Category Archives: Wednesday in the Word

Biblical passages and interpretation.

Wednesday in the Word

Have We Forgotten to Love Like Christ?

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Revelation 2:1b-5
1b These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands: 2 “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

In the Book of Revelation, there are seven letters, one to each of the seven historical churches (“seven golden lampstands”) of the day; the above verses are from the first letter, to the Church of Ephesus. John, the writer of Revelation, dictates the words of Christ (“[he] who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands”) in each of these letters.

In this first letter, Christ says that the Ephesians have done well, doing their Christian work unrelentingly, and making sure that all the people who want to serve the church are truly worthy of their posts. Yet there is a problem; in doing all this hard work, and in checking people for their “fitness” in serving God, the Ephesians have actually forgotten Christian love–the first and most important commandment Jesus ever gave us. They have forgotten how to reach out to the world with compassion and love, rather than judging the outside world “righteously” (actually pridefully).

It seems silly, perhaps, to think that a group of people who is so obviously “doing work for God” could have forgotten how to love like God loves. But I think more Christians (and more churches) today suffer from the “Ephesians Syndrome” than we would like to admit. Too many times, I’ve heard Christians speak ill of others who have made mistakes, judging them harshly, saying they were “no longer fit to serve the church” because of their mistake. Or I’ve heard churchgoing people say that “so-and-so just doesn’t fit in our church. He/she’s not our kind of people.”

We are all guilty of judging each other too harshly like this in the secular world. What is sad is that we don’t realize how much that same judgmental nature can carry over into our church lives, tainting our relationships with nonbelievers and believers alike. God loved us despite our mistakes, despite our flaws and sins, and yet sometimes we deem others “unworthy” to serve Christ because of similar mistakes.

In this light, “Remember the height from which you have fallen!” is an admonition not only to the Ephesians, but to us. We should remember how much God loves us, and extend that unconditional love to others, as we did when we were first saved. If we don’t, Christ warns us that He will remove our lampstand (our beacon of Christian influence) from its esteemed place. If we aren’t shining the light of Christ’s compassionate love out into the world, but instead spewing pride and judgment everywhere, what good works are we doing for Jesus, anyway?

Wednesday in the Word

Worldly Things Cannot Satisfy, but God Can

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Eccl 3:9-11
9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

In this passage, contained within the rather sobering and depressing early chapters of Ecclesiastes, we see the writer (who may or may not have been King Solomon) wonder about all the worldly “toil” we humans do. It all feels meaningless–a word repeated throughout the early chapters. What good is our work and its products when we won’t get to enjoy them forever?

The “burden” God has laid on the human race is simply mortality itself–we were made for eternity, as v. 11 states, but we only live a short time. We don’t get to enjoy the “beautiful” things, either of the natural world or of man’s world, for very long. And we don’t live long enough to “fathom what God has done from beginning to end,” either.

So what’s it all for? Where’s the meaning? Why are we even living? This cry for meaning is not only found in the Book of Ecclesiastes, but throughout the world; we all want to know what life is about. Thousands of books, dramas, poetry, art objects, and songs have been created about the meaning of life, especially looking for meaning through worldly things.

But, as the writer of Ecclesiastes has found out over time, trying to find life’s meaning through the quest for power, the pursuit of pleasure, the accumulation of money or friends, etc., is in itself meaningless and does not give any lasting joy. These are all worldly things, just as ephemeral as we are. But there is an eternal One who can bring meaning to our lives–God. Living for His glory, bringing comfort and strength to others in His name, and seeking to lead a moral and just life, brings a more global and eternal understanding of humanity. Being Christian, knowing we are saved by faith, knowing how short a time we have, makes us want to use that short time to share our blessings with others.

Wednesday in the Word

We Don’t Have to Be “Just So” for God to Love Us

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Romans 5:6-8
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

In these three verses, Paul explains God’s grace-filled plan, Christ’s central role in it, and our amazing benefit from His sacrifice. We–the children of God, all humanity–were “powerless” before Christ came to be the final sin offering, the final and most powerful sacrifice to make us right with God again.

This is inconceivable to us ordinary humans; why would Jesus do this for us, when very few of us would die for each other? But that is just the nature of God’s love. He cared so much for each of us, wanted to be reconnected with us so badly, that He did this drastic action, suffered and died for us so that our sins would be paid in full.

And the strangest (and yet best) part of this? We didn’t have to accept Jesus first for Him to do this for us. He loved us even though we were “ungodly,” died for us just the way we were. Accepting that love, forging that connection with him, accepting that unbelievable gift, is all we have to do to be saved. None of us, not even the “worst” sinners by the world’s calculations, have to do anything to be loved by God.

Wednesday in the Word

When We Get Too Prideful, God Can and Will Humble Us

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Ezekiel 28:2b, 6b-7
2b “In the pride of your heart you say, ‘I am a god, I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas.’ But you are a man and not a god, though you think you are as wise as a god.”…

6b “Because you think you are wise, as wise as a god, 7 I am going to bring foreigners against you, the most ruthless of nations; they will draw their swords against your beauty and wisdom and pierce your shining splendor.”

