Section VIII
It has been said that the typical man never uses
more than 10 per cent of his mental capacity. And yet, think of the many
thousands of pieces of miscellaneous and unimportant information we carry about
in our minds, employing only a small fraction of our capabilities. How much more
room there is left in our heads for the wisdom of God, if we would simply take
the time and effort to acquire and use it!
* * * * *
Baptism without repentance is meaningless. A
Jewish allegory pictures such a proselyte being baptized while still clutching
to his bosom a serpent!
* * * * *
Why were there two "chief rulers of the
synagogue" in Corinth? (Acts 18:3,17). There are several possible
explanations:
- "Archisunagogus" does not necessarily mean "chief" to the
exclusion of all others. The word is used in the plural in
13:15.
- The interval of 18 months (18:11) between v. 8
and v. 17 would easily allow a change in the "chief ruler
".
- Or, perhaps there was more than one synagogue in
Corinth.
* * * * *
Were the centurion of Luke 7 and Cornelius the
same person? A comparison:
Each was a lover of Israel (Luke 7:5; Acts
10:2,22).
Each was a lover of God (Luke 7:4; Acts
10:2,22).
Each was a lover of Christ (Luke 7:6; Acts
10:37,38).
* * * * *
In 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul speaks of
“treasure in earthen vessels”. In recent times precious scrolls have
been found preserved in earthen jars. Jeremiah commanded Baruch to take legal
evidences of a purchase and put them in an earthen vessel, “that they may
continue many days” (Jer. 32:14). Archaeology has shown that if vessels
containing valuables are stored in a safe place, both the vessels and their
contents will be saved from the ravages of time and weather. The urns and vases
of antiquity testify to the durability of potter’s clay!
* * * * *
Cyril Tennant on Romans 8:26,27: “As the
priest arranged upon the altar the sacrifices of men, so our Lord rearranges our
feeble utterances so that they are in accordance with the will of God — if
in faith we pray through him.”
* * * * *
How to tell a woman she is
wrong!
Something tells me (maybe it's 28 years of
experience in the married state) that there are good ways, and then there are
not so good ways, to tell a woman she is wrong! Maybe one of the not-so-good
ways is to bring up all the recorded and imagined sins of her gender for the
past four or six thousand years, from the far east to the middle east, to Lizzie
Borden with her ax, as if to say, 'And you... why, you are just like all the
others!' Maybe another not-so-good way is to suggest that her gender and her
gender alone is responsible for all the evils in the world today... 'You know,
we men would have had such a perfect world if it weren't for all the subtle
flatteries, the sly whispers, and the wanton ways of the treacherous
sex!'
Maybe a better way is first to remember that a
woman is a human being, a person with feelings, who should be treated with
respect, even if (stress the "if”!) she is wrong. Paul told Timothy, "Do
not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat
younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters,
with absolute purity" (1 Tim. 5:1,2). I take it that Paul is saying here, 'Do
not rebuke an older woman harshly, but exhort her as if she were your mother."
So maybe one rule of thumb, when preparing to
tell a woman she is wrong, is to ask: 'How would I tell my mother she is wrong?'
Anyway, all this is a little like: "Do unto others as you would have them do
unto you." And that's an easy rule to remember — even if it's sometimes
hard to put into practice.
Now the question comes to mind: Did Jesus ever
have to tell a woman she was wrong? Yes, in John 4 he meets a Samaritan woman by
a well. And his task is to tell her she is a serial adulteress whose worship of
God is all wrong. Surely a wonderful opportunity to pull out all the guns and
really blast her!
But what does Jesus do? First, he speaks to her
and asks a favor of her: “Will you give me
a drink?" He shows her that he, like she, is a
human being with needs, and suggests — subtly perhaps — that each of
them can help the other. Secondly, the very fact that he speaks to her in a
civil fashion fills her with amazement, because he is plainly a Jew and she is a
Samaritan, never mind a woman. So he has treated her, already, with more
kindness than most Jews would even think of; he has treated her as —
surprise! — another human being of equal worth with himself. And he hasn't
even begun to rebuke her yet.
And so their conversation goes on. He slowly
draws her out with spiritual analogies that intrigue her, and then finally he
mentions her husband. This elicits her response, "I have no husband." Now Jesus
has the opening he was looking for. Does he pounce triumphantly? — 'Aha,
got you now!' I don't think so. He must have spoken his rebuke so gently, and
after such a careful buildup, that the Samaritan woman, her sin finally exposed,
is still not afraid of this strange man. Leaving her water jar, the woman goes
back to the town to find all her friends. "Come, see a man who told me
everything I ever did. Could he be the Messiah?"
