Acts 17

I've recently been studying the life of Paul and the many ways that God used Paul to share the Gospel. The one thing that struck me about Paul as a man and as one who preached about Christ was his pure boldness. Paul faced very few circumstances where fear or doubt took hold of him. He was incredibly passionate about his Savior and it was his desire that others could also come to that same passionate relationship. A neat example of this is in Acts 17:


"Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, "What would this idle babbler wish to say?" Others, "He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,"--because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? "For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean." ~ Acts 17:16-20


The striking thing with Paul is that he is equally as bold and passionate in the presence of God-fearing Gentiles as he was in the presence of polytheistic Stoic philosophers. Paul's passion for Christ was at equal intensity in a church or in the marketplace of ideas at the Areopagus.

After reading this I found myself convicted about my own boldness of faith. As a pastor I find myself comfortable sharing God's Word within the walls of my church, on a mission trip or at a Christian function. Yet, in my modern day Areopagus, whether that be playing in my adult soccer league or a conversation with a lady a Jiffy Lube while I wait for an oil change, I show very little boldness of faith. I don't desire the potential weird looks or difficult questions of the faith. My faith becomes silenced by doubt and fear. My boldness goes only as far as my comfort level does. That silence is brought about by my desire to be valued and appreciated by man as well as being valued by my Father.


What do I gain by my silence and being meek? Very little.

What does a person gain by hearing the Gospel? Everything.


Jesus speaks to this silence in Matthew 5: "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

If as a Christian, I attempt to obscure the faith I have in Christ, I have stopped being what I was made to be in the first place. As Christ said "why would you light a candle and then cover it"? Christ is saying "why would you make me the Master, Owner and Possessor of your life and not live that out before men?" God has granted me an opportunity to shine His glory before man. I need to find my marketplace...my Areopagus and boldly live and proclaim that which God has done.

1 Corinthians 13:1

I apologize for being gone from the blogosphere for so long! In the past 14 months God has allowed me to literally travel the continent sharing the Gospel and what God has done in my life. Unfortunately, that meant that for the past 7 months I woke in a new town every weekend. So obviously being able to share my thoughts and studies via blog was not a high priority. God changed all of that almost a month ago as I was called to be a Youth Pastor at a church in eastern North Carolina! I finally have time to sit, collect my thoughts and be able to share with you what God is teaching me. I hope I can have some dialogue with you in the coming weeks. Please feel free to post comments, prayer request and even talk about what God is doing in your life. I know that this is obviously a poor reflection of true community within the body of Christ, but I feel that is a great thing to encourage a brother and sister in Christ wherever possible. I am humbled that anyone would read my words and find them even remotely useful. So thank you for taking time from your day to read my thoughts

So into the good stuff.....

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." ~ 1 Corinthians 13:1 (NASB)

I love 1 Corinthians 13 as a whole chapter. The interesting thing is so many of us equate this chapter (the "Love Chapter") with dealing with romantic love, marriage and its ideal components. Paul is using this chapter to hold the church accountable to what ideal love is inside the body of Christ.

Paul starts this discussion on love by pointing to the fact that spiritual gifts in the absence of love are meaningless. This is verse is directed to those of us who communicate to our brothers and sisters in Christ in any spoken means. The word tongues literally means any form of speech. is used a descriptive word used in the New Testament for a number or manners of speech from prophecy to foreign languages, but the core of Paul's message is our call to love. Paul shows that even those who are eloquent and wise in speech are making worthless unorganized noise in the absence of love. It is God's desire that we carefully craft our love for others than carefully crafting our speech.

Paul echoes this sentiment again in 1 Timothy 1:5-6, " But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion". The goal of Paul's ministry and the Gospel as a whole is to have people who have a heart filled with the Holy Spirit and not just a mouth filled with the right words. As I pursue my Father the right words will come out of my mouth. My heart is the very core of me. If I do not love those I speak with, I am only offering hollow words. Jesus proclaimed in John 13 that the love for my brothers in Christ will speak to my identity in Christ. Love for one another is shown in humble acts and a life lived in sacrifice. It is when I have understood what it is to truly love as a brother in Christ, then I have learned to truly communicate.

