Blog
The Covenants (Notes from Last Night)
Last night we continued our study of the end times by looking at one of the most important parts of understanding how God describes the last days: the group of promises God made called the “covenants.” Here are the notes:
What is a covenant? Here’s a definition from Theopedia: “A covenant is simply a binding agreement or compact between two or more parties; in legal terms, it is a formal sealed agreement or contract. Classically, covenants are between nations or other powerful groups (for example, 1 Samuel 11:1; Joshua 9:6,15). At the international level they usually involve an alliance between two unequal parties – the stronger one pledging protection and help to the weaker in return for some form of vassal status (as in vassal treaties). This is similar to the biblical picture of God’s relationship with his people, except that the inequality between the parties (Creator and creatures) is absolute. It is always made clear that the initiative is God’s – that He makes covenants with his people and not vice versa. God initiates, confirms and even fulfills (ultimately in Christ, both sides of) the covenant.”
The Three Covenants of Promise
There are several covenants mentioned in scripture. The three that are most important for understanding how the end times will roll out are often called the “covenants of promise,” because they are unilateral (one-way, from God to Man) and unconditional (God says he’ll do it no matter what). These are the covenants he made with Abraham and David, and the third called the New Covenant.
The Covenant with Abraham.
Genesis 12:1-3; 13:14-18; 17:1-8
It’s Eternal: Gen 17:7, 13, 19; 1 Chr 16:17
The main parts of the Covenant with Abraham:
- To make from Abraham a great nation and to multiply his seed exceedingly and to make him a father of great many nations
- To bless Abraham and make him great.
- To make Abraham a blessing to all the families of the earth.
- To bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him.
- To give Abraham and his seed forever all the land which he could see.
- To give him a sign of the covenant (circumcision)
- The promise of a national land
- The promise of redemption, national and universal.
- The promise of numerous descendants to form a great nation.
What it means for the end: Before it’s all over, the descendants of Abraham will occupy and rule the land of Israel, forever, as the source of blessing to the whole earth.
The Covenant with David
2 Samuel 7:12-16; Ps 89:3-4, 34-37; Ps 132:11-2; Jer 23:5-6; Jer 33:25-26; Luke 1:30-33;
What it means for the end: Before it’s all over, a physical descendant of David will rule over the descendants of Jacob (Abraham) in the land of Israel, forever.
The New Covenant:
Jer 31:31-34; Ez 11:17-20; Ez 16:60-63; Ez 36:25-28
The Main Parts of the New Covenant:
- Israel gets a new heart and God’s spirit in them
Israel is put back in their land for good
Israel is unified
Israel’s sins are fully forgiven
What it means for the end: Before it’s all over, Israel will turn to God with all their heart, receive the Holy Spirit, and, as a nation, do God’s will—namely believe in Christ. They will dwell again in their own land forever. This will happen because God will remove their sin.
Putting the three covenants together:
If God is to be trusted to keep his promises, then we can say know some things about what is going to happen in the future: God will bring his blessing to the earth through the descendants of Abraham, dwelling in their land, under the rule of a king descended from David. This blessing will include forgiveness of sin, a new heart that loves God, God’s spirit inside of us, and ultimate defeat of death. This is how God will heal the earth, redeem humanity, and defeat the serpent once and for all.
Now see Psalm 72:1-17 – Here we see that God will mediate his blessing to the whole earth, through the blessed rule of David’s king son, over the people descended from Abraham.
Applications:
- There is a definite shape to the way history is shaping up. There are some details we can know, and a direction we can understand. Everything that happens is happening according to God’s plan as revealed by his promises. We don’t have to worry that we live in a world with no discernible pattern.
- History is not random or impersonal. Instead, everything about our world and our universe is essentially personal—it’s all about some promises that have been made and which will be kept. Everything is all about Someone who has the power to keep all his promises, actually working things out so that he keeps them.
- God works through mediation. What I mean by this is that he doesn’t just dump out blessing on the world haphazardly or indiscriminately—he works through channels. By learning about the covenants God has made, we see the channels he is working through—Abraham’s family and David’s royal line. In all of history, people are judged based on how they relate themselves to these channels of blessing. If they submit themselves to the way God has chosen to work, and they come to these channels to receive blessing, they are blessed. If they decide they don’t like the channels God has chosen to bless the world, and they either resist God’s way of blessing the world, or they work to find some other way, they miss out on the blessing.
