Engaging Scripture

Current Events – The Failure of Ravi Zacharias, Part 1

It’s Current Events week on the blog. For the past year, one week per quarter I pause whatever blog series we’re in, and I scan the news on Monday morning to see what headline I’ll write about that week. My goal is that we learn how to engage what is happening in our world. We do not want to be people who bury our heads in the sand, unaware of what is going on. But we can be confused by or uncertain of how to process the latest news. So, as one person famously said, we need to be people who hold a newspaper in one hand and our Bible in the other. Or maybe nowadays I should say it this way: on our devices, we have a news app open side-by-side with a Bible app. In other words, we study scripture and theology, and we apply it to the world around us. We are trying to answer the question: “What does God say about things that are going on?” I want us to learn to think Christianly about our culture.

There were certainly a lot of headlines to choose from as I started looking through the news this past Monday, but the news about Ravi Zacharias struck me personally, and I thought it was important we talk about it.

I have mentioned Christian speaker and writer, Ravi Zacharias, in my sermons over the years. I did a search on my computer through my sermons since I started at Faith Church in 2002, and I found that I’ve mentioned Ravi Zacharias at least ten different times. I did so because he had such a wonderful way of explaining things. He had a combination of intellect and humor grounded in biblical truth, with the ability to speak in a compelling way.

I would say that as a public speaker, and as a preacher, though I never met him, Zacharias was one of my mentors from afar. I first learned about him at the Urbana student mission conference in 1993 which I attended on winter break of my sophomore year of college. It was awesome. 20,000 college students learning about how God’s Spirit was at work around the globe. Then Zacharias spoke at a main session one evening, and it seemed the entire crowd in the University of Illinois basketball arena was mesmerized. When he got to the end of his sermon, he asked the organizers of the event for a bit more time, because he had more material he hadn’t covered, and the crowd cheered like wild. We wanted more! Even then he only summarized a few of his closing points, and we wished he could keep going.

I bought the cassette of that sermon and listened to it frequently in the months and years to come. It is still my favorite sermon of all time. At some point I lost the cassette, so I bought the DVD, and then the digital recording. I wanted to learn to communicate like Zacharias.

As I continued my college career, I took a philosophy class in the spring semester of my junior year. Maybe it was because it was early in the morning. Maybe it was because philosophy can be dry. I hated it. At that point in my life, I was a bit of a missionary elitist, thinking that studying philosophy was a waste of time when I could be out there doing ministry. In fact, I was getting excited about my upcoming summer as I was traveling to Guyana, South America, for a 13 week-long missionary internship. Philosophy seemed pointless when there were so many that needed to hear about Jesus. As I was packing for Guyana, I brought along some books to read in my free time, including a brand new purchase: my first Ravi Zacharias book, Can Man Live Without God? I read it that summer, as I ministered in Guyana, and just like his Urbana sermon, the book was compelling. Interestingly, in the book, Ravi Zacharias engages with philosophy the whole way through. All of a sudden I had a new vision for how Christians can appreciate philosophy. In fact the book opened my eyes to how vital it is that we think deeply about God, and that belief in God is rational. I went back to college that fall and took an apologetics class, which is basically using philosophy to show that Christianity is rational, and I loved that class and it strengthened my faith. Thanks to Ravi Zacharias.

Over the years, I listened to many, many more of Zacharias’ talks and sermons online. I also read a bunch of his books, and watched as the evangelistic organization he founded, and which bears his name, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, grew and grew. I heard him speak again in person at Lancaster Bible College. If I ever started doubting this whole Christian thing, all I needed to do was go on YouTube and watch more Ravi Zacharias videos. I found his Q & A sessions to be especially fascinating. Many times after a talk, he would answer questions from the audience. Often the questions were really intimidating, as people raised objections that make Christians cower and feel immature about our faith, as if we are just believing fairy tales. Zacharias, without missing a beat, would have amazing answers to the questions. Often he would even be able to take apart the questioners’ questions, showing how their question had false assumptions or inconsistencies. Certainly I did not watch every Q & A session, but I never saw him interact aggressively with the questioners. Instead he answered calmly, with kindness and humor, inviting the questioner to talk more in person afterward.

Then a couple years ago, a story broke with accusations against Zacharias. A woman said he had an abusive relationship with her. Not what you want to hear about one of the people who influenced your faith so positively. It didn’t make major news, but Christianity Today certainly reported it, so it was out there in evangelical Christian circles. Zacharias adamantly denied the charges, saying instead that the woman was aggressively pursuing him. He claimed he was being attacked, and people including his ministry board strongly came to his defense. He ended up settling the case in court with a non-disclosure agreement. That means case closed, and details were kept under lock and key.

Ravi Zacharias continued his ministry, and it grew even more. Then in 2019 he broke the news that he had cancer. It was fast-moving, and he passed away in early 2020. Many in the evangelical community around the world were grief-stricken and numerous people shared stories about how Ravi Zacharias impacted their lives. Loads of people shared their favorite Ravi Zacharias videos online.

