Engaging Scripture

When God’s presence is gone – Ezekiel 1, Part 1

Think about the last time you encountered the presence of God. When was it? How did it happen? In a worship service singing a song? In Bible study? In nature? Maybe at a youth retreat around a campfire?

Now think about how long has it been since you encountered the presence of God? Maybe a long time? Maybe never? Do we need to experience the presence of God in our lives? Should we have an expectation that we will experience it? Has God promised us that we will have such an experience? Is something wrong if we don’t experience the presence of God on a regular basis?

Last w e ek we met a man named Ezekiel. This week we will study Ezekiel 1, which describes his shocking encounter with the presence of God.

In verse 1 we read that it was the 30^th year, 4^th month and 5^th day, but of what? We’re about to find out. More on that in a post later this week.

Ezekiel also says that he was among the exiles. What exiles? In 2 Kings 24:14, we read that this exile happened during the rule Judean King Jehoiachin, when the powerful nation of Babylon defeated the city of Jerusalem and took 10,000 people from the city, including Ezekiel. Think about the exile for a moment. Last week I gave a brief overview of the history of the nation of Israel, from the perspective of their covenant relationship with God. That covenant was a relational agreement between God and Israel, such that his powerful presence would be with them. His presence guided them from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. Then his presence resided in the temple. The physical presence of God was their foundation for hundreds of years.

In 2 Kings 24:14, we met another powerful presence, the Babylonian military, and that military conquered Jerusalem and exiled the people. The unthinkable had happened. It seemed like the presence of Babylon had defeated the presence of God. That was unfathomable. What do you do when what you believe is impossible all of a sudden happens? It shakes your worldview foundations. You start to question, “Is everything I believed actually wrong, a lie? What is true?”

Many of us feel those doubts when we go through difficult times. For Israel, it was an exile in which the presence of God didn’t seem to matter. Of course, they should have been aware that they were the ones that broke covenant with God, and God was doing exactly what he said he would do if they broke the covenant, which was to allow them to face the consequences of their sin. But you and I well know that we can struggle to have the humility, the teachability and self-awareness to say, “Yeah, my bad, God, I deserve this punishment.”

Rather than look at our own sins, what we often do is turn our fear around on God, and make it out to be his fault.

When people die of natural causes, I’ve heard people say, “God…why??? Why did you do this?” I imagine God thinking to himself, “I didn’t do anything…they were in their 90s and had been struggling with poor health for years.” But we don’t want to hear that, so we start blaming God, or we have a crisis of faith, wondering if God was ever real, or if all we believed was always false. This happens not only when we have a health crisis, but it can happen when we go through anything difficult like a job loss or a broken relationship. In those moments of pain, God seems distant. When God’s presence seems distant, we can question him. That was surely happening in the hearts and minds of those exiles.

Who were these exiles, and why was Ezekiel among them? One scholar says that “Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Babylonians, only deported the most prominent citizens of Judah: professionals, priests, craftsmen, and the wealthy. The lower-class peasants were allowed to stay.” (Jewish Virtual Library) So Ezekiel must have been part of one of those upper-class families. We’ll learn more about this in a coming post this week. For now, think about how people were forcibly separated from their families, friends and homes. Do you think the Babylonian soldiers were nice about it?

Then imagine how the journey of the exile took place. They didn’t board airplanes. They were forced to walk to a distant land. Get this: the journey from Jerusalem to Babylon some estimate took four months to cover 900 miles on foot. So just the process of the exile was difficult. Think about how that might impact your relationship with the Lord. Four months, walking 900 miles, and God’s presence was nowhere to be found. So on top of the fall of Jerusalem, add the emotional and spiritual pain when you are ripped away from all that was familiar to you, then the physical exhaustion of an arduous exile, all the while wondering what in the world you were in for.

Once they arrived in Babylon, what life was like for them? Another scholar tells us that “Although the Jews suffered greatly and faced powerful cultural pressures in a foreign land, they maintained their national spirit and religious identity. Elders supervised the Jewish communities, and…prophets…kept alive the hope of one day returning home. This was possibly also the period when synagogues were first established, for the Jews observed the Sabbath and religious holidays, practiced circumcision, and substituted prayers for former ritual sacrifices in the Temple.” (Britannica)

So hope was not lost. But God’s presence was 900 miles away in the temple in Jerusalem. The exiles longed for return, for God to show up. But he didn’t.

Do you know the feeling?

If so, we’ll see, as we continue studying Ezekiel 1, that there is hope. Check back in tomorrow!

Are you experiencing the dark night of the soul? – Ezekiel 1, Preview

Does God seem distant to you? Ethereal? Maybe even a mirage or a fiction? Many people feel that way and wonder if something is wrong with them. Many feel guilt or shame when they have doubts about God. They wish they had a closer relationship with God. They wish their experience of God was more personal, intimate. They hear the stories about people describing an encounter with God that is vibrant and palpable, and they become discouraged or jealous wondering if they’ll ever experience God like that.

