Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 22

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of Second and Third John

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of Romans, Chapters 15 and 16

"10 Historical Myths About World Christianity"

From a professor at the University of Edinburgh.

"Bold Lutheran" Need Not Be an Oxymoron!

[This is from my devotions for the Saint Matthew Church Council this evening.]

Tonight, I'd like to look at three passages of Scripture. The first is John 14:1. It comes from the same section of John as our gospel lessons for the past few Sundays have come. It's what scholars call the Farewell Discourse, words spoken by Jesus in the presence of the twelve apostles on the night of His arrest. In John 14:1, Jesus says:

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me."

Martin Luther had some especially important things for Lutherans to hear about these words of Jesus.

First, Luther said:

...if we Christians stay close to [Christ], we know that He speaks to us.

Those who trust that Jesus is God and Savior and is risen and is living, seated at the right hand of God the Father, know that, to this day, Jesus speaks to us.

• Jesus, first of all and most assuredly speaks to us in the only book in the world the contents of which were breathed into its writers by the Holy Spirit: the Bible. 
• And, Jesus speaks to us in what one pastor calls "whispers," bits of guidance, messages to the heart, that the Holy Spirit speaks to the minds of those who follow Jesus. (Those "whispers" will always be consistent with what we know of Jesus from the Bible, by the way. Whispers that urge us to sin aren't from God!)
• Jesus also speaks to us through the Sacraments: Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, the "visible words" that have been instituted by Christ, involve physical elements (bread and wine or water), and bring the forgiveness of sins. 

Luther then says this of Jesus' words in John 14:1:

We can be sure of this: a sorrowful, timid, and frightened heart doesn't come from Christ.

Wow! We Lutherans need to especially latch onto the truth in those words. That's because when it comes to living our faith out loud or sharing the Good News of new life that can belong to anyone who turns from sin and believes in Jesus, we Lutherans tend to be timid.

Words on a T-shirt I saw not long ago give a good characterization of we Lutherans:

I'm proud to be a Lutheran...but not too proud.

I want to tell you that our hesitation about letting the light of Jesus shine from us and about telling others the Good News about Jesus does not come from Jesus or from the Holy Spirit.

Our hesitation is learned and cultural, not spiritual. It's not of God!

A second passage of Scripture I want to look at underscores this fact. It's 2 Timothy 1:6-7. These verses come from the second letter we have in the New Testament that was written by the apostle Paul to a young pastor named Timothy. Paul writes:

For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. 

All Christians have the Holy Spirit living within them. The Spirit is sometimes portrayed in Scripture as a burning flame. Paul says that we need to rekindle this flame, stoke the fire of passion and belief in Christ within us.

We do this by daily contact with God, especially by praying throughout our days about anything and everything, seeking God's help and guidance and praising Him, along with regularly reading and studying God's Word.

The Holy Spirit is not "a spirit of cowardice." The more we Christians rely on God, the more the Holy Spirit ignites and sustains our passion and makes us bold in sharing our faith with others.

We need to seek the help of God's Holy Spirit so that we can live with the same boldness and conviction shown by Paul in the book of Romans:

...I am not ashamed of the gospel [Paul writes]; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek [or Gentile, the non-Jew]. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "The one who is righteous will live by faith."

May God's Holy Spirit fill us with boldness as we spread the good news of new life that belongs to those (and only to those) with faith in Jesus Christ!

No More Programs, Just Jesus

The world doesn't need more programs or glitzy, celebrity-driven presentations of information about the Christian faith. The world needs ordinary people reaching out to other ordinary people with the love that comes from the Savior of the world. The good news that saves human beings from sin, death, and futility and gives them life with God forever is centered in relationship with Jesus Christ. And Christ almost initiates the relationships with him into which people enter through the loving relationships they enjoy with those who already follow Jesus.

Here.

(Thanks to my blogging colleague, John Schroeder, for linking to this piece.)

"The Greatest Form of Evangelism?"

In the thirty-plus years in which evangelism--sharing the Good News about Jesus--has been an obsession of mine, both as a layperson and as a pastor, I have seen lots of evangelism programs come and go.

Each one has promised to revolutionize individual congregations and lead to great spiritual and numerical growth in Christ's Church. I've had it up to my gills with church programs!

I'm not alone. Rice Broocks writes convincingly about the greatest form of evangelism.

By the way, preaching or telling others about Jesus is too important to be left up to preachers only and certainly shouldn't be confined to the pulpit. Every Christian needs to get into the act.

Why Christians Must Speak the Truth About Jesus

In my last post, I talked about being willing to speak the truth in love. That's true in more than just what we usually consider when speaking of interpersonal relationships.

