“Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ‘Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.” -Hebrews 12:12-17
In the previous section, the author of Hebrews talked about the importance of having discipline in our lives as followers of Jesus. We need to be corrected when we’re not on the right path. This next section is an extension of that thought, encouraging us to live upstanding lives, living as a witness to our God.
The “therefore” at the beginning of verse 12 links what’s coming with what just preceded it. Because of the discipline that God provides to us, we need to do our best to live our lives in a righteous manner. If our arms are feeble and our knees are weak as the passage says, we need to strengthen them to do the hard work of living rightly! The Greek word used for “strengthen” also means to “make upright” or “make straight,” giving the idea of living in an upright manner.
In verse 13, the author quotes from Proverbs 4:26. This builds on the idea from verse 12 of strengthening our bodies to do the good works that honor God. If our paths are level, we’re better able to walk on them. This is connected to the idea of discipline among believers in Jesus. We’re meant to live as communities of believers, not to go it alone. When some are feeling “lame” or “disabled” and struggling with doing what is right, the community is to come alongside them to encourage them and provide spiritual healing. While we are not saved by the good things that we do, they do show God’s glory and demonstrate our faith (see James 2:14-26).
Starting in verse 14, we see the author giving more specific ways of how to live in a righteous manner. The Greek verb that’s translated as “make every effort” really has a meaning of pursuing or chasing after, so this verse starts out by saying, “Pursue peace with everyone.” This is a common idea in the New Testament, as we also see in Matthew 5:9, Mark 9:50, and Romans 12:18 just to name a few. Some scholars have debated whether this verse means to try to live at peace with everyone or just fellow believers, but the general consensus is that we are called to live at peace with all people, though peace within the Christian community is important for our witness to those who do not yet believe.
The structure of this verse indicates that we are to pursue both peace and holiness. What is holiness? It means being set apart and striving to be more like God. When we strive to live our lives in a way that is holy and glorifies God, others will be drawn to Him and see Him in and through us.
We see the community of believers at work in verse 15. While we are only responsible for our own actions, we are also called to live in community with one another. This ties into the idea of discipline from the previous passage. When we see a fellow believer pursuing the wrong things and headed down the wrong path, we need to lovingly provide them with correction.
But what’s the deal with the “bitter root” in the second half of verse 15? This is the same idea expressed in Deuteronomy 29:16-18. If people turn away from God, they will be like a bitter root - perhaps it will grow slowly, but its true colors of bitterness will be seen in time. A seed of bitterness can be sown in a faith community, and while it may not be visible right away, if left unchecked it will eventually defile the whole community.
The next warning in this passage is in verse 16 and has to do with sexual immorality. Again, the community of believers is called upon to help keep each other living in right ways and not falling into this temptation. The author next refers to Esau as being godless. The word for “godless” can also mean unholy or profane, which implies that Esau was more focused on the things of this world than on Godly things. Esau did not recognize the value of his birthright but instead gave it away to fulfill an immediate need (see Genesis 25:29-34 for the story). Unlike Esau, we are to look at the big picture that God sees as much as we can rather than focusing on the immediate needs we experience here on earth. Anyone who turns away from God doesn’t care about God’s plan; they only care about their own needs being met.
Verse 17 continues the narrative about Esau and how he did not receive the blessing he was to inherit. There was a finality to Esau’s actions; he could not undo what he had done. There are choices we make in life that cannot be undone. There’s a song by my favorite band called Bullets that has lyrics that say, “Can’t put the bullets back into the gun / Can’t undo what we have done.” While we can always receive forgiveness, some actions are more final than perhaps we would like them to be, just as Esau’s was.
The main ideas we can take from this passage are that we are all to pursue righteous living, both individually and in our communities of faith. We are to strengthen ourselves and one another in the faith so that we can more easily understand and follow God’s commands to us so that we honor and glorify Him. We are to lovingly discipline and correct one another in the context of our faith communities because we know that we can’t live this Christian life on our own. We are better together than by ourselves, to both encourage one another and help one another stay on the right path of honoring God with our lives.
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Over the last two weeks, I addressed the weight of sin, how it affects us horizontally when we sin against each other and vertically when we sin against God. There is no way we can sugar coat or lighten up the severity of sin without having some serious problems. Paul puts it very bluntly in Romans 6:23: the wages of sin is death (emphasis mine). When we sin, death is the due payment that we earn. It doesn’t matter which commandment we break. Just breaking one is enough to consider us all “law-breakers,” and it’s as though we broke each one of them. Last year, I wrote about how idolatry is displayed in the breaking each of the Ten Commandments, and if you break any of Commandments #2-9, you also break #1. So, ALL sins are a breaking of the first commandment.
