An Open Letter

Dear Friend,

This past school year has been a good one.  Maybe someday all the things God is teaching me will be collected enough to blog about, but right now they're swimming around and won't be caught and organized.  Until then, here is a passage that ties together themes of identity in Christ and victory over sin.  (And speaking of sin, isn't it wonderful that God still loves us even when we mess up?)  The passage is quoted from the NIV, which isn't what I normally quote, but while working through the Exegesis of Colossians class, I liked the way the NIV handled the passage.  The passage reminds me of the precious truth that when God gives us new life, He sees us for who He re-made us to be instead seeing our sinful flesh

"Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"?  These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.  Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.  Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory."- Colossians 2:20-3:4, NIV

"If you’re a Christian, here’s the good news: Who you really are has nothing to do with you—how much you can accomplish, who you can become, your behavior (good or bad), your strengths, your weaknesses, your sordid past, your family background, your education, your looks, and so on. Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours." - Tullian Tchividjian

Isn't it restful to know that God has given us everything necessary to live the Christian life through our identity in Christ?

Sincerely,

Celeste

Rain and Repentance

In Scripture, God uses ordinary events as metaphors; these pictures help us understand His truth.  After it rained today, I was reminded of one metaphor which compares rain to the Word of God:

 "For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."

The popularity of this verse comes mostly from a mis-application that binds God to save every person who every heard a verse read, since the Word never returns void.  However, the word of God in the immediate context is God’s promise to forgive His peoples’ sins and make an everlasting covenant with them in the person of the Messiah who, as the greater David, brings in the blessings promised to Israel’s great king.  Based on this promise, Isaiah begs God’s disobedient people to stop wasting their money on things that don’t satisfy, and instead to call on Yahweh who would have mercy on them.  And as surely as rain brings crops, so certainly will God bring salvation to His people when they repent and turn to Him. 

The purpose of God’s Word that will never fail is to bring repentance and salvation to God’s people.  As I look out the window at the rain, it reminds me that God’s purpose will be completed and His people will be saved.  In spite men opposing God’s work, God’s people will still repent and experience His mercy.  So what about God’s people who have responded to the purpose of God’s Word?  Now our responsibility is to continue to align ourselves under the Word and to proclaim that Word so that it may continue to accomplish its purpose.

The LORD Reigns!

The LORD reigns,

Let the earth rejoice; 

Let the many coastlands be glad!

Clouds and thick darkness are all around Him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.
Fire goes before Him and burns up His adversaries all around.
His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, 
before the Lord of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim His righteousness,
and all the peoples see His glory.
All worshipers of images are put to shame,
who make their boast in worthless idols; 
worship Him, all you gods!

Zion hears and is glad,

and the daughters of Judah rejoice,

because of Your judgments, O LORD. 

For you, O LORD, are most high over all the earth;

you are exalted far above all gods.

O you who love the LORD, hate evil! 

He preserves the lives of his saints;

He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.

Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.

Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous,

and give thanks to His holy name!

Psalm 97

Reading the Prophets

For the past 9 months, I have been working my way through the prophetic books during my devotions, spacing them with some Psalms and New Testament epistles.  Although in future I will be organizing my Bible reading system differently, it's been interesting to read so many prophets at one time.  The following notes from the post "Some Guidelines for Reading Prophetic Literature" by Julian Freeman crystallized thoughts that have been forming in my mind over the past months.  Some of the comments could be understood in a number of different ways, so this isn't an endorsement of his blog because I haven't read it extensively.  The comments definitely do a good job of summarizing how to study the prophets and will go into my file of "Things to Refer to Later."  

