I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then tolerate me just as you would a fool, so that I may do a little boasting. In this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool. Since many are boasting in the way the world does, I too will boast. You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise! In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps you in the face. To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that!
- 2 Corinthians 11:16-21a
In this section of his letter to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul defends himself against accusations and comparisons made by those undermining his authority. He shared previously about boasting only in Christ, so his boasting here is ironic, only “boasting” because he must use that technique to make his point.
Paul opens this section in verse 16 by repeating his earlier statement from 2 Corinthians 11:1. He does not want to be taken as a fool, but he realizes that some in Corinth already view him as one due to the accusations from the "super-apostles" (11:5). These so-called apostles have been presenting themselves as superior to Paul, undermining his work and authority. Paul, knowing that boasting is not the behavior of a true follower of Christ, decides to engage in it reluctantly to demonstrate the absurdity of the situation.
The phrase “if you do, then tolerate me” is filled with irony. Paul is playing along with their perspective, knowing full well that such boasting is foolish. This sets up the sarcasm he will employ in the following verses.
In verse 17, Paul distances his upcoming words from the teachings of Jesus. He makes it clear that the boasting he is about to engage in is not from divine guidance but rather from his human frustration. He is breaking away from his usual Christ-centered teachings to show the Corinthians the absurdity of comparing him to the false apostles based on worldly achievements or self-promotion. Paul’s statement shows his discomfort with the approach he’s taking. He knows that it goes against the values of humility and servanthood that Christ exemplified, yet he feels compelled to engage in this foolish boasting to make his point.
Paul contrasts the behavior of the false apostles with his own in verse 18. These men were boasting of their own accomplishments, credentials, and experiences in a worldly way. They were appealing to the Corinthians by promoting themselves, likely using their rhetorical skills, physical appearance, or Jewish heritage to make themselves seem more impressive.
Paul, seeing that this is what the Corinthians seem to respect, decides to engage in similar behavior—but with a twist. His boasting will not be the kind that the world esteems. Instead, Paul’s “boasting” will reveal his weaknesses, sufferings, and hardships for the sake of the gospel. This verse highlights an important lesson: the world tends to value the wrong things—strength, status, and self-promotion—while the gospel turns these values upside down. Paul’s upcoming boast will serve to critique these worldly values.
Paul’s irony becomes sharper in verse 19. The Corinthians have allowed themselves to be influenced by these false apostles, and Paul sarcastically congratulates them on their wisdom. This “wisdom” is, of course, foolishness, as they have allowed themselves to be deceived by outward appearances and worldly boasting rather than focusing on the gospel message.
This line is a rebuke disguised in sarcasm. The Corinthians, in their so-called wisdom, have made themselves vulnerable to being led astray by people who lack true spiritual insight. Paul calls this out in a way that both highlights their error and sets the stage for his own countercultural boasting.
Paul goes on to describe the abusive behavior of the false apostles in verse 20. The language he uses—enslaving, exploiting, taking advantage, putting on airs, slapping—conveys the level of oppression and mistreatment these supposed leaders were inflicting on the Corinthian believers. Paul is incredulous that the Corinthians have not only tolerated this but have seemingly accepted it.
The term "slaps you in the face" is likely metaphorical, referring to public humiliation or mistreatment. These false apostles had exerted control over the Corinthians, manipulating them emotionally, spiritually, and perhaps even financially. This verse offers a profound warning: not all who claim spiritual authority have the right to lead. Even today, we must be vigilant against leaders who exploit or manipulate rather than serve and care for their communities.
Paul’s sarcasm reaches its peak in this final line, the first half of verse 21. He admits, ironically, that he was "too weak" to exploit or mistreat the Corinthians in the same way the false apostles had. Of course, this is not a true confession of weakness but a critique of the Corinthian values. Paul is not weak in the gospel; rather, his strength comes from his humility, service, and dedication to the truth of Christ.
This is a powerful conclusion to Paul’s ironic boasting. In admitting he was "too weak," Paul highlights the absurdity of valuing those who boast of worldly strength, control, and dominance. His real strength lies in his willingness to suffer and serve, as he will explain in the following verses.
Paul’s use of irony in this passage serves to expose the foolishness of the Corinthians in following the false apostles. We, too, can be tempted to value things that the world considers wise—success, influence, power—over the true wisdom found in humility and service to Christ. True Christian leadership is not about power, control, or self-promotion. It’s about serving others, often at great personal cost. The approach that Paul takes to boasting speaks to the heart of the gospel message: it’s not about what we can achieve, but about what God does in and through us, often in spite of our weaknesses.
Paul’s message is clear: true leadership comes from humility, service, and suffering for the sake of the gospel, not from self-promotion or exploitation. As followers of Christ, we are called to reject the values of the world and embrace the wisdom of the cross, boasting not in our own strength but in our weaknesses, where God’s power is made perfect.
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Misconceptions and false expectations can crush a man before he even sets out. Dreams of the lofty without the expense of the mundane have ruined many, and it nearly killed a Syrian general named Naaman. In 2 Kings 5, the Bible pauses from its history of the kings to focus on the ministry of Elisha, including this account of a Syrian named Naaman, a general who caught leprosy. One of Naaman’s slaves, a girl kidnapped from Israel, knew of the prophet Elisha who could heal him, and so Naaman, in his worldly thinking, was going to meet this prophet with all sorts of pomp and posture to offer great wealth to the simple prophet.
But the prophet did not care about money, power, or prestige. With simple compassion, Elisha told Naaman to simply wash in the Jordan River seven times and he would be cleaned. Naaman was aghast. The Jordan? That dirty, brown river? What was he expecting? For Elisha to pull a Jesus and simply say “be clean” with a wave of his hand. Naaman had expectations for how he would be healed. Note that he absolutely believed he would be healed; that was not a question with him. Doubt was not the issue. He believed just as the centurion believed Jesus could heal his servant. But Naaman had expectations about how it would go, and he was about to give up on the whole thing. Wash in the Jordan? How could this prophet make me sink so low?
But Naaman’s servant reminded him that if Elisha had asked for a great and wonderful deed, he would have gladly done it. So why not this simple mundane thing? Naaman realized his foolishness and finally obeyed. When he was fully cleaned, he rushed back to Elisha and vowed he would worship only the God of Israel, even when forced to bow before the idols of his king.
Naaman’s expectations nearly cost him his miracle. Expectations that are purely imaginary have destroyed many. Countless students prepare for college for that dream job, and while there are a few that make it and are good at it, many find out the hardships and the mundane aspects of the job and they quit. I can testify to that. I went to college thinking of civil engineering and using my math skills to be good at it. Then I learned what tedious work it involved, and I didn’t want to do that, and I honestly wasn’t ready to do it either. Had I retaken the courses I took with my experience as an AP Physics teacher, I would have thrived because I finally understood what I was doing rather than just being a human calculator. Again, what happened was poor expectations.
One of the common arguments skeptics have about God is how God did not answer their prayers when they were kids. The professor from the movie God’s Not Dead uses the excuse of unanswered prayer for the healing of his sick mother as his reason for hating God. This is a legitimate case with an illegitimate response, and it also downplayed the nature of sinful rebellion against God. God never promised such things, and what makes blaming God on such matters so wrong is blaming Him for something He is not responsible for. God does not have to act on things we ask of Him. He only is responsible for what He said He would do, and very often, we put our own expectations and our own desires on God as though He said He would do them. We need to be watchful for that because that is precisely how we confuse our own voices for God’s.
