Mightier Than The Waves (Psalm 93:4)

“Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!” -Psalm 93:4

Last week, my family spent some time in the Blue Water Area on the shores of Lake Huron. We got to see lots of massive freighters sail by and did plenty of swimming ourselves. But the water was relatively calm only two of the days we were there. Most of the time, we had to contend with the waves, and on our last day at the beach, the waves were too big for our kids to swim safely.

These relatively small waves on Lake Huron were mighty and dangerous. And we had zero power to control them. They made me think of several passages in the Bible, like Psalm 93:4, where we read about God’s power over the waves. He is more powerful than the most crushing wave. The thunder of the mightiest waves is only a faint echo compared to the power of our Creator and King.

He is mightier than the waves, more powerful than any November storm on the Great Lakes, and he alone can still the waves. As Ethan the Ezrahite declares in Psalm 89:9: “You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.” When Jesus walked this earth, he literally walked upon the waves and calmed them with a word, proving that he is the Son of God (Mark 4:39; Matt 14:32).

God’s power over the waves and storms probably raise questions for us, like “How can God allow destructive forces like raging seas?” There is a place for those questions, but these passages of Scripture are really intended as a comfort to God’s people.

There are no rogue waves. No storm can overpower our God. He reigns in majesty and holiness and righteousness over the raging seas.

In the Ancient Near East, the sea was often deified and functioned as a symbol of chaos and evil. Yet, God’s people can know that there is no evil that can threaten God’s sovereignty or overturn his plans for his people. We will never find ourselves in a storm outside of God’s providence.

Right now, maybe you feel that you are sailing on lifeboat on a raging sea. Or maybe things just feel a bit rocky right now, and the waves feel bigger than usual. Remember your God who is mightier than the waves and rules the raging of the sea. He is with you. He may not calm your storm immediately. But he will bring you safely to the eternal shores, to the place where all waves will be stilled forever.

Some of the waves on Lake Huron on one of the calmer days we were there.

God’s Holiness and Our Hope (Isaiah 6:1-7)

“And I said: ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.‘” (Isaiah 6:5-7)

In Isaiah 6, the prophet Isaiah sees a vision of God in his glory. Around him the angels declare: Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of hosts. God’s holiness is his majestic otherness, his transcendent purity. He is the Creator and King who is totally unique and set apart from us as creatures.

So, Isaiah believes that he is lost. He has seen the Holy One! And Isaiah knows that he himself is unclean and unholy. But what happens next? God provides atonement for Isaiah.

We see here that God’s holiness is not just about God’s transcendence and otherness. It includes his condescension as well. God’s holiness does not lead him merely to move away from his people but to move toward his people both to judge and to save.

Theologian John Webster writes:

“The holiness of God is not to be identified simply as that which distances God from us; rather, God is holy precisely as the one who in majesty and freedom and sovereign power bends down to us in mercy. God is the Holy One. But he is the Holy One ‘in your midst’, as Hosea puts it (Hos. 11.9); or as Isaiah puts it: ‘great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel’ (Isa. 12.6).” (John Webster, Holiness, p. 45)

Isaiah’s experience provides a clear example of this truth. Isaiah sees God in his glorious majesty. Yet, God’s holiness isn’t just something that separates God from Isaiah. God, in his majestic purity, stoops down and provides forgiveness for Isaiah.

God, in his holiness, is opposed to sin in his people like a doctor is opposed to disease in his patients. God opposes sin by working to destroy its hold on our lives.

God’s holiness is God’s transcendence in majesty and purity that leads to his mercy to unholy humanity. It is his majestic purity that turns toward unholy humanity to sanctify and to cleanse and to provide atonement.

Thus, God’s holiness is not opposed to his mercy. God’s holiness moves toward his people in mercy and grace. He is the Holy One, the Majestic God who draws near to his people to cleanse them and provide atonement.

Isaiah’s only hope and our only hope is what at first glance is the source of our woe: God’s holiness. He is holy in both his judgment and his mercy. In his holiness, God has provided a sure atonement in the cross of Christ for all who repent and trust in Jesus. Thus, the holiness of God is our only hope.

Does Acts 7 Contradict Genesis 12?

This Sunday at our church, we had the privilege of thinking about God’s call of Abram in Genesis 12:1-5. We reflected on how Genesis portrays Abram as a new Adam through whom God would bring blessing to the world, ultimately through Jesus.

