The Bible clearly teaches that sin causes suffering (Deuteronomy 11:26-28; etc.), but does that mean all suffering is caused by sin –  as some claim? Even sincere people who are committed to doing what is right can sometimes wonder if they are at fault when things do not go well for them – or  even judge others who are experiencing ongoing problems.

There is no question that we do often bring suffering upon ourselves. We all recognize that if we break certain health principles, for example, we will probably suffer as a result. First Peter 4:15 also tells us, “If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler” – showing that wrongful behavior of many types can lead to self-induced suffering.

However, that’s not the whole picture. It was the limited understanding of Job's friends in this regard that caused them to presume he must have done something wrong to be experiencing such pain and misery.  But the conclusion of the book of Job shows God’s displeasure with those friends and that Job’s suffering was not really caused by wrongdoing at all (Job 42:7-9).

There is, in fact, a great deal of biblical evidence to show that individuals can and often do suffer as a result of circumstances beyond their control that have nothing to do with their righteousness or lack thereof.  Sometimes we suffer as a result of sheer chance.  Jesus himself confirmed this in what he told his disciples when they asked about people who had suffered because of political upheaval or physical accidents:

“Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! … Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no!” (Luke 13:2-4).

Jesus continued to explain that such extreme cases should remind us of the uncertain nature of life and the need to repent, if we have not already done so; but he was adamant in stressing that such suffering may be the result of chance rather than sin.  

In other cases, the Bible makes it clear that illnesses and other difficulties come upon us and are used by God to ultimately help us –  as in the case of the apostle Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9) –  so this suffering can hardly be seen as being the result of failure on the part of others or ourselves.

There is another section of Scripture, not so well known, that can also encourage us that suffering need not be equated with God’s displeasure.  The prophet Jeremiah was given a vision by God regarding the people of Judah –  both those who had been carried into captivity in Babylon, and those who had not. In this vision, the people in captivity were symbolized as a basket of good figs, and those who were not taken captive as a basket of bad figs.  God then told Jeremiah:

This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians. My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.

‘But like the bad figs, which are so bad they cannot be eaten,’ says the LORD, ‘so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials and the survivors from Jerusalem, whether they remain in this land or live in Egypt. I will make them abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, a curse and an object of ridicule, wherever I banish them. I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their ancestors.’ (Jeremiah 24:5-10)

From the perspective of those who had escaped captivity, it may have been natural to think that those who had been deported and were now suffering captivity were still the objects of God’s displeasure.  In actuality, the opposite was true.  Those who had suffered deportation were spared a later, more thorough, destruction and – despite their present suffering – were now closer to God and his favor than those who had not suffered, but who would eventually be punished.

We find scriptures such as these throughout the Bible – showing time and again that suffering is not a sure sign of God’s displeasure.  Suffering that comes upon us may happen as a result of time, chance, the actions of others, or simply genetics.  The Scriptures warn us to be sure, whenever possible, that we do not suffer as a result of our own foolishness (Psalm 107:17, etc.), and if we find ourselves experiencing ongoing problems, it is always a good idea to reflect on our lives to see if some of those problems are self-induced (Ecclesiastes 7:14). But we should never simply presume that suffering experienced by us or by others is self-caused. 

If suffering does come, we should strive, like Job, to trust that God has a purpose in what he allows us to experience.  As the apostle Peter assures us: “the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast” (1 Peter 5:10).  

​THE CITY ON A HILL: 
LESSONS FROM THE PARABLES OF JESUS
By R. Herbert. Second edition, revised and expanded, Living Belief Books, 2019.   ISBN 978-1-942573-62-3

This new edition of one of our popular e-books has been revised to make its information more accessible.  It also includes new material and a new appendix on the parables of the Old Testament.  The City on a Hill: Lessons from the Parables of Jesus is a practical but carefully researched commentary on all of the parables found in the Four Gospels. Use it as a study aid or reference, to prepare lessons or sermons, or simply enjoy it as a profitable Christian read!  ​

Like all our e-books, The City on a Hill is free and free from advertising.  It is available in multiple formats for reading on any computer, e-book reader or smart phone. You do not need to register or provide an email address to get a copy –  simply click on the link on the download page  here.

​“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (John 1:1, 18).

​The opening paragraphs of the first chapter of the Gospel of John are one of the most majestic sections of the Bible. John’s eloquent prose seems unique in its presentation of Jesus as the “Word” of God.  Yet despite its apparent uniqueness, John’s introductory chapter – like almost every other part of the New Testament –  has its roots in the Old Testament and can only be fully appreciated when we see what those roots are. 

It is often said that the Greek word logos –  literally “word” –  with which John begins his description of the preexistent Christ was used in ancient philosophy to signify the “reason” or underlying principle that created the universe. The Hellenistic Jewish thinker Philo of Alexandria who lived around the time of Christ used logos in this manner.  However, the majority of John’s audience would not have known this philosophical usage, and they would have more likely understood the apostle’s description of Jesus as the “Word” in terms of their own Scriptures. 

Jewish people would naturally have associated what John wrote with the opening statement of Genesis, that “In the beginning God made ...” (Genesis 1:1); but while Genesis stresses God’s action, John chooses to first stress the Son of God’s person and identity.  Jewish readers (or hearers) would, however, also have recognized wider associations regarding John’s use of “Word.”  They knew that “by the word of the Lord” (meaning by his command) “the heavens were made …” (Psalm 33:6), and they also knew that the Book of Proverbs personified that word or “Wisdom” as being active in the Creation of the world, and it is likely that most of John’s readers understood the personified “Word” in a similar manner.  Some early Jewish commentators even pointed out that the Creation story of Genesis 1 used the expression “God said” ten times, seeing an analogy in this with the Ten Commandments which were called the aseret hadevarim –  the “ten words” or “ten utterances.” God’s “word” could also mean, of course, all of God’s revelation to man. So John’s readers would have understood that he was characterizing Jesus as the personification and embodiment of God’s wisdom, law, and even all of God’s word – the entirety of the Scriptures. 

But there are more specific connections between what John says in the introduction to his Gospel and the Hebrew Scriptures.  The most significant are the parallels we find between John’s description of Jesus and the portrayal of God in the Book of Exodus.  These connections are frequent and clear.  

For example, just as Exodus tells us that God dwelt among his people in the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34), so John begins his description of Jesus by telling us that the Word dwelt (literally “tabernacled”) with humankind (John 1:14).  Just as Exodus tells us that Moses beheld God’s glory (Exodus 33:18), so John makes a point of recording that the disciples and others beheld “…his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father…” (John 1:14).  Just as Exodus tells us that God’s glory was full of graciousness (grace) and truth (Exodus 34:6 Holman, NKJV, etc.), so John goes on to say that Jesus was full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
 
Because the New Testament makes it clear that the preexistent Christ was the One who was with Israel in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:4), these connections may seem straightforward to us, but to John’s audience they were revelatory.  The single verse John 1:14 alone would have suggested numerous parallels that devout Jews of that day would have recognized, but found amazing. 

First century readers versed in the Hebrew Scriptures would have picked up other similarities between John’s record and that of Exodus.  Most of the associations John makes within his first chapter are those expanding on the divine nature of Jesus.   The Word is shown to be not just the promised “prophet like Moses,” but also very God himself. John does this by emphasizing not only Christ’s preexistence, but also his superior position to Moses. While Exodus tells us that the law was given through Moses (Exodus 34:29), John confirms that although “…the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).  Jesus was not simply a prophet relaying the words of God, he was the One who was the Word and who himself exhibited the very nature of God.

This was John’s central point in comparing Jesus with the revelations of the Book of Exodus. Although Exodus stressed that no one could see all of God’s glory, and John confirmed the fact that “No one has ever seen God…” (John 1:18), John also stressed that in Jesus that glory was revealed: “…but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (John 1:18).   Seeing this, we see John’s Gospel in a different light.  The apostle who perhaps knew Jesus best did not just preface his Gospel with a grandiose but unconnected introduction. What John truly did, and what should inform our reading of his whole Gospel, was to show his readers from the outset that Jesus was everything that the “Word” of God was revealed to be –  the personification of the wisdom, the law, and the very nature of God himself.

