If a pastor preached in a graveyard, what would happen? What? What kind of a question is that, you may be thinking. But seriously think…what would happen if a pastor preached the Gospel in a graveyard? The obvious answer is nothing. Dead people cannot do anything, so they could not respond to a sermon. Again, you may be thinking, what does this have to do with anything. I merely want to use this common analogy to describe the state of our own souls before Christ comes in and rescues us from our spiritual deadness. Because when we understand the depth of our depravity can we explode in worship for the gift of salvation and regeneration.

   Throughout the Bible, we get a pretty clear picture of our total moral depravity. Psalm 51:5 reminds us that we are sinful at birth: Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Paul, speaking to believers, illustrates in Titus 3:3 the Christian life before Christ: For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. Romans 3:11-12 describes our unrighteousness and our refusal to seek God: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. I believe Ephesians 2:1-3 sums all of this up well: And you were dead in the trepasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 

   Those Scripture passages provide a good summary of the picture the Bible paints of the unsaved soul. So we may be physically alive, breathing and moving, but in regards to spiritual things and the things of God, we are dead and unresponsive. In our natural state, we don’t seek God; in fact, we run away from Him and His perfection. Our unregenerate heart does not love God; it does not want God. The unsaved soul does not, indeed cannot, delight in God’s holiness; the mind is set on the flesh and does not submit to God and His ways. Theologians use the word total depravity to describe how this sinfulness and falleness affects every aspect of human life. Now, a person will not commit every wicked thing under the sun or sin as much as they possibly could. Total depravity rather means that ever since the fall in the garden our human nature is completely and totally against God. After Adam and Eve sinned against God in the garden, humans are incapable of not sinning. Our natural bent is to do that which does not please God.

   Wow, that’s a very hopeless picture. But understanding the seriousness of our spiritual disease should make us run to our great physician. Jesus’ death on the cross and his sovereign saving grace is our only hope of coming to God because we don’t want God…we don’t seek after Him…we are children of His wrath. How does God rescue us from this and change our desires? 

   It is God’s sovereign grace alone that saves us from our sinful state. He takes our unresponsive heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh that loves Him. He mercifully regenerates us and gives us faith in Jesus. So, our morally hard hearts, darkened by sin, through the grace of God, become alive in respect to the things of God. This is good news because we do not deserve it and can do absolutely nothing to earn this gift. It is by this sovereign grace that we are saved through faith. He regenerates our dead hearts. Regeneration is a monergistic work, which basically means it is all God’s doing; it’s all His initiative. His regenerative grace is given freely with no mixture of human merit. Isn’t that amazing! And that’s just skimming the surface of everything God gives us through salvation! He has eternally loved us and chosen us so that we are no longer children of wrath but rather his own children. 

   I hope we can see how amazing this transformation is! Our sin requires a Savior. And Jesus through His death on the cross serves as God’s life changing, saving instrument. He takes us from our graveyard of sin and gives us everlasting life. Doesn’t this cause your heart to explode in worship! When we hear sermons and hear the Gospel we can respond with rejoicing because we have been forever changed by our omnipotent God. 

“God is on the throne. No one is kicking Him off. And you can trust Him.” This is something I heard my theology professor say multiple times. And what an encouraging phrase it is! Jesus is in control and we can rest in His sovereignty. But, I know we live in a challenging time and it is hard to put that truth into practice. Sadly, we are tempted to seek encouragement and comfort from many sources. But, when we hear about God’s wonderful nature and His incredible power and immerse ourselves in Biblical truth, we find the encouragement we need. 

    Revelation 1:4-8 says: John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.  Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him. Even so. Amen.“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

   In the Bible, John, through the Holy Spirit, begins his words in the book of Revelation by encouraging believers not to succumb to fear in the midst of the challenges and hardships they were facing. And what encourages the soul more than turning our gaze upon God and learning about His character. Who God is and what He has accomplished on our behalf helps to give us a redirected perspective from our problems to the Lamb who has overcome. 

     So, John starts out his letter by greeting his recipients, the seven churches of Asia. Mentioning seven churches is symbolic; the number seven is really a way to indicate completeness, wholeness, and perfection. So, all churches, all believers throughout history benefit from this encouraging message. Then, John turns His attention to God’s nature, and in doing so proclaims the saving work of the Trinity. He starts with God the Father, the God who is and who was and who is to come. This statement reminds us that God is eternal. He rules over all of time, past, present, and future. Nothing is outside His realm. He is not bound by time or history; He is sovereign over all of time and history and human activity. After mentioning the Father, John turns to mention the Holy Spirit. He mentions the seven spirits before God’s throne, which again is his symbolic way of referring to the Holy Spirit. Here, John emphasizes the Holy Spirit’s glorious perfection. 

