A few months ago at a community event, a person waved to me smiling, and I waved back with one of those looks on my face that likely said what I was thinking, “I don’t know who you are, but you sure seem to know me, so…Hi!” I hoped they didn’t see my lost look. Maybe you know the feeling. You don’t want the other person to be offended that you don’t recognize them when they clearly know you.
Maybe six months had passed since I had seen this person, and in that relatively short amount of time they lost so much weight, they looked like a new person. My wife showed me their picture on social media. They literally appeared to be a different person. GLP-1 medications have been revolutionary in helping people lose weight.
How does God change a person? How does God make us new? It sure would be nice if there was a medication to make us better people, more like Jesus. Especially when we can struggle for years with poor attitudes, bad behaviors, unwise choices, and broken relationships. Is there hope for us?
In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Paul writes that the God of peace will sanctify us all. Sanctify. What does sanctify mean though?
One scholar defines it this way: “to cause someone to have the quality of holiness—‘to make holy.” (Louw & Nida)
God is at work to make us holy.
Are you thinking, “Come on. For real? Holy? I’m far from holy. It doesn’t seem like God is doing a good job with me.”
Does Paul’s teaching there in verse 23 mean that we are currently holy? Does it mean we will be completely holy? Some bible teachers believe that we should just understand this idea spiritually-speaking. They say that what Paul is referring to is the holiness of Jesus. When we trust in him, we are covered by his holiness, like putting on clothes, so that God sees Jesus clothes on us, Jesus’ righteousness, and thus God deems us completely holy. God doesn’t look at our behavior. All that matters to God is that we have trusted in Jesus.
There are biblical passages that talk about putting on Christ. Clothing imagery. But those are images, figurative speech. Yes, Jesus in his death and resurrection did something that we could never do, but the idea of putting on Jesus’ clothes can be so spiritual, so theoretical, and so individualistic, that we can focus far too much on eternal life, and we can miss out on the extremely important process of sanctification in the here and now.
Paul is not primarily talking about spiritualistic, eternal life blamelessness in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Paul is primarily talking about very down to earth, real-life, day to day behavior. God wants to our behavior now to be different. God wants our choices now to be different. God wants us to think differently, to desire differently in the regular ups and downs of our daily lives.
In the here and now, sanctification carries the idea of being set apart. Santification/holiness doesn’t mean that we are somehow transformed into little gods walking around holier than thou. No, holiness and sanctification refer to the idea that the God of peace/shalom is at work helping us become different people, set apart for the mission of his kingdom, experiencing shalom, flourishing here and now, in community with others who are part of the shalom community.
God is at work helping us experience inward transformation so that his life, his thinking, his desire is inside us, and thus flows out of us. This is why at my church we emphasize a Fruit of the Spirit of the month. This month, goodness. God wants us to be growing in goodness, more and more like he is good. When we experience his goodness in our lives, it will surely flow out of us, and we and the others around us will experience flourishing.
But how is God at work? What if it doesn’t seem like God is at work in our lives? Is God not keeping his promise? Or is Paul exaggerating here? Those are important questions. Let’s continuing looking at what Paul has more to say that might help us answer those questions.
Continuing in verse 23, Paul says that God’s work of sanctification, his work of transforming our lives, is not just a little bit. Paul uses the word “completely.” In the New International Version, the translators turned this one word into the phrase “through and through.” God wants us to become new people. Completely.
God wants to transform us completely. In my community, Potter’s House is a ministry doing wonderful, sometimes grueling work to help people change. At Potter’s House, people live in community, immersed in Bible study, prayer, discipleship, and therapy. Gradually, as they grow, they can get jobs, have more privileges, as many of the people are transitioning away from incarceration or addiction. God can transform people struggling with addiction. God can heal broken relationships. God can help us remove hurtful ways of thinking and talking from our lives. Anger? God can help us forgive and be gentle. Narcissism? God can help us be humble.
