Tag Archives: faith

General Principles

Ministerial Qualifications

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This is taken from a blog I wrote back in 2012.

Of all the English translations I have read I have yet to come across one which brings out the distinctions in the Greek words for love in John 21:15-17. Knowing the differences significantly adds to the understanding of Jesus’ reinstatement of Peter and the qualifications for being a minister in God’s church.  Only the amplified version really brings it out but you can lose the significance in all the words.  Here is my version:

15 When they had eaten, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you agape Me more than these? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I phileo You. He said to him, Feed My lambs.

16 Again He said to him the second time, Simon, son of John, do you agape Me? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I phileo You. He said to him, Shepherd My sheep.

17 He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you phileo Me? Peter was grieved that He should ask him the third time, Do you phileo Me? And he said to Him, Lord, You know everything; You know that I phileo You! Jesus said to him, Feed My sheep.

Agape means love like Jesus’ love when He died for us on the Cross.  A supernatural love that comes straight from the Father.  Peter knew he didn’t love Jesus like that – not after his three denials on the night Jesus needed him most.  He wasn’t going to make the same mistake he had made before the crucifixion (John 13:37).

But he also knew that he had phileo –  a brotherly affection and natural love for Jesus.  So he had responded honestly.  He didn’t mind Jesus questioning his agape love but he was upset when he questioned even his phileo love.  He would have been devastated to discover that he didn’t even have that!

But actually Jesus was out to encourage him.  For each time He questioned Peter and each time Peter answered honestly and without pretense Jesus found in him someone He could trust.  Someone who could feed the young and tend to the needs of and even feed the more mature.

Some teachers would say that Pentecost (Acts 2: 1-4) added the agape to the phileo that Peter had.  And perhaps it did.  But for me I think I know what answer I would give to Jesus if I was asked the same questions, Pentecost or no Pentecost.

Only He knows really how qualified I am, or anyone is, to spiritually feed and tend His lambs or sheep.  But the qualifications are definitely not academic ones.  You don’t have to learn the Greek to love His people enough to feed them.

General Principles

Deliverance

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David, the anointed king of Israel, is on the run from another anointed king of Israel, Saul. Saul is jealous of him and trying to kill him. David, on the other hand, doesn’t want to lay a hand on Saul – the Lord’s anointed.

Volumes have been written on that relationship but I just want to look at one incident in this post:

10 That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. 11 But the servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances:

“‘Saul has slain his thousands,
    and David his tens of thousands’?”

12 David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. 13 So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.

14 Achish said to his servants, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? 15 Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”

1 Samuel 21:10-15.

I have read that passage many times and often wondered how David got away with it. Pretending to be a madman would only likely increase the chances of him being killed. What was he thinking when he went to Gath (near the present day Gaza strip), that no one would recognise him? He slaughtered thousands of them. Surely, he should have been killed?

Apparently David thought so too. In Psalm 34 he sums up his delight and thankfulness to God for delivering him from Achish (also known as Abimelek):

Psalm 34

Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.

1 I will extol the Lord at all times;
    his praise will always be on my lips.
2 I will glory in the Lord;
    let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
3 Glorify the Lord with me;
    let us exalt his name together.

4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
    he delivered me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him are radiant;
    their faces are never covered with shame.
6 This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
    he saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
    and he delivers them.

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good;
    blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
9 Fear the Lord, you his holy people,
    for those who fear him lack nothing.
10 The lions may grow weak and hungry,
    but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
11 Come, my children, listen to me;
    I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 Whoever of you loves life
    and desires to see many good days,
13 keep your tongue from evil
    and your lips from telling lies.
14 Turn from evil and do good;
    seek peace and pursue it.

15 The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
    and his ears are attentive to their cry;
16 but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
    to blot out their name from the earth.

17 The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them;
    he delivers them from all their troubles.
18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
    and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

19 The righteous person may have many troubles,
    but the Lord delivers him from them all;
20 he protects all his bones,
    not one of them will be broken.

21 Evil will slay the wicked;
    the foes of the righteous will be condemned.
22 The Lord will rescue his servants;
    no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.

Family, General Principles

Jesus and His Dad

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Everyone has a father even if not everyone has known who that was or even if they were not always there for them.

My observation is that absent or dysfunctional fathers are the root cause of a lot of people’s issues with authority, other men and God.

For those who had a reasonably good, or at least present, father in their early years you probably remember a time when you idolised him. You would have compared him with others and boasted about his various attributes, how important his job was or how good he was at various things, like kicking a ball into the sky or jumping a gate. You might have been about 5 or 6.