Scriptures in Question: Isaiah 43:18, 26
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”   (Isaiah 43:18)
“Review the past for me.”  (Isaiah 43:26)
 
These two verses, from within the same chapter of the book of Isaiah, are sometimes said to be an example of the Bible contradicting itself.  While the one verse clearly tells us to forget the past, the other verse is equally clear in stating that it should be remembered. 

As is so often the case, the simple answer to this apparent contradiction is found in the contexts in which the two verses appear. When we look at the verses surrounding Isaiah 43:18 we find that God is speaking of working with those who had turned to him and whom he had redeemed. We see this beginning in the first verse of the chapter: “But now, this is what the Lord says – he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: 'Do not fear, for I have redeemed you'” (Isaiah 43:1).

The same situation applies in a number of verses in the following chapters – as when we read “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist” (Isaiah 44:22).  It is because of this forgiveness that God offered the comforting words: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”   

But the situation is entirely different with those who had turned from God and refused to walk in his ways.  It is to those people that the words of Isaiah 43:26 and its surrounding verses were addressed.  Notice that verse in full: “Review the past for me, let us argue the matter together; state the case for your innocence. Your first father sinned; those I sent to teach you rebelled against me” (Isaiah 43:26-27). Here, God instructs those who rejected him to remember the history of humanity and what that rejection had caused. 

This principle of urging those who were not following God to remember the past is repeated several times in Isaiah. We read, for example: “Remember this, keep it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me” (Isaiah 46:8-9).  Here, God clearly reminds those who rebel against him of his actions –  both of correction and blessing.

There are other biblical verses, of course, that urge us to remember the things that God has done for us in the past. For example, Deuteronomy 6:12 states clearly: “be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”   In exactly the same way, the apostle Paul reminds us of our past and tells us to “remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” ( Ephesians 2:12).

But in the context of Isaiah 43, we see God differentiating between those who rebel against him and those who do not.  Isaiah, like many other biblical writers, shows that God works with us according to our attitude.  His message to those who turn to him and want to walk in his ways is very different from the message he addresses to those who refuse and rebel.

So there is no contradiction between verses 18 and 26 in Isaiah 43. In actuality, the two verses simply provide examples of two different situations.  The first shows God urging the repentant to refuse to be afflicted by their past mistakes  –  as one of the benefits of his forgiveness. The second shows God urging the unrepentant to consider the past –  as a reminder of both his blessings and his judgments.

​A few years ago the suicide-prevention group Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) ran a highly successful advertising campaign in which they published a series of ambigrams – words or messages that say one thing, but have an entirely different meaning if they are read upside down. 

The ad reproduced here – "I'm fine" –  becomes "Save me," when inverted, and the other ads in the series –  "Life is great" and "I feel fantastic" – inverted read "I hate myself" and "I'm falling apart." Each ad was run with the statement "The signs are there if you read them. Help us save a life before it's too late." These unusual advertisements drew attention to a widespread social problem and uniquely showed how we can be oblivious to the subtle and often hidden symptoms of depression and related disorders if we are not focusing on the people with whom we interact.

Effective though they were, the SOS ads are now remembered mainly as an example of an innovative and  highly successful advertising campaign,  though hopefully the message will be remembered by those who saw the ads.  The messages also reflect an aspect of life that every Christian should keep in mind: that what we hear people say can often cover a deeper reality that calls for our help. 

Sometimes the additional reality comes out if we simply take the time to engage the individual facing problems in sincere rather than surface conversation.   In that way, the situation can be similar to the poignant New Testament story of the father who asked Christ to heal his son. The fact that he did this suggests, on the surface, belief, but when Jesus challenged that assumption, the father replied “I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).   This is primarily about faith, but it is also a classic example of how a troubled person often opens up to someone who spends the time and energy to focus on them – perhaps only later in a conversation opening up to show desperation or depression.

Naturally, this doesn’t mean we should attempt to verbally probe and question every person with whom we interact, presuming they have problems; but as the SOS campaign so clearly demonstrated, if the signs are there we can often see them hidden in plain view.  It is then that we should be sure to take the time to try to discern the problem and how we can help.

That’s one of the things that Christians are supposed to do: to look beneath the surface of the world in which we live and to see the real needs around us and then seek to help as we can. Serious disorders and psychological problems may need professional help, but a great many people live with lesser problems, depression, discouragement and emotional pain.  Those people often say “I’m fine” – and while it may not be a cry of “save me!” – it may be an invitation, if we can see it, to help them.

Have you ever noticed that one of the four Gospels mentions faith far more than the others? That Gospel is the Gospel of John.  Actually, as we will see, John does not use the noun “faith” at all – it occurs nowhere in his Gospel. Instead, John always uses the verb “believe” (Greek pisteuo), and he uses that word about 100 times (perhaps surprisingly, given most people’s perception of John, that is over twice as many times as he uses forms of the word agape or “love”!) 

To put John’s use of “believe” in perspective, we should realize that this is more than the use of the word in all the other Gospels combined. In fact, John’s Gospel contains well over half of all the instances of pisteuo or “believe” in the whole New Testament.

Clearly, then, “believe” is a key word in understanding John’s Gospel, and we can learn a great deal about the nature of belief and believing by focusing on what John tells us in his account.  Three points stand out – John repeatedly shows our faith must be based upon these three aspects of believing.   

Based on the Person of Christ

It is not coincidental that the great summary of God’s purpose set out in John 3:16 revolves around belief: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, emphases added here and below).  What we miss, reading this so-often-quoted verse out of context, as is so often done, is John’s continued stress on believing: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:18).  Four times in the space of these two verses John hammers home the point that it is only as we believe on the person of Jesus Christ as the Son of God that faith will be rewarded with eternal life.  

Throughout his Gospel, John gives many examples of what and why we must believe (2:11; 4:41; 8:24; 10:38; 16:30; etc.), but they are all based upon the person of Jesus Christ, his nature, character, and the work that he accomplished. There is no room in John’s Gospel for any abstract “all you need is love” message.  His Gospel is deeply rooted in the necessity of active believing faith in Christ as much as it is in showing the importance of love.

Indeed, the very purpose for the Gospel of John, as the apostle himself tells us near its conclusion,  is so that we “ … may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31). 

Based on the Work of Belief

Although as Paul affirms, “…  the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23), John’s Gospel paints a complementary picture stressing that although God does give eternal life freely, the gift comes with responsibilities.  While Matthew’s Gospel shows Jesus asserting: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21), John’s Gospel records Jesus instructing his disciples in the work that relates to faith. When they asked him, ‘What must we do to do the works God requires?’  Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:27-29).

We should not presume that in this statement Jesus is talking only about passively accepting or holding a belief. John’s Gospel stresses that believing is something active that we do, rather than just accept, and that believing is always associated with doing. It is probably not coincidental that like the word “believing,” John also uses the word “doing”(poieō) about one hundred times.  This is the larger picture that helps us to correlate what John's Gospel tells us about the work of believing with what the apostle writes about faithful obedience in his epistles (1 John 2:6; 5:3; etc.).

For John, this active believing work is something we do on an ongoing basis – as we see in the way he repeatedly tells us the disciples “believed” as they witnessed Christ’s miracles and teachings (John 2:11; 16:27; etc.), and this leads us to John’s final stress regarding the nature of true believing. 

Based on Perseverance

Precisely because true believing is a repeated action on our part, John also stresses that believing must be coupled with perseverance.   John gives clear instances of individuals who had believed, but who stopped believing. In John 8, for example, we read: “As he was saying these things, many believed in him. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him,'If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples’” (John 8:30-31).