Naaman was not the only one who had problems with expectations. The Pharisees were even more known for that. The Pharisees thought the Messiah would be a great general that would overthrow Rome. Why did they think that? No passage in Scripture ever suggested the Messiah would be a military leader. They thought that because every deliverer they had in the past was a military leader. However, Jesus was not one such leader. His enemy to conquer was not Rome; it was sin itself. And it was necessary for Rome to rule Jerusalem because it was the Pax Romana that enabled the Gospel to spread so quickly through Europe. But the Jews missed Jesus as the Messiah because He didn’t meet their expectations; they had those expectations because they presumed upon God instead of listening to and believing God.
How many times do we miss God because of our expectations? Naaman nearly missed it. The Pharisees completely missed it. And we tend to miss it time and time again. It is fine to have dreams. It is fine to have visions. But if we are going to follow God, none of our dreams or visions are big enough for Him. We think too small. The Jews wanted deliverance from Rome. They may have gotten it for a season, but enemies kept coming back. Instead, Jesus conquered sin which was the root cause of the occupation, both sin on Israel’s part and sin on Rome’s part, but all in accordance with God’s plan.
We need to listen to God’s plan, and He is only going to tell us the step we need to take at the moment and only sometimes the big grand picture. I can testify to that. Ever since I was 15 or so, I have lived knowing the general plan/direction that God wanted me to go and the current step I am on in that journey. At first, it was being on the mission field where I got trained and began thinking about missions. Then came my schooling to give me the education I needed and the time with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship to be with them long enough to get the vision in a more concrete form, which became teachings and coaching. And today, I am a teacher and a fencing coach, and I absolutely love it. Why? Not because I am doing what I, Charlie Wolcott, wanted to do. I am doing what God positioned me to do, and there is no greater joy in life on this earth than being in the center of God’s will for you.
Don’t set your expectations too high, nor set them too low. Naaman heard he could be healed through Elisha the prophet and he believed it. His only error was dreaming about how it would be done. We believe Jesus died for our sins and is delivering us from those sins, but how is that actually playing out? That’s part of the journey. That journey may take us through great levels of suffering, and it will take us through spectacular mountain peaks. In all cases, let us trust in the Lord and let Him deal with the details. We’ll never be disappointed if we simply walk as the Lord has us walk.
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Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
- Psalm 34:14
As parents, we only have so much time with the children who God has given to us. Children are a blessing from God, and it’s high time those of us who are parents and Christians to take this opportunity and responsibility in a much more serious way than many of us have in the recent past.
I believe it is time for those of us in the church who are a part of what is called Gen X, and even those who are older, to stop pointing fingers at those who are younger than us as the problem. We need to realize that perhaps many of them are “The Problem” that so many of the older generations speak of because many of us allowed our children to learn and live in the ways of the world and not grab onto the Christian faith as their own.
For instance, why get upset at them when your child learned at a young age that playing a sport or doing some extracurricular activity on a Sunday morning or on a Wednesday night was more important than going to meet with believers of Jesus Christ in teaching and fellowship? Don’t put the blame on them; take a good look in the mirror. Own your part in their decision to go the world’s way and not God’s way.
I believe it is time to own our part in the younger generation’s tripping up and not living out good, Godly ways. I believe it is time to own the fact that these children may have, in fact, been taught not in the ways of the God of the Bible but in the ways of the world. Why should we be surprised and upset that they have turned out to be “Romans” when many of them have attended the schools of the “Romans” (government-run schools).
I believe we need to set the example of what true humility looks like. I believe it is time for parents and grandparents to own our sin in this area. We need to confess it and ask for forgiveness from God, our children, and quite possibly even from our husband or wife. We need to repent and move on to living out good, Godly ways in all we do. It’s time to own it. By taking it “on the chin” and setting this loving example, we may be dragged through the mud and be called many names, but I genuinely believe that someone needs to lead the way.
So, why not our generation? Why not we Christians?
My wife and I are far from perfect. I can tell you that for my family and me, by becoming vulnerable with my wife and children and accepting responsibility for my part in where difficulty and hurt may have happened, healing can begin. Now, I am not in the least encouraging anyone to accept someone else’s sin as your own. I am encouraging you to own up to your sin and accept the reality of how you may have been sinful. The one you’re speaking and confessing to then has the opportunity to forgive you and, if needed, an open door to admit wrong and sin to you as well. You can then have an open opportunity to forgive them.
Communication is incredibly important. Where there is a lack of communication, negativity fills up that space. If the person you are confessing to won’t forgive or receive your open and honest confession, that is now on them. You cannot force someone to forgive, so please do not anticipate what they are going to say or do in this circumstance. Just allow the Holy Spirit to do what the Holy Spirit can do. Give up control and then surrender to Almighty God.
I cannot tell you that it will be perfect and go how you want. What I can tell you is that Romans 8:28 tells us that God works all things together for the good for those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose. Surrender and let God be God. You are His creation.
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By all this we are encouraged. In addition to our own encouragement, we were especially delighted to see how happy Titus was, because his spirit has been refreshed by all of you. I had boasted to him about you, and you have not embarrassed me. But just as everything we said to you was true, so our boasting about you to Titus has proved to be true as well. And his affection for you is all the greater when he remembers that you were all obedient, receiving him with fear and trembling. I am glad I can have complete confidence in you.
- 2 Corinthians 7:13-16
In this short section of this letter to the first-century church at Corinth, Paul shares more about his relationship with Titus, and both Paul and Titus reflect on their feelings for that congregation.
In verse 13, Paul expresses his deep sense of encouragement. The "all this" refers to the positive response of the Corinthians to his previous “severe” letter, which had been filled with admonishments and corrections. Paul wrote about that response in the previous section of this letter. The Corinthians had responded well, showing repentance and a willingness to change, which greatly encouraged Paul.
In addition, Paul is not just encouraged by their repentance but he is also delighted by Titus’s happiness. Titus, who had been sent to Corinth to observe and report back on their behavior, returned with good news. His spirit was refreshed by the Corinthians, indicating their genuine repentance and positive reception. This highlights the reciprocal nature of Christian encouragement; Paul's joy is multiplied by Titus's joy, which in turn is a result of the Corinthians' actions.
In verse 14, Paul refers to his previous boasting about the Corinthians to Titus. Before sending Titus, Paul had spoken highly of the Corinthians, confident that they would respond positively to his letter and instructions. This verse highlights the trust and confidence Paul had in the Corinthians, despite the issues that had arisen.
Paul's confidence is rewarded; the Corinthians did not embarrass him or make his boasting seem unfounded. Instead, they lived up to the positive expectations he had set. This reinforces the idea that Paul's teachings and expectations were based on truth and a deep understanding of the Corinthians' potential for growth and repentance. It also underscores the importance of trust and positive reinforcement in leadership and mentorship within the Christian community.
Paul speaks to the increased affection Titus has for the Corinthians in verse 15. Titus’s love for them grows as he remembers their obedience and respectful reception. The phrase "with fear and trembling" indicates the profound respect and seriousness with which the Corinthians approached Titus and his mission.
This respect and obedience not only validated Paul's confidence in them but also endeared them further to Titus. It shows that genuine repentance and respectful behavior can strengthen bonds within the Christian community. The Corinthians' actions demonstrate a sincere desire to align with Paul's teachings and, by extension, with God's will, which greatly pleased Titus and deepened his affection for them.
Paul concludes this section with a powerful statement of confidence in verse 16. Despite the previous challenges and the need for correction, the Corinthians have shown that they are capable of true repentance and growth. Paul's joy and confidence are a testament to their transformation. This verse demonstrates the theme of reconciliation and trust. Paul's complete confidence in the Corinthians signifies that their relationship has been restored and strengthened through mutual respect, repentance, and love. It is a hopeful and encouraging message for any Christian community facing challenges, emphasizing that through genuine effort and God's grace, relationships can be healed and trust restored.
How should we as followers of Jesus Christ today apply these verses? We’re not directly dealing with Paul and Titus, of course, but there are multiple relevant points for us.