If you have those kinds of thoughts, you are not alone. Even a luminary like Mother Theresa experienced what some people call “the dark night of the soul.” In this article, we learn the surprising news that, “[Mother Theresa’s] letters revealed that, except for one short period, Teresa had been afflicted with a deep sense of God’s absence for the last half-century of her life.” Think about that! She felt that God was distant or even gone for 50 years!

Amazingly, Mother Theresa plodded on, serving the Lord. Are you thinking, “I don’t know if I could do that? 50 years?” Or maybe you are thinking, “I get it…that’s my experience too, and I don’t like it.” I was recently talking with a friend who said that his wife recently mentioned to him, “I want more of the Holy Spirit.” How about you?

This coming week on the blog, we will study Ezekiel chapter 1, and it seems to me that Ezekiel and his friends were having those very thoughts. They were experiencing the dark night of the soul.

Right in the middle of his longing, though, something shocking happens to Ezekiel, and it is wild. I don’t believe I can exaggerate how fascinating is this chapter of the Bible. See for yourselves. Read Ezekiel chapter 1 this weekend. Try to figure out what is going on. It might be tempting to think that it is a chapter of the Bible that has absolutely nothing to do with our lives in 2021. Think again. What I found as I studied this bizarre chapter of the Bible, convinced me that it is meaningful and practical for us in a very important way, particularly for those of us who wonder if God is distant, or if God doesn’t actually exist.

I’m looking forward to next week as we talk about Ezekiel chapter 1!

How a prophetic word can change your life (and the world) – Intro to Ezekiel, Part 5

I am excited to start studying this prophetic book of Ezekiel. Prophets are often conceived of people who predict the future. They seem glamorous. They hear from God. What I have come to learn, and this is only bolstered by my introductory studies of Ezekiel, is that the prophetic life is not glamorous, and it rarely involves predicting the future. Instead, prophets tell the truth about the current world, and it is often a truth that we don’t want to hear. We know it is true deep down, but it is a truth that says, “This situation is messed up, and there needs to be a change.” In a word: “Repent.”

Generally, people, humans, do not enjoy hearing that we need to repent. We do not enjoy it when someone confronts us. Most of us don’t like to confront others, and we don’t want others to confront us. We would much rather exist in a false reality where things are just fine, like a dreamworld, a fantasy. But we live in the real world, and we need to embrace and welcome the prophet in our lives. We need a person to tell us to repent, to restore what is broken. Repentance is sometimes conceived of a 180 change of direction. That’s not wrong, but it is not the full picture. Repentance is better understood as a restoration of relationship between God and creation. When we repent, we return to God, we renew our relationship with him, and of course that means we will stop sin, fight against sin, receive his forgiveness, and pursue him anew, including restoration in our human relationships and restoration of justice in our world.

This is the vision of restoration that we will see in Ezekiel, and it is one of his major metaphors, that of the transformation of the heart. Israel was hardhearted. A hard heart symbolizes a will, a desire and resulting action to live in such a way that breaks or goes against covenant relationship with God. The hard heart also has a permanence about it. It is set in stone, it is concrete, unchanging and dead. That is very bad news. It certainly describes Israel. They were dead to God. God, through Ezekiel, says that Israel needs a new heart, a heart of flesh, a heart that is alive to him, and he will give them that heart.

Thankfully we can know the end of this story in our lives now! Through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, God did the very thing Ezekiel says he would do. He made it possible for us to have a transformed heart. When we believe in him, God the Spirit lives with us and transforms us, so that the life of the Spirit energizes us and flows out of us. This is called the Fruit of the Spirit, and it grows in us and is visible for all to see in our interactions with other people. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. They are the evidence of a transformed heart. This is precisely what God, through Ezekiel, says will happen in his people who repent and are restored to him in covenant relationship.

Furthermore, this transformation will envelop the land in justice. What we will see in Ezekiel is a vision of societal transformation. We participate in the first-fruits of the Kingdom of God now when we usher in the Kingdom of righteousness and justice in our community. Is it the fully consummated Kingdom? No. That will only occur when Jesus returns. Instead, what Ezekiel helps us see is that our work of pursuing God’s heart of justice in our community is in line with what Jesus prayed in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

When God feels distant or fictional – Intro to Ezekiel, Part 4

*Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash*

Does God feel distant, or have you wondered if God is just a thing of the past? Maybe he wasn’t even real back then? While the stories of God’s work in the past sound great, and might even be encouraging and inspiring, what we really want is for God to show up in our lives now. Ever thought something like that?

