Stuck at home with nothing to do? It’s never been better time to binge read about the life and teachings of Jesus. It's so easy and interesting with the the The Life and Teachings of Jesus 2020 Reading Plan. So turn off the TV and open your Bible and your heart to Jesus.

The Life and Teachings of Jesus – Week 15 – April 13-17:

Monday – Luke 6:43-45 (Matt. 7:15-20; 12:34-37): Continuing with His Sermon on the Plain, Jesus begins this warning with a horticultural axiom: “For no good tree bears bad fruit, not again does a bad tree bear good fruit” (v. 43). In other words, the tree determines the fruit (v. 44). This being the case, the human axiom is easily understood, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil” (v. 45a). Significantly, Jesus emphasizes here that the mouth is what provides the primary evidence of the state of one’s heart, “For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (v. 45b). In other words, the heart determines the words one speaks. A person can attempt an external veneer of goodness, but the truth will become known through their words.

Make a list of your most used words, topics of discussion, and the comments you often make throughout the day. If your list was all the evidence someone had to decide if you were a Christian or not, what would they say? How would they come to their conclusion? In what ways will you turn your heart toward Jesus so that the words you speak will reflect Him?   

Tuesday – Luke 6:46-49 (Matt. 7:21, 24-27): Luke concludes Jesus’ sermon to the disciples, as does Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount (7:24-27), with the parable of the Two Builders. As a lead up to His sermon, great crowds clamored to seek Jesus’ healing touch (ref. Luke 6:17-19). Now He provides an illustration of the importance of adding obedience to an eagerness to hear His message.  The parable is introduced with the disciples giving lip service to Jesus, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I tell you?” (vv. 46). So what is the antidote to false faith and discipleship? The answer is given in the three present tense verbs: coming, hearing, and doing (v. 47). These three qualities lay the foundation for genuine discipleship. The parable that follows illustrates the importance of acting on what one knows and hears from Jesus. Matthew’s version of the parable is about where one builds – on rock vs. sand. Luke’s version is about how one builds – with or without a foundation. Whoever builds their house (or life) on Jesus Christ and His words will not be shaken. Think about people you’ve known throughout the years.

Write about someone you know who built their life on the foundation of doing the Lord’s will. How did that firm foundation sustain them through life’s trials? Conversely, write about someone you know who didn’t build on the foundation of Jesus’ words they had heard taught.  How did their world fall apart?   

Wednesday – Matt. 8:5-13 (Luke 7:1-10): “When [Jesus] entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to Him, appealing to Him, ‘Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home suffering terribly’” (v. 5-6). In this time period, the Jewish lands of Israel were occupied by the hated Roman legion. While it was not unusual for someone to request a healing, this request came from a most unusual source. The centurion would have been a Gentile, the commander of a division of the occupying imperial force. Yet, with such authority backing him, the centurion approaches Jesus with remarkable respect. He submissively calls Him, “Lord.” He demonstrates a deep concern for the great suffering of one who was merely a “servant.” Jesus affirms His willingness to help, “I will come and heal him” (v. 7). But recognizing his own unworthiness for the Lord to come to his home, he amazingly believes in the Savior’s ability to cure his servant from a distance, merely by a word of command, “Only say the word and my servant will be healed” (v. 8). The centurion bases his belief not on Old Testament scripture or witnessing such a healing, but on his own experience with the military (v. 9). God has such authority, He can give the order for illness to be cured instantaneously and it will be done. “When Jesus heard this, He was amazed” (v. 10) at the depth of the man’s faith. “Truly, I tell you with no one in Israel have I found such faith.” Sadly, those closest to the truth faithlessly take it for granted whereas those who have had the least exposure to it more often readily recognize its power. 

It wasn’t often that Jesus was “amazed” (cf. v. 10; Mark 6:6; Luke 7:9), or complimented someone’s faith (v. 10; Matthew 15:28). Looking at your spiritual life, would Jesus compliment your faith? Would He be amazed at your lack of faith or your faithfulness? Explain.

Thursday – Luke 7:11-17: The death of a child is certainly one of the greatest agonies possible in this life – a burying of a part of oneself. It’s a burden that all parents dread to consider. Such untimely pain was the emotional context of Jesus’ next healing.  Of the all gospel writers, Luke alone captures this intensely poignant scene of a mother burying her only child. He clearly narrates this miracle as a sequel to the healing of the Centurion’s servant. At a distance of twenty-five miles, Nain lay a full day’s journey from Capernaum. As Jesus and His retinue approach the gate of the city, they meet a funeral procession coming out of the town. At this decisive point in community life, a grief-stricken widow and Jesus meet. “When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep” (v. 13). All of our Lord’s actions center on the plight of the mother rather than the son, much as in the preceding story where Jesus focused on the Centurion rather than the servant. With a touch and a word, Jesus gives life back to the young man and gave the young man “to his mother” (v. 15). The two crowds, first mentioned at the beginning of the scene, are present to witness, to interpret (v. 16) and to report this great miracle of resurrection (v. 17). And what a great miracle it was!