1. Because prophets speak mainly to their own day, we need to make sure we understand their day
2. Don’t be afraid of (good) Study Bibles and commentaries
3. Read a whole prophetic book rather than just sections; main themes and rhetorical strategies are important for interpreting the various parts
4. Use a cross-referencing system to see how the NT interprets / borrows the passages you’re reading
5. In apocalypse, remember the big picture: This world is messed up beyond repair and exists in a state of turmoil until God intervenes by judgement, bringing victory for the good, which ushers in a time of peace, where justice reigns
6. In highly image-driven apocalyptic sections, always remember that the author’s main purpose was to effect change in his contemporaries; if our interpretation doesn’t include a call to holiness in the present, our interpretation is wrong
7. Always look for the persistence of hope: the shining of the light of redemption through the dark clouds of God’s judgement; this is where the nature of our God is magnified—this is where we see the cross
8. Because the prophets write to a people in a different covenantal  relationship, the application is less direct; the application will spring from the heart of God revealed in his dealings with his people
9. Application should always be done through Jesus, the one who lived our righteousness, became sin, and took our curse so that we could know the hope & blessing the prophets extend to the righteous.
10. Prophecies of judgement, showing us the wrath of God toward sin, and what we truly deserve, should always make us more thankful for the cross.

 Freeman cites How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Fee & Stuart, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation by Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, An Invitation to Biblical Interpretation by Kostenberger and Patterson, and Knowing Scripture by R.C. Sproul.

The Summer of Weddings

Labor Day indicates the end of the Summer of Weddings, at the beginning of which, I counted ten couples I knew who were getting married.  So here's a post to congratulation them and wish them God's blessings!

Rohn and Bekah

Bekah and I met in sixth grade at VBS, and Rohn and I got to know each other on a CEF missions trip to Boston after a year of having lots of mutual friends.  It's a pleasure to call them CBC neighbors, visit their apartment in Philly Hall, and offer small tips on fighting roaches.  If I do say so myself, my sister Bethany did an excellent job as bridesmaid/train-bearer!  It was a pleasure to play the piano for two such good friends.

Andrew and Renae

Renae and I work together - she taught me everything I know about recruiting students.  It's fun to see Andrew drop into the admissions department a bit more regularly than he used to - and it has nothing to do with registering for classes!  Their marriage ceremony was Christ-centered, highlighting the relationship between Christ and His Church.  My job was to keep the food table full stocked with crackers, cheese, and hummus.

Brent and Elizabeth

Elizabeth and I met at a piano recital in elementary school, and we've been friends since!  It was a pleasure to work with her as her wedding coordinator. The wedding was a lot of fun, from decorating tables for five hundred guests to laughing with the ushers at the back of the auditorium about unity candles.  God's work in Brent and Elizabeth's relationship was a joy to watch.  And, again, my sweet sister was an excellent bridesmaid/mirror-holder.

Alex and Kara

Alex and I attended college together in South Dakota, and after he transferred to Calvary, word came back that he had a girlfriend and she was wonderful.  Reports about Kara were not exaggerated!  Getting to know her through dorm life and church activities has been delightful.  Alex and Kara are very intentional about reaching out and caring for the people God has placed around them.  And since wedding pictures are still coming, here's the happy couple before they were married.

Graham and Jenna

 Graham and Jenna are both great friends from college in South Dakota.  Celebrating their marriage was a mixture of many happy bits, including great music at the ceremony, iced coffee at the reception in the park, a sermon-toast from Mr. G, and, certainly not least, a couple rejoicing in God's sovereign work in their lives.  The ceremony was happily documented by our great friend Clara.  The reception and subsequent after-party were so full of reunions of old friends that we didn't tear ourselves away until 2 in the morning!  FYI, being guest book attendant is one of the greatest jobs in a wedding!

"So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." - Matthew 19:6

"To You It Has Been Given to See"

The mornings this week have been delightfully occupied with a low-stress, confidence-boosting Greek translation class.  Armed with our Greek readers’ edition New Testaments and a couple of translation aids, the professor, the other student, and I read selected passages from the New Testament .  By Friday, we will have translated [fut pft act ind] selections from every New Testament author except Jude.  Part of the beauty of the class has been seeing connections between passages I wouldn’t have imaged were connected, such as Matthew 13 and I Peter 1.