- God’s chosen way of bringing blessing to the earth today is through the one descendant of Abraham and David, Jesus Christ.
The Whole Story (Notes from Last night)
On Monday night we began a several-week study looking at what the bible says about how this world will wrap up and end. We began looking at the End Times by first looking at the whole story scripture tells, from an overview/central story line perspective. Here are the notes:
Intro: Why are we talking about the end? It’s an absurd idea for many people. We’re talking about the end because as Christians, we understand that there is an end because there is a beginning. The beginning, and the middle of the story, shape what the end is going to be. The current state of things is not eternal.
An overview of the plan of God:
1. The Creation: God makes everything Good
Genesis 1:1, 1:26-28
There’s only one God. He’s eternal, the creator of all. The Earth is made good. Humanity is made with blessing and dominion.
2. The Fall: The rebellion of sin ruins everything
Genesis 3:17-19, 3:22-24, 3:15
Sin and turning away from God results in a loss of blessing and a curse on creation. Death enters the scene (no eternal life). But: A “seed” is promised who will defeat the serpent.
3. God chooses Abraham’s family as His channel to bless the world
Genesis 12:1-3, 22:17-18
Blessing will return to earth through Abraham’s family (seed).
4. Abraham’s family grows and receives law and promises, becomes kingdom
Lev 17:11 (Law: blood sacrifice), 2 Samuel 7:12-16
A descendant (seed) of David will occupy the throne forever.
5. The kingdom fails, but the Prophets announce that God’s plan still moves forward
Isaiah 9:6-7, Daniel 7:13-14
Israel: Jer 31:1-4
New Covenant: Jer 31:31-34
Israel will be re-gathered. The coming seed from Abraham will be a descendant of David. He will rule Israel and the whole earth and return blessing to all.
6. The promised solution comes: Jesus.
Matthew 1:1, Mt 4:17, John 3:3, Galatians 3:13-14 New Covenant: Mk 14:22-25
The kingdom is near. Only the reborn can enter.
The consequences of Adam’s fall must be dealt with before blessing (eternal life) can return. Christ Dies on the cross, becomes a curse for us, so that blessing can go out to humanity.
7. After He dies and is raised, Jesus sends followers to announce His work.
Luke 24:46-48, Acts 1:1-8
We are the witnesses of who Jesus is and what He did. Forgiveness is being offered, the kingdom is coming. (We live in this part of the story…)
8. Jesus returns, undoes the effects of sin, and all things are made new.
Rev 19:11-15, 21:1-4, 22:1-5
Jesus reigns as king. All blessing restored. God is now with Man
What seeing things this way mean?
- Part of the Christian message is that history is not random. The things that happen all have some purpose and significance, because there is a purpose, significance, and order, to the whole. In other words, there is intention behind the flow of world history.
- We can only know the meaning of our lives when we see the whole story, and how we relate to that story. Our problem with purpose in this culture is a direct result of losing track of the story we’re in—of the meaning of history.
- The end of the story matches the beginning—by completing it, and by enabling an actual conclusion: what’s broken is fixed, what’s fractured is reunited, and evil is judged and exiled. We were made to live with this sense of completion.
- Our God shows himself to be someone who always finishes what he starts, and always wins—and that when he wins, things are awesome. When we come to our senses…we want him to win. And we begin to want to see and to experience that victory so much that we start getting excited about the day when it arrives.
The loss of awareness of these four things is a huge source of the angst that afflicts many of us.
- We live with a fear that nothing’s really in control, that all this stuff is happening but it’s not really going anywhere—randomness is the only things we can expect. We want order and progress in our lives but we live in a word (we think) where nothing is really ordered and no progress is really happening.
- We want to be connected to things that matter, things that don’t snuff out of existence when we die, but we’ve all been told for so long that those big things don’t really exist. We settle for things like the environment (but one day we’ll be extinct regardless, and the universes stop being able to support life.) Most of us have just stopped believing in any big purposes like this—we settle for small things, or we settle for entertainment and no big purpose at all.
- We want closure in our lives—real, fully completed healing and justice. We want the story to end the way it does in the movies—everything fixed, bad guys defeated, families reunited, good things ahead. But we’ve been educated to believe that no world like that exists, so we try to keep ourselves sane ourselves by not really thinking about the end of our lives or the end of the world.
