Trust AND Obey » Bible

Beautiful ‘Buts’ in the Bible

Dave Miller — Fri, 07 May 2010 12:00:12 +0000

The word ‘but’ changes whatever comes right before it. A ‘but’ is not always pleasant, like when somebody says to you, “I think you have a good idea, but…” It doesn’t matter what comes after a but like that, it isn’t going to be good.

But a ‘but’ is beautiful when it changes a bad beginning into a good end. For example, “I was sick last week but I got better” or “I once was lost but now am found.”

Here are some of my favorite buts in the New Testament

Matthew 4:4 – But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” (Quoting Deut. 8:3)

John 1:17 – For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

John 3:17 – For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

Romans 5:8 – But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 11:22 – Behold then the kindness and severity of God ; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness ; otherwise you also will be cut off.

1 Corinthians 15: 56-57 NKJV – The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 John 4:10 – In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Revelation 21:27 – and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Each of these verses contrasts two different states of being. Death and Life. Romans 6:23 makes this clearer, perhaps, than any other verse in the bible. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. I think this is the most beautiful but in the Bible.

Here is where I usually spend time summing up the point, but my words are useless. Read God’s word through His servant Paul.

Ephesians 2:1-10 – And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved ), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Truth.

The First Covenant

Dave Miller — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:09:25 +0000

In a recent bible study I attended, the leader said that God’s first covenant with mankind was with Abraham in which God promised that He would give Abraham innumerable descendents and set aside a land for them. This covenant is found in Genesis 15:5-18. While this is a very important covenant, and was one of the first promises that pointed toward Jesus, it was not the first covenant between God and His creation, man.

The first covenant that God made with His creation is found in Genesis 2:16-17. It is known as the Adamic Covenant. I have heard some theologians refer to it as a ‘covenant of works’ since it was based on Adam and Eve not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I have also heard it said that faith was not necessary for Adam and Eve because they were in the presence of God every day in the Garden of Eden. After all, why do you need faith to believe in a God that is walking and talking with you every day? While all of this may be true on the surface, there was most certainly an element of faith in this first covenant.

In Genesis 3:1, apparently while the woman was alone in the garden, the serpent (Satan) asks Eve a question, “Has God really said that you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?” Eve responds by saying “No. God has said we may eat of all the trees except one, otherwise we will die.” Satan was and is very crafty and replied with a lie, “You shall not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of the fruit, you will become like God.”

Here is the first test of faith in the bible. Eve is confronted with a very real dilemma – conflicting testimonies; the first lie from the father of lies. (John 8:44)
Here is this crafty serpent telling her that God has some secret reason for making the rule against eating the fruit of the tree; He wants to keep her down.
Here is the serpent telling Eve that she will not die – calling God a liar.
Here is Eve tempted to want more that what God has given her.

Pride, covetousness and selfishness (the very things that caused Satan to fall) enter into her heart and she was faced with a crisis of faith. Not faith in regard to whether God exists or not, but rather, whether or not God is trustworthy. Whether or not His word is truth.

Eve desired the control that the knowledge of good and evil would give, though it was not hers to possess. Further, when Adam saw that Eve didn’t die immediately, he may have thought he had reason to doubt God’s word. He partook in the selfish desires of his heart and ate of the fruit.

Adam and Eve may not have needed faith to believe in God, but they needed faith to believe God. The element of faith that was a part of their covenant with God (trust) was thus broken; the element of works (obedience) was also broken, and all humankind was stained with the sin of our parents.

Each of us faces the same crisis of faith every single day. No matter how long we have been Christians, the temptation is always there to covet God’s power and usurp his authority through self-reliance. In this life, none of us will ever be truly righteous (Romans 3:10), none of us will ever be without sin (1 John 1:10). We will always fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), failing to love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength (Luke 10:27). It is only by leaning completely on Him who died that we are granted the ability to become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). Don’t trust your own wisdom or understanding. (Proverbs 3:5) Trust (have faith) only in Him (Isaiah 26:4), and Obey (work) His commandments (John 14:15).

Paper-thin Bible Study

Dave Miller — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:05:14 +0000

Welcome to our bible study. Today we will be covering Paul’s letters; all of them. We might even throw in Hebrews if we have time.

