.  “Where You go I’ll go, where You stay I’ll stay.  Where lead, I will follow.”  And that’s exactly it.  It sounds rather like the Exodus, doesn’t it?  If the pillar moves, follow it.  If it parks, we camp.  What God says we do, we do.  But the fear is gone.  It’s not the intimidated obedience of one fearful of being squashed should he step out of line.  It is the desire, the longing hunger to see God’s kingdom more fully established, to see all the lost found and, should God so will it, the whole of humanity redeemed and reborn.  Nevertheless, Lord, Thy will be done.

This, I think must be our fundamental takeaway from Paul’s observation of plans thwarted.  He is God’s man, and moves at God’s direction.  If God chooses to direct via dreams and visions, then be so directed.  If He chooses to direct by opposition, let us be attentive to His leading even in that opposition and seek out what it is He would have us to do.  And, for those too enamored of the viscerally supernatural, if He chooses to lead by the simple word of Scripture read, preached, heard, understood, surely that should suffice, shouldn’t it?

Are we, as Paul, God’s men?  We who claim to love Him and serve Him, are we truly ready and willing to say, “Thy will be done.”  We pray it.  Do we mean it?  Can we live it?  Can we greet each day with the deliberate purpose of seeking out the Lord to know what He would have us to do with it?  Or shall we go our own way and ask only that He might bless us with success as we pursue our own agenda?

Can we, like Paul, accept that how God leads is secondary and less to where He is leading, to what He is leading us to do?  This is a question for us both as a church and as the individual members thereof.  It is a question of life or death.  It is a choice of life or death.  Let us, then, choose life and obedience to Him Who IS the Life.

Triad of Victory (06/08/22)

I have observed previously the way in which Paul piles terms together in threes when making his point.  We have that again here in what I have labeled a triad of victory.  He points to these joyful, faithful believers in Thessalonica and says, “Who is our hope, our joy, our crown of exultation?”  In my paraphrase, I have opted to present his answer as exclamation rather than as follow-on question.  “It’s you!  It’s you standing in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming!”  It’s as though he simply can’t say enough about them, about this.  It is the reason he seeks opportunity to return to them.  It’s the reason his absence from them is such agony to him.

And let’s observe closely:  The reason is not about him.  It’s not that he so wants the pleasure of their company, though he does want that.  It’s not that they belong to him, certainly.  It’s not that he sees them as a prize in themselves.  It’s all about God.  They are an evidence that his labors have not been in vain.  Think of this in contrast to his deep concern for the church in Galatia, and his reason for consulting with the other Apostles in Jerusalem.  “I went to them privately, for concern that I might be running, or had run, in vain” (Gal 2:2).  Paul may not have had his teaching at their feet, but he was not so proud and aloof as to suppose himself infallible in the realm of revelation.  It was an extraordinary message given by extraordinary measures.  I should think we, should we experience such a thing, might wish confirmation as well.

But go later in the letter.  “I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain” (Gal 4:11).  What is that fear?  I would say it’s that they won’t be found standing in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming.  It’s that they were converts in name only, people who had, to put it in modern context, said the sinner’s prayer, and come to church for a few weeks, but soon returned to the world and its ways.  It was concern that they might prove to have been seed cast on stony ground, or weedy ground. 

No such concern besets him in regard to this church in Thessalonica.  In spite of the relative brevity of his time with them, it’s quite clear that the Gospel is well and truly planted among them.  Persecution has not dislodged their faith, nor dampened their joy.  That’s not to say they have become blithely dismissive of the trials of life.  But the power of God indwelling has allowed them to face those trials in the strength of faith, to weather the storms of life with untrammeled grace.

There are a few people in my life that I can think of who really embodied this sort of faith to me.  There was one on the Cape, who suffered malady that could be occasionally debilitating, as her knees were greatly afflicted.  Yet, at least in our sight, there was never any sense that she grew angry with God over the situation, or that her joy in Him was in any way diminished.  I think of another dear sister, afflicted with MS, yet always, always of joyful countenance, ready and anxious to praise her Lord and King.  This is, to my thinking, the sort of faith we are being shown in these Thessalonians.  Their joy is contagious.  Their joy is noteworthy, to the point that when folks talk of them down in Corinth, this is their main descriptive for those people.  They are persecuted by all, and yet, they are joyful in their love of Christ and in their hospitality to all who love Him.

