Believers Armed and Dangerous

     Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.  (James 3:1)

God has placed two types of teachers in the church, those who are given the spiritual gift of teaching and those who are teaching on a voluntary basis.  I say “voluntary” because those with the gift of teaching are driven, no compelled, to teach.  For the most part in this post, I’ll be looking at those given the spiritual gift of teaching.  But, even if you aren’t a teacher at all, there is some helpful stuff included here.

Over the forty plus years I’ve taught in the church, I’ve learned a lot of things about teaching and teachers, some by my successes but mostly by my mistakes.

Teachers are held by God to a higher standard than other Christians.  We need to be as accurate as possible in representing God’s truth before a classroom or congregation.  Ours is a high responsibility after which many strive.  Being a teacher doesn’t just require knowledge of Scripture, it requires a constant focus on that responsibility and dependence on the Holy Spirit.

Years ago when I started teaching, a friend described the traits of teachers, both good and bad.  Among the good traits was the desire to learn God’s Word and share it.  Study was at the center of teaching.  When this was described to me, it was like someone had been reading my mail, like someone had bugged my home.  I seemed to fit the description to a “T”. 

Then the bad traits of teachers were described: being an intolerant know-it-all, refusal to learn from criticism, thinking everyone can teach and have the gift, the inability to say “I don’t know.”  Again, this rang true.  I needed to work on my pride.

Being a teacher can be a heady thing.  People admire you, they look to you for guidance, some even idolize you.  So, teachers need to pray for humility constantly lest they might put themselves ahead of God’s message. 

Some poor teachers will thrive on the admiration and even seek it.  To feed this desire, they want  to present “something new,” even something unbiblical, conspiracies, certainty where there is only implication.  As Abraham Lincoln said of Stephen A. Douglas, “It ain’t what he doesn’t know that bothers me.  It’s what he knows for sure that just ain’t so.”  Teachers can get trapped by the desire to be recognized.  To fight this, a good teacher will tell you if what he is saying is his opinion or controversial.

So, if you see someone who claims to be a teacher but is filled with pride at what he knows, pushes odd beliefs that go against twenty centuries of church teaching, or refuses to listen to critics, be careful.

Another thing I learned is teachers don’t need to be at the front of a classroom or congregation to be effective.  Some of the best teaching I’ve heard has been from men’s groups where there is no obvious leader.  Someone will speak up and share what God has told them, and the Scriptures just opens up to all of us there.  Sometimes the teaching comes from questions from students in the classrooms.  It’s just God’s hand at work.  You can be a teacher standing before a congregation or sitting on a park bench with a friend.

One of the blessings of being a teacher is when the Holy Spirit takes over.  For a short time, I gave the  Sunday evening messages at a previous church.  There were a couple of times when the Holy Spirit took me off my notes in a direction I didn’t expect.  He gave me the words to speak and the appropriate Scriptures.  I remember wanting to take notes myself it was going so well.  One time this happened, the “detour” was meant to touch one person in particular who came to Christ afterward.  Teaching is rewarding.

Why is this important?

Maybe you’re a teacher or believe God is calling you to be.  If you don’t feel God has given you an overpowering desire to teach, you can still be a teacher.  The same responsibility is yours, though.  You need to present God’s Word clearly and plainly, and as uncomplicated is possible. 

If God has given you the gift of teaching as described above, praise God and watch out.  As James 3:1 says, you will be held to a higher level of accountability.  You will be blessed as you learn and draw close to God while you prepare to share God’s Word with others. Do it well.

While teachers are certainly powered by the Holy Spirit, no teacher is perfect.  We all struggle just as every other Christian does.  So, don’t hold teachers to an unattainable level of expectations.  Teaching isn’t the only gift, either.  We each have at least one.

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. (Titus 2:1)

The French philosopher, Rene’ Descartes, gave definitions for truth and lies that I think are valuable.  He said truth is consistent.  It corresponds with reality and with all other things that are true.  Lies are inconsistent.  They sometimes will correspond to truth but never in all situations.  Let me give an example. 

