A Pastor's Joy

3 John 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

4 μειζοτέραν τούτων οὐκ ἔχω χαράν, ἵνα ἀκούω τὰ ἐμὰ τέκνα ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ περιπατοῦντα.

John is telling Gaius here that his greatest joy is that his spiritual children are walking in the truth. He uses a comparative adjective  μειζοτέραν to explain this. That is where we get the "than" in English since it is difficult to express this in Greek. The first clause is something like, "I do not have greater joy than this" which is connected to the ἵνα clause. What gives him such great joy? He loves to hear that his children are walking in the truth. Note that he uses the participle περιπατοῦντα, which suggests that he is particularly glad to hear that his children are in a general, continuous state of walking in the truth.


What does this mean for us? It means that we need to walk in the truth. How do we know what the truth it? We learn it by reading, studying, and memorizing God's Word. That's the truth. How do we bless and honor our pastors? Letting them use your beach house for the week is a nice thing, but what they want more than anything is to hear about you walking in the truth.


As someone who is getting ready to go into ministry I can testify to this. I want to see God glorified in changed lives. I know that God's Word is powerful and active. I know that the Holy Spirit transforms hearts. I am fine with someone who wants to apply Galatians 6:6 to me in an appropriate way, but I would much prefer that someone note this verse if they really want to honor me for anything they may have learned.


Any pastors out there who want to comment on this? Is there any greater joy than to hear that your people are walking in the truth?

The Value of Knowledge

2 Peter 1:2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

2 χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη ἐν ἐπιγνώσει τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν.

Normally when I think about this chapter I think of the latter verses that affirm the authority and inspiration of Scripture.  However, I want to focus on this verse in the greeting for two reasons.  One is that when I do my weekly review of 2 Peter I have a hard time remembering this verse in order because its structure is different than most of the other greeting verses in the New Testament.  Second is that this verse is different than most other greeting verses in the New Testament.

Paul typically incorporates χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη into his greetings.  This literally means "grace and peace."  It's a very nice greeting, isn't it?  Who wouldn't want to have grace and peace multiplied to them?  But what I find fascinating here is the means Peter prescribes for it.  How are they to receive this grace and peace?  It is ἐν ἐπιγνώσει τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν.  There is nothing fancy about this Greek.  It is as the ESV translates it.

What's the big deal?  It seems that there are plenty of folks who are all about experience.  They want to have a rocking "worship time" (read: music).  They want the pastor to touch their hearts so that they "feel blessed."  They want to have emotional times of deep fellowship with the Lord.  Frankly, I think that these are noble goals.

However, they become ignoble when we forget one of the means God gives us to experience His grace and peace.  He gave us His Word.  That is an incredible gift to us.  As we become more familiar with it we grow in grace and peace.  We can certainly pursue the purely experiential too, but we need everything to be grounded in His Word.

What are you doing with respect to this?  Are you spending regular time in it?  Have you read the whole Bible at least once?  If not, why not?  At the risk of sounding snarky, if you aren't reading the Bible then you are implicitly saying that you don't want to know God better.  You don't want to enjoy greater grace and peace.  You think that there is some other way to go and you aren't enjoying the gift that He gave us through Scripture.  You probably wouldn't say these things in so many words, but that is what your attitude demonstrates.

Let's turn to His Word and get to know it.  There we will find grace and peace.

Scripture

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

16 πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος καὶ ὠφέλιμος πρὸς διδασκαλίαν, πρὸς ἐλεγμόν, πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν, πρὸς παιδείαν τὴν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ, 17  ἵνα ἄρτιος ᾖ ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ ἄνθρωπος, πρὸς πᾶν ἔργον ἀγαθὸν ἐξηρτισμένος.

I often try to stay away from the more commonly-quoted passages when I write these little journal entries, but I can't pass this one up.  This is one of my absolute favorite passages in the New Testament.  It pretty much summarizes my approach to life and ministry.  The key to everything is Scripture.  We will get into this a bit more when we do 2 Peter 1, but the point is that Scripture has what we need to live.  It is not just that Scripture equips man for some good works, but it equips man for πᾶν ἔργον ἀγαθὸν.  All means all.