Christians are commissioned by Jesus to proclaim the good news (or the gospel) about Him and the need all people have to trust in Him. We are to let people know that Jesus teaches that He is the only means by which we can receive reconciliation and eternity with God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran theologian and pastor martyred as a result of his opposition to Nazism, spoke of the love that must compel followers of Christ to fulfill our commission in another book I've been reading (actually, rereading) lately, The Cost of Discipleship. He cites Matthew 10:11-15, in which Christ commissions the first apostles to spread the gospel:

Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. ¹²As you enter the house, greet it. ¹³If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. ¹⁴If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. ¹⁵Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. 

He points out that the disciples' greeting as they enter the houses in which they stay in the communities to which they go is to be simple: "Peace to this house" (Luke 10:5).

Then Bonhoeffer writes this powerful paragraph:

This is no empty formula, for it immediately brings the power of the peace of God on those who are "worthy of it." Their proclamation is clear and concise. They simply announce that the kingdom of God has drawn nigh, and summon [people] to repentance and faith. They come with the full authority of Jesus of Nazareth, they deliver a command and make an offer with the support of the highest credentials. And that is all. The whole message is staggering in its simplicity and clarity, and since the cause brooks no delay, there is no need for them to enter into any further discussion to clear the ground or persuade their hearers. The King [Jesus] stands at the door, and he may come in at any moment. Will you bow down and humbly receive him, or do you want him to destroy you in his wrath? Those who have ears to hear have heard all there is to hear. They cannot detain the messengers any longer, for they must be off to the next city. If, however, men refuse to hear, they have lost their chance, the time of grace is passed, and they have pronounced their own doom. "To-day if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Hebrews 4:7). That is evangelical preaching. Is this ruthless speed? Nothing could be more ruthless than to make [people] think there is still plenty of time to mend their ways. To tell [people] that the cause is urgent, and that the kingdom of God is at hand is the most charitable and merciful act we can perform, the most joyous news we can bring. The messenger cannot wait and repeat it to every man in his own language. God's language is clear enough. It is not for the messenger to decide who will hear and who will not, for only God knows who is "worthy"; and those who are worthy will hear the Word when the disciple proclaims it. But woe to the city and woe to the house which rejects the messenger of Christ. They will incur a dreadful judgement; Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities of unchastity and perversion, will be judged more graciously than those cities of Israel who reject the word of Jesus, but the man who rejects the word of salvation has thrown away his last chance. To refuse to believe in the gospel is the worst sin imaginable, and if that happens the messengers can do nothing but leave the place. They go because the Word cannot remain there. They must recognize in fear and amazement both the power and the weakness of the Word of God. But the disciples must not force any issue contrary to or beyond the word of Christ. Their commission is not a heroic struggle, a financial pursuit of a grand idea or a good cause. That is why they stay only where the Word stays, and if it is rejected they will be rejected with it, and shake off the dust from their feet as a sign of the curse which awaits that place. This curse will not harm the disciples, but the peace they brought returns to them...

We Christians must speak the truth about Jesus. If we love as Jesus commands and calls us to love, then it would be the height of arrogance and selfishness for us not to invite others to repent and believe in Christ.

So, the next time someone makes a face when the word "evangelism" comes up, don't be intimidated. It's a good word! Based on the New Testament Greek word, euangelion, meaning good news. When Christians evangelize, they're simply broadcasting the most important news anyone could ever receive from the one and only King of the universe. There is nothing to be ashamed of in that. As the apostle Paul writes in the New Testament book of Romans:

...I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith...(Romans 1:16-17)

Christians who read this: Share the news about Jesus and let the chips fall where they may!

Other friends who read this: Please turn to Jesus, your God, Savior, and best friend, and trust in Him as your only hope in this life or the next. Because that's exactly who He is!

"Why Lutherans Can't Evangelize"

And why there's hope for the future.

Another Great Observation

This one from John H. Armstrong himself:

"I have...come to see that the primary mission of the church is not just to bring people into the visible church but to bring into the knowledge of Christ and his kingdom."

The "Centrifugal Force" of Christian Faith

"At the core of the Christian experience a centrifugal force pushes believers-sometimes successfully, sometimes not-beyond the temptation to tarry forever with their own problems or with preoccupation with Christ's benefits so that they may join God's work in convincing the world of his holy love." (Charles B. Cousar, Galatians (Interpretation: A Biblical Commentary of Teaching and Preaching, 1982)

Why 'fear of intimacy' as a reason people give for staying away from Church may say good things about the Church

It's a provocative argument advanced by John Schroeder in this blog post. But I think that his point is well-taken. Some people aren't ready for the kind of vulnerability to God and empathy for others that is central to church culture. They're not prepared for the intimacy with God and others that's a part of Christian life which Christians, when we're tuned into God, take for granted.