Just a couple months after his passing, though, the adulation and praise turned to more accusation. New stories started coming out about Zacharias. Stories about massage parlors and inappropriate relationships. Christianity Today reported again. This time his ministry, the large international organization that still bore his name, commissioned a law firm to independently investigate charges. That was about six months ago.

Their report was published this past week. What they uncovered was horrible. Now it wasn’t just Christianity Today reporting the news. It was all over the media. Ravi Zacharias had maintained numerous extra-marital sexual relationships in which he manipulated and abused women. It was spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse, including rape. The report is very hard to read, especially because of the excruciating pain Zacharias caused to so many women. While this five-part blog post will examine Zacharias’ failure and what we can all do to avoid such failure in our lives, let us remember the women, the vulnerable hurting ones, because of the evil inflicted on them by a powerful persuasive abuser.

How did this happen? Check back in to the next post, and I’ll try to begin to answer that question.

Worship services are not enough – Colossians 1:20-23, Part 5

I recently saw a conversation between two people on social media. One is often outspoken about their Christian beliefs. That person began the conversation by writing a post angrily condemning people who are of a different political persuasion. Many people responded with supportive comments, but one person disagreed, confronting the Christian writer. I don’t know for sure, but I wonder if that other person would not consider themself a Christian. Let’s call them an agnostic. The agnostic responded to the Christian, writing a kind and gracious response saying that the Christian person’s words were hurtful and mean. The Christian responded back sharply accusing the other person of trying to shut down their free speech. The agnostic responded again simply saying that the Christian came across very hurtful and mean.

I ask you, which one sounds more like a person who has received reconciliation with God, evidence by the Fruit of the Spirit of God flowing from their lives?

As you consider an answer to that question, I want you to think about worship services. How long is your church’s worship service? When I preached this sermon, it was about 35 minutes long. Add in the prayer, the musical worship, and fellowship, and my congregation has something like 75-90 minutes together on Sunday. Is that enough time and emphasis for us to reorient our lives on the mission of God? Or does the deluge of other stuff we give attention to throughout the rest of the week impact us far more? A one to one-and-a-half hour worship service pales in comparison to the amount of time most of us spend watching TV each week. Or reading books, emails and articles. Watching movies or scrolling through social media. Is it possible that we are being refocused more by the other influences in our lives, but we are unaware of how much those other influences are shaping our thinking?

I think it is highly possible, and I suspect the social media conversation I mentioned at the beginning of this post is evidence. I know the Christian person attends church worship services quite frequently, and yet their social media post and responses were unbecoming of a follower of Christ. What gives? Is it possible that though the Christian would believe they are a true follower of Jesus, it was actually the agnostic who was more genuinely Christian?

I ask that because this week we’ve been talking about Paul’s description of reconciliation in his letter to the Christians in a town called Colosse, located in the First Century Roman Empire. In Colossians 1:20-23, starting here, we’ve heard Paul’s world-changing message that God has gone to great lengths to bring reconciliation between himself and all humanity. But so what? If we rarely think about that, to the point where the message of reconciliation has no or little affect on our lives, what does it matter? While it should matter, is it possible that we have allowed other lesser things to get in the way?

Perhaps. So how should the truth of reconciliation between God and humanity affect our thinking? Paul tells us as he continues in verse 23, where he writes, “…if indeed you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the Gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.”

This is right in line with what Jesus taught back in Matthew 7. Remember the people who thought they were shoo-ins to the Kingdom of God, and Jesus says, “I never knew you”? Well, what does Jesus say about how people can know God? In Matthew 7, verse 21 he says, “Only he who does the will of my father in heaven will enter the Kingdom of Heaven”

In other words, we can think we have the right beliefs, but if those right beliefs don’t lead to right actions, something is missing. What is missing is our embrace of the reconciliation God offers us, a reconciliation that transforms us inwardly into people from whom naturally flow the deeds of the will of God.

This is what Paul is describing in Colossians 1, verse 23: People who remain steadfast in the faith. People who are not shaken, but who instead, people who live lives that are consistent with the heart of God.

Paul is referring to people who hold fast in belief and in deed. See how this connects to verse 21 where the mind and the actions, the entire being of the person, is in need of reconciliation? So also the entire being of the person is expected to hold fast to the faith.

God does the work of reconciliation, and it is our choice to enter in that reconciliation. He doesn’t force us. Furthermore, once we have entered into a reconciled relationship with him, it is our choice to remain in it. It seems to me that there is no better place to be! So, how are you doing in your relationship with God. I wonder if any of us need to re-enter the reconciliation?

God has already taken a massive step toward you. What will it look like for you to receive him? What will it look like for you to help others receive him?