Notice how Paul describes the thoroughness of the change in the rest of verse 23. Our whole being is in view. Spirit, Soul, and Body. God wants all of it to be blameless. There have long been debates among Christian theologians about what the writers of Scripture mean by spirit and soul. In the next post, we’ll try not to get sidetracked by that detour…
My brother received a new grill as a gift, and he posted on social media that he was giving away his old one. His old grill is better than mine, so when I saw my brother’s offer, I texted him, and I was thankful that I was the first person to respond. He delivered the grill to me a few weeks later at a family function.
But there were some problems. First, to fit the grill in their van, my brother and nephews needed to disassemble it bit. But they got stuck removing a side tray. The grill would not fit into the van with the side tray on. They had to get it off. So they took a sawzall and cut it off.
The grill minus the side tray could fit into the van. But when one of my nephews closed the van’s back hatch, it snapped off the grill cover handle. The grill, a bit worse for the wear, was now in the van, and ready for delivery.
So I had a new grill with a few issues. Not only was the side tray sawn off, and the grill handle broken, but the cooking grate was rusted and one of the flame covers no longer fit. The grill also had carbon deposits here and there, as all grills do. My old grill is far dirtier than the new grill. All in all, my new grill was an improvement over my old grill, but it needed some rehab.
I share this story about the grill as a metaphor for us humans. We need rehab too. We are broken, with our own carbon deposits on us from the flames of various situations in life. Some of those situations are of our own making. Some are dumped on us by others.
We might need cleaning. And that topic is what Paul writes about at the conclusion of his letter, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5
First, in verse 23, Paul describes God as the God of peace. When you think of God, do you think of God as a God of peace? Perhaps sometimes you do. At Christmas we hear Jesus described as the Prince of Peace. It seems to me, however, that Christians are likely more often to think of God as holy or loving. So it is interesting that Paul chooses to describe God by the word “peace” here.
God is the God of peace. Paul was a good Jew, and it is difficult to overstate how important the concept of peace is for the Jews. Peace in Hebrew is the word “shalom.” Shalom is an expansive concept that refers to wholeness, when things are at right between God and people, between people and other people, between people and themselves. When you think of shalom, it is a greeting, but it is so much more. It is when things are at peace, right, whole. To put it another way, shalom is when things are flourishing.
As the God of peace, God wants us to experience flourishing. Of course that flourishing has in view eternal life, but God also wants humans to experience the flourishing of shalom now. Because we live in the here and now, I am quite excited that God is a God of peace who wants us to flourish now. Can you imagine how awful it would be if God said, “I only want you to experience flourishing after you die. Before that day, I really don’t care what you go through.”
No, God is a God who deeply cares about us now. This title, “God of peace” signifies something wonderful about God, about his desire. But it is not just God’s desire. In the next post, we learn how God’s heart for peace is active.
Is there anything about yourself that you wish you could change? For as long as time, humans have tried to lose weight, get in shape, alter their bodies, learn new skills, and drop bad habits. We try to change jobs, change homes, and change relationships.
Some of us are very dissatisfied with aspects of our lives. Pastors included. When I was in India for the month of March 2023, I lost ten pounds. Now it’s back. I know what I need to do shed that weight, and I want to shed that weight, but putting in the work and self-discipline to get there…I don’t know that I want to do that.
Others of us are largely satisfied. As Christians we are called to be content. Paul writes in Philippians 4:11–13, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”
Contentment is a very good thing. Perhaps contentment is a rare thing in a world that plays on our innate sense of discontent.
Our inner discontent is sometimes referred to as “the empty self,” the “God-shaped” hole,” that deep longing for fulfillment. When we try to fill that hole with anything other than God, we find that the hole is a bottomless pit. Only the infinite God can fill what is bottomless.
So we struggle with discontent. God told the Israelites who were on their Exodus journey to the Promised Land of Canaan that when he brought them to that land, they would find a land flowing with milk and honey. It was an abundant land. God also warned the Israelites of the danger of believing that their abilities and the bounty of the Promised Land were the source of contentment. See Deuteronomy 8:10–18, and especially verses 17–18, “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.” Or as the prophet Hosea once said, “When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me.” (Hosea 13:6)
In other words, be content, but don’t be. Be satisfied, but don’t be. We can and should be content, as Paul wrote in Philippians 4, but we should always want to change to become more like Jesus.