When, as a child, you were caught breaking something and blamed it on your sibling, your lie was not consistent with reality.  Even if you were never caught, it was still a lie because it didn’t match reality.

Usually, lies aren’t that obvious, though.  Sometimes they are surrounded by truth.  We see this in false teachers.  They might tell you to believe God is one, that Jesus was raised from the dead, or even that we are saved by grace.  But, they have redefined these terms to mean something else entirely.  They might believe God is just one Person thus denying the Trinity.  Maybe they believe Jesus was raised as a spirit thus denying the bodily resurrection.  Or maybe they believe salvation by grace is not by grace alone but requires works or something else in order to be saved.  These are examples of redefining terms.  What we think they are saying isn’t what they mean.  So, it is our job to ask for definitions to reveal the truth.

Then there is an appeal to authority.  We see this in Acts 16:16-18:

¹⁶ As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” ¹⁸ And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

 This was a demon-possessed woman who was crying out endorsing the teachings of the apostles, Paul in particular.  She, however, was teaching something very different when not in the presence of the apostles.  She was fortune-telling.  Eventually Paul turned to her and cast out the demon.  “What was she doing wrong?” you might ask.  By endorsing the teaching of the apostles, she was giving credit to her own false teaching.  “I’m Like one of them” would be how her actions might be interpreted.  In doing so, she could draw away followers of the apostles into her deception.

Then there is a form of the corporate fallacy similar to  the appeal to authority we just looked at.  This is when someone might claim to be a Christian when much of their are teaching is false.  The fallacy comes when those outside the Christian community point to the false teacher as representative of Christians as a whole giving Christians a bad name.  We see this all the time.  We can combat it by presenting the truth when asked and discount the false teacher as what he is.

Sometimes it’s just that a pastor has decided to drop some of what the Bible teaches.  Dr. R. E. Torry told a story of running into an old friend from seminary.  Eventually, the conversation got around to each other’s doctrinal teachings.  His friend said, “Well, I don’t teach on hell anymore.”  At this point, Torry got up in his face sticking his finger into his friend’s chest.  “Who can turn from warning the lost of the condemnation to come?” he shouted.  Many churches have followed suit of Torry’s friend and begun to preach only what tickles the ears of the congregation.  The Bible says we are to present the full Word of God.

There’s a story of a young man going off to Bible college.  Before he left, his father sat him down and said “Many don’t believe Jonah to be true.  Don’t let them take the book of Jonah away from you, son.” 

Upon graduation, the son returned home, and the first thing his father asked was “Did they take Jonah away from you?”  At which time the young man said, “Jonah isn’t even in your Bible, Dad.”  The father rifled through his Bible but couldn’t find the book of Jonah.  He stared blankly at his son.  “Dad, I cut the book of Jonah out of your Bible before I left, and you haven’t missed it in the four years I’ve been gone.  What is the difference between removing Jonah or never reading it?”  Once again, we are to teach the full Word of God.

Why is this important?

Satan has a very broad spectrum of lies he can tell while truth only has one path.  So many people fall from the Truth and embrace error simply because it sounds good.  This is true of Christians as well as the lost.  We need to be aware of the tactics the enemy uses to draw us away from the faith.  Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s something shocking, but our stand must be for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.

So, if people around you are shocked their pastor ran off with one of the women in the church, or he simply doesn’t want to teach on hell anymore because he feels doing so would be too judgmental, watch out.  Remember, our stand is for the full teaching of the Word.  We shouldn’t be people followers but Bible followers.

The past couple of years at the grocery store, hardware store, or most public places, the topic of conversation is something about Covid:  “We should have mandates, we shouldn’t have them.  We should have everyone vaccinated, we don’t have the right.”  Nearly everyone knows the arguments for and against their positions.