First, Paul's encouragement reminds us of the power of mutual support and positive reinforcement in the Christian community. Just as Paul and Titus were encouraged by the Corinthians' actions, we too can find joy and encouragement in the growth and positive changes within our own communities. This joy builds stronger bonds and a more unified body of Christ.
Paul's boasting about the Corinthians to Titus reflects the importance of trust and positive expectations in leadership. Leaders within the church can learn from Paul, understanding that expressing confidence and setting positive expectations can motivate and inspire others to live up to their potential. Trust is a cornerstone of effective leadership and mentorship.
Respect and obedience within the Christian community are shown to be important. The Corinthians' respectful reception of Titus and their obedience to Paul's teachings strengthened their relationship and deepened mutual affection. This teaches us the importance of approaching our leaders and mentors with respect and a willingness to learn and grow.
Finally, we see the joy and peace that come from restoring confidence in each other. Paul's complete confidence in the Corinthians is a testament to their transformation and the healing of their relationship. It serves as a powerful reminder that through genuine repentance and effort, trust can be rebuilt, and relationships can be renewed.
We should strive to apply all of these truths in our own lives and our own Christian communities today, so that we continue to bring God the glory for all that He has done for us.
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The Gospel has been watered down to at most 4-5 doctrines and at the least, “Jesus loves you and you are going to heaven.” In the best-case scenario, this is not the Gospel. It is a summary of the Gospel. The seven posts I wrote to open this series were not the Gospel; they were a more detailed summary of the Gospel. The plan of salvation is not the Gospel. It is a central, key part, but it is just a part of it. The moral lifestyle that is expected out of believers is not the Gospel; it is supposed to be fruit of the Gospel having done and doing its work. Yet today, the most people can give are the four major parts of the Gospel: creation, original sin, Jesus and the cross, and the consummation of all things. There is nothing wrong with that, as long that is not the limit of your understanding of the Gospel.
The Gospel is so big and so deep that it can never be exhausted in a lifetime of preaching or writing, let alone in the span of a single sermon or book. But we have to be able to preach it in order to fulfill one of the key commandments given to believers: to go and make disciples. But most have lost sight of that and confused it with “make converts.” To make a disciple is to teach someone how to follow Jesus on their own. To make a convert merely gets someone to agree to some teachings. The whole world is about making converts, whether it be Islam, Hinduism, Communism, Evolution, Science, or whatnot. These false teachings only want a few disciples because the deeper you go into a false teaching, the more blatantly wrong it shows itself to be. They want the masses to know just enough to believe it, but only the most dedicated to be full disciples. But few are making disciples, teaching people how to pursue and go after Jesus. One reason why is because we stopped preaching the Gospel and instead started preaching doctrines instead. And instead of making disciples who follow and pursue Christ, we seek to lower the bar to bring in as many people as possible.
It's not just the reducing the Gospel to a bare bones structure with no substance to it and no relation to reality that is a problem. It’s a literal changing of the message that is even worse. Instead of a message that calls for “repent and believe” that we see throughout the New Testament, we get a message of “Jesus loves you and want to help you accomplish your sinful, selfish dreams.” Instead of a message of denial of self and taking up of Christ in our place, we are giving a message of adding Jesus as final accessory to complete our lives.
The drive in all this is to take the sting out of the Gospel. Yes, the Gospel has a sting, and to wear the name Christian (as it is supposed to be worn) gives us a stigma in our culture that we are not like them, we are not of their kind, and we bring a message to this culture that it will burn in judgment. That’s not a popular message. Newsflash: the United States is not heaven. It may be, or was, the closest we could have gone on this sin-cursed earth, but the US is going to burn in ashes, along with every other nation and ideology. It will all be destroyed. All that will remain is what God allows to remain. So why are we, who are supposed to be looking forward to true paradise, so concerned with what God-hating sinners think about us? We are no longer part of their world. Or are we? I think that’s one of the real factors going on here.
Most who proclaim Christianity have not died to self, have not died to the lusts and desires of this world, and simply want a free ride ticket to heaven where they can enjoy utopia without God. Take notice of that statement. Most professing evangelicals today will talk about heaven as a glorious paradise but God, if there at all, is just a secondary character that lets us all in. Listen to all those who boast about having been to heaven and come back. How are they talking about God? And how are they talking about actually how to get to heaven? It’s nearly absent from their presentations. They only talk about the perks of heaven and God is just a “figure” that opens the door. He’s not their focal attention and any attention given is extremely casual and nearly if not actually irreverent. And that’s not the heaven that the Bible describes where heaven is about God and about the worship and loving and enjoying God forever. Our purpose, as mankind, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Due to the fear of man, evangelists, apologists, and pastors will do anything they can to keep their congregations happy, and they may never preach a real word from God as a result. For fear of offending certain congregants who could easily rally the “troops” to remove the pastor, many messages are watered down, the tone made easy, and the message soft-peddled. Fortunately, there are still a few pastors who are not concerned about that and have surrounded themselves with sound elders who know their job is to protect the sheep.
The church never had permission to lighten up the message of the Gospel. Paul, when he is absolutely livid about what happened in Galatia, tells this church that for him to seek the praise of man he would cease being a servant of Christ. That’s a serious point that need to be emphasized more. Those who are seeking the praise of men are not serving Christ. It’s one or the other. We are commanded to give the message that God gave and not something that will make the people happier. If the message is judgment, then it is judgment. If the message includes mercy, then it includes mercy. But it must be the message God gives as He gave it. It is not unfair to call giving something less than that to be cowardice. It is also not unfair to call giving something more to be presumptuous. In both cases, God treats them as grievous sins.,
God has a fierce judgment for those who speak for the Lord and say what the Lord does not say. That is why those who preach have to take that pulpit very seriously. Don’t ever water down the Gospel. You may get more people liking you, but if you give them the wrong Gospel, you have done them no favors and have reserved condemnation upon yourself in the process.
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by Steve Risner
In the movie The Secret Life of Pets, we see that when no humans are watching, our pets act completely differently. They do things we didn’t think they could or would. But they only do them because they know we won’t find out. How does this apply to the Christian life?
I’m sure you can see where this is going. The secret lives of Christians should not be secret. As a believer, I firmly believe that the way I am in public should be no different than the way I am in private. When I’m with people, the things I think, say, and do should be consistent with those things when I’m by myself. Now, I’m not suggesting we should not have some discretion when it comes to airing issues publicly and things like that. But I am saying that if we say we believe a certain thing is wrong or bad, we probably should not be doing that thing whether in private or in public.
What am I getting at? Sin is not a normal expression of the Christian life. I don’t believe we can live a sin-free life; the Bible is pretty clear on that as well. But I do believe that if we consistently return to the same sins or act like something is sin in public and then privately practice it, we are lying to everyone including ourselves. This does terrible things to our relationship with the Lord and to others, and it can be devastating to our self-image. The results of living a contradictory life can cause any number of psychological issues ranging from projection (acting like others are doing what you’re doing) to self-hatred, bitterness, and insecurity issues. I know this from experience. I think it’s safe to say we’ve all done this at some point in our lives. Realizing it and putting stop to it are what’s important. I suggest praying about it and, in many situations, find a person you trust to be accountable to.
Living a double life can be a self-destructive scenario. There are usually two ways things go for someone living a secret life of sin: they’ll either come to some sort of crisis and break, allowing the Father of peace to radically change their lives, or they’ll fall away because they know in their hearts the faith they claim they have publicly is a farce. Living a lie, especially when it costs you something, rarely survives very long. As Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters.” Eventually, you’ll despise one while clinging to the other. Along this second path, too often we’ll find that others are torn down in the process. Our sin can have devastating impacts on the lives of others as well, which is another reason to avoid the secret life of sin.