Matthew 13:10-17

And the disciples, approaching him, said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?"  He answered and said to them, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given….For this reason I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor understand.  And the prophecy of Isaiah has come true in them, saying: ‘Hearing you will hear and never ever understand, and seeing you will see and never ever perceive.  For the hearts of this people are insensitive, their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes are closed: Lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.’  But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.  For truly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous ones longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” [author’s translation]

The parable of the soils and the interpretation of the parable of the soils bracket this paragraph.  The different types of soils represent different kinds of people, some to whom it was given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven and some to whom it was not given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven.  We can see examples of these two types of people in Matthew.  The disciples do not initially understand Christ’s teaching that He will die and rise again, but as He continues to explain His words to them, they understand that He will die for sin and rise again.  They were able to understand Christ’s teaching because God had given them sight and hearing.  In contrast, the Pharisees listened a great deal to Christ’s words, but never saw or heard what He was saying because God had not given them sight or hearing.

Christ uses a play on words with see and hear.  Through most of the paragraph, those who don’t see and hear are not God’s people.  The disciples are different because they are God’s people who see and hear.  However, in the final sentence of the paragraph, Jesus speaks of sight and hearing in a technical sense meaning to see the fulfillment of what was promised in the past.  The prophets did not see the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, not because they did not believe them, but because they did not see it happen during their lifetime.  They believed that God would provide a sacrifice for sin, but they did not see it happen.  The disciples see and hear not only in the sense that they understand mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but also in the sense that they see the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven fulfilled. This kind of sight and hearing was desired but never experienced by God’s people in the Old Testament. 

Roughly 30 years later, one of the seeing and hearing disciples, Peter, wrote these words:

“Concerning which salvation, the  prophets, having prophesied, sought out and inquired concerning the grace which is for you, trying to find out at what time and in what circumstances the spirit of Christ in them was predicting the suffering for Christ and the subsequent glories.  To the prophets it was revealed that they were not serving themselves but you….” [I Peter 1:10-12, author’s translation]

Peter comforts the suffering believers by reminding them of their salvation.  This salvation, he explains, was something that the prophets tried very hard to understand.  They desired to know when and how Christ would suffer and be glorified.  But, in God’s plan, the prophets were ministering to God’s people in the future who would understand.  The prophets longed to see and hear what the disciples saw and heard, the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Here we are: New Covenant believers who are blessed with an understanding of God’s plan that the prophets only dreamed of.  Look what God has opened our eyes to!  See how much of His plan He has shown to us!  Are we not greatly blessed?  And ought we not to praise the Father for opening our eyes?

Eschetological Living

This post is a follow-up to The Cross in Redemptive History (May 24, 2012).  That post detailed some changes in my thinking regarding the centrality of Christ and the cross not only to salvation and sanctification, but to theology.  The cross was The Fundamental Shift in God's plan for His people.  The changes that took place there were more dramatic than the changes which will take place in the future when our bodies are raised and we enjoy the presence of God in heaven.  The cross began the process of the re-creation of God's people and world.  The cross fulfilled God's promises, some of which we have yet to experience fully.

It seems in Scripture, that the fulfillment of God's promises is tied to what we term eschatology.  Eschatology is defined as the study of last things - and "last things" is generally defined to mean the judgment and end of the world and the return of Christ.  Other terms which can be used synonymously with "last days" are "latter days," "those days," and "the days are coming."  Scripture does use "last days" terminology to refer to the wickedness of the world (2 Timothy 3:1, 2 Peter 3:3), but often, Scripture ties "last days" terminology to the fulfillment of God's promises.

"Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah." (Jeremiah 31:31)
"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD." (Jeremiah 31:33)
"Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit." (Joel 2:29)
"And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh...even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit and they shall prophesy." (Acts 2:17-18)
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD" (Hebrews 8:10)
"This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the LORD." (Hebrews 10:16)
"Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son." (Hebrews 1:1-2)

When reading these verses, and others like them, it seems that the New Testament writers meant more by "last days" than simply chronology.  It seems that they saw the "last days" as the time when God fulfills His promises.

