The Necessity of Devotional Theology

In Hosea 4.1, this morning, where the necessity of theology is clearly laid out. God chastises his own people because there is no faithfulness or steadfast love or knowledge of God in the land. I take from this that one cannot be faithful to God without knowledge of him. Nor is it legitimate to have a knowledge of God and not be faithful to him. These are two equal and opposite errors into which men fall.

If we do not have a robust, devotional, committed knowledge of God, then we cannot be faithful to him.

B. B. Warfield, in addressing the old saw about people who would rather be on their knees praying for ten minutes then studying theology for ten hours retorted: What? On your knees for ten hours with your books. Just so.

Mercy to Live

From Psalms 119.77, which I think is my second favorite Psalm after Psalm 139. It's packed so full of truth, and with my Bible reading plan (McCheyne) we go through it slowly enough to savor deeply.

What does the psalmist mean when he says, Let your mercy come to me that I might live? Is he speaking of that fact that it's by God's mercy that we live eternally? Or does he mean that we live our lives by God's mercy, as if to say, I will truly live to honor you by your mercy. I'm inclined to think its the latter because revelation at the time this was written saw death as a descent into the grave. I think he means to say, I only live properly if I live underneath your mercy, or compassion.

The End of Days

I really like the very last verse of the book of Daniel (Daniel 12.13) because it holds so much promise, for Daniel—and for every believer. Daniel will not see his own prophecies fulfilled. He will pass away. He will rest—a euphemism for death. What exactly the Scriptures mean by rest is not clear. I think it means the body will rest in the grave until the resurrection. The NRSV translates the second half of the verse as: You will rise for your reward at the end of days. This is not as literal as the ESV: you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days. However, I think the NRSV gets the point of the passage. There will come an end of days, and end of time, when God will finish up what he started. There will also come an allotted place, or a reward (NRSV) for Christ-followers. This is our hope. This is the promise. This is the end...and the beginning.

Toil in Hope

Thus speaks Paul in 1 Timothy 4.10. The end to which Paul and his companions toiled was the hope that they had in the living God. Admittedly, Paul's life was not easy, it involved toil and struggle (ἀγωνιζόμεθα). He could bear up in the toil and struggle because his hope was fixed, not on earthly reward, or fame, or money; not on retirement in the golden years when he could get a villa on the beach and collect seashells. His hope was eternal. It rested in the living God.

Like Paul, we do not work for retirement. Our end is hope in the living God, it is to this end, that with Paul, we too toil and struggle in the work that God has given us to do. May we endure in the work sustained by hope in the living God.

Focus and Growl

In Psalm 119.15, this morning. Two ways of saying the same thing. I will meditate (which means mutter, groan, or growl) on your precepts, meaning I will focus and concentrate and work them through my head again and again until I have them. In the same way, fixing one's eyes on something implies focus and concentration until understanding is gained.

Spurgeon: As the miser often returns to look upon his treasure, so does the devout believer by frequent meditation turn over the priceless wealth which he has discovered in the book of the Lord.

Calling for God to Act

In Daniel 9.19, this morning where Daniel closes his marvelous prayer of confession and supplication for God's people. It is a good example of how we can pray (but often do not). O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God! It is good and right to confess our sins. It is good and right to call for the Lord to act. It is good and right to call for the Lord to act without delay. All of this expresses dependence, and it is fundamentally dependence for which God instituted the practice of prayer. It's not that God doesn't know our thoughts or situation; it's that we express and acknowledge our dependence upon him when we pray, as David does so well here.

Primus Ergo Sum

I am first! (Just not in a good way). So says Paul in 1 Timothy 1.15. However, the cool thing that I got out of the verse is how Paul summarizes the gospel in 8 words (in Greek)—Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς ἦλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἁμαρτωλοὺς σῶσαι. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That was his mission. That was his assignment. That is what he accomplished.

Oh...and Paul was first in that he was the chief of sinners, but the Lord had mercy on him.

Eternal Comfort and Good Hope

Thinking about 2 Thess 2.16,17, this morning. Paul says that the Godhead (God and Christ, thereby pointing out the divinity of Christ) gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace. I'm thinking Paul is using grace in the by grace you have been saved sense here. Thomas Constable quotes a commentator saying that secular writers at the time used the term good hope to refer to life after death, which makes sense from the context. It is grace that gives us hope of life after death in heaven with Christ.

The same eternal comfort and good hope is available to us that was available to the believers at Thessalonica. It comes to us in the same way also—through grace.

Faithful and Just Works

In Psalms 111.7 this morning where the psalmist describes God's works as faithful and just. Considering the context, I believe that the writer is thinking, not so much of God's act of creation, as he is his acts of faithfulness and redemption for his people. In the same verse the psalmist says that his precepts are trustworthy and in verse 9, he sent redemption to his people.

The cool thing here is that, all of the faithful and just works that God has done are available to me!

Sacrifices of Thanksgiving and Songs of Joy

Psalm 107.22, this morning, in which the psalmist says to let God's people offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and tell of his deeds in songs of joy. The Hebrew says, Let them sacrifice sacrifices of thanksgiving. I take this to mean, not that it is a a sacrifice to offer thanksgiving as we understand it, but that, in the same manner that they offer up other types of sacrifices to God, let them also offer up thanksgiving to God.

The Hebrew verb used in tell of his deeds ‏וְ ספר in songs of joy means to count or recount or relate, so I like to think the psalmist was telling us to list off God's deeds as we offer up songs of joy to him.

God Gave

In Daniel 1.17, this morning where the theological keywords of the passage are: God gave them...

