Three Transformed Men

The apostle Paul’s letter to his friend Philemon offers a portrait of three transformed men. Paul, a man who once seized Christians, confining them to prison, was now a prisoner himself, and that because he had become a Christian. Onesimus, a runaway slave who was considered useless by his master, Philemon, had become useful to Paul and, Paul assures, to Philemon. Philemon was transformed from Onesimus’ master to Onesimus’ slave. 

Three men, very different backgrounds, social standing, and life experiences, all transformed from who they were to who they now are. And the transformations that had taken place were not minor tweaks to their behavior or outlook on the world. These were radical metamorphoses that put the men at odds with their former selves and the world they inhabited. Why and how had this taken place? Each one of them had become united to Christ. And having become united to Christ, he was at work in them to transform them more and more into who they were in him.

This is the inevitable result of a person becoming a Christian. When someone responds to the gospel call, the same grace that enabled that one to ‘hear’ is at work in that person to change him or her into who they were created to be: “little Christs.” C.S. Lewis asserts that each believer is being shaped “into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity.” And why shaped to be like Christ and not just a cleaned up version of our old selves?  Because Christ was the “one man who really was what all men were intended to be.” For Lewis, therefore, the transformation from unreal man into real man is the goal of Christian discipleship. Indeed, “it is the whole of Christianity.”

I believe there are  three components of this change evident in Paul’s letter to his friend: humility, love for Christ, and love for Christ’s church. All three men were humbled by the reality of the gospel, causing them to forsake whatever foolish notions stood in the way of walking with Christ. In all three, love for Christ is evident in their willingness to pick up their cross and follow him wherever he led them. And love for Christ’s church is demonstrated in Paul’s joy at hearing of Philemon’s love for the saints, Philemon’s ready engaging in koinonia, and Onesimus laboring along side of Paul in his imprisonment. The presumption behind all of these components is the presence of the Holy Spirit imparting new life, Jesus’ life.

We do not need to remain mired in our old selves. New life is ours in Christ. It may lead us into difficult places, challenging us to confront the fallenness in ourselves and the world, but I think Lewis is right when he says, “Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”

Pentecostal Preaching, Part 2

Peter stepped into the God-given moment. Through faith in Christ, he and John had healed a lame man who came daily to the temple to beg for alms. The incident caused a great stir and Peter preached to the gathered crowd. While the circumstance of the sermon was different than the first he had preached, the content reflected the same commitments: it was biblically driven, had Christ as its subject, was courageous in its pronouncements, and called for the people listening to be intellectually honest (see previous post). It was solid pentecostal preaching. There is an additional component to pentecostal preaching, however, that shows up in these seminal sermons: the call for repentance.

What is repentance? In the words of one commentator, it’s a “spiritual about face.” This definition is helpful. Peter is bold to point out to his listeners that they had conspired and “denied the Holy and Righteous One . . . and killed the Author of life.” The first thing, therefore, that the crowd needed to repent of was their antipathy toward Jesus. No longer could they regard him as they had. The categories they had placed Jesus in that allowed them to dismiss him as a charlatan had to be renounced. His divine messiahship had been vindicated in the phenomena that were taking place and a “spiritual about face” was called for.

So, added to the characteristics of what constitutes pentecostal preaching is the call for repentance. But it’s important to note the order of repentance that Peter summons. The first thing that anyone needs to do is abandon their condemning conceptions of Christ. This is primary, for it’s only when a person in is union with the “Author of life” that calls for moral reformation make any sense. To repent of moral failures but not be brought into fellowship with Christ accomplishes no eternal good. A cleaned up pagan is in no better position before God than a thoroughly debauched one. What unbelievers need to do is “repent and be baptized . . . in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of [their] sins.” 

Though it might seem self-evident, Christ needs to be kept front and center as we bear witness to him. It’s Jesus that people need to know. Once that is settled, calls to live in a manner that is pleasing to God can follow.

Getting It Right about Sex

There’s a catchy definition sometimes offered for the biblical term justified. What does justified mean? It means “just as if I’d never sinned.” It leaves too much unexplained, but in essence it’s true. Being justified through faith in Christ we are considered in the courtroom of heaven to be as one who never sinned. However, we have sinned. And though our sins will not be held against us, they too often continue to define us. The apostle Paul understood this and sought to encourage a practical righteousness in the newly declared righteous Thessalonians. In particular, he was concerned with how they exercised their sexual capacities (1 Thessalonians 4:1-8).