The Bible has a fair bit of warning for the believer who is harboring secret sins. In the book of Proverbs, written primarily by Solomon but compiled by priests under king Hezekiah, it says, “He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.” Many believe they are hiding their sins, possibly even from God. What a foolish thought! The Lord exists in all places at all times, and He sees everything. Often times, we may believe we’re “getting away with it” when, in reality, we’re strangling our relationship with Jesus and hurting ourselves and possibly others. We may hide sins from other people, but the Lord will always know.
In Ezekiel 8:12, the Lord is speaking to the prophet saying, “He said to me, ‘Son of man, have you seen what the elders of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say, ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.’’” It’s so easy to think that since we don’t see the Lord right in front of us that He’s ignorant of our deeds—the things we think, say, or do. But we know He's with us always; He sees all things and knows our hearts. In Jeremiah 17:10, He tells us, “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”
The Old Testament is filled with instances where God’s chosen people, the Israelites or Jews, turned from the Lord, doing evil in His sight. But often times, these things started in secret. A little sin here and there in the dark and who would know? But eventually, sin grows and engulfs us. The people of Israel repeatedly turned to open idol worship, serving false gods that did nothing for them except cause the Lord to reject them. Isaiah says, “Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, ‘Who sees us? Who will know?’” Living a “secret life of sin” really is living in sin. It’s not a secret to the Lord at all.
Are you struggling? Are you not sure why it seems like everything has fallen apart or the Lord isn’t with you? Look into yourself and judge. Are you harboring sin? Are you living what you think is a secret life of self-indulgence or sin? It’s very unlikely the Lord will bless a person who is willfully living in rebellion against Him. This is brought out in Scripture many times, especially in the Old Testament. The Jews were turned over to their enemies many times because they had forsaken the Lord their God.
In Deuteronomy 28, we see God takes obedience and disobedience very seriously. This isn’t to say you will lose your salvation if you disobey. We all fall short at some point, some more than others. But this chapter in Deuteronomy gives a list of blessings to God’s people for obeying Him. It’s 14 verses of, “If you follow Me with all your heart, I will….” But if you read the remaining verses of that chapter, you’ll see God spends a great deal of time expressing what He’ll bring on His people if they do not follow Him wholeheartedly. This list of “curses” isn’t 14 verses long; it’s 53 verses long! God takes our disobedience very seriously, whether that sin is public or private. You can read about an instance where God punished not just the man who sinned but all of Israel for his private sin in Joshua 7. Earlier, in chapter 6, Joshua tells the Israelite army to take Jericho but they cannot take anything from the city as it was devoted to destruction. This meant not a single article could be taken from the city—it was all God’s. But Achan stole from the Lord. He took a few a nice robes and some gold and silver that would amount to about $24,000 in today’s world. Now, I suppose $24,000 sounds like a lot of money. But the man disobeyed the Lord and 36 of Achan’s fellow countrymen were killed by the enemy soldiers of Ai. This demonstrates how a life of sin can not only harm us, but it can easily impact those around us.
Living a life of secret sin can destroy you. Secretly viewing pornography online, spending your money on drugs or gambling, gossiping, telling “little white lies”—all of these and so many more can deteriorate your relationship with the Lord and also harm those you love and care about and who care about you. Secret sins can be the hardest to deal with because we first need to come clean. That means sitting down with a trusted person and confessing our sins to them. It also often means we need them (or someone else) to keep us accountable. Dealing with sin is frequently a team effort. I highly recommend getting help. Yes, we need the Lord and He is the true deliverer. But sometimes, as the Word tells us, we need others to help us along our journey to living a life worthy of the calling.
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What is slavery? What does it look like? How does it operate? Why do people engage in it? Why do people despise it? I will explore that today.
Most of our images of slavery come from the Civil War and Colonial days. We tend to think of putting black men in chains, sailing them across the Atlantic, and forcing them into manual labor on plantations in the southern United States. The historical account of The Amistad, and the movie that was made to showcase it, dealt with the Spanish ship of the story’s namesake, which was transporting illegally acquired slaves when the slaves escaped and had a revolution. The ship ended up in New England, and an intense trial took place as to what to do with them. This is the image we often have of slavery.
This was a great blight in American history, a blight that was paid for with the lives of 650,000 American men. The US Civil War was the price we paid for slavery. Many textbooks say the issue was about states’ rights, but in reality, the very right the states were arguing over was slavery. Why? In one word: cotton. It wasn’t just the selling and trading slaves that was the issue; it was the demand for slaves that kept calling for more slaves to be brought in. What created the demand? Cotton. The South didn’t merely want slaves; they were slaves themselves to cotton. The product was in high demand in England and the North, and it was the only thing the plantations owners knew how to grow. Yet cotton was sucking away the land’s nutrients making the crops weaker and weaker each year, thus requiring more cotton, more fields, and more labor.
When President Lincoln freed the slaves, it left some devastating side effects. The slaves couldn’t go anywhere because all they knew how to do was to grow cotton. The plantation owners now had to pay their former slaves wages to grow the only crop they knew how to grow: cotton. They had no other ideas, until George Washington Carver entered the scene and introduced the peanut, which wasn’t even in the almanac as a potential crop. He not only showed the south the crop but created well over 300 recipes and products from the peanut plant to produce an industry that was not cotton. The South was finally freed from slavery to slaves and ultimately slavery to cotton. (For further details and a spiritual application to this history, see Eric Ludy’s sermon “The Power of the Peanut.”) Keep this image in your mind during this series as I will keep referring to the issue of slavery to things throughout this series.
But this kind of slavery, in which people were stolen from their lands to produce a labor force, has only been around for about 1000 years when the Ottoman Turks found the blacks of Africa “available” to use as slave labor. I don’t have the details to cover this heavily, but prior to the Ottoman Turks, there was not much widespread kidnapping and selling of slaves across the nations. Sure, it happened, but it was not whole nations involved. The only time whole nations were involved was during a conquest.
In ancient times, slavery was a major part of the economic system, but it wasn’t the evil system that we tend to picture. In those days, the slave owner actually took care of his slaves. He provided clothing, housing, food, and education and gave them rights. There were many slaves that were actually better off than their masters and more educated than their masters. Look at Joseph. Joseph was a victim of kidnapping and trafficking by his own brothers. Yet when under Potiphar, Joseph thrived and ultimately ran Potiphar’s house as a slave. There were many slaves who could earn their own money and eventually buy their own freedom, though this never happened with Joseph. Some slaves were actually better off as a slave under their master than they would have been under their own, so of their own free will, they chose to stay under their master.
There is one big difference between the slavery of the ancient world and the slave trades beyond these things. Slavery was just a station, and it was independent of race, people group, or culture. The Ottoman Turks were the first to see that the Africans were valuable and expendable. Then the Portuguese and Spanish did the same. But prior to that, slavery was merely a station in life. The servants we see serving nobility in Europe were slaves in this regard. They just called them “servants” rather than slaves. And this is part of why the King James and New King James versions us the word “servant” instead of “slave” for the Greek word doulos. When John MacArthur and his team went to update the New American Standard Bible, to get even more accuracy to the original text and to get the original author’s intent, this term was one of the key points they made for doing The Legacy Standard Bible. The language that Jesus used for many of His parables involves a master/slave relationship, and Paul used the master/slave stations to showcase the Christian life as well. I’ll hit those points later in this series.
