Read The Bible

It has always been easy to get things wrong about the return of Jesus. Sometimes this springs from ignorance, sometimes from a distorted emphasis. Judging from 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12, such dangers have been present since the early church.

We maintain plenty of our own skewed interpretations about these matters today. For example, because in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 Paul writes, “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,” many contemporary scholars hold that Paul thought the Lord’s return would take place during his own...

I once heard a pastor preach through 2 Thessalonians 1 under the following outline:

Today I wish to reflect a little on the second point.

(1) Paul can speak of the Thessalonians being “worthy” of the kingdom of God that will come in consummated power when Jesus returns (2 Thess. 1:5, 11). The context shows that Paul is not supposing that somehow they become worthy enough to be accepted by God in the...

The last chapter of 1 Kings, 1 Kings 22, many believers find troubling. For here God himself is presented as sending out “a lying spirit” (1 Kings 22:22) who will deceive King Ahab and lead him to his destruction. Does God approve of liars?

The setting is instructive. For once, the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel are pulling together against the king of Aram, instead of tearing at each other’s throats. Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, comes across as a good man who is largely desirous of adhering to the covenant and being loyal to God, yet is a bit of...

In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul once again provides explicit instruction to his converts on how to live (see meditation for October 4). Although his time with the Thessalonians was brief, Paul can look back on those few weeks and comment, “Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living” (1 Thess. 4:1). In what follows in this chapter, there are four areas of such instruction (and still more in the next chapter, though we shall not pursue them here). The first three of these “how to live” paragraphs are laced with theological terminology and motivati...

The intensity of the relationship between Paul and his converts surfaces again and again. There is never a trace of mere professionalism in Paul. For all that he is prepared on occasion to stand on his apostolic authority, his stance toward churches he has founded is never one of distant superiority. When Paul found himself unable to visit the Thessalonian believers to find out how they were getting on—and in this case he was especially concerned since his entire ministry in Thessalonica lasted only about a month, so that these believers were not as well grounded as most co...

Doubtless Elijah expected that, after the triumphant confrontation on Mount Carmel, Israel would turn back to the living God (1 Kings 19). As he had executed the false prophets, so Queen Jezebel herself would be eliminated—by the popular demand of an outraged populace determined to be faithful and loyal to the covenant. Perhaps even King Ahab would repent and come on board.

It doesn’t work out that way. King Ahab reports everything that has happened to Jezebel, and Jezebel lets Elijah know that he is as good as dead (1 Kings 19:2). The people are nowhere to be seen. “Elijah...

It is tempting to comment further on the Pauline triad found in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 (see meditation on October 11), but the confrontation on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18) beckons.

The most shocking thing about that confrontation is that it was needed. These are the covenant people of God. It is not as if God has never disclosed himself to them. The corporate mind of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom has all but abandoned its heritage. When Elijah challenges the people with the words, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if...

Here and there in the New Testament we are suddenly given brief glimpses of arrays of Christian people. Romans 16 provides such a snapshot, and Colossians 4:7–18 provides us with another. The men and women briefly introduced lived entire, complex, interlocked lives, of which we know almost nothing. But they are our brothers and sisters in Christ; they faced temptations, overcame challenges, discharged very different tasks, and played out their roles in diverse strata of society. The brief glimpses afforded here fire our imaginations; our fuller curiosity will be satisfied only in heaven.

A few comments may hint at so...

First and 2 Kings narrate the declining fortunes of both the northern and southern kingdoms. Occasionally there is a reforming king in one realm or the other. But on the whole the direction is downward. Some orientation (1 Kings 16):

(1) Although 1 and 2 Kings treat both the northern and the southern kingdoms, the emphasis is on the former. By contrast, 1 and 2 Chronicles, which cover roughly the same material, tilt strongly in favor of the kingdom of Judah.

(2) In the south, the Davidic dynasty continues. During its history, there are, humanly speaking, some very close calls. Nevertheless God preserves the...

The setting was a Bible study led by a lady in the church where I was serving as pastor. A woman from one of the more popular cults had infiltrated this group, and the lady from our church soon discovered she was a little out of her depth. I was invited along, and soon found myself in a public confrontation with the intruder’s cult “pastor” (though he did not call himself that). One of the things he wanted to deny in strong terms was the deity of Jesus Christ. As we started looking together at biblical references which, on the...