There is no request for help, no outward sign of faith from the widow. (Quite different from the centurion.) What do you learn about Jesus from how He responds to the widow’s plight?

Friday – Luke 7:18-35 (Matt. 11:2-19): As Jesus’ ministry expanded, that of John the Baptist suffered literal confinement (cf. Matthew 11:2). As John languished in prison, he became increasingly perplexed by the reports he heard of Jesus’ ministry. “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (v. 19, 20). Exactly why John questioned Jesus’ Messiahship is not revealed to us. Nevertheless, Jesus was not put off by John’s doubts. He responded with an eye-popping display of spiritual power (vv. 21). The Lord informed the messengers that His actions were fulfilling Messianic prophecies given to Isaiah (cf. 26:19; 29:18ff; 35:5ff; 61:1). The only hint of encouragement comes with the beatitude, “And blessed is the one who is not offended by me” (v. 23). The sense is, don’t be disappointed in the way I choose to work, just believe I am He who is to come. More than ever, we need to live out this beatitude. Then, lest anyone wrongly begins to depreciate John’s ministry, a situation the Savior would not let go unchecked, He issues this praise, “I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John” (v. 28a). Even the greatest, most faithful man ever, could doubt.

Reflect on Jesus’ response to John’s doubt. How does it reveal His sympathy for John’s spiritual crisis? Have you ever experienced a spiritual crisis? If so, when? How did Jesus help you through that experience?

Sunday, April 12^th, 9:15 AM:  Facebook Live study on Titus 1.

Sunday, April 12th, 10:15 AM: YouTube worship service. Sermon title: "The Pattern of the Resurrection”

Sunday, April 12th, 5 PM: Zoom Bible study on the parable of the two sons and the parable of the tenants.

Wednesday, April 15th, 7 PM: Facebook Live study on intercession.

The other day, I found myself going through some hymns of hope and comfort that a hymn blogger has been posting daily through the coronavirus pandemic.  The style (organ plus choir) isn’t my thing; from my perspective, you’ve got a nasty instrument drowning out the good parts.  However, the hymns themselves were generally quite good, even the ones we don’t sing, like “All My Hope on God Is Founded”.

In time, I came to this version of “How Firm a Foundation”.  I was particularly interested in it; after all, the very title of my blog comes from the hymn!  Rather than the lyrics I’ve known all my life, though, here’s how the first verse went:

How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in God’s excellent word;
What more can be said than to you God has said,
You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

My first thought was, “Ewww!  Were the hymnal editors allergic to pronouns?”  My second thought was, “No; they’re only allergic to masculine pronouns.”

Gender-neutrality in hymns has been a topic of discussion for several decades if not more.  I find some forms of it to be utterly unobjectionable (writing hymns that refer to both men and women) and others to be mildly so (rewriting older hymns to refer to both men and women).  However, I have serious problems with taking hymns that refer to God as Father and King and rewriting them so that God is no longer even masculine.

First, the only way to justify such a change is to perform some dramatic surgery on the Bible too.  How many times in Scripture is God a He or a Him?  How many times in the New Testament is He the Father?  How many times in the Psalms is He King?  Reading out of a Bible that says such things on the one hand and singing hymns that deny their truth on the other creates massive cognitive dissonance.

(Yes; I am aware that there are Scriptural texts--Isaiah 49:15, for instance--that compare God to a woman.  In 1 Thessalonians 2:7, Paul compares himself to a woman.  That doesn’t mean that Paul was feminine.)

To be quite frank, we live in a society that needs to spend more time considering the patriarchal authority of God, not less.  I don’t think it’s coincidence that the same folks who deny God’s masculinity also reject what the word of God has to say about sex and gender roles (and many other things).  At that point, regardless of what they might think about their “worship”, they are not prostrating themselves before Him in any meaningful sense.  We don’t need hymnals that encourage us to abandon reverence and subjection.  We need the opposite.

Finally, it shows a great deal of disdain for the hymnists of earlier eras, their convictions, and their work.  I’m as sure as I can be that if I had asked Robert Keene (the probable author of “How Firm a Foundation”) if God was masculine, he would have replied incredulously, “Of course!”, and he certainly would not have approved stripping out the evidence of His masculinity from his hymn.

Such lack of respect is par for the course for our amnesiac society.  We are very concerned about diversity and honoring the views of people from the different cultures of our time, but we have zero interest in (dead white male) voices from the cultures of the past.  In fact, we’re so willing to stifle them that we’ll do a hack job on a great hymn, rendering a beautiful line ugly and graceless, just to make sure that it expresses our viewpoint rather than the author’s.  Diversity that ain’t.

In Romans 8:15, Paul notes that we have received a spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out, “Abba!  Father!”  If, on the other hand, we no longer are willing to cry out, “Abba, Father!”, well, that too reveals a great deal about the spirit that is in us.

Even as the epidemic continues to ravage the United States, the blame game is already ramping up.  It’s the fault of the Chinese.  It’s President Trump’s fault.  It’s the fault of the CDC.  It’s the fault of those moronic Gen-Z spring-breakers.  And so on.  COVID-19 will have run its course in a year or two, but I would imagine the culpability debate will outlive me.