Of course, in the face of the fears of non-churchgoing friends, we Christians aren't, in Jesus' phrase, to keep our light under a bushel basket. A relationship with Jesus Christ is the very best thing that any human being can have. Things like love, compassion, and friendship will cause Christians to want to share that relationship with others, in spite of the prospect of rejection. Just because some people aren't ready yet for the kind of love that can be found in Christ's Church doesn't mean that we shouldn't love them enough to let them know that the welcome mat is always out for them.

Like Philip in the New Testament, who, when asked by his friend Nathanael if anything good could come from Nazareth, Jesus' hometown, we're called to tell our friends, "Come and see."

A Pledge I'd Like Every Christian Leader to Make

I promise not to endorse any political candidate, platform, or party in the 2008 election cycle. I promise instead to use my influence and my recognized position of leader to pursue the mission of the Church, making disciples for Jesus Christ.

This is a pledge which I make as a Christian leader. It's one which I wish every Christian leader in the United States would make.

In 1979, Jerry Fallwell founded the Moral Majority. Since that time a faction of Christians has gained a certain amount of political influence for their own particular agenda and, owing to their legalistic desire to force it down others' throats, the cause of Christ has been harmed immeasurably.

Another faction, most notably led by Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine, has insisted that their brand of politics is Christian.

While the Christian Church must be committed to advocating justice for the poor, the victims of discrimination, the unborn, and others, our primary mission is to make disciples for Jesus Christ.

When we hold Jesus captive to particular philosophies, parties, or candidates, we're really guilty of a kind of idolatry in which we make Jesus over into our image.

In doing so, we also display a profound distrust toward Jesus, failing to believe that through things like service, witnessing, and worship in Jesus' Name, the Holy Spirit can transform people internally so that in their decision-making, including their political decision-making, they will be persuaded, rather than coerced, to do God's will.

In doing so, we further display an egotism in which we value our own political judgments over those of God.

By all means, Christians should be involved in the political process. We should also pray that God will show us how we should behave and believe politically.

But only in the most exceptional of circumstances does a Christian leader have the right to advocate a particular course of political action.

God isn't a Republican.

God isn't a Democrat.

As a Christian leader, I will not whittle the almighty God of the universe down to the level of political gadfly or a ward heeler. I will honor God as God. I will share the message of Jesus. I will pray that God will guide political leaders and make them open to that guidance. I will be an informed citizen, I will pray, and I will vote. But I will not publicly express a political opinion in 2008.

I have more important work to do.

What other Christian leaders would like to take this pledge with me?

[THANKS TO: Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice for linking to this post. Further thanks to Pastor Jeff of Conblogeration for linking to it. Jeff makes the pledge!]

[THANKS TO: EU-DIGEST for linking to this post.]

Called to Be Faithful

[This message was shared during the morning Mission Festival Worship of Hope Lutheran Church, Hamler, Ohio, on Sunday, July 8, 2007. Pastor Norm Norden, who I mention here, is a former pastor at Hope and now an active member of the congregation.]

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Twenty two years ago, when both Norm Norden and I were a lot younger, we attended a workshop in Toledo. I was then pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church of Okolona and Pastor Norden was serving here. The worskshop speaker that day was a guy named Ed Makrquart, then and now, senior pastor of a Lutheran congregation near Seattle. Markquart had come to discuss how Lutheran churches could become more intentional about sharing Jesus Christ with the unchurched. If I can use some bad words as I start this sermon: Markquart talked with us about evangelism and witnessing.

I liked what Markquart had to say. But I think I got my back up a little bit during the opening part of his presentation. Referring to data compiled by the Glyn Mawr Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, he asked, “Do you know what percentage of the population in your community is unchurched?” How many people in our communities, in other words, had no connection with Christ's Church?

Because Bethlehem's building stands on the county line road, I thought of Henry and Defiance counties, places where you can’t spit without hitting a Lutheran and where there were other thriving Christian churches, too. I said to myself, “I’ll bet 95% of the people there are affiliated with the church.” I was shocked to learn that while 76% of Henry Countians did belong to a church, 24% didn’t!

I went back to my church with a renewed dedication to doing evangelism, to helping the people of Bethlehem become comfortable about sharing Christ with their neighbors, friends, classmates, and co-workers. I was bound and determined that the devil wouldn’t get his paws on the people we could influence to follow Jesus. Some of the Bethlehemmers here today may remember that was when we started running Friend Days and the Witnesses for Christ classes. I know that in the intervening years, many other churches in this area have undertaken similar witnessing and evangelizing efforts.