And so Jesus' rebuke of this woman's sinful ways
is carried out so carefully, so gently, and so kindly, that the last we see she
has invited him to stay in the town, where for two additional days he speaks to
many others who come to believe!
I think that's how to tell a woman she is wrong.
Now... if I could just remember that myself.
And maybe, when I'm wrong (IF that time ever
comes!), she can remember to tell me in the same way.
* * * * *
"When they were put to death, I gave my voice
against them" (Acts 26:10): Literally, "I paid down a pebble (psephon) against
them." Paul is referring to the method of voting in trials and other court
cases, where the black pebble represents condemnation or rejection, in contrast
to the white pebble which represents acquittal or approval (Rev.
2:17).
* * * * *
1 Corinthians 6:4: The RSV rendering of this
verse shows it to be merely a parallel of verse 1: "Why do you lay them (i.e.,
your judgments) before those that are least esteemed by the church?" —
that is, the "unjust" of v. 1. Likewise, the NIV margin: “Do you appoint
as judges men of little account in the church?” Put in the form of a
question, like verse 1, it is seen to be a rebuke and not a
directive.
* * * * *
The question often arises as to whether there
will be a resurrection at the end of the millennium. Such a resurrection would
seem fairly well proven by 1 Corinthians 15:22-24: "For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the
firstfruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the
end...."
The word "cometh" being italicized in the KJV,
the point is clear that Paul is listing three stages in the completion of the
promise that "in Christ shall all be made alive":
First, Christ himself, raised from the
dead.
Afterward, those who are Christ's at his
coming.
And then a third and final resurrection at "the
end", when the kingdom is delivered up to the Father.
* * * * *
When Paul says (1 Cor. 14:14), "If I pray in a
(foreign) tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful'', he
does not mean to say that he himself cannot understand his
meaning.
Rather, to paraphrase, "If I pray in another
tongue, my understanding does no good for my listeners, unless they understand
too."
* * * * *
According to Paul, salvation is not of works
(Eph. 2:9), but it is unto works (v. 10) — which makes a world of
difference. Works are not the means by which we are saved — that is grace!
But works are (and must be) the results of the salvation brought to us by
Christ. We must not just obey God as slaves who expect to earn eternal life.
Rather, we must obey Him as loving children, offering the only reasonable
response of hearts motivated by thankfulness. We love Him because He first loved
us.
* * * * *
The seven signs of a believer in Paul's letter to
the Ephesians:
- The unity of the Spirit — seven pillars
(4:4-6);
- The work of the ministry
(4:11,12);
- Walking in love and light
(5:1,2,8);
- Submissive wives and loving husbands
(5:27-33);
- Obedient children and caring fathers
(6:1-4);
- Faithful servants and kind masters (6:5-9); and
- The whole armor of God — seven-fold
(6:13-18).
* * * * *
When I stand some day at the Judgment
And the books are all opened
wide,
Not the deeds that I've done,
Nor the laurels I've won,
Only this will I plead:
I have tried.
This will be the force of my
case
To the Judge who was crucified
—
Not my awards and stars,
But the depth of my scars;
Yes, this will I plead:
I have tried.
* * * * *
Let Go and Let God
As children bring their broken
toys,
With tears for us to mend,
I brought my broken dreams — to
God,
Because He was my Friend.
But then, instead of leaving
Him in peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help
With ways that were my own.
At last I snatched them back and
cried,
"How can you be so slow?"
'”My child,” He said, "What could I
do?
You never did let go."
(Selected)
* * * * *
Others May! You Cannot!
If God has called you to be really like Jesus in
all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and
put on you such demands of obedience, that He will not allow you to follow other
believers, and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things
which He will not let you do.
Other believers may push themselves forward, pull
strings, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it; and
attempting it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to
make you sorely repentant.
Others may brag on themselves, on their work, on
their successes, on their writings, but the power of God’s Spirit will not
allow you to do any such thing; and if you try it, He will lead you into some
deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good
works.
Others may be allowed to succeed in making money,
or having an inheritance left to them, or in having luxuries, but it is likely
God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than
gold: a helpless dependence on Him, so that He may supply your needs day by day
out of an unseen treasury.