How does a person change? Sometimes it feels very difficult, doesn’t it? If you’ve been battling a bad habit, struggling with a broken relationship, and doing so for years, it can feel impossible to change.
You’re not alone. What you are experiencing in that struggle is part and parcel of the human condition. That’s why I’m looking forward to our final study in the 1stThessalonians series. It’s all about how God is at work helping us change. Take a look for yourself by reading 1 Thessalonians 5:23–28, and then I look forward to talking about it further next week.
Editors Note: I had planned to write one of my regular five-part series, based on my sermon about Jesus’ Ascension, but my week did not allow the time. So here is the whole sermon.
Does your church celebrate Ascension? I’ve been pastor at Faith Church 23 years, and I don’t think we’ve ever celebrated Ascension Day. What does Jesus’ ascension matter?
It’s so easy to just skip right by it. Something else is coming. In fact, next week is Pentecost Sunday.
And as Pentecost is the beginning of the church, when the Holy Spirit comes, we can look at that as if that’s the main event in the life of the church that we’re looking forward to. The empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And yet, Ascension is something that I’ve come to believe is incredibly important.
There are a number, specific number of days between Jesus’s resurrection and the Ascension.
In Acts 1-3, it says there were forty days, and all these 2000 years later, we continue to count out forty days from Easter to mark Ascension Day. What was happening during those forty days?
Jesus was spending time with his disciples. He was instructing them. He was telling them all sorts about the kingdom. And yet, did they get it? In just a moment, I’m going to suggest that even though Jesus was crucified and risen, even though he spent forty days, after he was risen, instructing them about the kingdom, they still didn’t quite get what he was talking about. Before we come down too hard on those disciples, as if they were particularly dull, let’s remember that they were regular humans like us, and we can be slow to understanding too.
We learn about the forty days before the Ascension, and the Ascension itself in two places in the Bible. The first one is in Luke 24, right at the end of the chapter, and it is brief.
Luke mentions the location, Bethany, which is not far outside of the city of Jerusalem. You can get there easily in less than a day’s walk.
Next Luke tells us that Jesus blessed his disciples. He wants to confer his mantle of mission upon them.
Then Luke describes Jesus’ Ascenion, and he concludes with a detail I find surprising. After Jesus ascends to heaven, the disciples leave worshiping with joy and praise. And I find that reference very curious because if I were one of Jesus’ disciples, and Jesus has just left me, I would not be happy.
Why are the disciples worshiping? Why are they praising God for this?
If I’m one of the disciples at that moment, I think I would be very sad. I wouldn’t want him to leave. It seems like it would be so much better for him to stay.
Think about it: wouldn’t it be better for Jesus to just stay, set up his kingdom on earth, and have the disciples be his emissaries to establish the kingdom? Apparently Jesus had a very different plan, to leave. Why, then, are his disciples happy? All we learn is that that they stayed continually at the temple, waiting.
I find Luke’s account to be quite mysterious. This is the very end of Luke’s gospel, and it finishes on a cliffhanger. Luke clearly planned this ending. He leaves us wanting more, desiring the rest of the story!
Thankfully, Luke’s gospel has a sequel, the Acts of the Apostles.
Acts 1 starts just a bit before the end of Luke. Acts also covers the Ascension, but it is a bit more extended discussion of the events. When you picture the Ascension, or when people preach or teach the Ascension, they most likely use this version in Acts chapter one, verses six through 11.
As I mention, the account starts before the Ascension. Jesus mentions that the disciples should wait in Jerusalem, where they will receive power from the Holy Spirit, and then they will be his witnesses. And as he’s discussing this with his disciples, the disciples say something to him. They ask him a question that leads me to believe that all of Jesus’ teaching and disciping them for three years, his crucifixion, his resurrection, and his final forty days of teaching between the resurrection and ascension, did not fully land in their hearts and minds.
Here’s their question: “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
There’s a significant context beneath that question. Imagine the rollercoaster of emotions that the disciples would have experienced in the past three years. They’ve seen his miracles, heard his incredible preaching, the way that he confronts the religious leaders, and the fact that the religious elites cannot hold a candle to Jesus. The disciples were watching Jesus always able to best the religious leaders, defeating any challenge that they bring to him.