What I learned about reconciliation from a guy who drove through my mailbox – Colossians 1:20-23, Part 4

A year or so ago, we were in our living room at night watching TV, and we heard a loud crashing sound out front. I went to the front porch, opened the door, and saw a car had skidded off the road, right through our mailbox, across our front lawn, tearing up two tire-streaks of grass, taking out a bush and eventually bumping into the corner of our neighbor’s house. It was late, and we suspect he might have fallen asleep at the wheel, though we don’t know for sure. I say “bumped” into the neighbor’s house, because as the vehicle hit all our stuff, by the time it reached the neighbor’s house, it had slowed down enough to just nudge the corner of the house, thankfully causing almost no damage to the house or his car. Our yard, though, was a mess.

Maybe you’ve encountered a mess. Maybe you’re in a mess. Financial. Health. Work. Family. It seems to me that most of the messes in our lives are relational. What is needed to heal a mess of a broken relationship is reconciliation.

The word “reconcile” means: “to reestablish proper friendly interpersonal relations after these have been disrupted or broken.” (Louw & Nida)

The same scholar who provided that definition suggests that there is a process to reconciliation: “[It starts with] disruption of friendly relations because of a presumed or real provocation. [Then reconciliation begins with one party choosing an] overt behavior designed to remove hostility, [leading to] restoration of original friendly relations.”

Something bad has happened, and reconciliation is the process whereby the separated parties make things right.

In Colossians 1:20-23, which we have been studying this week starting here, the writer, Paul, tells us that God brought reconciliation between us and him. What is the bad thing that happened between Creator and Created? Between God and us? Clearly it wasn’t something bad on God’s side of the relationship, right? Nope. God is perfect love. So that means something bad happened on our side of the relationship.

We have a word for that something bad. Sin. We humans choose to sin. Sin is a willful act in which we do one of two things: 1. Sin of Commission, when we commit a sin, which is when we do what God does not want us to do. Or 2. Sin of Omission, when we omit doing the right thing, which is when we do not do what God wants us to do. It is not as if God has a bunch of random stuff that he wants us to do. God’s will and God’s way flows from who he is, perfect love. Sin is when we choose to do something that is out of line with God’s perfect love, or to omit something that is in line with God’s perfect love.

Sin is also described in the Bible, including in this very passage, as evil power. Look back to verse 16, and those four words, thrones, powers, rulers and authorities. As I mentioned last week, Biblical scholars believe that when he mentions those first two, thrones and powers, Paul is potentially referring to forces of evil. To sum it up, sin is both the use of human free will to choose what is out of alignment with God’s perfect love, and sin is the forces of evil, the enemies of God.

Because of sin, we need reconciliation with God. Going back to the process of reconciliation, reconciliation starts with an act, a reaching out in love, from at least one of the parties. It is an act designed to remove the hostility, thus making space for friendly relations to be restored.

Typically, we consider it the responsibility of the one who committed the original hostile act to express their remorse and reach out asking for forgiveness, right?

Remember the guy who drove through our lawn? As I walked over to his car that night, he was already out and looking around at the damage. I made sure he was OK, and he was, apologizing profusely for the mess he caused in our yard. That was the first act of reconciliation: his apology. We exchanged info, which was the second act of reconciliation, showing his intention to make things right. Then he drove off. The next day he and his parents got in touch with us, and in the ensuing days they not only paid to replace the mailbox and post, they also installed them, both upgrades from our old ones! It was another act of reconciliation. We let the bush go because we had intended to dig the row of bushes out anyway, and we knew the grass would grow back. In other words, the mess was cleaned up by acts of reconciliation.

In that situation, reconciliation worked like it is supposed to work. One person messes up, there is brokenness, and that person reconciles by confessing their sin, making things right. In fact, this is so often the case in our world that when there is a brokenness, it is assumed by all involved that the first person who reaches out is the guilty party.

Why would the not-guilty party that have to reach out? Why would the not-guilty party have to do anything to make the relationship right? That would be strange, right? They were hurt, they were treated badly, and we would never expect them to be the one to reach out to the offender? In fact, in many situations, we counsel the hurt party not to do that because we don’t want them to get hurt again, and we don’t want them to give any indication that they did anything wrong. We definitely encourage them to forgive, to work on healing the relationship, but they are wise to be cautious. Sometimes boundaries are needed and healthy.

Yet consider how God handles the brokenness with us. He is perfect love, so it is clearly we who are the guilty ones between us and him. Yet it is God who reaches out to reconcile with us! Furthermore, it’s not just some simple, “Shake hands…all better now?” No, no, no. The reaching out that God does is so amazing that it requires Jesus, first of all, to become one of us, and second of all, to live a perfect life, and third of all, to die an unjust death, and fourth of all, to defeat sin, death and the devil by rising to new life. All so that we can experience new life ourselves and be reconciled to him.

This is what Paul means when he continues in verse 21 saying that God did this, “to make you all stand holy, without blemish, without accusation, in his sight.”