- We feel the universe to be impersonal, and we’re broken by a sense of personal let down in our lives. But we’ve been told that no one bigger than humans exist, except maybe aliens, and so we stop hoping for a true Father figure to be there.
But understanding the story of history as the Christian scriptures describe it settles all those issues for us. We know history has a point and a direction, we learn how to be connected to the big purpose and true meaning of everything, we never lose hope because we know that everything is going to be fixed and we’re going to enjoy the healed version of the earth forever, and we now come into relationship with the Father, so nothing is cold and impersonal any more. And we stop fearing “the end”—whether that’s the end of our personal lives or the end of the world in general.
The Bible is(n’t) a scientific textbook?
Francis Schaeffer, bringing a little perspective to the connection between the Bible and Science:
What the Bible tells us is propositional, factual and true truth, but what is given is in relation to men.
It is a scientific textbook in the sense that where it touches the cosmos it is true, propositionally true.
When we get to Heaven, what we learn further will no more contradict the facts the Bible now gives us than the New Testament contradicts the Old.
The Bible is not a scientific textbook, if by that one means its purpose is to give us exhaustive truth or that scientific fact is its central theme and purpose.
Therefore, we must be careful when we say we know the flow of history. We must not claim, on the one hand that science is unnecessary or meaningless, nor, on the other hand, that the extensions we make from Scripture are absolutely accurate or that these extensions have the same validity as the statements of Scripture itself.
But all that does not change the fact that biblical revelation is propositional, to be handled on the basis of reason in relationship to science and coordinated with science.
–from Genesis in Space and Time
How does God talk?
This post below, by Ed Welch, is so helpful for two very common problems many of us face in our twenties.
Problem 1: The Spiritual GPS
Lately I’ve been speaking to some of you about what I’ve started calling the “spiritual GPS.” That’s my name for the way many of us have come to depend on a certain kind of inner sense of God’s leading and speaking. Many people move through their youth by developing the sense that God is always speaking directly to their hearts about almost every decision and situation they face every day. Furthermore, the spiritual GPS is usually accompanied by the other sense that we have an almost infallible ability to hear and understand what God is saying to us in our hearts.
I run in to this most in situations like this:
“I know for a fact that God told me I was going to marry her.”
“…OK, but she’s engaged to someone else.”
“Well I just know what God told me.”
“What if she marries him, like it seems she’s going to?”
“…I don’t know.”
or,
“I know the Lord led me to this situation, but then it didn’t work out. Why would he have to led me to in to this just to frustrate me?”
Like these examples show, we really run into a problem when we think God told us something that doesn’t actually happen. It seems like God is wrong–or like we can’t hear him at all. For some people, it can throw their whole faith into doubt.
The issue? How do you know for sure that he did tell you those things? And if he did, are you sure you interpreted them correctly? How do you measure all of this?
Problem 2: The God who seems distant and silent.
The second issue is basically the opposite of the first. Hearing people talk about God speaking to them leaves another group of people feeling like, since they don’t have that “inner voice” or some deep sense of God communicating “directly” to them, well, they must just not hear from God. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to them, or something. Or maybe he’s just not there.
But this assumes the same thing as the first problem–that the main way God speaks is by directly telling us things, in our hearts and minds, about the details of our personal life, all the time. But then, where did we come to learn that this is how God speaks?
There’s a lot we might say about these things, but today I wanted to share this. Ed Welch starts the piece below by addressing the second problem. In the course of that discussion, I think you’ll get help thinking through the first problem, as well. Enjoy.
The Myth of God’s Silence.
When you try to engage someone who is silent, you do your best in a one-sided conversation. Then, with no response forthcoming, you move on to someone who will engage. Such is the experience of many who feel alone in their sufferings. They try to talk to God; they really try. But how long can they wait for nothing? So they adjust their expectations and figure out how to get by on their own. God exists, they believe, but he doesn’t involve himself in day-to-day human affairs.
This is standard fare for many Christians who are suffering. For some, that turn away from God is short-lived, for others, it becomes a way of life.
And it makes perfect sense. Why would someone who claims to love you be mum when you need him most? Except for one thing—he isn’t silent.
God does speak
There is no divine conspiracy of silence.