The disciples see people healed dramatically, raised from the dead even, all as Jesus proclaims the message of the kingdom. Over the course of his ministry the crowds are growing. It seems as though Jesus is the promised leader that God had said from the Old Testament was going to come, the Messiah.
In that regard, the disciples are correct. Jesus was the Messiah. The problem is that they had a faulty understanding of what the Messiah was to be about. Remember, the Jewish people at that time were under occupation.
They were not a free people. The Romans controlled their land and had been controlling it for many years. No surprise, people don’t like to be occupied.
People don’t like it when they’re not free. Imagine how we would feel if we didn’t have freedom. Freedom is the hallmark of our nation’s history.
We would not like it if another country was controlling us. That’s what the Jews were going through in Jesus’ day. Roman soldiers all over the land. The Roman governor was the ultimate authority.
Of course the Jews longed for the days they read about in their Scriptures when their famous kings like David and Solomon and many, many others were in charge and they were free. That national freedom was what they believed the Messiah was all about.
In Acts chapter one, as Jesus is telling the disciples they’re going to be empowered to be his witnesses, they have visions of glory in their heads. Not of God’s glory, but of national glory. They have visions that God will restore the kingdom to the days and the power and the prosperity just like it was in King David’s time. Just like it was in King Solomon’s time.
They believed that they were properly interpreting their Old Testament Scriptures. It seemed like everything was pointing to this. That he was the one that was going to restore the kingdom, and some of their reasoning had to do with where they were standing.
Where were they standing when the ascension took place? Well, if you scan ahead to Acts chapter one, verse 12, we learn they are on the Mount of Olives. From that vantage point, they would have seen the temple in all its glory. The disciples were looking at the massive temple mount when they asked this question, “Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” What’s more, there is a scripture though that is in their minds as they’re standing on the Mount of Olives.
They’re looking at that central, most important, most holy building in the capital city.
In Zechariah 14, verses one through nine, the Lord prophesies returning to Jerusalem where he will stand on the Mount of Olives and restore the kingdom.
The disciples know this prophecy. From hundreds of years before, they know that the prophet said that the Messiah would come, and he would stand on the Mount of Olives and he would restore the kingdom.
It’s a glorious vision of God fulfilling his promise to the nation of Israel. And there they are standing on the Mount of Olives that day with Jesus who by all appearances, especially after he died and rose again, seemed to be the Messiah. They think the prophecy is being fulfilled.
This is it. Jesus is about to restore the kingdom. Jesus is about to launch a military movement to remove the Romans from our land so they can be free.
Imagine the disciples thinking, “We get to be right here with him!” They think that they are experiencing the fulfillment of this glorious promise right before their very eyes. In many ways, they were doing a great job of interpreting scripture.
But Jesus has a sobering answering. To their question, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom?” He simply says “It’s not for you to know.”
In other words, Jesus is saying to his disciples, “We’re not talking about that. You’re missing the point.”
Can you imagine being told that? I wonder if they were super confused. I wonder if they were despairing.
I would be thinking, “What do you mean? I thought we were figuring this out right. I thought you were the Messiah. You’ve kind of even told us you’re the Messiah. We’ve just spent 40 days with you, Jesus, where you’ve been walking us through these Old Testament prophecies and showing how you’re the fulfillment. What do you mean you’re not going to restore the kingdom to Israel right now?”
The disciples still didn’t fully get the mission of the kingdom. The kingdom of God was no geographical or national or ethnic. Jesus’ mission is about righteousness and justice, not about political victory, not about political power, not about geographical authority. It’s about righteousness and justice.
In Jesus’ answer to his disciples, he is revealing the difference between information and power. So often we want the information. We want to know when Jesus is returning. But Jesus says, “I’ve got something completely different and better for you. I want to give you power. I want you to wait, disciples, in the city until the Holy Spirit comes upon you and gives you power for the mission of the kingdom.”
Then Jesus says, “That empowered mission is that you’ll be my witnesses.”
In the original language, that word witnesses is the word martyr. In contemporary English, a martyr is someone who dies for their faith. That’s not what the word originally meant. The word martyr originally described someone who tells the story of what they’ve seen and heard and experienced. A witness.