God speaks here through Ezekiel, one of the Old Testament’s major prophets, pronouncing sentence against the city of Tyre and its ruler for the pride and conceit in their thinking. In its day, Tyre was a great trading and shipping city, well-known, loved, and envied for its wealth. But Tyre and its citizens have grown too complacent, too proud of their achievements, to even acknowledge God anymore. They have begun to think of themselves as gods, infinitely wise, infinitely omniscient.

Here, God says He will bring “foreigners” against Tyre in an assault which will “pierce” the veil of their conceited thinking and pride. This is not an evil act by God, because God does not do evil. Instead, this is a hard lesson for Tyre, a lesson of humility and remembering just Who is in control. The city and its inhabitants have gone on too long believing that they are the ones with ultimate power and wisdom.

This prophecy is about a city, but God can and will humble us in similar ways when we get too prideful and complacent about our own achievements. I experienced this in 2009 with my debacle of a teaching career; God proved to me that I could fail, and publicly, though I had spent most of my school years being given this award and that achievement. It was embarrassing and shaming, but ultimately important for me to reevaluate my personal worth. I got into a better place with God because I no longer thought of myself as striving to be perfect and accomplished.

When we start thinking in terms of all the acclaim we’ve gained, or all the community respect we command, we inevitably lose sight of the fact that God blessed us with that. Everything we have ultimately comes from God’s blessing; when we forget that, and start thinking we got all of this ourselves, God will not hesitate to humble us, to remind us Who is ultimately in control.

Wednesday in the Word

Don’t Be A Sadducee–Don’t Test Jesus

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Mark 12:19
19 “Teacher,” they* said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 20 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. 21 The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. 22 In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. 23 At the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

24 Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? 25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.”

*the Sadducees

The Sadducees were a small group of wealthy and influential people in Jesus’ day, who believed there was no resurrection and cleaved to Mosaic law (the first five books of the modern Bible). They come to Jesus in this passage, asking him a riddle-like question about the status of marriage after the resurrection…but their intent is not to learn. Instead, they want to trip Jesus up, because they don’t believe in the resurrection anyway and they want to confound this supposed “Son of God” with Scriptural law thrown back in His face.

But Jesus replies with a common-sense answer the Sadducees were definitely not expecting. He tells them that after the resurrection, life will be very, very different for all believers–they will be “like the angels,” having fellowship with God, and as such, marriage and other worldly issues will be of little concern. The Sadducees’ question is thus exposed for the shallow, misguided query that it is.

Many times throughout the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), various groups of people try to test Jesus’ knowledge of Scripture, to try to expose him as a fake and prove that He is not really the Son of God. In each circumstance, as in this one, Jesus proves He not only knows the written Scripture, but knows the heavenly truths which inspired it. He doesn’t just quote tiny bits of Scripture for wisdom or life guidance–He knows how all the Scriptures fit together to depict God and His plan for humanity.

Today, even established Christians can begin to question Jesus or test Him, trying to determine whether He is who He says He is. We can worry ourselves to distraction over small bits of Scripture taken way out of context. But as Jesus proves here, only knowing bits of the Scripture and using that to question God’s identity and nature won’t help you “prove” anything–it’s knowing the full gestalt of the Bible, how all the Scriptures fit together, plus your own faith, that gives you peace.

Wednesday in the Word

This is How God Protects His People

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Ezra 5:3-5
3 At that time Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and their associates went to them* and asked, “Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and restore this structure?” 4 They also asked, “What are the names of the men constructing this building?” 5 But the eye of their God was watching over the elders of the Jews, and they were not stopped until a report could go to Darius and his written reply be received.

*the Israelites

King Cyrus of Persia, quoted in the first chapter of the Book of Ezra, had already decreed that any Israelites who wanted to do so could go back to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple to God, which the Babylonians had destroyed when they took the Israelites into captivity years before. Over the years of rebuilding, however, this decree was challenged time and again and the efforts of the Israelites were opposed–this quotation from chapter 5 of Ezra is the last challenge.

In a time where it might have been personally beneficial for the Persian kings to halt reconstruction on a temple built for a competing deity, instead the rulers looked with favor on the Israelites and let them continue. Each time rebuilding of the temple for God was challenged or opposed by the “enemies of Judah and Benjamin,” as the Bible calls them, God moved in the hearts of the kings (first Xerxes, then Artaxerxes, and finally Darius) to set the opponents straight.

Even during this time of positive change blended with sharp disappointments for the Israelites, God was watching over them, using even the human rulers of other lands to look after His people. Already God had brought them through the time of Babylonian exile; they were free to return home, so the light at the end of the tunnel was visible. God does the same for us today–He moves in the hearts of any who oppose or threaten His people, as we see by looking back at even recent history.

Therefore, we should not be overly worried by current events, if we trust God completely the way the ancient Israelites did. We just have to be willing to trust that God has all these situations under control, and that He protects His own.

Wednesday in the Word

Be Sure You’re Following Jesus’ Real Teachings

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Matthew 5:43-45
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Though no one in the Old Testament ever said or wrote “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” many Jews of Jesus’ day believed it as if it were Scripture. And indeed, it seems instinctive, almost common sense, to hate those who hate you or who have done evil toward you.