   John then shifts his focus to Jesus’ second coming. This promise is so amazing! Jesus will come to earth again, completely vanquish evil, consummate salvation, bring about the fullness of His kingdom, and restore all of creation. This will be a joyous, happy reality of those all over the world who have believed in Jesus. But for all who rejected His name and hated Him now wail and cry in fear as they behold King Jesus. Nothing will stop his event. In verse 8, John closes by referring once again to God’ eternality: He is the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega over all things. He is almighty: completely supreme in power over everything, which erases the need to be fearful.

   What encouragement can we take away from this? By remembering God’s nature, we are encouraged not to fear or worry about the unknown things in our life or the crazy things happening in the world. God knows all of our moments and will perfectly carry out His good and loving plan in our lives. Second, Jesus’ faithfulness serves as a good reminder to us today, to stay true to the Gospel in all situations. Also, God is holy and perfect, very much unlike us. So, we can be thankful for Jesus shedding His blood and atoning for our sins. We can be thankful that the all knowing, all powerful, triune God made a way to bring restoration to this broken world and to our fallen, sinful souls. Also, while it is very true that God deserves our worship because of the things He has done for us, God warrants worship simply because of who He is. He is the almighty, faithful, triune, loving, perfect, holy, eternal, glorious King of the universe. So, let us be encouraged that: God is outside of time. God is all powerful. And we have every reason to trust Him.

A Brief Introduction to Deeper Textual Engagement

A question I am frequently asked is, ‘how should I read the Bible?’ My glib answer is, ‘I don’t care, just as long as you are reading your Bible!’ However, that question is really getting at how should one approach the Biblical text? I think we have all heard sermons or someone talk about a Bible passage and thought, ‘how on Earth did they get that from the passage??’ So, I thought I would share some of the steps and considerations I take when approaching a Biblical text. Now, this is part of my personal process. It is by no means the best or only way to approach the text. This is just part of what I do. Try it out and see if any elements of it work for you. When I sit down to read a text, I have 5 things in mind: genre/form, context, text criticism, important words/themes, and structure/development of the text.

Genre/form Recognizing the genre of a text may have an impact on how we understand it. For example, we read a textbook differently than we read a recipe differently than we read a letter from our Gram. Perhaps the best example of this is the satire news website ‘The Onion.’ The Onion is a satire newspaper (both print and digital) that publishes made up ‘news’ stories. The intent is to make people laugh. Now, if you pick up a copy of The Onion and know it is a work of satire then you know how to read it. You know that what you are reading is not true but is poking fun at something. However, if you don’t know that The Onion is a satire work (if you don’t know its genre) then you will probably misread it and could take what it says as true.

The same is true of the Biblical text. Parables are a common example of this in the Bible. Jesus frequently used parables when teaching. Take the parable of the Prodigal Son: we understand that this story is not referring to a real family. There was no rich father, no son who wasted his inheritance, and no brother who was angry. We understand that parables are made up stories, intended to teach some lesson. The Bible is full of a wide variety of genres: creation stories, family histories, laws codes, courtroom scenes, prophecy, apocalyptic literature, gospel accounts, epistles, personal letters, and so many more! Understanding the genre of a text you are about to read can greatly change how you understand it. 

Context. The central aim of looking at context is to establish the bounds of the text. Is what I am reading self-contained? Or is it part of a larger discussion/tradition? When looking at context, I have three levels I explore. The first level is what I call local context (or literary context). This is reading a passage together with what has happened directly before it and sometimes what happens after it. For example, we are currently preaching through Matthew chapter 8. In this chapter, Jesus is performing various miracles and has interactions with various people. These stories are great to read by themselves. But they take on a different light when we realize that they are happening right after the Sermon on the Mount (on the same day with the same crowd of people). Now, we can almost view them as a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount, or object lessons of the things Jesus said in that sermon. This adds new meaning and depth to these stories.