The reason why we equate martyr with someone who dies for their faith is because so many of the early Christians dies for their faith. It was only much, much later that the concept of dying for your faith got connected to that word.
The mission of Jesus is not to necessarily give our lives for our faith. We might have to. But what Jesus is saying here is that the mission of Jesus is to be witnesses, to tell the story of how God has been at work in our lives, to tell the story of what we have seen and heard.
All of us have been the beneficiaries of God’s great work in our lives.
How has God worked in your life? How has he kept his promises? What answers to prayer have you seen? How has God shown himself to be faithful?
Recently I taught a class here using the book Presence-Based Witness, and the book emphasized our role as witnesses. We have seen something. We have observed how God has been at work, and so then we tell that story. It’s a delightful way to think about our identity in Christ. We get to share the stories of God’s good work.
Jesus says to his disciples, “You’ll be my witnesses,” and then Jesus leaves them.
He returns to the domain of his Father. He’s sitting at the right hand of the Father currently and has been for ever since that day. What do we do with this? What does it matter?
Jesus had told his disciples, “It is for your good that I am going away, because unless I go away, the counselor will not come to you.” (John 16:7) I have trouble with that verse a little bit.
If I was one of the disciples, I get it that they’re worshiping. I get it that they’re praising God. He has given them the mission of the kingdom, and that is amazing. But there is part of me that would be thinking, “I don’t want you to go away, Jesus.” Think about the difference between seeing Jesus in person, being able to actually go to a person, as opposed to the invisible Holy Spirit?
The beautiful difference between the two is that we don’t have to go to the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus has set up a palace and a throne to go visit him. Because if he never left, that’s what it would have meant. Instead, because Jesus ascended to heaven, we have the incredible gift of being the receptors of the Holy Spirit.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapters three and six, that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We don’t have to travel to a faraway place to go and meet God, because God lives with us. That is one of the beautiful promises of the ascension.
In Ephesians four, verses seven through 13, Paul writes, “He who ascended gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, or pastors, and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so the body of Christ may be built up.” This relates to the mission that Jesus conferred upon his disciples, and through every generation it has continued, because we are the beneficiaries of that mission. All of us have received gifts from God to be able to serve him.
Some apostles, some prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers, each of those five roles are vital for the work of the kingdom. What this verse reminds us is that when Jesus ascended to heaven, he said to his disciples and to us, “I am giving you the mission of the kingdom. The mission of the kingdom is your mission. You are the ones who have the responsibility and the privilege to continue that mission.”
Sometimes I think that’s a little scary. Sometimes I think, “I don’t want that mission, Jesus. I don’t want your mission.”
I’d much rather sit back and watch TV or spend my time doing any number of other activities.
Maybe you’ve thought something like that before, or maybe that’s just what you do. Not saying that watching TV is wrong, or reading books, or however you want to spend your time.
But how often do we think to ourselves about the reality that when Jesus ascended, he gave the mission of the kingdom to each one of us?
Another scripture, Hebrews 4:14, says, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus, the son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.” This is using some Old Testament imagery of the high priest, but saying that Jesus is the great high priest.
Because he is the example who has gone before, let’s hold firmly to that faith. Let’s be people who are passionate about the mission of his kingdom. It does not matter if you’re the youngest one in the church, or the oldest, or the in-between. The mission of the kingdom is for all of us. Let’s hold firmly to that. Let’s stay true to that. Let’s ask ourselves those questions of how am I following the mission of the king?
In 1 Peter 3:21–22, “Jesus Christ has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him.” It’s so amazing to think that the king has granted his authority to us to pursue the mission of his kingdom.
The ascension of Jesus speaks to all of that. I hope a theme is coming through: the ascension motivates us to mission.
The ascension of Jesus says that we will be filled with power so that we can be his witnesses. He has given us the authority to serve the mission of his kingdom.
But know this, Jesus has not left us alone. His spirit, the Holy Spirit, is with us. And we praise God for that, that we have the empowerment of the spirit to serve him.