However, in studying the early chronology of Abraham’s family, some issues come up when we consider how Stephen relates the story of Abraham in Acts 7:2-4.

In Acts 7, Stephen is standing trial for his preaching about Jesus. The Jews accused Stephen of speaking against the temple and the Law, but Stephen walks them through the history of Israel in the Old Testament to show them that (1) their ancestors consistently rejected God’s chosen prophets like they were now rejecting Jesus and (2) God has never really been confined to a physical temple building.

He begins with Abraham and shows that he believes in the promises of God and that God is faithful to his promises. Stephen declares:

“Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3 and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’ 4 Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.” (Acts 7:2-4)

Stephen’s summary of Abraham’s call appears to contradict Moses’s account in Genesis 11:26-12:4 in two places.

First, Stephen says that God appeared to Abraham before he lived in Haran. But in the Genesis account, it seems that Terah and his family left Ur (i.e., Mesopotamia), settled in Haran, and then God appeared to Abraham (Genesis 11:31-12:1). Thus, the Genesis account suggests that God appeared to Abraham in Haran, but Stephen says God appeared to Abraham before he lived in Haran.

Is this a contradiction? I don’t think so. It is possible that Stephen believes that Genesis 11:31-32 and Genesis 12:1-3 are not arranged chronologically. Genesis 12:1-3 does not actually say that God spoke to Abraham in Haran. Thus, Genesis 12:1-3 may jump backwards some years in the narrative to before Abraham journeyed to Haran.^[1] Genesis 12:4, however, does seem to link God’s words in 12:1-3 and Abram’s departure from Haran in 12:4-5, suggesting that God called Abram when he was in Haran, which weakens this interpretation.

Another possibility is that Stephen believes that God spoke to Abraham in Ur with similar promises before repeating them again when Abraham was living in Haran. Throughout Abraham’s life, God repeats his promises time and time again. So it is reasonable to conclude that Genesis 12:1-3 may not be the first time God had summoned Abraham to go to Canaan and receive these promises.

Other OT passages support this reading. For example, later in Genesis, God declares to Abraham, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess” (Gen 15:7). Here, God claims that it was he who brought Abraham out of Ur, though no mention of this is made in Genesis 11. Stephen seems to follow this interpretation by claiming that God spoke to Abraham while he was in Ur.^[2] Thus, there is no real contradiction here. Stephen is simply sharing an interpretation of Abraham’s life that lines up with Genesis 15:7.

However, Stephen also says that Abraham left Haran after his father (Terah) died. But Genesis 11:26-12:4 seems to suggest that Terah was still alive when Abraham left Haran. In Genesis 11:26, Moses reports that Terah was 70 years old when he started having sons, with Abram listed first. Then, in 11:32, he tells us that Terah lived to be 205 years old and died in Haran. And in Genesis 12:4, we learn that Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran, which means that Terah would have been (only!) 145 years old when Abraham left Haran.

Yet, Stephen says that Abraham didn’t leave Haran until Terah died. Is Stephen mangling the text? Is he assuming a detail that isn’t in Genesis? Is there a contradiction here? Again, I don’t think so.

One solution is that Abraham wasn’t actually Terah’s oldest son. In this case, Genesis 11:26 tells us when Terah started having sons (maybe Haran was the firstborn?), but it doesn’t tell us when Abraham was born. He may have been born 60 years later and is mentioned first simply because he was the most prominent of Terah’s sons, not because he was the oldest.

Another possible solution is that Stephen is following a specific Jewish tradition about Abraham and Terah and/or a variant text of Genesis 11:32 (where Terah’s age at his death is listed). In fact, the Samaritan Pentateuch (the Bible of the Samaritans) reports that Terah died when he was 145 years old. Another Jewish author, Philo (writing around the time of Jesus), also suggests that Abraham left Haran after Terah died. This may have been a common interpretation of the time, possibly backed by a Greek translation of Genesis that Greek-speaking Jews like Stephen were familiar with.^[3]

Either way, Stephen isn’t mangling Genesis. Most likely, he is simply following the chronology he and his audience were most familiar with. He is trying to show his fellow Jews that he believes the promises God gave to their forefathers. He is not blaspheming the forefathers of their faith, much less their God (Acts 6:11).