Now the key question everyone wants to ask: We abolished the illegal slave trading that plagued the US and Europe about 150 years ago. Based on how Scripture tells us how to treat other people and other races, we realized that this kind of slavery is an abomination. Yet, what about the slavery during Israel and Greece and Rome in the 1st century? Was that evil? Did the Bible miss it in not explicitly condemning slavery? It is interesting how the economic system is never challenged. How to work within it is addressed, but the system itself is never questioned. The Bible explicitly calls out kidnapping for slavery purposes as an abomination. But it does not question the institution in which “indentured servants” and other kinds of slaves were a key part of the system. It does tell masters how to treat them, and it tells servants how to serve. It even allows for man in his sinful heart some leash, much like how Moses allowed for divorce when it never should have been an option.
What I will say is slavery never went away. We abolished the station, but we never got rid of slavery. It just no longer has chains and whips attached to it. I can argue that God allowed slavery to remain intact through Israel’s history to teach us a lesson that is still here today and few of us realize it. Over the next few weeks, I’ll examine the slavery of Israel in Egypt and then examine the slavery systems of today. They are far more common and severe and rampant than chained slavery ever was.
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This Monday, my fifth and newest book will be released: The Doctrines of Genesis. As I have examined the books I have written so far, and even examining the ones I have already been “cooking” for what is coming next, this one very well could be the one that defines my writing career and be the most important book I could write. And I don’t say that lightly. Of the books I have written so far, only Call to Arms is truly unique and original to me, and that is a fiction novel. My other three are all content that I have gathered from other authors and analyzed. This one, however, is different.
When the reality of The Doctrines of Genesis being published began to sink in and exactly what I sought to do with this book was being revealed, our president Jason DeZurik stated that he has personally sought to get a resource like this ever since he started Worldview Warriors back in 2006. For those who have followed Jason and the ministry in general, you will have heard Jason use the slogan, “The Way Forward is Back.” His message is that the only way we can truly progress forward in a positive direction is to go back to the foundations and back to the concepts that made things work in the first place. This book does to theology what he has been preaching for many years.
The Doctrines of Genesis came to mind most specifically when my previous pastor at my former church made the statement that all doctrines of Christianity have some root in Genesis. I knew this fact before he said this, but I had not heard it articulated that way. And the more I thought about it, in all the time I had spent in discussing origins, this is a statement that all the Young Earth Creation groups have been saying. But even to the writing of this post, I have not heard of anyone actually going through and fleshing that statement out. Henry Morris talked about it in The Long War Against God and cited 200+ verses in the New Testament that tie directly to Genesis. But it never went beyond that. If you ask a solid YEC theologian how any particular doctrine points to Genesis, he could probably tell you; however, there are no resources I know of that actually showcase this truth. Not even John MacArthur does this in his book and sermon series, “The Battle for the Beginning.” I was simply baffled at this fact. So, I decided to actually write it.
I tried multiple approached and angles in getting it going. At first, I just went through Genesis and made a list of all the common doctrines we teach today that directly come from the book – doctrines like God as creator, the work week, marriage, clothing, judgment for sin individually and globally, the promise of a Savior, salvation from judgment, etc. But something wasn’t right with that. I wanted something more and stronger. Genesis gives the first images, first pictures, and the seed form, but it is not always directly visible to see where it leads.
After trying this route, I decide to go with doctrines that nearly every Christian denomination believes: the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. At the time, I was teaching a Bible study with my previous church, and we were setting up to teach on the Apostles Creed and why it needed to be written. I sought to take each tenet and trace it through Scripture back to Genesis. While this worked, I found myself chasing a lot more rabbit trails and drifting off topic more than I liked. After getting some feedback from my creationist peers, I gave it one more run through. This time, I took the creedal statement, described it, cited the initial Genesis Scripture where it would first be mentioned, and built forward from Genesis to flesh out the statement. While I did this, I read through the New Testament twice and marked every passage that would only make sense if Genesis was true as written. I found 237 such passages, and I do not believe that is comprehensive. With that, I did what no other author I know of has done besides via some websites with the power of search engines and sorting: I listed each reference and their source.
The biggest point I make throughout the book is that you cannot separate Genesis from the Gospel of Christ without heavily reducing its power and message. While I do not deal much with the scientific aspects of young earth versus old earth, I do showcase theologically why young earth is the only valid position the Bible teaches and why old earth models do not just get Genesis wrong but Jesus and the cross too. With that said, there are a number of Old Earth Creationists who do get Jesus and the cross correct, but they only by disjointing the two topics so much that it makes one wonder why they side with old earth ideas to begin with.
I emphasize more on the images that Genesis presents and what happens when we take those images consistently. We should notice that the judgment on sin is effective to all people of all places, and there is only one means of salvation. The Flood in particular cannot make this any clearer, so when one rejects the Flood as being global, they take that picture to the Gospel. Such a person is actually saying that there are some who are outside the judgment of sin and do not need Christ. This is no insignificant or secondary topic. This is the most central part of the Gospel: one means of salvation. Genesis makes this point on multiple occasions from Adam and Eve with clothing, to Cain and Abel with their sacrifices, to Noah’s Flood, to Abraham, and the list goes on. Salvation is done God’s way and on God’s terms. We have no input into it other than our sin and our acceptance or rejection of those terms holistically. I heavily emphasize the Gospel in several chapters and showcase how Jesus truly is the second Adam, the one who did all that Adam should have done and didn’t.
I want this book to not just edify and strengthen the Church but to be a tool that God uses to get Christians and churches back to Genesis and back to foundations and back to the roots of everything. If the church gets backs to our foundations, maybe our culture will return to its foundations, too. Get deeply rooted in Scripture, and make Scripture be what drives your thinking. The Doctrines of Genesis will be available on Monday in paperback and Kindle at WorldviewWarriors.org. You will not want to miss it!
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In just a few weeks on September 12, Worldview Warriors Publishing will be releasing our first fiction novel. This will be a reprinting of my novel Call to Arms. With this upcoming release, I am writing two blog posts about this book. This one will give you some of the history of how this book came about. To give the entirety of details here would require several blog posts, but I want to give the highlights.
Call to Arms is a fiction novel that deals with the main theme of spiritual warfare and showcases the reality of it. While the story is made up, there is a lot of truth echoed in this story. I used six actual events that either I experienced personally or I personally knew those involved as key plot points, so I certainly understand the notion of “the truth is stranger than fiction.” The main goal in writing this book is to help train the believer for the reality of spiritual warfare. I will not profess to be an expert on spiritual warfare, but I will proclaim to be a veteran of the war. So here is the story behind Call to Arms.
I began writing this book in April 2007. I had just begun exploring fiction writing, and I had written two novels primarily for practice (no, those are not getting published any time soon). I felt an impression to do this book and to do it immediately. I wanted to wait for more practice before writing it, but there was a sense of urgency with it. So, I started with something, and in six weeks I had 250 pages written. But the whole manuscript was trash in my opinion. The story was okay, but I had a lot of stuff that was definitely less than impressive. So, I took the entire manuscript, took the key characters and key plot points I liked, and re-wrote the whole thing. This version was MUCH better.
It would need a few more drafts and some reworking of some of the plot structure, and I thought I might have something. So, I sent it to a Christian manuscript critique group where professionals would take a few sample chapters and give a thorough critique to see if it is publishable. At first, they said I wasn’t quite ready and to take a creative writing course and/or attend a writer’s conference. I did both. A couple of drafts later, I resubmitted to the same group, and they said it was ready. After a little more feedback, I did need to make a dramatic change to the character and setting structure. It wasn’t as much work as I feared, and it was completely worth it. After seven drafts, I was ready.
As a result of this group’s feedback, they sent my info out to 100 different publishers, mostly of the self-publishing and “pay to publish” types. Several reached out to me but called for a $2000-3000 budget in order to print several hundred books, marketing, etc. I was in college, I was still taking student loans, and I had no real platform either. I wasn’t a speaker or anything, so there was no way I could afford that. But one did reach me, and they only charged enough to do the cover and do the printing. Thus, my first published book Battle Cry: Adventures in the Kingdom of Heaven was born in April 2011. However, this publisher did not do the type of cover I was hoping for, and they did not do a final edit that I thought they would do. People noticed the “Charlie-isms” where I sometimes make the same mistakes or phrase things certain ways.
