Archive for the 'Scripture Verses' Category

Hello, and a Word from CHS

Josh October 14th, 2008

Howdy, Friends. I am not really sure when I’ll get back to a more regular sort of blogging, not that any of you are missing out on anything when I don’t write. The Lord has been good to me and, despite sinning against Him in word, thought, and deed daily, He has constantly provided. For this, I remain thankful. I read a great little “devotional” from Spurgeon the other morning, and thought I would pass it on here. It is concerning the importance of personal piety in the life of the believer. Enjoy!

From Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“I will meditate in Thy precepts.”—Psalm 119:15.

HERE are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labour in His service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. Truth is something like the cluster of the vine: if we would have wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it many times. The bruiser’s feet must come down joyfully upon the bunches, or else the juice will not flow; and they must well tread the grapes, or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. So we must, by meditation, tread the clusters of truth, if we would get the wine of consolation therefrom. Our bodies are not supported by merely taking food into the mouth, but the process which really supplies the muscle, and the nerve, and the sinew, and the bone, is the process of digestion. It is by digestion that the outward food becomes assimilated with the inner life. Our souls are not nourished merely by listening awhile to this, and then to that, and then to the other part of divine truth. Hearing, reading, marking, and learning, all require inwardly digesting to complete their usefulness, and the inward digesting of the truth lies for the most part in meditating upon it. Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God’s Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord, and be this our resolve this morning, “I will meditate in Thy precepts.”

Thank God. There are Still Men Left Amongst Evangelicals

Josh September 10th, 2008

Here’s Pastor Voddie Baucham, shelling out the truth to the Feminists.

Shell of a Man

Josh September 7th, 2008

From Lamentations 3:

I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked. He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.” Remember my affliction and my wanderings,the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.

But for it all, I thank the Almighty. He is good. Holy. Right. Just. And I can continue with the prophet, when he says:

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth, to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most High, to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve. Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins? Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord!

Thank You, Lord, for Your Fatherly watchcare over me. I resign myself to Your good pleasure.

Grasp This: Jesus Saves

Josh September 3rd, 2008

What a glorious truth the following Scripture is. It is one that has been so easily misconstrued or missed altogether in today’s form of Evangelicalism. In I Timothy 1, v. 15, we read:

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

Powerful. Punching. Offensive. Humbling. There are many words that can describe the effect elicited by such a simple, yet mangled in modernity, truth. In these days, much misguided meaning has been imported to this text (and others like it), while very little has been extrapolated from it. Of course, this passage is no exception. There are a plethora of others with which we’re guilty of doing the same. Let us now briefly consider the richness of this text, even just on its surface level.

So, in this day and age, how do most people tend to think of this verse? Typically, with this verse, and other verses like it, they import the idea into the text that “Jesus died for every sinner without exception.” But that’s not what the text says. When someone says something to you, as an authority, you’re not to pour your own meaning into their words. Instead, you must take into consideration several different things.

1. What are the individual words they’re using in their communication?

2. What is the context in which they’re using these words?

3. If you’ve communicated with them before, how should you interpret these words with consideration to all the other conversations you’ve had with them?

By these, then, we can determine what the text says and what the text means.

Okay, then, let’s apply these criteria to 1 Timothy 1:15.

Individual Words

Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. So we have a who, what, and why to address, in order to extrapolate the meaning from the thrust of this passage. Who? Jesus. What did He do? He “came into the world.” And for what purpose (Why)? “To save sinners.” So that’s incredibly simple, right? Jesus (the Object/subject of the sentence) came (verb) to save (purpose) sinners.

Context

The immediate context surrounding the Apostle’s words here are verses 12-17 of the same chapter:

12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, 13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

One may ask, “So how does reading the surrounding text help?” Simple. Verse 15 is Paul’s line about why Jesus came into the world. But he prefaces this with a testimony of all the things he once was: blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent. Here, he has shown what it means when Christ saves a sinner. He takes him from what he was and makes him something else.

Exhaustive Context

Next there is a consideration of the exhaustive context (although, for the sake of brevity in this post, my exhaustive will be a selected range from Scripture, and not a detailed exegesis of every passage that deals with this subject matter). Think about Jeremiah 32, where a prophecy of Christ refers to Him as “the Lord our righteousness.” Now, let me ask you, can all people without exception lay claim to Christ as their righteousness? No. Consider the Lord’s very Name, Jesus=Joshua, Yeshua, which itself means “salvation” or “he saves.” We also read in Matthew 1:21, “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

So we see, then, what the text does not say. It does not say “Jesus died to save all sinners without exception.”Nor does it mean such.