There is a sense in which Jesus seems to have never lost that sense of awe about his dad. I guess, in one way, that is not surprising considering Who we are talking about:

“My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch anyone out of the hand of the father. ” (John 10: 29)

The relationship between Jesus and his father was intense to say the least:

“Truly, truly I say to you that the son is able to do nothing from himself unless it is something he sees the father doing. For whatever he does the son also does in the same way.” (John 5:19)

“I am not able to do anything from myself. As I hear I judge and my judgement is righteous because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” (John 5:30)

“I and the father are one.” (John 10:30)

“I have come from the father and have come into the world. Now I leave the world and go to the father.” (John 16:28).

Most of the time we don’t hear the father’s side of the ongoing conversation between the father and son but there are a couple of examples which show just how much the father also loved the son:

And lo, a voice came from Heaven, saying, “This Is My Beloved Son, In Whom I Am Well Pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)

(Jesus said) Father, glorify your name. Then there came a voice from heaven saying: “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.” (John 12:28).

From the above quotations and many others it is clear that Jesus depended heavily on the father for everything. We see this again coming up to the day of his crucifixion:

“Behold, an hour is coming and has come when each one of you will be scattered and I will be left alone. But I am not alone because the father is with me.” (John 17:32)

But then, when he needed him most, the father abandons him.

Did Jesus see this coming?

About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). (Matthew 27:46)

If your dad left your mother unexpectedly when you were young and or vulnerable it may have been the most, or one of the most, difficult days of your life.

Jesus knows what that was like. (Hebrews 4:15)

General Principles

Glorifying God

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30 Having received the piece of bread, he then went out immediately. And it was night.

31 So, when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. 32 If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately.

John 13:30-32

When Jesus gave Judas the piece of bread he was putting in motion the events that would inevitably put Him on the cross. There was no possibility of turning events back at that point. It may have been the bravest thing He did.

Jesus was fully aware of what He had done and of the consequences of it. Now a son of Adam had been glorified in a way no man ever had before. Jesus knew that once a son of man had been glorified in this way that God was truly glorified in this man and that He was now going to be glorified by God.

8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:8-11

God glorifying Jesus in Himself explains why this particular man who grew up in an obscure part of the Roman Empire 2000 years ago, who wrote nothing that we know of and whose immediate followers were mostly persecuted and scattered is the Son of Man and Son of God adored by millions in ages past right up to the current day.

Only God could do that.

General Principles

Trusting Him

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This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do. John 6:6

Questions are God’s way of bringing us closer to him. A relationship develops during the outworking – the back and forth – of unanswered questions. Once the answer comes the relationship growth brought about by that interaction changes or ends. That is why Jesus spent most of his time on earth asking questions or being asked questions rather than answering them.

Most of us have unanswered questions in our lives. They can range from the global to the deeply personal, from the simply annoying to the existential.

“What will we do when we retire and our income is cut in half?”

“Where will I get a house to live in that I can make a home?”

“Where is my life partner that I can marry and form a family with?”

Or as in John 6: “Where are we going to get enough money to pay for the food to feed all these people in our lives?”

The thing is: Jesus knows what he is intending to do.

And it will probably be something unprecedented in our experience.

Our tendency is to judge future prospects by past experiences. History does repeat itself and as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes: There is nothing new under the sun. Even the feeding of the five thousand was not unprecedented. Elijah had done something similar back in the days of the kings of Israel.

However the disciples were not expecting the answer that Jesus brought and normally we don’t either. In our anxious going over of possible scenarios and calculations we usually never correctly predict what is going to happen.

For the really serious, heartfelt issues that we face about loved ones being sick or in trouble, or difficult changes ahead, or anything else that hits our heart’s desires, the answer will always be found when we find where Jesus is at rest in the midst of the storm, the answer he has to the cry of our hearts. “Rabbi,” (which is translated “Teacher”) “where are you abiding?” John 1:38.

He knows what he intends to do.

General Principles

The Sheepfold

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Jesus sums up a way of looking at His arrival into this world, and, actually, at the world itself in the opening verses of John 10:

Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter through the door into the sheepfold but climbs up some other way, that one is a thief and a robber.

But he who enters through the door is the Shepherd of the sheep.

To Him the Doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear His voice and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he has put them all out, He goes before them and the sheep follow Him because they know His voice. And they will never follow a stranger but will flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.

John 10:1-5.

The Scripture does not make it clear how Satan got into the garden of Eden. For sure though, he didn’t enter through the door but went around some other way. Everyone who subtly insinuates their way into an oversight / shepherding role among Jesus’ sheep without express permission from the Doorkeeper, without going through the Door (who is Jesus v.9) is of that same nature.