Stephen reminded his audience that God brought Abraham out of Ur, and God removed Abraham from Haran. It was all the work of God. God is faithful to keep his promises, even though his people so often rejected God’s prophets and messengers until they even betrayed and murdered the Righteous One, their Messiah (Acts 7:52).

Untangling these alleged contradictions matters because many object to Christianity due to their insistence that the Bible is full of contradictions and can’t be trusted. Yet, pointing out supposed problems in the text can simply be a cover or an excuse for rejecting Jesus. In the end, what matters most is how we are responding to God, his promises, and his Promised One, Jesus. That’s the central point in Genesis 12:1-5. That was Stephen’s point too in Acts 7.

When all of the alleged contradictions are examined and weighed, we can agree with Christian apologist Justin Martyr from the second century who wrote, “I am entirely convinced that no Scripture contradicts another.”^[4] And, most importantly, we should trust in the Savior and Lord that all of Holy Scripture leads us to.

Allen Ross argues for this in Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis, 258.↩︎
Darrell Bock, Acts, BECNT, 282–83.↩︎
Bock, Acts, 284; Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17, NICOT, 366–68.↩︎
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chap. 65, https://www.logoslibrary.org/justin/trypho/065.html.↩︎

Temporary Faithfulness: Lessons from the Life of King Joash (2 Chronicles 24)

“And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest.” (2 Chronicles 24:2)

One of the darkest moments in the Star Wars stories is when Anakin massacres the Jedi younglings and becomes Darth Vader. It’s a gut-wrenching moment. Recently, a dad even posted a video of his young daughter’s tearful reaction to Anakin’s turn to the dark side (which is kind of sad that a parent would make that public). But that story is fiction. The accounts of the kings of Israel and Judah contain true stories about the leaders of God’s people that are even darker and more disturbing. The story of Joash in 2 Chronicles 22-24 is one of those gut-wrenching stories.

Joash himself nearly didn’t make it past infancy. His grandmother, Athaliah (a daughter of Ahab), killed all of Joash’s siblings and many of his relatives. Joash only survived because his aunt Jehoshabeath hid him in a bedroom during the massacre. His aunt Jehoshabeath was married to Jehoiada the priest, and the couple took Joash in and hid him in the temple for six years.

Athaliah ruled over Judah for those six years and led the people into more idol-worship until Jehoiada and the priests took her down and installed seven-year-old Joash as king. Joash would reign over Judah for forty years.

It started out well. As long as he had the counsel of Jehoiada, Joash remained faithful to the Lord. He made sure the temple was repaired and the priests offered sacrifices to the Lord (2 Chron 24:4-14). Finally, Judah had a faithful king again!

Until he wasn’t. His faithfulness was temporary.

Jehoiada the priest enjoyed a long life, and died when he was 130 years old. The people respected him so much they buried him with the kings in Jerusalem—which was quite an honor.

But with Jehoiada gone, Joash turned to other advisors among his officials in Judah. They began to push Joash in a different direction, a dark direction, back into idol worship (24:17-18). He abandoned the Lord. Once passionate for the temple, Joash now neglected the temple.

In his mercy, God sent prophets to Joash and the people of Judah. But they didn’t listen. They wouldn’t return to the Lord. Finally, Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, confronted God’s people and their king. He called out Joash for breaking God’s commandments.

Yet, here comes another gut-wrenching moment: Joash becomes like his grandmother. He betrays Zechariah and orders the people to stone him in the temple courtyard. Once Jehoiada had risked his life to hide Joash and install him as king. Now Joash orchestrates the murder of Jehoiada’s son. Joash had been rescued from death as an infant. Yet, as king, he killed the son of the woman who rescued him.

As a result of this evil, God sent the Syrians against Joash, and they plundered Jerusalem and leave Joash severely wounded. The king’s servants finish the job and assassinate Joash in his bed. Then, they bury him in Jerusalem, but not in the tombs of the kings.

So ends a story that had a hopeful beginning, a gut-wrenching turn, and a terrible ending. But several important lessons emerge from the account of Joash’s reign.

First, beware of following godly counsel without truly following God from the heart. Joash was an easily influenced king. While Jehoiada was alive, Joash acted faithfully, but his temporary faithfulness was tied to Jehoiada’s counsel more than to a genuine faith in the Lord. Once Jehoiada was gone, Joash’s faithfulness vanished quickly.