We can be battling all sorts of issues in our lives, frustrated because the issues linger and linger and don’t seem to get resolved. We might have a health struggle that persists, even after seeing doctors, getting treatment, trying medications, having surgeries, and still we don’t feel right. We might have years upon years of just barely making it financially, and the day comes when we pay off a loan, super excited to have some extra cash each month, only to have the car break down. Right on the heels of paying off one loan, we have to start another. It might be a relationship that has been difficult for years. The person in your family or friend group that gets under your skin and you’ve tried to deal with it, but to little avail. What is the struggle in your life? In the middle of those struggles, we don’t want to hear, “God is there for you, and we know this because of the great things he did in the past.” We want to hear and know is that, “God is there for you, and we know this because of how he is doing great things right now.”

As we study the prophet Ezekiel, we find him addressing that concern through one of the repeated phrases God gives him: “I am Yahweh.” Do you remember what or who Yahweh is? It is the actual name of God. It is translated as “I am” or “I am what I am” or “I will be what I will be.” Through Ezekiel, God is declaring to the people of Israel that, though they had been enticed to follow and worship foreign false gods, he, Yahweh, will be making it clear to all that he is the one true God. Remember that the people are hearing this while they are in exile. Especially because they were exiled, even though it was because of their unfaithfulness, they could still be wondering if their God, Yahweh, is the one true God. All those stories from centuries before, especially when he freed their ancestors from slavery in Egypt, sound great. But that’s ancient history. Are those stories even true? What if all that was made up?

Ezekiel tells the exiles in Babylon, exiles who are wondering if Yahweh is real, wondering if God is who he says he is, that God is actually at work right here, right now. This is a reminder that can be so helpful to us as well. God IS at work now. God IS alive and well. Let us tell the stories of how we see God at work in our world. Please comment below with your stories.

When I hear that the exiles likely questioned God, I think, “What right do those people have to question if God is who he said he is?” The Israelites were disobedient to God. They broke the covenant between themselves and God. It wasn’t God who denied them. The people of Israel are at fault, so they don’t have any right to question God. Still God says to them “You will know, all will know, that I am Yahweh.” It reminds me of Paul’s words to Timothy that even when we are faithless, God is faithful, because he cannot deny himself. That’s a powerful thought. We need to dwell on that. God is faithful, because he cannot deny himself. We will know that God is God.

Though God is absolutely faithful in the midst of our faithlessness, that doesn’t mean he ignores the fact of our faithlessness. What we will see is that God’s message through Ezekiel is aware, very aware, of Israel’s sin, of the fact that Israel broke the covenant between God and Israel. Therefore, Ezekiel’s prophetic message will call Israel out over and over throughout the book, focusing on two main sins.

First, we will hear that the people committed idolatry, the worship of false gods. That will give us ample time to consider what idolatry might look like in our day and age. Do we American Christians practice idolatry? Absolutely. Of course we don’t want to hear that we might be idolaters, but we need to hear it. So let us be teachable and humble and receptive to how this message might relate to us.

Next, God’s message through Ezekiel calls out injustice. I know that the word “social justice” has taken on a political tone in our culture. But the reality is that God has a heart for justice, and that will be very clear in Ezekiel. Remember that God wanted his people to be a blessing to whole world (see the first post in this five-part blog series introducing Ezekiel). When the people of God blessed the world, the world would get to know the righteous heart of God, and justice would increase. Sadly, what happened in Israel was they sometimes treated people with injustice, such as when Solomon used slaves to build buildings. As we learn about God’s heart for justice, we will strive to apply it to our day and age.

I remember coming home from a mission trip to Chicago in the summer of 2010. There we worked with our sister church, Kimball Ave, as they taught about God’s heart for justice in the big city, and how they were striving to apply it. In Chicago there was injustice, seemingly, at every corner. Poverty, Hunger, homelessness, violence, corruption, and on and on. Back here in Conestoga Valley, though, there is gorgeous farmland and wealthy suburbs, all in an excellent school district. It doesn’t seem like there is injustice. As the months and years went by, we kept looking, and we found it. There is homelessness, poverty, some racial injustice, broken families, and more. Its why we work with CVCCS, its why we help with their summer lunch club, and why we help fight injustice in our community. Because it flows from God’s heart for righteousness and justice.

Ezekiel will be a wonderful guide to us continue to pursue God’s heart of righteousness and justice, reminding us that he is at work even now.

Why prophetic ministry is not glamorous – Intro to Ezekiel, Part 3

The late singer Keith Green once gave a talk about prophets, saying that he met people who considered him a prophet and people who wanted to be prophets too. Green’s response was, “You might not realize what you’re hoping for.” Prophetic ministry can actually be very difficult. This week (starting here) we’re meeting Ezekiel the prophet, and his prophetic ministry is an example of what Green is referring to.