Faith, hope, and love are together sometimes referred to as the Pauline triad. They occur in Paul’s letters in various combinations. Sometimes only two of the three show up; sometimes all three.

Probably the best known verse with the Pauline triad is 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Here no relationship is expressed among the three. Paul tells us that these three virtues—faith, hope, and love (and this last one he calls “the most excellent way” [1 Cor. 12:31b; see the September 8 meditation] rather than a “gift”)—al...

Some practical advice for Christians (Phil. 4:4–9):

(1) Always rejoice in the Lord (Phil. 4:4). This command is so important that Paul repeats it. Our responsibility to obey it is independent of circumstances, for regardless of how utterly miserable our situation is, the Christian always has the most profound reasons for rejoicing in Christ Jesus: sins forgiven and the prospect of resurrection life in the new heaven and the new earth—not to mention the consolation of the Spirit even now, and much more. Practically speaking, Paul well knows that the believer who is truly rejoicing in the Lord cannot poss...

The division of the unified kingdom into two unequal parts—the kingdom of Israel with its ten tribes in the north and the kingdom of Judah with two tribes in the south (1 Kings 12)—once again presents us with a remarkable dynamic between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility.

God had already predicted, through Ahijah the prophet, that Jeroboam would take away the ten northern tribes from Solomon’s successor (1 Kings 11:26–40). Jeroboam was explicitly told that if he then remained faithful to the Lord, the Lord would establish a dynasty for him. Yet the first thing that Jeroboam does, once...

In few places does the word however have more potent force than in 1 Kings 11:1: “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women.” In those days, the size of a king’s harem was widely considered a reflection of his wealth and power. Solomon married princesses from everywhere, not least, the writer painfully explains, “from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, ‘You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods’” (1 Kings 11:2).

That is exactly what happened, especially as Solomon grew old (1 Kings 11:3–4). He participated in the worship of foreign gods. To please...

The visit of the queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10) has often been spiced up in books and films until it has become a royal love story. Not a hint of love interest or sex scandal peeps out of the biblical text. The function of the queen of Sheba is to demonstrate by a concrete example that Solomon’s reputation had extended far and wide, and that that reputation was grounded in reality. Some observations on the encounter:

First, at a rather superficial level, this account provides an opportunity to say something about the nature of truth in the Ol...

Just before the closing lines of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he invites his readers to pray for him (Eph. 6:19–20): “Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.”

(1) Elsewhere when Paul provides models for how his converts should pray (e.g., Eph. 3:14–21; Phil. 1:9–11), the theme of mission does not arise as powerfully as here. True, Paul elsewhere asks others to pray for...

The dedication of the temple in Jerusalem and Solomon’s prayer on that occasion (1 Kings 8) overflow with links that reach both backward and forward along the line of redemptive history.

(1) The structure of the temple is a proportionate reproduction of the tabernacle. Thus the rites prescribed by the Mosaic Covenant, and the symbol-laden value all that God prescribed through Moses, continue: the altar, the table for the bread of consecration, the Most Holy Place, the two cherubim over the ark of the covenant, and so forth.

(2) Most spectacularly, after the ark of the covenant has be...

One of the remarkable features of Paul’s letters is that much space is devoted to teaching people how to live. Indeed, the Bible as a whole is interested in teaching us what to believe (because these things are true), and it is no less interested in teaching us faithful conduct. Nowhere is such balance more evident than in Paul’s letters.

The reason for this comprehensiveness lies in the nature of God. The God of the Bible, the God who is there (as Francis Schaeffer taught us to say), is God of everything. He is not the...

A mystery in Paul’s writing is not normally something “mysterious,” still less a whodunit. It is a truth or a doctrine which in some measure has been kept hidden in previous generations, and now with the coming of the Gospel has been disclosed and made public. Sometimes the Gospel itself is treated as a mystery; more commonly, some element of the Gospel is labeled a mystery.

In Ephesians 3:2–13, Paul insists that, along with other “apostles and prophets” (Eph. 3:5), he enjoys deep insight into “the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as...

Christians are often taught to memorize Ephesians 2:8–9: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” Certainly wonderful truths are expressed in these lines. But I shall focus on some of the things Paul says in the surrounding verses.

(1) Before our conversion, we, like the Ephesians, were dead in our “transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Because of our addiction to transgression and sin, because of our habit of following the ways of the world (Eph. 2:2), because we were simult...

