FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture Reference: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

When the Apostle Paul says, “Jews demand signs,” we can surmise that statement sets the tone and is the precedent for the visions of national renewal by means of military upheaval which today are destroying Central America and the Middle East, Ukraine and other countries. We have a tendency to believe God is with us when we win with military might.

However, when you analyze it in that perspective, Jesus didn’t win. Any death is a defeat of a kind, but crucifixion was even worse than that. The Romans were military and they didn’t crucify petty thieves or murderers. It was the penalty for rebels, for murderers. From their perspective, Jesus’ death was the dramatic defeat of a movement leader.

That fact is still a stumbling block today. How can we believe in God if He is not our helper? How can Jesus be Lord if He is defeated?

One true answer to that kind of question is to say that Christian love is not so ineffective as all that. There are things that love alone can get done. There are kinds of nonviolent process which are quite effective in achieving valuable goals.

A social science called conflict resolution demonstrates that there are better and worse ways, which can be analyzed and learned, to defend valid interests. It can be shown as a fact of social science that massing destructive threat against destructive threat postpones the solution of problems, even if the war never happens, to say nothing of destroying most of what both parties wanted to save, if it does come.

Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., demonstrated the power of truth made effective through active noncooperation with evil. It is costly, though hardly more costly than war. To recognize the sacredness of the adversary’s life and dignity, to refuse to meet him on his own terms, is at once a moral victory and the beginning of a tactical advantage, but you will only do it if you truly believe.

But the best answer to those questions, according to our text, would be to say that the question is wrong. It is wrong to be scandalized by the cross as weakness, because it is wrong to demand strength. It is wrong to assume that the measure of right decision or the validation of correct behavior is its power to make events come out right. To claim that it is our right, or that it is even our duty, or that it is within our capability to take charge of events to assure the results we consider desirable, is by no means so simply true as we always assume. That principle stands today as it did even in Jesus’ day.

Yet only if one does assume such a right, such a duty, and such a capability, does the notion that the cross is weakness have to follow. This assumption explains that dissatisfaction with the cross as powerless which lies at the heart of the “scandalized” reaction of those who ask for “a sign.”

The cross of Jesus, the crucifixion as it happened in history, was not the result of any decision to be weak or of any sacrifice of the will. It was the product of the firmness with which Jesus held to the path to which He had been called. Crucifixion was the normal result of who He was and how He acted, in the face of the powers of this world whose rule over mankind He challenged. One who acts and speaks as He did will be treated as He was treated. It takes strength and hope to act that way, not weakness.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture Reference: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

The apostle Paul was no anthropologist. When he speaks here of Jew and of Greek he is most likely not saying that a specific race, even less a specific religion, makes its members all the same. He is speaking about the mental types represented then, more or less, by different ethnic communities, and present in any age. We are all more or less Greek and more or less Jewish in this sense.

When Paul states, “Jews demand signs,” he is speaking not so much of a religion or of a race as of a culture. By Jew he does not mean somebody like the actor/producer, Woody Allen; he means people who want to see proofs of God’s power. The sign is an evidence of power. The people in the Gospels were asking Jesus for a sign to accredit His ministry. They wanted the kind of performance from Him that would save them from the risk of trusting Him by assuring them that God was on His side.

There have been cultures in which power was less important than something else: pleasure or wisdom, wealth or sex. But in the heritage of Abraham, Moses, David, and Elijah, Jews and Christians have learned to expect God to act powerfully in the interest of justice. Other religions may see the world as static and history as cyclical; the children of Abraham see it as drawn ahead by promises and driven by memories of past deliverances. The prophets proclaim God at work. Zealots believe they help God with His victory. Christian emperors and crusaders triumph in His name. The empire then assumes it spreads His glory around the world.

For good and for ill we are their heirs. We ask of a command, “Will it work?” We ask as well of a moral principle, “What will it produce?” If we are told to renounce violence, we ask, “But then what should we do if someone threatens our friends or our values?” Nationally we ask, “What would you do if the Russians came?” or “How would we keep the peace if no one would defend the country?”

The Hebrews differ from the Hindus, for whom divine power and light are diffused through multiple complex and contradictory forms. They differ from the Buddhists, for whom the power of events in historical experience needs to be downplayed or even denied. They also differ from tribal cultures where no change is expected and the gods are the guardians of stability. The JHWH of the Hebrews is a mover and shaker. At Sinai He was known in a storm cloud. He saved His people from Pharaoh by mobilizing the sea. The God of Joshua, of the judges, of Saul and David helped His people, against their enemies, by mighty saving and oft times miraculous acts.

Mary was told that her child should be named Jesus, because he would liberate His people. It was no surprise that some thought of such liberation after the model of Moses and Joshua, or after the more recent model of the Maccabean revolt, which had for a while set up Jewish priests as kings of an independent Israel.

Some people in Jesus’ time wanted Him to take that path. For them the weakness of the cross was a barrier to faith. There were still such people in Paul’s time. When Paul was taken prisoner in Jerusalem, we read that the Roman tribune mistook him at first for the leader of a group of four thousand nationalist rebels. A decade later Jerusalem was in fact “liberated” by one Menahem, who held it against the Romans for a few months, and provoked the city’s destruction.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture Reference: 2 Corinthians 8:9

Believers, People Who Know Christ, Are Rich

Christians have in Jesus Christ wealth incorruptible, inexhaustible, and unsearchable.

Let us expound on this point more clearly to see that I am right in this assertion. Though you and I may have little money, in Christ we have the riches of God’s forgiveness, the wealth of God’s peace that passes human understanding. Moreover, as Christians, we have the wealth of eternal salvation. In his letter to the Ephesians Paul put it this way, we have:

1. the riches of saints in Christ Jesus, and
2. the riches of Christ Jesus in the saints.

This thought of Paul’s says two things:

1. The source of Christian riches is in the Christ who became poor so we could enjoy heaven’s riches; and
2. We are the rich possessions of Jesus Christ. Jesus has put His value on us.

In our own eyes we may not see ourselves as persons of worth, persons of value. But in His eyes He has called us His riches. He valued us enough to die for us. The value of land is not in the amount of dirt that makes up the land. The value in the land is in how much the buyer will pay for it. When we were on the slave auction block of sin, the devil wanted to buy us, but his bid was too low. Jesus purchased our salvation by paying the highest price. He paid for us with His own blood.

Therefor you and I are rich today! I am rich because God numbered me with Paul, Apollos, and Cephas to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus. I can warn, instruct, rebuke, and point people to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, who gives the bread of heaven and the water of life. In His name I cheer those who are in the valley of the shadow of death. In His name I visit the sick. In His name I commemorate the dead and give hope to the despairing! In His name I tell Christians about 39,000 promises of the Bible that inform us that eternity with Christ is far better than time and eternity without Him. He has also given gifts to each one of you who believes on His name. Though it might not be the same as mine, it is every bit as important for furthering the Kingdom of God, if not more important!

If you don’t know Him intimately today, all you have to do is confess your sins, admit that you have sinned and thus are a sinner in need to His help and come to Him now. If you haven’t met Jesus in this way, just turn your back on the ways of the world, (that’s what it means to repent) and come to Him now. If you will, at this moment, invite God into your heart, He will welcome you with open arms and you will be blessed with an abundance of heaven’s riches.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.