Are You a False Balance or a Just Weight?

Sometimes, when a Biblical writer is addressing one thing, he is actually talking about something else.

According to the Apostle Paul, the Biblical law about not muzzling the ox while he is treading the grain (Deuteronomy 25:4) is actually about people.

For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?
1 Corinthians 9:9–11 ESV

Spirituality or Sloth?

In studying Ephesians, it came as a bit of a shock for me to realize that Paul is basically urging Christians, in response to the Gospel (chapters 1-3, or perhaps 1-4:16 since there’s something like a “false start” in the beginning, a possible mirror image to the “non-conclusion” in 3:1 that is then resumed in 3:14), to adopt or learn new habits.

Can new habits do anything?

The Path to Personal Integrity from First Command to Tenth

It may seem strange to follow up a post on the First “Commandment” of the Decalogue with one on the Tenth. But I think it may help demonstrate to you how all Ten are a unified message, not simply a list. Consider what happens if he go straight from One to Ten. I submit that this sounds quite natural and logical:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me… You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.
Exodus 20:2, 2, 17 ESV

The Obedience of Faith in the First Word

I recently had a chance to plan a Sunday School lesson of “the first commandment”…

(I use quote marks because the term common at Mount Sinai is “word” or “matter.” Maybe “rule” would cover the nuances better. It is not wrong to call them commandments. Jesus (Matthew 19:17), Paul (Ephesians 6:2), and Luke (23:56) refer to them as “commandments,” for instance. But it is not the word used in the Pentateuch, even though they are emphatically commanded by God to keep the Ten Words.)

When I set about the task, it surprised me that it did not seem obvious how to go about it. What point do you make about the First Word if you are not 1. Refuting atheism and defending theism, or 2. teaching a series on “The Doctrine of God,” or 3. teaching about the Trinity or the incarnation, etc.? In other words how do you exhort Christians to live better, or to amend their lives, to conform better to the First Word in a practical way?

Psalms & Gender

When I wrote my book on Proverbs, I pointed out that the book was framed as advice to a son from a parent–first, from Solomon as father, then ending with the wisdom of a mother (who also represents Wisdom–v. 32). I stressed that, the literary device of a father advising a son, or a king talking to a royal heir, Proverbs was to be read and heeded by everyone.

Thus, I wrote on page X of the preface, that the “intended audience of Proverbs is more than just those who are set to inherit political authority. Proverbs was published as wisdom for everyone.” And again: “Proverbs seems to be Wisdom’s call to everyone to seek to be true sons (and also daughters) of Solomon.” And again: “Young men are in a transitional stage. They are on the cusp of adulthood. Proverbs is especially aimed at them, though everyone can and should profit from the book.”

It is obvious to me that, to the extent that one is concerned about Biblical masculinity, that Proverbs is especially relevant. But the results may surprise some. One would expect a book on masculinity to contrast it with femininity. There is some of that (i.e. Proverbs 11:16) but more attention is paid to the difference between children and adults. Proverbs has far more to say about the authority of mothers over their sons than about the authority of husbands over their wives.

A Prelude to Ephesians

Daniel saw a vision of “one like a son of man” ascending to God’s throne (Daniel 7:13). We, who read this with the knowledge that Jesus referred to Himself as “the son of man” (Matthew 9:6), often assume that the vision was about Jesus. True, according what we know now, like all prophecy (1 Peter 1:12). But the angel told Daniel the vision was about “the saints,” not an individual. The figure like a son of man ascending to the throne and being given the kingdom in his vision was referring to the future time when “the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever” (7:18). The term “saints” is used five times in the story of Daniel’s vision. The term is only used six times in the entire book of Daniel.

Is John Stott Right to Contrast the “Universal Human Condition” with Particular Corruption? (Ephesians 2:1)

Some more on John Stott and Ephesians…

1. Man by nature, or the human condition (verses 1-3)
Before we look in detail at this devastating description of the human condition apart from God, we need to be clear that it is a description of everybody. Paul is not giving us a portrait of some particularly decadent tribe or degraded segment of society, or even the extremely corrupt paganism of his own day. No, this is the biblical diagnosis of fallen man in fallen society everywhere. True, Paul begins with an emphatic you, indicating in the first place his Gentile readers in Asia Minor, but he quickly goes on to write (verse 3a) that we all once lived in the same way (thus adding himself and his fellow Jews), and he concludes with a reference to the rest of mankind (verse 3b). Here then is the apostle’s estimate of everyman without God, of the universal human condition. It is a condensation into three verses of the first three chapters of Romans, in which he argues his case for the sin and guilt first of pagans, then of Jews, and so of all mankind. Here he singles out three appalling truths about unredeemed human beings, which includes ourselves until God had mercy on us.
John Stott, The Message of Ephesians, The Bible Speaks Today (IVP) [Originally published as God’s New Society, 1979]

IF someone claimed that Ephesians 2:1ff had nothing to do with the universal human condition, of course, I would agree with John Stott over against such error.

But pointing out the degradation of a “particularly decadent tribe” or of a generation, is normally taken as a sign of the “human condition.” And it should be.

The Turning Point in Ephesians 1:14 & the War in Heaven

Few can read Ephesians “naively,” without already being basically aware of it’s content or that, in general, there is an ongoing future struggle in our lives and/or in human history. But if we try to think of what a naïve listening to the epistle being read might entail, Ephesians 1:14 opens up a whole new world.

What is the “Gospel”?

Consider this piece of political propaganda from the Greco-Roman world. Listen as I read from an inscription about the birthday of Augustus Caesar the emperor of Rome that was dates from 9BC.

The providence which has ordered the whole of our life, showing concern and zeal, has ordained the most perfect consummation for human life by giving to it Augustus, by filling him with virtue for doing the work of a benefactor among men, and by sending in him, as it were, a deliverer for us and those who come after us, to make war to cease, to create order everywhere. . . . ; the birthday of the god [Augustus] was the beginning for the world of the gospel that has come to men through him [found in What Saint Paul Really Said by N. T. Wright].

THE TERM GOSPEL IS a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon word godspell. It is used to translate the Greek word evangel which means “good news,” “glad tidings,” or “joyful message.” And it is a word with an important use in the pagan politics of the first century. It refers to a royal proclamation or an imperial announcement. It is used to describe a report of the birth, or the ascension to the throne, or the victory of a king. In some cases it can refer to more than one of these, since the victory of an aspiring prince can also count as his coronation. By defeating his enemy, he inherits the kingdom and thus becomes a king. Such a declaration is described as a gospel in the ancient world of the first-century Mediterranean region.

Did John Stott Understand What “a Figure of Speech” Is? Ephesians 2:1

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins…
The Apostle Paul (ESV)

The death to which Paul refers is not a figure of speech, as in the parable of the Prodigal Son, “This my son was dead”; it is a factual statement of everyone’s spiritual condition outside Christ.
John Stott, The Message of Ephesians, The Bible Speaks Today (IVP) [Originally published as God’s New Society, 1979]

On the contrary, when the Apostle Paul writes “you were dead” in Ephesians 2:1, he is definitely using a figure of speech. Of course, it is also a “factual statement” because people use figures of speech to make claims that are (or are purported to be) factual. The father of the Prodigal was stating a fact about his younger son’s status and/or condition by speaking figuratively. The proper alternative to a figure of speech is a literal statement, not a factual statement.