The second level of context is canonical context (the text’s place within the larger biblical story). Our Bible is amazing. It is a work that is composed of 1000s of stories, told by 100s of authors, spanning 1000s of years. Yet, all of this comes together to tell one cohesive story: the story of God’s relationship to humanity. Because of this, sometimes a passage can reference an event, person, or story from elsewhere in the Bible. Picking up on this reference can impact how we understand the text we are currently reading. For example: in John chapter 1, Jesus speaks of angels ascending and descending from Heaven. There are some interesting things we could take from this illustration on its own. However, if we catch that this is a reference to Jacob’s dream of a ladder going up into Heaven (Gen. 28), then this statement of Jesus takes on a larger idea of promised hope and blessing.

The last level of context is social/historical context. The stories we read about in the Bible did not take place in a vacuumed environment. They happened to real people, living in a real time. That time was different than today. It can be easy for us to forget that and to impart our own personal context onto a text. For example, we read about taking ‘an eye for an eye’ and think it sounds barbaric. In our context today, that is not how things should work. That leaves little room for mercy! However, understanding the context of that text sheds some new light on it. Human nature is bent on taking revenge. If someone hits you, you are probably going to want to hit them back. And not only hit them but hit them hard, so they don’t hit you again. This is called escalation. Over time, a small harm can grow and grow to become a large crime (all because of continued escalation). Therefore, various law codes of the time (and before) put limits on how a person could retaliate to a wrong committed against them. ‘An eye for an eye’ now becomes the prime limit on how retaliation is doled out. It is to prevent a small offense to escalate to the point of murder. Rather than lacking mercy this law is extremely merciful! Something like that could be lost on us without proper historical context.

Important words or themes.  Identifying key words or themes in a text can give real insight into what the author wants us to get out of the text. These could be repeated words, the continuation of an earlier metaphor, or a concept that is important to the Biblical story as a whole. Sometimes looking at the passage in its original Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek can help, but it is by no means absolutely necessary to identify many key words or themes.

Once you have identified an important word or theme, the next question you should ask is ‘why is this important?’ Being able to pick out important words or themes is great, but they are only able to provide meaningful insight if you can figure out why they are important. Asking probing questions can be a great way to start digging into their meaning.

Take I Corinthians 3:16-17 for example. In these two verses, Paul uses the word ‘temple’ a number of times. He tells us that we are a temple of God. Some questions we could ask include: why this particular word (why not palace or shrine or tabernacle)? Does Paul use this word in other places in I Corinthians? What role did temples play in the environment into which Paul wrote these words? How are temples presented or talked about in the Old Testament? What element of temples do we think the text is wanting us to focus on? You see how quickly you can start to build up a lot of (hopefully relevant) information that could relate to a particular passage.

Structure/Development of the Text. This textual aspect will be closely related to genre. Knowing the genre of the text can give us some idea of how it should be structured. For example, if you are looking at a parable, then most likely the text is building up to a one or two verse pithy conclusion that will act as the ‘elevator pitch’ for the entire passage. However, even if you do not know a text’s genre you can still notice elements of its structure. There are many formal writing styles and techniques Biblical writers used to convey meaning. One common example is called inclusios. The easiest way to think of an inclusio is to think of a sandwich. You have the bread (two similar- if not identical lines) surrounding the delicious peanut butter and pickles[1] (the main idea of the passage). This is a common technique seen in Hebrew Poetry.

Those are just a few examples of how the structure of a passage can help unlock some of its meaning. But do not think that you need to have a full encyclopedia of biblical writing styles to understand the text (although that would be awesome!).  A great way to engage with the development of a passage is to notice anytime you find yourself saying, ‘wait what?’ Often a question like this can lead you to find something important in the passage. The more you engage with the Bible the more you will notice patterns in how things are written. You will start to become familiar with how certain books are written and that will lead you to start identifying differences between books and that will lead you to ask questions about those differences, and before you know it you will be reading the Bible on a deeper level than you ever thought you could!

What is the Text About? Wow! You have done a lot of work on the text so far. You have engaged the text on its level by identifying its genre. You have determined the bounds of the text by looking at it in three different context levels. You have noticed important words and themes in the text. Not only that, but you have tried to figure out why they are important and what the author’s purpose was in using them. Lastly, you have looked at the structure of the text itself to see if that reveals any meaning. Now it’s time to put all of that together and summarize the main point of the passage. It is entirely possible that there will not be a single simple point to the passage. One of the amazing things about our Bible is that it speaks to us on many different levels. But a great practice to have when reading a passage is to see if you can summarize what that passage is saying to you at that time in one simple sentence. If you can distill the passage down to one central simple message, then you can use that as a springboard for reading the text as a whole.

