I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:  preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.  For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,  and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.  As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. [2 Timothy 4:1-5, ESV]

What does it mean to “do the work of an evangelist”? Evangelist derives from the Greek verb ευαγγελίζω. Both ευαγγελίζω and its cognate noun ευαγγελίον derive from a compound of ευ- (good) and άγγελoς (messenger). It is often translated as “good news” and in the New Testament it is applied exclusively to the unique message of the life and works of Jesus.

The nature of the gospel, no matter what age or language we are speaking in, is the life and works of Jesus [1 Corinthians 15:1-11]. It is not about world views or comparative religion. It is not a catechism or bullet point list of things we must give our consent to. It is not even about the conversion of unbelievers. It is the presentation of Jesus Christ to those who need to meet him – period.

In Galatians, the Apostle Paul makes it plain that the true gospel is distinguished from other (έτερος or “different”) gospels because the true gospel is ουκ κατά άνθρωπον – not after/by man. The gospel is not defined by men but by He who Is the Gospel – Jesus Christ. So, in Biblical evangelism we must first recognize that the gospel is not some system devised by man – whether that system is Jewish legalism or the Golden Keys of Soul-winning or the Finney-esque altar call – but the person of Jesus Christ.

Thanks to Erik at re:Fundamentals

“I am not at a loss to tell you that it could not be for any good thing in Jacob, that God loved him, because I am told that “the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election might stand, not of works but of him that calleth.” I can tell you the reason why God loved Jacob; It is sovereign grace. There was nothing in Jacob that could make God love him; there was everything about him, that might have made God hate him, as much as he did Esau, and a great deal more. But it was because God was infinitely gracious, that he loved Jacob, and because he was sovereign in his dispensation of this grace, that he chose Jacob as the object of that love. Now, I am not going to deal with Esau, until I have answered the question on the side of Jacob. I want just to notice this, that Jacob was loved of God, simply on the footing of free grace.”

C. H. Spugeon’s sermon, preached on Sunday, January 16th, 1859

So I’m slowly making my way through Hebrews and come to a complete halt at 11:24-26.  A familiar passage to us:

“ By faith, when he grew up, Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be ill-treated with the people of God than to enjoy sin’s fleeting pleasure. He regarded abuse suffered for Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for his eyes were fixed on the reward. ”

(Hebrews 11:24–26, NET)

Moses makes a costly demonstration of his God-imparted faith by throwing his lot in with despised and enslaved Hebrew people.  Why would he prefer the poor treatment of a slave over the regal lifestyle of royalty?  The answer is stunning!  Moses considered the abuse he suffered, at the hands of the Egyptians, as having done so for Christ.  And what more, he considered this abuse as wealth!  Abuse as wealth?  Yep.  Why did he view abuse as greater than the gold of Egypt?  Moses was a Christian Hedonist. Sorry, I slipped into Piper-land for a moment. But in all seriousness, Moses has his eyes set on something that supernaturally alters that which is Ugly–>Beautiful and Beautiful–>Ugly.

I’m looking for my readers (all 3 of yal) to chime in with some thoughts.  It’s not a matter of whether the passage is intellectually understandable.  Sure I get it, in my head.  But have I experienced it.  Or a bigger and tougher question.  Would I gladly welcome this kind of affliction if it were the only way for me to treasure Christ properly?

What Say You?

Solomon has just completed building the temple of the Lord, dedicating it with joy and prayer (chp. 7). He begins a period of wider building once the temple and his house are build. He takes cities from rival people, builds walls and gates, establishes fortified supply cities throughout, and places the men of Israel in key leadership positions (8:1-10). He offers burnt offerings, observes the special feasts commanded in the Law, and organizes temple worship in keeping with David’s commands, finishing all the work before him (8:12-18).

But in the middle of all this accomplishment, verse 11 sticks out like a giant aching thumb. The king has an Egyptian wife; he has married outside of Israel. Apparently, he recognizes something of the inconsistency. He decides that an unholy wife shouldn’t live in the places made holy by the ark’s presence.

(House of Pharaoh's Daughter - King Solomon's wife or Queen - King Solomon's Citadel)

But is this repentance? Is this turning from the act of disobedience? Of a sort, perhaps? But it’s hardly warfare against sin. It would seem to be the mandatory motions of religious sensibility, which demand a certain decorum but neglects deeper realities.