This is one of the strongest passages we have for the inspiration of Scripture.  Paul uses a word that presumably he made up for the occasion.  As far as anyone knows, the word θεόπνευστος  is a compound word where he joined Θεος and πνεω.  He made it up because it perfectly expressed how Scripture came to be.  God breathed it out.  Note that this refers to πᾶσα γραφὴ.

This has a very profound implication.  This means that the word ὁ in verse 17 is as inspired as the word θεόπνευστος in verse 16.  It means that everything in Scripture is important.  This is not to say that God dictated everything, but what we have as Scripture is what God intended for us to know.  We see in verse 16 all that it does for us.

So, to beat my drum again, we need to know what it says!  I cannot over-emphasize the importance of this.  Know your Bible.  Find a reading system and stick to it.  I am really enjoying the ten chapters approach.  Whatever you do, find some way to get through your Bible systematically.  You will not be sorry.

Yet Another New System

If you have read my blog for very long or know me at all you will know that I am a Bible reading plan junkie.  I'm trying to think of all the ways I've read through the Bible.  I've done straight through, which I do not recommend.  I've done a system where you read Pentateuch one day, History the next, Psalms the next, etc.  I've done variations of the M'Cheyne system.  Up until now I've enjoyed that the best.  The key thing is to be in various parts of the Word each day.

I just learned about yet another system.  The idea is that you read ten chapters a day, but don't let that scare you.  It took me less than 15 minutes this morning.  Obviously some days will be longer, like when you hit Psalm 119.  What I'm really excited about is seeing how the various parts of the Bible will be interwoven throughout the year.

Will you join me?  The cool thing is that you don't need to start on any specific date.  Just start going because nothing hinges on the calendar.

Reading Scripture

Galatians 4:30 But what does the Scripture say? "Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman."

30 ἀλλὰ τί λέγει ἡ γραφή; ἔκβαλε τὴν παιδίσκην καὶ τὸν υἱὸν αὐτῆς· οὐ γὰρ μὴ κληρονομήσει ὁ υἱὸς τῆς παιδίσκης μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἐλευθέρας.

I find that blogging through Paul means either quoting a verse at the beginning or the end of each chapter.  His writing is so logical as he lays out his arguments.  Here his is concluding a section where he is describing two covenants -- one of works and one of faith.  Or, to us his language, one of slavery and one of freedom.  It is clear that the way of works leads to slavery and death, but Christ leads us to freedom.  It also seems clear that Jews need Jesus as much as anyone else.  But that's not what I want to emphasize here.

What fascinates me is how Paul starts this verse.  He asks the question ἀλλὰ τί λέγει ἡ γραφή.  That really needs to be the first question we ask as well.  What does the Scripture say?  That needs to be how we decide truth.  It doesn't really matter what we think or even what theologian we admire.  What does the Scripture say?

I will admit that this is a tad simplistic because we cannot really determine what the Scripture says until we have some basis in hermeneutics.  Godly men differ on how to interpret various passages.  But that doesn't mean that both interpretations are valid.  There will come a day when the Presbyterians and Baptists will both know exactly what the proper mode of baptism is, for example.

Even though this is a bit simplistic I think that it gets to the fundamentals of how we must think.  What does the Scripture say?  There may indeed be some difficult passages.  However, enough of it is crystal-clear and that should settle matters for us.

Mature Thinking

1 Corinthians 14:20 Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.

20 Ἀδελφοί, μὴ παιδία γίνεσθε ταῖς φρεσὶν ἀλλὰ τῇ κακίᾳ νηπιάζετε, ταῖς δὲ φρεσὶν τέλειοι γίνεσθε.

This will wrap up my writing on the sign gifts for now.  I find it fascinating that this is how Paul finishes up his discourse on them.  He goes on to talk about how it is more valuable to prophecy than to speak in tongues.  It has to do with the minds.  My sense is that tongues are an expression of the Spirit.  It is not something that we do consciously.  I have never experienced it firsthand, but that's the sense I get from Scripture and from the stories I've heard.