Think about what God did! Think about the incalculable gift of reconciliation that he has given us. All in spite of the fact that it was we who sinned against him! That’s how deeply God loves us. That’s how deeply he wants to be close to us. And that’s how much he wants everyone to be reconciled to him. Where once we were enemies and strangers with God, he has made it possible for us to stand holy before him. We can be in a place of right relationship with God.

I don’t know about you, but I admit that I don’t think about the truth of reconciliation enough. It’s one of many reasons why gathering with other Christians is so needed. We are people who need regular consistent reminders of this truth, that God has reached out in love to reconcile us to him. This truth can and should have the result of re-orienting our lives. It’s a game-changer!

Is it possible to be an enemy of God and not know it? – Colossians 1:20-23, Part 3

Are you an enemy of God? Are you and God strangers? Neither of those? How are you and God doing?

How would your friends and family answer that question about you? About themselves and their relationship with God? Do people think of themselves as Paul put it in Colossians 1:21, that they are alienated from God, or strangers of God? What about enemies of God? Would they describe their relationship with God that way?

I think there might be a number of people who might say, “Yeah, God and I are not on speaking terms. I am definitely a stranger to God.” But even if they think they are distant from God, they almost certainly couldn’t imagine Jesus saying to them, as I mentioned in the previous post, “Away from me, I never knew you.” He’s a loving God, right? He would never say that. Or would he? Jesus actually says it right there in Matthew 7:21-23.

So while people might think they are distant from God, even strangers with God, how many would say they are “Enemy of God”? Sure, some would. But I think most people would say, “God and I are not close, but enemies? No, I have no beef with God.” In fact, some of you might say that too. There are definitely times when I myself feel distant from God.

I wouldn’t say, though, that God and I are strangers to one another. How about you? Evaluate your relationship with God. How would you describe it?

Paul says that at some point in time prior to writing the letter we call Colossians, the people in the church family there in the town of Colosse used to be enemies and strangers with God. I wonder if that was surprising to them. I wonder if they would have agreed with that. Enemies with God? Highly unlikely.

Yet enemies is what Paul says they were. Why? Because there was a brokenness between them and God. Paul said that the manner in which they thought in their minds, and the evil works they did were evidence of the brokenness, evidence that they were enemies of God.

The word Paul uses for “mind” is actually a reference to the entire inner life of a person, not just brain activity as we scientifically describe the “mind.” Paul is referring to the will, the intent, the desire, the emotion, the longing of humans. Because it is from those inner places that action flows, right? Paul says their entire being was in a position of separation from God, alienation from God, and thus they were enemies with God.

When I read his talk about their minds and deeds being evil, I wonder what exactly they were doing? And by the way, how did Paul know this? Well, Paul actually tells us if we peek ahead to chapter 3:5-9. Just skim that list, and you’ll see for yourself. Paul has lists like this in almost all his letters, and as archaeologists and historians confirm, there was a lot of evil behavior going on in the Roman Empire. Paul could have easily seen it when traveled around the Empire’s various cities and towns. That might sound familiar to those of us living in America in 2021, right? Have we ever seen any of those actions in our culture? Yeah. We even see some of them in our own lives, and in our churches. In a few months we’ll study that list in chapter 3, so for now suffice it to say that the people Paul is writing to were previously in a status of brokenness with God.

Therefore, just as Jesus’ death and resurrection was what was needed to reconcile all things, as we learned here, the broken relationship between God and humans also needed reconciliation. What is needed to heal a broken relationship is reconciliation.

Check back to the next post as we learn what Paul has to say about how we humans can be reconciled to God.

When Christians shouldn’t be so confident they’re going to heaven – Colossians 1:20-23, Part 2

We Christians tend to be pretty confident we are going to heaven when we die. Should we be so assured?

In the previous post, we saw in Colossians 1:10 that God wants to be reconciled with all people. Usually Christians think of themselves as already reconciled to God, and other people as the ones who need to be reconciled with God. Perhaps it is not just “other people,” as if reconciliation does not relate to us.

Remember that in the letter to the Colossians, Paul is writing to a group of Christians. Presumably, and I think very likely, what he is writing here they had already heard before. Especially if it was the words to a song they sang, as it seems verses 15-20 were an early Christian worship song.

It would be a lot like when a friend texts you a link to a worship song on YouTube, and they say, “This song is amazing, and I hope it will encourage you today.” (By the way, sending those kinds of text messages or emails can actually be really encouraging! That’s a great way to connect during a pandemic. You can have a ministry of encouragement by text!)

When you receive the text, you might know the song right away, or you might be like me, probably not recognizing the song by the title, but you click on the link and you realize, “Oh yeah…I know that one!” It is a great worship song that you love and you already know the words to because you’ve heard it and sung it many times. So when your friend sent you the text message, they weren’t telling you anything new. They were simply reminding you of what you already knew. But it was still encouraging. We can really encourage people, not only with new truth, but with old truth, because we often need to be reminded of the old truth.