Christians sometimes ask why, if Solomon was so wise, he married many wives, ended his reign rather badly, and eventually compromised his loyalty to God.

The answer partly lies in the difference between what we mean by wisdom and the various things the Bible means by wisdom. We usually mean something pretty generic, like “knowing how to live well and make wise choices.” But whereas wisdom in the Bible can refer to something broad—such as knowing how to live in the fear of God—very often it refers to a particular skill. This may be the skill of...

The end of Galatians 6 brings several themes together.

(1) Paul’s practice was to dictate his letters. Nevertheless, in order to authenticate them, he commonly wrote the last little bit in his own distinctive hand (compare 2 Thess. 3:17). So here (Gal. 6:11). Some have suggested that his “large letters” betray failing eyesight. That is possible but not certain. The important issue is that Paul wants his readers to recognize the real voice behind this epistle.

(2) The agitators are trying to get the Galatian Gentile believers to accept circumcision (Gal. 6:12). That would make them (they thought) good Jews—a necessar...

The transfer of regal authority from David to Solomon (1 Kings 1) is messy. One of David’s sons, Adonijah, confers with Joab, the head of the military, and tries to take over. Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, reminds her ailing husband of his promise that Solomon would be the heir, and the complicated account plays out.

Once again the chronic family failure of David stands out. The author of 1 Kings draws it to our attention in the parenthetical comment of 1:6. Referring to Adonijah, who was attempting the coup, he remarks, “His father had never interfered with him by asking, ‘Why do y...

Galatians 4 includes a couple of sections that have long prompted Christians to ponder exactly how Paul understands the history of Israel—especially the so-called “allegory” of 4:21–31. They attract a great deal of attention. Tucked into the middle of the chapter, however, are two short paragraphs that disclose a great deal of the apostle’s heart (Gal. 4:12–20), even though they are easily overlooked.

(1) The first (Gal. 4:12–16) finds the apostle pleading with the Galatians. He insists that his strong language with them has nothing to do with personal hurt: “You have done me no wrong” (Gal. 4:12). Indeed, he reminds them, the earliest...

Galatians 3 could usefully occupy us for an entire book as long as the one on which this devotion is based. But here I shall restrict myself to two observations.

First, in the first five verses Paul appeals to experience. He asks the Galatians whether their conversion and all their experience of the grace of God and the power of the Spirit came to them as a function of their observance of the Law of Moses, or as a function of their faith. After all, Christ had been placarded before their eyes as the crucified Savior (Gal. 3:1). They...

Some commentators understand Paul in Galatians 2:1ff. to be saying that after some years he returned to Jerusalem to set before the Jerusalem apostles and other leaders the Gospel he had been preaching among the Gentiles, because he wanted to have himself checked out. He did this privately, of course; yet the fact of the matter is that Paul was afraid he was running or had run his race in vain (Gal. 2:2). This proves that Paul was not as secure in his own mind as he pretends to be in the previous chapter. There is a sense in which...

The opening lines of Paul’s letters are usually crafted with great care. The simplest form of letters in the ancient Greek world was: “From me, to you, Greetings”—often followed by some statement of thanks, and then the body of the letter. But Paul’s customary practice is to “tweak” every component to anticipate what is coming in the rest of his letter. Thus a study of his letter as a whole enriches our understanding of his opening lines—and vice versa (Gal. 1:1–5).

(1) Paul does not always introduce himself as “an apostle.” Sometimes he uses no designation (e.g., 1 a...

In many churches around the world, though comparatively less frequently in North America, the minister at the end of the service will quietly utter the two words, “The grace.” Those gathered know that this is a signal for the entire congregation to pray together, reciting the verse from which these two words are drawn: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14).

The text is short and simple, and we are in danger of flying by without reflecting on it.

(1...

“I must go on boasting,” Paul writes (2 Cor. 12:1), though of course he has been doing so only in the most ironic way (see yesterday’s meditation and the one for September 21). But now he faces a new dilemma. Apparently his opponents have been boasting about their spiritual experiences. They may even have been saying something like, “Well, of course, Paul had that Damascus Road experience, but that was a long time ago. What has he known of God since then? Yesterday’s grace grows stale.” In this case, of course, Paul cannot simply deploy irony and boast about the opposite of...