Paul tells us that it is all well and good to speak in tongues.  After all, he did it more than anyone else.  Yet he thought it was more valuable to speak rationally.  What I see here is that we are to be mature in our thinking.  It's easy to seek after ecstatic experiences.  The worship team at my church can work you into a frenzy if you are open to it since the music is quite good.  That's fine, but ultimately we need to φρεσὶν τέλειοι γίνεσθε.  There is that word τέλειοι again.  We need to become "complete, perfect" in our thinking. 

How do we do that?  The best way is by spending time in God's Word and learning about it.  That will help us to grow in the manner Paul commands.  Certainly the practice of the Christian faith is more than learning.  But that is still a big part of it.  Let's be sure to grow in godliness by applying what we learn in Psalm 119, amen?

Who is Lord?

Matthew 22:41-46

(41) Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question,

(42) saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David."

(43) He said to them, "How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,

(44) "'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet'?

(45) If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?"

(46) And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

The Pharisees were looking for a king to overthrow the Romans and restore the glory of Israel. They figured that this king would look like David since he would be of David's line. After all, the name "Yeshua" means "deliverance" or "salvation."

Of course, we know in hindsight that was not what Jesus came to do. He will do this in the second coming, but that was not his mission in his first coming. Instead, He came to save us from our sins. He was a deliverer, but not in the way that the Pharisees expected.

On a side note, do you see how Jesus speaks to the inspiration of Scripture? He says that "David, in the Spirit" wrote about how Christ is the Lord. That means that somehow the Holy Spirit worked with David as he wrote Psalm 110. If you ever question the idea of the inspiration of Scripture you don't have to look any farther than the words of Jesus, though of course that argument is a bit circular.

The overall point of this is that Jesus is lord. If He really is Lord of our lives then He will have more influence than any secular ruler can have. We have to obey laws in our country, but our hearts don't have to be in it. If we follow Jesus we have to give Him our whole hearts. Where is your heart right now?

iPhone Bible App

I've been using the same mobile Bible app for a long time now. In fact, I've read the whole ESV on it more than once. What I really like is the ability to do highlighting and note taking. Plus, I understand that they are working on getting syncing working between the PC and the iPhone.

You can check it out here. Olive Tree may do a few things that this one doesn't just yet, but I think that it is a nicer interface and a smoother reader.

Know His Word

Hosea 14:9

(9) Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.

It's incredible to see just how many exhortations there are in Scripture about the value of knowing God's Word. This whole book has been about the unfaithfulness of Israel to the covenant they had with God. Chapter 14 speaks to God's amazing grace in still keeping His side of the covenant and the offer of restoration if they would repent and return to Him.

This is the last verse of the book. Life is very simple really. We just need to know what God's Word says and then obey it. Of course, that is much easier said than done. We can know what to do and fail to do it. But if we are in Christ we have a Helper in the Holy Spirit. He will help us to walk in God's ways. After all, He wrote the book.

This all presupposes a knowledge of God's Word. What are you doing to learn more about what it says?

Learn from Others

Ezekiel 23:11

(11) "Her sister Oholibah saw this, and she became more corrupt than her sister in her lust and in her whoring, which was worse than that of her sister.

This is a very graphic chapter. In fact, I would have a hard time with Lily reading this now because of some of the stuff I would have to explain. The overall theme is that Samaria was unfaithful to her covenant promise and then Judah was even worse. Not only did Judah behave more badly than her sister Samaria, but she had a chance to see Samaria in action and the consequences of her actions.

There is no doubt that examples are important to us. Kids want to emulate their parents. When we're in a new situation we need someone to show us what to do. I think of the buddy system that Lily's school uses for the new kindergartners. It works well because the fifth graders show the kindergartners what to do. We all need someone like that sometimes.

But what happens when it is a bad example? Basically, Judah should have known better. However, she was so corrupt that she not only followed after her sister's bad example, but she intensified it.

1 Corinthians 15:33

(33) Do not be deceived: "Bad company ruins good morals."

How could Judah have known better? Obeying this key text from Deuteronomy would have helped:

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

(4) "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

(5) You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

(6) And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

(7) You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

(8) You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

(9) You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Or reading Psalm 1 might have helped too. Judah shows us why we must know the Word of God and delight in it. We must delight in the Lord more than in sin. Otherwise we are going to be chasing after men in turbans, in some way or another.