Did you know the most popular topic in the marketplaces of the fourth century Roman Empire was the nature of Christ?  That’s right, the nature of Christ.  There was a new guy pushing his view that Jesus was “nearly God” but not quite – that He was a created being.  The man’s name was Arius of Alexandria, and his view became so popular the emperor himself, Constantine, had become an Arian.  He felt, though, it was necessary to call the leaders of the churches throughout the empire to a council in order to decide on what the Christian view should be.

You might ask why people would believe Jesus was a creature.  There are actually a few passages which could be taken to support this view.  John 14:28 is an example:

You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

“My Father is greater than I?”  How could Jesus claim equality with God the Father yet say this? You can see the confusion.

Now the folks on the street might not know more about the nature of God than most of us truly know about Covid.  But, the theologians fought about this issue on a higher level.  The orthodox (not the denomination but biblical thinkers) recognized a belief in Jesus as a creature messed up Christian theology quite a bit.  It wasn’t just the deity of Christ that was at stake, but a belief in a created Jesus would mean our salvation rested on a creature no matter how superior he was.

So, in 325 a.d. the emperor Constantine ordered the council to convene at Nicaea, the city where the emperor had his temporary lodgings while building his new grand “Rome of the East,” Constantinople (named after him, of course).  The attendees of the Council were no slacker Christians.  Nearly all of them carried scars and handicaps, or missing limbs or eyes due to the persecution which ended just a few years earlier.  According to Johann von Mosheim’s A Short Introduction to the First Nicene Council, only 11 of the 318 attendees did not carry the scars of the persecutions. They had stood for their faith and paid a price.

At the Council of Nicaea, both sides presented arguments supporting their views.  On the Arian side Arius himself presented why he believed he was correct.  On the orthodox side were Alexender of Alexandria and Athanasius no minor Christians, they. 

The acceptance of Arius’ view would mean the dismantling of the Trinity doctrine.  Salvation would also be attributed to a mere creature rather than God Himself.  This was serious stuff argued by serious men.  No counting angels on the head of a pin here.

The verdict of the  members was that Jesus was truly God, coeternal, and of the same substance as the Father.  The orthodox view won by a landslide:  316 to 2.  The Arian view was anathematized (cursed by God) as part of the vote, and  Arius was officially excommunicated from the church.

Why is this important?

Over the centuries there have always been attacks on the person and nature of our Lord.  Even today there are millions of Arians contacting people trying to convince them of their false Jesus.  Many are called Jehovah’s Witnesses or Unitarians, but they’re real, and probably right down the street from where you live, shop, and worship.

Next time you’re in that Big Box store and the guy in front of you starts talking about the Covid virus, try asking him what he thinks of the nature of Christ.

Near the beginning of this blog ministry, I wrote on forgiveness.  That was three and a half years ago, so I felt moved to go over it once more to see what I’ve learned and to refresh what you might have learned from that post.  There are also lots of new folks reading this (I’ll expand on that at the end of this post), so it will be fresh to them.

For the Christian, forgiveness is mandatory, yes mandatory.  Some of us believe we don’t need to forgive unless the person who has wronged us has asked for forgiveness.  Some think it depends on the degree of the violation.  Those beliefs are unfounded and counter to biblical teaching.

As I’ve mentioned here before, my father was abusive to his kids, more so physically to my brother and sister.  With me it was more mental, but it caused me to lose the ability to love and to trust.  When someone who is supposed to be the one you love most and trust the most is the one hurting you the most, love and trust just never grow.

A lot of years ago, I was teaching in the Sunday evening service at our church, and God wanted me to teach on forgiveness.  You can’t imagine how hard that was.  I spent the week before I delivered the message asking forgiveness from those I had offended greatly and in small ways.  I even needed to forgive my father for his abuse.  He died when I was 15, so I couldn’t face him with my forgiveness, but it was still important.  Most of all, I needed to forgive God for allowing the abuse to take place.