What 1 Timothy 1:15 does say & mean, as well as a plethora of other passages, is that Jesus came to accomplish a mission, to bring about a solution to a problem. He did not come to make a solution doable. He did not come to hopefully make a difference. No, He came to save sinners. And that is precisely what He did. He accomplished His mission. He didn’t merely make men savable, He actually saved some men!

God, by definition of being God, cannot fail. Nor will he. Instead, may we always remember His words concerning Himself (Isaiah 55):

10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Grasp This: God’s Word is a Treasure

Josh August 31st, 2008

The Westminster Confession of Faith, speaking of the Bible (WCF I.VII), reads thus:

VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

So, what exactly does this imply? Well, for starters, that because “the learned, [and] unlearned alike” are able to understand all that’s necessary for being a believer in the Scriptures, then “the learned, [and] unlearned alike” both have an obligation to study, learn, and know those Scriptures! Having grown up in mostly a Southern Baptist church setting, I cannot keep count of how many times I heard people excuse themselves from this obligation on the claims that they “couldn’t understand” the Bible most of the time. That, simply, is just not true, and is proof of several things, two upon which I’ll spend some commentary:

First, that American “Christianity” is chock full of apathetic, lazy, and hence, ignorant people who want to be a part of all the church programs, etc. but do not want to labor in the Word of God.

Second, that American “Pastors” fail to preach to their members that laboring in the Word of God is both a sign of one being a Christian and also incumbent upon any who would profess such an indentification with the God of the Scriptures.

Lazy and Ignorant Professors of Faith

Many well-intending folks lie in this category, but that doesn’t make it any more excusable. The Bible is how we are to “learn” God’s attributes and gives us the criteria by which we identify if something/someone is “of” Him. This cannot be accomplished by a person who has failed to labor in God’s Word. Sure, there are some difficult things in the Scriptures, but that does not mean we chunk the responsibility of knowing God’s Word out the window. There is a purpose as to why God has given teachers to the Church (Eph. 4:11).

Keep in mind, the first step is to ask the Lord to aid us in our reading. No, I’m not talking about some mystical movement, wherein the Holy Spirit gives one new revelation, etc. However, one obviously needs the illumination of the Spirit to properly interpret the texts of Scripture. So ask!

Yes there are some difficult places in Scripture, but there is a whole lot that is not difficult to understand. And it’s these very passages one should master in order to shed light on the more difficult passages. The most fundamental rule to be remembered when laboring in the Word is a principle called the Analogy of Scripture, wherein it is stated that Scripture does not contradict itself. Thus, if there seems to be a contradiction, the problem is not with the Bible, but with the interpreter. So it follows, when we come to a passage that confuses one or gives him pause, he should use the clearer passages to illuminate those which are less clear.

Another important thing to remember is that we believe in Sola Scriptura. That is, we believe that Scripture alone is the only sure source and guide of all our faith and practice. Many times, though, people instead develop a solo Scriptura understanding. This is the “me and my Bible” mentality which seems to think that one’s own personal interpretation is the ruler of everything. And this is just foolish, because we all have grids and presuppositions through which we interpret the Scriptures. Here is where the importance of having faithful commentaries and trusted preachers of God’s Word comes in. So don’t take the Me-and-My Bible-Alone-on-an-Island route. Instead, read men like the Reformers and Puritans of old, and contemporary Reformed Authors who have proven themselves with the faithful handling of God’s Word.

The Failure of Modern “Preachers”

Next, I mentioned the failure of modern “preachers.” I think of men like Joel Osteen, or any plethora of “preachers” that one may find on television, and there is displayed the epitome of failed “preaching.” There are some great motivating words, and encouragements like one would never believe, but there is no preaching of sin, and how one of those sins is the failure of professing Christians to labor in the Word of God! We could even mention Rick Warren, while although quoting passage after passage in his book The Purpose Driven Life, has so ripped said passages out of context that they no longer emphasize the thrust of what God is saying in and through those passages. So there are people who pick up these “onesies” and use them as “life verses,” but they remain profoundly ignorant of the thrust of the Scriptures. To be honest, I believe that this second point is the most contributing factor to the first point.

Until men once again preach the necessity of every Christian being a laborer in God’s Word, there will continue to be mass ignorance, false security, and more loss than living folks in the pews of the so-called Churches.

Now, I hate to come across so pessimistically. Really, I do. However, this problem is pervasive amongst the Church today. Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Osteen’s Your Best Life Now, et cetera, are not going to elicit real change. Only the Word of God can do that. So, please be a laborer of the Word of God. GRASP it’s meaning by laboring in its treasures. It is a precious gift from our Father, for His glory and our good.

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