The importance of ongoing and continuing faith was already stressed by John two chapters earlier when he tells us that previously believing individuals “… turned back and no longer followed him” (John 6:66).  This scripture alone shows that believing faith is not something entered into on a one-time basis, but an ongoing action that must be maintained through perseverance.

When John tells us, near the close of his Gospel, that “ … these [things] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31), the word “believe” in the Greek is literally “be believing” – ongoing persistent believing.  

The Three Aspects of Believing

John’s Gospel clearly shows us that true believing is based on the person of Christ, involves active expression on our part, and must be maintained through perseverance.  The apostle makes it clear that lack of these three factors led to many not believing or losing the belief they once had.  It is in these three ways, however, that John shows we can truly believe, and that through believing we can have life.

We have all been saddened at some point by stories – often trumpeted across the news media – of churches or individuals within churches having amassed embarrassingly large sums of money and goods apparently for their own use. The lavish lifestyles, the luxury items, the extravagant hoarding and spending, all sadden us not only for how they reflect Christianity out into the world, but also for how they represent such a deep failure of what Christianity should be on the part of those who appear to be selling heaven and keeping the profits.

It is tempting to believe it may have always been this way. The Gospels tell us that Judas profited from the bag he kept (John 12:6), and in Acts we read the story of Ananias and Sapphira soon after the Church’s inception. Although the sin of that couple was lying to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3, 9), the root of their problem clearly lay in the desire to hold onto what had been given to the church – in this particular case by them.

But, sometimes, history can throw light on situations such as this and give us a better perspective. During Rome’s great persecution of Christians enacted during the latter part of the reign of Diocletian (AD 284 to 305), Imperial troops were sent to seize the possessions of a church in the city of Cirta (present day Constantine in Algeria) in North Africa.  The soldiers were doubtless delighted to find some items of gold, silver, and bronze – the chalices, urns, lamps, candlesticks and other small items used in the church’s worship services. The exact value of these metal objects is not known, but it is clear that they did not represent substantially more than what was in use by the church in its day-to-day functioning.

However, the soldiers were probably suspicious that there were so few books (a single codex was found in the church) so they searched the homes of the church leaders and found a total of 37 manuscripts, which the Christians had hidden.   Clearly, the manuscripts regarding the faith were of much greater value in the eyes of these Christians than the more expensive furnishings that had been left in plain sight in the church.

But in a storeroom within the church building the soldiers found goods of a different kind.  An imperial document dated May 19, AD 303, lists these hidden-away treasures: 82 women’s tunics, 38 capes, 16 men’s tunics, 13 pairs of men’s shoes, 47 pairs of women’s shoes, and 19 peasants’ wraps (A. Luijendijk, “Papyri from the Great Persecution: Roman and Christian Perspectives,”  Journal of Early Christian Studies, 16(3): 2008, 341-369; p. 350).

These carefully amassed items of clothing were not for the benefit of the leaders of the church, but were items collected to help the poor, the widows, and the destitute of the city. Certainly the church had accrued some valuable vessels for use in its worship, but the value of the items was commensurate with their intended use (2 Timothy 2:20).  What is clear is that the treasures of this church were its documents of faith, and what was being amassed was being gathered for others.

Surely, this has often been the case.  For every church infected with the heart of mammon there have been others – and frequently many others – infused with the heart of Christ.  Although Acts itself gives prominent mention to the cautionary story of Ananias and Sapphira, that story follows directly on the heels of the statement that “… God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need …” (Acts 4:33-35).

If Ananias and Sapphira were in the Church from near its inception, many who reflected the faith truly and who were gathering for others were also there from the beginning.  Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of this fact of history when we are confronted by the failings of the day in which we live. The treasures of a great many of the earliest believers, of the Christians of Cirta in AD 303, and of many churches throughout history were their faith and their love for others. May our treasures be the same.

The analogy is often made that the Bible is a letter from God and this metaphor works in many ways, although it’s not actually found in the Bible itself.  But the Bible does make a clear analogy about a letter from God that is often overlooked.  That analogy is found in the apostle Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians:

“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).
​
In this passage Paul uses the analogy of believers being a letter in a particularly interesting way. First, he tells the Corinthians that “You … are our letter, written on our hearts … known and read by everyone” –  meaning that they functioned as a “letter” representing the visible results of Paul and his co-workers’ labors to all who knew them.

Paul extends the analogy of the believers being a letter from God in several ways.  While the NIV translates his words to say the Corinthian believers were “the result of our ministry” (vs. 3), many other versions translate more literally that this letter was  “delivered by us” (RSV, CSB, NET, ESV, etc.) meaning that Paul and his co-workers acted as the letter carriers for the message. 

In New Testament times, letters were commonly written on parchment with some form of pigment mixed with oil, or on papyrus, or even pottery fragments. Less commonly, letters were carved or written on tablets of wood.  Paul tells us this letter from Christ was written “on our hearts … with the Spirit of the living God” –  stressing the living nature of the medium as well as the message, and also showing that this “letter” was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies that God would write his laws on people’s hearts with his Spirit (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26).  

The letter, Paul tells us, is a letter of recommendation: “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter…” (vss. 1-2).  While Paul had made use of letters of recommendation before his conversion (Acts 9:2; 22:5) and often wrote letters of recommendation for others (Romans 16:1-2; 1 Corinthians 4:17; 2 Corinthians 8:16-24; etc.), he himself now needed and carried no such letters.  Yet, he says, the Corinthians who had heeded his teaching were a letter of recommendation for him to anyone who needed such a letter.

So, Paul’s analogy of the believer as representing a letter from God is one that he develops in some detail, and it is an analogy that we can think about.   Although Paul was writing specifically to the Corinthian church, what he says obviously could apply to any believer.  In a very real sense, we are all “letters” from God to those around us – either recommending Christianity or failing in this regard.

We can, in fact, extend the analogy to ourselves in a number of meaningful ways.  We can ask if we, too, are “known and read by everyone,” or is the message God desires to impart through us obscured in some way – just like a letter that has become smudged and illegible?  All wrongdoing not only makes marks on our own characters, but also makes “blots” on the letter that God desires to send through us. 

Being a “letter from God” is a wonderful but a very sobering responsibility.  Whatever we do in life and whatever kind of father, mother, employer, employee, friend, or co-worker – or even stranger – we are to those around us becomes an inseparable part of the message that is sent through us.  Fortunately, the letter is not written by us, but by God.  Yet we must do our part to be made into the kind of message he wants to give others, or we degrade the message and it may appear more like “junk mail.”
​
A little later in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul states his point directly: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us … “ (2 Corinthians 5:20).  In the analogy he uses earlier, those chosen by God are called to be a letter from God – a concept that we can all profit from.  The Bible may be regarded as a “letter from God,” but – to paraphrase a well-known quote – we may be the only “letter” from God that many people ever read. 

“… But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground” (John 8:6-8).

The story of the woman caught in adultery and brought before Jesus in the temple courtyard by the scribes and the Pharisees is found in John 8:2-11.  The teachers of the law hoped to trap Jesus and so, after reminding him that the law of Moses demanded that an adulterer be stoned to death (Leviticus 20:10), they asked him how he would judge her.  This was obviously a well-thought-out trap.  If Jesus concurred with the biblical law, the Pharisees could report him, as it was illegal for the Jews to execute anyone under the Roman occupation.  On the other hand, if Jesus said she should be spared, his enemies could use the fact as evidence that he did not follow biblical teachings.

It was at this point that Jesus stooped down and began to write in the dust in the temple courtyard. This prompts two obvious questions: Why did he write in the dust (as opposed to simply speaking or writing what he wanted to write on some parchment or other writing surface), and what was it that Jesus wrote?