A Little Milestone

I'm away from my resources, so I'm going to just write something personal. I remember when Amanda and I were dating. I was a pagan and she dragged me to church. I really enjoyed First Presbyterian of St. Petersburg. I particularly enjoyed it when one of the pastor's friends from a local seminary came by to teach our Sunday School class.

This guy thoroughly impressed me. I'm not sure that he even had his own copy of the text. He would ask us to read our various translations and then he would comment on the accuracy of them. He explained the Gnostic heresy to us and how that was a possible framework for what Paul addressed in the letter. I just remember being impressed by how much knowledge he had at his fingertips.

This morning in my small group we discussed 1 Peter. I am nowhere near that guy, but if I have a Greek and an English text I can do just fine. I feel like seminary is starting to pay off a little bit. Obviously I would be a lot more effective with the preparation we are supposed to do, but I could participate in a discussion over a familiar book pretty much off the cuff.

I realize that this may seem like an awfully proud post and maybe it is. I'm just excited that I am getting to a place where I always wanted to be. I don't think I'm quite there yet, but I sure am a lot more conversant with the text than I once was.

Accepting Truth

Jeremiah 38:6
(6) So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king's son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.

These folks didn't like what Jeremiah had to say about the upcoming fall of Jerusalem. Their solution was to put him in a cistern. To me, this is the equivalent of a child sticking his fingers in his ears and singing so he can't hear what someone is telling him.

We live in a time where people do not care much for propositional truth. Frankly, I don't like it much either when it convicts me. Yet there are some things that are simply true. No matter how much we may rail against it, if we jump off a tall building we are going to have to deal with gravity. If we have $100 in the bank and make a purchase for $200 we are going to have $100 of debt. You just can't argue with that.

What gets me is when we try to make these same kinds of arguments against God. I don't expect the unbelieving world to submit to the truth of God's Word, but I certainly expect that from those who claim to follow Christ. What do we say about our faith when we pick and choose what we are going to believe? Who are we to put ourselves in authority over Scripture? We say that we like the grace parts, but we don't like the parts that convict us so much.

It seems awfully arrogant to claim to know Jesus and then dismiss the parts we don't like. How did we come to know about Jesus in the first place? We used the Bible. How can we say that those parts are true and useful, but the others aren't? How can we say that the message of the gospel is appropriate for all times, and then say that we are in a different time so others don't apply?

The Word

Jeremiah 23:29
(29) Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

We attend an unashamedly seeker-sensitive church. This means that we have a lot of nominal believers in it, if they are believers at all. While I realize that not everyone is at the same stage of Christian maturity, I also think that we make too many allowances for those who are not serious about following Christ. They still want to have life both ways.

I think this verse shows us the answer to the problem. How do we break through to those who have a hunger for Christ but don't know how to live it? We preach the Word. How do we all grow in sanctification? We spend time with the Word.

It's really not a lot of fun to go through a fire. Nor is it fun to be hammered into pieces. Yet I know that is what I need. The Word brings conviction into my life. This particular verse tells me that I need to bring Scripture to bear even more on my life than I do now. It's tough to spend time in the Bible because it transforms us. Yet that is how we are going to grow to be more like Christ.

An Old Twist

Jeremiah 8:8-9
(8) "How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us'? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.
(9) The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?

I never gave much thought to the meaning of verse 8 before I read the note in my ESV Study Bible today. It seems that the scribes would take the Word and transform it into something more palatable for the people. It looks like folks are still doing the same thing today.

There are some imperatives in Scripture that my flesh rails against. Sometimes my flesh misses the pornography. Sometimes I miss diving into an all-you-can-eat buffet. Serving my wife is difficult. Loving my children is difficult too. I think I would live much differently if those commands were not in Scripture. I write that with confidence because I know the state of my heart. It defaults to looking out for myself.

In other words, I understand what it means to be brought under the conviction of Scripture. I don't think that the right answer is to do some exegetical gymnastics until we get a translation that we like. Instead, it seems clear that we are to use God's Word as a lamp for our feet to guide us. I pray that we'd all do that.

Staying Fresh

Jeremiah 6:7
(7) As a well keeps its water fresh, so she keeps fresh her evil; violence and destruction are heard within her; sickness and wounds are ever before me.