During that week, I learned forgiveness is much more important for the forgiver than for the offender.

¹⁴ Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵ See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; (Heb. 12:14-15)

I also found there are levels of forgiveness.  The level I offered was, I found, superficial even though it was extremely difficult. It turned out seeking forgiveness was much easier than forgiving others.  Jesus told us to forgive or we would not be forgiven:

¹⁴ For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, ¹⁵ but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matt. 6:14-15).

“How is that superficial?” you might ask.  How can we forgive any more than that?  There are actually two more levels. The next level of forgiveness is to wish them well, to seek to lead them to Christ, to wish God’s blessings on their lives.  That’s really hard but a good test of whether your forgiveness was full and complete.

There is a third level of forgiveness even deeper than this, though.  I’m sorry, but I’m not able to forgive to this point, but some are:

Now, we need to remember what the Jews did to Paul.  There is a list of the things that happened to Paul during his ministry in 2 Corinthians 11:22-28.  He speaks of beatings, of being near death more than once and many other trials that were directly or indirectly the result of persecutions of the Jews.  Paul calls this his “light affliction” in 2 Cor. 4:17 compared to the joy he will face in God’s kingdom.  But look at this:

3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. (Rom 9:3–4)

This is the third level of forgiveness, to be willing to give up your own salvation, if it were possible, for your enemy, for your abuser.  Jesus did the same thing on the cross when He asked for forgiveness for those who crucified Him.  Steven also asked forgiveness for those stoning him.

Why is this important?

Forgiveness gives the forgiver peace.  Not forgiving brings us only bitterness.  God wants us to have a life pleasing to Him, and as such, He wants us to live peacefully and without the burden of unforgiveness.  We as Christians, again, must be the models to the world for what the Christian life looks like.  If we are bitter and unforgiving, that is seen by others as worldly.

Unconditional forgiveness also influences the offender.  During WWII, Corrie Ten Boom watched her beloved sister die in the Nazi prison at Ravensbrück.  She was released from that prison herself after the war.  Later after giving a talk at a church in Germany, one of the guards of Ravensbrück walked up to her and extended his hand in Christian brotherhood asking her forgiveness.  She recognized him and froze.  How could she shake the hand of one of the guards from that terrible place that took the life of her sister?  God overcame her emotion and revealed to her Jesus had died for this man, too.  She shook his hand. You can and should read the full story here.

Let’s work to forgive others as God has forgiven us.  He has forgiven us of so much and sent His Son to suffer for our offenses toward Him.  How can we not forgive others?

— On a personal note, thank you for visiting my blog this past year. It has been another record year as God has brought this blog to over 3,500 hits from 66 nations. That is a rise of 50% in hits over 2020 and a third more countries. We have grown in readership every year since we began in 2017. God is good and continues to bless.

¹⁶ But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, (Deut 20:15)

We’ve all heard critics say the God of the Bible is inconsistent because the Old Testament God was vengeful, but the New Testament presents a loving and merciful God.  I thought it would be good to look at this.

Yes, Deut. 20:15 sounds harsh to say the least.  “. . ., you shall save alive nothing that breathes.” God chooses to punish evil because He is just.  He destroyed the Canaanites and others not just because he wanted to make room for His people but also because of the chance of contamination as well:

¹⁷ but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, ¹⁸ that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God. (Deut 20:17-18)

The gods of these peoples were immoral and destructive.  Both male and female prostitution was just one of the practices of Baal worshippers.  Molech (Lev. 20:5), one of these gods, was a god to whom many of these people sacrificed their children burning them to death.  The oldest example of Molech was a bronze figure with outstretched arms.  He would be heated to bright red, then children would be placed in his arms and horribly burned to death.

Another practice was to bury a newborn child under the steps to the house to assure a blessing from these gods.  In their past, the Israelites were enticed by these gods and walked away from YHWH committing spiritual adultery. 