The next year, I got an opportunity I was not expecting. I got to go to the Colorado Christian Writers Conference, one of the biggest, most well-known, and respected conferences in the nation. I had been wanting to go to for several years, and I ended up going for 6 of the next 7 years and even served as faculty for 4 of those years. It was HUGE, not just numbers wise, but productivity wise. I met a lot of people, got a lot of feedback, got a lot of help in my writing, and better than all that, I met a publisher. This one loved my work, and I wanted something different than what I had, again not knowing much of anything about the industry. They took my manuscript, and I changed publishers. This time, we did a much more thorough editing job, did some minor revisions to clean up the story even more, and they gave me an AWESEOME cover for it. In 2014, this version was released, and Battle Cry became Call to Arms.
Between both publishers, I sold about 500 copies of this book. For the record, that is about the national average, including the mega-sellers and the no-sale books. The responses for Call to Arms were phenomenal. People loved the writing, but they especially loved the story. I set up this book to be a “dual story” novel. I have two stories that run side-by-side: one takes place in the modern day of the mid-2000s. The other takes place in a fantasy setting that reminds readers of Chronicles of Narnia and Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness. The way the two stories work together has garnered the greatest complements. The next highest category of praise is how well I wrote the sword fights. Being a competitive fencer myself, I had the knowledge to do the sword fights right so the reader is hooked. I not only got endorsements from creation speaker Charles Jackson (check out his Facebook ministry page here) but I also got an big endorsement from Christian fiction blogger Peter Younghusband out of Australia.
But then a problem occurred. I had a trilogy planned. The other two books were written, but when Book 2 was ready to send (Book 3 had a draft done, but wasn’t polished yet), the publisher closed down. It would be several years before I’d hear from them, and trying to reach out garnered no responses. I knew it but the publisher went down and Call to Arms went out of print. By this time, I was fully a part of Worldview Warriors, and we had started our publishing wing. I still know very little about how to go about looking for a publisher, but I didn’t want to ask to see if they would republish it. I would not need ask, however, because Jason DeZurik came to me about it!
I did some more revisions as since its release, I had grown so much doctrinally and in maturity that some things I had written were like, “Yeah, could be better.” But I didn’t make any major changes to the plot. I did change a few scenes while keeping the same plot but made it more plausible. I also decided that I would not complete the trilogy. The plan was for Book 1 to describe the battle between Satan and his minions, Book 2 would describe the battle against the flesh (while also doing the former), and Book 3 would describe the battle against the world’s system. But when I sought to work these two, I lost all interest in doing them. A big part of that is the big plot reveal in Call to Arms. Any sequel I did would have this plot reveal already there and it would never carry the power of the first. So, with this new release Call to Arms will remain a stand-alone novel.
So, in a few weeks, Call to Arms will be re-released for its third edition. It will be my fourth book with Worldview Warriors Publishing. I have two more non-fiction books that are already underway, but I am not done with writing fiction either. I have a big one that has been cooking for a while, and I have some smaller ones that will be fun to do also. When I get to them depends on how much writing time and brain function I have in my off-work hours. Next week, I’ll take a more serious look at spiritual warfare and more of what drove the writing of Call to Arms.
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After spending multiple weeks examining various false teachings we face within today’s Christian community in how they view sin and the deadly consequences of such ideas, I want to come back and bring this full circle. I spent five weeks describing what sin is, where it came from, what it does, and what its cost is to open the series. Then I spent seven weeks dealing with what sin is not and what happens when we get it wrong. Today, I will return to what sin truly is. From here, we’ll go into how we should respond to sin.
I opened up by discussion how the very term “sin” means to “miss the mark.” It is an archery term for missing the target. It’s not merely missing the bullseye (though that is what is expected from a pure, holy God) but missing the target entirely. But sin goes much deeper than that. Sin utterly rejects the target as the standard. It is not merely missing the standard; it is defying the standard. Sin intentionally seeks its own target. The lie of the serpent at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is ever present: “And you shall be as God.” Even since that moment, man has sought to be his own arbiter of reality. He seeks to define things by his own desires and thus has a God complex. This applies to every person, even me. We all think we are right, and we all think we have the ability to judge and discern what is right and wrong for ourselves. This is not a new philosophy that has merely revealed itself in post-modernism but is the malady of all mankind ever since man fell. Man is a terrible arbiter of truth when self is the standard. We’ll explore why as we go.
In missing the mark, sin has several characteristics. It violates God’s plan or purpose for any object, teaching, or idea. I’ll use sexuality as an example here as this certainly is an issue that our youngest children are being forced to face. God designed sexual activity to be for one man and one woman to engage in only within the confides of Biblical marriage, with the primary function of intimacy and procreation. If both spouses in the marriage fully obeyed God’s commandments regarding marriage and sexuality, neither of them will ever have to worry about any STDs. When any person chooses to engage in any form of sexuality outside the marriage bed, even if that person is going to be their spouse, that is a violation of God’s timing regarding sexuality, and that is a sin. If done with someone who is not that spouse, then it is violation of God’s purpose of sexuality, and that is a sin. If done with other body parts other than what they are intended for, then that is a violation of the function of said body parts, and that is also why Paul says these aren’t just sins against God but also sins against your body. Sin violates God’s plan, purpose, function, and timing for any activity or object or gift He has given us.
When we violate these purposes and functions, things are going to go wrong. We call this natural law. It is said that steam-powered technology tends to never break on its own, and when it does, it is nearly always due to misuse of the system. The same is true with us. When we violate what God intends us to do, when we miss the mark, it is a misuse of God’s gifts and the result leads to broken equipment or catastrophic failure, which is death. God is not a mean, harsh judge just looking for a reason to strike people down. He often lets man go about his business and sin as he desires, but not without consequences. In a way, God is saying, “If you want to do that, go ahead, but don’t think I didn’t warn you, and don’t expect an easy out from it.” Sin produces death, both as a consequence and as a sentence. Death of every kind: spiritually, physically, economically, socially, politically, and in every sense of the term. Sometimes the death is instant; sometimes the process of death begins. It’s not an unfair punishment either. If we really saw the weight of sin and how severe it is, we’d take this much more seriously.
Death is not merely the punishment of sin; it is also the fruit of sin. Where sin goes, death follows. Sometimes it is evident; sometimes it is not. John does indicate sins that lead to death that you must call out immediately and sins that do not lead to death that there is grace for. But he’s talking about something else. He’s talking about the types of sin that, if left unchecked, will truly destroy the church, contrasted with sins that are remnants of the old sinful self and which are being warred against. Let’s go back to sexuality for an example. Homosexuality in particular is especially heinous. It is one of the few sins singled out as an utter abomination to God, but also one of the few sins that was marked as the key reason for divine judgment. But it’s more than that. It does devastating damage to the body. The average lifespan of a man in a homosexual lifestyle is about ten years shorter than that of a heterosexual. That’s no laughing matter. When we violate God’s purpose and intention, the consequences only stack up.
I say this next thing not as an insult but it goes back to my earlier series on apologetics and namely on 2 Timothy 2:24-26. One thing that leaped out to me was that the lost person is not thinking straight. They are not in their right mind. God needs to grant them repentance so that they may come to their senses. Check out this list of terms that describe the sinful mind:
The shocking discovery can be best grasped in the following twelve different negative New Testament words that describe the ruin of man's intellectual capacity.
