'Paul' Tagged Posts
LIFE IN THE LIGHT OF MORNING
“It was the best of times and it was the worst of times,” is the way Charles Dickens began his novel, Tale Of Two Cities. Paul would have said the same about his times. In our epistle lesson from Romans 13, he says: “The night is almost over, and the day is drawing near.” The times are dark with judgment…like the night. The times are bright with promise…like the day. We would have to say the same about our own…
SWEET SORROW
Shakespeare’s Juliet says to Romeo: “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” English teachers might call that an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. But life is full of seeming contradictions which are not so contradictory. We talk about “bitter sweet moments,” or a “deafening silence,” or “an open secret,” or a “tragic comedy.” There is a sweet sorrow laced in the lines of today’s epistle lesson from 2 Corinthians. Paul says: “Godly sorrow produces repentance, which leads to salvation, leaving no…
“IF YOU CANNOT PREACH LIKE PAUL…”
The familiar old mission hymn, “Hark! The Voice of Jesus Crying,” recognizes that not every Christian is called into the public ministry of preaching and teaching the word of God. That is more than OK. How could the gospel go forth to the work-a-day world without “the priesthood of all believers” telling others what they have heard from pulpits and classrooms? The hymn says: “If you cannot preach like Paul, you can tell the love of Jesus; you can say…
“TREASURE IN CLAY JARS”
Speaking of the life-giving gospel he preached, Paul once said, “We hold this treasure in clay jars” (2 Corinthians 4:7). Martin Luther echoed this in the 62nd of his 95 Theses. He said: “The true treasure of the church is the holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God.” You would think that God would entrust the priceless treasure of the gospel to some exceptionally strong containers. After all, you don’t keep gold bars on the front porch, or…
LOOKING TO THE CURSED FOR A CURE
There is a knock on the door one night. It is Nicodemus. He wants to talk to Jesus. Privately. As a Jewish leader he doubtless worries about guilt by association with this new Teacher on the scene who is working wonders. Amid the soaring truths about a new birth and God’s plan of salvation, Jesus points the old scholar back to the Old Testament: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must…
ADVENT’S UNSCRUPULOUS INVITATION
First, some dictionary definitions: “Scruples” – doubts or hesitation about doing or allowing something because of conscience or principles. “Scrupulous” – having scruples; being principled, very conscientious and exacting, strictly honest or honorable.” “Unscrupulous” – you guessed it – without moral scruples or qualms of conscience.” C.S. Lewis once said that God’s grace was “unscrupulous.” At first that sounds like God has no scruples, no morals, no standards. God’s law has all kinds of morals, scruples, standards. They are holy…
VICTORY!
On this final Sunday of the liturgical Church Year, our thoughts turn to Christ’s final appearing, to the arrival of the King of Kings, to the sweet comfort of which Paul wrote in Romans 8: “So then, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” What will happen to us in that moment when He returns? Here is how St. Paul so elegantly puts it in 1 Corinthians 15: 51 Look, I tell you a mystery. We…
“NO CONDEMNATION”
In Christ’s own description of the sheep and goats before His throne of judgment in today’s text, and in Paul’s words from our epistle lesson that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,” we have the plain teaching of the Bible that we are accountable to God. This is the terrifying preaching of the law. God is utterly seriously about every word He says. But there is another teaching of the Bible about which God is equally…
“CONTEND FOR THE FAITH”
There is a “call to arms” in the little book of Jude on the far end of the New Testament. “Contend for the faith!” says the sacred writer. There is no getting around it. If you are a faithful Bible reader, then you know that many portions of God’s Book sound a militant tone. The apostle Paul tells us to put on the full armor of God, to take up the sword of the Spirit which is the word of…
DRIFTING?
Do you just feel like you’re drifting some days? Aimless? Lost? The inspired writer to the Hebrews (2:1) says: “We need to pay even more attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” The words of this Bible passage take us down to the sea in ships. In the language of the New Testament, the word for “pay attention” was also used of tying ships to the dock. The phrase “drift away” speaks for itself.…
“MORE THAN CONQUERORS”
Paul once talked about the gospel ministry in this way: “Thanks be to God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ. In a culture which measures success statistically and visibly, we might wonder how Paul could describe the preaching and teaching ministry as a triumphal procession. Paul’s missionary journeys were marked by public floggings and imprisonments, by stonings and riots, by persecution and rejection. Many of his congregations teetered on the brink of defecting to show-biz-for-Jesus counterfeits. Still, Paul…
THE HIDDEN GOD
“Indeed, You are a God who hides Himself,” wrote the prophet Isaiah (45:15). Martin Luther wrote a great deal about this subject of “the hidden God.” Even when it comes to His beloved children, there are some things which God lets us in on, things which He clearly reveals to us in the Bible. But there are other things over which God draws a curtain. He hides Himself. Moses put it this way: “The hidden things belong to the Lord…