So what’s the significance of the ascension? The ascension reminds us of triumph, that Jesus won the victory. In 1 Corinthians 15:54–57, Paul writes that “death has been swallowed up in victory, thanks be to God. He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Just as he has victory, so we too can experience his victory.
In the ascension, we also see his exaltation to the throne. In Philippians 2:10–11, “God exalted him to the highest place, and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.” The ascension also reminds us, Jesus not only won the victory, but he is exalted as king.
Finally we learn about his lordship in Colossians 3:1, “You have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”
Because he ascended, we look to him as Lord. He is the one who has won the victory. He is the one who is exalted, and he is our Lord.
We see all of this in the ascension. So set your hearts on his mission. The ascension launches us on mission for Jesus.
When I think about the events of Jesus’ life, there are two events that I sometimes find a bit odd. His transfiguration and his ascension. Interestingly, if you look at paintings of the two events, they appear very similar. In those paintings, Jesus is levitating in the air, while his disciples look up in shock. Below are a couple famous paintings of the events. Can you tell which is the Ascension, and which is the Transfiguration? Bonus points if you can identify the artists! Answers at the conclusion of the post.
In my opinion, Jesus’ transfiguration and ascension have an element of mystery about them. Did Jesus have to be transfigured? Did he have to ascend? What do these two events mean?
This past week Ascension Day was May 29. I’ve never preached an Ascension Day sermon before, but when I teach the life of Jesus in my adjunct courses, each time we talk about the Ascension, I come away thinking that the Ascension is important. Not just a little bit important. While the Ascension is not on par with Jesus’ crucifixion or resurrection, the Ascension is still quite significant. But why?
This week I’m taking a break from the 1st Thessalonians series to focus on Jesus’ Ascension. I think we have neglected his Ascension to our detriment. We pastors might give it a nod, and then skip right to Pentecost, which can seem far more consequential because Pentecost marks the arrival of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church.
So this week on the blog, we’re going to study Jesus’ Ascension. Did you know there are two versions of the Ascension in the New Testament documents? What would you say the Ascension means? Does the Ascension have any application to our lives? (Hint: it does!).
Join me back here on Monday as I attempt to answer these questions and talk further about Jesus’ Ascension.
Answer to Paintings: First is the Transfiguration by Raphael (1520); Second is the Ascension by Rembrandt (1636)
It is not just pastors and teachers that need to be humble, self-aware, and teachable, as I wrote in the previous post. When Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:20, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt,” he is pointing out a very common human tendency.
Prophecies in the Bible are only rarely predictions of the future. Instead, prophecies are most often about the future consequences of what is happening now. Cause and effect. If/then statements.
“If you keep on behaving like that, you will have trouble, so you need to repent, turn away from your awful behavior, and return to following God’s ways.” That is the message of nearly every prophet in the Bible. “Be reconciled to God, by changing how you live. Live with righteousness and justice. God’s heart beats for the oppressed, and so therefore to be reconciled with God means that we are people who also seek to eradicate injustice and oppression in the world.”
What I’m getting at is this: Prophets speak truth to people.
You know what that makes prophets?
Hated. Disliked. Marginalized.
When you get that phone call from a prophet, you see their name on your phone and you think “Shoot, what did I do now?” When you get that email or text message from a prophet, you think, “I just want to delete this without reading it.”
Because prophets speak the truth to us, truth that we usually don’t want to hear because it is about how we are behaving poorly or thinking wrongly, we can treat prophets and their prophecies with contempt.
Prophets are not popular. Jeremiah, for example, regularly had his life threatened.
It is difficult, very difficult, to place yourself humbly before the word of a prophet and say, “Thank you, I needed that. I am sorry for my behavior.” Like Zacchaeus who divested himself of his wealth, giving it to those he had cheated and overtaxed.
It is much, much easier to treat a prophet’s rebuke and accountability with contempt, saying, “That prophet doesn’t know what they are talking about. What they are saying does not describe me. They clearly got it wrong. They are not hearing from God.”
But true prophets usually don’t have it wrong. Instead, we probably don’t like what the prophet is saying because what they are saying is true, and we just don’t want to admit it because it means we need to change.
