Tag: Jesus

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Christ is Wisdom from God

“It is because of [God] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.”

1 Corinthians 1:30-31a

In the book of Proverbs, Solomon speaks repeatedly about the wise and the foolish. He also talks about wisdom. He talks about it as something you can gain. He also talks about wisdom as a person.

Personifying “wisdom” was a foreshadowing of an actual person. It was a statement that all of the wisdom that God possesses can be found in an actual person. Solomon refers to that person as wisdom. Paul is telling us that Jesus is that person. Jesus became the human that contained all of God’s wisdom when He became human.

To me it goes without saying that all of the wisdom that God possesses also encompasses all of the wisdom that all of humanity has ever possessed or will ever possess. We all have some level of wisdom and maturity in our lives, but no matter how powerful or successful or clever or good we are, Jesus can match what we have done and what we know. And Jesus can go beyond what we have done and what we know.

All of us were created for love, and Jesus is someone that all of humanity can look up to when it comes to that. Additionally we all have different experiences and talents and pursuits and Jesus has the wisdom necessary to fulfill any person’s view of maturity, provided that view of maturity is rooted in love.

Because Jesus has the ability to fulfill the vision that each of us possesses He is the one person we, all of humanity, can entirely agree on.

He is powerful and wise, and He is oh so very different than the vision that we often have of powerful people. He did not come to be served, but to serve. Even though it’s a greater honor to have someone waiting on His table, He was the one waiting tables (Luke 22:27).

You can even see in Proverbs 1, “Wisdom” is not simply sitting in an ivory tower asserting His superiority. Rather He is crying out in public (Proverbs 1:20) to people in need of good counsel to protect their lives (Proverbs 1:33) so they can enjoy their lives. This is just like the Jesus we know in the New Testament that is seeking out sinners to restore them (Luke 5:31-32). He did not do as the Pharisees expected. He did not always keep His distance from sinners or let them die in their sin. He did withdraw often (Luke 5:16), but He did that so He would have the strength to go out, lead sinners to the Father, live His life free from sin, and die as the pure and spotless Lamb of God.

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Stalking Jesus

How would you feel if you were being followed by a stranger and when you asked them what they wanted, they said “Where do you live?”. Many of us would…not think highly of that person. That’s putting it generously. But that’s exactly how the disciples of Jesus acted toward Jesus. They didn’t fall on their knees and ask for forgiveness for their sins (even though they knew He had the power to take away their sins). They were hungry to spend time with Jesus. So much so that they did the…’quirky’ thing. They stalked Jesus.

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”. When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.  Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”. They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”.  “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

John 1:35-39

I haven’t spent too much time thinking about what it would be like to be John the Baptist. As I read this passage I imagine it being such a joy to just say, “There He is”, and watch as person after person’s guard crumbles and tumbles to the ground. It must have been a joy to see them filled with awe, passion, devotion, hunger, love, desperation to be in the presence of the one they were made to worship with their entire being. They were thrilled to hear His voice and to have their lives forever transformed as they were even sent out from His presence, challenged and equipped to be powerful representations of the living God on the Earth.

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You Are as Precious as The Blood of Jesus

Basic everyday bargaining and economic theory tell us that, to the purchaser, the object purchased is worth the price paid by the buyer.

We get a little uncomfortable applying this to humans, and rightly so. We just know that people are so much more unique and precious than a specific number of pieces of paper, even if that number is a very high number.

This is where the Cross of Jesus comes in. The Cross tells us that humanity is worth far more than any number of USD. Humanity is worth the blood of the God of the universe. The Old Testament tells us that “the life” of an organism is in its blood. When I say that humanity was purchased at the price of the blood of God, I’m saying that humanity is worth the life of God. At least to God we are.

Price is buyer specific. One person may only be willing to pay $1,000 for a particular coffee table, but another person may be willing to deem that it is worth $5,000. The same table has a different value in the eyes of different people.

In our scenario about humanity, the price of the blood of God has been paid by God. A convicted murderer in prison might not be worth much to us, but to God, that same man is worth the blood of Jesus. In the end God expects us to learn from and abide by such judgments.

Ephesians 2:4-5 tell us the reason that Jesus died on the Cross.

But BECAUSE OF HIS GREAT LOVE FOR US, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…

Ephesians 2:4-5

Paul isn’t disputing the fact that God is merciful. He is however stating that what drove Jesus to the Cross was His great love for us. He goes on in verse 10 of the same chapter to reveal that we are God’s masterpieces, His greatest treasure.

When humanity begins to understand how much God (the creator of all that is sexy) has paid for us, we will begin to have a profound sense of identity.

The price that God paid for us only points to something deeper: that we were created in His image to be His very sons and daughters. This implies many things, one of which is that we have the ability to mature and become like Jesus. However, far before we ever get to that point, we can see that as His children there is a preciousness with which He views us. That preciousness is marked by a willingness to pay the blood of Jesus for us.