That’s what Paul is doing here, reminding the Christians of what they previously heard. Take a look at verses 21-22 where he reminds them of the old truth: “And once you were strangers and enemies [of God] in your minds as shown by your works of evil. But now through his death in his physical body you have been reconciled.” At the beginning of verse 21, Paul reminds the people of what they had already heard, the fact that they were strangers or enemies of God. That applies to all people, all times, everywhere. That is what genuine Christians once were. That is what people still are if they are not yet reconciled to God; they are strangers or enemies of God.

When I get to a passage like this, I will admit to you that I feel an internal hesitation. Let me explain. Should I assume that every person who reads these posts on my blog site is truly reconciled with God? I probably ought to at least keep open the possibility that some people might still be in a position like Paul describes in verse 21, strangers and enemies of God. I don’t believe it would be right for me to assume that everyone who reads these posts is already a genuine Christian, having experienced reconciliation with God.

This is why, even though it can feel painful to talk about it, and people have pointed out to me in the past that it comes across negatively, I feel compelled out of love for all of you reading this post, to bring up what Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-23. There he envisions people that believe they are shoo-ins to get into God’s Kingdom. They think they are reconciled to God. And they have proof! They are doing all sorts of seemingly godly kinds of things, including exorcising demons and performing miracles in Jesus’ name. I can see why they are so confident that they are genuine Christians. If anyone seems to have the golden ticket for heaven, it sure seems like they do.

This is where it gets negative. Jesus turns to them and says, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” He even calls them evildoers. So think about this with me. People who are convinced they are Christians, people who have what seems to be strong, incontrovertible evidence to prove they are real Christians, those people are not actually Christians. Jesus says there is something else that is needed. The people that believe they are Christians turn out to be strangers or enemies of God. That freaks me out.

What do we do about this? Check back in to the next post.

You can be in a close relationship with God – Colossians 1:20-23, Part 1

*Photo by Alexandra Mirgheș on Unsplash*

What is broken in your life? I hate to start off this week’s blog posts on such a dark note, but so many of us have broken relationships, broken situations, and they really concern us, taking loads of emotional energy, time and sometimes money.

How do we heal what is broken? I think about our nation as an example of this. Such deep divides, mistrust, accusation. I’m encouraged to hear the new federal administration talk about needing to heal the nation, to restore dignity, and to work towards unity. It is needed. But how will it happen? Can it happen?

As we will see in Colossians 1:20-23, the simple answer is Yes. Healing can happen. But the way Paul describes it is probably very different from what politicians might suggest.

Let’s start with where we left off this past week, in Colossians 1 verse 20.

In verse 20 Paul concludes a poem about Jesus, a poem that might have been lyrics to a worship song that the early Christians sang together. Here is what Paul said: “And through Jesus, reconciling to himself all things, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, making peace through his blood on the cross.”

Because of that, last week we talked about this amazing thing called reconciliation, that God would go to such extraordinary lengths to take what was broken and fix it. Something was broken! And it needed to be fixed. What was broken was the relationship between Creator and created. Look at verse 20, and notice how Paul describes this: God wants to reconcile all things to himself…things on earth or things in heaven.” He has everything in view. The entire universe needs to be reconciled to God.

We can often think about Jesus’ death and resurrection as intended for humans, or as effective for humans. And we aren’t wrong about that. But Paul has clearly gone further, hasn’t he? Paul says that the scope of what needs reconciliation is universal. It’s like one of those universal TV remotes or universal phone chargers. They are supposed to work for everything. Not that they actually do. But in the case of God’s reconciliation, it is actually universal.

What happened through Jesus’ death and resurrection was massive, expansive, and wonderful. I will admit that I don’t understand how the entire cosmos is being reconciled to God. I just agree with Paul that the reconciliation is happening, and it is for all. But frankly, I don’t believe it is important to understand exactly how God is reconciling all things to himself. Instead, what seems important is that God is doing it, and we are a part of that.

And that matters. God’s reconciliation matters to all people. Think about that. Reconciliation means that God wants to be in relationship with all people. This might be obvious, but I think it bears pointing out: when Paul says that God reconciles all things to himself, that goes for all the people in your life. For example, your neighbors. Think about them with me for a minute. Imagine their faces. Are they experiencing reconciliation with God? Are they in relationship with God? Do they even care? Do they have any idea that they need reconciliation with God?

Think about your co-workers. Their faces. Their names. How about them? Are they experiencing reconciliation with God? Or are they living in a state of brokenness with God?

What about your family members? Your friends?

If we believe what we say we believe, namely, that God wants everyone to know that he has accomplished an astounding, sacrificial, loving, gracious work of forgiveness so that all people can be reconciled to him, then the status of people’s relationship with God should be a major concern for us.

The problem is that some people don’t care. Some people feel like they have no need of reconciliation. Some people think there is no God. Some people think there is no problem. Scientists and statisticians who study this kind of thing, tell us that a growing number of people in the USA are not concerned about the concept of God or that God might be interested in them.

