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Time saving trick

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I think “hidden text” is one of the most under-appreciated features in Microsoft Word. It’s become an invaluable tool in my weekly lesson planning and Bible teaching. First, let me explain how to create hidden text, and then I’ll demonstrate how to use it.

To create “hidden text,” you first need to select the text you want to hide. Then go to Format > Font. A little window will pop up, and one of your “Effects” options is to create “hidden text.” Once this button is checked, your highlighted text will be hidden both on your screen and in your printed documents. However, you can easily view hidden text on the screen by clicking the “Show/Hide paragraph” button on the Standard toolbar.

Why is this helpful? I first heard of this feature a couple years ago while reading a discussion thread by some teachers. One of the teachers said they used “hidden text” when creating a True/False or multiple choice test. They would create the test with blanks, and then “hide” the answer key right in the document.

It then occurred to me – I could use the same trick to create a Bible lesson handout with blanks, then include all my answers and lecture notes in the same document as hidden text. This saves me the time of having to create two separate files: one for the teacher and one for the students. You can view a sample document here. Again, you can toggle the hidden text on/off by clicking the “Show/Hide paragraph” button. To print a document with hidden text visible, go to File > Print > Options > Include with document: hidden text.

I’d encourage you to experiment with “hidden text” a little bit. If you find yourself starting to use it regularly, you can create a simple keyboard macro to save time. First, go to Tools > Macro > Record New Macro. Name your macro something like “hiddentext”. Assign a keyboard shortcut (I use “ctrl + w”). Once the macro recording has started, click on Format > Font > Hidden text. Then click the red square to stop the macro recording. That’s it! You’ve created a new macro shortcut. You can now create hidden text at any time simply by clicking “ctrl + w”. One further tip: to distinguish hidden text from visible text, I like to put my hidden text in blue. You can add this step into your macro recording so that “ctrl + w” will hide the text and change color to blue all at the same time.

Note: Hidden text should not be used to store sensitive information, because it is easily made visible.

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions.

Theology

The deity of Christ

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No, this chart does not represent the number of foreclosures in California. It shows the number of active members in the group known as “Jehovah’s witnesses” across the United States. Jehovah’s witnesses have grown exponentially in the last few decades, but their denial of Christ’s deity has remained the same. Are they wrong?

We can’t afford to be wrong about Jesus Christ. In 1 John 2:23, we are warned that “whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.” If we deny or disregard the person and work of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible, we have denied the Son and called Him a liar. And tragically, those who deny the Son “do not have the Father.” God has no part with them. If on the other hand we accurately confess Christ, we have a wonderful promise that we “have the Father also.”

So, who is the Son, and how can we make sure we’re believing in the right one? Was Jesus merely a moral man? A great prophet? A wise teacher? The “highest” of all created beings? No, none of these phrases adequately describe Him. He is not merely a moral man; He is the holy fulfillment of God’s Law (Matt. 5:17). He is not just a teacher; He is the author of all wisdom (Col. 2:3). He is not only a prophet; He is the living Word of God (Jn. 1:14). He is not the “highest” of all created beings; He is the very one who created all things (Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2). Jesus Christ is God.

Although there are many verses in the Gospel of John that teach the Deity of Christ (e.g. John 1:1, 14; 8:59; 10:30; 20:28), one of my favorites is John 5:17. In this passage, Jesus has just healed a lame man and been accused of violating the Sabbath. In response, Jesus makes an incredibly bold statement: “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” To our ears, it may sound harmless at first, but to a first century Jew, Jesus has just thrown down the gauntlet. Notice two claims to deity in this verse:

  • First, Jesus claims to work in the same way as God. Obviously, God does not stop His work on the Sabbath day. Even when humans rest, God continues to sustain life, cause crops to grow, keep stars on course, and sovereignly superintend over all events. Our powerful creator never ceases to work. (And we can be very thankful He never takes a day off or falls asleep on the job!) Even the Jewish leaders acknowledged this. But here’s the rub. Jesus claims equality with God when He says “My Father is working…and I Myself am working.” Two verses later, He adds, “whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner” (Jn. 5:19). That’s a pretty bold statement. Jesus has the same power and prerogative to work on the Sabbath as His Father does. In fact, Jesus is the “Lord of the Sabbath” (Lk. 6:5). Jesus is God because He does the work of God.
  • Second, Jesus claims to have a unique relationship with God. Notice that Jesus does not call Him “the Father” or even “our Father,” but “My Father.” Jesus has a unique and intimate union with His heavenly Father that has existed from eternity past; He knows and loves His Father to a degree that you and I will never fully appreciate. The Jews immediately sensed what Jesus was getting at here. They knew He “was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (Jn. 5:18). And because they rejected this claim to deity, they sought to kill Him. Nevertheless, Jesus is God because God is uniquely His Father, and Jesus is the only begotten (one-of-a-kind) Son of God (cf. Jn. 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18).