We don’t wish to beat up on Solomon as though inconsistency belongs to him alone. How often are we tempted to coddle our sins in more secret places, out of sight of the Most Holy, rather than repent of it altogether and casting it out of our lives completely? How tempting it is to keep our sins safely tucked away for future use rather than hating and killing our sin. We’re not too unlike Solomon whenever we make political alliances with our sins instead of abandoning ourselves more completely to God.

Even if all around us is success, we may then be laying the grounds for our own defeat. Visible success is no measure of genuine godliness. Outward results may simply mask inward failure. And the seed of our failure is planted in the secret, safe grounds of far away houses that the godly among us cannot observe. We all have places in us where we may hide and store things, places no one has access to unless we open it to them. Those are the most dangerous places of all. Those are the places most needing light. the things we place there are the things most needing discovery and death because they’re ultimately the most dangerous and damning.

Oh, Lord, keep me from delighting in secret sin. Keep me from building private residences for disobedience. Make me ruthless with all that opposes your holy word and your glorious Name. Do this with all you people, O Lord, our Sovereign King and Redeemer.

Thanks to Thabiti Anyabwile

The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.  Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.
Acts 17:10-11

1. Faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:14-15). We cannot call on Jesus unless we believe in him and we cannot believe in him unless we hear of him from the lips of a herald. Faith begins with words.
2. God has chosen word-gifts and word-offices to build up the church (Eph. 4:11-12).
3. God creates through his word (cf. Gen. 1; Col. 1:16). God’s work of creation is always a speech act.
4. God regenerates through his word. We are born again through the living and abiding word of God (1 Peter 1:23). And “word” here is not merely Jesus Christ, but the preaching Peter’s audience had received (v. 25).
5. God’s people are called to follow his commands and keep the laws. Jesus exhorted “if you love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15; cf. Deut. 11:1). We cannot love unless we are obedient and we cannot obey unless we are instructed in the law of the Lord. That is why the Psalmist not only rejoices in the person of God, but delights in his decrees and statutes (Psalm 119:16, 24).
6. Throughout the Bible, there is an unmistakable priority of hearing over sight. In distinction to the popular religions around them, God insisted that he was a God who would be unseen (cf. Exodus 20:3-4). When Moses asked to see God, the Lord refused, saying, “You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live” (33:20). Instead, God caused his goodness to pass in front of Moses by proclaiming his name–“Yahweh”–and declaring his character–“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (33:19). Biblical faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Heb. 11:1; cf. 1 Peter 1:8).