So let your love speak for you, not your mouth.

Isaiah 59

One of the crucial aspects of the book of Isaiah is Israel's sin, idolatry and their complete disregard for who God is. They ran from God to other things that seemed to be of redeeming value. Yet, after a time Israel began to realize that their choices had put God at arm's length. They did not explicitly renounce who God was, they just valued everything else above Him. The sad reality is that the U.S. has adopted this same mindset. Where we were once a nation that sought to glorify God above all else, we have become a nation that seeks to glorify self above all else. We have belittled God and His Power in our own mind and we have an over-exaggerated view of ourselves. Our endeavors center around MY stuff, MY bank account, MY image, MY happiness, and MY job. We our so centered on MY needs and wants and look past HIS commandments and calling. I have separated myself from God by my own choice. God has not abandoned this nation...we have abandoned Him. Look in Isaiah's day and God's response to their behavior:

Behold, the LORD'S hand is not so short
That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull
That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.
Isaiah 59:1-2 (NASB)

God is the perfect display of righteousness and justice and because of that He can have no place with sin. God's Word attest to this in 1 John 1:5-10:

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;
1 John 1:5-6 (NASB)

To live my life in pursuit of all things but God is to literally exist without truly living. I was made in His image...in order to glorify Him. I am living a lie to say I do not need God as a part of my life. I exist because of Him! Yet, that disregard for God comes so natural to me. I savor God's grace when I am in the midst of my deepest need and as the status of my life improves, my recognition of God's grace fades. I push Him to the side and let my relationship with God gather dust as I invest my time and interest in other things. For their sin, God allowed Israel to be taken into captivity and it was then, when God's grace was needed, they realized how far they had strayed from their Father:

Therefore justice is far from us,
And righteousness does not overtake us;
We hope for light, but behold, darkness,
For brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope along the wall like blind men,
We grope like those who have no eyes;
We stumble at midday as in the twilight,
Among those who are vigorous we are like dead men. All of us growl like bears,
And moan sadly like doves;
We hope for justice, but there is none,
For salvation, but it is far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us;
For our transgressions are with us,
And we know our iniquities: Transgressing and denying the LORD,
And turning away from our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving in and uttering from the heart lying words. Justice is turned back,
And righteousness stands far away;
For truth has stumbled in the street,
And uprightness cannot enter.

Isaiah 59:9-14 (NASB)

It is a rather startling transition from idolatry to repentance and mourning. The people were broken when every distraction and material good was ripped away from them and it was then when they realized how far they had strayed from God. It is amazing how God can convict us and change us when our lives are not jammed packed with bloated schedules and constant need for human interaction. We need to take an honest look at our own lives and see where we ignore Him, or even where we even completely close Him out from our lives. Take a second....seriously....take a second now...



What am I doing to glorify God with my daily life?



Do not let sin be the separation that keeps you from doing what you were made to do. God wants us to draw to Him and sometimes that means we have to remove some things from our lives in order to seek after Him.

Isaiah 46:3-4

God has been taking me through the book of Isaiah recently and it certainly has been a great time to sit in the Old Testament and absorb God's Word to Israel. The whole book of Isaiah is very cyclical and constantly features the themes of God's complete righteousness, Israel's disregard of God, Israel's punishment for that sin, and their eventual salvation (from captivity and the eventual salvation through Christ) via the work of God. God has encouraged me from this book of His Word in so many ways. He has reminded me of my own sin and disobedience and yet, He has shown me His steady hand throughout my life and that His grace has spanned the entire course of my life. In my being created without arms, in my salvation, in the union with my perfect helpmate and wife Heather, in the cancer diagnosis of my own father, and everywhere in between is God with His perfect grace and justice.