No matter what we do or don’t do, no matter what we produce or don’t produce, no matter who we please or don’t please, our value can never be any more or less than what it already is. As I tell my daughter, “You are as precious as the blood of Jesus.”.

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What is Hypocrisy?

Many years ago, I think it was when I was in high school, someone at church told a story about a man who was at Bible study with his friends. People were talking about how they were hypocrites. The man commented that all they generally did was get together and talk about how they were hypocrites. I don’t remember exactly how this story ended or who it was about, but it strikes a chord with me years later.

If you get together with other people and genuinely lament the ways you aren’t meeting God’s standards…….you are not living a life of hypocrisy.

Please take some time to just hear this. Many of us Christians have been taught, often times by people that aren’t Christians, that we are hypocrites. It is true that Jesus had a particular distaste for hypocrisy and warned his disciples about it, but the big question is “What is hypocrisy?”. I realized a couple years ago that I really couldn’t pin down the definition of the word in a way that was at all clear. So I looked up some things about the Greek word Jesus used.

Using studylight.org is not too difficult. Using the interlinear study Bible is the basic tool that I have used most often. In Luke 12 Jesus explicitly warns His disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. The Greek word used here is transliterated as “hypokrisis”. I’m going to just list some of the meanings of that word that are given on Study Light. There’s obviously a lot of materials out there that we can dig into if we want.

“an answer or an answering” – this seems fairly innocuous at first. The problem with it will become more clear as we go on. I’d suggest that this indicates something akin to an “official statement”. It’s an answer. It’s not the reality or truth, and we generally know that it doesn’t tell the whole story.

“the acting of a stage player” – this can actually be taken multiple ways. The idea of speaking a predetermined set of words is similar to the idea of an official statement. The idea is somewhat worse though here because people’s personal lives here can be completely disconnected from the publicly staged impressions they are giving. At least with an official statement we know things about the person and their history to a degree. A good actor can portray emotions they’re not naturally inclined to have at all. Bad actors, however, at least generally have something in common with their characters. This, to me, implies a disconnect between the public and private life.

“dissimulation” – I don’t think I’ve ever used this word before. Its dictionary definition is “concealment of one’s thoughts, feelings, or character; pretense”. Some synonyms of dissimulation are: pretense, dissembling, misrepresentation, deceit, dishonesty, duplicity, lying, feigning, falsification, shamming, faking, bluffing, counterfeiting, posturing, hypocrisy, double-dealing, subterfuge…it’s all becoming clear now.

“implying arrogance and hardness of heart, utterly devoid of sincerity and genuineness” – this will be the last definition I list here. I think we all get the point. It’s an utter lack of sincerity. Words said in hypocrisy don’t represent the reality of the life or the feelings of the person that speaks them. It’s basically just lying. It’s making one’s character appear better than it actually is.

Sometimes people give lying a pass, as if it’s not really a big deal. I think that to Jesus and to us, His followers, it might be the biggest deal.

Jesus talks about yeast or leaven in the context of hypocrisy. Leaven is something that puffs bread up. I really enjoy puffy bread, but we see how it is made to appear to have more mass than it actually does.

In Luke 16:13-15 Jesus had the following interaction with the Pharisees:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.”

What stands out to me about this is that Jesus is calling people out for seeking to appear better in front of people than they actually were, and for highly valuing that appearance, but not actually having a heart to please God.

In John 5:43-44 Jesus says “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?“

Again Jesus is calling people out for seeking glory from people, but not from God. God is not impressed when people seek to impress people but don’t seek to impress Him. Having a great public life but not having a life that pleases God isn’t impressive to God. Having a great reputation but not having a great character isn’t impressive to God. Why would it be? A building without a solid foundation is going to fall over. It’s not a good decision to continue building it, adding on to it and/or repairing it. It would be wiser to re-lay the foundation and start over.

The first thing that we need to have in order to have a solid foundation is simply to trust God. The following passage is about Jesus.

When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

1 Peter 2:23

Jesus was without sin, yet He didn’t retaliate when He was attacked. Instead He…trusted God. He entrusted Himself to the one that judges fairly.

Often times people avoid being open about their sin because they don’t want to be attacked. This shows a fear of people. Jesus wasn’t like that. He just let Himself be known and let the cards fall where they may until God judged fairly.

If someone is living in hypocrisy, often the need is for that person to simply entrust himself to God by creating a clear consistency between his public life and his private life and facing the music as he does. For us God is not only the one that judges fairly. He is also the one who has mercy on us. We can trust Him. Also His judgments matter a lot more than people’s do and He will work everything together for our good.

Teaching the Bible while being imperfect is not hypocrisy. Unless you are giving the impression that you are perfectly living out what you are teaching or aren’t even practicing at all. If we could only teach once we’re perfect nobody would teach the Bible. It’s obvious in the New Testament that God is calling us to teach the Bible, and to not be silent even though we are imperfect.

