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Daily Bible thoughts 1036: Friday 18th December 2015: 1 Timothy 6:17-21: A divine perspective on wealth.

 1 Timothy 6:17-21: A divine perspective on wealth.(please click here for todays passage)

‘’Earn all you can; save all you can; give all you can.’’ John Wesley

Here are some final thoughts from this wonderful letter to Timothy:

The transience of riches: ‘’Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain…’’ (17). It is. Banks have collapsed before. A bad business decision, an unexpected redundancy, a shift on the stock market, and it can all come crashing down. These words give us the insight that there were rich people in the early church. They needed to be reminded not to make wealth their god. No-one should trust in money. It is fickle. ‘’Tell those rich in this world’s wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow.’’ The Message.

The usefulness of riches: ‘’…God…richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.’’ (17b), and a big part of the enjoyment lies in having the privilege to give it away (18): ‘’Command (this is not an option!) them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.’’ Someone said that money makes a good servant but a poor master. Timothy was told to command the rich Christians not to live in servitude to their wealth; neither in the worship of it. Rather, they were to let it serve the purposes of God through them. ‘’Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage – to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous.’’ The Message.

Lasting riches: ‘’In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.’’ The way to keep your money is to give it away. This is counter-intuitive, but all who do so find that God’s laws of economics work differently. ‘’If they do that, they will build a treasury that will last…’’ The Message. If you invest your money in the bank of heaven what an eternal return you will receive. Is giving a joy to you? This is one major way to check out the state of your heart.

Prayer: Lord God, you have blessed me with so much. Again, I am faced with the challenge of being a good ‘steward’, and I so want to ask for your help with this. I commit to you all I have received from your generous Hand. Please show me how you want me to use it, and help me to be obedient.

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Daily Bible thoughts 1034: Wednesday 16th December 2015: 1 Timothy 6:3-10: You can’t take it with you.

 1 Timothy 6:3-10: You can’t take it with you.(please click here for todays Bible passage)

Someone said, ‘’You will never know that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.’’

I heard a young woman give a testimony on one occasion. She was a Christian, but she said that she had been through a period in life when she felt ‘’so discontented’’. Then, in reading her Bible, these words hit her (6): ‘’But godliness with contentment is great gain.’’ (6). They brought perspective and changed everything in her outlook.

What lies at the back of this passage is the lust for money; the love of money. False teaching and money-grabbing tend to go together. When you see greed for monetary gain in a leader/preacher it should set off alarm bells in your head. Be wary. If you are in a position of leadership in the church, and you sense such desires growing in your heart, that is an ‘eye’ to be gouged out and a ‘hand’ to be cut off (Matthew 5:29, 30). Don’t allow such longings to stay. Go to war against them. They may well destroy you if you let them stay. So, as the Sergeant used to say in ‘Hill Street Blues’: ‘’Do it to them before they do it to you.’’

Paul says there’s a standard of teaching by which you can ‘measure’ all teaching, and anything out of true should not be tolerated. In his day he knew of false teachers ‘’who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.’’ (5; Hebrews 13:5). Again, the problem here is the focus on money and the greed for it. The tenth verse has been misquoted as ‘’The love of money is the root of all evil.’’ It isn’t. But it is a serious problem. It leads to bad places. It can lead your heart away from Jesus so that your devotion is given to an idol that will bitterly disappoint (10). You can’t take it with you (7). We should be content with the basics of life (8). God may bless us with more, but it is wise, and right, to cultivate thankful, contented hearts. ‘’Since we entered the world penniless and will leave it penniless, if we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet, that’s enough…Lust for money brings trouble and nothing but trouble. Going down that path, some lose their footing in the faith completely and live to regret it bitterly ever after.’’ The Message.

False teaching has to be dealt with. It is like a serious infection; a contagion that will spread: ‘’If you have leaders who teach otherwise, who refuse the solid words of our Master Jesus and this godly instruction, tag them for what they are: ignorant windbags who infect the air with germs of envy, controversy, bad-mouthing, suspicious rumours. Eventually there’s an epidemic of back-stabbing, and truth is bit a distant memory. They think religion is a way to make a fast buck.’’ The Message.

A well-known preacher was asked to speak at a meeting in the Stock Exchange in London. He said he wanted to entitle his talk: ‘’You can’t take it with you, and if you could it would burn!’’

Prayer: Lord, keep my heart free from the love of money

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Daily Bible thoughts 1033: Tuesday 15th December 2015: 1 Timothy 6:1, 2: He’s my brother.