We Christians hear something like that and we intuitively know it is true, because we observe declining attendance at our churches’ worship services. And that can cause us to have a range of emotions from disgust and anger about our changing culture, to helplessness and despair. Rather than get disgruntled about how our country is changing, I would suggest we view our cultural reality by attempting to think how God might view people. Instead of being upset, consider that God loves all people deeply, and now there are more and more people with whom he wants to be reconciled.

How God wants to fix our broken world – Colossians 1:15-20

AFA.net - Races Don't Reconcile, Hearts Do

All things are in need of reconciliation. True or False?

Just for the sake of argument, assume that statement is true. Why do all things need reconciliation? Because things are broken. You reconcile when you have a broken relationship. Something happened. Relationships break apart in all sorts of ways, right? From small slights to massive betrayals. A friend doesn’t save a seat for you in the cafeteria. A co-worker goes behind your back and tells the boss they think its your fault a sale didn’t go through. A cousin who you thought you were close to doesn’t attend your wedding, but on social media they post pictures of themselves at the movies. It gets exponentially worse from there. Spouses who cheat. Divorce. Ethnic and Racial divides. Political divides. Nation warring against nation. We know brokenness. We need reconciliation.

As we conclude this week’s five-part series on Colossians 1:15-20, which started here, so far we’ve learned an description of Jesus as the Creator Son, the Risen One, Fully God and Filled with God, and now Paul tells us what Jesus accomplished through being Firstborn not only over creation, but also Firstborn from the Dead. Look at Colossians 1, verse 20. “Through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

I started this post by mentioning the many kinds of brokenness in the world. But perhaps worst of all is the brokenness between creator and created. The entire cosmos is in alienation with the Creator. Of course, the epitome of this is humanity, because we believe humanity is epitome of creation. Humanity needs to be reconciled with God.

We know the need for reconciliation. We feel it. We sense deep within us a longing for the healing of that which is broken. That longing, though clearly misguided, was at the heart of the insurrection at the US Capitol. The same desire is at the heart of the many protests against racial injustice. It is at the heart of the use of guns and bombs to make war on other countries. The anger, the violence, and the bitterness all point to brokenness between creator and created, and our need for reconciliation. We watch the images from the world around us, and we know it.

So how does reconciliation happen for all things? Jesus’ work on the cross and his victory in resurrection was just what was needed. Jesus makes peace by his blood, Paul tells us. This talk of death and blood and sacrifice might not be welcome to our modern ears. Why does it have to be so gruesome, some wonder? Paul doesn’t answer that. Instead, we focus on what the loving, gracious act of Jesus accomplishes: peace, reconciliation. That which is broken, that which is held captive by the spiritual forces of darkness, is now free to experience peace and reconciliation. Creator and created can now live in harmony. This is astounding. This is the hope of the universe.

This means we can live now with that kind of hope and reconciliation flowing out of our lives. We are to be a people who emulate our reconciling Lord by practicing reconciliation in our relationships. We who have been forgiven, now we forgive.

Who do you need to reconcile with?

Are there races or ethnicities or genders or nationalities that you struggle with? What will you do to reconcile with them?

Consider that for Jesus it took blood-letting, his death, to bring reconciliation. What sacrificial step will you take? How will you give of yourself?

Consider that for Jesus, the Creator became the created, so that he might bring us to him. That’s a willingness to give up his identity, comfort and privilege. How will you give up your ease, your comfort in order to heal what is broken? What can you do to identify with the one whom you struggle with?

Jesus was God or was filled by God? (and other humans can be filled by God too?) – Colossians 1:15-20, Part 4

Through the ages, one hotly debated topic in theology is how much of God is in Jesus, and how much of Jesus is in God? Paul talks about this.

As we continue studying Colossians 1:15-20, Paul shifts the focus to the church, using body imagery. Jesus is the head of the church. We are his church. It is not our church. He is our head, which is an image rich in leadership symbolism. Carrying the brain, and sensing through the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the ears, the head has the leadership role. The head directs everything.

Still, as parts of the church, every one of us has a role to play, because there are so many other parts of the body, with a variety of gifts and abilities. All of us should be serving somehow or another. But it is the head that guides and directs.

Paul also says that Jesus is the beginning and firstborn from the dead. That’s odd when you remember that in verse 15, Paul said Jesus is the firstborn of creation. In verse 18 Paul brings to mind Jesus’ death and resurrection. Yes, he died, but he didn’t stay dead. He rose again to new life, and for that we praise the Lord for that. “Firstborn” doesn’t so much refer to chronology here. There were others raised from the dead, and in fact Jesus himself raised some of them from the dead. But Jesus’ resurrection is altogether different from those others. While they experienced astounding miraculous resurrections, those humans would one day die again, and that time it would be a permanent death. Not Jesus. He died and rose to permanent new life. And he offers that new life to us, thus becoming for all who receive him, Jesus is the first, the precedent, the one we will all follow. In other words, there will be more that raise from the dead just like he did. And they will be given a new body, like he was given. That is the amazing joy of victory in Jesus. Consider the love of God, the generosity of God, that we get to taste this new life now. We don’t have to wait for life after death. While we will not receive that new body until life after death, until our own resurrection (see 1 Corinthians 15), we can experience what Jesus called abundant life here and now. But how do we experience that new abundant life now?

