The Impossible Task of the Pastor. Calling Others to Repentance While Repenting Yourself

 1 Corinthians 4:14–21 (ESV)

"¹⁴ I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. ¹⁵ For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. ¹⁶ I urge you, then, be imitators of me. ¹⁷ That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church. ¹⁸ Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. ¹⁹ But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. ²⁰ For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. ²¹ What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?"

"The changes of tone in this passage reveal some of the real tensions that continue to exist in Christian ministry. How to be prophetic without being harsh or implying that one is above the sins of others. How to get people to change their behavior to conform to the gospel when they think too highly of themselves. There is no easy answer, as this passage reveals. But one called to minister in the church must ever strive to do it; calling people to repentance is part of the task, as long as the preacher is constantly repentant as well." [1]

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1. Fee, G. D. (2014). The First Epistle to the Corinthians (N. B. Stonehouse, F. F. Bruce, G. D. Fee, & J. B. Green, Eds.; Revised Edition, p. 211). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Seven Christian Truths That Will Not Change In 2022

 

1. Those who repent and believe the Gospel will be saved.  Acts 2:21 (ESV): “And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

2.  God’s enabling grace will sanctify you. Ezekiel 36:27 (ESV): “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.“

3. God’s regenerating mercies will keep you persevering in faith. Jeremiah 32:40 (ESV): “And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.“

4.  God will sovereignly and providentially guarantee to you the greatest good, i.e., to be like Christ. Romans 8:28–29 (ESV): “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

5.  He will not abandon you. Hebrews 13:5–6 (ESV): “for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” 

6.  Nothing can separate you from His love. Romans 8:38–39 (ESV): “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

7. God will accomplish His redemptive purpose for your life. Jude 24 (ESV): “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy . . ..”

Taking the Mystique Out of Walking With God.

Of all the "firsts" in the Bible, this is still astounding.  “Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” (Genesis 5:22–24, ESV).   This was an early description of someone who enjoyed a unique intimacy with God.

• Genesis 17:1 (ESV), ¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless,
• Genesis 24:40 (ESV), ⁴⁰ But he said to me, ‘The Lord, before whom I have walked, will send his angel with you and prosper your way. You shall take a wife for my son from my clan and from my father’s house.
• Genesis 48:15 (ESV), ¹⁵ And he blessed Joseph and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day,

"The double repetition of the phrase “walked with God” indicates Enoch was outstanding in this pious family." [1]  "The verb stem used signifies to walk about or to live, and the preposition denotes intimacy, fellowship." [2]   And not only was the intimacy a first, since the Fall of Adam, but the New Testament informs us: “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.” (Hebrews 11:5, ESV).  "The verb pleased (Gr euaresteō) is the Septuagint rendering of the Hebrew phrase “to walk with.” [3]

To walk with God, is to please God.  

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:5–7, ESV)  

Father, the Apostle Paul casts this goal: “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.” (2 Corinthians 5:9, ESV).  What a great ambition, for us today,that everything we do, we do to bring great pleasure to God -- to delight Him.  Grant to us the grace of pleasing God but learning about Him.  Grant the courage to please Him, by not necessarily pleasing others.  Grant the mercy to please Him by dealing with our own sin.  By the power of the Spirit, for the sake of the Gospel grant a day that brings Christ much joy in us.   Amen. 

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1.  Wenham, G. J. (1998). Vol. 1: Genesis 1–15. Word Biblical Commentary (127). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.
2. KJV Bible Commentary. 1994 (E. E. Hindson & W. M. Kroll, Ed.) (28). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
3. ibid, (2571).

Check Out Your Experience

Galatians 3:2–5 (NIV),

² I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? ³ Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? ⁴ Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? ⁵ So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?

Paul asks several questions here, all intended to show the foolishness of these people in seeking to revert back to the Law.  Whereas Paul rests his case upon doctrinal matters, in this part of his argument he causes them to look to their experience.