The prevailing norm for these former pagans was far from the biblical norm (the norm that Paul would have instructed them in), but not all that far from the prevailing norm of our day. As such, the baggage they carried into their walk of discipleship is carried by many coming into the church today. This will likely require a complete overhaul of their presuppositions about engaging in sex, and Paul’s instructions to the Thessalonians is as good a place as any to start. Taking control of one’s body (“vessel” in the Greek, which some scholars take to mean not the body in general but genitalia), having regard for how one’s actions affect others, and understanding that “whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit” to his children for the purpose of transforming them, will set new Christians on the road to realizing the divinely expected holiness in their lives.

We all struggle with the “old self,” which, in the words of the apostle, “belongs to [our] former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.” The call is to “be renewed in the spirit of [our] minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24). While this is so in every aspect of our thinking and doing, of particular prominence is understanding how and why God has made us sexual beings. Misuse of this capacity has caused a great deal of harm. Out of love for God and neighbor we want to get it right.

Willing Obedience

Obedience is ________ .

How do you fill in the blank? Difficult? Necessary? Detestable? How about enjoyable? Given our innate rebelliousness, ‘joyful’ does not likely spring to mind. We have a hard time with obedience. There’s something deep within us that does not like being told what to do, at least without an avenue of appeal.

On the one hand, the inclination to disobey can be a good thing. It helps people resist the despotic behavior of power hungry men. Shiphrah and Puah, for example, two Hebrew midwives who ignored Pharaoh’s murderous orders are rewarded by God for their disobedience (Exodus 1:15-21). And the underground resistance movements of World War 2 did much to undermine Nazi Germany’s efforts to subjugate the continent. Not obeying can be good when what is being required is immoral.

But our relationship with God’s authority is another matter. He has set the terms of our existence and it is the case that there is no avenue of appeal when it comes to God’s laws. But unlike the self-promoting and self-protecting laws of tyrants, his are given out of love. In fact, his call to obedience is a call to joy. He knows what we were made for and how we can best experience the fullness of our humanity. So, why do human beings have such a problem with yielding to God’s rule? It’s the innate rebelliousness alluded to above. Even when blessing is promised for obedience and punishment for disobedience, we are unwilling to obey.

The situation changes, however, when, by faith, we are brought into union with Christ. Our lack of obedience has been filled up with Christ’s obedience and we possess a new relationship with God. Now, the fruit of salvation is ours for the harvesting. As a bonus, we are not on our own to pursue the expected obedience. We are told that God is at work in us changing our desires to conform to his desires and supplying the power we need to walk in his will. As Paul exhorts his beloved friends in Philippi: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (2:12-13). Perhaps this is part of what delights Paul when at the very beginning of his letter he writes,  “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now” (1:3-5). He knows the joy that’s in store for them as they pursue the will of God together. 

Obedience is ________. How do you fill in the blank? By God's grace you can say, 'joyful.'

Rocky Starts, Strong Finishes

The reign of Saul, Israel’s first king, was a disaster. It began with the demand of a willful and faithless people and ended with an ignominious death. There was little to commend it. Though the start of the monarchy in Israel was ill conceived and poorly executed, it nevertheless proved glorious.

Glorious might seem an odd adjective given what one reads about the kings who reigned in the Northern and Southern kingdoms. There are many, many more Saul-like failures than there are successes. But the glory of the monarchy is ultimately not realized in the earthly reigns of fallen men. Rather, it is ultimately realized in the one who sits enthroned as the King of kings and Lord of lords. As such, what began badly has ended (and will end) wonderfully.

This is the very nature of the gospel. God takes broken circumstances and people and transform them. Each of us was brought to Christ when we were willful and faithless and by his power and through his mercy, he redeems us so that we will end better than we began. Understanding this, none who read this should think themselves beyond hope. Your willfulness and faithlessness, no matter how horribly it has been expressed, is not irredeemable. If you repent and submit yourself to the kingship of Christ you will be held fast by the one who takes rocky starts and turns them into strong finishes.