The messages Ezekiel receives are very unique to say the least, and therefore his prophetic ministry is too. For starters, he prophesies as an exile, from the place of exile. Most of the other biblical prophets ministered in Israel. Ezekiel also has some bizarre prophetic methodology. Normally when we think of a prophet, we think of a guy getting a message from God and declaring that message to a person or a group of people in the form of a speech or a written letter. While Ezekiel had some of that, and eventually his prophecies were recorded in written form in the book we read, he also had some other very unique prophetic methods. First, he used sign acts, what we might call street theater. He would literally act out some of his prophecies in the public square, right outside where all could see him. One prophetic sign act involved Ezekiel, tied up, laying on his left side for 390 days, then again on his right side for 40 days, all the while eating food cooked by using human excrement as fuel. Some of the theater is so weird, it has been labeled as psychotic or schizophrenic. It wasn’t. It had a purpose, and it was from God, calling the people back into covenant relationship.

But there’s more. Ezekiel communicates through allegories or parables. A vine. An eagle. A lioness. And even fantasy characters, that remind us of The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia. Ezekiel would also have prophetic visions that almost seem like God was transporting Ezekiel physically from Babylon to Jerusalem. I wondered what this might have been like. It made me think of a drone pilot. Some of you maybe have drones that have cameras, allowing you to pilot them from far off. Those drones can travel miles away, so that you can’t see them, and you have to rely on the camera to pilot them. A couple years ago, my wife’s uncle was in town for her sister’s wedding, and he brought a pretty fancy drone with him. One day he was flying it in Amish country, and decided to follow a buggy. The video feed from the drone camera to the iPad, which he used to control the drone, was not nearly as high quality as the recording. So when he played back the recording, he was shocked to realize that he had flown the drone right through high tension electric wires. A near miss! I don’t know precisely what Ezekiel’s prophetic transport visions were, but you will see that they are quite unique. Perhaps most famous of all is the vision of the valley of dry bones.

Ezekiel’s methodology also includes something called the Prophetic Stare. Nine times in the book we read God telling Ezekiel to “set his face against” something. The mountains, false women prophets, the south, the city of Jerusalem, some foreign countries. Scholars tell us that we should not understand this as God telling Ezekiel to travel to those places. Remember the story of Jonah and Ninevah? He was commanded to travel with his message, but not Ezekiel. Instead, Ezekiel’s prophetic stare included a message, say, about Pharaoh, King of Egypt, that was intended for the hearing of the Israelites in exile, and likely never made it to Pharaoh.

This bizarre methodology did not result in people clamoring to Ezekiel to hear more. In fact, we will read God say to Ezekiel that he, Ezekiel, will go through all of this, and the people will not listen. Ezekiel’s prophetic ministry would not only be difficult, it would also be ineffective. That’s what Keith Green was getting at. Please hear me: prophetic ministry is vital, and that goes for today. In Ephesians 4, Paul writes that God calls some in the church to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds/pastors and teachers. We need prophetic ministry. But don’t expect it to be glamorous.

Why prophets (and the rest of us) need to practice humility – Intro to Ezekiel, Part 2

Yesterday we met the prophet Ezekiel, whose ministry occurred during some of Israel’s years of exile in the land of Babylon. Who was Ezekiel?

Ezekiel was the son of a priest, and before the exile, he likely grew up in Jerusalem, where it would have been expected that he, like his father, would become a priest one day. But Ezekiel was growing up, unfortunately for him, during the time when Judea was growing in wickedness to the point where God allowed the regional superpower Babylon to conquer the land. In approximately 597 BCE, Ezekiel, along with many others, was exiled to Babylon. He was probably 25 years old. Five years later, still in Babylon, God calls Ezekiel to be a prophet, which we will read about next week in Ezekiel chapter 1. Eventually we will learn that Ezekiel was married, but he would experience the sudden tragic death of his wife. There in Babylon, he would be in prophetic ministry for about 23 years.

What was life like for Ezekiel? In exile in Babylon, the Jews for the most part were not persecuted or enslaved. They could preserve their national identity, practice their religion, etc. But they were still in exile, forced to live away from their land, from their homes, families and friends. Babylon had not emptied Judea of all people, so a remnant remained in the land of Palestine. Those in exile certainly longed to return to their homes, their friends and family. Scholars tell us that they began to ask serious questions: “Was God’s divine presence limited to Palestine? Was God impotent against the gods of Babylon? Could Yahweh be worshiped in a strange land? The theology of Ezekiel was suited to this new situation.” (Lasor 358)

Before we look at some of the theological themes of Ezekiel’s prophecy, themes that will help us answer these questions, it is important to understand a bit about Ezekiel’s attitude about himself.

We’ll notice Ezekiel calls himself “Son of Man” quite often. When you read the Gospels, you might notice that Jesus also calls himself “Son of Man.” But there is almost certainly no connection between the two. Quite literally a son of man is a human, a mortal. What this indicates is likely that Ezekiel wants his audience to be clear that, though he is a prophet and thus a mouthpiece for God, he is a mere person like the rest of us. Ezekiel is humble. He doesn’t want to be a celebrity, he doesn’t want to be the focus of attention. This is important because you can imagine that the prophets could easily be worshiped as celebrities. Think about it…they were hearing messages from God. That alone puts them in a really unique role, one in which they would have been viewed by others as special and privileged. They could turn that role into an opportunity for fame and fortune if they wanted to. But not Ezekiel. He repeats over and over the proper view, that he is a Son of Man, and thus, the people should focus their attention on God and the message from God.