We need faithful teachers. We should seek out godly advice. But it is possible to follow good, biblical advice without following the Lord for ourselves. Lasting faithfulness to God stems from a genuine faith in our hearts, not just adherence to the advice of friends or ministry leaders.

Children must follow Christ for themselves. Church members themselves must obey God. So, follow the Lord and follow godly teachers who point you back to the Lord. Don’t always swim with the current. It may lead you into the dangerous rapids of idolatry.

Don’t settle for a temporary faithfulness.

Second, don’t coast on past faithfulness to reach the finish line. Joash started well and finished terribly. A good start doesn’t guarantee a good end. Joash needed to press on in faithfulness to God even when idolatry became easier after Jehoiada’s death. He failed, and his terrible ending wiped out his faithful beginning.

So, press on in your faith. Your faith five years ago or fifty years ago won’t necessarily carry you through the trials and temptations of today. We all need a growing, enduring faith to finish well. Never stop pursuing God and growing in godliness through his gracious work in us.

Finally, don’t miss the better Prophet, Priest, and King this story yearns for. Joash was a king who left a mixed legacy stained by idolatry, betrayal, and murder. He was not deemed worthy of burial with the other Davidic kings. But Jehoiada, the priest, was buried among the kings. His son, Zechariah, was also a prophet who was betrayed and killed by his own people.

Their lives point ahead to the true and better Prophet, Priest, and King–Jesus. He is the faithful Davidic King Joash failed to be. He is the better Prophet who declared the Word of God and was killed by his people. And he is our great high priest who offered his own blood as a sacrifice for sinners. Christ is the faithful Prophet, Priest, and King.

The story of Joash is just one of the dark chapters in the story of God’s people. Yet, God used the nation of Israel even with all its depravity and preserved them so that at the right time the true and better Prophet, Priest, and King might come. He too does not have a tomb with the Davidic kings because he conquered the tomb and reigns now in heaven until he comes again. He is forever faithful.

The Vastness of God’s Faithful Love (Psalm 108:3-4)

“I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.” (Psalm 108:3-4)

One of the greatest feats of humanity has been reaching the clouds. We can fly. We can launch rockets to space. We’ve sent men to the moon and sent probes to the edge of our solar system. And yet we’ve barely scratched the surface of the vastness of just our tiny sliver in the universe.

Humanity has always wondered at the vastness of the heavens. We feel small compared to the vastness of the sky, not to mention the magnitude of space. The heavens are bigger than we can fathom.

So when David wanted to find some analogy for the vastness of God’s faithful love, he turned to the sky and the clouds. In Psalm 108:4, he declares that God’s love is higher than the heavens and his faithfulness reaches the clouds. In other words, the magnitude of God’s faithful love for us is greater than we can fathom. The best we can do is look out at the clouds or the vastness of space. Then we get a small glimpse of the immensity of God’s faithful love for his people.

Thus, we can no more reach the end of God’s love for us than we can explore the farthest reaches of space. We can no more search out every square inch of God’s love than any one person could physically explore every square inch of the earth’s atmosphere. Paul described Christ’s love for us as a love that “surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:19).

God shows us love vast as the heavens, beyond the magnitude of the sky, reaching beyond the farthest galaxies. And we taste of this love in Christ through his work of redemption. Here is a love beyond our comprehension, and we will spend all eternity exploring its vastness. This exploration should start now. We should pray with Paul that we would know more of the love of Christ that exceeds our comprehension.

As David sings in Psalm 108, the vastness of God’s love should lead us to worship. How can we respond to a faithful love that makes galaxies look small except with thanksgiving and praise? God’s love is to be marveled at and rejoiced in. We should stare often at its sheer magnitude so that our hearts might pour out the praises of our Creator and Redeemer.

Let us be careful that God’s love never becomes a stale cliche or a religious relic we mumble about on Sundays. Instead, let us pray together for the strength to comprehend the breadth, length, height, and depth of God’s love so that our hearts will truly resound with his praise (Eph 3:18-21).

This praise is not simply a personal or private practice. God’s faithful love should also spur us on to missions. David gives thanks and praises God among the peoples, among the nations. God has entrusted his people with the good news of his love revealed in Jesus. We should declare this good news to all nations. We should call all peoples to faith in God’s Son. And we should long to see all nations giving thanks and praising God because his love reaches beyond the heavens.