We can answer the first question with some certainty.  The event described by John seems to have taken place on a Sabbath day (John 9:1) in which all the many Sabbath laws made by the Jews were in force. Although the biblical requirement for keeping the Sabbath law was simply to refrain from work (Exodus 20:8-11), the Jewish theologians defined many activities as “work,” including the activity of writing.  But these human religious leaders also determined that “writing” was making any permanent mark such as writing with ink on parchment. According to them, writing in the dust was permissible on the Sabbath, however, because the writing was not permanent and would soon disappear.   This law was first recorded in the Jewish Mishnah around AD 200, but it was doubtless in effect well before that and probably followed in Jesus’ day. 

The strict application of the Sabbath law to writing in this era certainly provides the most likely explanation of why Jesus wrote in the dust of the temple court, but what about what he wrote?  We cannot be certain in this area and scholars have long argued various explanations.  But two possibilities stand out.

Whatever Jesus wrote, it had the immediate effect of piercing the consciences of the woman’s accusers and causing them “… to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there” (John 8:9).  It is often said that what Jesus wrote consisted of laws that the accusers themselves had broken –  perhaps a list of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), or even a single all-encompassing law such as “… [you shall] love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).  Jesus frequently responded to questions using scriptures, so it is very possible that he answered here with a scriptural summary of the law.

The main problem with this idea is that the self-righteous Pharisees and other accusers of the woman could well have justified their own sins and not been moved by such scriptures.    Perhaps an even more likely possibility is that Jesus wrote down one of the numerous biblical statements stressing that everyone has sinned (Psalm 143:2, Ecclesiastes 7:20, etc.).  To then immediately state, after writing such a verse: “… Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7) might well have placed the woman’s accusers in an impossible situation.

Another possibility often suggested is that Jesus actually wrote down the names of the individuals accusing the woman along with their sins.  A verse in Jeremiah is often quoted in this regard: “Lord, you are the hope of Israel; all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord” (Jeremiah 17:13). The point here is that by writing down the names and sins of the accusers Jesus put them to shame, and they could not then cast the stones of judgment.  While this possibility may be a little less likely than that which we considered above, we should note that Jesus wrote not once, but twice (John 8:8), so it is possible that after writing a verse stressing that all have sinned he then proceeded to “name names.”  

Ultimately, of course, we cannot know with any certainty what Jesus wrote on the ground, and had it been necessary to know in order to understand the story the words written would doubtless have been recorded.  Nevertheless, we do have a very likely reason why Jesus wrote on the dusty ground, and of the possibilities considered it may be most likely that his writing consisted of a verse or verses of scripture that affirmed “…there is no one who does not sin” (1 Kings 8:46).

By forcing the self-righteous Pharisees and teachers of the law to accept their own guilt and to drop their charges, Jesus was able to show mercy to the adulterous woman while still telling her “Go now and leave your life of sin” (John 8:11).

Have you ever noticed that in his famous description of the nature of love in I Corinthians 13:4-7, the apostle Paul begins and ends his list of love’s qualities with the same trait?  That trait is patience.  Although Paul uses two different words – showing different aspects of this important quality – they both mean patience. It is often said that “the Greeks had a word for everything,” and ancient Greek actually had two words for patience, both of which were used by Paul. 

Patience with people

The first of those words was makrothymia which is composed of makran (“far away”) and thymos (“anger”) – in other words, to put one’s anger far away.  This involves patience with others, particularly in the restraint of anger – when patience is often needed most.  It does not connote the patience of those who cannot do anything about a situation, but that of those who have the power to act against the object of anger, perhaps even to exact revenge or punishment.  This is the patience of those with power to affect others; it is the patience of those who could react with negative action, but who choose not to do so in love.

It is the patience husbands need with their wives and wives with their husbands, of parents with children (and sometimes children with parents).  It is the patience employers sometimes need with employees and those who work with those for whom they work.  It is the patience we should have when someone irritates or hurts us in any way – great or small – and we feel a desire to retaliate.  It is the kind of patience that every Christian must develop, and that we may need many times in a given day.

So it is probably not coincidental that this is the very first quality Paul tells us love consists of – the patience of those who are provoked, but who choose restraint.  It is a primary quality without which love for others cannot exist, and one that we must always remember is foundational to love itself.

Patience with circumstances

Paul ends his list of the characteristics of love with the second form of patience. The word he uses to close his list is hypomonē which fuses hypo (“under”) with monē (“remaining” or “enduring”) and connotes the idea of “remaining under” suffering or difficult circumstances. In the New Testament the word is often translated “persevering” (Romans 5:3-4, etc.), but it is a particularly rich word with a wide range of meaning.  In Luke 21:19, for example, we find it translated “Stand firm, and you will win life” (NIV, emphasis added), though the King James translates this verse a little less clearly as “In your patience, possess ye your souls.”

This kind of patience represents the attitude of those who are not in a position of strength, but of weakness – a position of being unable to do anything to change the situation they are enduring.  This is the patience of the Christian undergoing persecution for his or her faith – whether the persecution comes from the individual’s government, job, neighbors, or even their own family.  It is the patience of those dealing with long-term illnesses, injuries, poverty, loneliness, depression, or any other kind of suffering. 

If it is not coincidental that Paul begins his list of love’s qualities with makrothymia, the patience we must have with individuals, it is equally likely that he intentionally ends his list with hypomonē, the patience we must have with situations.  If we cannot love others without the first type of patience, it is probable that we cannot love God without the second kind – and we certainly will not be able to continue in the way of love without the perseverance that hypomonē connotes.  That is why the word is found in Jesus’ parable of the seed, in which “… the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop” (Luke 8:15, emphasis added).

It begins and ends with patience.

All too often we think of patience as a virtue, but perhaps only a minor one - a distant cousin of the great spiritual virtues such as faith and love.  Yet careful consideration of the structure of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 shows us that love itself begins and ends in patience and that this quality is pivotal to effectively loving others and loving God.  Romans 15:5 tells us that God is a God of patience and if we are to become like him, patience – in its two forms – is a quality we must strive to develop with his help.  As Paul himself wrote in his letter to the Colossians, we must live: “… being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance (hypomonē) and patience (makrothymia)” (Colossians 1:11).

In this post, we are not talking about historical first events such as the first sacrifice or the first building of a city that is mentioned in the biblical narrative, but the first appearance of terms that play vitally important roles in conveying the teachings of the Bible – words such as faith, hope, love, etc.  We have selected seven of these key concepts; seeing their first occurrences can be instructive as well as interesting. 

FAITH – Finding the first instance of the word “faith” in the Bible is not as simple as it may seem. This is because the Hebrew of the Old Testament has at least six words that can reflect different aspects of the idea.  But many of these words carry meanings such as “faithful” which really means some aspect of loyalty (Genesis 5:22, 24, etc.). When it comes to the concept of faith as “trust,” the first clear instance is found in Genesis 15:6 which tells us “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness” (emphasis added). Paul quotes this verse in the New Testament and translates it with the Greek word pistis – the same word he uses throughout his writings on faith.

HOPE – The first mention of hope is found in the book of Ruth. In Ruth 1:12 we find Naomi telling her daughters-in-law: “Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me – even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons…”  Here, in hope’s first appearance in scripture we see the very real difference between faith and hope.

LOVE – Arguably the most important single concept in the Bible, the first mention of love in the Bible occurs in Genesis 22 when God tells Abraham: “… Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you” (Genesis 22:3).  Once again, a key biblical concept first appears in the stories about Abraham, in this case a particularly important one. This is not only the first occurrence of the word love in the Bible, it is also the love of a father for his son – a foreshadowing or pre-enactment of the greatest act of sacrificial love the world has known.

JUDGMENT – Although judgment is a quality often associated with the Old Testament in the minds of many, the word “judgment” itself does not appear till relatively late in the biblical narrative. It is only when we get to Exodus 6:6 that we read: “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.”   Judgment here in its first mention, as in so many cases in the Old Testament, is associated with an equal stress on salvation – in this case the physical saving of Israel.

TRUTH – This is one of several key biblical concepts first mentioned specifically in the story of Joseph. Genesis 42:16 records Joseph telling his brothers: “Send one of your number to get your brother; the rest of you will be kept in prison, so that your words may be tested to see if you are telling the truth. If you are not, then as surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies!”