It seems to me that Paul’s flow of thought goes there next, helping us understand this new life in Christ. Look at verse 19. “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.” All the fullness of God was dwelling in Jesus. Whatever God is, that is in Jesus. Again, this is a clear indication that Paul was saying that Jesus and God are equal in every way.

But also remember that the Holy Spirit was fully filling Jesus. We read that in many places in the stories in the Gospels. One, for example, was right at his baptism. The Spirit rests on him, and then in Luke 4:1 we read that Jesus “full of the Spirit…was led by the Spirit” to the desert where he fasted 40 days and was tempted by the devil. The fullness of God was in Jesus.

This is an important reminder for we who are Jesus’ disciples, considering Jesus’ promise the Holy Spirit wants to fill us. Consider Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21:

“¹⁴For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. ²⁰Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

The entire prayer is amazing, but take note of the phrases in bold. Not only are all three persons of the Triune God mentioned in equality, but Paul’s desire and prayer is that the Christians experience inward fullness of God. This concept is nearly identical to how he describes Jesus as containing the fullness of God. Of course, Paul is not saying the humans become God. Consider all the statements that Paul makes about Jesus, and we can see how Jesus, though born as a human, was God prior to his human life, and thus he is utterly different from all other humans.

That said, Paul reminds us in his prayer in Ephesians 3, though we will not become God, we can be filled with God. And that filling is vital for Christians to faithfully live out the mission of God. What we need, then, is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. If you want to learn more about that, you can read more here.

Is Jesus creator or created? – Colossians 1:15-20

Paul says that Jesus is the firstborn over all creation. What does Paul mean? It is a bit of a strange statement. Firstborn over all creation? Turn to Colossians 1:15-20, which we have been studying in a five-part series this week, starting here.

If the statement “firstborn over creation” isn’t already strange enough, based on what Paul says next, it could be even more confusing. Here’s what he says in verse 16, “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.”

So is Jesus creator or created? Doesn’t it look like Paul says both in these verses? In verse 15 it seems he says Jesus is created. And in verse 16 it seems he says Jesus is creator. What gives, Paul?

Let’s look closer at verse 15. Paul is saying Jesus’ position is over all creation, not that Jesus is created. When Paul calls Jesus “firstborn,” Paul doesn’t have an actual birth in mind, though he knows that Jesus was literally born as a human. Here, though, Paul is referring to Jesus’ status as first, as over all.

We see this quite clearly in verse 16. I suspect that most Christians rarely think about Jesus as the creator. We normally think of God the Father as creator. But Paul tells us in verse 16 that Jesus is the creator of everything.

By placing Jesus squarely in the creative role, Paul has staked his claim that Jesus, God the Son, is equal to God the Father. Jesus is not only the image of the invisible God, Jesus has the power of God. Jesus is God. Somehow or another Jesus’ activity in the creation of the universe is identical to God’s creative activity. They cannot be separated.

Notice what they create. In addition to the sweeping statement that Jesus creates all things, Paul more specifically writes in verse 16 that Jesus creates both the physical world and the spiritual world. The material and the immaterial. Paul says Jesus creates both the things in heaven, which is the spiritual world, and the things on earth, which is the physical world. Or put another way, Jesus creates the visible, which is the physical world, and the invisible, which is the spiritual world.

Paul is not just saying, “Jesus creates all.” He is also saying that Jesus is supreme above all things in both realms. Just to make sure that there is no question, Paul lists four things that Jesus creates: thrones, powers, rulers and authorities. Sounds like a bunch of government leaders, right? As with the previous phrases, it is possible that Paul is referring to both spiritual and physical leaders. One commentator I read put it this way: “It seems ‘thrones’ and ‘powers’ are heavenly, invisible potentates, while ‘rulers’ and ‘authorities’ are more likely their earthly, visible servants.” (McKnight) Paul wants his readers to see that Jesus is the Creator Son above them all. Jesus’ supremacy in creation is cosmic.

See how Paul continues to lay this out in verses 17-18: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.”

Is there any doubt what Paul is trying to communicate here? No matter what Greek and Roman gods people had heard about, Jesus is above them all. And he holds all things together. You get the idea when reading that phrase in verse 17, that if Jesus wasn’t involved in supernaturally maintaining the laws of physics and chemistry, the universe would just fall apart!

We would do well to learn from Paul’s approach here: dwell on Jesus as supreme. Communicate Jesus as supreme.