 1 Timothy 6:1- 2: He’s my brother.(please click here for todays passage)

I heard a story about a private soldier who was attending a communion service. When it came time for him to leave his seat and go and receive the bread and wine, he noticed that his major was in the queue behind him. So he stood back to let the senior officer go first. But the man refused. As the story goes, he said, ‘Anywhere else, but not in here.’ We are on level ground before the cross.

Paul did not campaign against slavery. It would have been futile for him to do so under the Roman Empire. But it could be argued that he sowed the seeds of its destruction in his revolutionary teaching about masters and slaves. They could sit together in the same pew, you might say, and call each other ‘brother.’

However, Paul wanted the Christian slaves to understand that they should not abuse their privileged position of serving fellow-Christians (2). They were not to ‘short change’ them in any way.

Whoever we are; whatever we do; whether we are slaves or free, we need to understand that by our behaviour we can discredit the God we claim to love and the teaching we say we follow. There is urgency about understanding this point because so much is at stake. It really is important. Eyes are on us, and how we live matters.

‘’Whoever is a slave must make the best of it, giving respect to his master, so that outsiders don’t blame God and our teaching for his behaviour. Slaves with Christian masters all the more so – their masters are really their beloved brothers!’’ The Message.

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Daily Bible thoughts 1032: Monday 14th December 2015: Jeremiah 24: Different destinies.

 Jeremiah 24: Different destinies.(please click here for todays passage)

‘’Jeremiah received the vision described in this chapter shortly after King Jehoiachin and other leading citizens of Jerusalem (including the prophet Ezekiel) had been carried into exile in Babylon (2 Kings 24:10-14); the year was 597 B.C., eleven years before the final destruction of Jerusalem. The purpose of this vision of the good and the bad figs was to show that those who were carried into exile (the good figs) were far better off than those who stayed in Jerusalem (the bad figs): the exiles would survive, prosper, and eventually return to Judah; those who stayed in Jerusalem would be destroyed along with the city.’’ Tom Hale: ‘The Applied Old Testament Commentary, p.1110.

It’s important to understand that both groups – those taken into exile, and those left behind were ‘bad’, in the sense that both had violated God’s Covenant, and both were being punished. It was by the grace of God alone that the exiles were chosen to survive and become a remnant, from which, in due time, the Messiah would come. The irony is that those who remained in Jerusalem thought they were the lucky ones. They were soon to find out otherwise.

God’s purpose in sending the exiles away was to purify them; to cleanse, and cure them of idolatry (6, 7). The ultimate fulfilment of the seventh verse would come in the inauguration of the ‘’new covenant’’ (Jeremiah 31:31-34), when the Holy Spirit came to live in believers following Christ’s death on the cross. He is the One who makes it possible to joyfully obey God’s law.

So it is not the case that the exiles were inherently good, and that those who remained in Jerusalem were intrinsically bad. The point at issue concerns the treatment they were going to receive, and this comes out in The Message: ‘’The exiles from here that I’ve sent off to the land of the Babylonians are like the good figs, and I’ll make sure they get good treatment…But like rotten figs, so rotten they can’t be eaten, is Zedekiah king of Judah. Rotten figs – that’s how I’ll treat him and his leaders, along with the survivors here and those down in Egypt.’’ Good figs have a useful purpose and are treated accordingly; whereas bad figs are useless, and get the treatment they deserve.

This passage reminds me that there is coming a day of judgment, which will be a day of division. People will experience different eternal destinies according to their acceptance or rejection of Christ. C.S. Lewis put it well. He said that in the final analysis there will only be two types of people in the world: those who say to God, ‘Your will be done’, and those to whom God says, ‘Your will be done.’

Prayer: In the light of the final judgment, help me to live seriously. Strengthen me to hold out Jesus to everyone I can. He is the only Saviour of the world.

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 1027: Monday 7th December 2015: 1 Timothy 5:1-8: Practical as a pair of shoes!

 1 Timothy 5:1-8: Practical as a pair of shoes! (please click here for todays passage)

‘’…let them learn that religion begins at their own doorstep and that they should pay back with gratitude some of what they have received. This pleases God immensely.’’ The Message

It is said that ‘’charity begins at home’’, but true religion starts there too. The eighth verse is such a strong statement: ‘’Anyone who neglects to care for family members in need repudiates the faith. That’s worse than refusing to believe in the first place.’’ The Message. In a section of practical instructions about different relationships in the church, Paul states clearly that Christian families should look after their own. This is a sacred responsibility (4).