Today, we often hear that we are "living in the last days."  This can be presented to mean that we are living chronologically near the end of the world and the return of Christ.  However, the phrase is packed with much greater significance.  To live in the last days means to experience the fulfillment of God's promises.  To live in the last days means to receive revelation from God through the living Word, Jesus Christ as recorded in Scripture.  To live in the last days means to have the permanently indwelling Holy Spirit.  To live in the last days means to enjoy a covenant relationship with God as His people through the salvation provided by the New Covenant.  Much of Christianity views the "last days" as a terrible time of godlessness which believers fear, but in the "last days", God gives to His people such glorious blessings as would have been unimaginable before the cross.

Creation, Light, and Re-Creation

Here is a beautiful theme in Scripture that I ran into yesterday while studying Christ's kingship.  It reminded me of God's creative use of word pictures to communicate something that is bigger than words.  The following paragraph came from a fat book of theology, so pardon the author's long sentences and enjoy the his content:)

Arise, shine, for you light has come,

And the glory of the LORD has risen upon  you.

For behold, darkness will cover the earth,

And deep darkness the peoples;

But the LORD will rise upon you,

And His glory will appear upon you.

Nations will come to your light,

And kings to the brightness of your rising.

Isaiah 60:1-3

"...Why is light underscored in Isaiah?  ...  The reference that "darkness will cover the earth, and deep darkness the peoples," likely alludes to Gen. 1:2-4: "And darkness was over the surface of the deep....Then God said 'Let there be light'; and there was light.  And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness."  Isaiah 60:1-3 is depicting the coming restoration and redemption of Israel [New Covenant salvation, ed.] against the background of Gen. 1:2-4.  The reason for doing this is that Isaiah understands the future blessing on Israel and the world to be a recapitulation of the first creation, so that Israel's and the nations' salvation is painted as a new creation and emergence from spiritual darkness.  The same notion of new-creational light presumably is also in the mind of the NT allusions to these Isaiah verses.  The idea of new creation is conveyed in the NT uses is also indicated by Paul's statement in 2 Cor. 4:6: "For God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness,' is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.""

- "Resurrection as New Creation and Kingdom in the Gospels and Acts" from 

A New Testament Biblical Theology by G. K. Beale

The Cross in Redemptive History

For the last several days, I've been thinking about how Christ and His cross are the fulfillment of so many Old Testament promises.  In my mind, I've always divided redemptive history into two categories: now (creation to the end of this physical world) and eternity.  However, although I still see two categories, the two categories now are the time of God giving promises and the time of God fulfilling promises.

From creation (Genesis 3:15) until the end of the Old Testament, God is continually giving promises.  Some of these promises were given to a nation whom God corporately elected and with whom he had a covenant relationship that was not necessarily salvific.  Others of these promises were given to His redeemed people whom He bound Himself to by covenant.  With the birth of the Messiah, the Branch, the King, the Shepherd, the Anointed One, Jesus Christ, these promises began to be fulfilled.  Jesus Christ's coming inaugurated the fulfillment of all of the promises of the Old Testament.  We may not see their fulfillment or the results of their fulfillment immediately, but their fulfillment was begun.  The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians in II Corinthians 1:18-20:

But as God is faithful, our word to you was not Yes and No.  For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us...was not Yes and No, but in Him was Yes.  For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.

The fulfillment of God's promises continues from the coming of Christ through eternity, for in the Eternal State we will still be experiencing and rejoicing in the fulfilled promises of our faithful, covenant-keeping God.

Thinking about redemptive history in these two categories has highlighted the centrality of Christ and the cross in my mind.  It is Christ and His cross to which God's promises point, and it is Christ and His cross which fulfill these promises.  Words like Christological and Christo-centric are making sense in a different dimension because I am seeing that Christ and the cross really are the focus-point of all redemptive history.  This is not to minimize themes such as the glory of God, for there is more in God's plan than just redemption, but the section of history that we as humans can best understand is the redemptive part, and Christ and the cross are turning point of redemption.  Whether it is the redemption of individual people or the redemption of the heavens and earth, redemption and fulfilled promises are only possible because of Christ and His cross.

The Valley of Vision nicely summed up centrality of the cross in daily life in the prayer "The Grace of the Cross":

I thank Thee from the depths of my being for Thy wonderous grace and love in bearing my sin in Thine own body on the tree.  