Sin comes with a STEEP price, and because we are all sinners and sin is part of our nature, we are reluctant to realize, let alone believe, that we are indeed NOT good people. There is nothing inherent in us that is good. I know we can readily proclaim this when writing a blog post, discussing with other believers, but do we actually believe this in real life? Because – news flash – our sinful nature, our old self, really does believe we are good people. Our modern psychology and our education system treat us like we are good people. Our society is so entrenched with self-esteem and self-idolatry that it’s truly disgusting. And MANY people are finding out that it is not satisfying, but they are so frowned upon in ditching the self-idolatry ideas that it leads to suicide. The homosexual who is miserable (and there are many) is not miserable because they were rejected by their Christian parents or peers. It is because they are living in sin and are tasting the emptiness of it. But in their hardness of heart, they will not acknowledge that it is their sin causing their emptiness, until they are truly broken and hit rock bottom. When they hit that rock bottom, the church needs to be there ready to bring them back up, when they are ready to leave their sin behind.
Sin is pleasurable for a season. People actually enjoy and have fun doing what they do in their rebellion against God. But that’s only a temporary feeling, and there is always a let down at the end. When sin works its course, death will be all that is left in its wake. Death of every kind. Death physically, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, economically, politically, and more than I can think of. Every form of death is a result of sin. And it doesn’t just affect you; there is no such thing as any sin that only affects you. There is always a horizontal collateral damage to every sin we do. “But I just look at pornography. It only affects me.” You sure about that? That body you are looking at is not your spouse’s, and as a result you are cheating your spouse (or future spouse) of true pleasure. Not only that, but you are also helping an industry in which not all who engage it in are willing participants. Sex trafficking is perhaps the biggest industry in the world today with multi-billion dollars being made annually, and it is primarily to satiate the demand for pornography. There is a steep price to your sin.
We all deserve to die, and not a painless, merciful death either. We deserve a very painful, slow, and some might even call it sadistic death. Hell is no laughing matter. Hell is not merely where we will be separated from all the goodness of God, but it will be an eternity where we will be experiencing the very same wrath of God that was poured out on Christ. And it will be eternal. There will be no mercy and there will be no end to it. But even in His wrath, God has offered us a way out. He has no obligation to do so, but He chooses to out of His own will and desire to save us. That is what the cross is for.
The debt had to be paid. The crime had to be punished. There is no avoiding that. So Jesus said, “Let me take the hit. I’ll pay for the crime. Punish me instead.” That’s what He did at the cross, which we remember and honor today on Good Friday. He bore the sins of the world. Being a man, He was able to take the place of a man. But also being the infinite God at the same time, He was able to take the place of ALL men. Being a man, He was able to take the punishment a man deserved. But also being God, He was able to take the infinite wrath in the finite time. That is why the hypostatic union of Jesus being fully man and fully God is a necessary doctrine.
But don’t fall for what many preachers do today. Many preachers turn this into a man-centered message. They will say, “Jesus did all that just for you. You are so special to God that Jesus did that for you. Can’t you give back in kind?” While there is truth to that, let me make clear that you are not a valued treasure that is so precious that Jesus cannot live without you. He got along just fine before you came along, and He has no need for your presence to “complete” Him. He chose to do this. His death on the cross, His beating, His crown of thorns, His mockery, His publicly exposed nakedness (the worst humiliation to a Jew), and even His coming and living as a man was done to showcase how severe and how deadly our SIN is. What Jesus went through, we deserve to get and more. That’s the price.
Our salvation is indeed free to us. There is nothing we can do to earn this gift, but there is nothing truly free. This gift that we spend nothing to get cost Jesus His life. It cost the second person of the Trinity His life. How DARE we trample this? So those who reject this gift, those who snuff their nose back at Jesus and say, “I don’t care about you!” are not going to receive mercy when Judgment Day comes. Because they did not receive the gift freely offered, they will be left out when the party starts. And outside the party hall is darkness, weeping, gnashing of teeth, and a pain for which just a drop of cool water would give some relief. But none will be offered, because it was already rejected.
Because I have that sinful, old self still haunting me, I really don’t take this truth as fully as serious as I need to. One of the things the sinful nature will always seek to do is to get out of that judgment. The way the sinful nature does this is by attempting to diminish and marginalize the crime and its severity. It is the criminal trying to tell the Judge what his crime really was like and to take it lightly. While this may work on corrupt judges here on earth, it won’t work with God. Over the next couple weeks, we’ll examine some of the different ways modern “evangelicals” try to minimize or marginalize the sting of sin.