That’s a faith that’s going to weather the storms of life.  That’s life that’s going to weather even the trauma of physical death.  That’s the Spirit of the Lord indwelling.  I see that I have picked up Paul’s habit of triads.  It is rather contagious.  But you see it here.  It’s not that they are some prize Paul will be awarded in heaven.  Indeed, I don’t know as we see Paul all that concerned about rewards.  He’s not ignorant of such things, not beyond delighting in them.  But they aren’t the point.  The point is here:  You standing when He comes.  The point is disciples both made and established.

You, standing fast:  That is the crown of victory to Paul, for that is the sort of crown we are considering here.  What is put before our mind’s eye is the sort of wreath that would be presented to the victor in an athletic competition such as the Olympics or their like.  It is, as Peter reminds, a crown that will soon enough fade.  It has no intrinsic worth, really, for it cannot last.  But it is a mark of honor, of recognition, and that’s really what all of this comes down to.  On what basis can I expect our Lord Jesus to recognize any worth or reputation in me?  It’s you, steadfast in faith.  It’s you still firm in your hope when He comes.

The Son of Man, He Himself tells us, is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and He will repay every man according to his deeds (Mt 16:27).  How do you hear that?  How do your thoughts respond to this assurance?  Do you feel surging joy, knowing that you have been faithfully about the business of your Lord, assured that you will hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant”?  Do you, perhaps, know some little trepidation that perhaps, though your faith has been firm enough, you haven’t really done as you ought?  Maybe you feel more the man with one talent than the other two in that parable.  You didn’t lose anything, but on the other hand, neither did you gain anything for your Master.  Perhaps you somehow manage to remain ambivalent, leaning in hard on God’s grace, and thinking well, so long as I get in, good enough.  It’s just not all that clear to me that such a skate-save faith is actually going to be good enough.  Recall the result for that servant given one talent.  “Cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 25:30).  It’s not enough that you held fast to your ticket.  There remains the question:  What have you done for Me, given all I have done for you?

Now, certainly Paul has no concern for being found like that poor slave.  Nor does he labor for recognition.  He’s not busy polishing his trophy for being an Apostle.  He’s not carefully making accounts of this many saved today, that many the day before.  He’s not keeping tallies.  He’s making disciples.  There’s certainly a lesson for us in that, isn’t there?  Too often we get heavily focused on making conversions.  We want that sinner’s prayer recited, the “I believe” cards dropped in the plate, or whatever it is we take as the marker for another sinner saved.  And yes, these are exciting things, and we do right to celebrate.  Jesus tells us even the angels in heaven celebrate at the rescue of one sinner.  Can you imagine, then, the ruckus in heaven at that first Pentecost sermon Peter preached?

But here’s the thing.  Conversions aren’t our calling.  They are part of it, but they aren’t enough.  Making disciples is our calling, and making disciples requires time and concerted effort.  I think this was Paul’s primary agony in being apart from these young disciples.  He knew the time it took to truly establish a body of believers in sound faith.  It couldn’t be done overnight.  It couldn’t be properly done even in a year.  There is so much that needs to be taught, both in word and example.  There is the need to oversee, to truly know these individuals and whether in fact God’s Truth has taken hold of them to the root, or whether they are but being sociable.  Are they Christians in Name Only, or True Believers?  A few Sunday services aren’t enough to tell.  For all that, a lifetime of Sunday services won’t suffice to tell.  It requires life lived together, true fellowship and intimate acquaintance over time.  It needs time for mistakes to be recognized and addressed, to see that flickering spark of faith fanned to true and eternal flame.

So, the report Paul had of these converts up in Thessalonica was heartening indeed.  It had been too brief.  The sparks were at great risk of being snuffed out.  There was a reason he had sent young Timothy to go back in spite of the potential risk to his person.  After all, while Paul was clearly the more visible and known leader, Silas and Timothy would be recognizable as well.  Nor was Timothy likely to have been hiding away his presence there.  He may not have been preaching in the synagogue, but he wasn’t preaching in a closet, either.  He was ministering to these people, and this would be known.  It didn’t matter.  What mattered was God’s redeemed firmly established on solid foundations of faith.

