He hell, in hell, laid low;
Made sin, He sin o’erthrew;
Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,
And death, by dying, slew.
*Poem by S. W. Gandy, cited in D. A. Carson’s commentary, The Gospel According to John, p. 622.
Loving the cantankerous people
Jim Eliff shares some good thoughts on why love is the proper way to handle the “cantankerous” people in our church:
- Love is the highest mark of maturity.
- Love is the perfect bond of unity (Col. 3:14)
- Love is the way of blessing because it is grounded in humility (Phil. 2:3-4)
- Love is the reasonable return for what God has given you (Col. 3:13)
How should we love this kind of person practically? Eliff offers four ways:
- Invite him to your home.
- Try to find out what drives him.
- Within reason, give him some servant responsibility.
- Confront him if he continues to cause problems.
You can read the whole article here.
(As a side note, Eliff’s ministry, Christian Communicators Worldwide, is currently offering a free book to seminary students and first-time pastors. See below.)
We occasionally like to give away resources to seminary students and first time pastors. Students or first time pastors may currently ask for one of the following: Divorce and Remarriage: A Permanence View, OR Wasted Faith, OR Dangers of the Invitation System. We only ask that you commit to read the book. Please write Steve Burchett at ccwblog@gmail.com for ordering details.
Obama-Antichrist video
Many of you have probably seen this video, connecting Barack Obama with the Antichrist. I’ve had two people in the last week ask me about it, so here’s my response:
- The biggest problem is equating Satan (Lk. 10:18) with the Antichrist. These are two different people, not the same (See Rev. 13:2) This should make us immediately question the integrity of the rest of the video.
- Another problem is that Jesus explicitly told us the end would come unexpectedly (Mark 13:32-33). He would not have disclosed any specific details, even encrypted, to tell us when it’s about to appear.
- It elevates the oral, speculative words of Christ above the inspired, written word of Christ. The NT was not written in Aramaic. (We don’t even know for sure that Jesus spoke regularly in Aramaic. He may have chosen to teach in the more cosmopolitan language of Greek.) It is highly speculative to assert what Jesus would have said in Aramaic, and then to draw conclusions from this. It opens up a Pandora’s box of hermeneutical and theological abuses. God gave us the inspired New Testament in Greek, and that is what He intends us to study.
- Even the linguistic and grammatical support crumbles upon closer look. It is true that one Hebrew word for “lightning” is baraq, that the Hebrew word for “heights” in Isaiah 14:14 is bamah, and that there is an Aramaic conjunction waw (pronounced “u” in u-bamah). But please note, waw means “and.” Jesus did not say “from heaven and lightning.” He said “from heaven like lightning.” Even if Jesus had spoken in Aramaic, and even if He had chosen the words baraq and bamah (which is by no means certain), He would have joined them together with the preposition min, meaning “out of, from.” Thus, He would have said, baraq mi-bamah, and not baraq u-bamah.
This kind of stuff sounds good on the surface, even raising a hint of plausibility, but really undermines the clarity of Scripture. It delves into hidden meanings and connections, rather than encouraging people to seek the plain meaning of Scripture, found through the grammatical-historical method of interpretation.
I believe Satan is even content to use a video like this to get people anxious and distracted from the Person of Christ and clearly revealed Word of God.
To read more on the biblical identity of Antichrist, I would suggest checking out some recent articles by Bret Capranica.
Book review – The Back of the Napkin
Have you ever wrestled with a subject that was hard to understand or explain? Maybe it was a concept in school, a project at work, or even a matter of theology. Visual thinking may have been just the tool you needed.
Dan Roam introduces us to visual thinking in his excellent little book The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures. Say goodbye to clumsy PowerPoint slides, complicated spreadsheets, and endless bullet point lists. It’s time to return to the good old-fashioned pencil and paper or whiteboard.
In The Back of the Napkin, Roam opens with a series of intriguing questions…
What if there was a way to more quickly look at problems, more intuitively understand them, more confidently address them, and more rapidly convey to others what we’ve discovered? What if there was a way to make business problem solving more efficient, more effective, and – as much as I hate to say it – perhaps even a bit more fun? There is. It’s called visual thinking, and it’s what this book is all about: solving problems with pictures (p. 3).
The author spends the first half of his book introducing several important principles:
- 3 Basic Visual Thinking Tools: your eyes, your mind’s eye, and hand-eye coordination.
- 4 Steps in the Visual Thinking Process: look, see, imagine, and show.
- 5 Questions that help open our mind’s eye: the SQVID method.
- 6 Ways we see and show ideas: who/what, how much, where, when, how, and why.
Then, in the second half of his book, Roam gets practical. He applies all these principles to an extended case study of a fictitious software development company called SAX Inc. The book bogs down a little at this point, but it’s important for him to carry out the whole process from beginning to end.
For me, the most helpful part of the book was the SQVID (pronounced “squid”) method. It’s an acronym Roam created to show ten different ways of thinking about a subject: Simple vs. Elaborate; Qualitative vs. Quantitative; Vision vs. Execution; Individual vs. Comparison; and Change vs. As Is (The Greek letter Delta is the symbol for Change). Amazingly, by thinking of an idea in these ten different ways, your imagination is stretched and your mind’s eye is trained to look in whole new directions. Both the left and right hemisphere of your brain are exercised.
Let me give you a practical example. As I prepared last Sunday’s sermon on John 19, I decided to use the SQVID method to think about and sketch out different ways Christ shows His care to His disciples. This is what I came up with:
It may look like a bunch of gibberish at first, but it was actually quite helpful. Just taking time to think through these ten different aspects of Christ’s care caused me to look in a number of new directions, and then gradually narrow down how I wanted to illustrate and apply the passage I was preaching.
Visual thinking is a vital principle for both learning and teaching, and I can’t think of any better place to start learning about the subject than The Back of the Napkin.
Christ’s faithful care
Last Sunday, in our study of John 19:23-27, we met nine eyewitnesses to the murder of Jesus and learned an important lesson about Christ’s care for us.
- Four soldiers (Jn. 19:23-25). These men were carrying out orders and dividing the spoils of their victim. But in their morbid game of lots, John tells us they were fulfilling the prophetic words of David written 1,000 years earlier (Ps. 22:18). Even a detail as trivial as the casting of lots for a tunic was foretold by God. Matthew 27:54 tells us that these men later admitted truly this was the Son of God!
- Four ladies (Jn. 19:25). Jesus mother, aunt, Mary wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene were all present on the dreadful day Christ died. Their love for Christ overshadowed any fear they may have felt by staying near Him and incriminating themselves.
- A new son (Jn. 19:26-27). John concludes this section with a personal testimony about his own memory of that day. Jesus had looked him in the eye and entrusted Mary to him. And he was adopted as the new son of Mary. In Christ’s deepest moment of pain, He still put others above Himself and thought about the practical needs of His disciples.
Questions for further thought and discussion:
- How would you have felt to be Mary? John?
- When do you feel most alone and helpless? Do you think Jesus can help you during these times?
- Do you ever wonder if perhaps Jesus is too busy for you? What does this passage teach you about His care?
- What dangers do you face in life that Jesus protects us from?
- Read Hebrews 4:15-16. What is one important way you can find Christ’s help in time of need? Why not spend a few minutes doing that right now?
(Sunday’s sermon has been uploaded to our podcast site and is available for free download or to listen online.)
May God help us apply His Word this week in our hearts, in our words, and in our actions.
Pinch Of Clay 