The LORD will let others be honored, and put
forward, but He will keep you hidden away in obscurity, because He wants to
produce fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the
shade.
He will let others be great, but keep you small.
He will let others do a work for Him, and get the credit for it, but He will
make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to
make your work more precious still, He will let others get the credit for the
work you have done. He will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love,
and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time,
which other believers never seem distressed about.
So make up your mind that God is an infinite
Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own, and that He will
not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle you in His dealings with
you. He will take you at your word; and if you absolutely sell yourself to be
His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and let other people say and
do many things that you cannot say or do. Settle it forever, that you are to
deal directly with Him, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your
tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not
use with others.
And then, when you are so possessed with the
living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted with this
peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management by God’s
Spirit in your life... then, and only then, will you have found the key to the
Kingdom of God.
* * * * *
Never worry. Worry has sent more people to
institutions and hospitals than anything else. Worry is stupid, juvenile,
faithless, non-productive, round-and-round-in-a-circle thinking. If some things
call for concern, be concerned. But be concerned in a constructive, productive
way. Think in a straight line — from problem to solution. Or if there is
no solution, to acceptance. If there is no solution, there is always prayer;
though that should be the first resort in any case, not the last. God can make
anything happen or not happen. If He chooses not to act, then it is not to be;
or we have not prayed long enough, or sincerely enough. Or we have something to
learn that denying our prayers helps to teach us. Everything related to
God’s affairs and God’s people has a good purpose.
“Folly” frets and worries and rebels. “Wisdom” knows
there is a reason, and accepts, and adjusts, and is thankful, whether God gives,
or takes away. Blessed be His Name!
* * * * *
In Jonah, four things were prepared by the
Lord:
1:17
|
A great fish
|
4:6
|
A gourd
|
4:7
|
A worm
|
4:8
|
An east wind
|
* * * * *
Mark 5 has three similar incidents, as the
recipients of Christ's healing miracles are taught lessons:
1. "Legion", who desires to accompany Christ (v.
18), is told instead to stay behind and preach (v. 19).
2. The woman with an issue of blood, who desires
anonymity, is brought into the public view (v. 33).
3. And the ruler of the synagogue, who desires
notoriety, is told to remain silent for the present (v. 43).
The unifying lesson: We must each learn to
control our natural tendencies, and to serve in the capacities required by our
Lord, although such may "go against the grain".
* * * * *
There is no pit of man's digging, deep enough to
bury sin.
* * * * *
Let us pray as though everything depended on
God,
And work as though everything depended on
us.
* * * * *
"When he had spit on his eyes" (Mark 8:23):
Christ's spittle, given with a purpose, is more precious than the blood of
others.
* * * * *
The story is told of an old man, an accomplished
artist, who was applying the finishing touches to a bronze sculpture.
Occasionally a truck would come from the art gallery in the city to pick up his
latest work. Meanwhile he just kept filing, scraping and polishing every little
surface of his masterpiece. "How do you knows when it’s done?" asked an
observer. "I don’t," came the reply. "I just keep working and working
until they come and take it away."
* * * * *
Isaiah 8:20: "If they speak not according to this
word, there will be for them no morning." This translation, following the
marginal rendering, emphasizes that, for such as the prophet here describes,
there will indeed be no "dawn" (Isa. 26:19; Psa. 110:3), or no
resurrection.
* * * * *
He who provides for this life but not for
eternity is wise for a moment but a fool forever.
* * * * *
“Speak to us, Lord, till, shamed by Thy
great giving,
Our hands unclasp to set our treasures
free;
Our wills, our love, our dear ones, our
possessions
All gladly yielded, gracious Lord, to
Thee."
(Selected)
* * * * *
The Five Crowns
1. The incorruptible crown: 1 Corinthians
9:25;
2. The crown of rejoicing: 1 Thessalonians
2:19;
3. The crown of righteousness: 2 Timothy
4:8;
4. The crown of life: James 1:12; Revelation
2:10; and,
5. The crown of glory: 1 Peter
5:4.
"Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take
thy crown" (Rev. 3:11).
* * * * *
Simon of Cyrene
There is no mark of course, but I can feel
Here on my shoulder to this very
day
The grinding weight where that rough timber
lay
And left, an hour or two, its vivid seal.
I had no thought, no patriotic
zeal,
That morning there a hero's part to
play;
Only, I saw his eyes which, as he lay
Down in the dust, held mine in mute appeal.