How about you? Do you practice humility, pointing people to God? Or think about what might have enamored you? What do you worship? Who do you worship? It is easy to become focused on celebrity rather than on God.

Ezekiel’s message from God will call the people back to focus on God. Check back to the next post, as we’ll look more closely at the content of those important prophetic messages. Let me give you a preview…Ezekiel’s messages were bizarre!

What’s wrong with the world? – Introducing Ezekiel, Part 1

What’s wrong with the world? Ever discuss that question? It’s a popular one, and rightly so because of what we see going on around us, especially in our day and age when we have instant access to news from anywhere in the globe. It can get overwhelming thinking about the problems in our world, especially when we add our own personal problems. What’s wrong with the world?

Today we start a new series on the blog in which we meet a man from long ago through whom God tried to communicate the answer to the question “What’s wrong with the world?” The man who was God’s mouthpiece was a prophet, Ezekiel. Next week we’ll start looking at the text of the biblical book by the same name. This week, we need to spend some time just getting our bearings. Who was Ezekiel, when did he live, what was going on in the nation of Israel, and what are the themes of Ezekiel’s prophecy?

First of all, let’s place Ezekiel on a historical timeline. The first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, tell the story of the origin of the nation of Israel, starting with their Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God made a covenant with Abraham that God would make his family a blessing to the whole world. Abraham’s grandson Jacob, whom God renamed “Israel,” moved the family, now with multiple wives, 12 sons, and some daughters, from Canaan to Egypt, where they could find food in the middle of famine. Over the next 400 years, the family of 12 sons of Israel grew into the nation of the 12 tribes of Israel numbering in the millions. The Egyptians who had once been very accommodating to these immigrants eventually grew fearful of them. So the Egyptian king Pharaoh enslaved the Israelites using them as laborers to build many projects. The people cried out to God, and God led them out of slavery under the leadership of Moses, heading back to Canaan, the Promised Land.

One of the major events of that journey from Egypt to the Promised was a stop at Mount Sinai. There God met with Moses and renewed the covenant between himself and the nation of Israel. If you have been a reader of the blog for a couple years, you might remember that we studied this covenant in 2019 and 2020 in the series through Deuteronomy. God’s covenant can be summarized like this: “Israel, I love you and I am your God. If you love me and follow my ways of righteousness and justice, I will bless you, and you will be a blessing to the whole world. But if you turn your back on me and follow other gods, it will not go well for you.” There at Mt. Sinai, Israel heartily agreed to this covenant! But their adherence to actually live according to covenant was another story.

The next book of the Bible, Joshua, tells us how Moses’ right hand man, Joshua, took over for Moses and led the nation in the conquest of the Promised Land of Canaan or Palestine. After beginning the conquest, though they were now established in a land of their own, for the next few hundred years the people struggled to complete the conquest, as we read in the next book, Judges. Why did they struggle? Because during this early period in the nation’s history, the people were regularly tempted by and succumbed to the sinful ways of the nations surrounding them. They broke the covenant relationship between themselves and God. So God allowed those nations to invade Israel. Then when the people would cry out to God for help, God would raise up from among them a judge, a leader, to rescue them. This cycle happened over and over and over.

The last judge was a prophet named Samuel, and we read about him in the biblical book of 1st Samuel. During his time, the people cried out to God for a king, so that they could be like the nations around them. God wasn’t happy about this, as God was their king, but he allowed it. After the disastrous first king, Saul, the second king was a wonderful godly leader, the great King David. Under David, the nation finally completed the conquest of the land, and followed God. It seemed that the covenant God had made with their forefather Abraham, that his family was going to be a blessing to the whole world, was finally coming true. During his reign, which we read about in 2nd Samuel, David set up the kingdom for peace and prosperity, to be a nation that truly followed the covenant with the Lord, and then before he died, David turned the throne over to his son Solomon.

Solomon, famous for his wisdom, led the nation to new heights of prosperity and influence, as well as building the temple of God in Jerusalem, which we read about in the book titled 1st Kings. In some ways, under Solomon’s reign, the nation of Israel was at its high point. People from all over the known world traveled to Israel to see its splendor and the wisdom of its king. In other ways, cracks in their covenant foundation were starting to appear. First, Solomon used slavery to accomplish many building projects, a dark callback to the days of Egypt when it was Israel who was enslaved to build buildings. Then Solomon made treaties with numerous foreign kings, marrying their daughters, allowing them to bring idols to Israel and worship them. When Solomon died, the nation broke into civil war and split in two, ten tribes to the north named Israel, and two tribes to south, named Judea.