God wants His people to stay away from the draw of false teachings, immorality, and spiritual corruption.  He always has.  He strikes out against those who would lead His people astray but is also loving toward those who seek Him. He tells us this continually in the Old Testament:

The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. (Ps. 145:17)

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. (Isa. 30:18)

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;  23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  (Lam. 3:22-23)

Why is this important?

The God of the Old Testament is the same God described in the New.  He still desires to bless those who seek Him and is still angry with those who seek to destroy or mislead His people.  He hasn’t changed. The New Testament God is the same:

⁵ This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— ⁶ since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, ⁷ and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels ⁸ in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹ They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,  (2 Thess 1:5-9)

That’s the God of the Old and New Testaments.  While He loves us and is merciful, He is also just.  Those who will not turn to Him risk eternal punishment.

Prior to the introduction of the Tora, sin was seen in the ancient world as acting against cultural norms much like in the West today.  Then it was called sin.  Today we know that as Cultural Relativism: the need to adhere to the cultural norms.

When I was in school, I took an Introduction to Business class.  The instructor defined ethics as whatever is legal.  I disagreed and said it was legal for minorities and women to be paid a lower wage in 1950s America and asked her if that was ethical since it was legal.  She said no but she had to teach what was in the book.

The instructor pushed an interesting point though.  She said whatever is legal is ethical.  That means, since laws change, ethics are subjective and open to interpretation.  Ethics should be based on moral standards, objective moral standards.  They shouldn’t change. 

The serial killer, Ted Bundy, recorded his killings which began with discussions with the victims about morals before he killed them.  He believed morality was subjective and could be founded on an individual’s preferences.   Since his preference was to take pleasure in raping and killing young women, he felt it was completely ethical to do so.

Communist cultures like China and the Soviet Union believe their culture sets the ethical standard. As a result, they collectively killed 94 million people in the 20^th century.

When humans no longer believe ethics are based on objective moral values, and this happens with the rejection of God, then they can do as they wish.  This ends in sin and eventually in the destruction of a culture.

Sin, according to the Lexham Bible Dictionary is “Human activity which is contrary to God’s will.”  I think that’s a nice short definition we can work with.

The Hebrew word for “sin” is hatta and is a very general word meaning “transgressions” of many kinds.  The Greek word for “sin” is much more specific.  It is harmartia and means “missing the mark” or “not a martyr.” 

 Anyone who has read about the martyrs of old who were fed to wild beasts, burned on crosses, and tortured to death might wonder if they could ever withstand such a thing. We must.

Paul puts it this way in Romans 6:11

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 

So, if we’re not dead to sin, we’re not martyrs, we’re in sin.  That’s pretty shocking.  Breaking the sin habit is pretty tough (impossible) especially now that even our thoughts can be sinful.  But thanks to 1 John 10:9, we can be restored to our martyr position by confessing our sins.  God has promised He will forgive them and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

God has a set of rules.  The two most important are these:

And [the lawyer] answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁸ And [Jesus] said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”  (Luke 10:27-28)

That’s pretty simple huh, two short commands.  Heck, the Old Testament had over 600 commands.  We have it pretty easy. The moral portion of those Old Testament commands, though, are condensed into these two.  Most of us know them by heart having heard them so often. 

The issue for us is living up to these two commands.  They are so broad when you think about them.  Imagine all that is involved in loving God and loving everyone else.  Anything less, though, is sin.  I’m exhausted just thinking about it.  It makes me want to sit home and never go out.  It’s so hard to love everyone. 

Loving God, I’m foolish enough sometimes to think I can do, but I fall into loving myself instead. That’s where that battle lies.  The other commandment, love everybody else is tough as well. Some of the people out there are not so lovable.  Some are downright scary. There isn’t a loophole in the command, though. It’s ours to do.

Why is this important?

