Once for All

"Whoever runs ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. He who abides in what Christ taught has both the Father and the Son" (2 John 9).

Progressives “run ahead.” They go beyond what Jesus and the Apostles taught. "Jesus plus one more thing” is the heart of every heresy.

Christians are not avant garde—edgy and experimental. They are conservative: They go back to the traditions handed down by Jesus and his apostles, an emphasis John made repeatedly: "That which was from the beginning... (1 John 1:1; 2:7, 13, 14, 24; 3:8, 11; 2 John 5, 6). John’s appeal to the past is his way of stating that new insights do not eclipse the gospel "once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). Christian faith is rooted in historical events: the Incarnation, the cross, the atonement and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There's no "new” news to report. It's finished. 

Paul writes, playing with two different Greek words for “another”: "I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to another (ἕτερον—completely different) gospel, which is not another (ἄλλο—of the same kind)…" (Galatians 1:6, 7a).

Any other gospel than the gospel of Christ is not the gospel at all.

David Roper

5.27.21

The Roots of Anti-Semitism

And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon... 

And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron (cf., Psalm 2), but her child was caught up to God and to his throne… 

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him… 

Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short! And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child” (Revelation 12:1-13). 

•••

John, in apocalyptic vision, sees a red dragon (the devil) hell-bent on killing a man-child (the Christ) who is about to be born. Foiled in his efforts to destroy the child, the devil turns his rage on the woman (Israel) who brought the child into the world and, bent on her destruction, pursues her to the ends of the earth (Revelation 12:13).

 

This little vision teaches us that we're caught up in a wider and more sinister plot than the one we see played out in the media. The relentless persecution of the Jewish people, here and abroad, is part of a larger spiritual conflict between good and evil—God’s redemptive purposes and the murderous strategies of the devil.

 

Antisemitism is bigotry and racism, but it is more: It is Satan's way of avenging the birth of the One who loves us and came to save us. Anti-Semites stand on the wrong side of redemptive history, for "Salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22). No true follower of Jesus would embrace it. 

 

David Roper

5.23.21

The Silence of the Lamb

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth (Isaiah 53:7).

One of the most striking examples of our Lord's silence was an occasion on which his opponents, unable to overturn his logic, resorted to a vicious ad hominem attack. “Well," they said, "(at least) we're not born of fornication" (John 8:41), with the implication that he was. (News travels fast in a small town. Everyone knew that Mary was pregnant when she married Joseph and assumed that Jesus was conceived out of wedlock.)

Had I been Jesus I would have launched into a lengthy  explanation of the Virgin Birth, yet, "He opened not his mouth," in that he did not offer a word of personal defense. 

This is meekness—strength under control. Jesus knew that he was God's dearly beloved son and cared not a fig for what others thought of him.  

George MacDonald underscores this robust virtue in his novel,  Malcolm, on an occasion in which his protagonist was the victim of a vicious slander.

"Well, Mem (said Malcolm), what would you have me do? I can’t send my old daddy around the town with his pipes to proclaim that I’m not the man. I’m thinking I’ll just have to leave the place.”

“Would you send your daddy round with the pipes to say that you were the man? You might as well do the one as the other. Many a better man has been called worse, and folk soon forget that ever the lie was said. No, no; never run from a lie. And never say, neither, that you didn’t do the thing, except it be laid straight to your face. Let a lie lay in the dirt. If you pick it up, the dirt’ll stick to you, even if you fling the lie over the dike at the end of the world. No, no! Let a lie lay as you would the devil’s tail!”...

“What should I do then, mem?”

“Do? Who said you was to do anything?. The best doing is to stand still. Let the wave go over you without ducking.”

"But there must be some judgment on lying.”

“The worst wish I have for any backbiter is that he may live to be affronted with himself. After that he’ll be good enough company for me. Go your way, laddie; say your prayers, and hold up your head. Who wouldn’t rather be accused of all the sins of the Commandments than to be guilty of one of them?”

