Archive for April, 2010
Content but not satisfied…
I woke this morning with an incredible sense of peace.
I was reflecting on where life is up to and what I am doing, and I realized just how content I was.
I am married to a great girl, and have been so for over 21 years, without ever the desire to stray.
I have great kids.
I am in good health and getting healthier.
I have a roof over my head and I am surrounded by people that I genuinely love and who genuinely love my family.
I work hard, but haven’t worked a job in… oh, I dont know how long (a job being something your paid to do, while working is what you do when your building a dream.)
And I realized I want for nothing… except one thing… I want more of the same.
Now, I don’t want more just for me, I want more for everyone that loves me.
I want more of God’s best for my wife, for my kids, for my team, for my church, for my business, for my clients, for the leaders across all our organizations, and all those that are journeying with us.
I think this is where people miss it.
They never graduate from being dissatisfied, they never arrive at contenment.
They never stop to appreciate who they do have, what they do have and where they are heading.
Remember, we spend more time on the journey than we ever do at the destination…. so you might as well learn to enjoy it!
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Understanding John 3:16 by John Samson
The most famous verse in the entire Bible is John 3:16. Here Jesus says,“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
When hearing the biblical teaching on the subject of Divine election, some seek immediate refuge in a traditional and may I say, unbiblical understanding of this verse. They say this: “God can’t elect certain ones to salvation because John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that gave His Son so that WHOEVER believes in Christ would have eternal life. Therefore, God has done His part in offering the gift of salvation in His Son and just leaves it up to us to receive the gift through faith. Amen. Case closed!” (emphasis theirs)
Or so it might seem… Though this is a very common tradition, and one I held to myself for many a year, it needs to be pointed out that in spite of the emphasis made by many people here on the word “whoever”, the text does not actually discuss who does or who does not have the ability to believe. Someone might just as well be quoting John 3:16 to suggest that all churches need to have red carpets in their sanctuaries! Why? Because that also is not a topic addressed in the text. The verse is often quoted, but actually it has no relevance to the subject.
For the understanding of a text in the New Testament, we need to check the original language in which it was written, namely koine Greek. It may come as a big surprise to learn that in the original Greek of John 3:16, there is no word “whoever.” The word “whoever” is expressing a phrase in Greek which is difficult to express smoothly in English.
Literally, the text reads “in order that every the one believing in Him, not to perish, but have everlasting life.” It says “every” or “all the one believing…” That’s hard to express in English, but in essence, it is saying “all the believing ones.” That’s what is being communicated. It is saying that there is no such thing as a believing one who does not receive eternal life, but who perishes. Though our English translation says “whoever believes” the literal rendering is accurately translated as “every believing one” and the emphasis is NOT AT ALL on the “whosoever” but on the belief. The ones BELIEVING will not have one consequence but will have another. They will not perish but will have everlasting life.
Why? Because of the main verb - because God GAVE His Son. God gave His Son for the purpose (Greek: hina) that every believing one should not perish, but that every believing one should have everlasting life.
The text (John 3:16) actually speaks of a limitation of a particular rather than a universal redemption, for clearly, not everyone will be saved, but only those who believe in Christ. The Father gave His Son for the purpose of those who believe. The Son is given so that the believing ones will not perish, but opposite to that, have eternal life. That is the purpose of the giving.
So, what John 3:16 teaches is:
ALL who do A (believe in Him)
will not B (perish)
but will have C (everlasting life)
What does this text tell us about who WILL believe or who CAN believe?
The answer is: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! The text does not address the issue of who WILL believe or who CAN believe.
However, if you do want to know John’s view on who CAN exercise faith, he does deal with that question - just not in this text. If you go back a few verses in the chapter to John 3:3, John quotes Jesus as saying “unless a man is born again he CANNOT enter the kingdom of God.” That’s clear isn’t it?
Jesus said that a pre-requisite, a necessary condition, that must be met before someone can enter the kingdom of God is that they are born again. We enter the kingdom of God through faith, but in order to enter the kingdom, we must first be born again, or made spiritually alive. If we are not FIRST born again, we CANNOT enter the kingdom of God.
This same issue is certainly addressed by Jesus 3 chapters further on in John 6:44, when He said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” (we should note that the one drawn by the Father to the Son is also raised up on the last day to eternal life). (John 6:39, 40). In John 6:65, Jesus said, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
Of course, all who exercise true faith will certainly be saved. John 3:16 clearly teaches that anyone believing in Christ will not perish but have everlasting life. But what we need to ask is “who WILL have faith?”
The Augustinian, and I believe biblical view, is that only the elect will be brought to faith. No one can come to Christ unless God does something to enable that person to come.
So why do people miss what John 3:16 teaches or read into it (eisegesis) what is not actually in the text?
That’s easy. It is because of how they have heard John 3:16 used over and over and over again. They have an ingrained, preconceived notion of what the verse says, and fail to question that assumption and read the text for what it actually says.
It’s a TRADITION and if you dare question it, you might be accused of questioning the very word of God, rather than their traditional interpretation of the word of God, and that can create a whole lot of emotion.