God led me to two verses in Isaiah that began this whole journey through the life of this prophet and those verses are what I want to look at closely:

3 "Listen to Me, O house of Jacob,
And all the remnant of the house of Israel,
You who have been borne by Me from birth
And have been carried from the womb; 4 Even to your old age I will be the same,
And even to your graying years I will bear you!
I have done it, and I will carry you;
And I will bear you and I will deliver you.
Isaiah 46:3-4 (NASB)

One of the things I love about the entire book of Isaiah is how deeply personal it is. God is speaking directly to His people; displaying a deeply intimate knowledge of who they are. Even here in Isaiah 46:3-4 God is speaking directly to His people. In these two verses He uses the pronoun “I” or “Me” seven times, which is a specific reference to Himself. Then the pronoun “you” or “your” is used seven times, which refer to His people. These verses are a specially crafted Word from God to His people of Israel. Yet, though directed at Israel, a Gentile like myself on this side of the cross can read these specific promises and see the character of the Father in whom our faith is placed.

This character of God is one that is unrelenting and constant. He is unchanging and ever present and He wants us to be assured of that. He has borne us and brought us from the womb and He will carry us as our old, graying bodies begin to fail us. All the while He remains in a supernatural steadfastness. In Malachi God says in 3:6 that, “"For I , the LORD, do not change”. His character and His promises do not crumble and do not alter. So much in my life in the past 10 months have changed completely, but my Abba Father remains my Abba Father. He remains, vigilant at my side and that is the amazing part of this verse. He is active in my life.

Every verb in these verses are done on His account and enacted by His strength. These are not passive, mundane things that He is doing. They are life altering actions like being “borne”, “carried”, “delivered”. My strength fails because of my body, or my circumstances, or my lack of faith and yet He remains to bear me in my brokenness and my failings. His permanent sustaining grace is so evident that Isaiah is surprised when people do not recognize it.

28 Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth
Does not become weary or tired.
His understanding is inscrutable. 29 He gives strength to the weary,
And to him who lacks might He increases power. 30 Though youths grow weary and tired,
And vigorous young men stumble badly,
31 Yet those who wait for the LORD
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.
Isaiah 40:28-31 (NASB)

His Grace is there. His Hope is there. His Strength is there. I might not see it or feel it, but it is enveloping me and carrying me along in my life. My circumstances might be crushing in on me and pushing me into some desolate place. Yet, I am called to wait for Him even after I am weary and tired and have bloody knees because of my constant stumbling. Yet, I just have to wait...to rest in His arms and a promise deferred waits...

My Hope and my Salvation

1 Corinthians 12:21-22

"So the eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" nor again the head to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, all the more, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are necessary." ~ 1 Corinthians 12:21-22

It is amazing to think that the believer OUGHT to have a lack of strength to be necessary in the body of Christ. This is not a singular teaching within Scripture, but on that is revealed many times. The second letter to the Corinthian church closes out by showing that the life and demonstration of kenosis by Jesus shows the necessity of weakness and humility for the power of God to be made manifest in the lives of those who seek Him. Two verses in particular stand out with relation to the need for weakness in the body of Christ.

First, 2 Corinthians 12:9 - "But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may reside in me." These are the words of Jesus to Paul and they remind him that weakness is an opportune time for God's grace to be made apparent in Paul's life. At times we do not recognize the sweeping effects of grace in our own life until a portion of that grace is removed (if for just a brief period of time). To understand God's total grace, we have to desperate and helpless from time to time. Job, Abram, Moses, Paul and Peter all understood to be at a loss of some sort of control or comfort and had to depend on God's grace even if circumstances were not ideal. God uses the human need for contrast to show us our need for him. Man recognizes certain traits not in a manner of definition but in a manner of difference. We do not understand dark without light. Cold without hot. Joy without sorrow. God uses weakness so that man can ascertain the beauty and strength of His Grace.

Secondly, 2 Corinthians 13:3b-4 - "He is not weak toward you, but powerful among you. In fact, He was crucified in weakness, but He lives by God's power. For we also are weak in Him, yet toward you we will live with Him by God's power." In an age of self dependence it seems self defeating to claim that depending on someone else is an example of strength. Jesus came to earth to do the will of His Father and not His own. Christ is the example to us that we cannot do much in our own strength but that God's power (the power to resurrect, to turn water to wine, to multiply the gift of fish and bread) trumps a self-reliant spirit.