But where someone is truly destitute (3, 4); where there is ‘real’ need, the church should do what it can. Let’s remember that Paul was writing in a context where there were no state benefits to be had. But the principle still applies in our culture. Where there is genuine need we can show we are Christians by our love (John 13:34, 35; Acts 4:34a).

Ethel Barrett writes: ‘’Christianity is as practical as a pair of shoes – not just for putting on and showing, but for getting up and going.’’

D.L. Moody said: ‘’Every Bible should be bound in shoe leather!’’

Our ‘’religion’’ must be ‘’put into practice’’ and it starts at home, which may be, for some, the hardest place to walk it out. But we only believe as much of the Bible as we do.

It pleases God when we remember the good things done for us by parents and grandparents and we honour them in our conduct towards them. Even if they don’t need 24 hour care, they should know that we love them; that we appreciate them. ‘’…this is pleasing to God’’ (4).

In the opening two verses we find wisdom for young men in ministry (but not exclusively for younger men.)

In (5) there is a principle which applies more broadly. When anyone, or any ministry, is ‘up against it’ and doesn’t know where the next penny is coming from, they are thrown back on God, and their prayer life intensifies. God answers prayer, and He does it through His people. Where we know of genuine need and we can meet it, it is surely not up to us to pray about it, but to dig into our pockets and put our religion into practice.

Prayer: Lord God, please strengthen me to live out my faith at home today.

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Daily Bible thoughts 1026: Friday 4th December 2015: Luke 3:23-4:13: Resistance movement.

 Luke 3:23-4:13: Resistance movement.(please click here for todays passage)

Again, Jesus is seen to be rooted in history (23-28).

The Holy Spirit, who came upon Jesus at His baptism, led Him into ‘’the desert’’ (1). We must understand that God’s Spirit will sometimes guide us into challenging and difficult circumstances. We can expect this, and should not be surprised when it happens. He is the One who will also enable us to come out victorious at the other end of the ‘tunnel’ (4:14).

Times of physical need and weakness are also times of vulnerability, and we should not be surprised if Satan tries to capitalise (2). Every day in the wilderness Jesus was tempted. In (3) you can observe the same tactic employed by the serpent in the Garden of Eden, trying to cast doubt on God’s Word. God had clearly said that Jesus is His Son (3:22).

Note that Jesus did not dispute the devil’s claim to be able to do what he offered in (5-7). Satan is the god of this world; the prince of this world. But Jesus asked on another occasion what profit it was for someone to gain the whole world but lose their own soul. Our Lord would not capitulate in the face of Satan’s subtle wiles and advanced marketing techniques.

How did Jesus resist the devil so that he fled from him? Three times he wielded what Paul calls ‘’the sword of the Spirit’’ in Ephesians 6, i.e. the Word of God. There was so much Scripture in Him. He was steeped in it; immersed in God’s Book, and was able to draw on just the right verses at the critical time of need: ‘’It is written…It is written…For it is written…’’ They all came from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. This raises the question, ‘How much of the Bible is in us? ‘’Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…’’ (Colossians 3:16).

No look at the temptation of Jesus can be complete without there also being reflection on Hebrews 4:14-16. Have a look at it now, if you can. Ask yourself, ‘What does Jesus’ success in temptation mean for me?’ I’m sure you will be encouraged.

Prayer: Thank you Almighty God for the revelation that Jesus, the Overcomer, lives in me, and in Him I never need be a slave to sin again.

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Daily Bible thoughts 1025: Thursday 3rd December 2015: Luke 3:1-22: Plain speaking.

Luke 3:1-22: Plain speaking.(please click here for todays passage)

This chapter opens with another detailed historical note (1, 2). This is Luke, the careful historian, showing that the events surrounding the coming of Jesus were rooted in history. There is a theological as well as a historical point to be made however. It is that before ‘’the word of God’’ can come through you, it must first come ‘’to’’ you (2).

John the Baptist’s ministry was in fulfilment of prophecy (4-6). His speech was direct and plain, and potentially offensive (7-14). In the end he paid a high price for his honesty (19, 20). Darkness does not like to be exposed by light. Rich and powerful got caught in the headlights of his preaching, and they used (or abused) their power to remove him.