We don’t get to be like the world and decide for ourselves what moral standard if any we want to follow.  We have bought into this whole Jesus deal lock, stock, and barrel. We aren’t the first who have fallen and broken God’s heart:

 And the man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household gods, and ordained one of his sons, who became his priest. ⁶ In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 17:5-6)

It’s human nature.  Without a King, we do what we want.  Without a king, there’s chaos. But we Christians have a King.  It’s when we ignore our King that we miss the mark, that we’re not martyrs.

For to us a child is born,to us a son is given;  and the government shall be upon his shoulder,and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isa 9:6)

I was asked this week how Jesus could be the “Everlasting Father” in Isa. 9:6.  The passage is obviously talking about Jesus: “a child is born, a son is given.”  But how does the title Everlasting Father make sense?  This has bothered me for years, but this week I was reading in Genesis, the creation account, and  I saw this:

²⁰ The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. (Gen. 3:20)

Here in Genesis, Eve is described as the mother of all living when she was not yet a mother.  So, the word “mother” must be figurative as the source of all humans who follow.  The Hebrew tradition can call a source by a parental name.  It works the other way, too.  Jesus is called the “Son of David” while He is not really David’s son but a descendent of David.

So, when Jesus is called “Everlasting Father” in Isa. 9:6, He is simply being called the Source or Creator of Eternity.  This title is not referring to the Trinity but to Jesus alone Who is Creator of all things:

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  (John 1:3)

¹⁶ For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. ¹⁷ And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Col 1:16-17)

The Septuagint even translates the term in question as “Father of Eternity.”  So, all this would seem to prove Jesus as the eternal Creator.

Secondly, I’d like to look at the first phrase in this verse:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;

Note it was the child which was born.  It was the Son which was given.  This speaks of the two natures of Christ: the promised child Jesus is the reason we celebrated Christmas last week.  Jesus was a human just like us but perfect.  In His human form, He walked the earth just as you and I do.  He had the same temptations but without sin.  Our salvation required a sacrifice that corresponded to Adam’s sin.  Adam gave up the sinlessness of our race when He fell.  The wages of sin is death, so death was required, death of the same sort as the sinner.  That perfect human died for us on the cross and rose again to prove His power over death.

“A Son is given.”  This points to God’s Son, the Word (John 1:1, 14). He was given to show us God.  In Him all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt. (Col. 2:9) He told Philip, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  (John 14:9)

The child and Son natures suffered through the pains of humanity and the pain of His sacrifice.  The Son, though, the divine nature of Jesus, did not die. God cannot die. It was His divine nature which raised His human nature from the tomb (John 2:18-22).

Why is this important?

We as Christians need to understand our Lord as best as we can.  When I teach Bible study methods, I tell my class, we need to understand our study result well enough to explain it to someone else.  It is the same thing with understanding our God.  We cannot know Him wholly, but we must be able to explain Him within our own limits.

One of our assignments here on earth is to answer questions for those who ask about Jesus and our salvation (1 Pet. 3:15).  In order to do that, we need to understand well enough to pass on what we know to others.

Jesus is God the Son.  He is not the Father or the Holy Spirit, but He is every bit as much God as the Father and Spirit.  The Nicene Council said the three Persons are all of the same essence, the same substance.  That same God in the Person of the Son emptied Himself, took on human form, and died for us horribly by execution.  We need to tell others about such a humble and sacrificial act.

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. ¹⁷ And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. ¹⁸ And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.  (Luke 2:15-18)

Today is the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  Pretty much every Christian knows Jesus was almost certainly not born on December 25^th. In Bethlehem, the winters can grow cold.  Shepherds have come inside well before the end of December.  Jesus may well have been born in the Spring, but there is no definite birth date. Yet, this is the day agreed upon by most of the Christian world to celebrate that great event. 

To the early Christians, Christmas wasn’t observed. Easter was the main day to remember.  After all, it was that day things changed for us.  We now had the opportunity to receive eternal life by asking Jesus to take charge of our lives.