In the books of 1^st and 2 Kings we read the stories of the many rulers that led these sister nations. In Israel to the north, the kings are almost always wicked. In Judea to the south, it is a mixed bag, some wicked, some righteous. During this period God speaks to the people through his prophets, calling the people to return to covenant relationship with him. Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah and Jeremiah are some of the most famous. They called the people of Israel to return to following the Lord. Sometimes the people repented. But as the centuries went by, their wickedness grew, and God allowed surrounding powers to invade the land. Eventually, first Israel, and then Judea, were conquered, with foreign powers like Babylon exiling the Israelites. With the land in turmoil and many of the people in exile, it seems as though the covenant relationship between God and Israel has broken beyond repair.

During those years of exile, we meet another prophet, Ezekiel. Things were very wrong in Ezekiel’s world. So when we ask the question, “What’s wrong with the world?” as I did at the beginning of this post, we can know that many people throughout history have been asking the same question.

Check back to the next post as we learn about this new prophet, Ezekiel, and how his prophetic message can help us answer the question, “What is wrong with the world?”

What’s coming up on the blog: a study through one of the most bizarre books of the Bible – Introducing Ezekiel, Preview

If you’ve followed this blog, you might have noticed that my normal pattern is to blog through a book in one testament, and then move to a book in the other testament. (The blog actually follows along with what I’m preaching in my role of pastor of Faith Church in Lancaster, PA. I preach the sermon on Sunday, and then I break it up into five pieces and release it on the blog as a kind of daily devotional.) Since we just finished Colossians in the New Testament, I started thinking and praying about which Old Testament book would be a good fit.

I talked it over with my wife, Michelle, and she suggested Ezekiel. Immediately I thought, “Ezekiel? Really? I don’t know about that…”

Why was I hesitant?

First of all, Ezekiel is loooooong. Very long. Take a guess at where Ezekiel ranks if you list the books longest to shortest. 4th longest! In fact, it is only 229 words shorter than Psalms, which is 3rd longest. Ezekiel has 29,918 words. (Trivia question: What are the two longest books of the Bible? Find the answer in the PS below.)

Second, Ezekiel is fairly unfamiliar to me. I looked in my files and I had only preached one sermon on it previously. If I selected Ezekiel, I’d have some learning to do. Who was this guy, Ezekiel, anyway?

Third, I feel intimidated by prophecy, and Ezekiel is one of the Old Testament prophets. The 12 short books at the end of the Old Testament are a bit more manageable because they are so small. I had preached overview sermons on them long ago, but Ezekiel is a whole different ballgame, as it is a big long prophetic tome. Could I handle it? Furthermore, prophecy can get really odd. How will people receive it? Does it relate to Faith Church in 2021?

But, I had to admit that I was intrigued. When I considered all the books of the Bible I have preached since I became pastor 13 years ago, I had to admit that other than that 12-part overview series on the Minor Prophets, I have rarely preached from the prophets. That means preaching through Ezekiel, given its genre and length, would be like nothing I’d preached before. I found that uniqueness appealing.

So I opened up the book of Ezekiel to see what I would find. As I mentioned above, if you would have asked me last week to describe Ezekiel, before I started reading it this week, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you much. How about you? Without reading it, what do you know about Ezekiel?

I was familiar with his mysterious vision of God in chapter 1, with his theme of Israel needing a new heart, with his prophecy about a foreign king that sounds like it might have a double-meaning describing Satan, and finally with his famous vision of the valley of dry bones. That’s it. And that’s not much. So one night last week as I started reading Ezekiel, I outlined it to see how it might work as a sermon series. It didn’t take me long to confirm that I did not know much about Ezekiel. I’m sure I must have read it sometime, but if I did, it was long gone from my memory.

What I was reading was mostly new to me, and what’s more, it is WILD! I kid you not, Ezekiel is unique, and it is wonderfully weird. But all the way through the bizarro stuff we’re going to discover in the book, Ezekiel’s prophetic message is powerful, and I think very applicable to us. Even though I was reading for a while, I couldn’t put it down, partly because of the strangeness of it all, but more because it is so fitting to our world. I worked through the whole book that night, and I came away from it excited about this sermon series.

On the blog next week I’m going to introduce the book, and then the following week we’ll start with chapter 1. Then we’ll continue working our way through the book in a series that will finish sometime in 2022. The introduction will set the context and help us understand the scope and themes. My prayer is that our study through Ezekiel will be life-changing for all of us. From what I read and studied so far, if we take heart to Ezekiel’s prophecy, I don’t think we can help but be changed by the Spirit of God.

PS – Answer to the Trivia question: the 2nd longest book of the Bible is Genesis (32,046 words) and the longest is Jeremiah (33,002 words).

How to fulfill your calling – Colossians 4:7-18, Part 3

Editor’s Note: This week I welcome David Hundert on the blog. David is an MDiv student and member of Faith Church. He preaches for me 3-4 times each year when I am away, and this past week I was my denomination’s national conference. Thank you, David!