He speaks through Moses and the prophets. During his own perilous walk through the wilderness, Jesus received many words from the Father.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matt. 4:4)
You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. (Matt. 4:10)
Jesus “heard” well-known, public-domain Scripture, and it sustained him. These were the Father’s words, given to Moses and the prophets. The Father spoke to Jesus through Scripture and this is also how he speaks to us.
Might we protest, “but we were looking for something more direct”? If we do, Abraham himself responds to us:
“If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (Luke 16:31).
In other words, while we accuse God of silence, we are only fooling ourselves. If the Father appeared and spoke with us face to face, his words would have no more weight in our hearts than the ones he has already spoken. If we find his words in Scripture to fall short, we would also find his personal visitation unsatisfactory.
He speaks through Jesus. And Abraham is correct. If we miss God’s speech in Moses and the prophets, we will miss it in Jesus, even though everything he received from the Father—all the words he heard, all the comfort he received in his suffering—the Son has given to us. All of it.
[Jesus said] No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15, also Heb.1:1-2)
Silence is how someone treats a slave, and we are not God’s slaves. We are his children. Even more, we are his friends, and friends get the inside story.
So we hear plenty. We hear that Satan tempts us when life is especially hard. We hear mercy and compassion. We hear the songs and stories of like-minded people who heard clearly even though things initially seemed quiet (e.g., Ps. 22). We hear promises galore that are finalized in the Son. We hear that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and we will participate in that resurrection and new life. We hear that royal children are best tested through trials to see if their allegiances stand the test.
We hear a lot, and the words are now personally delivered by the Spirit.
Search Scripture
So we get reoriented. Now, rather than muddle through as orphans, we search Scripture. We study Moses and the prophets. We study the life of Jesus and listen for what the Father gave him. When that task feels overwhelming, we ask others who have heard the wisdom of God during their sufferings. What did they hear? What Scripture was most precious?
Perhaps we solicit the help of those wise men and women who have learned how to force-feed themselves on Scripture when they were uninterested in such food. One of my favorites is a man who, on the bleakest of days, when God seems most silent, has the greatest resolve to feed on Scripture until both his appetite returns and he is full for the day. His certainty that God speaks is an inspiration to many.
When Jesus calls us friends, we respond with hope—and hope, in this case, means that we are certain that we can hear his good and encouraging words. Such hope makes us activists who set out to locate those words. Such hope is committed to persevere with Scripture. We read it even if we don’t feel like it, and we pray for ears that hear.
–by Ed Welch
Our Fall Community Groups
Two Monday nights ago we announced our line up of Community Groups for the Fall.
All the groups are open for you to join (except Jenelle and Jarreau’s career group–it’s full), just email Gabby Leposki at gleposki@ccphilly.org if you need more information or want a group leader to get in touch with you.
Here are the Fall groups:
(All groups have one membership stipulation, that participants would be in the Young Adults age range–out of high school, under 30.)
Hatboro Home Fellowship
Invited: Anyone
Leaders: Mike & Christina Deasey
Description: Helping keep each other accountable to read the Word over the Summer
Meetings: Every other Thursday
Start Date: September 18
Meal: Potluck Dinner
Arts Fellowship
Invited: Anyone who is currently working in, studying, or has talent in any of the arts (fine arts, writing, graphic design, music, etc…)
Leader: Dave Dion
Purpose: Foster Fellowship & Collaboration of people involved with the Arts
Start Date: TBD
Men’s Fellowship
We’re a group of young men specifically meeting to encourage and edify each other using the Word, activities of service, mutual interests and the relationships that will form as a consequence.
Invited: Men
Leaders: Binu Mathew & Luke Riddell
Meetings: Every other week, Saturdays and Fridays
Start Date: September 6
Meal: Something!
Girl’s Fellowship
Rotating Bible Study nights and fellowship nights for Ladies.
Invited: Women
Leaders: Sara Gallagher & Tiffany Doran
Meetings: Selected Thursdays
Start Date: September 11
Meal: TBD…
Running Club
Invited: Anyone who wants to run. (Don’t be scared, this will be beginner friendly.)
Leader: Chris Lucas
Meetings: Weekly, Thursday nights or Saturday mornings.
Start Date: September 4
Street Team
Sharing the Gospel and ministering to the needy around our city.
Invited: Anyone
Leaders: Schylo Lease & Josh Marcinik
Location: Around Philadelphia
Meetings: Friday nights, Saturdays, other times…
Start Date: TBD
College Student Group
We want to get together to stay connected to church during the summer break, and grow together before we go back to school.