And the report he brought back confirmed just that:  In spite of the brevity of Paul’s time with them, they were indeed firmly established.  Theirs was a faith that he had every reason to expect would find them, as he says, standing in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming.  There had been a victory over sin here, over death and death’s patron, Satan.  Satan may have succeeded in preventing Paul’s return, but he had not succeeded in thwarting the Gospel.  Indeed, as I discussed in the previous section, even that preventive move had in fact been to God’s good purpose, though that good purpose was hardly Satan’s intent.  It had kept Paul on the course God intended.  No, dear child, but it’s to Corinth I need you to go just now.  There is work to be done there, and I have many in that city who need to hear what I have given you to say.

So, then, what Paul is pointing to as his crown of victory is the clear evidence of his labors in them.  They were duly established.  They would not fall away.  This, the assurance of their steadfastness in faith, was his hope and joy.  It wasn’t for his personal reputation.  It was simply the joy of knowing them safely in the Father’s hands.  It was the certain hope of their arriving home in heaven safe, sound, and fully renovated by their loving Father.  This would indeed be a victor’s crown to him, a cause for good reputation, but only as marking him out as a good and faithful servant.  It wasn’t some prize he would then rub in the faces of his fellow Apostles.  See how much more I did for Christ?  No.  None of that.  It is the simple satisfaction of knowing a job well done, the assurance that one will indeed hear that desired summary from our Master:  “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  I see that you have been about My business, and I see here before Me the fruits of your labors.  Thank you.

One last thought in regard to the crown.  Fausset’s Encyclopedia observes that in Jewish thought there were three crowns:  The Law, the priesthood, and the king.  Now, one might observe that all three of these are crowns not so much to the individual but to the whole of God’s people.  But then, there comes this:  In their thinking, a good name was to be set above all three of these crowns.  Reputation meant far more than any earthly office.  To be a king, but to have no good reputation rendered that crown of kingship more an offense than an honor or recognition.  Oh, one might yet honor the office, but the man?  Not so much.  We know how that goes.  Likewise, the priesthood.  One appointed high priest would be given the honor due that office.  But if he proved a worthless and treacherous man, he himself would receive no honor, and be held to have been of no account, and indeed a blight and blemish upon that office he had held.  You see somewhat of this in David’s treatment of Saul.  Saul was king, and that by God’s appointment.  So it must be recognized of every governing leader, however reprehensible they may prove to be.  God put them in place, and in His time, He will remove them from that place.  Don’t think to take that into your own hands.  It does not, historically, go well for them whom He uses to achieve that end.  As with Satan, their pursuit of their will may be turned to His purpose, but it is unlikely in the extreme that it ever turns out to be to their advantage.

Be careful, therefore, and honor the office however undeserving its current occupant.  Think Jesus before Caiaphas.  He did not spit upon this political player.  He did not revile him as a fraud, nor insist on taking His rightful place in that office.  It would be His anyway, but by the proper course of full and complete obedience to the Father.  On that occasion, however, all due respect would be given the office.  We see a similar response when Paul is taken captive in Jerusalem.  When he is presented before Felix, he doesn’t make noise about Rome having no right to force its ways on Israel.  He doesn’t mock the man as powerless before an almighty God.  He gives honor where honor is due, recognizing as he taught, that we ought to honor those with authority over us, in recognition that no authority exists except as delegated by God Himself.  It matters not whether the delegate recognizes his true position.  We do.

On the obverse of that coin, let us be less concerned about position and power than with living honorably in accord with the righteous measure of our Lord and King.  Let us seek in all things to represent Him well, to serve Him well, to prove to have a character formed and reformed by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit of God Himself.  If the Man is within, surely His shaping of our character and thought must express without.  If we would be recognized, let it be for this:  That we have sought with all our strength and will to be faithful servants to this Lord Jesus before Whom we hope to stand at His coming.  We are His.  Let us be about His business.  And let us be about His business in accord with His perfect plan.