When Spiritual Sensitivity and Biblical Knowledge Converge (John 1:47-51)

John 1:47-51

Jesus calls Nathanael

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him,“Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

v47

Nathanael didn't need much to be convicted of the deity of Christ. That our Lord Jesus calls him by the title "an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit" is indicative of Nathanael's devotion to his Jewish heritage. He probably knew the Jewish scriptures very well, and like many Jews of his time, he would be looking forward to the coming of the Messiah.

v48

"How do you know me?"

There is a difference to being doubtful and being discerning. We are so easily led astray by skillful displays of natural prowess--how much more so when we are faced with supernatural prowess! Nathanael, like any good steward of truth, wanted to enquire, test and examine. Particularly for us who are in the end times, where false "Christian" spirituality is rife, we need to be discerning of everything we come into contact with, be it theology, testimonies of miraculous healing, or supposed dreams and visions from God.

v49

Some people are born with less ability to discern the spiritual, but they are compensated when they read and are convicted by the Word. Others are so attuned to the Spirit that listening and obeying God's voice comes easier, but their ability to glean truth from the Word is limited. Thus, keen spiritual awareness coupled with a good working knowledge of the scriptures helps one to perceive the workings of the spiritual dimension.

v50

Nathanael is promised that he will see greater things not because Jesus will exclusively show these to him, but rather, because of his acute awareness of Christ, he will be one of the quickest to identify God's fingerprints in His handiwork.

v51

Jesus gives Nathanael an illustration from Genesis 28:12, where Jacob is shown the dream of an open-access to God by means of a ladder extending from heaven to earth. By superimposing the imagery, Jesus is essentially saying that He will be the fulfillment of open-access to the Father. He is the ladder, and everywhere that Jesus goes, He will turn the place into a "New Bethel".

Read More

God the Mother?

In the past three weeks, two of my cell members have been approached by evangelists from the World Mission Society, a church originating from South Korea whose beliefs are a mix of unitarian modalism and bi-theism. I don’t mean to be confusing, but it’s true. They believe that God “manifests” Himself as the Father, Spirit and Son (I don’t know if they mean that God chooses to “switch faces” as Father at one moment, then the Son at the next, which is classical modalism, or that the Godhead is only one person presented as the Father, Spirit and Son, which would be a slight modification of classical unitarianism. Classical unitarians never acknowledge the divinity of Jesus Christ) and they believe in God the Mother.

That’s right. God the Mother.

I can almost hear you think, “But there are no verses that support God the Mother!”

At this opportunity, the WMS evangelist will dive straight into their prepared arguments. The points below may crop up in the course of your conversation with them.

Supporting Passage #1 – Genesis 1:26-27

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

²⁷ So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Argument: Everything on earth is a pattern and a shadow of things in heaven. So, we know that when God is speaking He says “Let us make man in our image…” There is more than one person there. He is speaking to someone. God then created man in his own image; male and female He created them. Since everything on earth is a pattern and shadow of things in heaven and there are male and female created in the God’s image, we see that Father God and Mother God created man in their own image.

Defence: You and I would both agree that God is spirit. Throughout scripture, we see that God’s spirit is not confined by location, as would a physical body be, that God’s spirit is invisible and cannot be seen. God is clearly spirit, and we are clearly physical. Yet, you are ready to conclude that “image” means something that can only be tangibly and physically understood in terms of gender. You clearly don’t understand what it means to be made in the image of God.

Supporting Passage #2 – #Revelation 22:17

¹⁷ The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

Argument: There is explicit mention of God the Mother; she is the Bride. This Bride says, “Come”, therefore, she has the power to give the water of life. Only God has the power to give the water of life. Therefore, this Bride must also be God. She is God the Mother.

Defence: I agree that only God can give life, but the passage refers to something that is spoken, something that is offered, and while the Church itself cannot give life, the Church tells everyone to come to Christ in order to receive life. Notice that the text tells us, also, “let the one who hears say, ‘Come’”. This is not an indication that the one who hears can give life. He is simply offering it. The Spirit gives life, the Church proclaims the Gospel, which is the offer of life.