However, if we teach the Bible, I think it’s generally incumbent upon us to be open with those we teach regarding the ways we aren’t living up to our teaching (people often times know anyway. See Matthew 23:12), lest we give the impression we are and we come to have a disconnect between our public and private lives. At the very least, if we aren’t even practicing, but we are teaching, I think there’s a pretty strong disconnect between our public and our private lives. We don’t want that.

When we have hypocrisy, number one, we come to lead a life Jesus has to oppose because it’s not safe for others to be around. Number two, what’s the point? God’s Kingdom isn’t actually growing in that life. God promises that if we confess our sins, He will both heal us and forgive us. He will help us get out of our sin and actually lay a stronger foundation in our lives. There’s no way to gain all of that, though, without being in the light. (see 1 John 1:5-10 and James 5:16).

Really as those commanded by God to make disciples and build the Church into maturity, it’s not an option for us to stop teaching the Bible. That’s the cowardly way out. Straight up cowardly.

We’re called to face the music by reading, practicing and teaching the Bible and then being honest with ourselves, God, and others about our shortcomings. This is how the Kingdom grows.

Don’t start suggesting that you’ve arrived until you’ve actually arrived. Show your respect for God by acknowledging all the ways that He doesn’t think you’ve arrived. Almost as importantly, be honest about your own dreams. If you are, you’ll recognize that even in your own judgment you haven’t arrived yet. God loves us in a powerful and beautiful way. When we know that, there will be no fear or shame attached to being honest in this way.

I want to draw your attention to one more passage before I conclude. Psalm 32:1-2 is quoted in Romans 4:7-8, but the end of verse 2 is cut off. They say:

Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.

Psalm 32:1-2

I don’t believe there’s a requirement to live a life free from deceit to be saved or to experience forgiveness. However we know from the verse in 1 Peter that if we actually trust God, we will be able to face public humiliation and that we will seek to please God, not people. If we can’t do this, do we really know that God forgives us? Or maybe we don’t think that God’s decision making and what He thinks of us are relevant for today’s world. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When we step into the light, the power of the Holy Spirit begins to work things together for our good whether others are on board with us being blessed or not. There’s only growth in God’s Kingdom. God is light. In Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5-6). When we live in the light, we follow Jesus and we get into the flow of His Kingdom and His power. Sin loses its stranglehold on our lives because all of sin has its roots in darkness. When we live in darkness we walk away from the victory of Jesus.

We don’t have to go through people to have light in our lives, but the Bible commands us to open up to each other anyway (James 5:16). The light of Jesus-following community is the safest place we can be. We are free to stop pretending. When we do we find out who our real friends are.

Let’s live lives where there is consistency between our public and private lives and avoid hypocrisy so that Jesus doesn’t have to warn people about us.

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Innocent Until Proven Guilty

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”

– Matthew 18: 15-16

This passage typically has one more verse attached to it when we read it, verse 17. For the sake of this particular discussion, there are a couple things I want to point out about verses 15 & 16.

Jesus makes a reference to Deuteronomy 19:15 here. The cited text is about being convicted in a court of law. It says:

One witness cannot establish any wrongdoing or sin against a person, whatever that person has done. A fact must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

– Deuteronomy 19:15

We see here that if there is one person that actually saw a crime committed and even if that person is not at all confused about what they saw, one testimony is not enough to convict someone of a crime unless the person that committed the crime confesses. One witness isn’t sufficient evidence to convict. This implies that you need evidence to convict, not to acquit. When nothing has been “established”, acquittal is the default.

This tradition of “innocent until proven guilty” is a great tradition that is consistent with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord of all the Earth. As far as its origins within our culture, I’d guess that the Bible was a part of the process of creating it.

Regardless of the reasoning, we that know God know that His ways are trusted whether we understand His reasoning or not. Nonetheless I will speculate a little bit as to why, in God’s Kingdom, the accused are innocent until proven guilty.

It seems likely that God defaults to accusing nobody in the absence of hard evidence because God has respect for human life. Why punish someone that might be innocent? We are His masterpieces (Eph 2:10). He loved us so much He sent Jesus, God in the flesh, to die on our behalf. He clearly treasures us and is intent on preventing any one of us from meeting a justified conviction, let alone an unjustified one, and the punishment that would come with it.

This doesn’t mean we should be casual about investigating crimes. When a loved one has been betrayed, it is quite appropriate for us to consider finding out what happened to them to be a matter of urgency. However, this idea of “someone will pay for this and if nobody confesses, everyone will pay for it” isn’t in line with what we see in these verses, although it is common in corporate America, from what I understand.

In verse 15 Jesus is advocating for people to just confess their sins openly without having to be confronted by 2 or 3 witnesses. However, in the event that people choose not to opt into living in the light (1 Jn 1:5-7), we are called to be those that choose to opt into the light in our own lives by being real about what we know and what we don’t know.

Whether someone is a Christian or not, this principle of “innocent until proven guilty” is a blessing because of how it protects people, and in particular, people that are innocent. Here in the USA, let’s continue seeking to live in accordance with this righteous way of life.