Christians were the first atheists? – Colossians 1:15-20, Part 2

In the first post in this series, we talked about what Jesus might have looked like. Paul in Colossians 1:15-20 says that Jesus is the image or icon of the invisible God. There are many ways that we English-speakers use the word “icon,” and one way is found in the Orthodox church paintings called icons. Is that what Paul meant? That Christians should paint images of Jesus, thus making the invisible God visible?

While it is not wrong to paint icons, that is not what Paul meant. God is Spirit, and thus not visible. We are correct to believe that God is present everywhere, but because of his invisibility, we cannot see him. Jesus, however, is the image or the icon of God, making him visible. But Jesus is not an inferior representation or icon of something much larger than him. Jesus is God. Paul is saying something very important here: when we see Jesus, we see God. When we read the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the four accounts of the life of Jesus, we see God in action, God in the flesh.

If we’re not careful, we can over-emphasize one or the other of Jesus’ natures. He was both a living, breathing human being with a body just like ours, and he was also divine, God. Paul is saying that if we want to know what God is like, we would do well to read the stories of Jesus, and we are very accustomed to that way of thinking.

But imagine being the people who first read this letter. I know, it is extremely difficult for us to know who and what the people in the town of Colosse were like. What did they believe about God? What did they know of Jesus? They were nothing like Americans in 2021, we who have lived in a nation with what is called Judeo-Christian heritage for hundreds of years. In Colosse, right around the year 60, in the first century, there was no Judeo-Christian heritage. There was likely a small enclave of Jews who would have known the Judeo/Jewish heritage of the Old Testament. But not the Christian part. There was no Christian heritage anywhere in the world, because the Christian church was only 25 years old at that point.

The larger worldview that had been around for hundreds of years was the Greco-Roman pantheon, which is a fancy word for all the many gods and goddesses of Greek and Roman mythology. There were also demi-gods and demi-goddesses. Even if you don’t know the stories, you’ve likely heard many of the names: Zeus, Apollo, Venus, Mars, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Jupiter, Pluto, pretty much all the planets in the solar system! There were temples to various gods in most towns, where people attended rituals and worship services. There statues and idols to the gods. People made sacrifices to the gods, asking for blessing and fortune. Additionally there something called the Imperial Cult, which was a belief that the Roman Emperor was a kind of god or deity. He was worshiped as well, proclaimed to be god in the flesh, or a demi-god, the offspring of the union between a god and a mortal.

All that might sound fantastical to us, the stuff of Marvel movies about Thor, or Disney movies about Hercules. In fact, it might sound so bizarre that we could think, “How could anyone believe that nonsense?” The reality, though, is that the Greco-Roman worldview was deeply entrenched in their culture, to the point that the Christians were accused of being atheists. Imagine that! We would say, in our day, that we are the opposite of atheists, right? We are used to atheists accusing Christians and other theists of believing in fairy tales about God. But because the Christians in Paul’s day didn’t believe in the Greco-Roman pantheon of gods, those Christians were called atheists.

That might be hard to wrap our minds around. Christians called atheists? But they were, because they didn’t believe in the Greco-Roman gods. Instead they went around talking about Jesus as God. Or as Paul states it, Jesus is the representation of the invisible God.

As we have seen in the stories of Jesus’ interaction with religious leaders in Palestine, or with the earliest Christians in Jerusalem, this teaching about the identity of Jesus wasn’t just difficult for people steeped in a Greco-Roman worldview, it was also hard for Jewish people to believe this. Those Jewish people had a history of messianic expectation, calling out for God to send them the deliverer, the savior, that they read about in their prophets. Add to that, Jesus was a Jew, claiming to be that very savior. Still many Jews had a hard time believing that, because he was such a different savior from what they expected. They were thinking of a military and political savior, and they were convinced of this based on how they interpreted the prophecies. Jesus and his followers come along saying, “No, you’re wrong, the salvation of God is something altogether different. The Kingdom of God is altogether different, a victory over sin, death and the devil, leading to a transformation of heart and mind, a community and world patterned after what he would call the abundant life, where there is no more injustice.” Many Jews simply responded, “Huh? What are you talking about?” So despite the fact that they had the same Scriptures, the same culture, many still struggled to believe.

Now imagine how difficult it would have been for people outside Jewish culture to respond to this. They had a totally different history and culture and worldview. They would be saying, “What? You’re telling me that everything we’ve ever been taught about the gods and goddesses is false? You’re telling me that what basically everyone in our community and across the Empire believes is wrong? Sorry, buddy. That’s just crazy.”

Yet, that’s the task the earliest Christians faced. A lot has to be explained about Jesus if people entrenched in the Greco-Roman worldview are to become believers and followers of Jesus. I suspect a similar reality is the case in our day, even in the USA with our Judaeo-Christian heritage.

In our next post, we’ll see how Paul further paints his picture of Jesus, seeking to help the people in Colosse, and us as well, understand who Jesus really is.