In the continuing pressure he felt to respond to those who were undermining his authority in Corinth, Paul finds he must “boast” while not “boasting” (see yesterday’s meditation). In 2 Corinthians 10 Paul climaxes his argument by insisting that the Christian’s only proper boasting is in Christ Jesus: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord” (2 Cor. 10:17). In 2 Corinthians 11:16–33, he adopts a slightly different slant to get at the same truth.

What Paul does is take a kind of “time out”: he says he will boast, not as Paul the apostle, not even as Paul the Christian, but rather as Paul the...

There is a great deal of boasting in Western evangelicalism. Some of it is so flagrant that it is repulsive to all serious-minded people. Much of it, however, is subtle and potentially subversive. Probably most of us are guilty of it sometimes.

On first reading, it sounds as if Paul in 2 Corinthians 10 is also caught up in boasting, a word that recurs in the final four chapters of this book. In fact, the issues raised by this chapter are extraordinarily complex. I can here mention only a few of them.

(1) The tone of 2 Corinthians 10–13 sets th...

Second Corinthians 9 is the second of two consecutive chapters that Paul devotes to the subject of giving.

(1) He resumes with a lovely delicacy (2 Cor. 9:1–5). On the one hand, he assures the Corinthians that they do not really need reminders; on the other, he gently reminds them, so that neither he nor they will be embarrassed. After all, just as he used the Macedonians’ example of giving even in the midst of severe trial as an example to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 8:1–3), so he has been using the Corinthians’ generosity and enthusiasm as an example to the Macedonians! He does not...

The longest sustained encouragement in the New Testament to give money is found in 2 Corinthians 8–9. Today I shall reflect on some of the emphases in 2 Corinthians 8.

(1) Paul encourages the Corinthians to give by referring to the generosity of the Macedonians, who lived in the province to the north and were often viewed by those in Achaia, including the Corinthians, as a slightly inferior breed. Relaying evidence of the grace of God in the lives of some brothers and sisters in Christ can become an incentive to others to conform more closely to Christ.

(2) Paul stresses th...

What a twisted thing sin is. Its motives and machinations are convoluted and perverse.

At one level the account of 2 Samuel 14 is pretty straightforward. At another, it is full of thought-provoking ironies.

David adopts the worst of all possible courses. At first he cannot simply forgive Absalom, for that would in effect be admitting that he, David himself, should have taken decisive action against Amnon. On the other hand, David cannot bring himself to ban Absalom decisively, so he secretly mourns him. After Joab’s ruse with the “wise woman” (2 Sam. 14:2), he resolves to bring Absalo...

The threat to David’s reign predicted by the prophet Nathan begins with a sordid side-tale that nevertheless betrays exactly what is wrong with David’s rule (2 Sam. 13).

The multiplicity of royal wives meant that there were many half brothers and half sisters. This sets up the wretched rape of Tamar. The profiles of the people involved, with the exception of Tamar, betray what today we would label a dysfunctional family. Of course, only two of the brothers, Amnon and Absalom, are seen close up. But David’s handling of them—or better, his utter failure to handle t...

In Nathan’s dramatic confrontation with King David (2 Sam. 12), the prophet’s courage was mingled with a formidable sagacity. How else could a prophet grab the attention of an autocratic king and denounce his sin to his face, apart from this oblique approach?

Certain features of this chapter must be reflected on.

First, the fundamental difference between David and Saul is now obvious. Both men abused power in high office. What makes them different is the way they respond to a rebuke. When Samuel accused Saul of sin, the latter dissembled; when Jonathan questioned Saul’s poli...

Here is David at his worst (2 Sam. 11). In the flow of the narrative through 1 and 2 Samuel, it is almost as if adversity brought out the best in David, while his chain of recent unbroken military and political successes finds him restless, foolish, and not careful.

The sins are multiple. Besides the obvious transgressions of lust, adultery, and murder, there are deep sins scarcely less grievous. His attempt to cover his guilt by bringing Uriah home fails because Uriah proves to be that most exceptional of men: an idealist—an idealist who sees even his military responsibilities in te...

In some ways, Paul finds himself in an embarrassing position. If he fails to answer some of the concerns that the Corinthians entertained about him and his ministry, he could lose them—not lose them personally (that wouldn’t have bothered Paul), but lose their loyalty to him and therefore to the message that he preached. On the other hand, if he goes on at length about himself, at least some of his detractors will say that he is stuck on himself, or that he is insecure, or that a real apostle would not have to defend himself, or some...