Supporting Passages #3 – Revelation 21:9-10 and Galatians 4:26

Rev 21

⁹ Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” ¹⁰ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,

Gal 4

²⁶ But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

Argument: Here we see the identity of the Bride. Now, this is obviously a symbolic passage because this is not a literal lamb. Obviously, a lamb cannot have a wife. The Lamb is Christ. A person. And notice also that Jerusalem is above and is said to be coming down out of heaven. Since the church is here on earth, the bride cannot be the church. So, to this point we have seen that the God has a Bride, the Spirit and the Bride offer life (only God can do this), this bride was in heaven and is said to come down out of heaven and this Jerusalem is our Mother.

Defence: You want me to take the word “Lamb” as non-literal and view this passage as symbolic and therefore the description of “Jerusalem” that follows in verses 11 and following as being non-literal. I think you have confused what it means for something to be a symbol and something to be a simple metaphor. You were able to tell me who the Lamb was easily because this is not symbolism that is intended to be cryptic. The Lamb is a metaphor for a person that is easily identifiable. Obviously, we know who the Lamb is referencing just in the book of Revelation as the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world – Jesus Christ. In the same way, the wife of the Lamb is explained. That is, the metaphor is clearly understood from within the very passage under discussion. There is no reason to go to an explanation that is several books away written entirely by a different author all together.

Jerusalem is described as a city. Notice the description that follows about the walls, the gates, the adornments, the jewels, the names of the apostles. If all of this explanation is intended to be an extended metaphor of “the wife of the Lamb” then what exactly does this description match? How is it symbolic of a person?

As for your assertion that “Jerusalem is above, and the church is below”, you are presuming that God’s Church is only here on earth. A Christian would declare that God’s Church is also here and in Heaven as well. Now, I don’t think you have established any good reason to conclude that Jerusalem in Revelation 21 is anything other than the New Jerusalem spoken of in verse 2. As for Galatians, you are missing the context entirely.

From the arguments above, it should be plain to see that the WMS evangelists subscribe to a theology that depends entirely upon verses that have nothing to do with one another and are removed far from their context. Furthermore, they do not let a more natural explanation tell they what the verse says, but force their view upon the passage. They are not expecting someone to be able to look at the text and explain to them the context and it completely throws their prepared argument off course when one does. But, while it may serve a purpose in getting their attention, the real obstacle is that they have a completely false Christ in mind. 

The goal of our evangelism to these folks is the same as our evangelism to all people: proclaim the true Christ of Scriptures and Him crucified. It is heart-breaking to see so many young people sincere in their conviction that they are doing "God's work" and so blatantly deceived. But, we must preach the Word faithfully and convincingly and trust the Holy Spirit to be the Great Evangelist.

Read More

Over-reliance

I have an iPhone 4 and I stuck on an anti-smudge screen protector as soon as I got it. I thought that it was absolutely necessary to have that additional layer of plastic. It gave a heightened sense of security. It gave more confidence to me as I handled (or manhandled) my phone with wet hands still drying from washing up, dirty hands from cleaning my car, and oily hands from checking my phone while eating my meals.

Two days ago, my sister gave me a new cover as a birthday present. It was a really cool cover that hugs the body of the phone very tightly--so tightly that when I put the case on, it managed to squeeze the screen protector right off! Naturally, I panicked. It was unprotected!

However, when I tried to use the phone without the protector, I noticed two things:

1. The screen by itself is bright, clear and beautiful. There's detail in apps and photos I never knew was there until now. You actually don't need the screen protector, which reduces the brightness and clarity of the screen by quite a fair bit. I'm sure Apple designed the iPhone to operate without a screen protector, and it certainly can.
2. You can exercise some extra care by ensuring your hands are clean(er) before handling the phone. Even if the screen gets smudged, it's a minor annoyance which can be addressed with a simple cleaning cloth.

Now, I'm a big fan of teachable moments, and I firmly believe that God uses anything and everything to teach us. As I was reflecting on the new-found brightness and clarity (it was there all along, just clouded by the screen protector), it gave perspective on how we Christians read our Bible. We're privileged to be in a modern age where information is accessible, and consequently we have many things to supplement our Bible reading. Examples include devotionals, commentaries, bible study articles, sermon videos on YouTube, and a multitude of iOs apps. The list will certainly get longer as technology progresses.