"A curse on you, Roman dogs," I cried,
And never felt the lash the soldier swung;
Then we went together side by side,
My back bent double as we climbed the
hill
To Calvary where on the cross he
hung;
And I am proud to say I feel its burden
still.
(adapted, from Wadsworth)
* * * * *
In Isaiah 29:1, Jerusalem is called "Ariel",
which may be translated as the "Lion of God". The tribe of Judah, in whose
territory Jerusalem is located, has always been associated with the lion —
especially the "couching" or reclining lion (Gen. 49:9). The original city of
David was built on the long narrow promontory of Zion — a ridge which is
highest on the northeast, at Moriah, where the Temple was built. The whole
ridge, with its distinctive shape and golden color, would resemble a lion, with
Moriah being the lion's head.
* * * * *
“Want of foresight, unwillingness to act
when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of
counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring
gong... these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of
history." (Winston Churchill)
* * * * *
“Truth appears the brighter, and acquires a
new luster, by a free and candid examination; but falsehood hides its head, and
vanishes like the night before the rising sun."
* * * * *
Why was Jesus baptized (Matt. 3:13-17; Mark
1:8-11; Luke 3:21-23)? The most obvious answer is the Scriptural one: in the
words of Jesus himself, "to fulfill all righteousness". This calls to mind
Matthew 5:17: "I am not come to destroy [the law], but to fulfill.” The
work of Jesus, in all its aspects, was to fulfill, or complete, the
righteousness of the law of Moses. The law of Moses was a "shadow" (Heb. 10:1),
pointing forward to the substance, the reality, which was Jesus. As Moses washed
Aaron (Exod. 30:20,21; 40:12), to sanctify and cleanse him for his mediatorial
work, so John washed Jesus. If Aaron had entered the Most Holy without washing,
he would have failed; if Jesus had offered himself as a sacrifice with no public
baptism (signifying the denial of the flesh), he would likewise have
failed.
Jesus was absolutely without personal sin. The
necessity of his baptism shows how far even sinful flesh alone separates man
from God.
* * * * *
Mark 4:38 ("Master, carest thou not that we
perish?") is an echo of Psalm 44:23: "Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise,
cast us not off."
* * * * *
"We are satisfied that our Heavenly Father, the
Great Inventor of Harmony and Melody, of sound and speech, prefers to hear His
own glorious praise ascending to His throne in a concord of sweet sounds, than
in the horrible discord of twanging noises, and counter-screeching with a bass
accompaniment of growls from croaking throats... God made the human voice, and
He made it capable of giving forth a concourse of sweetness; and as He is a God
of order, not of confusion, we believe He would rather His people should order
their voices than distract one another from His praise by grating their ears by
a nasal confusion of sounds... Our advice to our brethren is: learn to sing,
that the melody in your hearts may find expression in melody of voice attuned to
praise." (John Thomas)
* * * * *
How foolish to lean on the arm of flesh when we
can be supported by the Arm of Omnipotence!
* * * * *
David sat as a worshiper (2 Sam. 7:18), lay as a
penitent (2 Sam. 12:16), and stood as a servant (1 Chron.
28:2).
* * * * *
"Salvation depends upon the assimilation to the
mind of the divine ideas, principles, and affections exhibited in the
Scriptures. This process commences with a belief of the gospel, but it is by no
means completed thereby; it takes a lifetime for its scope, and untiring
diligence for its accomplishment. The mind is naturally alien from God and all
His ideas (Rom. 8:7; 1 Cor. 2:14), and cannot be brought at once to the Divine
likeness. This is a work of slow development, and can only be achieved by the
industrious application of the individual to the means which God has given for
the purpose, viz., the expression of His mind in the Scriptures of truth.
Spiritual-mindedness, or a state of mind in accordance with the mind of the
Spirit as displayed in these writings, can only grow within a man by daily
intercourse with that mind, there unfolded. Away from this, the mind will revert
to its original emptiness. The infallible advice then to every man and woman
anxious about their salvation is — read the Scriptures daily. It is only
in proportion as this is done, that success may be looked for. The man who sows
sparingly in this respect will only reap sparingly." (Robert
Roberts).
* * * * *
At Jesus' arrest there was a young man (probably
John Mark) who, in fleeing, left behind the linen cloth with which his body had
been covered (Mark 14:51,52). An echo of Amos 2:16?: "And he that is courageous
among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day."