And Malcolm did hold up his head as he walked away.

David Roper 

5.20.21

Why Then Should I the Burden Bear?

“Blessed be the Lord, who carries my burden day after day” —Psalm 68:19

 

What is my burden today? Endurance with joy: “To lark and leap on shanks grown dry as sticks!" 

 

I can only do that as God “carries my burden”—literally, “carries that which is to me”—a particularization that greatly encourages me: My burden is His. 

 

When my burden becomes too great to bear I can shrug it off my shoulders, knowing that the Lord will take it up and carry it for me “day|day," as the text puts it. He will do so because he cares for me (1Peter 5:7). 

 

As for tomorrow? Well, I shall have to do it all over again. 

 

What Thou shalt today provide,

Let me as a child receive;

What tomorrow may betide,

Calmly to Thy wisdom leave:

’Tis enough that Thou wilt care,

Why then should I the burden bear? —John Newton

 

David Roper

 

Pure Religion

 “This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." —J.R.R. Tolkien

 

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (James 1:27).

 “.

Great acts of virtue come rarely, and rarely are they hard to do. They have their own reward: the rush and recognition we get from virtue signaling; the accolades we draw by going along with the crowd. It’s much harder to give ourselves to small, unheralded acts that no one sees. But these are the greatest deeds of all, the elements of which are found in Jesus, but in no other ethical system. 

 

True acts of mercy have to with the small stuff of life—doing good things in secret and in silence. This is pure religion, James says, “to look after orphans and widows in their distress.” Pure religion does what most people are unwilling to do. It “exaggerates what the world neglects,” G. K. Chesterton said.

 

Quiet, unpretentious deeds, done out of the way and in quietness, attack our pride, our hunger for power and prestige, our desire for recognition and approval, our determination to be relevant. Unseen acts train us in the practice of humility, which is the essence of godly behavior.

 

One way to test the authenticity of our social concern is to ask ourselves: “Do we align ourselves with the woke crowd  because it’s the admirable thing to do? Or are we willing to follow Jesus, though he takes us down paths that lead us away from the crowd. 

 

We can if we’re waiting for his “Well done!”—alone.  

David Roper

5.15.21

Conflict

“The sole cause of wars and revolutions and battles is nothing other than desire.”

 —Plato

 

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatra greatered towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives a greater grace (James 4:1-8).

 

What causes fights and quarrels—border disputes, racial tension, family squabbles, marital spats, sibling rivalry, church splits? Why can’t we get along?

Conflict stems from “desire,” James insists, a Greek word from which we get our word “hedonism.” Hedonism is the philosophy that what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is the highest good. Taken to its extreme it’s the relentless and ruthless pursuit of personal pleasure without regard for others.

Trouble comes when the pursuit of pleasure puts us in conflict with another human being similarly inclined. Two people desire a pleasurable thing, but both cannot have it at once. (Two drivers converging on the last parking space at a crowded mall comes to mind.) One or the other is thwarted in his desire, a frustration that can soon escalate into anger, blows and lethal rage. “You want something, but don’t get it, (so) you kill.” 

Killl? Really? It’s a fact: most homicides are not premeditated acts, but “crimes of passion (desire),” prompted by frustration and deeply regretted after the fact. The unguarded pursuit of pleasure can lead to terrifying violence. James does well to warn us.

Evill springs from frustrated desire. “It is insatiable desires which overturn not only individual men, but whole families, and will even bring down the state. From desire there spring hatred, schisms, discords, seditions and wars,” wrote Cicero, the Roman statesman.

James’ solution is profoundly simple: when you desire something—ask God for it. When in the pursuit of any passion you collide with someone pursuing his or her passion, rather than insist that your will be done—ask God. He is the giver of every good and perfect gift. It delights him to give. 