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Philippians 4:4-9
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”
Many people have inquired about why I am not posting on Facebook recently.
Approximately three weeks ago, I was contacted by Facebook. Because of the reach of my personal profile, I was told that they were contacting me and others like me with a similar number of followers on Facebook to help “stop the spread of misinformation” and to protect my Facebook profile from “malicious hackers” and “bad actors” by monitoring my account. In essence, I was informed that I needed to agree to allow Facebook to censor information I post if I want to continue to use Facebook.
It is beyond obvious to me now that these phrases are nothing more than code used by Facebook for controlling their users' thoughts and influence as well as stopping information that they don't like. I have been on Facebook since 2007 and have always tried to post true and factual posts and comments. Early on, I had a lot to learn. If I ever posted things that were false or incorrect, at least to my recollection, I corrected those posts with truth and at times apologized when necessary. I think this is just one reason why this comes as such a kick to the mid-section for me.
Over the past 15 years, much ministry and growth of the Kingdom of God has happened. I have been blessed to meet many people over the years and have had the incredible opportunity to learn from many of those people, and I have grown a lot. I praise God for that, and I have many of you to thank as well. This is not just including my Christian brothers and sisters, but also those of you that are non-believers. I do hope and continue to pray that someday you will come into a right relationship with Jesus Christ, the Creator of the Universe, and I hope that is your decision someday soon. Those of you striving to follow Jesus Christ, I greatly encourage you to continue to “work out” your salvation every second of your time here on earth. I am very thankful for all of those, over the years, who have been a part of helping me and our ministry, Worldview Warriors, to equip and expand the Kingdom of God in this way. You are appreciated.
I will continue to do ministry with Worldview Warriors through the radio, internet, conferences, and other events. I will also continue to publish books through the ministry. Worldview Warriors and those connected to the ministry, as far as I know, will keep doing ministry as they have in the past as well.
As for social media, I have started a path of trying to figure out all my options and what the future might look like for me and the ministry. As of right now, Worldview Warriors, Worldview Warriors Publishing, Do Not Keep Silent, Worldview Warriors Fastcast, New Morning Praise, The Way Forward is Back, and the Senedot Stripes will continue to have pages on Facebook. You can also find information about Worldview Warriors at www.worldviewwarriors.org and information about the main radio station I am on in Northwest Ohio, 90.1 FM, at newvision.fm. You can listen to New Morning Praise every Monday-Friday from 6am-8:30am. You can also listen on Sunday nights from 7-9pm to Do Not Keep Silent, www.donotkeepsilent.com. Both of these shows are on 90.1 FM.
Some of you might be wondering why I used Philippians 4:4-9 to start out this post. The truth of the matter is that as believers in Jesus Christ, we are to rejoice in all things. That doesn't mean we cannot be sad, frustrated, or upset, but we must check our attitude and rejoice in all things.
Again, it has been quite a ride on Facebook for me personally, and please note that Worldview Warriors will continue to do ministry and not much should change with the ministry. My family and I, on the other hand, have much to consider and pray about as we move forward. Ministry will still be happening, and I do want to thank everyone who has been a prayer and/or financial supporter over the years. We hope you will continue to support the work God has called us to in order to advance the Kingdom of God here on earth.
If you'd like to donate to the ministry, you can do so online at www.worldviewwarriors.org or via snail mail at:
Worldview Warriors
PO Box 681
Findlay, Ohio 45839
As I finish this post, if you are willing and able, I would ask that you please consider sharing this post on whatever social media you are using to help get the word out about what is happening, not just to me on a personal level but to others as well. I would greatly appreciate the help in getting the word out.
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“In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,
‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.’
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline —then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” -Hebrews 12:4-11
Moving into this next section of the book of Hebrews, the author begins sharing about different aspects of the Christian life. The first thing he shares is about discipline – a topic that basically nobody enjoys.
It’s important to note that the author starts this section with a comparison between the believers’ struggle and that of those who had been killed for their faith (verse 4). Persecution to the point of being killed for the Christian faith was a very real danger at the time when this letter was written. All believers struggle with sin, and one of those temptations may have been to give up their faith to save their earthly life. Remember that this is just a few verses after the author provided the great list of the heroes of the faith, many of whom were killed for their faith. The struggle with sin is very real, but it’s important to keep our own struggles in the proper context. Yes, we go through difficult times in life, but at least we have not yet been killed for faith!