This is what I do when I prepare sermons. I go through the steps above and try to come up with what the main take home message of this sermon is going to be. I think, “If people only remembered one sentence I said today, what would I want that sentence to be?” Then I take that sentence and work backwards constructing an argument that builds up to that one sentence conclusion. Obviously, most of you are not reading the Bible to prepare sermons all the time. But this practice of finding a one sentence ‘point’ of a passage can be a great way to remember key themes and ideas you read about in the Bible.

[1] Don’t judge me! This is an amazing sandwich. Try it and you will see!

   Jesus is not dead. The grave does not hold Him. He is alive, seated victoriously in Heaven. What great news! Though it is always important to  reflect upon this gospel truth, around Easter, we need to remember and celebrate the resurrection and the hope we have through Jesus. When we turn to Scripture, we see that 1 Peter 1:3-5 sums up our resurrection hope well by saying:

   Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

   What an amazing truth! What an amazing hope! In Jesus, we have a living hope. We can see what this living hope implies by walking through the passage. Peter begins by describing God’s blessedness. Out of His eternal blessed happiness, God willingly gives the gift of salvation. We cannot save ourselves. There is a great chasm between us and God: He is perfectly holy and we are saturated in our falleness. God would be completely just to condemn us for our sins. But, out of His abundant mercy, He sent Jesus into the world to live and die and rise again to bring salvation.So,God in His mercy, provides the way of salvation.But, God’s mercy does not just stop there; God also gives us eyes to see the sweetness of the Gospel. He shines the light of His loving kindness in our hearts. Our regeneration, aka new birth, is the greatest gift. Through new birth, we are no longer dead in sin. We are alive in Christ. We have a living hope; this is our hope: Jesus died and rose again.

   What an amazing truth! What an amazing hope! In Jesus we have a living hope. We can see another aspect of this living hope when Peter talks about our heavenly inheritance.We know that as believers we will be with God forever in Heaven. Since Jesus rose from the grave victoriously,  His resurrection seals our inheritance. What is our inheritance as believers? It is eternal joy with God in Heaven forever. Nothing and no one can take that away. It is incorruptible…totally free from corruption, evil, and sin. It is eternal…it never fades away. As time bound creatures, it’s hard to imagine eternity; but we will enjoy a never ending succession of moments in Heaven delighting in our God. And this inheritance is kept, reserved, secured, and guarded for every believer; every child of God receives this precious inheritance. Through God’s power, He will sustain us through the end; we can never lose this precious gift of salvation or our heavenly inheritance.We can never lose our living hope.

   What an amazing truth! What an amazing hope! In Jesus Christ, our living, glorious Savior, we have a living hope.Jesus gives us the living hope of salvation: He is the one who sets us free from sin and death and the grave. He also is the one who guarantees the hope of our heavenly inheritance.  I pray this Easter season that we remember this truth and give thanks to God. I pray we will always lift our voices to sing of our living hope.

Luckily, what we do know about the person of St. Patrick is still worthy of remembering on his day. Patrick was born in Roman Britain (seemingly England). At the age of sixteen, Patrick was kidnapped by a group of Irish pirates. He spent the next six years enslaved in Ireland working as a slave. Eventually he was able to escape his captors and return home to Britain. In his autobiographical work Confessio, it was his time in captivity and his escape that cemented his love of Christ and his eventual decision to become a missionary. And the place he felt called to be his mission field was the very place of his captivity, Ireland.

Tradition has it that Patrick entered Ireland through the very same port he escaped from years earlier. Think about that choice. Could you go back the place you were held in captivity as a slave and try to minister? Could you go to the very people who kidnapped you and try to tell them of Jesus? I don’t know if I could. Patrick’s return to Ireland was not a joyous affair. He tells of being beaten on the road, robbed of his possessions, being chained up and imprisoned for weeks on end. Yet he remained faithful to bring the love of Christ to the people doing this to him.

So this St. Patrick’s Day, try and reflect on the courage, the love, the forgiveness, and the faithfulness of Patrick. Strive to forgive like Patrick forgave. Strive to remain as dedicated to God’s mission as Patrick was, even when it is no easy. Just imagine the kind of impact we could have if we all lived out our daily missional lives like Patrick. That should be our goal this St. Patrick’s Day. Let’s take that goal and run with it!