While never violating the monotheism of the Old Testament (Deut. 5:7; 6:4-5), Jesus expands our understanding by showing that God is actually three in one: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus claims to be equal with God in both the way He works and in the way He relates to His Father. And unless we accurately believe in Jesus as God the Son, we do not have God the Father.

Shepherding

A letter from Jesus

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What if Jesus Christ wrote a personal letter to your local church? In Revelation 2-3, Jesus wrote to seven churches in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey): Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. To those who were persevering in faith, He gave tender words of assurance. But to those who were compromising and disobeying, He offered a stern warning.

What would Jesus say if He wrote to your church? That’s exactly what a friend of mine, Chips Ross, recently asked his congregation at Forest Ranch Baptist Church. And for two Sunday nights, they drafted a letter of what Jesus might say to them. (It’s helpful to know Forest Ranch is a small community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, just north of Chico, California). Here’s the letter…

To the messenger of the church in Forest Ranch:

The One who sees into the deepest woods1, who is faithful to even a few, and who reigns over the trees and hills, says this:

I know your deeds, that you have persevered, worked hard, and have been faithful as a tree remaining firm in the midst of storms.

But I have this against you: you have sat like an old tree with too much fill around you2 and you have each pursued your own trails3.

Therefore, repent, lest I close the yellow gate4 before you. Come alive as a poppy and be faithful as the sun that rises over the mountain.

To him who overcomes, I will make him to be a conifer, standing tall and straight, in the land of my God and to be red dirt5 that remains through all.

Let him who has ears hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

1 – Pictures that Jesus sees all and thus knows all
2 – Pictures complacency; become like the culture around and thus have begun to rot
3 – Being independent from God and from each other
4 – Yellow gates are put up to close mountain trails
5 – Red dirt of Forest Ranch that clings to your clothing and can never quite be washed out; once it’s on, it’s on.

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Praying God’s promises

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Our Sunday School class has been going through an inductive Bible Study by John Stott on the Book of Acts. When looking at the prayers of the disciples on those days between Christ’s ascension and Pentecost, Stott comments,

[Jesus] had promised to send them the Spirit soon (Acts 1:4-5, 8). He had commanded them to wait for him to come and then to begin their witness. We learn, therefore, that God’s promises do not remove our need for prayer. On the contrary, it is only his promises which give us the warrant to pray and the confidence that he will hear and answer. (Acts: Seeing the Spirit at Work, p. 12)

Another great example of this promise-prayer relationship is found in the Babylonian exile. For centuries, Israel had rebelled against God with her idolatry and immorality. God was slow to anger, but eventually disciplined His chosen people. Yet even this discipline was for a season. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God promised His judgment would only last for seventy years:

You have not listened to Me, …Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Because you have not obeyed My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north…This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation… (Jer. 25:7-8, 11-12)

For thus says the LORD, When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. (Jer. 29:10-11)

A whole generation later, after Israel’s captivity and Babylon’s destruction, the prophet Daniel discovered God’s promise and prayed for God to fulfill His word:

In the first year of [Darius’] reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. (Dan. 9:2-3)

Notice that Daniel did not take God’s promise of deliverance for granted, but humbled Himself before God in prayer. And according to Ezra, God graciously answered Daniel’s prayer and finally fulfilled the prophecy given through Jeremiah so long ago…

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom,…” (Ezra 1:1)

There is a lesson here for each of us today. Just as the early disciples prayed for the promised Spirit, and just as Daniel prayed for God’s promised deliverance, so we too should pray often for the fulfillment of God’s promises. For example, we should:

  • Pray that Christ will continue to build His church (Matt. 16:18)
  • Pray that people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation will hear and receive the gospel (Matt. 28:19-20; Rev. 5:9)
  • Pray that God will deliver us from temptation (1 Cor. 10:13; Matt. 6:13)
  • Pray that Christ will return soon (Jn. 14:3; Rev. 22:20)

May God’s promises increasingly instruct and occupy our prayer life. Only then can we know with certainty that we are praying according to His will, and that He will answer our prayers (Jn. 14:13, 15:7; 1 Jn. 5:14).

Thoughts on Life and Leadership