The supplementaries are great. The hard work of bible study is done for us, so all we have to do is simply read the interpretation. Difficult passages containing idiosyncratic phrases or eccentric behavior become easier to understand once we recognize the nuances of the language and the cultural context in which they are written. However, while I'm glad that we have unhindered access to such supplementary materials, I'm concerned that there may be an over-reliance on them to the point that we feel we cannot read, study, and apply our Bibles without them. If we were to be honest, we would admit that:

1. The Bible by itself is entirely sufficient. Like the iPhone screen, it is clear, bright and beautiful for those who would read deeply into it. Psalm 119:105 reads that "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path". I'm sure God designed us to be able to interpret His word without supplementaries, and we certainly can.
2. We can exercise some extra care in reading the Bible. When Jesus taught that we are to love the Lord "with all our mind", I believe that one aspect of that is to take the study of His word seriously. This means doing the hard work of bible study ourselves, taking on the role of the biblical interpreter. When and where was the text written? What type of literature is the text? What kind of literary devices are used by the characters in the text? What is the central idea of the text? Does reading before and after it give clarity as to what the author of the text is trying to say? Even if we don't understand the text fully, it's a minor annoyance which can be addressed by letting other parts of scripture shed light on the text in question.

Of course, if you're a new Christian, reading and interpreting your Bible for the first time is daunting and can be intimidating; by all means, refer to the supplementaries. My challenge is to the seasoned Christians out there--those who have the capacity, capability and the responsibility to read deeply into God's word.

Read More

The Responsibility of Followers (1Cor4:6-14)

What do you do when your young ones in the faith have severe disciplinary problems? Look to Christ.

Read More

Bitter Water Made Sweet (Exodus 15:22-27)

As an inaugural post about bible study, allow me to divulge that bible study is one of the few things I am passionate about. I love it and I want to make freely available my devotional and bible study material for you. I hope this blesses you!

Read More

The Curse of Canaan

Why did Noah curse his grandson Canaan? Taking a cursory glance of the passage, it reads that this boy’s father, Ham, saw Noah’s nakedness, and as a result, Noah cursed Canaan, who became the patriarch of Israel’s enemies, the Canaanites. The story seems capricious on the surface, in contrast to the largely reasonable historical account of Genesis. The key to understanding the passage lies in understanding the cultural context in which this passage is written, and the phrase that seems to make little sense in the English language is that Ham "saw his father's nakedness".

As it is with any language, one way to communicate an idea differently is to use a figure of speech. Some of the Bible’s figures of speech are euphemisms that promote modesty. For example, instead of saying that Adam had sexual intercourse with Eve, the Bible more politely says that “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived” (Gen. 4:1). And Moses writes, “the man who lies with” rather than using the modern and more crude phrase, “has sex with.” The reader who misses these common figures of speech will misunderstand the plain meaning of various passages.

Moses authored the first five books of the Bible (wherein Genesis is a part of), and God through Moses used the same decency when describing other physical relations. For example, when prohibiting incest in the Mosaic Law, rather than saying, "a man shall not have intercourse with his mother", Moses wrote that he shall not “uncover his father’s nakedness.”

‘The man who lies with his father’s wife has uncovered his father’s nakedness…’ Lev. 20:11

Other scriptures which employ this Hebrew figure of speech can be found elsewhere:

‘If a man lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness. … ‘If a man takes his brother's wife… He has uncovered his brother's nakedness.’ Lev. 20:20-21

Committing incest with any female “near of kin” can be described as “uncovering his nakedness” (Lev. 18:6), referring to the appropriate male relative, including the nakedness of your father (with your mother, Lev. 18:7), or your sister, granddaughter, stepsister, aunt, daughter-in-law and sister-in-law (Lev. 18:9-15). Of course, this can also be described in more literal terms as uncovering the woman’s nakedness, but it can also be referred to, idiomatically, as referring to the husband’s, father’s, brother's, uncle’s, or son’s nakedness. Her nakedness can equal his nakedness because as Paul writes, your body is “not your own” (1 Cor. 6:19), and from this perspective, your mother’s body belongs to your father. Thus:

‘The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness’ Lev. 18:8

Ezekiel used this figure of speech in this Hebrew parallelism:

“In you [O Israel] men uncover their fathers’ nakedness; in you they violate women…” Ezek. 22:10

And Habakkuk condemns not the sin of homosexuality but of getting your neighbor drunk in order to seduce his wife, when he warns:

“Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness!” Hab. 2:15;

Habakkuk warns against looking upon a neighbor’s nakedness, which is just the slightest alternate form of uncovering his nakedness. (See also Leviticus 18:10, 14, 17-18; 1 Samuel 20:30 and Ezekiel 22:10-11.)