Now, I believe that activity had some impact. But the other day, I went online and looked up the latest census data for Henry County: Out of a Year 2000 population of 29,210, a total of 19,906 people, or 68% of the population were affiliated with a church. Thirty two percent were unchurched, increase of eight percentage points in the past twenty years. Defiance County was thirty-four percent unchurched!

Those statistics don't even take into account the numbers of people who occupy space on the rosters of churches, but haven’t darkened the doors of places of worship for years!

Nor does it account for those who may attend church regularly, but are otherwise unengaged in living with Christ at the centers of their lives.

It was a little discouraging.

I bring all of this up for two reasons...

Reason one: Something of the same decline in the numbers of active Christian believers we’ve seen all across America is happening even here in Henry County. I’ll bet every one of you can name friends, family members, and neighbors who go through their daily lives without any real contact with Christ and His Church.

Reason two: This decline isn’t entirely because churches and Christians haven’t been trying to share Christ. Jesus tells us in our Gospel lesson today that we Christians move into our daily worlds--even in Henry County--as lambs in the midst of wolves. Sometimes the message of new and everlasting life we bear will be welcomed. And sometimes, it won’t be. Our call, as the saying goes, is not to be successful, but to be faithful...to keep sharing the Good News of Jesus no matter what.

Today, I want to encourage the people of Hope to keep being faithful as witnesses for Jesus. Based on Jesus’ words for us this morning, I want to suggest four simple ways you can do that.

First: Make yourself available to share Christ with others. In our Gospel lesson, Jesus calls together a group of seventy disciples. He’s going to send them into villages He’s about to visit as a way of preparing those communities for His arrival.

Just a few verses earler in Luke, several different people come up with excuses for not following Jesus or going where He wanted to send them when He calls. “Let me bury my dad first,” one says. “Let me say goodbye to the old gang,” another tells Jesus. Each in their own way were saying, "We can't do what You call us to do, Jesus."

When I was growing up, my Mom had a saying whenever I thought I was incapable of achieving something. “Mark,” she told me, “can’t never did anything.”

This is as true of our faith life as anything else.

Ask the average group of Christians to invite friends, neighbors, or co-workers to worship and they’ll come up with a thousand different reasons they can’t do it. But joy, the kind of joy the seventy in our Bible lesson had when they returned from their “mission trip,” belongs to those who know what they can do with the help of God.

Bill--not his real name--is a member of the congregation I currently serve as pastor, Friendshp Lutheran Church near Amelia, Ohio. He’s an introvert, the last person in the world you’d expect to say anything publicly about his faith in Christ. But Bill told me recently, “I believe God is calling me out of my comfort zone, Mark. That’s why I’m asking God to help me share my faith with others.” Bill and his family have made it their goal to bring two new families into the membership of our congregation by the end of this year. I don’t yet know what God will do with Bill’s availability. But I do know that if two new households do join Friendship because of his faithfulness, Bill is going to be the happiest person in the church!

So, make yourself available to share Christ with others. Second: Connect with the unchurched. Connect with others generally. Jesus told the seventy to eat what was set before them in whatever town they visited. They were to sit around dinner tables and connect to others with the love of Christ.

One of the things that really surprised my wife and me when we first moved here in 1984, was that when people invited you over for lunch on Sunday, the invitation usually also included lunch and dinner and cards in the evening. Spend time like that with folks and you start to get to know each other pretty well!

There are all sorts of people in our world who feel disconnected and alone, people beyond your current network of friends and acquaintances to whom you could extend your famous Henry County hospitality! These are people who need Christians who care enough to connect with them.

My family and I left Bethlehem in August, 1990, called to start a new church in the Cincinnati area. Shortly after arriving there, I met a wonderful family, lifelong Lutherans, active in their church. But their congregation was some distance from where they lived and they were interested in this new church being born. One evening, I visited with them and talked about how I hoped that the new congregation could be a place where people could connect not only with God, but with others. One of the reasons Jesus created the Church, after all, is to foster a fellowship in which you and I can encourage each other with God’s love in good times and bad. The man responded with unexpected fervor. “That sounds great!” he told me. “When I think about it, I don’t really have any friends. I’d love to find some in the church.” That’s one of the reasons I chose to name the congregation Friendship!

Want to be faithful to Christ’s call to share Him with others? Dare to connect with people. You’ll be connecting them with the love of Christ!

Next: Care about the physical needs of others. Jesus told the seventy to heal the sick. While some people may have the specific gift of healing, all we Christians can do the ministry of healing in some ways.