But that is precisely the mindset Jesus is preaching against here. Not only should we not hate our enemies, we should pray for them, and even reach out to them in love. Sounds silly, in a worldly context–why bother loving and praying for enemies when they won’t even know or care? But God loves each of us, even those of us who commit evil acts, who say unrighteous things; God loves us no matter who we are, loves each of us even before we are saved, and only waits for each of us to admit Him to our hearts through accepting Christ as our Savior. We were all unrighteous at some point in our lives, and yet He still loved us even then.

When we love our enemies and pray for them, we are acting in accord with God instead of man; that is Jesus’ point. It is a lesson we could all use a refresher course on occasionally, because the world teaches us much about the “usefulness” of revenge and the “might” of hatred. It takes a strong person–a strong Christian–to react to all this negativity with the serene love Jesus advocates in this passage.

Wednesday in the Word

God’s Protective Promise

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Isaiah 43:1-3a
1 But now, this is what the Lord says–he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel; “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. 3 For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…”

This is truly a Scripture passage for our time, as our whole world faces social, political, and economic instability, not to mention ceaseless war, natural disasters, and rampant destruction. It’s admittedly hard for us to trust in God when He feels so far away from what is reported in the nightly news.

But this Scripture from the Book of Isaiah should reassure us as much as it reassured the people of ancient Israel: God is with us, even as we wade through floods, even as we walk through fire. Even when it seems the world’s problems are crushing in on us like a trash compactor, we know we can rely on God, because He rescued ancient Israel from slavery, starvation, and the spiritual bleakness of sin, and He will do the same for us. All we need to do is trust in that promise, and give those problems (which are unsolvable for us) over to Him.

Wednesday in the Word

Who’s the Better Christian? Not Always the Louder One

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Matthew 19:26-30
26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

27 Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”

28 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and many who are last shall be first.”

Just before this passage, Jesus has spoken with a rich young man (v. 16-22), and the young man has walked away sad because he can follow every commandment, but cannot find it in his heart to give up his wealth and follow Jesus. When Jesus then remarks that it’s “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (v. 23-24), the disciples are shocked; if a rich man who follows all the commandments can’t get into heaven easily, then who CAN?

Peter, as always, voices the concern of the disciples in v. 27, but Jesus has already answered the problem in v. 26. If you think on a worldly level, trying to “do enough good” to get into heaven, then getting into heaven is impossible. You can’t be righteous enough on your own. But if you trust in God daily, and believe in Jesus as your Savior, the One who paid the cost of your sin and gave you the gift of righteousness, then you will get into heaven. Salvation, leading to eternal life (v. 29), is a gift, not something earned.

Jesus also mentions in v. 28-29 how the disciples themselves will be helping to lead among the followers of Jesus. They are not literally going to judge who goes to heaven and who doesn’t; the word “judge” is used here in the Old Testament sense, meaning a leader like those elected during the Book of Judges. Those who have led others to Christ in this way, those who have followed the faith despite personal, familial, or financial crises, will be rewarded in heaven, not with material goods, but with eternal life with God.

But there’s an important caveat here in v. 30: “Many who are first will be last, and many who are last shall be first.” What this means is that many who look like strong Christians may not actually be saved, and those who don’t appear to be “Christian enough” for the Sunday morning crowd may actually go to heaven in spite of public opinion. Salvation is a highly personal matter, and those who just “act saved” are doing just that–putting on an act, while others who serve quietly and faithfully are actually doing the work of Christ. My NIV translation notes that “in the kingdom of heaven there are many reversals, and the day of judgment will bring many surprises.”

I believe this means that we can’t tell on earth who will be “first” in the kingdom of heaven; Jesus warns us of this. The best Christians may not always be the ones who donate the most money to the church or the ones who are always there on Sunday morning–we might be surprised who we see (and don’t see) in heaven.

Wednesday in the Word

Jesus, Foretold by Zechariah

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Zechariah 12:10
10 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

400 years before Jesus was born, this Scripture was written, which seems to foretell the Crucifixion. Reading this Scripture literally gives me chills, thinking about how this mirrors what we read about the actual Crucifixion in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).

Here, Zechariah is retelling an oracle he’s received from the Lord, saying that God will pour out “a spirit of grace and supplication” on both “the house of David” and those who live in Jerusalem on the day that the Messiah is sacrificed. When the Messiah is crucified (“pierced”), that spirit, which we can take to mean the Holy Spirit, will descend over the onlooking crowd, and they will see the Messiah as one of great faith, a faith which they only realized after His death. I hear echoes of Mark 15:39 here (“And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard him cry and saw how he died, he said, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God!'”).

This is just one of the prophecies concerning the Messiah, for whom the Israelites and their descendants waited four centuries…and the way it connects up with the New Testament is amazing. Though the Old and New Testament sometimes seem to be greatly divergent in tone and in subject matter, sections like these foreshadow Jesus and connect the Old Testament’s laws and messages directly with His ministry.