MERCY – Like truth, we first find this vital spiritual principle in the story of Joseph. Genesis 43:14 records his father Jacob telling Joseph’s brothers: “And may God Almighty grant you mercy before the man so that he will let your other brother and Benjamin come back with you ...”  This is the original biblical story in which mercy and truth are juxtaposed.

FORGIVENESS – Yet another important biblical term – the last one on our list – is first specifically mentioned in the Joseph story. In Genesis 50:17 we read: “‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father…” The key qualities of mercy and forgiveness were obviously at the core of this story.
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Looking at these “first occurrences” of key terms in the biblical narrative, it is especially interesting to notice that two of them – faith and love – first appear in the story of Abraham and three others – truth, mercy and forgiveness – all occur in the story of Joseph.  That accounts for five of the seven spiritual qualities that we look at here, and noticing these key “firsts” helps us to realize the importance of these two stories in the development of the Bible’s teachings.  In these two stories alone we find direct examples of spiritual concepts that lie at the very heart of all the Bible contains.  It is not surprising then that the stories of Abraham and Joseph are recognized as perhaps the greatest foreshadowings by individuals in the Old Testament of Jesus Christ –  in whom these qualities would all be perfected.

“Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given” (John 1:16).

This verse is sometimes explained as representing the Old Covenant being replaced by the New, as though it meant one kind of grace instead of another kind. But if that is what John had in mind, he would doubtless have written “… grace in place of law already given” –  especially as we see in the very next verse: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).
 
The meaning of “grace” itself is straightforward. As is often said, while “mercy” refers to our not getting what we deserve, “grace” refers to our getting what we do not deserve – the many blessings God pours out upon us.  But what does “grace in place of grace” mean?

Fortunately, the meaning of John’s statement is fairly easy to determine.  In writing that we have received “grace in place of grace” (emphases added here and below), the apostle is not contrasting two different things, but two (or more) things of the same kind.  In the Greek in which the New Testament was written the expression is literally “grace for grace” (see for example, Matthew 5:38, “an eye for an eye”) meaning “grace in place of grace” or “grace on top of grace.” The English Standard Version translates the verse in this way with the wording “grace upon grace.”

This implies not a change of grace, but an addition to the grace we originally received – an ongoing gift of God’s grace.  In this sense, the word grace is almost synonymous with blessings.  That is what John means by “Out of his fullness we have all received grace …”  And we should not forget that John makes this comment directly after telling us that the Son of God came from the Father “… full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).  That is the fullness from which, vs. 16 tells us, we receive God’s blessing of grace.

But John’s main point is that God does not simply grant us his grace when we initially turn to him (John 1:12).  He continues to grant that grace to us in an ongoing manner throughout our Christian lives (John 1:16).

Despite heavy Greek and Roman influences, the Jewish culture of the New Testament period was still essentially a Semitic one in which the repetition of a word in Hebrew or Aramaic (the commonly spoken language of Judea at that time) was used to indicate the “superlative” degree of comparison.  In other words, just as we find “pits, pits,” meaning many pits in Genesis 14:10, so John’s use of “grace for grace” not only literally meant “grace upon grace” but also conveyed, to John’s 1st century Jewish readers, the underlying concept of “much grace.” 
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So John 1:16 is not referring in any way to the Old and New Covenants described in the Bible. It simply stresses God’s full and ongoing blessing and the outpouring of his gift of grace to us in a continuous manner.  Put simply, God not only blesses us, he continually and constantly blesses us with his grace.

Summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, at least!) and we will be going to our summer blog schedule.  Although our sites receive hundreds of thousands of visitors, the summer months of June and July are typically lower traffic months in which we can spend more time producing our free Christian e-books.   

This means that rather than publishing a new post on each site each week, as we do most of the year, we will be alternating blog posts on our two sites – a new post on one site one week, then a new one on the other site the next week. Normal blog scheduling will resume in August.

That still translates as a new blog post for you each week, between our two sites, during the summer months of June and July – so if there is not a new post here you can read the latest one on our sister site here.   ​

“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” (Matthew 13:55)

Mainstream Christianity is divided on the understanding of this verse  and its parallel in Mark 6:3. Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, as well as some Anglicans and Lutherans,  believe the brothers and sisters mentioned were in fact Jesus’ cousins, or children of Joseph by a former marriage, and that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life. The main argument for this view is that the Greek word adelphos used in this scripture can also sometimes be used in a broader sense meaning step-siblings or cousins.

Most Protestants believe that as there is no indication in scripture of this former marriage, it is better to understand sisters and brothers as literal siblings.  They argue that although adelphos can sometimes mean  “cousin,”  its normal use is “brother,” and the actual word for “cousin” in Greek  (anepsios) is never used of any of Jesus’ family members.   If the children mentioned as being with Mary in Matthew 13:55 were from a former marriage of Joseph,  those brothers and sisters are not mentioned when Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem, or to Egypt, or returned to Nazareth.
 
Another argument  sometimes proposed  in this context is that in three of the Gospels, when  Jesus is told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you,” he replied: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Matthew 12:46-50; Mark 3:31-35; Luke 8:19-21). This is sometimes said to show that Jesus’ brothers and sisters were just disciples, but the scriptures are clearly speaking metaphorically.  In fact, the apostle John wrote that Jesus “… went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples …” (John 2:12), and here Jesus’ actual family members are clearly distinguished from his disciples.  

A final issue to consider is that Protestants believe other scriptures such as  Matthew 1:25 which says of Joseph, “ But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son…” and Luke 2:7 which says of Mary: “and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son” indicate Jesus’ brothers and sisters were physical siblings. By the second century, this was the position of  some members of the early Church such as Tertullian (c. AD 160-225), whereas others believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary.
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Yet ultimately far more important than any theological or historical discussion of whether Jesus did have siblings is the fact that the Son of God now does have brothers and sisters.  The Book of Hebrews tells us that we who follow Jesus since his resurrection  become his brothers and sisters in the family of God:  “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. He says, ‘I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters…’” (Hebrews 2:11-12).  It is clear that those with whom we share fellowship in Christ are now his brothers and sisters, as well as ours.

The story of the rich man and Lazarus found in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 16:19-31) is one which often confuses people.  Is it a parable, or is it meant to reflect actual events?  Theologians have often argued this question, but knowledge of the culture in which Jesus lived and taught can help us answer it.

Jesus’ story, in summary, tells us that a very rich man ignored the poor man Lazarus who lay outside his gate each day. When both men died we are told that Lazarus was “… carried by the angels to Abraham’s side” (vs. 22), while the rich man found himself in a different place: “In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side” (vs. 23).

Those who see this account as a literal one recording actual events feel that it obviously refers to Lazarus being in heaven and the rich man in hell.  But there are problems with this view.  If it records actual facts, then the dead are able to speak despite their torment and can converse with those in heaven, and vice-versa (vss. 23-31).  Apparently, a single drop of water would also relieve the burning torment of someone in hell (vs. 24).   This situation is in contradiction to several statements that we find in the Old Testament (Psalm 115:17, Ecclesiastes 9:5, etc.), so we must ask why would Jesus flatly contradict these scriptures? 

On the other hand, although it is sometimes claimed that the story is unlikely to be a parable because it has a named character (Lazarus) – something that we do not find in the parables – there may be a reason for this instance of naming.  By telling us the rich man asks that Lazarus bring him water and go to warn his family, the story indicates that he knows who Lazarus is and therefore must have known him and been fully aware of his need during his lifetime. This is a way of specifically showing the rich man’s guilt.

Furthermore, Luke introduces this story of the rich man and Lazarus in exactly the same way he introduces the parables that precede it. All of them are introduced either with the formula “what man/woman …” or “there was a man/woman …” (Luke 15:3, 8, 11; 16:1). There is, in fact, nothing about the story of the rich man and the poor man that cannot be seen as a parable.