Submitting my life to serve God and glorify Him is difficult and counter intuitive. But the fruits of His strength in our life are breathtaking...

Ephesians 6:19-20

"and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak." ~ Ephesians 6:19-20

God has truly blessed me over the last two months by allowing me to speak at a number of churches and youth groups. It is always difficult for me to speak at a church that I am not familiar with. So many times I wrestle with, "What does God want me to say?" It is very easy for me to tell a number of stories and share encouraging moments from my life with a little bit of God's Word sprinkled in. At the beginning of August I read those two verses from Ephesians 6 and I came away very challenged by Paul's words.

Here's a man who is in prison and is facing many difficulties. He could likewise take the route that I have been tempted to do. Take the easy route...use existential stories to encourage...offer little challenge to the audience. Yet, Paul asked the Ephesians for both the ability to speak God's Word and the boldness to proclaim it without fear, doubt, or partiality. Martin Luther speaks in a similar tone:

"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ however boldly I may be professing Christ."

I came away very challenged to be a teacher who is biblical grounded, at times encouraging, but one who is not afraid to challenge myself and others with the Bible. The boldness that Paul prays for is the same I find myself constantly praying for. Being passive in teaching God's Word can come in a number of avenues. Fear of "going too deep", fear of being boring, or even the fear of preaching something that convicts not only the audience but the speaker. To teach from conviction is not hypocrisy but reality. Peter taught of faith and his faith wavered in the garden. Paul teaches of unity in the body but argued with Barnabas, could not reconcile, and the two went their separate ways. These teachings are not nullified because of such, but something that is better understood after the fact because of the conviction of one's shortcomings through the Holy Spirit.

Its interesting to note so many youth groups and churches pride themselves on being Biblically based. Even my seminary's core verse is 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness". Its a remarkable verse that the modern youth group can leave two gaping holes in. We like to teach and train in righteousness. Yet we doubt, waver on, and even ignore Scripture that is critical or that corrects specific issues and sins within the body of Christ. We do not truly believe in the profitability of Scripture unless we use it for all these things: teaching, training, critical analysis, and correcting lacking traits. My prayer is that I and other teachers and ministers boldly (yet humbly) teach God's Word in spite of our fears of reprisal or inadequacy. The Gospel is an offense. Why should we expect otherwise?

1 Corinthians 12:7-8

"A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial: to one is given a message of wisdom through the Spirit,
to another, a message of knowledge by the same Spirit" ~ 1 Corinthians 12:7-8

Paul follows his discussion on the variations of gifts and ministries within the body of Christ, to a discussion on the certain manifestations of the Spirit and what sort of fruit is produced by the Spirit in the life of the believer.

Verse 7 is an encouraging verse which reminds the believer that the Spirit is active and working in the life of the believer. The Spirit works in the sanctification of the believer, the equipping of the believer, and intercession are all works of the Spirit that are of benefit to the believer and to the body of Christ as a whole. The word "manifestation" is a continual verb, meaning that the Spirit is at constant and lasting work in my life. It is humbling knowing that this is a gracious gift of the Spirit...I have done nothing to attain such a gift. Yet not only my good is produced by His gifting but also "for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:12). God grants us these gifts as an encouragement and sign of His working but also to tend to His other sheep. This mutual blessing shapes the body of Christ and makes it stronger.

Verse 8 begins to talk about the different manifestations of the Spirit. This verse has a pair of somewhat similar gifts: wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom is referring to the one who has great insight into matters of theological doctrine. This would certainly the man who delves into the depths of Scripture and discern its meaning. Such a manifestation would be made up of the equipping to do such and a passion to pursue the depths of Scripture. The manifestation of knowledge is referring to an undestanding of life and how to apply God's Word to it. Where wisdom would be shown in Peter's Pentecost sermon or Paul on Mars Hill, knowledge is seen in action as Jesus and the disciples minister to the people or the setting up of the deacon ministry in Acts.

We often think of the gifting of the Spirit as an actual action that we can complete. Yet, in this verse we are reminded that those who seek to immerse themself and others in Scripture are men and women who the Spirit has set aside for such things.