by Elizabeth | Oct 19, 2012 | Learning Story
For the last eight weeks, we have been doing a mini hermeneutics course in our high school seniors Sunday school class. We’ve covered genres, themes, and keys to interpretation in the hopes that they will feel more confident as they approach Scripture study. This Sunday is the last Sunday, so you guessed it, it’s time to approach the ‘scary’ Revelation. True, wars, whores, strange beasts and fiery dragons are the stuff that nightmares are made of. Not to mention, we’re not all that comfortable with uncertainty, and the numerous symbols and visions don’t lend themselves to easy interpretation. And of course, that many mini-battles over millennialism aren’t that pretty either.
And yet, I volunteered to lead this study, because I am so passionate that this is a book of hope about Jesus Christ, and people should not only not avoid it, but should study and enjoy it. The most helpful resource has been Scotty Smith and Michael Card’s book, .The subtitle says it all: “eternal encouragement from the book of Revelation.” In these last days, which had been lasting for a long time, we all need encouragement to persevere through life in a broken world. Revelation tells us the end of the story, and it is good. The day is coming, a city is coming, when and where a wildly varied fellowship of believers, Jesus’ name tattooed on our foreheads (okay, maybe that’s just a symbol, but who knows?), will dwell with God forever, freed from sin, sickness, and sorrow to finally live as we were created to do. It’s a really good story. Why not read it again for the very first time?
PS. Stay tuned: I’ll post my notes for the seniors here tomorrow.
by Elizabeth | Oct 15, 2012 | Learning Story
I’ve been looking for love all over the place and discovered it yesterday on The shelves of our local B&N store – John Piper’s new book called Love Your Enemies. It is actually a re-publication of his doctoral dissertation and taught me the wordparaenesis (why can’t we just say ‘command’?). Desiring God has kindly offered a free download, which you can find here.
Here is what Piper says about the command to love our enemies – what I think of as ‘the otherwise impossible love,’ since there’s no way we could obey this command in our own strength.
“Our only hope for loving our enemy is to be a new creation in Christ. And our only hope for being a new creation in Christ is to be reconciled to God through the death of his Son. ‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself’ (II Cor 5:17–18).
The only hope that we might love our enemy is that God loved us when we were his enemy. ‘If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life’ (Rom 5:10). This is the great root of the good tree we are becoming: ‘Forgive one another, as God in Christ forgave you’ (Eph 4:32).
Turn the other cheek—seventy times seven (Mt 18:22). Love does not keep an account of wrongs (I Cor 13:6). ‘Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them’ (Rom 12:14).
Jesus is the great example here, and the inimitable substitute: ‘When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly’—that’s the example (I Pt 2:23). And ‘he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness’—that’s the substitution (I Pt 2:24).
What he has done for us is the ground for what he does in us. We can become a good tree only because he was cursed for us on a horrible tree (Gal 3:13).” John Piper, Love Your Enemies
by Elizabeth | Oct 8, 2012 | Learning Story
“You only have I known
of all the families of the earth;
therefore I will punish you
for all your iniquities.” Amos 3:2
Back with thoughts on biblical love again today, along with more from Leon Morris, an excellent scholar that many laypeople won’t want to wade through (might as well be honest:-)!
At first sight, Amos 3:2 doesn’t sound like very good news — until we put it in the context Morris suggests:
“True love will lead the beloved to the best possible path. And that will mean that from time to time, disciplinary measures will be taken. The Bible clearly points out that God disciplines his people to deter them from destructive sin. The Old Testament saints did not doubt that the sufferings and travails of this life are meaningful. They are evidence not that God does not love his people, but that he does. They are his way of bringing his people out of their petty sins and leading them along the way of right into the blessing.” Testaments of Love Leon Morris
Morris notes C.E.B.Cranfield, “[God’s] love was willing to hurt in order to save, to shatter all false securities and strip Israel of his gifts, if so be that in the end, in nakedness and brokenness, they might learn to know their true peace. But the severity was never separated from tenderness.” Theological Wordbook of the Bible
by Elizabeth | Oct 5, 2012 | Learning Story
Back this week on Friday to share a few favorite things I read this week.
I read and really appreciated the hard and beautiful story of Maggie Lee for Good, because it’s more than an ‘inspirational’ story — it’s a true story that takes us into the daily ins and outs of the travels and travails of grief that wrestles with gospel hope. Learn more at Maggie Lee for Good.
For writing that does not sentimentalize the story of young Olympic champion Gabby Douglas, read this excellent piece from Vanity Fair.
And, the topic we should never weary of, forgiveness. Scotty Smith’s prayeron the implications of Christ’s forgiveness is one of many prayers he has written that help me voice my heart’s struggle with this most important of topics. You can find more of them by clicking on the ‘forgiveness’ tag at his “Heavenward” blog of daily prayers.
by Elizabeth | Oct 1, 2012 | Learning Story
I’ve begun gathering thoughts for the next book in the Living Story seriesto be called Loving in God’s Story of Grace, and this morning I finally had the chance to open Leon Morris’s great treatment of what Scripture says about love. He cautions us not to apply our own definitions to love, but to seek out what the Bible says about it. In the introduction, he writes about how many Old Testament theologies have omitted as central the key theme of the Old Testament – God’s amazing love for humankind:
“It seems to me that this treatment is unjustified. Understanding the meaning of love is essential to understanding the Old Testament. It is essential because of the number and variety of words used to express it. And It is essential because the great, surprising truth that God loves puny and sinful man underlies almost everything that is written throughout the entire Old Testament. We do not do justice to the writings of the prophets, the lawgivers, the psalmists, and the rest if we do not recognize them as revelations about the God who loves. He loves those he has made, and his love leads to action to meet their needs.” Leon Morris, Testaments of Love
A good place to begin. What Old Testament passages might you turn to to see the amazing love of God?
by Elizabeth | Sep 28, 2012 | Learning Story
Sitting here in the Charlotte airport, headed to Virginia by way of DC, thinking about the great privilege I have to teach the gospel in many different venues. Even though all of my life and work center around what it means to live the gospel in daily life, every now and then, I look from a learner’s view and think, “What is the gospel anyway?” I just discovered Trevin Wax’s collection of gospel definitions at Gospel Coalition, and I heartily recommend it (as in the whole collection). Here I’ve pasted an excerpt that I find especially helpful.
“The Gospel Proper (The Announcement)
The gospel is the royal announcement that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived a perfect life in our place, died a substitutionary death on the cross for our sins, rose triumphantly from the grave to launch God’s new creation, and is now exalted as King of the world. This announcement calls for a response: repentance (mourning over and turning from our sin, trading our agendas for the kingdom agenda of Jesus Christ) and faith (trusting in Christ alone for salvation).
The Gospel’s Context (The Story of Scripture)
The Bible tells us about God’s creation of a good world which was subjected to futility because of human sin. God gave the Law to reveal His holiness and our need for a perfect sacrifice, which is provided by the death of Jesus Christ. This same Jesus will one day return to this earth to judge the living and the dead and thus renew all things. The gospel story is the Scriptural narrative that takes us from creation to new creation, climaxing with the death and resurrection of Jesus at the center.
The Gospel’s Purpose (The Community)
The gospel births the church. We are shaped by the gospel into the kind of people who herald the grace of God and spread the news of Jesus Christ. God has commissioned the church to be the community that embodies the message of the gospel. Through our corporate life together, we “obey the gospel” by living according to the truth of the message that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord of the world.” Trevin Wax