This is especially true as the story of the rich man and Lazarus fits into a sequence of parables and sayings on the same subject: the use and misuse of money.  After giving the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus gave the parable of the shrewd manager and then the story of the rich man and Lazarus. In this, the final climactic story of this group, Jesus gives an example of the principle that we cannot serve God and money, as he stressed a few verses earlier (Luke 16:13).

But even if the story of the rich man and Lazarus is a parable, we must still ask why it contradicts clear statements found in the Old Testament.  For the answer to this we must look again at the context of the parable.  Luke tells us: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus.  But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ Then Jesus told them this parable…” (Luke 15:1-3).

This is the setting in which Jesus began the following four parables – including the story of the rich man and Lazarus.  The direct audience for the parables was not the crowds he frequently taught, but a group of Pharisees.  Although Luke shows that Jesus switched his attention and directed one of the parables toward his disciples (Luke 16:1), he then continued to speak to the Pharisees as we read: “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them …” (Luke 16:14-15, emphasis added).   It was at this point, after some initial comments, that Jesus gave the story of the rich man.

This story was specifically aimed at the Pharisees. Jesus not only mentioned the futility of riches and Abraham (to whom the Pharisees looked for their eligibility for salvation – John 8:39), but also structured the story according to the teachings and beliefs of the Pharisees themselves.  Although the priestly Sadducees said that there was no resurrection and no angels (Acts 23:8), we know that the Pharisees believed in angels and in the resurrection, both of which Jesus referenced in the story (Luke 16:22, 31). They believed in human spirits that existed after death and would, on the last day, be bodily resurrected. But the Pharisees also believed in concepts of heaven and hell that were essentially like what we find in the story of the rich man and Lazarus.  

It is highly significant that when we read of Jesus talking to the priestly Sadducees he never discusses this idea of a tortuous hell – it was something they did not believe in.  But when Jesus talked with the Pharisees he used this kind of graphic example of the kind of ongoing tortuous separation from God in which they believed.  Jesus knew the teachings of the Pharisees well (Matthew 23:25-28, etc.) and put them to use in correcting the Pharisees themselves.
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The story of the rich man and Lazarus is a parable then, but it is one given for the ears of the Pharisees and given “in their language,” according to their theology, in a way that they would get the point of the parable without getting caught up in arguing the theological aspects of the story itself.  

No one can read the book of Revelation of without noticing the apostle John’s frequent mention of groups of seven: seven churches, seven plagues, seven trumpets, etc.   The number seven was often used in ancient Near Eastern literature to connote completeness, and John continually uses the number with this symbolic meaning.  

Although they are somewhat less obvious because the individual instances are spread throughout the whole book, we also find John using many groups of seven in his Gospel. The apostle not only gives seven miraculous signs of Jesus’ messiahship and the seven famous “I AM” statements, but in the course of his Gospel he also speaks of seven witnesses, seven ways in which Jesus was one with God, and numerous other groups of seven.
  
These groups of seven in John’s Gospel and book of Revelation obviously represent an intrinsic aspect of the apostle’s writing and are well-known.  But what of the epistles of John?  Given the deeply embedded nature of groups of seven in his other writings, should we not expect to find groups of seven in the apostle’s letters also?  In fact, we can. Although they are not as well known, John’s epistles contain several groups of seven that are helpful in understanding the key elements in his messages.

Although the overwhelmingly clear themes of love and truth are central to John’s letters, it is interesting that he also employs "heptadic" or seven-fold groups – just as he does in his Gospel and Revelation – that reveal other themes, especially in his first epistle.  John not only gives seven reasons why this epistle was written (1 John 1:3, 4; 2:1, 13-17, 21-24, 26; 5:13), but also structures his message around key seven-fold concepts.

The first concept we find is that of the contrast between good and evil.  We all tend to notice this contrast in what John writes at the beginning of his epistle regarding  spiritual light vs. spiritual darkness (1:5-7), but John specifically points out six other areas in which right and wrong are juxtaposed: love vs. hatred (2:9-11), the way of God vs. the way of the world (2:15-17), truth vs. lies (2:20-27), good works vs. evil works (2:29-3:24), the Spirit of God vs. the spirit of error (4:1-6), real love vs. fake love (4:7-21).  These seven contrasts form a running narrative throughout the apostles’ letter – as if he were stressing the spiritual duality we must constantly be aware of in all aspects of our lives.

John also gives us seven ways in which those who are born of God are contrasted with those who are not spiritually reborn (2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1-21). These contrasts are, in a very real way, tests that we can apply to ourselves, and they are made yet more helpful because in the course of his letter John offers other contrasts in more specific areas – tests of doctrine (2:18-28, etc.), conduct (2:29-3:24, etc.), discernment (4:1-6, etc.), motivation (4:7-21, etc.), and other aspects of Christian genuineness.  

This is not to say that everything John writes in his first epistle is rigidly structured into groups of seven.  For example, the apostle also frequently uses of groups of three – three things that are in the world (2:16), three things that bear witness (5:7-8), three things we know (5:18-20), etc.  And we can certainly find other situations where John could have included a group of seven things, but does not – as when he speaks of six individuals who were notable liars, for example (1:6, 10; 2:4, 22; 4:20; 5:10).  

These exceptions only serve to make the many groups of seven found in 1 John even clearer, however.  When we look closely at the groups of seven John does include, we find that they are almost always groups of things that aim to show right vs. wrong in some way.  These “sevens” are almost always framed as contrasts and, as such, they offer valuable “tests” that we can apply to ourselves to determine our spiritual genuineness and health.
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This, of course, was John’s intent in writing to his original audience, but realizing that John utilized this technique in his letter, looking for his groups of seven, and applying them to ourselves can help us just as much today.    John doubtless intended his readers to notice and reflect on many of his sevens; doing so can add considerable depth to our study of his letter.  There are a great many reasons why 1 John is of great value to the Christian Church today, and John’s “sevens” give us more good reasons to look at this important epistle even more closely.
 
* For more information on 1 John and the other General Epistles, download our free eBook,  Seven Letters: Lessons from the General Epistles, here. 

Many people think of the “Lord’s Prayer” – the guide to prayer given by Jesus to his disciples (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4) – as something to be recited.  In this view, simply saying the words exactly as they are recorded in the scriptures constitutes what Jesus had in mind for the prayers of his followers.

However, this understanding of the “prayer” does not fit with the biblical evidence we have.  If the Lord’s Prayer constitutes the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, why do we not find it repeated at any other point in the New Testament – and why are all the recorded prayers given by his disciples after this point not the Lord’s Prayer?

The answer is doubtless that what we call the Lord’s Prayer was really an outline guide to the key subjects to be covered regularly in prayer. Once we realize this probability, we are able to understand many things about the prayer outline that we might otherwise miss. 

A key aspect in understanding the thrust and intent of the Lord’s Prayer is that not only does it record things to be said, but also – directly or indirectly – it records things we are to do. When we look at the seven petitions found within the prayer outline, we see that each one asks for God’s intervention or action in a sphere in which we are also expected to act.

This is most clearly seen in the petition “forgive us our debts/sins” which specifically states “as we forgive our debtors/them that sin against us” (Matthew 6:12).   We ask God’s forgiveness, understanding that it is linked to and to some degree dependent upon what we do.   Although this request is the only one that directly includes a statement of our responsibility within the prayer itself, the remaining petitions can be seen to imply responsibilities in the way that Jesus refers to them elsewhere in the Sermon on the Mount or in his other teachings.

This means that the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are all balanced with responsibilities that can be paired like this:

“Hallowed be your name” – we must not dishonor God’s name in our speech or lives.
“Your kingdom come” – we must work for the establishment of the kingdom in our own lives and those of others.  
“Your will be done” - we must strive to fulfill God’s will in all aspects of our lives.
“Give us this day our daily bread” - we must work for our sustenance.
“Forgive us our debts” - we must forgive others if we are to be forgiven.
“Lead us not into temptation” - we must actively avoid tempting situations.
“Deliver us from evil” – we must do what we can to avoid or overcome evil.