Do you ever feel frustrated about how your life is going? Wondering if you’re doing what your supposed to be doing? As we conclude this study through Paul’s letter to the Colossians, we’re going to hear some encouragement from Paul to a friend to press on and complete his calling.

Before we get there, read Colossians 4, verse 16 and we see an interesting aspect of life in Biblical times exposed. Paul intends that his letters were to be passed on between local churches. It makes sense, because if we are looking back 2000 years and making scripture written then applicable to us today, halfway around the world, how much more applicable would it have been in that day one or two cities over, right?

The other thing I find interesting, it that there was a letter written to the church at Laodicea! Theologians believe that if in fact there was a letter written specifically to the church in Laodicea, it must have been lost early on. Some think that Paul might have been referencing the letter to the church at Ephesus, since that letter was written pretty close to the same time, but if not, what could that have contained? What truths might it have contained? Could it still be out there in a jar in a cave somewhere just waiting to be discovered? Who knows, but it’s exciting to think about, isn’t it?

Next, Paul, in verse 17, asks Archippus to complete his work. In the letter to Philemon, Paul calls Archippus “our fellow soldier.” Here, he is exhorted to complete the ministry that he received in the Lord. There is a lot of speculation and conjecture surrounding him. One Bible Encyclopedia states that tradition suggests that Archippus was one of 70 disciples, eventually became the bishop of Laodicea and was martyred. Another reference suggests that the phrase in the letter to Philemon stating “…and the church that meets in your house,” is referring to the church meeting in the home of Archippus. There are some that believe that Archippus was actually Philemon’s son and that the ministry that Paul references in Colossians was the effort to free Onesimus. Again, a lot of this is tradition and speculation, and one day when we get to heaven, we can ask Paul for clarification.

However, what can we learn now from this? Christian comedian Mike Warnke used to say, “When you were saved, you were called for a purpose. And you are the only person in the kingdom of God that can fulfill that calling. It you weren’t, he would have called someone else!” So now I ask you, what is your calling? What are your giftings? What is the thing that God has called you to do, that no one else in the kingdom of God can do? Are you pursuing it? Are you trying to complete it? If not, what can the family of Christ, your brothers and sisters, do to help you reach that goal? Can we pray for you? Can we encourage you? All you have to do is reach out and ask! Feel free to comment below. See to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord. That is something that only you can do. No one can do it for you.

Now look at the final verse in the passage, verse 18. Some of the New Testament writers used “secretaries” referred to as an “amanuensis.” They were basically someone who was employed to write from dictation or to copy manuscript. This was actually very common in ancient Rome, and it was something that was used quite a bit by Paul. In this particular case, keep in mind that Paul was being held prisoner which would have made writing a long letter difficult. With that in mind, it also wasn’t uncommon for the one giving the dictation, to “authenticate” their letter by reading through it and then adding a line or two at the end. In this final verse, Paul gives the entire letter his “apostolic” stamp of approval by signing it in his own hand, asking the Colossian Christians to pray for him as he is still in chains, and then he closes with a blessing.

So what can we conclude here at the end of the letter? What can we learn from Paul’s P.S.?

First, our speech should be the kind that shares the good things that the Lord is doing for the purpose of encouragement. We should be encouraging one another. Maybe start a secret prayer partner ministry in your church. Faith Church’s Fellowship Team recently had one that lasted for a few months, culminating in a Prayer Partner reveal dessert, and it was very encouraging.
Look for those that haven’t been participating in your church family lately, people that used to be involved, and reach out to them! Drop them a card or give them a call. Let them know that they are valued and loved. Let them know that they haven’t been forgotten and that they are missed. Pray for them! You know who they are, just do it.
Join a small group. If your church doesn’t have small groups, talk with church leaders about the possibility of starting one.
We need to be intentional in our relationships with one another and with other churches. We need to be intentional with those that aren’t attending church anymore or even to those that are our neighbors where we live, and be there for them. Share the gospel with them. Be the gospel for them.
Contend, struggle for one another in prayer and in person. Turn your church family into a spiritual hospital for those in need.
Find out what your calling is and finish that to which you are called. Share that calling with the church so they can be praying for and encouraging you along the way! Celebrate when others are living out their calling.
Finally, remember those in chains. There are brothers and sisters around the world, going through persecution. Be praying for them and the communities that they serve.

How to show hospitality – Colossians 4:7-18, Part 2

Is hospitality just for hotels, restaurants, spas…or hospitals? Can we practice hospitality in our homes, in our friendships? Are you hospitable?

As we continue studying Colossians 4:7-18, the Apostle Paul mentions some of his friends, all of which were practicing hospitality. In verses 10-11, Paul mentions Aristarchus, Mark, and Justus, the only three Jews serving alongside him at this time. It makes me wonder what happened to the rest? According to one of the commentaries that I consulted, the author states, they “were the only Christians of Jewish birth who were actively cooperating with Paul in his gospel witness at this time.” Notice though, that they all send their greetings. They are all working closely enough with Paul that they are aware of who he’s writing to and probably the circumstances as well. With that, they send their greetings.