Invited: Anyone who is currently an undergraduate student at a college or university.
Leader: Jake Lanetti
Meetings: Every other Saturday
Start Date: September 13?
Meal: Always.
Career Fellowship (FULL)
A group designed to support and encourage those in the work/career world. Fellowship, food, discussion, prayer and activities.
Leaders: Jenelle Ricci & Jarreau Freeman
Purpose: Support and encourage those in the world & career world.
Meetings: Two Fridays a month
Meal: Themed, Potluck Dessert/Appetizers
And for those of you who aren’t familiar with our Community Groups, here’s the overview:
Community Groups: Your place to build friendship in a small group.
We understand that the sanctuary at Calvary Chapel is big and full of people. The Monday night Young Adults meeting is still rather large, and many who come are looking for an easier way to meet people and build friendships.
Community Groups are a way for those in the Young Adults fellowship at Calvary Chapel to build Christian community, cultivate ministry to the body of Christ, and reach out to those in need of Christ. They range in format from bible reading and discussion groups where people in a certain locality gather at a house, to reading groups where specific books are read and discussed together, to interest-based groups where members pursue a shared passion.
Why do we have them?
As we read the chronicle of the birth of the Church in the second chapter of the book of Acts, we see that Christians were committed to several things, one of which was regular gathering for different purposes. Among other things, we see that they gathered “from house to house.” No doubt this was because they had no church buildings in those days. But from their example we can learn a commitment to being together—in short, to living in real Christian community. They ate together, they studied together, they worshipped together, and they spread the gospel among non-believers together.
Our Community Groups are one way of helping the young adults of Calvary Chapel pursue this part of the Christian’s calling. Specifically, Community Groups are our way of pursuing the need for personal relationships with each other—so we can be the kind of family (where every person is a sibling), and body (where every person is a member), and building (where every person is a living stone) that the scriptures call us to be.
In addition, we see community groups as a way to help build relationships for life—relationships that become part of the lifeblood of our church here at Calvary Chapel and that extend beyond your time in the Young Adults fellowship.
What are they like?
Groups of five to fifteen or so. They may meet in homes, in coffee shops, at local parks, or anywhere else where they can pursue their specific purpose. The core of the group are a few committed members of our Young Adults fellowship, and a leader or two who are specifically designated to coordinate the group and lend it vision and focus. These groups are ideal for people to check out after they’ve been to a Monday night bible study and want to find friendships.
What kind of commitment does joining require?
The “community” part of Community Groups requires that you get together with your group regularly, so you can build and maintain real relationships. Let’s state the obvious: relationships require time. You could even say that they are time, time spent together, communicating and accomplishing things together. So if you’re going to sign up, we’d ask that you are ready to make as many of the meetings as possible for the length of the session.
How long do groups run?
They run for about three months (with sessions in the Spring, Summer, and Fall) and break over the holidays in December. Most groups meet every other week for that length of time. If everyone in your groups loves the group, and doesn’t want to stop meeting, group members will have the ability to sign up first for the next session, so that no on has to lose their place in the group. Then you can keep hanging out, indefinitely. Conceivably a group could form and run on for years until everyone gets too old for Young Adults and they disband or they let it turn into a Calvary Philly Home Fellowship. (So, literally, the group could run the rest of your life!).
Can I bring a friend to my group?
Absolutely. Community groups are ideal places to introduce someone to our fellowship. We would just ask that:
1. You let the group leaders know they’re coming
2. They would be the right age to be part of our Young Adults fellowship (out of high school, under 30)
Can I bring a friend who’s not a Christian?
Please do. One of our hopes for these groups is that they provide us for a very genuine form of outreach. In a day and age where it is often difficult to find a ways to engage people with Christian truth, we hope to see these groups become places where you can invite your friends to witness real Christianity being lived out. So invite people and bring them.
How do I get involved?
Three times a year we will have sign up nights for Community Groups. Signing up then is the easiest way to join a group.
During the rest of the year, email Brian at bweed@ccphilly.org and inquire about the group you’re interested in. You’ll get contacted by someone from that group with details about where and when they’re meeting.
Labor Day Hangout
Tonight… Let’s get together at 6:30. If it’s nice we’ll cook out on the front field. If it’s not, we’ll get together inside. Either way, bring a side or desert to share.