This week take some time to look up. Stare at the immensity of the sky, the sheer magnitude of the heavens. Let their vastness stir you to give glory to our God who made the sky, the clouds, and every galaxy. They declare God’s glory, including the glory of God’s faithful love for his people.

Spiders in Paradise (Genesis 1:24-25)

“And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. . . . And God saw that it was good.“(Genesis 1:24-25)

Were there spiders in the Garden of Eden? Did Adam and Eve wake up in that unfallen world and ever see spiderwebs glistening with dew? Were arachnids crawling and spinning webs from the trees of that paradise?

Maybe the very suggestion of spiders in paradise gives you the creeps. We usually picture Eden teeming with birds, cute, fuzzy animals, and beautiful trees and flowers—but spiders? They must be part of the later curse on creation, right? I certainly wouldn’t want any of those eight-legged creepers in my paradise!

I can’t give a definitive answer to these questions. But Genesis does tell us that with the animal kingdom, God also created everything that creeps on the ground (Gen 1:24). According to Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham, the Hebrew word for “creeping things” (remeś) “refers to mice, reptiles, insects, and any other little creatures that keep close to the ground.”^[1] It’s a broad, general word that very well could include spiders too. And after creating the animals and these creeping things, God saw that it was good (Gen 1:25).

Thus, Genesis 1:24-25 points to the creation of insects and maybe even arachnids. God created bugs. And it was good. God created ants, crickets, worms, and all the rest, and they joined the song of creation, praising the Creator. Unlike today, they must have lived in perfect harmony with the trees and other plant life (no worrying about aphids damaging apple trees in that garden!). And if there were spiderwebs in Eden, they may have had a different purpose than they do now. Regardless, Genesis points to the existence of creeping, crawling things in the Garden, maybe even spiders.

When we admire God’s creation, we often focus on sunsets, stars, mountains, and waterfalls. We focus on the obvious, marvelous strokes God has painted on the canvas of this world. But the small details also declare his glory. As Seth Lewis reminds us, God’s creation “is a message. It is the art gallery of reality, speaking as loudly as possible in the language of colours, textures, ancient stones and living scenes.”^[2]

Even today, in our fallen world, the creeping things relay a message from our Creator. The goodness of the original creation still echoes in this fallen world. Crickets and cicadas sing a melody that exalts the Creator. The ants instruct us in the wisdom of God. And yes, perhaps even spiders have something to contribute to the praise of God and the edification of God’s people.

These thoughts about spiders and “creeping things” started when I tried to take down some spiderwebs outside our church building with a leaf blower. With the blower at full strength, pointed directly at a large, intricate web, I could not blow it free. It was strong, resilient, and also beautiful.

The design of a spider’s web is surely not the result of random chance. It also hardly seems like a mere result of God’s judgment on this world. Like stars and waterfalls, spiders and their webs testify to the creativity of God. They point to his power and his beauty.

In the words of the well-known hymn: “This is my Father’s world: The birds their carols raise, The morning light, the lily white, Declare their Maker’s praise. This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair.” Even in a spider’s web.

Gordon Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary, 25.↩︎
Seth Lewis, The Language of Rivers and Stars: How Nature Speaks of the Glories of God, 25.↩︎

Waiting for Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:4-9)

My least favorite part of visiting the doctor is sitting in the waiting room (can I get an amen?). Maybe I am just impatient, but I like to be in-and-out when I see the doctor or the dentist. If I’m going to be told I have a cavity or need a prescription for a rash, I’d rather just get it over with. But there I am, sitting on an uncomfortable chair just listening for my name and piddling around on my phone. Waiting often feels annoying.

Yet, waiting is the posture of the Christian life. Read the Bible and the posture of waiting describes most of the people and times in the Old and New Testaments. Abraham waited quite a while for the promised son. David waited years to sit on the throne. Israel waited centuries for the coming of the Messiah.

In the New Testament, Paul writes that the Corinthians lack no gift as they “wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 1:7). We live in a time of waiting. The next big event in God’s purposes for the world is the second coming of Jesus. We are waiting for his revealing, when God will reveal to the world that Jesus is Lord and every knee will have to bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord.