One of the most fantastic elements of life in the churches of this area is your involvement with the Filling Memorial Home of Mercy, the Lutheran Homes Society, and Lutheran Social Services of Northwest Ohio. When I went to the Cincinnati-area, I decided early on that we would try to imitate you in this. So, Friendship is involved in an organization that helps foster care children; in the Boys and Girls Club in our area; and in Habitat for Humanity.

A few weeks ago, a woman visited us on a Sunday morning. “How did you happen to visit us?” I asked her. “I read about all the things you’re doing in the community,” she told me. Whenever you and I seek to share Christ with others by bringing His healing, the world will take notice and some will be won over to following Christ! Some may even join our churches.

Finally, faithful churches will want to tell others about Christ. We have good news: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16) The seventy shared that message and people believed in Christ.

You and I are surrounded by people who need to hear that same good news and need Christ today. The question, I suppose, is whether you and I will have the patience to keep being available, to keep connecting to the unchurched, to keep caring for people’s physical needs, and to keep telling others about Christ. Or, will we allow ourselves the self-indulgence of staying discouraged?

I will tell you honestly that the last seventeen years haven’t always been easy for my family and me. Friendship has grown slowly. We’ve had setbacks. But along the way, we see God using our congregation to change lives.

Some of you may remember that when I left this community in 1990, I was in braces. Carly--also not her real name--worked in the orthodontist’s office to which I’d been referred in Cincinnati. She was in charge of billing and always worked to ease our financial burdens, first as I moved out of braces, and then, as our son and finally, our daughter went into and out of braces. (When our Cincinnati orthodontist built a new home, I teased him that I was sure that the Daniels family, with three different members in and out of braces in less than ten years, had paid for at least one of the rooms!)

On several different occasions, Carly asked me to perform weddings for members of her family. But she never came to worship with us, even though she’d often see our church’s sign and think, “I need to go there sometime.” We didn’t see her for years.

Then, about a year ago, Carly showed up for worship. “I love this church,” she told me a few weeks ago. On July 22, Carly will become a member of Friendship.

What would have happened to Carly if we’d given up? I don’t know. But I do know that when she becomes a member on that day, my heart will be pounding with gratitude that God is still in business! I'll be thankful that God still works in those patient enough to stick around awhile and let His love shine through.

For all the Carlys and Bills and Johns and Marys right here in Henry County, I urge you to keep being faithful, to never give up.

• Be available to Jesus.
• Connect to the unchurched.
• Bring Christ’s healing to this community.
• And, for God’s sake, keep telling others the Good News of the Savior Who died and rose to change our lives forever.

That’s your mission.

That’s your privilege.

That’s your joy!

Amen

Second Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

[For an explanation of what this is about and to see the first pass, go here.]

Verse-by-Verse Comments:
1After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.
(1) After this refers to the hesitation to follow exhibited by the three different potential disciples mentioned in Luke 9:57-62.

(2) The group here recruited are to go ahead of Jesus in a ministry of preparation a bit like John the Baptist. By our lives and activities, we modern-day Christians can help people prepare to receive Jesus, too.

(3) Jesus sends these folks out in groups of two. In Luke's account of the early Church's history, approximately the first thirty years after Jesus' resurrection and ascension, we see that many of the early Christians traveled together in order to spread the Gospel. This also comes through in Paul's New Testament writings.

(4) If you're familiar with the art of Biblical translation, you know that our Bibles are based on thousands of manuscript fragments emanating from different portions of the Mediterranean basin, each with varying claims of authority. Equally eminent authoritative manuscripts say that the number called by Jesus here was seventy; others say seventy-two. Whatever the exact number, as I indicated yesterday, the call of this large group after the calling of twelve found in 9:1-6, the growth and development of the fledgling Church is indicated. So is the call of all believers to be witnesses for Christ!

2He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
(1) This is one of the most neglected of all the prayer commands Jesus gives. The idea here is that there are millions of people ripe for following Christ. "But," as Paul writes in Romans 10:14-15:

how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

When we share the Good News of Jesus, lives are changed for the better forever. Through the Good News of faith in Jesus Christ, people turn from sin, find that God forgives them, gives them fresh starts in this life, and life with God that lasts forever. We're able to gather in the harvest of those who have received the good seed of Jesus Christ.

(2) It's interesting that Jesus calls the seventy(two) to pray for laborers to go into the harvest just as He sends them into the harvest. You've got to be careful what you pray for; God may use your passion to make you the answer to your prayers!

3Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ 6And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
(1) Jesus gives a series of instructions on how the seventy are to conduct themselves. They're not to flit around looking for better digs. They're to station themselves where they're welcomed, accepting whatever hospitality they're offered.

(2) The seventy(two) are to give God's peace, the very peace to which the risen Jesus refers when appearing among His fearful, skeptical disciples (Luke 24:36).