Testimonies / Worship / Friends.
Hope to see you there.
A Weekend of Prayer and the Word
If you haven’t ever joined us for one of our weekends away, either in the Fall (when we usually focus on prayer) or in the Spring (when we usually study through a whole book), I’d like to personally invite you to spend the first weekend October with us doing just that.
We’re sort of combining our “Weekend in Prayer” and “Weekend in the Word” ideas (hence the ambiguous name), but you can figure that the weekend will consist of prayer, times of worship in song, and group study of God’s word. maybe we’ll also seek to mix it up–time for individual private prayer and reflection, prayer and discussion in small groups, and corporate prayer and study with our whole group.
And we’ll have plenty of time to hang out with each other and enjoy fellowship too.
Please join us to experience the blessing of Christian community centered around God’s presence and word.
For full details and registration information download the form here.
We’ve always been called these names
Michael Kruger, who wrote an awesome book on the New Testament Canon, shares these historical observations:
In the midst of the high-octane cultural wars of the last five years–particularly the debate over homosexual marriage–evangelical Christians have been slapped with all sorts of pejorative labels. Words such as “bigoted,” “arrogant,” “exclusive,” “dogmatic,” and “homophobic” are just a few.
But, there are probably two labels that stand out the most. First, Christians are regularly regarded as intolerant. Christians are not only regarded as intolerant religiously–because they affirm the words of Jesus that “no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6)–but they are regarded as intolerant ethically, because they refuse to approve any and all behaviors as morally good.
Second, Christians are regularly (and ironically) regarded as haters. Apparently, our modern world regards the act of telling someone they’re wrong as a form of hatred–it is a slight against mankind (of course, it is never explained how the charge does not apply equally in the other direction since those who make this charge are telling Christians they are wrong!; but we shall leave that issue unaddressed for the time being).
Needless to say, such a situation can be very discouraging to Christians in the modern day. We might be tempted to despair and think that the church is entering into dark days. But, a little historical perspective might be useful here. Truth be told, this is not the first time Christians have received such labels. Indeed, they were given to Christians from the very beginning.
Pliny the Younger: Christians are Intolerant
It is well known that in the Greco-Roman world there was a pantheon of gods. Every group had their own deities, and they were easily and naturally placed alongside other deities. For the most part, no one objected to the existence of other gods. It was a polytheistic world.
Of course, the earliest Christians were as monotheistic as their Jewish predecessors and quite unwilling to play along with the standard religious practices of Greco-Roman culture. For Roman rulers trying to keep the peace, the Christian intolerance of other gods was a perennial frustration.
Pliny the Younger, Roman governor of Bythinia (writing c.111-113), expressed his own frustration over the fact that Christians would not “invoke the gods.” In a letter to emperor Trajan, he lamented their “stubborness and unyielding obstinancy.” In other words, he was angry over their intolerance.
Why was Pliny so bothered by this? Because the influence of the Christians had caused the pagan temples to be “deserted” and thus “very few purchasers could be found” for the sacrificial animals.
In other words, they were losing money.
To fix the problem, Pliny decided to force Christians to worship the pagan gods and curse Christ, and if they refused they were put to death. He says, “As I am informed that people who are really Christians cannot possibly be made to do any of those things.”
It is interesting to note that Pliny, while torturing these Christians, acknowledges their high moral standards: “[Christians] bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so.”
Apparently, intolerance of the Roman gods is a enough of a reason to kill Christians, despite their holy lives.
Nero: Christians are Haters
In the late first-century, the Roman emperor Nero made himself famous for his persecution of Christians. The Roman historian Tacitus tells us that under Nero,
Mockery of every sort was added to their [Christians’] death. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, as exhibiting a show in the circus.
So what awful crimes did Christians commit to warrant such unthinkable torture? Tacitus acknowledges that Christians weren’t really guilty of the trumped up charges of setting fire to the city.
Instead, he admits they were killed for “hatred against mankind.”
What had Christians done to warrant the charge of “haters”? Again, they refused to condone the pantheon of gods, and religious practices that went along with them.
In sum, the stories of Pliny and Nero are both encouraging and frightening at the same time. They are frightening because they sound eerily similar to the kind of language and accusations being used today against Christians. But, instead of Christians being asked to pay homage to the Roman gods to prove their acceptability, they are now being asked to pay homage to the gods of tolerance or homosexual marriage or what have you.