1. All the corporate worship we know of in the early church is saturated with words. While there are many things we don’t know about the worship of the early church in the Bible, we do know that they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42). We know they were devoted to the public reading of Scripture (1 Tim. 4:13). We know they brought hymns, words of instruction, revelations, tongues and interpretations (1 Cor. 14:26). In other words, while we can make inferences and prudential judgments about the role of visual arts in worship, we know for certain that their gatherings were infused with words.
2. Jesus Christ is the preexistent, incarnate, eternal, Word of God (John 1:1). It is sometimes objected that our focus in worship is to be on the Word (Jesus) not the word (the Bible). This is surely true. We worship Christ not the Scriptures. But the argument goes too far if it places a wedge between the incarnate Word of God (Jesus) and the word of God (Scripture). We don’t believe the Bible is Jesus Christ, but let us not miss the connection between the Word and the word. God created by means of the eternal Logos–his wisdom, his speech, his voice, his word. At the same time, we know that God created by and in Jesus Christ. Both truths demonstrate that the Logos is the mediating agent in all of creation and revelation, whether by means of the Divine Voice or incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ. In other words, the Word we see revealed and embodied in Jesus, is the same Word we meet in God’s self-disclosure in the pages of Scripture.
3. Paul places a high value on maximum intelligibility in corporate worship (1 Cor. 14:1-25). There are times and places for ambiguity and subtlety. Corporate worship, however, is for proclamation. And words are the least ambiguous (though not always crystal-clear themselves) means by which the truth can be proclaimed. Dance can honor God, painting can praise our Maker, and music can please the Lord, but no other art form can proclaim the truth with as much shared intelligibility as words. Even the parables, which are often cited as encouragement for using stories and drama, were too ambiguous. That’s why Jesus told parables: to be unclear. “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you,” Jesus told his disciples. “But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven” (Mark 4:11-12).
4. Jesus was a preacher. “But he said, ‘I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent’” (Luke 4:43).
5. The church was founded on the teaching of the apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20; cf. John 16:13).
6. Teaching-preaching was a normative part of early Christian worship. The first Christians inherited from the Jews a strong tradition of teaching and preaching (cf. Acts 13:14-16; 15:21). From at least the time of Ezra, for example, we know that the Levites “helped the people understand the law.” They “read from the book, from the law of God, clearly; and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (Nehemiah 6:7-8; cf. 2 Chronicles 15:3). We see this same emphasis in the New Testament church. Paul was preeminently a preacher (Ephesians 3:7-9). He commanded Timothy mainly to preach and teach (1 Tim. 4:13) and to instruct others in the same (2 Tim. 4:2). Titus’ primary instructions are concerned with teaching what is in accord with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1). One of the main roles of the elder was to teach (1 Tim. 3:2; cf. Acts 6:2), so much so that “the elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching” (1 Tim. 5:17). Clearly, the authoritative teaching and preaching of Scripture was a normative part of the early Christian gatherings, if not the central event of their meeting together.
7. We live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4).
8. The gospel is first of all news (Rom 10:15). Words must be central in corporate worship because the gospel is first and foremost a message–not an experience or an expression or even a command, but a declaration of good news.
9. Powerful emotional experiences come through Holy Spirit anointed preaching. Giving priority to the word, does not mean short-circuiting our affections. Our aim is not wise and persuasive words, but a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words (1 Cor. 2:4, 13). True preaching does not simply fill our heads with knowledge, but removes the veil from our eyes (2 Cor. 4:3) and clearly portrays Christ crucified (Gal. 3:1).
10. The word of God is no dead letter. It is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing soul and spirit, joint and marrow, and judging the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12; cf. Acts 2:37).
11. Transformation into Christ-likeness is not less than a mental-cognitive activity. We need words and truths in order that we might be transformed by the renewing of our minds and reach maturity in the knowledge of the Son of God (Romans 12:1-2; Eph. 4:13).
12. Jesus abides in us through his words. There is no rigid distinction between the person of the Jesus and the words of Jesus. We know Jesus through his words. “If you abide in me and my words abide in you,” Jesus tells his disciples, “ask whatever you wish and it will be given you” (John 15:7). For Jesus the two are interchangeable: remaining in him and his words remaining in us. When his words abide in us, we abide in him.
13. The promises of God sustain us in hard times. For example, the Psalmist says, “My comfort in suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life” (Psalm 119:49). And, “If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction” (119:92). And “I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word” (119:147). Only the word of God has the power to keep us going when life grinds us down.
14. God has exalted above all things his name and his word (Psalm 138:2).
15. When all else passes away, the word of God will remain (Isa 40:7-8; 1 Peter 1:24-25).
16. Our only weapon in spiritual warfare is the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God (Eph. 6:10-18; Matt. 4:1-11). We fight the devil’s temptations to disobedience and despair by claiming the promises of God and knowing who God declares us to be; that is, we resist the devil with words and by belief in God’s words to us.
17. All of Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16).
18. Through God’s great and precious promises, we are able to participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires (2 Peter 1:4).
19. The Scriptures cannot be broken (John 10:35). There is much flexibility when it comes to corporate worship, but since we know that the Scriptures are inviolable, and that we are sanctified by the truth, and that the word is truth (John 17:17), we would be foolish if we did not make a priority that which we know has the power to save, transform, and endure.

Thanks to Kevin DeYoung

Here our interest is the expressions ‘being predestined…according to the good pleasure of His will’ (Eph 1:5), ‘the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him’ (vs 9), ‘having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will’ (vs 11). The central issue of the plan of salvation can be staked on these expressions. This latter expression is surely the will unto salvation revealed in the gospel with which the whole passage is concerned. As respects both – predestination and the mystery of His will – it is to trifle with the plain import of the terms, and with the repeated emphasis, to impose upon the terms any determining factor arising from the will of man. If he meant to say anything in these expressions in verses 5, 9 and 11, it is that God’s predestination, and His will to salvation, proceeds from the pure sovereignty and absolute determination of His counsel. It is the unconditioned and unconditional election of God’s grace.