(3) As pointed out in The New Interpreter's Bible, the wolf is the lamb's natural predator. But the seventy are given no instruction on how to deal with things. They just need to know that some will oppose the sharing of Christ with others.

(4) The basic thrust of Jesus' instructions here seems to be to rely completely on Him. This is exactly what the early Church learned to do, as can be seen in the New Testament book of Acts.

(5) The words, The kingdom of God has come near to you, will come as good news here. Comforting news. God is reaching out through His emissaries to bring reconciliation between God and rebellious humanity. A few verses later, almost the same words will be said in judgment to those who have foolishly spurned Christ. Jesus is the great dividing line of history. Either we will throw our lots and destinies in with Him and live forever. Or, we'll reject Him and choose to be apart from God forever.

10But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’
(1) Here the phrase, the kingdom of God has come near, has the meaning, "You've had your chance to welcome Christ and His kingdom. But now it's too late."

16“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”
(1) Those who confess Jesus Christ as their God represent Him in the world.

17The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” 18He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
(1) Jesus has empowered the Church to confront evil and gather people into His kingdom. It's exciting! But more amazing to us should be the fact that, by faith in Christ, we're privileged to be part of this kingdom. It's dangerous for Christians to get hung up on "signs," which are designed to point not to us, but to Christ.

From Epiphany to Purpose

[This message was shared during worship celebrations with the people of Friendship Lutheran Church, Amelia, Ohio on February 3 and 4, 2007.]

Luke 5:1-11
Today’s Bible lesson, the scholars tell us, can be divided into three sections. I’ve given them names:

• the hunger,
• the sign,
• the call.

I want to talk about each one with you.

First: the hunger. We see it in the first three verses of the lesson. Read it out loud with me, would you?

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

At this phase of Jesus’ ministry, we learn, from a few verses at the end of Luke 4, that His focus was more on teaching than on giving miraculous signs. He was sharing God’s Word with people. That might not seem very exciting to us. Maybe that’s because our lives and conditions aren’t as desperate as those of the crowds who hungered for God’s Word from Jesus even more desperately than many of us are anticipating a certain football game that’s happening this weekend.

Sometimes, it takes a cataclysmic event for us to realize that we hunger for God.

The call came to a pastor friend of mine in the middle of the night. It was an old friend he hadn’t seen in years. The friend revealed between sobs that his wife had been diagnosed with cancer. The prognosis wasn’t good. Was there something his pastor friend could say? He wasn’t looking for miracles. Just a word from God that could help him.

Once I got a call from a colleague. “Mark,” he said. “There is something really evil happening in this church. I don’t know what it is. But it’s ugly. People are gossiping about one another. They’re undermining all the good things that God has been doing here. I know that you pray. Would you please pray for us?” That pastor was hungering for the presence and power of God to work in his church.

The crowds that flocked around Jesus hungered for the word of hope, of peace, of strength for tough times that only the God we know in Jesus Christ can bring.

I’ve found that stress has, at three different junctures of my life, afflicted me in major ways. My body reacted so badly during one of these episodes twenty-two years ago, that I was taken to a hospital emergency room with a suspected heart attack. It came at a time when there were eleven people from the congregation I then served in various hospitals from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Ann Arbor, Michigan. My wife also just had our second child. But, believing that I was super-pastor, I agreed to visit a man from another parish who was in the Cardiac Care Unit of a hospital in Toledo.

While visiting that man, I became hot and weak. My face turned red. The nurses in the CCU told me they feared I was having a heart attack. I thought, "Then it's good I'm in the cardiac unit." But they threw me onto a gurney and took me down to the ER. There, they gave me an antihistamine, a medicine that always hits me like a tranquilizer dart. Then, they gave me a shot of adrenaline. Then, shaking all over, they told me, "Okay, Mr. Daniels, you can drive the forty miles back home." It was all caused by stress!

But each time stress has overtaken me, the cure has been the same: I call on God and to remember Jesus’ promise: “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”

Or I remember the fantastic words of the joy-filled twenty-third Psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff— they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

God's Word brings us peace, the assurance that God is in our corner.

I’ve learned that when the hunger leads me to God, He always feeds me blessings. Sometimes that’s an insight that leads me to repent for a sin. But even then, the result is the same: the peace of God that, even in the fragmentation and the chaos of life, helps me feel whole. That’s what the crowds hungered for. That’s what we hunger for.

The next section of our lesson shows us a sign. Would you read the next few verses with me?

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

Peter, a professional fisherman, knew that the fish were swimming so far down in the sea that he and the others couldn’t possibly snag any fish if they lowered their nets again. Yet they did lower them because Jesus said that they should.