But this posture of waiting is not passive. We are not just dawdling around here on earth twiddling our thumbs waiting for Jesus. This is not a kick-back-and-take-a-nap kind of waiting.

We are called to an active kind of waiting. In Jesus, God’s grace enriches us with spiritual gifts (1 Cor 1:4-7). God intends that we use these gifts of speech and knowledge and service during this time of waiting. This is a get-to-work-while-you-wait kind of waiting.

God does not leave us destitute while we wait. He enriches us with all we need for actively serving Christ. He gives us gifts of speech for encouraging one another, edifying Christ’s people, and sharing the gospel with the lost. He gives us gifts of knowledge to know how to live for his glory in a dark, complex world. These gifts are evidence of God’s grace. They confirm that the good news of Jesus is working among us (v. 6).

But our God not only gives us these gifts, he sustains us while we wait. Waiting takes strength. On our own, we would botch this whole waiting business. The Corinthians were doing a pretty good job of that with all the conflict in their church, the sin they let slide, the pride they let fester. Yet, God’s grace promised to sustain them, and it will sustain us to the very end.

God is always faithful (1 Cor 1:9). He has called us into fellowship with Jesus, and he will strengthen us to the very end when Jesus returns and the waiting is over. His grace saves and sustains. His grace establishes us as blameless before him, and in Christ we can never lose this position and this future.

For now, we are waiting for the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we are not in a waiting room watching for someone to come and fetch us. As Jesus put it several times in the Gospels, we are servants with work to do, gifts and resources to steward (Matt 24:45–51; 25:14–30; Luke 16:1–13; 17:7–10). God has enriched us and equipped us to live for him while we wait. We wait for the return of our King by using what he has given us for the sake of his kingdom and glory.

Enjoying the Toil (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25)

“There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25)

This week, our church basement flooded after we received 6-7 inches of rain in the course of a couple hours. The creek behind the church rose into the parking lot, ran down our basement stairwell, and put the entire basement two inches under water.

As we toiled with buckets in hand, one of the guys asked me: “Isn’t this the time for you to share some deep spiritual wisdom?” My response: “Well, I just read some of Ecclesiastes this morning!”

In both Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 and 3:12-14, Solomon declares that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their food, drink, and, yes, even their toil. There is satisfaction to be found in enjoying a well-made meal, a tasty cup of coffee (something even Solomon never got to enjoy!), and doing hard work–whether that is your nine-to-five job, a labor-intensive hobby, or bailing water out of a basement.

And yet, Solomon has also just remarked that when he looked at his toil under the sun, he hated it (Eccl 2:18)! Why? Because whatever he gained from it, he would eventually have to leave to someone else. He found this absurd, vanity, meaningless. Why work hard when whatever you gain doesn’t last or will be passed on to a fool?

If you look to work to get you things you think will make you happy, you will always be let down in the end. You will come to hate your toil. But if you look for the simple satisfaction of hard work done well, you will find a much better way to live under the sun. It is not always fun. But it is a gift from God (Eccl 3:13).

Life under the sun (i.e., life in this present fallen world) often seems absurd and meaningless. You replace carpet one week and a couple weeks later the basement floods again. You wash dishes only to dirty them again. The work doesn’t stop and sometimes it seems like it is for nothing. But when we take stock of our brief lives here on earth and remember what really matters, we can find enjoyment from God even in the toil.

Solomon also goes on to add that “whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him,” (Eccl 3:14). Our work will fade. Our greatest accomplishments and richest achievements will pass from memory. But God’s works last forever so that we might come to know and worship him.

We can enjoy the satisfaction of hard work done well even though we know our work won’t last because we know, worship, trust, and love the God whose works last forever.

Bad Theology Suffocates Love (1 Timothy 1:3-5)

Last week, a minor league baseball team forfeited a game because several players on the team refused to wear rainbow, “Pride” affirming jerseys. Several major league players also received backlash for displaying Bible verses on their baseball caps during a game marketed as a “LGBTQ Pride Night.” It is all too common for these kinds of stands to be labeled “unloving” in our society. And LGBTQ issues are just one example of this. Today if you contradict anyone’s beliefs, you risk being labeled a hater.

But the apostle Paul offers a different diagnosis. He writes to Timothy:

“As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (1 Timothy 1:3-5)

According to Paul, Timothy risks undermining love in the church if he lets false teaching and sin continue unchecked. False doctrine suffocates love. But biblical doctrine revives love. Biblical doctrine leads us to the God who is Love and defines love and lavishes his love upon us in Jesus.