We often make the mistake of assuming that the talents we have are due to our own efforts when as the writer of Daniel understood, God gave them. What do you have that you did not receive? Paul asks in 1 Cor 4.7. If then you did receive it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

Boasting for our talents and abilities should go towards God and give him the glory for them because God gave them.

Dependence

In Psalms 104.29-31, this morning. The psalmist here is working out the dependence of all creation upon their creator. This is a radically different view of creation than modern science has. The naturalist says I don't know how the world got here, but it is now running by itself. The psalmist says, everything is dependent upon the creator. Food to sustain life is given by the creator (vs. 28). If the Creator takes away it away—when you hide your face—then they die and return to dust. However, when God sends for His Spirit, then you renew the face of the ground. Birth, death, life, sustenance, rain, the sea, the creatures in the sea, it is all dependent upon the Lord.

Hidden With Christ

So says Paul in Colossians 3.3. We have died and our lives are hidden with Christ in God. I believe that Paul speaks of our lives as being hidden with Christ in that, while we are now spiritually alive, this fact is not fully manifested until Christ's appearing. Thus the Bible Speaks Today commentary says: The perfect union between Christ and his people is a heavenly union, and therefore is hidden from man’s observation.

Probing Those Who Fall Away

I was struck by Psalms 101.3, this morning where David writes: I hate the work of those who fall away, it shall not cling to me. I take from this that apostasy is a danger, not just to those who fall away, but to those around them, because they might be swept along with the one who falls away. I think it's important to understand that we hate the work of those who fall away, we do not hate the one who falls away. We pray for them, while avoiding falling into the same trap of sin.

Spurgeon, as always, is pretty succinct: Sin, like pitch, is apt to stick.

Peace and How to Attain It

In Philippians 4.6,7, this morning. One do not, and one do. DO NOT be anxious about anything. DO let your requests be made known to God (with thanksgiving of course!). Paul gives a command here so we ought to take it as a command, not as an opinion. When our hearts are anxious (and they will be) take it to the Lord. It's funny that Paul doesn't promise any positive outcome here, at least from our own human framework and desires. He only promises the peace of God. That is enough.

John Calvin weighs in: For we are not made of iron, nor of steel so as not to be shaken by temptations. But this is our consolation, this is our solace —to deposit, or (to speak with greater propriety) to disburden in the bosom of God everything that harasses us.

The Worthlessness of All Things (In Comparison to Knowing Christ)

Thus Paul in Philippians 3.8. Paul speaks truthfully (this is not a boast on his part, it's just a fact) when he says that he suffered the loss of all things for Christ's sake. In comparison to knowing Christ everything else—everything else!—is σκύβαλον skubalon. The word can mean either dung (the equivalent word in English is probably best translated shit) or it can mean refuse or rubbish. You get the point though. Paul metaphorically piles everything that he is and has on one side of the ledger and knowing Christ on the other side of the ledger and says, "all of this stuff on this side is worthless, nothing, garbage. Christ? Everything." It is a very strong statement and Paul means it to be understood that way.

Like Fingernails on a Blackboard; Like the Sweetest Music

Reading in Philippians 2.9-11, this morning. I heard a testimony once from Mary Poplin, who was a radical feminist, before she got saved. She said that hearing the name of Jesus before she got saved, was like hearing fingernails on a blackboard to her. The reason that the name of Jesus is like fingernails on a blackboard to some, and like the sweetest music to others, is explained in these verses. There will come a day when, at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This will be to God's glory. If you do not believe in Christ, you will bow; if you do believe in Christ, you will bow. The first will bow out of compulsion, the second out of love and honor.

As the Bible Speaks Today commentary points out: A confession made for the first time in response to the visible manifestation of his glory will not be a saving confession, but a grudging acknowledgment wrested by overmastering divine power from lips still as unbelieving as they were through their whole earthly experience. All will submit, all will confess, but not all will be saved.

Relentlessly Gospel Focused

Paul's prayer request in Ephesians 6.19, demonstrates his relentless focus on the gospel. He asks the Ephesians to pray for him, not for safety (he is in jail when he writes), nor for health, nor for his needs to be provided, nor even to be released from prison!?! He asks them to pray that words may be given...to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. Now THAT is what I call being relentlessly focused on the ministry that God had given him. Not freedom, not safety, not protection, but words to preach. Remarkable.

Imitators of God

Paul sets a high standard for us in Ephesians 5.1. We are to be imitators of God. From Eph 4.32, we understand that he means that we are to imitate God's kindness and forgiveness, as demonstrated in his forgiveness of us in Christ. Who cannot find it in his heart to forgive when he understands that God has forgiven us for our sin and rebellion? It is easy to imitate our Father when we fully understand how much that he loves us.

As Chrysostom wrote: Not all children imitate their father, but those who know themselves to be beloved act like “beloved children".

False Shepherds; The True Shepherd

In Ezekiel 34.15,16, this morning, a beautiful passage. If the shepherds that God had appointed over Israel would not be proper shepherds (c. f. Ezekiel 34.4), then God would be a true shepherd to his people. God will tend the sheep; he will have them lie down; he will go after and find the strays; and bind up the injured; and strengthen the weak. Oh, and he will also destroy those who should have been shepherds but were not (the sleek and strong). And then, in the ESV, I will feed them in justice. The NIV translates this same fragment as, I will shepherd the flock with justice. While both are legitimate translations, the NIV makes more sense to me. God is drawing a sharp contrast between himself as a shepherd and those who should have been shepherds, but were not (Ezekiel 34.4).

Two points of application. First, if you are shepherding anyone—as a father, or pastor, or leader of a small group—you'd better give due attention to shepherding as God would shepherd because that is your responsibility and God will hold you accountable. Second, God is our shepherd!! What do we possibly have of which to be afraid?