But there is one proviso: we must ask with a quiet and submitted will. We cannot dictate the time or terms of our satisfaction. It may be that God will give us what we desire, but give it to us later than we would like to have it. It may be that he will not give us what we want at all, but rather the satisfaction we seek from the thing desired. Satisfaction is an effect quite apart from natural cause. Its source is God alone. 

What this means is that we must give our deepest desires to God and let him satisfy us hisway. The alternative—taking matters into our own hands, is “adultery”—a very apt metaphor. When we seek satisfaction on our own will apart from God’s will we are unfaithful to the lover of our souls who longs to satisfy every desire of our heart.

Bernard of Clairvaux wrote long ago, “What will you do if your needs are not met? Will you look to God to meet your needs? God promises that those who seek first the kingdom and his righteousness will have all things added to them. God promises that to those who restrict themselves and give to their neighbor he will give whatever is necessary. Seeking first the kingdom means to prefer to bear the yoke of modesty and restraint rather than allow sin to reign in your mortal body” (from On the Love of God).

Asking God to meet our needs is much better than getting what we want our own way, for, as James put it, God gives a “greater grace” (4:6)—greater than anything we could ever get on our own

 

David Roper

5.13.21

 

Sweetness

 “When their leaders fall into a hand of stone, they will hear my words, that they are sweet”—Psalm. 141:6

Admittedly a difficult verse, but I would suggest that those whose “leaders fall,” are the elders of the Kingdom of Israel, who aligned themselves with Saul against David and the Kingdom of Judah. “Hand of stone” is an idiom signifying the application of an irresistible force—God’s “hand” that brought about the collapse of Saul’s kingdom.

 

For twelve years Saul hounded David and sought his death. David steadfastly refused to speak against Saul, but took his complaints straight to the Lord with the confident assurance that He, in due time, would set things right. Throughout David’s long ordeal, his words to and about Saul were gracious. And when Saul was killed in battle and the northern kingdom went into decline David did not gloat. Even then his words were “sweet”: He honored Saul and upon hearing of his death rendered a most tender elegy (2 Samuel 1:17-27).

 

“Sweetness” hardly accords with David’s rough exterior—though Walter Peyton pulled it off—but David was making a point: His words to and about Saul were gracious and good.

 

Perhaps, David muses, when the dust has settled, Saul’s followers will remember my words and the two nations will be reconciled—a reunion of North and South that actually occurred somewhat later at the instigation of David’s former enemies: “So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the LORD, and they anointed David king over (all) Israel” (2 Samuel 5:1-3).

 

Sweetness keeps the door wide open. Bitterness keeps us apart.

 

David Roper

5.4.21

 

Servants of God

 "As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance...through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise..." (2Corinthians 6:4,8).

After twenty-four years of faithful service to his church in Northampton, Massachusetts, Jonathan Edwards, America’s premier pastor-theologian, was honored by an all expense-paid, month-long sabbatical in the Hamptons. 

No, actually he was fired, the victim of a vicious slander, a marvelous example of the old adage: No good deeds go unpunished. 

Those who observed Edwards’ behavior in the days that followed were amazed at his equanimity: he was calm and quiet and showed no displeasure toward those who demanded his dismissal. As one biographer put it, "His happiness was out of the reach of his enemies" (Iain Murray). 

How can any of us maintain our composure in the face of egregious injustice? Paul answers: By knowing that we are "servants of God."

Years ago, a friend told me about a board meeting in which he was cruelly maligned. At one point one of his elders shouted, "Don't forget, son, you work for us!" My friend absorbed the rebuke quietly and replied. "Yes sir," he said. "You pay my salary, but I don't work for you. I'm a servant of Jesus Christ." 

I wasn't present on that occasion, but his words have indelibly marked my own thoughts about the work that we do: We don't work for anyone but Jesus.

That doesn't mean we can be cavalier about our employment, but it does free us from worrying too much about what others think of us, say about us, or do to us. We can endure dishonor and slander, knowing that we will receive our reward from the Lord. For we serve the Lord Christ (Colossians 3:24). 

David Roper

4.3.21