Open your bibles to Romans 1:1 and follow along as I read, “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, set apart for the gospel of God,” Well that’s all the time we have for Romans. There’s really not much more to it, a lot of theology and rules and things. What we have learned so far is that Paul is a servant of Jesus. That will really help us in part two of our lesson. If you must go deeper, you can read Romans 8:28 which says that God gives us everything we want. Be sure you don’t read any further into chapter 1 and stay away from chapter 9.

Let’s start into Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. Look at 1 Corinthians 1:2, “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus.” Wow that’s a big word. What does sanctified mean? I guess since it is written to the church it means that everyone in the church is sanctified. That’s good news to all of us and that about does it for Corinthians. Everyone in the church at Corinth was sanctified, that’s all you really need to remember. Be sure to avoid chapters five, six, eleven and twelve if you insist on reading more.

Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians are all pretty much the same book. Paul talks about living a good life. Ephesians 5:1 really sums up everything in these four books. ” Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;” That’s what we all are, children of God.

The two books of Thessalonians are next in our study. Let’s start with 1 Thessalonians 1:6, “You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit.” Well, here we have a mention of the Holy Spirit which, along with the previous verses about God and Jesus make up the Trinity. That pretty much covers all we need to know about God. Let’s move on.

Timothy and Titus were both ministers that Paul was writing to and since none of you are ministers, there’s really not much point in going into them. If any of you are thinking of going into the ministry, they’ll probably make you read them in seminary.

Philemon is the shortest of Paul’s letters and it will take us very little time to study it.

Thank you for attending Bible Study today. It looks like we’re out of time so we’ll save Hebrews for another day.

Obviously this is an exaggeration, but have you ever attended a bible study like this? The leader of such a study is plowing a furrow ten miles long and a tenth of an inch deep. It is useless for planting anything. A good teacher could spend an hour talking about 2 Corinthians 5:21 alone. Covering entire chapters of the bible in a matter of minutes is an insult to the intelligence of the believers attending and does no justice to the Word of God.

How is God glorified with such paper-thin bible study?

John 3:16 – A Verb Study

Dave Miller — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:00:33 +0000

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16

One of the best ways to begin to properly interpret an individual verse of scripture is to look at the action verbs. These verbs almost always point to the primary meaning of the verse. Of course, context is supremely important, but if you want the gist of an individual verse, take a look at the verbs.

In John 3:16, the first half of the statement has two verbs, loved and gave. Both of these verbs are actions that are done by the same person, God. God loved and God gave. What is the object of these verbs? The world and Jesus. God loved the world, God gave (the world) Jesus. The most important part of this half of the verse is God’s love and God’s gift.

Now the second half; the action verb here is believes. Who is doing the believing? Whoever. That’s right, whoever. No exclusions; not Jews only, not men only, anyone. Whoever believes what? Whoever believes in Jesus.

So, first God loved, then God gave, so that whoever believed would what? Live forever! Never die!

God does two things – He loves and He gives. We do one thing, believe. Then God does something else, He grants us eternal life. It seems strange that with God doing and doing and doing that anything would depend on us doing anything. So that is the question I leave you with.

Does not our belief also come from God?

On Women Pastors

Dave Miller — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:43:03 +0000

Earlier today, a friend on Facebook asked me my opinion on women pastors. My opinion doesn’t matter, so I told him what I have found in the Bible. If you disagree, or have another view, please post a comment with the biblical basis for your belief.

I still have much to learn, but this seems rather plain to me.

The Bible doesn’t bar women from teaching altogether, just from teaching and having authority over men in the assembly. For that reason, I have to say that female pastors and elders are unbiblical. 1 Tim.2:8-15. That said, I have met some very godly women who have the gift of teaching and use it as God intends.

Titus 2:3 says that older women are to teach what is good. Acts 18:26 tells of the beginnings of the ministry of Apollos. One of his teachers was Priscilla. Clearly, even in the early church, women teaching was approved and even encouraged in certain situations. I don’t think that has changed and we shouldn’t put unbiblical restrictions on women who have the gift of teaching.