John called the people to not rely on any supposed spiritual pedigree (8, 9). You can’t get into heaven on your parents’ ticket (or that of any ancestor). He preached repentance and judgment; the need for repentance in the light of coming judgment. He said that people should show their repentance by changed lives, and he spelled out in concrete terms what repentance would like for different people in differing circumstances (10-14). He left nothing abstract and unclear.

Most important of all – and this was the pulse of his ministry – John glorified Jesus (15-17). He had come to prepare the way for Him and he pointed to Him. He was a witness; a signpost to Christ. What an example he is to us all. Charles Spurgeon, the great Victorian preacher, shared John’s heartbeat. He said: ‘’I have a great need for Christ; I have a great Christ for my need.’’

When Jesus was baptised (21, 22) there was a further declaration of His unique identity as God’s Son. As we work through this third gospel we will discover that two of Luke’s key themes are prayer and the Holy Spirit. Here they are inter-linked.

Prayer: Lord, by your Spirit, help me to glorify you.

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Daily Bible thoughts 1023: Tuesday 1st December 2015: Jeremiah 23:1-8: True Shepherds

Jeremiah 23:1-8: True Shepherds

We have seen how chapter 22 is a kind of ‘rogue’s gallery’ of the final kings of Judah. In the Old Testament kings were shepherds. That’s how they were regarded. They were to love the people and lead them with compassion, tenderness and care. All the kings mentioned in the 22nd chapter, apart from Josiah, were bad shepherds. God was going to punish them for what they had done, and He prophesied a new day of shepherd care with different shepherd leaders, but ultimately the coming of the Messiah Himself, the ‘’good shepherd’’ (John 10).

So chapter 23 needs to be seen in contrast with chapter 22. This section of it:

  • Shows how much the quality of shepherding matters to God – He who is Himself the Shepherd of Israel (Psalm 23);
  • Challenges all leaders about how they shepherd the flock of God. We cannot do this carelessly or lightly;
  • Looks forward to a new and greater ‘exodus’ from Babylon and other lands. God’s dispersed people will come home. Even in the middle of messages of judgment, we can hold on to this note of hope;
  • Anticipates the coming of the Messiah. Matthew Henry points out that there aren’t as many Messianic predictions in Jeremiah as there are in Isaiah, but this is certainly one of them. Jeconiah may not have had sons to succeed him on the throne, but David’s line would continue; the promises made to David would be fulfilled. However bleak things may look, you can hold on to God’s Word. It will be fulfilled.

Prayer: Lord Jesus be my shepherd all the days of my life.

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 1022: Monday 30th November 2015: Luke 2:41-52: Holy habits.

 Luke 2:41-52: Holy habits.(please click here for todays passage)

Here are some further thoughts from my recent reading in Luke:

  • Consider phrases like ‘’used to go’’, ‘’as usual’’ and ‘’according to the custom’’ (42). This speaks of holy habits of public worship. Jesus grew up in that atmosphere, where there was a commitment to attend the recognised gatherings. Although we don’t have ‘laws’ about church worship, we could learn a thing or two from the Jews about the importance of regularly coming together before God. Furthermore, we know that we should not give up on meeting together. Hebrews 10:25 is surely a word for these times. For Joseph and Mary, going up to Jerusalem for the Passover meant a 60-70 mile journey. It took effort. It was also a step of faith for many of the worshippers, trusting God with their land and work while they were away from home. We can afford to take time out to praise God with others. While we are resting, He will keep the universe running. It does not rest on our shoulders. In one sense, ‘Sabbath’ time is a necessary and humbling reminder that we are not God.
  • We (as individuals and as churches) can ‘lose’ Jesus in a sense, and not realise it for a time (43b, 44). We can lag behind Him. We can also (as here) move on ahead of Him. The key is to keep in step with Him.
  • Jesus’ primary submission had to be to the Father (49; cf. John 14:31). Nevertheless, the passage emphasises that He was an obedient boy.
  • Sometimes, a good question can be more potent than a good answer (46). I often pray that God will help me to ask the right questions. We have thought recently about how God blesses and uses older people. It’s important to know that years on the clock don’t mean you are finished. But here we see how God’s Hand can be on young people. Jesus was just ‘’twelve years old’’ (42).
  • For a second time in this chapter we read about Mary ‘’treasuring’’ (51) these things in her heart (see 19). ‘’His mother held these things dearly, deep within herself.’’ The Message.
  • Finally, here are three great things to pray for your children, whatever their ages (52; see also 40 and 1:80).

Prayer: Let my heart be full to overflowing with thoughts of Jesus

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