Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are Jesus' gifts

Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are not gifts given to individuals like the gifts for individuals mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 but are Jesus' gifts to the church. As Andrew T. Lincoln writes (in his commentary on Ephesians in Word Biblical Commentary), "The difference in emphasis between v 7 and v 11 is not to be ignored. In the former, grace is said to be given by Christ to each; in the latter, those named are themselves Christ’s gifts to the Church."

God can really get to work after we make two discoveries

When a man has made two discoveries, God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. The man is awake now.

The first discovery is when you realize that the idea that God had set us a sort of exam and that we might get good marks by deserving them has to be wiped out: the idea that we could perform our side of the contract and thus put God in our debt has to be wiped out.

The second discovery is when you realize that every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already.

The first discover is made when someone tries his level best to practice the Christian virtues and finds that he cannot. In other words, he discovers his bankruptcy. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, 'You must do this. I can't.' God has been waiting for the moment at which you discover that there is no question of earning a pass mark in this exam or putting Him in your debt.

Concerning the second discovery: when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, 'Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.' Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child's present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.

[From C.S. Lewis, Chapter 21, Mere Christianity]

How do we love the Lord our God?

Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole strength and your whole mind (or all your thoughts). How do we love God? A common answer is that we love God by obeying him. Francis Schaeffer, in his book True Spirituality, says that we love God by being content.

He arrives at this by saying that the opposite of love is covet. "Coveting is the negative side of the positive commands [to love God and to love man]."

When we are content with our circumstances, no matter what they are, we are loving God according to Schaeffer.

What do you think?

Giving Principles

From Paul's second letter to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 9:6-15), the following principles emerge.

1. You will reap in accordance with how you sow.

2. When you make a decision to give and/or are convicted to give, carry out that decision regardless of changes in circumstance. God will make sure you have enough.

3. When you give, enjoy it, knowing that it will:

• produce for you just as seed, which is sown, produces for a farmer and
• produce an overflow of thanksgiving to God.

The harvest you'll receive includes enough resources from God to overflow in good works and thanksgiving to God.

Because you should enjoy giving, you should not give reluctantly or under compulsion.

Can every passage be understood well enough to be applied?

One thing I've liked about my preaching pastor is that he uses much of his limited amount of time preaching to apply the passage rather than spending the majority of the time on exegesis (critical explanation) of the passage. I generally have felt that the exegesis task, which is essential, has been done by my pastor, leading to well done application of the passage. However, recently I've begun to question whether every passage can be adequately understood to be applied. Perhaps some passages are just not clear enough to be understood and therefore not able to be applied.

In politics, I have adopted an idea that I believe everyone should adopt: don't vote if you don't know. I'm moving towards a similar idea in homiletics (the art of preaching), don't apply it if you aren't sure what it means.

Is the end really contingent on the proclamation of the gospel to all people groups?

Jesus said "and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." (Mt 24:14)

The common teaching on this passage within the Christian community in which I live is that the coming of the end remains contingent on the evangelizing of every last tribe on the earth. However, there are significant indications that what Jesus meant was the widespread proclamation of the message of the kingdom without geographical or racial restriction.

In this regard, for example, even though Paul had not reached the unevangelized territory of Spain (cf. Rom 15:20–24), he spoke of the spread of the gospel in the most comprehensive language when he said "faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did: "Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.'" (Rom 10:18, where Ps 19:4 is quoted by analogy).

Through the missionary work of the apostles, it appears that the gospel had "gone out to all the earth" during the first generation of Christians. If so, "the end" could already have come in the first century. The required conditions were all present. All the sufferings referred to in Mt 24:5–12 were experienced in the years prior to a.d. 70 and the fall of Jerusalem, and in varying degree they have been signs experienced by the church down to the present era.

So it seems likely that the signs of the end have been present to every Christian generation.

Christians will be blameless in the end

"God will establish you to the end: blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is God, by whom you were called into communion with his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord." That is what Paul wrote to the Corinthians who "call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." How can that be? They (like me) clearly were not perfect. Yet, we are told that they will be free of any charge (i.e., blameless). And the source of this information isn't just any man or just one man. This was proclaimed by many men who each identified one source of this good news: the God of the universe, the Lord of heaven and earth, revealed it to them through his son, Jesus Christ.