1. Romans 1:28: debased
2. 2 Cor 3:14: hardened
3. 2 Cor 4:4: blinded
4. Eph 4:17: futility
5. Eph 4:18: darkened
6. Col 1:21: hostile
7. Col 2:4: deluded
8. Col 2:8: deceived
9. Col 1:18: sensuous
10. 1 Tim 6:5: depraved
11. 2 Tim 3:8: corrupted
12. Titus 1:15: defiled
~Richard Mayhue: Think Biblically! page 39
Sin destroys the brain. It destroys the ability to see, think, reason, process, and care. Look at the majority of villains in books and movies. Most villains aren’t evil just because they are evil. Most actually think they are actually doing the right and the best thing. Thanos really thought he was doing the right thing by wiping out half of mankind in Infinity War. So it is with each of us. We each think we are doing what is right in our own eyes. Yet because of our sin, we cannot properly discern what is right or wrong.
The last thing I’ll look at here is that anything that is not done in faith is sin. Anything we say or do without trusting God and believing Him is actually a result of believing something or someone other than God. Guess what we call that? Idolatry, which is a violation of the 1st and 2nd commandments. Any time we say something that does not have its origin in what God has revealed and trust in that truth, it is not from God and is therefore of sin. Any time we do something because we believed what someone said and it does not agree with what God has said, that is believing a lie and that is sin. Eve was deceived; she believed a lie. To believe a lie is a result of sin. There is grace to a degree in this, but if we continue believing what we know to be lies and we have been told they are lies by honest Bible-believing Christians, that is sin.
Every aspect of sin is deadly, and every one of us is guilty of it. We all deserve death. We all deserve Hell. And let me make this clear: if we believed and followed Christ every day for the rest of our lives, and God were to still send us all to Hell anyway, He would be righteous and just to do it. And so, the question we have to ask ourselves is this: Why should God save us? Why should God give us mercy? He has no obligation to do so. Yet He has chosen to offer us mercy. So what do we do about our sin? What should our response be when God in His great mercy towards us convicts us of our sin? That is for the next few weeks, but first, sin has an immediate side-effect that forces us into action: shame. How we respond to the shame of our sin defines our relationship with Christ.
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I began studying Biblical Greek in 2007 when I started my master of divinity degree at Winebrenner Theological Seminary, and it was through that class that God revealed my love for languages, particularly Biblical Greek and Hebrew (which I began learning the following year). One of my favorite aspects of these original languages of the Bible is the words that we just don’t have good English equivalents for. It takes multiple words in English to get to the general idea of these words, which adds so much beauty to these languages.
Before I get back into writing through the book of Hebrews next week, I wanted to write a post on one such word: teleios (τελειος), pronounced like TE-ley-ahs. This is an adjective (a word that describes a noun), and generally speaking, it means perfect, mature, finished, or complete. In the Greek New Testament, there are 17 occurrences of this adjective form, one of the related noun form, and 23 of the related verb. I won’t go over all 41 occurrences in this blog post, but I do want to highlight a few of them to give an idea of what this word means in its various usages.
The noun form has the meaning of perfecter, and the one occurrence happens in Hebrews 12:2a: “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” You can read more about that verse’s context here. Most common English versions translate this word as “perfecter” in that context, though a few translate it as “finisher.” Either of those meanings is good, of course, but the idea in context is that of the beginning and the end. The word translated above as “pioneer” is sometimes translated as author, source, or origin. These two words together have the idea of the beginning and the end. Jesus is the beginning and the end of faith, and everything in the middle too!
Here are some of the uses of the adjective of teleios in the New Testament, with that word highlighted for you in English. I’m quoting the NIV for each of these.
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)
“Jesus answered, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’” (Matthew 19:21)
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)
“We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.” (1 Corinthians 2:6)
“For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.” (1 Corinthians 13:9-10)
“Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.” (1 Corinthians 14:20)
“Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13)
“He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.” (Colossians 1:28)
“Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:4)
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” (James 1:17)
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18)
The other uses of the adjective form that I’m not directly quoting here are in Philippians 3:15, Colossians 4:12, Hebrews 5:14, Hebrews 9:11, James 1:25, and James 3:2.
You can see from these verses that the translators of the NIV do use different English words for teleios depending on the context of the passage. That’s the thing with translating the Bible; context is king! Most words do not have a one-to-one English equivalent that’s always used for every occurrence. But with all of these translations, we get a better picture of the idea of teleios – the idea of maturity, perfection, and completeness. None of these English words fully capture this idea, though they all give us a piece of the teleios puzzle.
The occurrences of the verb form (the root is teleiow, pronounced te-ley-AH-oh) also help us get a fuller picture of this idea. A few of the occurrences are in John 4:34, Acts 20:24, Philippians 3:12, and 1 John 4:12. Look up those passages (or click the links) and see if you can find them.
You may be wondering, why am I writing so much about this one Greek word? Teleios is the goal of every person who believes in Jesus Christ. We all strive to live like Jesus, who is fully mature, complete, and perfect. We all aim to grow and mature in our faith, and the epitome of that maturity is this idea of teleios. Remember that there is only one occurrence of this word’s noun form in the New Testament, and that is describing Jesus as the perfecter of faith. Jesus embodies teleios, and we all strive to become as close as possible to imitating Jesus.
We will never fully reach teleios this side of heaven, but it is still the goal of every believer – to become perfect, mature, whole, and complete in Jesus Christ. Keep growing in your faith, growing in relationship with God, and growing in teleios.
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Two weeks ago, I wrote about how sin is “missing the mark,” then last week I described how sin entered this world and what immediately followed. However, it is one thing to describe what sin is and to describe how it got here, but few preachers today are addressing the weight of sin. No matter who it is, there is always a desire to sugar coat and be gentle when dealing with the weight of sin. Why is that? Because each of us are sinful people, and God’s proclamation about sin makes each and every one of us guilty. There are two angles that I will use to approach addressing the weight of sin. The first will be the horizontal component. This week, I will address what is often called natural law, that is, the natural consequences of our sin in our current life as it relates to our offenses against each other. Then next week, I’ll deal with the vertical component, describing our sin against God and specifically the ultimate consequence for sin.
God does not take sin lightly, and it’s not because He’s all talk nor because He’s petty and unstable if people don’t pray to Him. It’s because He knows what sin truly is and what it does. He knows that all sin can only eat away and destroy. Sin may seem pleasurable for a season, but it always eats away at the person, and the final result is always death. Every sin is a violation of God’s intended purpose, design, and word, and every sin has consequences. Some sins lead to death right way, and some don’t. Some are obvious, and others are not. Let’s take a quick trip through the Ten Commandments and look at commands 5-10 and some of the consequences of those types of sins.
#5 Honor your mother and father: When we dishonor our parents, we are rebelling against God too. God has given them authority over us, they know us far better than we think, and they truly want what is best for us. I’ll give one example. A young man from a good church wanted to go to the mission field. The youth pastor was all on board with it, but the youth’s unbelieving father refused to let him do it, wanting him to get a 4-year degree with a marketable skill. After going back and forth, the father finally explained why. He knew the son didn’t have the self-discipline for the mission field and that the college experience would be really helpful down the road. Had he not listened to his father, he would have gone into failure and disaster. I’ve seen what happens when people go to the mission field unprepared, and it’s bad.
#6 Do not murder: This is pretty straight forward. Taking someone’s life has some very obvious immediate consequences in the legal system. But Jesus also said if we hate someone, it is the same as murdering them. Why? Because we essentially cut them off, and it does not bode well not just for that relationship but also for others.