This text, of course, is just one example of many that could be quoted, but it does show us how powerful our traditions can be. We need to continuously expose our traditions to the light of God’s Word. If they can be confirmed by detailed study of the text of Scripture, we can be sure that the traditions are valid. If not, then we need to dispense with them. Let God be true and every man a liar… even if the “man” here refers to our own firmly held beliefs, but not the testimony of Scripture itself.
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Thought
Preachers nowadays give the people what they want, not what they need.
It is like our pulpits are filled with favorite uncles and not fathers.
Favorite uncles give the children what they want.
Fathers give them what they need.
Uncles do it to win the accolades of the child.
Fathers do it because they love the child.
It is a boy, not a man, whose self-esteem is dependent on other children’s voices.
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248lbs..heading to the goal of 250!
900 calories of pure goodness….a great way to start the day
Three Things
Martin Luther was often heard to say:
“Three things make a divine - meditation, prayer, temptation;
and three things need to be done by a minister;
- To read the bible over and over
- To pray earnestly
- Always be a learner”
That is….Read, Pray, Grow…
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What I DO believe…Part 5
4) I do believe in the free offer of the Gospel.
I believe we should preach to everyone that we can, when ever we can by any means possible so that some maybe saved.
5) I do believe that the Holy Spirit can be finally resisted.
Stephen said so: Ye stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. (Acts 7:53)
There is a time when the Spirit of God stops striving with men (Genesis 6:3) and this is when they resist His convictions and He “leaves them alone in their darkness to dwell.”
But I believe that the elect cannot always resist Him - that there comes a time when the Spirit prevails and they are born again. I call this irresistible grace.
Let me point out something here. When Arminian Christians offer up petitions to God for the lost: “Lord, save my love ones…” etc., they are praying Calvinistic prayers.
Arminianism effectively teaches that God has done everything that He can do since He cannot interfere with man’s free and sovereign will.
Calvinism teaches that God needs to do everything and we can consistently ask Him to do more and save our lost ones etc.
If you want people to get saved, pray like a person who believes reformed theology. I don’t want an “if thy will be done” prayer. I want a “GOOOOOOOODDDDDDD you can!”
6) I do appeal to sinners when preaching the Gospel.
I was given the great commandment, not the great suggestion.
I am not going to stand in a pulpit prayed up, prepared up and preached up - doing it all with a roar and a passion to let it finish with a whimper.
No friend, I will plead, exhort and implore people to respond to the conviction of God and the drawing of His spirit.
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Copyright 2010.
What I DO believe…Part 4
2) I do believe that all men are duty-bound to repent and believe the Gospel.
Jesus corrected and criticized those cities where He did great works, because they did not repent.
Matthew 11:20
20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.
The Holy Ghost convicts the world of sin because it believes not on Christ.
John 16:7-9
7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;
So we can conclude that man, although unable to believe/repent in himself without divine strength (because of sin), is held fully responsible and therefore has a duty to repent.
CALVIN: It is the ordinary practice of Scripture, whenever redemption is mentioned, to exhort to repentance.
3) I do believe that there is a need for evangelism.
There are some who deny that evangelism is necessary either verbally or by there lack of action, this is called Hyper-Calvanism
In modern America, we believe that it is everyone’s free choice, so therefore, lets not bother to preach to anyone, because that is just imposing our choice on them. We believe that somehow they will find there way to God - this is called Arminianism.
However the bible says we must seek “by all means to win some.”
We must evangelize because it was ordained by God.
The great evangelists whose names we still praise in the church today were reformed in their theology; e.g. George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, Robert Murray McCheyne, John Bunyan etc., (to name but a few). William Carey, who has been called the Father of modern missionary endeavor, was a Calvinist.
God commands that the gospel to be preached, so we preach it.
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Copyright 2010.
He Has Risen
The story of the love of God does not end with the sacrifice of Christ, but the promise of His return
John 20:6-8 ESV
Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;
Have you every wondered why the disciple John could look in at see a face cloth and the scripture declared that he believed?
He believed what?
He believed everything!
He saw and instantly he knew he need not fear.
He need not worry.
Everything Jesus promised was true.
Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.
She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, ‘They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and I don’t know where they have put him!’
Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see. The other disciple outran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn’t go in.
Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying to the side.
This folded cloth had significant meaning.
The Roman guards were not there and the tomb was open and reportedly empty
When they ran to the tomb they believed that grave robbers had stolen the body of Our Lord.
They thought that he had been moved either by the Jews or by the Romans
But when they looked in and saw that the cloth surrounding his face had been neatly folded they new that this was no disappearance, this was not a theft
but a resurrection.
Everything He ever said would happen…happened
Which means that everything He ever said will happen, will happen
Communion for me is not just about the remembrance of his death, but the promise of His return
It is proof to me that everything HE said He would do, He has done and everything he said he WILL do, He will Do
Friend He has risen.
Friend He will return
That is a promised that is renewed to us every time we take communion
That is the promise that every Easter Sunday morning brings, and as done so for over 2000 years.
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