So, understanding this common Hebrew figure of speech enables the reader to comprehend Moses’ 3,500-year-old account of why Noah cursed Canaan:

…Ham was the father of Canaan [which is the actual topic of this story]… And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent [his own drunkenness left his wife vulnerable and exposed to Ham’s wickedness]. And Ham, the father of Canaan [repeated to emphasize the point of the story, and to correct any possible ancient misconception about the real identity of Canaan's father], saw the nakedness of his father [that is, he had sex with Noah’s wife, Ham’s own mother], and told his two brothers outside [as wicked people often brag of their sin, and as misery loves company, perhaps even inviting them to do likewise]. But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father [refusing to take part in what was apparently a rape, and literally giving her a covering, probably with an animal skin, and in hopes of beginning the healing process for her and their family]. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness [i.e., their mother’s nude body]. So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him [Ham had violated Noah's wife, which he found out from her and his other sons]. Then he said [after he learned of the pregnancy]: “Cursed be Canaan [whose father was Ham]…" Gen. 9:18, 20-25

Canaan’s true story shows the tragic reality of a child being set up to fail by the wickedness of his father. Thus Noah cursed Canaan as a statement of that reality, not as a hex or evil spell, but as a warning to others against following in Ham’s wicked ways. This account, at the very beginning of the repopulation of the Earth, also helps to explain the world's ubiquitous taboo of incest between parent and child, found by anthropologists to exist in virtually every known age and in virtually every known culture. The lesson was a harsh one to learn. Canaan was cursed inherently by being conceived through incest. The law of reaping and sowing inexorably applies to the children of fallen men. A father's alcoholism punishes his child, not by fiat from God (nor Noah) but by the cause and effect that children suffer under bad parenting, an unavoidable part of man's fallen existence until God ends this phase of human history. So incest set the background for centuries of conflict between Noah’s Hamitic descendents, especially those through Canaan, against the descendants of Shem, the Semites, especially the Jews, to whom God promised the land of the Canaanites.

While the story of Canaan’s curse follows the Creation and Flood accounts, rightly understood it helps us to see that all throughout, Genesis is a rational book of history.

Read More

Why Did You Laugh?

Genesis 18:1-15

Theological comedy: When God surprises man with His methods, where we think they are ridiculous or silly.

God's ways are not for the amusement of the idle nor is it for the fascination of the curious. He works wonders an in unexpected ways
1. For people who wonder how they will survive
2. To challenge our common assumptions we have about Him

Example:
Noah and the ark, where the world then did not know rain, much less a flood

In our text, Sarah laughed because she never thought it was possible for her to have a son at such an old age.
-Note: Her laughter was probably dark, laced with sarcasm and cynicism.

4 assumptions we make about God:

1. We assume God will work within a certain time frame, like setting an alarm clock in our hearts
-When the alarm rings and the prayer request is not met, we may grow to become bitter

God appeared to Abraham and made the promise of the provision of a son when he was 75 years old. God's second appearing to remind him of the promise happened when Abraham was 99 years old, and when Sarah was 90 years old.

Sarah's laughter came from pain and disappointment that God had not yet fulfilled His promise. However, God demonstrated that despite His apparent delay, He accomplishes the seemingly impossible.

2. We assume that God's work is limited to our own abilities
-The bible often shows us that God uses the weak, the least talented, and those with physical limitations to accomplish His great work.
-Notable examples: Moses the stutterer, David the shepherd boy, Joseph the youngest (and later with a prison record).

3. We assume God must work according to our ways and understanding.
-Isaiah 55:8-9
-We are guilty of thinking, "My way is Yahweh." We must understand that God does not think like us. We must trust in God and surrender completely to Him.

4. We assume that God's work is limited to those who never fail Him.
-Genesis 21:1 "Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised"
-God's work is always personal and it goes far beyond us. It is gracious and He includes even those who failed or disappointed Him.

Read More