May Thy cross be to me as the tree that sweetens my bitter Marahs, as the rod that blossoms with life and beauty, as the brazen serpent that calls forth the look of faith.

By Thy cross crucify my every sin; use it to increase my intimacy with Thyself;

Make it the ground of all my comfort, the liveliness of all my duties, the sum of all thy gospel promises, the comfort of all my afflictions, the vigour of my love, thankfulness, graces, and the very essence of my religion;

And by it give me that rest without rest, the rest of ceaseless praise.

(Not) Understanding Theology

Do you remember times when you studied a Biblical passage and didn’t understand it?  Struggling to know what a passage means until you have a headache (usually above the right eye…).  Flipping through your Bible (or clicking through a computer program) to find cross-references that might clarify the passage.  And then, suddenly, it clicks.  Eureka!  Aha!  (Or whatever exclamation you use to designate a moment of discovery.)  Don’t you love those moments?

Over Easter this year, I noticed a verse from John that described an Aha! moment the disciples had:

“His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him” (John 12:16).

Jesus was riding into Jerusalem on a donkey in the Triumphal Entry.  The crowds were waving palm branches and calling out, “Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ The King of Israel!”  Jesus was fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 that said, “Fear not, daughter of Zion; Behold, your King is coming, Sitting on a donkey’s colt.”  The disciples were seeing these things, and John notes that they didn’t understand what was happening until after Christ was glorified. 

Can you imagine what their Aha! moment must have been like?  Can you imagine witnessing Christ’s teaching and works, not understanding why Christ died (wasn’t He going to set up a physical kingdom and bring in a Jewish golden age?), and then have Christ’s work click in your mind?  Suddenly, Christ’s mission on earth makes sense!

Of course, I don’t understand everything Christ did in His earthly ministry.  His fulfillment of prophecy, His future role, and how all these things fit together theologically doesn’t make sense in my finite mind.  Trying to explain the infinite God and His plan into a finite theology to be understood by me is a hopeless task.  God is not obligated to explain Himself or His plan to me.  So, ultimately, my responsibility is to study very hard to understand what He has revealed about His plan, obey what I am commanded, and trust that in God’s mind His plan is consistent.

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Theology as Useful Knowledge

While researching for an upcoming project, this quote reminded me of the purpose of studying God's plan: practical love for the God we study. We do not truly know God until we love and obey Him.

"God's self-revelation to us was not made for a primarily intellectual purpose. It is not to be overlooked, of course, that the truly pious mind may through an intellectual contemplation of the divine perfections glorify God. This would be just as truly religious as the intensest occupation of the will in the service of God. But it would not be the full-orbed religion at which, as a whole, revelation aims. It is true, the Gospel teaches that to know God is life eternal. But the concept of 'knowledge' here is not to be understood in its Helenic sense, but in the Shemitic sense. According to the former, 'to know' means to mirror the reality of a thing in one's consciousness. The Shemitic and Biblical idea is to have the reality of something practically interwoven with the inner experience of life. Hence 'to know' can stand in the Biblical idiom for 'to love', 'to single out in love'. Because God desires to be known after this fashion, He has caused His revelation to take place in the milieu of the historical life of a people. The circle of revelation is not a school, but a 'covenant'. To speak of revelation as an 'education' of humanity is a rationalistic and utterly un-scriptural way of speaking. All that God disclosed of Himself has come in response to the practical religious needs of His people as these emerged in the course of history" [emphasis added].

-Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology, 8

Holy Week, Pt. 2

"The New Covenant in My Blood"

Listening to J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, I am reminded on another significant even during Holy Week: the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Of deep devotional and theological significance, the Lord’s Supper reminds believers of Christ’s sacrifice of Himself to the Father and of their beautiful place in redemptive history.

Old Testament believers looked forward by faith to the forgiveness of their sins by God’s Redeemer. In evil times of apostasy, the prophets reminded the Jewish people of God’s promise that someday their sins would not only be covered, but taken away. God called His promise the New Covenant.