Paul wants Timothy to charge the church to teach only true, biblical doctrine for the sake of love. The goal (telos) of promoting good theology and confronting bad theology is love. To allow false doctrine to go unchecked in the church is profoundly unloving. It is unloving to let lies rage like wildfire among Christ’s people. It is unloving to ignore distortions of the gospel, distortions of God’s character, or distortions of God’s commands.

The standard of truth the church should promote is the “stewardship from God that is by faith.” This stewardship is the sound doctrine of Scripture that we receive by faith. Anything that rejects, denies, or distorts this stewardship will not end up on the path to love.

But when the church promotes biblical teaching, the church pursues love that has a solid foundation in purity of heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith (1 Tim 1:5). Good theology promotes the purity of our hearts. We find cleansing in Christ, and God creates a clean heart in us as we believe the gospel. Biblical teaching also properly aligns our inner compass of right and wrong based on God’s standards. And sound doctrine fans our faith into flame by showing us the wonder of who God is and what he has done.

In contrast, bad theology muddies our hearts. It leads us to believe lies about God, the world, and other people. False teaching misaligns our inner sense of right and wrong. It also corrupts our faith and makes it looks fake, because it is man-made and not based on God’s truth. False doctrine shipwrecks our faith and drowns our love (1 Tim 1:19-20).

Therefore, if love is our telos, we will confront false doctrine and proclaim biblical truth without apology. Love should be our aim. Love should also influence our manner of proclaiming the truth. We don’t want to be jerks. We want people to see the beauty of the gospel and the beauty of living God’s way.

The most loving way to live is not ignoring sin and bad theology. The most loving way to live is graciously pointing people to God’s truth in Scripture as we live it out ourselves. Lord, help us to pursue this kind of love in the church by pressing into the sound doctrine of your Word.

It’s a Trap! The Fear of Man vs. Faith in God (Proverbs 29:25)

“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” (Proverbs 29:25)

According to Proverbs 29:25, an alarm should sound off in our hearts every time we begin to make a decision based on the fear of what other people will do or think–it’s a trap. The fear of man is a trap. It’s a snare that we often walk into everyday.

What exactly is the fear of man? According to Duane Garrett, “The ‘fear of man’ describes any situation in which one is anxious about not offending another person.”^[1] The fear of man is when the primary grid for how we live our lives is how people will respond to our words and actions. It leads us stay silent when a coworker cuts corners because we fear what might happen if we speak up. Or we do not confront sin in a friend because we are afraid of the repercussions. Or we do not share the gospel because we fear rejection. In other words, it leads us into a failure to do what is right because we fear the risk of making other people angry, hurt, and so on.

The fear of man is all over our world today. We are a society afraid of being offensive. We fear getting cancelled by the politically correct mob. At home, every decision can easily become about how we can make everybody happy. At work or school, we alter our behavior according to the people we are with. At church, we put on a mask because we don’t want people to find out what we’re really like.

But this is all a trap. We think acting this way will keep us safe. We think, “As long as we can keep everyone happy, everything will be okay.” But this is a lie. Living according to the fear of man will not keep us safe. We may avoid hard conversations. We may do our utmost to go with the flow and stay comfortable. We may earn a trophy for being the world’s #1 people pleaser. But in the end, we will not be safe.

We will live in constant worry. Our judgment about what is right will be clouded. Our courage will fail. And we will be held accountable by God (not people!) for how we lived. The fear of man is a trap.

True safety comes from trusting in the Lord and living according to his will. The person who trusts in Lord will be kept safe in the end because God’s ways are always best and God alone can give us true safety.

Therefore, the safest place for us is living by faith in what God says is good and right, not worrying about offending or angering other people. This doesn’t mean we never consider how our words or actions might make another person feel. It is clearly not wrong to want other people to be happy or feel loved! However, their will and desires are not always best. But God’s will is always best, even when it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.

This proverb also doesn’t mean bad things will never happen to us if we just trust God. Both Scripture and reality teach us otherwise. People will get angry with us. We may have relational conflict. But in the end, the safest place to live is always faith in what God says, not fear of how people will react.

Duane A. Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, vol. 14, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1993), 233. ↩︎