I remember my days in porn. I was always on the lookout for something new. Of course, the porn industry knows this and so they obliged. There is a reason why the magazines have different models every month. Depending on your tastes you could always find something new out there.

It amazes me how hard we will work to keep our evil fresh. I think of the materialistic urges that I fight. I'm always on the lookout for a new way to spend my money. When I think of it that way it seems pretty ridiculous, but that is what I do.

Ecclesiastes 1:8
(8) All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

Ultimately my senses will never be satisfied. There is no perfect game. There is no perfect piece of technology. There is only one perfect book. If I'm going to keep anything fresh it needs to be my delight in the Word of God.

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Reading about Reading

Psalms 1:1-6
(1) Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
(2) but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
(3) He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
(4) The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
(5) Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
(6) for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Now that I finished Isaiah I'm taking a little time to read through some of the articles in my ESV Study Bible. I read two articles about reading this morning. One was an article about reading the Bible for personal worship and the other was about reading for personal application. Great stuff.

As I think about what I read I am convicted on a couple of fronts:

• My prayer life is not particularly vibrant. This would be helped by taking the time to pray through Scripture.
• My reading is often too heady.

Sometimes I fall into the trap of thinking that some spiritual discipline substitutes for prayerful time spent in the Word. What I realize more and more is that nothing substitutes for it. For example, memorizing and reciting Scripture is a great discipline. However, if I'm never pausing on anything I've memorized then what is the point? Doesn't it seem a little strange that I can recite this in about 20 seconds every week without really dwelling on it:

Ephesians 1:3-10
(3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
(4) even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
(5) he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
(6) to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
(7) In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
(8) which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight
(9) making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ
(10) as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

This speaks of how the God of the universe chose me before the beginning of time to be part of His master plan. How can I not dwell on that?

Sorry to get away from the usual journaling here. This is on my heart this morning and I ask for your prayers.

Getting Intelligence

Isaiah 8:18-22
(18) Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.
(19) And when they say to you, "Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter," should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?
(20) To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.
(21) They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward.
(22) And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.

This could have been written today, couldn't it? It seems like so many are looking for some kind of word of wisdom, but they refuse to go to the one clear source of knowledge. While I grant that the Holy Spirit may indeed speak directly in some kind of audible way to some people, I would maintain that verse 20 is universally applicable.

God gave us His Word. It does not contain all that there is to know about God. Nothing can cover all of His wisdom and knowledge. He is infinite and our perceptions will always be finite, even when we're living with Him in glory. However, He has given us His Word and we would do well to spend time in it frequently.

Fanning the Flames

2 Timothy 1:6-7
(6) For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands,
(7) for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

To me, this looks like an argument for maintaining spiritual disciplines. Paul is exhorting Timothy to take an active role in encouraging the gift he received when Paul laid hands on him. This tells me that we can either fan the flame or quench the Holy Spirit. The flame imagery appears throughout the New Testament, so this seems consistent.

What are you doing to fan the flames? Are you memorizing Scripture? Are you reading Scripture daily? Are you taking the time to pray? Are you praying kingdom prayers or are you focused more on yourself?

I write this as someone who generally practices these things, but who needs an increased zeal. I think of building a fire in the fireplace. Sometimes I have to blow on it to get it going. Now if I blow on it, but don't do it in the right place or with the right intensity then all my blowing will be for nothing. It must be purposeful and done with enough intensity.

A Word for Seminarians

1 Timothy 6:20-21
(20) O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called "knowledge,"
(21) for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.

The more I learn about biblical scholarship the less I am impressed. It seems like some of these guys see everything in the text except what is in the text. The arguments about pseudonymity for some of the Pauline epistles is a good example, in my opinion. If the book of Ephesians starts with a statement that Paul wrote it then that is good enough for me. However, some are not impressed.

I think this gets down to our views on inerrancy. If we think that the Bible is inerrant then some of these discussions are greatly simplified. What does the text say? That question settles many arguments. At least it should, in my opinion.

Obviously some scholarship is good. I wouldn't be in seminary if I thought it had not value. However, I also want to make sure that it is grounded in a high view of inspiration and inerrancy. I particularly want to make sure that I am grounded in the text.