At the same time, these stories are encouraging. They remind us that this sort of persecution isn’t new. Indeed, this persecution was not the end of Christianity, but was the beginning. In the midst of it, the church grew, and thrived, and expanded.
As Christ said, “I will build my church. And the gates of hell shall not stand against it” (Matt 16:18).
Big things, in small steps…lots of them.
This is a super helpful and encouraging post from a blogger named Tim Challies. For those of you at the beginning of your life’s history (early twenties, etc…), what a great lesson to learn early–how will you accomplish most of what your life produces? Will it be by short, great moments made up of huge advances or by long, repetitive faithfulness made up of short steps? Read on for solid food…
I have been thinking about this one a lot, lately. I was thinking about it long before I read Manage Your Day-to-Day, but that book helpfully distilled it to a single sentence: “We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period, provided we work slowly and consistently.”
This is our temptation in all areas of life: to look for the quick fix, to look for the one or the few great moments that will accomplish more than the hundreds or thousands of smaller moments. “Anthony Trollope, the nineteenth-century writer who managed to be a prolific novelist while also revolutionizing the British postal system, observed, ‘A small daily task, if it be daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules’. Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.”
The spasmodic Hercules: this is how many of us behave. We behave as if one moment of great activity can overcome a thousand moments of inactivity, as if one moment of taking hold of opportunity will overcome all those moments wasted. The unglamorous habit of frequency is what makes up so much of life’s progress. Yet we are constantly tempted to put our hope in the brief and the glamorous.
I see this in work. We are prone to believe that unless we can block off a significant piece of time to work on that book or project or task, we may as well not even bother. So instead of doing a little work, and advancing a step or two, we let it lie dormant and perhaps waste that time instead. We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period, provided we work slowly and consistently.
I see this in parenting. We invest great hope in the big moments, the weekend away with the child or the special night out. But we may neglect those hundreds of evenings where we could simply talk while doing the dishes or where we could pray for just a few moments before bed. We tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in their lives in a short period, and underestimate what we can accomplish over a long period, provided we are willing to advance slowly and with consistency.
But most of all, I see this in spiritual growth. We are often tempted to believe that one moment of great spiritual intensity will bring about greater and more lasting change than the oh-so-ordinary means of grace. We can have more confidence in the single three-day conference than in the day-by-day discipline of Scripture reading and prayer, the week-by-week commitment to the preaching of the Word and public worship. We tend to overestimate how much we can grow in a short period, and underestimate how much we will grow over a long period, provided we simply take hold of God’s ordinary means.
This is where so many Christians lose their confidence—they want quick growth and measurable results, and give up far too soon. Their confidence is not in God working through his Word as they open it each morning and hear it preached each Sunday, but in the big conference later in the year, or in that new devotional, or in that new study method. They are distracted and spasmodic rather than consistent and disciplined. They look this way and that, instead of than simply persisting in the means God prescribes.
The fact is, most growth in life—and spiritual growth is no exception—is measured in inches, not miles. The ground an army gains by a slow march is often safer than the ground it gains by charging over it. Spiritual growth is no less real simply because it comes slowly and is difficult to measure. In fact, quite the opposite is true.
Christian, persist. Persist in the ordinary means of grace. Persist even, and especially, when the growth seems to slow. Persist in your confidence that these are the means God gives for your good, for your growth, for his glory.
“Our Father is younger than we…”
I thought I had posted this once…But can’t find it on the blog now.
This is seriously such an interesting and exciting meditation–you have to just let it roll around in your mind for a while.
What really is the nature of our world? And what does it tell us about what the One who made it is really like? And how far have we fallen, we humans, that we forget things…assume things…misinterpret things…fail to appreciate things…
…I hope this blesses you:
A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life.
Because children have abounding vitality,
because they are in spirit fierce and free,
therefore they want things repeated and unchanged.
They always say, “Do it again!”
And the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead,
for grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.
But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.
It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again!” to the sun,
and every evening, “Do it again!” to the moon.
It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike;
it may be that God makes every daisy separately,
but has never got tired of making them.
It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy;
for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence.
It may be a theatrical encore.
— G.K. Chesterton:
Get In Touch
Got Questions or anything else? It’d be great to hear from you!
Feel free to contact us and get in touch.
Hope to hear from you soon!