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27, ESV)

After celebrating the Passover with His disciples, Jesus’ words as He institutes the Lord’s Supper show that God’s Old Testament promise was about to be fulfilled:

“And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.' Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.” (Luke 22:19-20, NKJV)

With Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, God’s promise was fulfilled. Today believers receive forgiveness, a new heart, and the Holy Spirit. Truly, Christ was the fulfillment of the whole law and the prophets, for it was Him of whom they spoke. The New Covenant, by which comes salvation through Christ’s blood, extends forgiveness to each of God’s people.

This Holy Week, meditate on the significance of “the new covenant in My blood,” the single greatest turning point in redemptive history

.

Holy Week, Pt. 1

Maundy Thursday commemorates the example of servanthood Jesus demonstrated by washing His disciples feet. As the first of the Holy Week celebrations, it reminds us of the purpose of Christ’s coming into the world:

“For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)

Here is the account, devotionally paraphrased by Phillips:

Jesus, with the full knowledge that the Father had put everything into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from the supper-table, took off his outer clothes, picked up a towel and fastened it round his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel around his waist. So he came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" "You do not realise now what I am doing," replied Jesus, "but later on you will understand." Then Peter said to him, "You must never wash my feet!" "Unless you let me wash you, Peter," replied Jesus, "you cannot be my true partner." "Then Lord," returned Simon Peter, "please—not just my feet but my hands and my face as well!" "The man who has bathed," returned Jesus, "only needs to wash his feet to be clean all over. And you are clean—though not all of you." (For Jesus knew his betrayer and that is why he said, "though not all of you".) When Jesus had washed their feet and put on his clothes, he sat down again and spoke to them, "Do you realise what I have just done to you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘Lord’ and you are quite right, for I am your teacher and your Lord. But if I, your teacher and Lord, have washed your feet, you must be ready to wash one another’s feet. I have given you this as an example so that you may do as I have done. Believe me, the servant is not greater than his master and the messenger is not greater than the man who sent him. Once you have realised these things, you will find your happiness in doing them.

-John 13:3-17

Transplanting

Over spring break, mom and I transplanted tomato plants. Earlier in the spring, mom planted them in baking pans and grew them under a fluorescent light in the cellar. In about a month, it’s time to transplant them from the baking pans to their own little Highland milk pints where they will live until they are big enough to go into the garden in the backyard. This year there were only 23 to transplant – one spring, we raised nearly 200.

Baby tomato plants. These stringy plants wouldn't last long in the Kansas wind, would they?

Transplanting is not a happy time in the life of a tomato plant. You cut up its root system with the sharp spoon you use to dig it out of its baking pan environment and drop it into a paper pint, adding more soil. If you don’t water it within several minutes, the plant wilts because it is stressed.

However, transplanting gives tomato plants more earth for their roots to expand in and strengthens them. Sometimes, tomato plants are transplanted three or four times before going outside so they will be strong enough to withstand the Kansas wind.

Baby tomato plants living inside milk pints.

The reason the plants’ roots were torn up in the transplanting process was so they could eventually go outside and produce tomatoes. When it seems like our roots are being cut out of the comfortable soil around us, it is because God is transplanting us into a place where we can become stronger and bear more fruit for Him.

Bonhoeffer on the Psalms

Today, I began researching for my paper on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's view of Christ. While looking through one of his books, this chapter on the importance of personal and corporate use of the Psalms challenged me.

"Congregational Worship and the Psalms"
from Psalms: the Prayer Book of the Bible

In many churches the Psalms are read or sung every Sunday, or even daily, in succession. These churches have preserved a priceless treasure, for only with daily use does one appropriate this divine prayer book. When read only occasionally, these prayers are too overwhelming in design and power and tend to

turn us back to more palatable fare. But whoever has begun to pray the Psalter seriously and regularly will soon give a vacation to oth er little devotional prayers and say:"Ah, there is not the juice, the strength, the passion, the fire which I find in the Psalter. It tastes too cold and too hard" (Luther).