When Peter saw that their boats nearly sank from the haul of fish, he fell at Jesus’ knees and gave Jesus worship. Peter became aware of his sins and of his unworthiness to stand in the presence of God. But Jesus didn’t leave Peter, even when he begged Jesus to go away. He won’t leave you either!

Sometimes it’s only when we venture into the deep, trying things for God that we may feel sure that we can’t do, making ourselves of service to others in Jesus’ Name, that we really see Christ.

I love being in the community and hearing reports about the good things that the people of Friendship do. It happened again on Friday. I was talking with the director of the West Clermont Unit of our Clermont County Boys and Girls Club. He told me how much he appreciated a member of our congregation who does a lot to help out. “Tim T.,” he told me, “is a fantastic person!” I agreed!

Against their better judgment, at Jesus’ command, Peter and the other disciples launched out into the deep, saw God do wonderful things through them, and in Jesus, found themselves in the presence of God Himself. God wants us to have the same experience every day!

We’ve talked about the hunger and the sign. That brings us to the final section of today’s lesson: the call. Read again with me, please:

For [Peter] and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”

In first century Judea, the sea was a dark, foreboding place, even for fishermen who earned their livelihoods from it. The sea conjured up images of the chaos that the Old Testament book of Genesis says existed before God created the heavens and the earth. There, a churning deadly sea--Genesis calls it “the deep”--was the stuff to which God gave order and peace and life. To God’s people, the sea was a deadly place full of evil and monsters they called leviathan. When Jesus told Peter--and us, “From now on you will be catching people,” He was really giving us our mission as Christians.

We’re to go into the deep places of life...

• the places where people work and play,
• where they laugh and mourn,
• where they know success and failure,
• where they struggle with problems and challenges...

and we're to fish them out of chaos, into the waiting arms of the Savior Who died and rose to give all who believe in Him new life that lasts forever. We’re to be the open arms of God, letting all know about Jesus Christ.

And Jesus wants our nets to be teeming! He wants this sanctuary to be filled each weekend with people who, just like us, are...

• hungry for the Word of God;
• anxious to see and experience Jesus’ presence; and
• because of His goodness and grace, willing to push themselves into the deep to tell the whole world about Christ.

You “will be catching people,” Jesus tells His Church, including our church. In other words, "You will be my witnesses."

On April 6, 2000, Ricky and Tony Sexton were taken hostage in their own Wytheville, Virginia home. A fugitve couple on a crime spree roared into the Sexton’s driveway as Tony stood outside with her dog. Brandishing pistols at Tony, Dennis Lewis and Angela Tanner ordered her back into the house.

Once inside, the Sextons did something utterly unexpected: They demonstrated Christ's love to their captors. They listened to Dennis and Angela's problems, served them dinner, read to them from God's Word, and even prayed for them and cried with them.

During negotiations with the police, Ricky Sexton refused his own release when Lewis and Tanner suggested that they might end their standoff by committing suicide. But the whole thing came to an unusual end: Before surrendering to police, Angela Tanner left $135 and a note for the Sextons that read: “Thank you for your hospitality. We really appreciate it. I hope [Dennis] gets better. Wish all luck and love. Please accept this. It really is all we have to offer. Love, Angela and Dennis.”

Sometimes we wade into the deep chaos of our fallen world.

Sometimes it comes through our front doors, unbidden.

But no matter what our circumstances, our call to fish for people for Jesus Christ remains the same. Ricky and Tony Sexton knew that. So do we.

God wants our nets to be full. He wants our church to be full. That will happen...

• when we feed others’ hunger with God’s Word;
• when we allow ourselves to be signs of Jesus’ presence through our service and our love; and when we go fishing, asking others to join us as we follow Jesus.

Friendship is already well known in this community for being a serving church. I pray that we will be known too, as a fishing church, a witnessing church, that never tires of calling others to believe in Jesus, the one true hope for all people.

[The true story of Rick and Tony Sexton came from The Roanoke Times, April 8, 2000 edition, and is presented in Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion.]

Third Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Luke 5:1-11

[For an explanation of what this is all about and to see the first pass at this weekend's lesson, go here. To see the second pass, go here.]

[Verse-by-Verse Comments continued]
8But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 10and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” 11When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
(1) When Simon Peter sees the miraculous catch, an event this experienced fisherman knows to be "impossible," he falls to His knees. In the face of the evidence that in Jesus' presence, he's in the presence of God, Peter spontaneously renders worship.

(2) But something else happens in this moment. It's what theologians would call numinous awe. Peter recognizes that Jesus is perfectly holy. Peter stands before the righteous God Who knows the hearts and thoughts of humanity. He knows that the blazing light of Jesus' perfection sees his imperfections and sins. He feels unworthy to be in Jesus' presence. And so, Peter asks Jesus to go away.