But Jesus is the Good Shepherd. When He was coming into the world to redeem it by laying down His life, he came legitimately. The Doorkeeper – the Holy Spirit – was happy to open up the sheepfold to Him. The Doorkeeper only ever wants those filled with the Spirit of Jesus to minister to God’s flock, those who have express permission to enter the Sheepfold which is where the Church, His Bride is growing and abiding.

In the Sheepfold every sheep hears Jesus’ voice. Not everyone understands all they hear. However, they all know the sound of His voice, the tones He uses, the Spirit that inhabits those words He uses.

He also calls His own by name – He knows your name! This is not necessarily just that He knows you as Mary or John or Conor but that He knows what He has called you. You can spend a lifetime learning what God means when He calls your name. It’s your eternal name that has two clear components: the name that everyone else sees (Rev. 3:12) and the name only He sees (Rev. 2:17).

If you are His sheep, called by His name, you can guarantee that He will lead you out along with every other sheep into the battlefield, out of the safe confines of the sheepfold, that we may together be part of His plan and work with Him (Eph. 2:10) to see the world saved.

If you are His sheep you know His voice. You will never follow a strange voice but will flee from it. Really, you will know.

General Principles

Desire

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Watch over your heart with all diligence,
For from it are the springs of life.

Proverbs 4:23

It is a great secret to have the eyes of your heart opened so you know what is really going on down there. Paul prays that it might happen to us all: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, (Ephesians 1:18).

It is so important to know what you really want in your heart. As I have written elsewhere, the first thing Jesus (the Incarnate Word) is recorded as saying in John’s gospel is “What are you seeking?” or loosely translated, what do you really want?

God has put eternity in our hearts (Eccles. 3:11) so therefore what we really want will always have an eternal component to it. Actually, the eternal reality is the basis of our earthly most heartfelt desires. We are all looking for something that will eternally satisfy.

Some people know in their hearts that renting a house is just not it, they must own it. What they are doing is agreeing with God’s desire to give them an eternal permanent place they can call their own (John 14:1-3). They are sharing in the same hope as those who were looking for an eternal city among the fathers of faith (Hebrews 11:13-16). The hope in God that He will give to each one of us this place of security and permanence is a heart’s desire that cannot be denied. For some this will be the assurance of it coming in the future. For others a lot of that satisfaction can be found in this age here on the earth. As David said: “I certainly believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13). It becomes a tree of life to those who find that desire satisfied (Proverbs 13:12).

The same applies to any desire of the heart. They are all rooted in eternally valid and appropriate fulfillments.

So let the Spirit search you out and let you know what it is you really want. And don’t be afraid of the answer your heart gives.

Because the heart is the seat of the emotions, intellect and will (according to the bible) there are always strong feelings, intense and oft repeated thoughts and actions that arise out of the desires of our heart.

For all of us it could not be more obvious what we spend most of our time thinking of and doing. What is your most commonly watched TV program (is it “a house in the sun” for example)? Or is it a program containing a lot of human forms and relationships (“Love Island” anyone)?

What do you do to relax? What are you thinking of in your unguarded moments?

One way of looking at the Christian walk is that of capturing all those thoughts and bringing them to the Christ dwelling with you in your heart (2 Cor. 10:5). For Christ dwells in our hearts through faith:

…you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 that, in reference to your former way of life, you are to rid yourselves of the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:22-24.

The process of being renewed in the spirit of our minds includes the taking of every thought of our hearts captive to Christ and asking him what he thinks about it. Sometimes you might be surprised at his answers. We are very often not like him at all in the way we think (Isaiah 55:8) but we do have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16) to call on at all times if we choose to do so. Putting on the new man is to continuously walk in submission to the thoughts of Christ over our own thoughts.

Keep a constant watch over what your heart is thinking. Let God show you how your desires correspond to his. He put those desires in the heart of every child of God. He hasn’t made a mistake when he lets you reap the consequences of that sowing.

You don’t really understand the heart of God if you think he wouldn’t want you to both eat the cake in this life and also have it in the next. However, he does also know whether having just the eternal version of those two or both the eternal and temporal would be best for you.

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalms 37:4.

General Principles

A New Approach

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And as He was going through, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him: “Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents that he was born blind?” Jesus answered: “Neither this man sinned nor his parents. This is in order that the works of God should be manifest in him. We must work the works of him who sent us while it is still day, night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this he spat on the ground and made clay out of the spittle and anointed his eyes and said to him: “Go now to the pool of Siloam” (which is translated Sent) “and wash.” The man then went away and washed and came back seeing.