Then, the author brings up the topic of discipline, starting with the relationship between a father and son in verse 5 that he uses to introduce quoting Proverbs 3:11-12 in verses 5b-6. God is our father and we are His children, so He disciplines us as a Father would discipline His children. Being disciplined by God is not a sign that God doesn’t like us but rather it shows us how much He loves us! A father corrects his children because he loves them and wants to teach them to live correctly, and God disciplines us in the same manner. Contrary to how we tend to react, we should be encouraged when God disciplines us because it’s Him showing us His great love for us.
The ancient Roman world had a different understanding of discipline than we do today. It was expected, and a father in the Roman world had absolute authority over his children, even to the point of deciding whether to keep a child alive! The father even had the right to execute his child as a form of punishment, though this rarely happened. This shows the extremely serious attitude that they took toward discipline in the culture when this letter was written.
Verse 7 encourages us to look at any hardships we face as God providing discipline to us. God is treating us as his children and providing us with the discipline that we need to correct our wayward behaviors. Again, it was completely expected that a father would discipline his children, just as God does for us.
In verse 8, the author turns that around the other way. Because we are God’s children, He disciplines us; and if we are not receiving that discipline, then we must not be God’s children. Just as it was expected for a father to discipline his children, we as children should expect to BE disciplined by our heavenly Father. If the father felt no responsibility toward his children, he would not correct them. Likewise, God is showing His love and care for us as His true children by correcting us to His ways.
Verses 9-10 again make the connection between the human family and God and us as His children. But the author takes it one step further, showing how God’s discipline is different than that of a human father. Earthly fathers do their best for a short time while their child is young, but God’s discipline is perfect and holy, and it lasts for our entire lifetime. The goal of God’s discipline is to make us more like Him – sharing in His holiness.
The first part of verse 11 may seem like a very obvious statement – “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” The author puts this in contrast to the long-term effects of discipline, which is to “produce a harvest of righteousness and peace.” We need to experience the short-term difficulties, pain, and suffering of God’s discipline in order to become more like God, to work toward that goal of teleios.
Whether you are the giver or receiver of discipline, it is not a pleasant thing to experience. But discipline is very necessary for our lives, both from a human standpoint and a spiritual one. We need to be corrected and instructed in the ways we should live in this world, both by our human parents and by God. That often has to happen through discipline, being punished when we do something wrong.
We will all experience suffering in this life, whether due to our own actions, the actions of those around us, or for reasons we can’t figure out. But when we can look at those times of suffering as being disciplined by God, they have greater meaning in our lives. Jesus experienced suffering on the cross, not as a form of discipline since He did nothing wrong, but He was able to endure that suffering because it had greater meaning – the salvation of all humanity who would turn to Him in faith. If we see the greater meaning in times we’re suffering as God guiding and correcting us, we are better able to endure it as well.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” -James 1:2-4
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Last week, I addressed the consequences of sin on a horizontal level known as natural law. But this doesn’t reflect the real nature of sin which is vertical to our relationship with God. Last week, I described the sins man commits against each other. There is a righteous desire for those wrongs to be made right, but there is a much deeper and stronger issue than that. King David’s most infamous sin, the one which was singled out as his key mark against him, was the adultery with Bathsheba and the cover-up murder of her husband, Uriah. The list of sins he committed that led up to this horrific deed and that which followed are too numerous to list here, but when he was confronted by the prophet Nathan, he realized the real sin was vertical. David had despised the commandment of the Lord. In his legendary song of repentance, David confessed that against God and only against God had he sinned. Yes, he knew that he had sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, but as bad as they were, those paled in comparison to his sin against God.
This is the key aspect of sin that most take lightly. We do not understand our sin, and most of that is because we do not understand or know who God is. Many of us know of God’s character intellectually, but so few of us even have a remotely true understanding of God in our finite minds. We know of his attributes of purity, holiness, righteousness, justice, mercy, goodness, and so on. Sin is a violation of these attributes. We have to remember that God is infinite in all these attributes, and He is all these attributes all at once. That’s part of the doctrine of the simplicity of God. He is not part love, part righteous, part justice, part merciful, etc., nor can He put aside one attribute in favor of another. God’s commands are a reflection of God’s character So when we violate God’s commands, we are snubbing our noses at God. We are defying Him with utmost treason and sedition, and it is far more severe treason than anything else because of the one who we are sinning against.
I try to describe sin this way: Sin is not a careless mistake or a mere imperfection. Sin is the intentional doing what you know you are not supposed to do or the not doing of what you are supposed to do. These are the two categories of sin: sins of commission, in which we directly violate God’s explicit command, and sins of omission, in which we skip out on what we are supposed to do. David’s sin with Bathsheba was a sin of commission. It was an intentional, willful act of doing what he was not supposed to do. King Saul’s sin in not destroying the Amalekites completely was a sin of omission. He did not do what he was supposed to. But the difference between these two is the difference between the saved and the lost. Saul had no repentance and only sought to justify himself in his sin. David, however, recognized his sin was against God and longed to have that relationship with God restored.