The Bible often speaks of those with faith living in fear of God. Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding." What does this mean?

To me, it means recognizing, as Peter did, that God is, in Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich's phrase, wholly other. God is my creator. God is infinitely greater in love, righteousness, morality. The closer we come to God, the more conscious we are of our imperfections and our need of forgiveness. Thankfully, that same closeness also allows us to see that the God Who died to set us free from sin and death is willing to forgive those who turn from sin and believe in Him.

When Peter saw Jesus in His glory, he saw himself in his sinfulness. Fear drove Peter to his knees and to beg Jesus to go away. Because He is gracious, Jesus wouldn't comply with that request.

(3) Notice that Jesus doesn't tell Peter to get up off his knees. Jesus accepts Peter's act of worship. If Jesus didn't regard Himself as God, allowing Peter to worship Him would have made both Jesus and Peter guilty of blasphemy. The charge that Jesus was guilty of blasphemy was one lodged by the Jewish religious authorities when they called for His crucifixion.

If you're skeptical about whether Jesus was accepting worship here, recall an incident in the second Biblical book written by Luke. Acts is the story of the early Church for about the first thirty years after Jesus' post-resurrection ascension into heaven. In Acts 14, we're told that in the city of Lystra, Paul and Barnabas, two early Christian preachers, brought healing to a man crippled since birth. The crowds were so impressed that they began saying that "The gods have come down to us in human form!" The two would have none of it though. Luke writes:

When the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting, “Friends, why are you doing this? We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to follow their own ways; yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing good—giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy.” Even with these words, they scarcely restrained the crowds from offering sacrifice to them. (Acts 14:14-18)

Gestures and words of worship had unambiguous meanings in ancient times. Jesus accepted worship because He was (and is) God. Paul and Barnabas didn't accept worship because they were human beings just like us.

(4) It's interesting that Peter is the only disciple specifically addressed by Jesus in v.10. He's addressed with the singular "you" by Jesus.

(5) According to The New Interpreter's Bible (NIB):

In the O[ld] T[estament] and Dead Sea Scrolls fishing is used metaphorically for gathering people for judgment...[Amos 4:2; Habakkuk 1:14-15; Jeremiah 16:16]

Judgment does befall those who refuse to repent and believe, as John the Baptizer foretold.

But in the multiple cultures in which the conquered people of Judea lived, the first followers of Jesus would have been aware of another level of meaning in Jesus' words about being fishers of people. NIB points out that in the Greek-Roman overculture, prevalent throughout the Mediterranean basin, fishing, attracting adherents was "the activity of philosopher-teachers." In the Gospels, the call to fish is "a call to gather men and women for the kingdom." We see then that fishing is also an activity of God's grace.

(6) My professor and mentor Bruce Schein, a fine Biblical scholar with a doctorate from Yale, saw Old Testament imagery here. He pointed to the first creation account in Genesis 1. It begins before the beginning that God makes, with primordial chaos. In the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, with which people of Jesus' first-century generation would have been familiar, the word for deep is bathos, a term denoting a roiling, dark, death-infested storm. Chaos.

Throughout the Bible, one finds evidence of the view of the sea held by most of the ancient Hebrews. To them, it was a fearsome place of danger and death, filled with great monsters called leviathan. One of the ironies of the Old Testament book of Jonah, which tells the story of a prophet who tried to escape the call of God, is that God saved him by having him swallowed by a ghastly sea creature, a "great fish."

Peter and the other fishermen probably used trammel nets to scoop large numbers of fish from the Sea of Galilee. When Jesus tells Peter that he will be a fisher of people, Jesus has in mind a rescue mission. Peter and all Christians have the same call, to venture into the chaos of the world and gently scoop people into God's net of first, judgment, the very kind of awareness of God's holiness that Peter experiences in this lesson, and then, of grace, which Peter also experiences.

(7) Notice what Jesus tells Simon, "From now on you will be catching people.” This is different from the phrasing found in Matthew 4:19. There, Jesus is quoted as saying, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people."

Which is more accurate? Who knows and who cares? But in Luke's version, Jesus gives a command. As Rick Warren points out, Jesus gives the Great Commission, the commandment to make disciples five different places in the New Testament. Christians are commanded to reach out and call others to faith in Jesus Christ. Luke's version of Jesus' words to the disciples about being fishers of people makes sense to me.

(8) The call to follow Jesus is a call to action. We're to enact a life of actively seeking others to experience a relationship with Christ. We're to venture into the deep and fish for people.