Another thing that stuck out to me about these verses, is the idea that Paul had to give special instructions to them regarding Mark. Why? As it turns out, between twelve and fourteen years prior to this, Mark had disgraced himself in Paul’s eyes by deserting him and Barnabas at Perga instead of going up-country with them to evangelize the cities of South Galatia. Mark had accompanied Paul and Barnabas during the first missionary journey, but returned home in the middle of it. You can read about that in Acts 13:13. When Barnabas wanted Mark to accompany him on the second missionary journey, Paul refused. Because of this disagreement, Paul and Barnabas parted company (Acts 15:39). Mark later joined Paul in his missionary work, and Paul praised him to others (2 Tim 4:11; Philemon 24). By this time, Mark had redeemed himself.

What we see in this passage is that Paul encourages the passing of greetings between churches. How could we keep in touch with other congregations? How can we encourage them? Faith Church is part of a local ministerium of various churches where the pastors gather monthly for prayer, study, and encouragement. How can your church have similar relationships with other local congregations?

The last thing that I’d like to add is that Paul mentions that these men proved a comfort to him. What would that have looked like? What does it mean to provide comfort to a brother or sister in Christ? I feel that it’s a given, that in order to be a comfort to someone, we need to understand the circumstances that they are in at that time. To do that, we have to be intentional about relationship. Instead we can get caught up in the idea that “so and so” has their life together, thus they don’t need me, or I’m not going to bother them with my problems. However, brothers and sisters, that is exactly when we need to be in relationship with one another. It has been my experience, that we as a part of the body of Christ need to intentionally work to make our church families safe places for each other to come and be open and honest. Matthew West, in his song “Truth be Told,” says

“There’s a sign on the door, says, “Come as you are” but I doubt it/’Cause if we lived like that was true, every Sunday morning pew would be crowded/But didn’t you say church should look more like a hospital/A safe place for the sick, the sinner and the scarred and the prodigals/Like me.”

When we realize that a church family is supposed to be like a hospital and we are all equipped to be there to wipe a forehead, or pray, or hug, or just be there for one another, we can all be a comfort to one another. Do you realize that we are all called to ministers? The definition of the word minister, is “The practice of caring for the physical and spiritual needs of others.” We are all called to care for one another. If you aren’t in a position to provide for the physical needs, than we can certainly pray for and with one another.

Next, in verses 12-13, Paul continues this theme mentioning his friend Epaphras. Paul states Epaphras is always wrestling in prayer for the church at Colossae. What does it mean to “wrestle?” First of all, the word “wrestle” comes from the Greek word “agōnizomai” is a verb and it means to contend with or struggle. It’s describing that Epaphras is engaging in spiritual warfare on behalf of the church.

What goal does he have in mind? That they would stand firm in the will of God, mature and fully assured. How often do we “contend or struggle” on behalf of our church family, that they would be mature, fully assured and effective within the community for the Lord? I’ll be honest. I need to contend more. I need to struggle more. In Luke 22:44, referring to Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, scripture states, “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” The word for anguish is the Greek word, “Agōnia.” Sound familiar? What can we learn about praying with that kind of intensity? Within all of this, Paul personally vouches for him regarding the work and prayers that Epaphras is doing. To have an apostle of his standing, personally vouch for him would be a really high honor.

Next in verses 14-15 we read about Luke. This is the only place in scripture that Luke is identified as a doctor! You can tell by the way he wrote his gospel, that Luke was a physician. There were terms that were used in his gospel to describe the various state of people with afflictions, that were only used by physicians of the day. Yet he never identifies himself as a physician anywhere in his gospel or in the book of Acts. It is only here that Paul finally outs him as a doctor.

Also, at this point in his closing, have you noticed how many people have sent greetings to the church? There was clearly an effort by Paul and the other apostles, to develop the relationships between brothers and sisters amongst all of the churches. This effort had been fruitful as they contended for one another and greeted one another. They would even send support in one form of another to other churches as they had need. This can be seen in 1 Corinthians 16, when Paul addresses “…the collection for the Lord’s people.”

Finally, at the end of verse 15, Paul specifically calls out a woman named “Nympha” and asks that they send her his greetings. The neat thing is that it mentions that there was a church that met in her house. There were some areas where there may not have been many believers that would gather, so gathering in a house would not have been out of the ordinary. Other areas, for instance Jerusalem, would have been too large to gather in one person’s home. However, this didn’t give up on the possibility that there were smaller gatherings in homes that might have been an earlier version of our care groups! Not much is known about Nympha, other than her generosity in providing a place to gather. Either way you look at it, Paul is calling her out in a way that makes note of her hospitality. In what ways can we show that type of hospitality?