Balancing what we ask God to perform and what we ourselves do is not the same as attempting to bolster our faith with works.  Rather, it is simply fulfilling the clear biblical injunctions that can be found on all these subjects. “Give us our daily bread,” for example, is balanced not only by the general teachings of Jesus (John 9:4, etc.), but also by the apostle Paul’s explicit statement that “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Similarly, all the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer may be balanced with Christian teachings – positively or negatively expressed – regarding what we are to do or not do to fulfill our responsibility in each area.

The principle is simple enough and is somewhat humorously summed up in the old saying that “we cannot sow our wild oats, then pray for a crop failure.”  Our lives must match our prayers in each specific application.

This view of the Lord’s Prayer actually develops our trust in God far more than simply reciting its petitions and then “going our own way.”  Understanding that we play a role in the fulfillment of each petition helps us not only to pray for God’s action in the world, but also to pray for the specific help we need in fulfilling our own part.
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Ultimately, the Lord’s Prayer is not a simple list of requests that we can recite, then forget – it is a guide to asking God to fulfill his will in the area of every petition and to help us to fulfill our own part in what God intends. 

In his book The Cost of Discipleship, the theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously distinguishes between what he called “cheap grace” and “costly grace.” While Bonhoeffer defined cheap grace as requiring nothing from us and being ultimately meaningless, he characterized costly grace, on the other hand, as something that takes something from us, something that hurts, something that costs:  “the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.”

Exactly the same can be said of Christian love.  Love that does not cost us anything ultimately accomplishes little and has little depth.  It is so often only costly love that makes a real difference in the lives of others. There is a wonderful example of this principle in the Gospel of Luke – though it is one that we often read over – in the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector:

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.  A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.  He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham (Luke 19:1-9).

By way of back-story to this account, Luke tells us that as Jesus approached Jericho he healed a blind man at which the people praised God (Luke 18:35-42).  As he entered Jericho then, Jesus was a hero – beloved of the city’s inhabitants who had gone out to meet him as he approached.  But in Chapter 19 Luke tells us that Jesus was only passing through the town and that he declined to stay overnight. This doubtless disappointed many citizens, especially as Middle Eastern culture meant that as a teacher of God’s word (to say nothing of the fact that he was regarded as a famous prophet who healed by the power of God), Jesus doubtless would have been offered hospitality and would normally have accepted it. 

But as Jesus left Jericho, a strange scene unfolds.  Zacchaeus, the chief regional tax collector for the Roman occupation, desired to see Jesus and so he ran down the road a little way and climbed up a sycamore tree to get a better view.  The fact that it is mentioned that it was a sycamore tree is interesting as those trees usually have a profuse covering of large leaves and it is very possible that Zacchaeus chose the tree as one from which he could see Jesus as he passed by, but not be seen by crowds that thronged around the Teacher.

As the local tax collector and thus a “collaborator” in the eyes of many, Zacchaeus may well have been the most disliked individual in the city.  Tax collectors often charged far more than the actual Roman tax rates and pocketed the extra cash – as Luke tells us was true in this case (Luke 19:8). So positioning himself in the leafy tree might well have been a conscious and prudent decision on the part of Zacchaeus.  A hated tax collector caught in the swirl of a large crowd could easily come to harm.

Yet Luke tells us that when Jesus drew near to where the collaborator was, he called out and not only greeted the man, but openly stated that he would like to spend the night in his home.  We have to concentrate on this situation to really understand the effect of this behavior on the inhabitants of Jericho.  Not only had the teacher declined the hospitality of "decent" citizens, but now, after indicating he would not stay the night, he changed his mind in order to stay in the home of the most hated man in town. Not only was Zacchaeus hated, but as a tax collector he was “unclean” and anyone who entered his home, ate there, or stayed the night, would automatically also be made unclean.

The reaction of the crowd as recorded by Luke is understandable in these circumstances: “All the people saw this and began to mutter, ‘He has gone to be the guest of a sinner’” (Luke 19:7).  Because of his reaching out to Zacchaeus in love Jesus incurred the total displeasure of not just a few, but of “All the people.” The famous prophet and teacher, the beloved healer of one of their own citizens, instantly became an object of local displeasure and perhaps even anger and scorn.

Nevertheless, as Luke shows, the love that Jesus extended to the hated individual was repaid in the man’s true and thorough repentance and his promise to more than restore all of the excess money he had taken from his neighbors (Luke 19:8).  We must remember that Zacchaeus already knew the law of Moses, already knew that it was wrong to cheat and steal.  It was not hearing an exposition of the law that changed the tax collector, but seeing the demonstration of love that Jesus made to him.  Zacchaeus was moved and transformed by that love, but it was not free.  Jesus immediately paid a price for the expression of his love, but he did so knowing full well that the cost of real love is often high.  

Scriptures in Question:
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“Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us…” (Luke 11:4).
“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).
 
Many readers of the Gospels notice that in the accounts of the Lord’s Prayer given in Matthew and Luke there is a noticeable difference regarding the petition for forgiveness.  While Luke tells us that Jesus taught we should pray for forgiveness of our sins, Matthew records that we are to pray for the forgiveness of our debts.  Matthew doubtless refers to spiritual rather than financial debts, but the two Gospels use different words with very different meanings. 

Luke’s account uses the Greek word hamartia which is the word most often used for sins in the New Testament.  Matthew, however, uses the Greek words opheilēma and opheiletēs which are translated as “debts” and “debtors” and which convey the idea of a responsibility we have not paid off.  To make matters seem even more complicated, Matthew records that directly after giving the Lord’s Prayer Jesus said:

“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14–15 ESV).

Here, the word “trespasses” is translated from yet another Greek word paraptōma, which we know means any sin that goes over the boundaries (like trespassing on someone’s property) of established laws.

But this seeming tangle of different Greek words is put in clear perspective when we realize that Jesus certainly would not have given the Lord’s Prayer in Greek, and that the language he would have used would have been Aramaic – the language spoken by the population of Judea in New Testament times.   Unlike Greek, which has separate words for the ideas of sin and unpaid debts or responsibilities, Aramaic has a single word khoba signifying both sins and debts.

This means that the petition for forgiveness given by Jesus was interpreted as referring to “sins” by Luke and “debts” by Matthew.  There is actually a clear hint of this double meaning in Luke’s Gospel where the Greek actually includes both ideas in stating: “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us” (Luke 11:4, emphases added). Although this double meaning does not appear in the NIV, it is accurately recorded in the ESV, NKJV, Holman Bible, etc.

But we should not forget the significance of the double meaning of the Aramaic word doubtless used by Jesus.  That word signifies both sins in the sense of things we do that we should not do and debts in the sense of responsibilities we should have fulfilled but did not – sins of “commission” and “omission.”
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So the accounts of Matthew and Luke do not contradict each other.  Matthew simply stresses the debt aspect of the word Jesus used, while Luke stresses the sin aspect – though he also manages to include the idea of indebtedness.  And Matthew, the tax collector who perhaps naturally remembered and stressed the aspect of debts, also includes the additional word paraptōma which can refer to any transgression and which covers both types of failing to love – either by what we do or do not do. 

Scripture lists Daniel as one of most righteous individuals who lived in the Old Testament era (Ezekiel 14:14), and studying the book that bears his name can be particularly instructive regarding making the right decisions in matters of faith.   Yet Daniel’s sterling righteousness does not mean he was unbending and unwilling to exercise reason in applying his faith.  In fact, Daniel shows us that it is sometimes the exercise of flexibility that allows us to apply our faith in wisdom.

We see this in the very first chapter of the book of Daniel.  At the opening of the book we are told that Daniel and a number of other young Jewish men that had been taken captive to Babylon were chosen for special training in the Babylonian king’s palace.