There’s a sense in which all of this is quite reasonable.  We are faced with a generational tragedy, and already it has become apparent that not all the decision-makers involved have done everything exactly right.  It’s fairly easy to indict any of the above people or groups for what they did or didn’t do. 

However, foolishness and poor judgment has been par for the course for the human race since the beginning.  As a history enthusiast, I’ve read countless books that show how the failures of some leader led to catastrophe.  The story of the Civil War (the period of history I know best) is a story of if-onlys.  If only McClellan had been willing to launch a final assault during the battle of Antietam!  If only Lee had declined battle at Gettysburg and sought a better opportunity through maneuver!  Nearly every battle in the war is defined by someone’s consequential mistake.

In short, the flawed people and organizations of today have plenty of company.  Theoretically, all of them could have done better than they did.  Practically, humankind never does do better. 

Our power exceeds our wisdom.  Our ability to predict the future is not nearly as good as we think it is.  We think of ourselves as rational actors, but when we most need to think clearly, our judgment instead is clouded by our desires and fears. 

However, we find these truths about ourselves difficult to face.  It’s easier to play the blame game, to pretend that with the right leaders and policies, we would have gotten it right, and indeed that once we put the right leaders and policies in place, from now on, everything will be right.  It’s easier to pretend that we are imperfect but capable of perfection.

Rather than calling us to better performance, though, these tragedies should remind us of our inherent fallibility.  In reality, the new policies and leaders will fail somewhere like the old policies and leaders did.  There will be new catastrophes and new disasters, every one of them avoidable--in retrospect.  Our striving for perfection is a doomed struggle.

Instead, we should strive for humility and grace.  It is not only the powerful who have failed and always will fail.  It is our families, our friends, our co-workers, our brethren, and ourselves.  We shouldn’t think that we will get it right, nor should we expect others to.  Failure is part of the human condition.

Above all, we should learn to rely on God, precisely because He is not like us.  We don’t know what we’re doing, but He does.  The future is hidden from us, but He sees the end from the beginning.  We continually fail, but His word continually accomplishes His will. 

Rather than pretending that we’ve got it figured out, or even that we have the capacity to figure it out, we need to follow and trust Him.  This is true when His will makes sense to us but especially when it doesn’t.  Regardless of how it seems to us, we never will put a foot wrong when we walk in His footsteps.

Throughout this crisis, then, seek God.  Continue to seek Him when it is over.  Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

Luke 6:20-49 is often described as the Sermon on the Plain, as opposed to the Sermon on the Mount.  There are many explanations for the similarities and differences in content between the two sermons, but I believe the simplest one is the best.  Like most preachers, Jesus was willing to preach the same sermon to different audiences, adapting his content to the need of the moment.

One of the most obvious differences between the Beatitudes as presented in Luke 6:20-21, rather than Matthew 5:3-10, is the physical focus of the former.  Matthew 5:3 speaks of the poor in spirit; Luke 6:20 speaks simply of the poor.  Matthew 5:6 is about those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; Luke 6:21 is about those who are hungry.  

So too, the woes of Luke 6:24-26 are concerned with the physical condition of the hearers.  It is those who are literally rich, well-fed, happy, and honored who should be concerned.

At first glance, this appears to be class warfare written into the pages of the New Testament.  Poor = good, rich = bad.  However, such a flat reading harmonizes poorly with other texts, such as 1 Timothy 6:17-19.  There, Paul is quite clear that in order to please God, the rich don’t have to become poor.  They merely have to become rich in good works.  The rich can be righteous, and the poor can be wicked.

Instead, we need to read Luke 6 not only in the context of the rest of the text of Luke, but in the context of its time and place.  Here, as in many places in the gospels, the Great Revolt and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 is lurking just offstage.  We must consider Jesus’ words with that calamity in mind.

During that time, though the Romans certainly did destroy Jerusalem, their work was not limited to its immediate area.  Instead, they crushed the Jewish rebellion throughout Galilee and Judea.  Nor were the legions troubled by modern-day concerns like good optics and minimizing collateral damage.  From their perspective, collateral damage was a feature, not a bug.  The more horribly the Jewish people suffered, the less likely other subject peoples would be to defy the majesty of Rome.

As a result, the decade around the destruction of the Temple was a pretty terrible time to be a prosperous Jew.  If you had it, the Romans were going to take it away from you.  Jesus’ prophecy proved exactly correct.  The rich did become destitute.  The well-fed did become hungry.  The laughing did weep. 

Because everybody was going to end up with nothing, those who started with nothing had an important advantage.  In Jesus’ time, the literally poor, hungry, and grieving were most likely to listen to Him because they didn’t like the status quo.  Even today, people whose lives aren’t going well are more likely to listen to the gospel than people who are prospering.  Hard times predispose people to change.

As a result, even though they didn’t realize it, the poor who followed Jesus were making the best preparations possible for the painful years ahead.  On the other hand, the rich thought they had everything figured out but weren’t truly prepared.  Poverty is nobody’s idea of a good time, but even it can be blessed if it causes us to turn to the Lord.