John 9:1-7

Cause and effect is a usual way of thinking for us humans: Something happens and we seek a cause for it. In this case the disciples had been taught that the reason for illness is sin. The problem they had is that this man was born blind so there were only two possible explanations in their minds: either the man sinned while he was in the womb or his parents sinned and he felt the effects of that sin.

Jesus saw things differently. He knew that he was about to abolish sin on the cross (Ephesians 2:14-16, Colossians 1:13-14) and so change everything. 

Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him (John 3:17). Sin is dealt with, so He doesn’t concern Himself with that. Now every disease, sickness, infirmity, addiction is an opportunity for God to be glorified. In this case God is glorified by restoring the sight of the blind man.

Let’s see every weakness of the flesh as an opportunity for God to work instead of trying to work out why it has happened. People don’t need our assessments, they need our love and the power of God working through that.

General Principles

The Word

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In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. 

John 1:1-2

So why does the apostle John under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit call Jesus the Word?

God is Spirit and before anything else was, He is. 

We struggle to think of what was before God expressed the words recorded in Genesis and made things. There wasn’t even time so we can’t even say that that was then and this is now. All anyone can do is start with a beginning. In the beginning God created… In the beginning was the Word.

A word is a combination of symbols that express an idea. It can be either spoken or written. We need to understand the language or symbols if we are to consciously benefit from the words spoken or written.

The Word – Jesus – is God’s best idea, ever. He is the word. 

All ideas/ words ultimately have their origin in God. Even the ideas about what God is not, only exist because He is.

For any word to mean or do anything it needs to be expressed either in writing or speech. Jesus is God expressed – the Word (Hebrews 1:3).

This explains – I hope – why God has chosen to express Himself through symbols on a page that we read. The bible contains the ideas God wants to express in writing. It is Jesus become written for us. 

It is also a critical part of how we eat His flesh and drink His blood.

God created the idea of eating and drinking and made it an essential part of our being. We cannot live physically unless we eat and drink. When we eat and drink we assimilate animals and vegetables and convert them through the action of our blood into the substance of our flesh. 

In Chapter 6 of John’s gospel Jesus says we must eat His flesh and drink His blood. This is a picture of spiritual communion in which Jesus wants us to know how much he wants us to have his thinking, his ways of acting, his soul integrated and part of our soul.

We should really read the whole chapter. Here are some of the main points:

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 

63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are Spirit and life.

There can be no more intimate a picture of getting closer to someone than eating them. It’s not that Jesus simply wants us to eat with him. According to John, Jesus is saying he wants us to eat him. In fact we have to eat his flesh and drink his blood because that is how we have eternal life.

As verse 63 above clearly shows this is not about eating anything physical. There is a particular religion extensively observed in Ireland and elsewhere which majors on physical things. But to do that completely misses the point of what Jesus is saying here and what he wants.

In the beginning was the Word and now, throughout time, there is no other created thing that so accurately expresses God than His Word made flesh in Jesus as He is expressed in the bible.

We must eat His flesh and drink His blood spiritually if we are to live in eternity. Learn the bible. Think no other thoughts, be no other way. Eat and drink the thoughts, the Spirit, of God expressed – the Word- and so become like Him.

This is fundamental to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

He who believes in Me will have eternal life. John 3:15

faith, General Principles

Faith

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“If we emphasize faith does that mean we can forget about the law?”  Paul asks at the end of Romans 3. And then he answers himself:  “Of course not!  In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law.”

It seems to me that the first 4 chapters of Romans are primarily about sin, law and faith and the relationship between all three. And up to now we have learned that we all sin, that the law doesn’t help but instead just makes the sin more obvious and that faith is somehow the answer to it all. Paul has also introduced the concept of grace/ undeserved favour. In chapter 4 Paul tries to explain faith using Abraham as an example.

First of all it is as well to establish that Abraham was a sinner. He mistrusted God on at least two occasions we know of and put Sarah in a compromised position, he had a child by his wife’s servant – as well as several other liaisons. He also committed murder on several occasions – or at least he was involved in war – and would have killed his own son if God hadn’t stopped him (Genesis 22). By the way, it looks like Sarah had had enough after that incident since we don’t see her with him again until she is dead. You wouldn’t blame her for not wanting to stay with a man who said God told him to kill their son.

But the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” Romans 4:3). Abraham, just like us, needed a saviour – a God who forgives sinners. And it was the trusting relationship with God that enabled God to pass on that forgiveness to him. There was no way he could be with God, believing God, and not be forgiven since he couldn’t stand before God’s holiness except in a place of forgiveness.

“Oh what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight.  Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin!”  as David says (Psalm 32: 1-2 quoted in Romans 4:7.8).  Another man who needed a saviour.

The death of Jesus looks back as well as forward in its effects.