#7 Do not commit adultery: I’ll hit this one the deepest. Divorce is a breaking of God’s design for marriage. The full implications of this are beyond the scope of what I can write about here, but the depth of this is well beyond just a husband and wife no longer being together. It breaks a union that God initiated and it leaves permanent scars. It leaves severe emotional scars, but it does physical damage too. When a man divorces his wife and then remarries, any sexual intimacy that was carried out in the first marriage carries into the second. This is why fornication and sexual promiscuity are so frequently spoken against. Sexually transmitted diseases are a result of violating God’s purpose of marriage. Then there are the children, the most damaged people as a result of divorce. Take notice that this isn’t God reigning judgment upon that sin yet; this is just what we call natural law. God knew all these things would happen in divorce. The weight of the sin of divorce is easily recognized, but there is only one primary reason for it: the consequences and the aftermath of the sin are nearly immediately realized. With all the “big sins,” we call them “big” because the consequences are immediate. This is what Paul told Timothy about certain sins being apparent and some sins are not apparent.
#8 Do not steal: Snagging a pen off a desk. Grabbing a little candy off a shelf. Stealing money from someone’s wallet. Plagiarism. I don’t think I need to go into detail about the horizontal consequences of these.
#9 Do not lie: White lies, blatant lies, propaganda, false reporting, etc. From telling your teacher your dog ate your homework, to falsely reporting data, to fake news, it is difficult to tell the difference between the truth and the lies. While telling your mom you brushed your teeth when you didn’t doesn’t seem like anything significant, it leads to much bigger lies, that could include something like falsely reporting hospitalization rates to keep the impression of a pandemic going on.
#10 Do not covet: This means desiring that which is not yours. How many sins and decisions does one make when he goes after that which he lusts for but does not have? Being jealous over someone having the new toy can easily lead to stealing. Desiring that title you think you deserve but don’t have easily produces numerous issues and it has led to murder. Macbeth is just a story that showcases this. Absalom was a real case of this issue.
Some of these sins don’t show immediate consequences; these are the ones that have deadlier bites because we don’t recognize how it is eating us alive. The wages of sin is death – death of every kind, physically, spiritually, emotionally, morally, relationally, economically, productively, mentally, and so on. Not all sin leads to immediate death, but all sin starts the process of death. Unrepentant sin always takes the path towards death. It doesn’t matter which sin it is, the end result of any of these sins is death.
Sin is a severe and deadly thing. All I covered here was the aspect of natural law regarding sin and its consequences in this life. I didn’t come close to addressing the full weight of sin, which has eternal implications, too. I only addressed horizontal sin here, the effects of sin here on this earth and how sin violates God’s intended functions and purposes in this life. The real issue is vertical sin, our violation of God’s commands and God’s character. Once we know what sin truly is, I’ll showcase some of the counterfeit teachings on sin in our culture today and then we’ll look at God’s answer to this severe problem.
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Growing up, one of my favorite songs was by Michael W. Smith titled “Cross of Gold.” I mostly enjoyed the beat then. When I heard it again now as an adult, I see the song in a totally new light, and I see how important that message is today. The gist of the song is addressing the person who wears a cross on a necklace and is asked why they are wearing it. Is it just a symbol? A piece of jewelry? A fashion thing? A charm? Or is there something much more to it?
I have asked multiple times: “Why do we call ourselves Christians?” The ones who are truly born again and regenerated with the new nature know why. Those who are fakers will not be able to answer that question correctly. Why do we wear Christian T-shirts? Why do we have a cross as a piece of jewelry? Why do we even carry that Bible around? American Christians have turned our symbolism into superstition, and we aren’t the only ones.
What do I mean by turning the very symbols of our faith into superstitious items? It’s not anything new. We see a clear example of this in the history of Israel. Israel sinned in the wilderness and God sent fiery serpents to kill people. He then had Moses forge a bronze serpent and hang it up on a pole so that anyone who looked upon it would be healed and saved. This would be a picture or an image of Jesus on the cross. Several hundred years later, king Hezekiah began to do some reforms and he sought to clean out the nation from all its idols (and they were many). One of the idols he had to destroy was this very same bronze serpent. Why? Because Israel had turned it into an idol, a superstitious symbol and image that they turned to for hope and help and healing instead of God.
When God showed Himself at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19, He came in thunder and smoke and fire, but He did not take any physical form. Why? In Deuteronomy 4, He said He would not take any physical form because Israel would take that form and create an idol out of it, turning to the idol instead of Him. God knows the tendencies of mankind.
Israel didn’t just fail in this regard. They turned even the Law into religious superstition. They turned the sacrificial system into a superstition. The purpose of the sacrificial system was to constantly remind Israel of the severity of their sin and to look forward to the eventual Savior who would do it once for all. Yet, it did not take long for the sacrifices to be nothing more than ritualistic rites and essentially superstitious means of getting God’s favor. That was king Saul’s excuse for disobeying God twice. He offered a sacrifice, something only a priest/prophet could do, not the king. Then he used sacrifice as a cop-out for being caught in disobedience. Saul never saw the weight of the system. David, on the other hand, did. When he sinned by taking the census, he went to make his sacrifice and he made sure it cost him something. He understood the mercy of God, but he also took the wrath and high standards of God seriously.
Today, we fall into the same traps. We turn to physical images to give us hope and encouragement. We go to church as routine and as religious rite, but how often do we actually go to church to meet God with other believers? Why are we even going to church to begin with? The majority of Christians today no longer believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven, and they believe that you can get to heaven by doing good deeds (recent polls put these figures at 60+%). They think that by going to church, they will please God and He will let them in to heaven. It’s the same religious superstition of the Ancient Near East. They sought to win the gods’ favor by sacrifices, prayers, praises, and good deeds. Ultimately, their idea is to use their good deeds to strongarm the gods into granting their favor. Today, it’s no different. We have this thing called “The Law of Attraction,” which essentially is a way to attempt to make the world’s energies come give you want you want. It’s half pantheism, half demon worship. And yet our most popular preacher in this country, among others, openly teaches this. It’s superstition, religious rite, and completely devoid of their purpose.
A friend of mine, Jody Ayers, made a very interesting comment on this issue. She pointed out that all these rituals, talismans, symbols, idols, and even things like circumcision, the sinner’s prayer, or whatever are all cheap replacements for genuine repentance. We seek these things to ‘protect ourselves’ instead of seeking God with a broken heart and calling upon His grace and mercy to save us.
Christianity is NOT one of these other religions. It tells us explicitly to never place trust in an icon or a picture or image. Those are idols. It also tells us to avoid any religious rite that is done by routine. There are religious rites that we Christians have: we have the Lord’s Supper and baptism. Each of these have instructions on how they are to be taken and carried out. Sure, each local church congregation has its own methods, procedures, etc., but so many of these things are done because “we’ve always done it that way,” not because “we want to follow what God wants us to do.” That’s one thing I like about my current church. We definitely do some things that other people will find weird. We have an elder ring a bell (a triangle) to signal the start of the service and to prepare our hearts for worshiping God and hearing the sermon. We then have someone bring the Bible up down the aisle up to the pulpit for the “call to worship.” I often feel like it’s marching the U.S. flag to the stage for an event. We do things with purpose, and we have Scripture to support why we do what we do (for these two cases it is to treat the gathering of believers seriously and the Word of God with reverence). But we do not do these things as though they give us any special standing with God, nor to garner nor earn His favor. We do it as a means of setting our hearts right to do things God’s way, not our own.
Why are you a Christian? Why do you look to that cross? Why do you look at a picture of Jesus? Why do you take Communion? Why do you go to church? Is it because you actually are a Christian, because you love Christ and seek to do things God’s way? Or have you simply created your own superstitious religion in hope to “get in,” seeking God’s blessing but not seeking God’s face? I know I’ve done church too many times by rote. God will not be pleased with mere religious ritual. He wants a heart that longs for Him. Calling upon some kind of talisman will do you no good. Only the true God can save you. This sounds so basic, yet most of our churches today are not teaching this stuff. I’m going to continue exploring this as I continue this series.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