Christmas wasn’t recognized as an important day until in 350 a.d. Julius I, Bishop of Rome, declared December 25^th the birth date of Jesus.  History isn’t too clear as to whether it was actually Julius, but it was widely recognized around this time.

The reasoning behind why December 25^th was chosen varies, though we can be pretty sure it wasn’t an attempt at accuracy.  Most think it was an attempt to bring pagans to Christ.

There were ancient pagan celebrations in many cultures around the Winter solstice.  The Scandinavians celebrated “Yule” on December 21^st by cutting down a huge log and setting it on fire.  During the time it burned, the Scandinavians would celebrate their upcoming new year.  At this time, the wine had fermented and the animals had been slaughtered for market, so all was available for a huge party that lasted as long as the log burned: sometimes as long as 12 days.

The Romans celebrated the passage of the sun through the winter in a month-long celebration called Saturnalia.  This honored the Roman god, Saturn, the god of agriculture.  Many other pagan traditions continued worldwide.  Julius I supposedly decided to offer a Christian holiday so the pagans could still celebrate but this time celebrate Jesus’ birth.

As a result, until somewhat recent history, Christmas was celebrated much like Mardi Gras with drinking, dancing in the streets, the exchanging of gifts, and singing. 

Because of the decadence and the fact no one really knows Jesus’ birth date, the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell cancelled Christmas in England in 1645 until Charles II took the throne in 1661.  Christmas was even banned in Boston from 1659-1681.  The celebrations were just too perverted.

Raucous celebrations continued in America until after the American Revolution when British celebrations became unpopular.  It wasn’t until 1870 that Christmas became a national holiday in the United States.

In 1819, Washington Irving wrote a series of short stories titled The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.  These stories presented the celebration of Christmas as a quiet family affair, and Christmas changed in the U.S to what we see today.

Why is this important?

There are those both in the church and outside who tell us we shouldn’t celebrate on December 25^th.  After all, it’s derived from pagan celebrations, and we really aren’t sure of the date anyway.  When we criticize people for celebrating on a certain day of the year, month, week, or not celebrating at all, we go against Scripture:

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ⁶ The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. (Rom. 14:5-6)

December 25^th is just a date to the Christian.  It’s a day we set aside each year to worship our Savior and to thank God for sending Him.  It could be any date.  The Eastern Orthodox calendar designates Christ’s birth on or around our January 7^th.  They use a different calendar, but the date doesn’t really matter so long as we spend time praising God for His greatest gift to man.

¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:11-14)

I used to think the passage below was speaking of pretty much one thing, becoming a child of God and adopted into His family.  It sounds like it doesn’t it:

¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Rom. 8:14-17)

In looking more into biblical adoption, I found this passage is talking about two different things.  And there is in fact an important difference.

We become children, sons and daughters, of God (vs. 14) at the moment we turn our lives over to Christ.  We’re adopted as sons and daughters, heirs of the kingdom, at the same time.  The difference is in the meaning.  When we become children of God, part of the family.  Adoption is different.

Adoption described in Romas 8 is about the time and culture when Romans 8 was written.  Let’s say you were a successful first century Roman businessman.  You have several children you love, but none of them are capable of running your business when you die nor do they want to.  You start looking for someone else to take over the responsibility, an heir.  This could be a slave, a neighbor, a business associate, pretty much anyone.  You would adopt them as the heir to the family business.

This is different than just having your own children.  The Greek word for “adoption” is huiothesia.  It means “son placement.”  Adopting a son in the Roman and Greek culture was not just bringing someone into the family but placing them in a position of authority. As adults, they are hired to do a job.

Why is this important?

Just to be clear, both becoming a child of God and being adopted as a son or daughter happen at the same moment, when we accept Christ.  We become one of the family of God at that moment.  That means we have a loving intimate relationship with God and will spend eternity with Him serving Him.