A common counter-argument is “Paul is just stating a cultural or religious difference that doesn’t apply to us today.” But Paul doesn’t appeal to cultural or religious examples for the reasons behind his statement. In 1 Tim. 2:13-14, Paul uses the example found in Genesis 3 of the woman supplanting the authority of the man and deciding to eat the fruit and encouraging Adam to do the same. Look at Gen. 3:9, who does God call to account for the sin? Not Satan, not Eve, but Adam. The man is held accountable.

The problem in the modern church isn’t only that women want to do what God has said they shouldn’t, (like Eve) but also that men let women usurp the authority that God intended for them (like Adam). The “adolescentizing” (to mint a word) of the American male is behind this problem. Many men would rather play with their toys than lead a community of believers. But that’s another rant for another time.

Dear Timothy

Dave Miller — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:30:14 +0000

2 Timothy 2:24-26 – 24 The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, 25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

Dear Timothy,

Thanks for passing along the note that Paul sent you. His words are always helpful for teaching, reproof, correction etc. How are things in Ephesus? I hear that your preaching has gotten much more confident and forceful since Paul’s last letter. I guess they don’t call you “Timid Timmy” anymore.

I was surprised by Paul’s use of the word, bond-servant in reference to believers. That’s not a word that is widely understood in my country. In our nation’s history, a servant was sometimes a slave (a human being owned for life by another human being). I’m sure that concept sounds as strange to you as “bond-servant” does to me. When I shared your letter with my friend Nathan, I explained that when people in your country owe a debt to someone, they often place themselves in service to the one they owe until they work off the debt. We don’t do things that way exactly, but we certainly understand the concept of debt and I think that helps us understand that a bond-servant of the Lord is someone that owes a debt that can never be repaid. Is that what you think Paul meant?

Another thing that helps me understand the concept of bond-servant is that there is an alternative. It’s not like being a slave, because we have a choice; slaves had no choice. We incurred a debt and are now unable to pay it back, so our choice is to either work for our creditor or go to prison. It’s not that much different here in my country and it’s not much different between us and God. We owe God a debt that can never be repaid and we have a choice – obedience or prison. Obedience leads us to belief in Jesus as Savior and Lord which leads to eternal life in the presence of God; while prison leads us to a life in this world as a slave to sin which leads to eternal punishment away from the presence of God.

Paul says that we shouldn’t be quarrelsome, but kind to all. Do you think he really means all when he says all? That’s a difficult order, even for a bond-servant. So God wants us to be kind, patient and gentle to those who oppose us. Paul may have traveled around quite a bit, but I know he never made it to this part of the world. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t call us to such an impossible task. People around here don’t take kindly to correction, especially not from folks like us who use the Bible as their standard of truth. Objective truth is sneered at in my country.

Paul also says that repentance leads to knowledge of the truth – and that God may grant repentance to those who oppose us. Most people think that repentance is something that we do ourselves, not something that is a gift from God; (actually, most think that repentance isn’t even necessary and too many preachers ignore the subject altogether).

So if our opposition comes to knowledge of the truth, they will come to their senses; and if they come to their senses they will escape the snare of the devil. I really like the way that sounds. It’s like one thing leads to another logically, step by step. Looking at it backward works too. Do you think Paul knew this? They are in the snare of the devil because they’re not in their right mind; they’re not in their right mind because they have no knowledge of the truth and they have no knowledge of the truth because they have not been granted repentance by God.

But it doesn’t end there. God may grant them repentance if we treat them with kindness, gentleness and patience. It could all hinge on how we respond to someone who opposes us. Everything could depend on it! I had no idea that how we treat unbelievers and those who oppose us could have such an effect. Thank you for passing along this knowledge, my friend.

One more thing that I almost left out: Paul’s last phrase, those who oppose us are, “held captive by him [Satan] to do his will.” Timothy, do you think Paul used that word on purpose? I used to believe in coincidence, but now I just see the hand of God everywhere. We are bond-servants of God and those who oppose us are captives of Satan. This language isn’t just an accident, is it? Servants and captives are very different things. We are bond-servants by choice but why are they captives (prisoners) of the devil? Is it ignorance or apathy? Is it selfishness or laziness; or is by choice?

Please send me more soon. There is a richness in Paul’s writing that refreshes me and helps my friends and me know and love God more and more every day.

Grace be with you, my friend.