But now a problem arose. We are told that “The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table” (Daniel 1:5). This may sound great for the average young man with a good appetite, but for Daniel, as a faithfully observant Jew, this was a problem.  There is no question that foods from the pagan king’s table (or more accurately, “kitchen”) would have included many meats and other foodstuffs that were unclean according to the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament (Leviticus 11).

Righteous as Daniel was, he immediately tried to obtain an exception to this royal decree: “But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way” (Daniel 1:8).   But obedience to the law of God was not going to be that easy in this case. The official told Daniel: “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you.” (Daniel 1:10).

Given Daniel’s firm righteousness, this is the point when we might expect that he would “take a stand” on the issue and refuse to eat the food – even if it meant risking the king’s displeasure and likely punishment for refusing his command.  But Daniel took a very different approach.  When he did not gain success through the normal channel, Daniel took evasive action and tried another, more unusual tactic:

Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed: “…Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see” (Daniel 1:11-13).

Notice that Daniel did not attempt to go over the official’s head, but rather went beneath him by making the same request to one of the guards under the official’s command.  In this case this was a brilliant move.  Had Daniel tried to go above the official to the king, his request would doubtless have failed if it were heard at all. By making the request of someone who had not been directly commanded by the king (as the official had been), Daniel was able to present an alternative “meal plan” to the guard that doubtless pleased the man. 

By forgoing the food from the “king’s table” Daniel opted for a diet of vegetables – basic food probably close to what the guard himself received as that was the traditional food of servants and poorer people.  The offer Daniel was effectively making to the guard was “How about we eat your inexpensive meals and you can have our rich royal fare?” Even if a direct exchange of meals was not involved, the guard simply had to give Daniel vegetables from the royal kitchen and could keep the rest of the rich meal for himself.  The guard’s response to this offer was what we might expect: “So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days” (Daniel 1:14).    

The results of this meal exchange were perhaps more surprising.  At the end of the ten days Daniel and the other Jewish trainees looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who ate the royal food.  As a result, the guard was doubtless happy to maintain the situation and we are told that he “…took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead” (Daniel 1:16).  

The outcome of this situation was perfect.  The royal official Daniel had first approached was relieved not to have to report a problem with some of the young men he was supposed to be training, and the guard who actually brought the meals from the kitchen had no complaints either.

But this simple outcome was based on a careful and well thought out approach on Daniel’s part. Instead of bluntly refusing the king’s commanded diet, Daniel used tact, interpersonal skill, ingenuity, and certainly wisdom in addressing the problem.  In taking this approach he not only saved himself from a difficult situation, but also avoided being the cause of difficulty or even punishment for those assigned to work with him.

In using wisdom in this way, Daniel did not compromise his own faith and also did not cause problems for himself or others.  We do not know what Daniel would have done if his second attempt had not been successful, but the story indicates it is likely he would have tried other alternatives as long as some were available.   Later in the Book of Daniel we see that Daniel was not afraid to “take a stand” when he had no choice but to do so (Daniel 3:13-18), but the first story we are given shows his success in balancing obedience with wisdom when that was possible.
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In our own lives we too may sometimes be called upon to make hard decisions regarding our faith.  In those cases, like Daniel, we should be willing to take a stand regardless of the cost. But, also like Daniel, we should be careful to apply our faith in wisdom and to avoid “taking a stand” when this is not necessary.  In many cases we will find that the application of wisdom to faith can bring about the best outcome for everyone. That is doubtless one of the reasons we are told that righteous Daniel found favor with both God and men (Daniel 1:9,19; 9:23).

​We tend to think of Luke as the most universal of the Four Gospels –  the life of Jesus that begins its genealogy with Adam rather than Abraham, and that stresses the importance of Samaritans and other Gentiles. But there is a less noticeable yet equally pervasive inclusion to be found in his Gospel that was just as revolutionary for his day: the inclusion of women.

Women are not simply injected into the story that Luke tells to give them a presence as “token female believers,” however. What Luke does is more surprising. He carefully arranges his Gospel to include a woman at every key point in the narrative in which a man is found.  In other words, Luke structures his Gospel around carefully arranged pairs of males and females.

Pairs in Luke’s Account of Jesus’ Life

We find male-female pairs from the very beginning of Luke’s Gospel.  Among the Gospel writers he alone tells of the angel Gabriel appearing to both Zechariah and Mary to announce the conception of John and Jesus (Luke 1), and he shows both a man and a woman –  Simeon and Anna –  testifying in the temple about the Messiah’s birth (Luke 2).  At the end of his Gospel, when we reach the death of Jesus, we see pairs or groups of both men and women as witnesses of his death, burial (Luke 23:50-56), and resurrection (Luke 24:1-12).

Between these opening and closing frames, Luke fills his Gospel with carefully selected pairs of men and women.  Not only is this pattern found in the key reference to the fact that the disciples who travelled with Jesus included a group of women as well as a group of men (Luke 8), but we find it time and again in the description of Christ’s miracles.

In Luke 4:31-39 we find that the healing of a possessed man is followed by the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. In Luke 7:1-17 the healing of the Centurion’s servant is followed by that of the son of the widow of Nain. And in Luke 13:10-17 the healing of a crippled woman on the Sabbath day is directly followed by the healing of a crippled man on another Sabbath (Luke 14:1-6). 

The pattern is clear. From the birth of Jesus through his ministry to his death and resurrection Luke is clearly intentional in balancing stories that give equal inclusion of women and men in the same or similar circumstances.  

Pairs in Luke’s Account of Jesus’ Teaching

The conscious pairing of men and women in the events of Christ’s life is also found in Luke’s description of the teachings of Jesus.  Instead of simply using single-gender examples to illustrate his teachings –  as was usual in the culture of the time –   Luke shows that Jesus frequently used pairs: “men and women,” “husbands and wives,” “fathers and mothers,” “fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law,” “sons and daughters,” and “sons-in-law and daughters-in-law” in his teaching.

Luke also shows that Jesus continually utilized both male and female oriented illustrations to convey his teachings.  For example, in the story of Jesus’ first public teaching in his hometown synagogue, he uses two stories with the same underlying message – that of the widow woman at Zarephath and the Syrian General Naaman (Luke 4:25-27). In the same way, Luke shows Jesus using both the story of the prophet Jonah in Nineveh and that of the Queen of Sheba as examples of Gentiles who believed (Luke 11:29-32).

Even clearer than these instances of paired examples taken from the Old Testament is Luke’s recording of the paired nature of the parables of Jesus.   For example, the parable of the shepherd and his lost sheep is paired with the parable of the woman with a lost coin (Luke 15:3-10).  The same pattern is found in the parables of the growth of the Kingdom of God being like a man who plants a mustard seed in his garden and that of the woman who puts yeast into her bread dough (Luke 13:18-21). The example of two men resting together at night is directly followed by the example of two women grinding grain in the day (Luke 17:34-35).

In these and in many other examples, Luke recorded parables that not only present their lesson from the point of view of both men and women, but also stress, by their conscious balancing, the equality of the experience of both male and female hearers.

Pairs as a Part of Luke’s Message

Scholars refer to this technique of repeating statements, changing the gender each time, as “complementary discourse” – a teaching method in which a statement or lesson is applied equally to both men and women.   We find it recorded occasionally in the other Gospels, so it seems clear that Jesus used the technique in teaching mixed groups of men and women. But it is also clear that Luke, more than any other Gospel writer, went to great lengths to show Jesus’ continual use of the technique.

This can only mean that the message of the full inclusion of women in the gospel story was one that was particularly important to Luke.  That is doubtless one of the reasons Luke begins his account of the ministry of Jesus by recording his sermon based on the prophecy of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor” (Luke 4:18-19).

Judean women in the time of Jesus were unquestionably frequently oppressed, but in the use of gender-paired examples throughout his Gospel Luke presents women in a new way – as a group set free through the life and work of Christ and demonstrated to be equal participants in the community of Jesus’ followers.