1. When you were saved (when you received the Spirit) was it because of adherence to the Law or by faith in Christ?  

2. Do you think that you start your Christian journey by faith in Christ but perfect it by obedience, making it certain?

3. Having believed the Gospel and already experiencing suffering because of that, will you count that as nothing and now reject it?

4. When you see the people changed, transformed and healed, is that because they obey the Law or believe in Christ?

Luther allows no middle ground on salvation.  "If by the law, then not by the preaching of faith; if by the preaching of faith, then not by the law. There is no mean betwixt these two. For all that is not the Holy Ghost or the preaching of faith, is the law . . . For they which are ignorant of the righteousness of God, and go about to establish their own righteousness (as Paul saith in another place) do not submit themselves unto the righteousness of God (Rom. x. 3)." [1]  In his commentary, Luther walks the reader through the Book of Acts and even into the Old Testament account of Gentiles that were saved -- all by looking to Christ and not to the Law.

"For as God gave the Holy Ghost to the Gentiles which lived without the law, by the preaching of the Gospel, so did he give the same to the Jews; yet not by the law, nor by the ceremonies and sacrifices commanded in the law, but by the only preaching of faith." [1] 

This matter of how the Old Testament saints were saved is important.  In summary we find that they too were saved by faith in the promised Messiah.  Click HERE to read more.

When Paul uses the word flesh here to suggest that these Christians thought they could be perfected by the flesh.  "Flesh therefore is here taken for the very righteousness and wisdom of the flesh, and the judgment of reason, which seeketh to be justified by the law. Whatsoever then is most excellent in man, the same here Paul calleth flesh, to wit, the highest wisdom of reason, and the righteousness of the law itself." [1]   There is nothing I can do so perfectly to complete my salvation apart from faith in the righteousness of Christ imputed to me by grace.  Every good and worthy deed is still riddled by sin and cannot save.  Only Christ's perfect merit can save.

As to the suffering, how silly to suffer for a Gospel that can't save. "Now, what a miserable thing is it, so suddenly to lose such inestimable glory and assurance of conscience towards God? Also to endure so many grievous afflictions and perils of goods, wife, children, body and life, and yet notwithstanding to sustain all these things in vain?" [1]

Paul was aware of the miracles that had been accomplished by the Spirit among these believers -- none of which could have happened by law-keeping. "Ye have not only received the Spirit by the hearing of faith, but whatsoever ye have either known or done, it came by the hearing of faith. As though he would say: It was not enough that God gave you once the Spirit; but the same God hath also enriched you with the gifts of the Spirit, and increased the same in you, to the end that when ye have once received the Spirit, it might always grow and be more and more effectual in you." [1]

"Therefore (saith the Apostle) your experience, O ye Galatians, ought to teach you, that these excellent virtues proceeded not of the works of the law: for as ye had them not before the hearing of faith, so ye have them not now, when the false apostles reign in the midst of you." [1]

Father I am amazed at how Your Word helps shape our thinking.  Many of us have been told that our experience is of little value.  I know that experience doesn't replace faith.  I know that experience doesn't usurp faith.  But I learn in this passage that there is an appropriate time to look to our experience.  Of all the times I tried to change and become better, I could accomplish nothing until You saved me and gave me Your Spirit.  Even today we who are Christians know that we can do nothing apart from Your grace.  Yes we are called to obey having received the Good News, but even our obedience cannot take place apart from You in us granting us the desire and the ability.  It is You alone, Father, that makes New Creations of sinners.  The part that is so easy yet so hard to believe is that it all happens by faith -- by faith alone in Christ alone -- but that faith doesn't stand alone.  There is evidence of justification that accompanies salvation.  There is an experience to look too.  Father, by Your Spirit, and through Your Son, may my experience give credence to the Gospel, today.  May my experience give glory to You through Your Son; and may my experience bring everlasting joy to Your redeemed.  Amen!