Therefore, wherever we no longer pray the Psalms in our churches, we must take up the Psalter that much more in our daily morning and evening prayers, reading and praying together at least several Psalms every day so that we succeed in reading through this book a number of times each year, getting into it deeper and deeper. We also ought not to select Psalms at our own discretion, thinking that we know better what we ought to pray than does God himself. To do that is to dishonor the prayer-book of the Bible. In the ancient church it was not unusual to memorize "the entire David." In one of the eastern churches this was a prerequisite for the pastoral office. The church father St. Jerome says that one heard the Psalms being sung in the fields and gardens in his time. The Psalter impregnated the life of early Christianity. Yet more important than all of this is the fact that Jesus died with the words of the Psalter on his lips.

Whenever the Psalter is abandoned, and incomparable treasure vanishes from the Christian church. With its recovery will come unsuspected power.

Personal Devotions

Personal devotions are foundational to a walk with God that changes our lives.

As Bible college students, it's easy to get spiritual nourishment from classes, chapel, church, Sunday School, or small group studies. However, not even the Church can substitute for studying God's Word and knowing God through personal devotions. Sadly, in 2000, Gallup released a study that reported that out of the Christians they polled, only 16% said they read their Bible every day.*

If my personal devotions were my only source of spiritual food, how hungry would I be?

The following clip was both helpful and challenging to me. It gives practical suggestions for Bible school students on personal devotions. Technically, the speaker is applying the message to seminary students, but the same principles work for Bible college students:) Featuring D. A. Carson, it is from the Desiring God blog, January 16, 2012. I hope it is a blessing!

Read the Bible Devotionally — and No Less Critically from Desiring God on Vimeo.

* Gallup, Alec and Wendy W. Simmons, "Six in Ten Americans Read Bible at Least Occasionally," The Gallup Organization, http://www.gallup.com, October 20, 2000.

Being Happy

There are many things in life that make Celeste happy…

Chillin’ with friends

Going to concerts

Visiting old churches

The Piano

My Sister

Coffee (preferably from Melinda:)

Books

Studying Being “mischievous” (in a good way, of course!)

The happiest time of my life has been these last 4 years of Bible college – friends, experiences, and “Bible college humor,” but the biggest joy has been the joy God gives in studying His Word. Growing up, I knew that studying God’s Word was supposed to bring happiness, but at Bible school, I experienced that happiness more and more.

January begins the final semester of Bible college, and recently I’ve been thinking about things like The Outside World and A Job and Rent, and other related matters which look more pressing then they did two years ago… (All of you college seniors out there can relate to this:) I realized that I was going to leave Bible school and go into the world and live ordinary life away from Bible classes, Greek, and systematic theology lectures. Scripture would still be the important thing, but I wouldn’t be able to study it 8 hours every day. And slowly, my enthusiasm for serving God in the Great Big Outside World seeped away because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be happy out there…

Then, on Friday evening, Valley of Vision reminded me that Things in Life never make people happy:

Thou who art righteous,

Let me not…seek satisfaction in things that perish.

What makes people happy in Bible school? Is it really Bible school or is it the delighting in God that Bible school taught about? If I’m afraid that I won’t be happy out in The World and Working a Normal Job, then I’m being satisfied by things that perish. May Christ be that which gives me happiness, not just Things.

“In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” (Ps. 16:11)

Jesus: The Believer's Hope, Pt. 3

What is the relationship of the believer’s hope to his faith?

“And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” – Hebrews 7:11-12

Hebrews 6:11-12 shows that the believer has hope enables him to have faith. Faith is placing one’s complete confidence in a object – Jesus Christ our hope. Because of the trustworthiness of this Hope, He is deserving of our absolute confidence in the face of all trials and temptations.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for…” – Hebrews 11:1

Hebrews 11:1 substantiates this by stating that faith is the assurance of what is being hoped for. In Hebrews 11:13, the author tells us that the Old Testament saints died in faith; they had not seen the promises fulfilled, but they had seen them, were persuaded of them, embraced them, and acted on them (hope). Hebrews 11:39 further records that these faithful people had not received the promise, but they still obtained a good report through faith.