God cannot tolerate sin. His character will not allow it. We need to grasp the fact that God will utterly destroy sin when it comes into His presence just by being near it just like how ice melts next to heat. But He is so great in patience and mercy that somehow, we are still alive. So many complain about how God does things as though they can judge or critique Him. My response is, “Why should God let you or me take our next breath?” We also need to grasp the fact that in and of our ourselves, we are sinful, wicked, treacherous, and deceitful people. There is nothing good in us. And I mean NOTHING. God should have utterly wiped us out thousands of years ago. God didn’t send the Flood because He was petty. He destroyed all mankind save for Noah and the animals because man had gone so far to be beyond savable. They were given 120 years to listen, and only 8 did. Their sin took them so far that they had completely lost any regard for God.
That was in Bible times. What about today? In the post-Biblical history, few single messages have ever carried the weight of sin more accurately than “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God.” Jonathan Edwards did what he always did: wrote out his sermon and read it in his typical monotone. Yet the congregation felt the Holy Spirit come down on them with such strength that they grabbed the pews as though Hell was about to swallow them alive. John Wesley in England and John Wesley Redfield at Yale both have reports of their sermons causing people to lay on the ground utterly unconscious (both reported by Paris Reidhead in his sermon “Ten Sheckles and a Shirt”). There was such a revelation of the weight of sin that it drove people down to unconsciousness. This is what Isaiah experienced when he saw the Throne of God. He saw the glory of God and realized the weight of his own sin against God and it broke him.
Today, even though our best preachers are speaking the truth, we aren’t seeing the genuine revivals that accompanied both Wesley and Redfield. I’m not going to blame the sound preachers for this, and I’m not looking for a “show” either. But what were to happen if we would actually grasp the weight of our sin? I’m talking to myself just as much as anyone else. I speak about the weight of sin, but a problem I have with being raised in the church is a lack of appreciation of the weight of sin. I’ve never hit spiritually rock bottom, so as a result, I’ve never really tasted the full experience of sin. Does that mean I’m not saved? No. But it does mean I have to be careful about taking my own sin too lightly because if it could trip up someone like David, it can trip up someone like me too. I need to learn how to take sin just as seriously as David and Isaiah did.
There is another reality of dealing with the weight of sin that so few people have today: truly understanding what Hell is. So many of us are so self-focused that we are only concerned about getting ourselves out of Hell. For many, the ONLY reason they even want to be identified as Christian is so they can get out of Hell. How can I say this? Because they make no mention of their love for Christ as a real, genuine relationship. If we really understood Hell, and we really did love others, we’d be doing as Penn Jillette said: he’d be crawling over broken glass if that is what it took to get to a lost person. There would come a point where he’d tackle us to get us out from a moving train. I have to confess that I am a terrible evangelist; I have such a hard time initiating that discussion. Get me started and I am just fine, but it’s so hard for me to get going. Am I that ashamed of the Gospel and the message? Or is my fear of man that strong? Ray Comfort is a famous evangelist and yet even he struggles with this. Even the Apostle Paul battled with this.
I’ll wrap up this post with one last comment. If we understood the weight of sin and the consequences of our sin against God, it would drastically change how we see the lost. They are lost. They have only and ever only known sin. They have no comprehension outside of that. When I deal with mockers and scoffers, I often want to “strangle” them, but that’s not of Christ. The “Bad Charlie” wants to just blast them and pick them up off the ceiling after he goes Hulk on them. Instead, I need to learn to pity these people. They have no hope and no grasp of reality. Their minds are utterly broken and are truly “insane.” They are slaves of the devil. And what I have to keep telling myself is that apart from the grace of God, I would be in the same boat they are in. Why should I boast in my intellect, education, and studying? The only thing that’s of use is what God has given me anyway. I need to pity these people and weep for them.
George Whitefield called out these people as being “monsters of iniquity” who didn’t have the decency to see the enormity of their crime against God. Yet Whitefield wept for them both publicly and privately. In his audience was atheist David Hume. When asked why he was going to hear Whitefield preach, Hume said he didn’t believe Whitefield, but he knew Whitefield believed what he was preaching. One of the reasons so few atheists and skeptics don’t believe us is likely because we don’t fully believe what we preach ourselves. We know this stuff intellectually, but do we truly believe it? When we understand the weight of our sin, the rest will fall into place.
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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.
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.