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1. Luther, M. (1997). Commentary on Galatians (Ga 3:2). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

Who Have You Been Listening To?

“For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, . . . “But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace . . ..” (Galatians 1:13, 15, ESV).

Paul's aim was to establish the fact that after he was saved, he did not learn from men about the Gospel of the message he was supposed to proclaim. ". . . I did not immediately consult with anyone," [1] he writes.  But in his discussion he reminds the readers that he was a zealous Pharisee. He honored the Law.  Luther points out that Paul's agenda is that "if the righteousness of the law had been anything worth, [he] had not turned back from it: in the keeping whereof, notwithstanding, before [he] knew Christ [he] did so exercise [him]self, and so profit therein, that [he] excelled many of [his] companions of [his] own nation." [2] 

Paul describing his great salvation, bringing him from a persecutor of the Church to a proclaimer of the Gospel, now describes his early journey. 

“I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days.” (Galatians 1:17–18, NIV)  

Luther understands Paul's trip to Arabia as a preaching mission.  "And here he witnesseth that straightway, after he was called by the grace of God to preach Christ among the Gentiles, he went into Arabia, without the advice of any man, to that work whereunto he was called." [2]  Others suggest Paul went into Arabia to be taught, alone, by God. [3]  I favor the latter.

It is in this testimony we get a hint of Paul's understanding of the sovereignty of God.  “But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.” (Galatians 1:15–16, NIV).  "This is an Hebrew phrase. As if he said: Which had sanctified, ordained, and prepared me. That is, God had appointed, when I was yet in my mother’s womb, that I should so rage against his Church, and that afterwards he would mercifully call me back again from the midst of my cruelty and blasphemy, by his mere grace, into the way of truth and salvation. To be short, when I was not yet born, I was an Apostle in the sight of God, and when the time was come, I was declared an Apostle before the whole world." [2]  It is here that Paul is dismissing any human intervention.  This is all of God! 

And the point of Paul's salvation is clearly stated: "To reveal God's Son."  "This is a doctrine quite contrary to the law, which revealeth not the Son of God, but it showeth forth sin, it terrifieth the conscience, it revealeth death, the wrath and judgment of God, and hell." [2]  The goal and aim of the Law versus the Gospel is different.  And the recipients of the Gospel always have a purpose.  For Paul this purpose was to preach to the Gentiles.

But in his defense of the origin of the Christian faith, Paul makes sure his readers know that he was not taught by humans nor did he have much contact with any human, but Peter. "Paul granteth that he was with the Apostles, but not with all the Apostles. Howbeit he declareth that he went up to Jerusalem to them, not commanded, but of his own accord, not to learn any thing of them, but only to see Peter." [2] He saw none of the apostles except Peter and James, and this he affirms by oath (Galatians 1:20).

Paul then describes his ongoing journeys "as though he would say: I appeal to the testimony of all the churches, yea even of those which are in Judaea; for the churches do witness, not only in Damascus, Arabia, Syria and Cilicia, but also in Judaea, that I have preached the same faith which I once withstood and persecuted." [2]

And then as a parting salvo, he writes, “And they praised God because of me.” (Galatians 1:24, NIV).

Father, in the midst of this passionate defense of where he went, who he saw, and what they said, we also understand the amazing blessings of the Gospel.  None of this we know upon our own conversion.  None of this is familiar to us until we learn of Your ways, in Your words.  That decision that we thought occurred because of our obvious impression and desire, we find, is all of God.  Thus far, not only is our salvation all of grace, but our lives and ministries have been prepared for us long before we were born.  What can we but do but join the folks in Syria and Cilicia and praise God for such a great and marvelous salvation.  

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1. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Ga 1:16). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

2. Luther, M. (1997). Commentary on Galatians (Ga 1:13). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

3. KJV Bible Commentary. 1994 (E. E. Hindson & W. M. Kroll, Ed.) (2376). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.