Today, the believer’s hope in Jesus Christ his superior Priest enables the believer to exercise faith in Jesus Christ. Our faith is not an idealistic concept separated from facts or experiences. It is confidence in our Priest who has sensibly and rationally acted in a way that demands our absolute confidence.

Jesus: The Believer's Hope, Pt. 2

Hebrews 6:18-20 showed us that our hope in Jesus, our superior Priest. Throughout Hebrews, this Hope relates to believers in three ways.

“Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.” – Hebrews 3:5-6

Confidence and boasting in our hope of Jesus Christ provides evidence that we are members of God’s house. In Hebrews 3, Christ is being contrasted with Moses in that Moses was a faithful steward in God’s house, but Christ is the faithful Son over God’s house. Those who are in the house of God have hope in Jesus Christ which proves that they are not like the Israelites who hardened their hearts and tested God.

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” – Hebrews 6:19

Jesus Christ is “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” Why is Jesus Christ our sure anchor? Because He has gone behind the curtain, into the presence of God as our forerunner and made satisfaction to God for our sin. His work before God as Priest is what gives stability and security to our lives now. No matter what trial or temptation or suffering meets us, Christ has offered one sacrifice for our redemption. When we have been forgiven, nothing in this life has power over us to hurt us. Jesus Christ, our superior Priest who sacrificed Himself on our behalf is the sure and steadfast anchor in whom we place our hope.

“For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.” – Hebrews 7:19

Jesus Christ is the better hope “through which we draw near to God.” Holiness has always been required to see God (12:14), but perfection could never come through the Mosaic Covenant (7:19). The hope of the believer under the Mosaic Covenant was continually in the promise of a Savior who would make ultimate satisfaction to God for their sins. Verses 19 establishes Jesus Christ as the cause by which we draw near to God. Drawing near to God was possible in the Old Testament only by faith in what the Sacrifice would do, but today, the action of the Sacrifice is in the past. We rejoice in experiencing in reality what Old Testament saints rejoiced to experience by faith. Ephesians 2:18 describes this drawing near as having “access by one Spirit unto the Father.” Under the Mosaic Covenant, the ordinary Jewish person did not have direct access to the presence of God – that was reserved for their human mediator the high priest on the Day of Atonement. The Gentile did not even have the human mediator of the high priest – their mediator (the Jewish nation) failed woefully in pointing the Gentiles to God. But Jesus Christ’s sacrifice opened direct access to God for each one of His people. Today we do not need a human mediator (prophet or priest) to talk to God for us or to communicate God’s will to us. Jesus Christ is our superior Priest by which we are continually “drawing near” to God.

Jesus: The Believer's Hope, Pt. 1

This semester at Bible college, one of my favorite classes was Epistle to the Hebrews. This little series of blog posts is aimed at sharing with you some of the blessings that Hebrews has been to me. My prayer is that it may be as great an encouragement to you as it was to me.

The question we shall explore today is this: What is the believer’s hope according to the book of Hebrews?

So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. – Hebrews 6:18-20

In the context of this passage, there are two hopes being fulfilled, the first illustrative of the second. In verses 13-16, Abraham was promised a son through whom he would be blessed. In confirmation of this promise, God swore an oath by Himself. Similarly, in verse 17, when God showed the unchanging nature of his purposes to the heirs of promise, He confirmed that revelation with an oath also. However, this oath was not that Abraham would have a son, but that Jesus Christ would eternally be the Melchizedekian priest (7:21). The subject of this second oath is the hope of the heirs of promise: Jesus Christ, the superior Melchizedekian Priest. Edward Mote, the author of the hymn "The Solid Rock" summarized the believer's hope in Christ with these words:

"My hope is built on nothing less/Than Jesus' blood and righteousness./I dare not trust the sweetest frame,/but wholly trust in Jesus' Name."

Over this Christmas break, may Jesus continually be my hope. May His central position not be replaced by family, friends, or studies. May I never imagine that anything other than the Person of Jesus can make me happy. May the hope that keeps me keeping on be the sight of Jesus, my superior Priest.