Our being adopted is not a relationship thing at all, it is a positional one.  When adopted, we are assigned a job in God’s kingdom we will fulfill as heirs when we go to be with Him. 

God has given us jobs here to do.  These are training for what is to come.  Jesus spoke of this in the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14-30).  We are being prepared for the job God has for us to do in glory.

Last week we looked at the overwhelming joy we will experience in heaven when we’re with God.  Imagine that joy increased all the more by serving Him there.  We’ve been given talents here by God Who expects us to use them and increase what we’ve been given.  What a thrill it is go serve our Lord. What joy we will have then in serving Him in much greater capacities than we do here.  No wonder we will be overwhelmed.

There is a lot more to this idea of adoption by God. This is just a short summary.

“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. “ (Isa. 65.17)

Ever come across a verse or passage of Scripture that just stuns you?  If you don’t you should.  Maybe you should read your Bible more.  Well, I came across Isa 65:17 this week, and it startled me to say the least.

I’ve always believed when we get to heaven, we’ll be at least as smart as we are now, probably much smarter.  God may erase our lost relatives and friends from our minds, but we would still remember the good times, the good Christian brothers and sisters and our saved family members.  Then I saw Isa. 65:17, and that was all blown away.  “. . . the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind?”

There seemed to be no getting around this.  The context around the verse didn’t seem to help in my search for loopholes to get out of this verse.  Could my family and friends really not come to mind?  I needed to dig into Scripture.

As always happens, the more I dig into God’s Word, the more blessed I become. This was no exception.  From my study it doesn’t look like God will rob us of any memories.  Isa. 65:17 doesn’t say that.  It says we won’t remember our wonderful memories and events of our present lives or the earthly lives we have ahead of us.  We won’t remember the trips with family, the day I met my wife, the day we were married, the days we had each of our children.  We won’t remember them. 

Why?  The verse says those memories simply won’t come to mind.  How can they not come to mind?  These are things I’ll want to remember, surely.  These are times I love to recall now, and they won’t come to mind?  You can see my concern by now.

Part of my process when I see one of these verses that “pokes the bear” is to pray first then search the Scriptures:  Look at the cross references – this verse had no apparently relevant cross references in my Bible.  Next I start to read the contest over a few times – no help.  Then I start looking at key words in the original languages – I’m not an ancient languages scholar, there are helpful tools, though.  Nothing!

My next step is to see what others say about this verse.  I usually bury myself in commentaries, but for some reason, this time I went to YouTube and searched for teachings on this verse.

Jon Courson’s message on this just struck me like a hammer.  It’s not so much that we won’t remember, it’s that those memories just won’t come to mind as the verse says.  Well, that got me digging again to see if what Jon was saying was true. The context was telling me something.   Look at this:

Verse 18 says this: But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. The Hebrew word for “glad”(siys) means a jubilant celebration.  The word for “rejoice” (giyl) is the sort of joy a child has when opening their presents on Christmas morning, an overpowering joy.  It is the joy we feel when we rejoice in His salvation.  Finally, the word for “joy” (masos) is an inner happiness, a constant condition of joy.  I think God made His point here. We were created for this. The verse says we should have this joy forever!

Why is this important?

Let’s look back for a moment at the joy we had as children opening presents on Christmas morning.  You may have been in trouble the day before for roller skating in the house, picking all the green fruit off the trees to have a war with neighbor kids.  You may have been grounded for a week.  Maybe you weren’t in trouble.  Maybe you got your first kiss the night before.  No matter.  It was Christmas morning.  All that stuff was pushed out of your mind at the joy of the moment.

That is what it will be for us in the new heaven and the new earth, constant joy infinitely greater than a child’s Christmas morning.  It won’t be perhaps that the events of our earthly lives aren’t still in our minds and hearts. We will experience so overwhelming a joy to finally be with Him, with Jesus, that as Isaiah said, the things of the past won’t even come to mind.  Try and imagine what that might be like.