Therefore, we need prophets in our lives. Prophets are people who have the gift of being able to speak the truth in love. That last word, “love,” is key. Prophets, you must speak the truth in love, and with all the fruit of the Spirit, especially gentleness and kindness, because you know that it is very difficult for people to receive the news that they might need to change their ways.
A spoonful of sugar, Mary Poppins wisely sang, helps the medicine go down.
The word of prophets really is medicine. We need it. Don’t hold it in contempt, don’t despise it, but welcome the word of prophets, honestly and truly engage it. Because prophets help us find reconciliation with God and others. Who is the prophet in your life?
I observed a recent social media interaction that I think you’ll find interesting. On social media, Pastor #1 posted a video clip of Pastor #2’s sermon. On the video Pastor #2 said this, “If you call yourself a Christian and then behave in an unchristlike manner, you are misusing God’s name.” Agreed.
In response to the video, however, Pastor #3 commented one single word, “Ironic.”
That jumped out at me. What did Pastor #3 mean when he said, “Ironic” about Pastor #2? Pastor #3 was accusing Pastor #2 of not practicing what they were preaching.
To accuse a pastor of not practicing what they preach is not a small accusation.
Like Pastor #3 was doing to Pastor #2, it is appropriate to test your pastor. Just as it is appropriate to evaluate the YouTube preacher, the blogger, or anyone doing Scriptural or theological teaching. But how do we evaluate them? In this post, we’re going to learn three ways to test or evaluate any preacher or teacher.
Jesus’s disciple John wrote about the first two tests in his letter, 1 John chapter 4, verse 1, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
Sounds very similar to what Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:20–22, right? When John writes, “test the spirits,” he is using figurative language to describe teachers. Test the teachers. The prophets he calls them in verse 1.
What are we to do? Be like the Bereans in Acts 17. Test the preacher. Evaluate them. Just like Paul said we should in 1 Thessalonians 5:20–22.
Why do we test them? John tells us why in the second half of verse 1, “to see whether they are from God, because there are many false prophets.”
We want to see if the teachers, preachers, authors, and anyone else who is teaching the Bible and theology is from God. “From God” does not mean that they are some kind of heavenly angel that God sent from heaven. “From God” means that the teacher is in line with God. “From God” means that the teacher is faithfully representing God.
We test the teacher’s teaching to see if they are faithfully representing God.
John proposes two tests.
First, in verses 2–3, John tells us about the first test we are to use: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.”
This is the Christological Test or the Incarnation Test. In other words, does the teacher affirm that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, God who took on flesh? Another way of putting it, does the teacher believe that Jesus is 100% God and 100% human?
There have been and there are now people who believe that Jesus is human, but not God. And there have been and there are now people who believe that Jesus is God, but not human. Neither of those views are in line with Scripture.
That is the first test, the Christology Test.
The second test is the Apostolic Test, which John writes about in verse 6, “We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”
See that phrase, “Whoever knows God listens to us.” Who is the “us” that John is talking about? At the very least, John is referring to a group of which he is a part. It could be the church, all Christians, or the apostles. The apostles were the caretakers of the teaching of Jesus. The apostles were responsible for making sure that the Christian church was grounded in teaching that was in line with what Jesus taught. They had walked with Jesus. They were taught directly by Jesus himself.
The apostles had that special role in the early church. Some of them wrote about the teaching of Jesus: Matthew, John, and Peter. Luke was not a disciple of Jesus, but he interviewed the apostles. James was the brother of Jesus. Paul was not a disciple of Jesus, but he learned from the apostles. Put it all together, what we are saying is this: Does the preacher, teacher, writer, agree with apostolic teaching? Is the preacher’s preaching, is the teacher’s teaching, is the writer’s writing in line with the doctrine of the New Testament? That’s the second test, the Apostolic Test.
John has given us two tests: The Christology test and the Apostolic test. We use those tests to evaluate the teaching we encounter.
As Paul says back in 1st Thessalonians 5:20–22, we keep the good, and we reject the evil.
We are not gullible. Even if the person we are listening to or reading has what appears to be a large ministry, even if they speak with authority, even if they are utterly confident, we do not automatically accept their teaching. We test their teaching.
That brings me to the third test: the Lifestyle Test. When Paul talks about good and evil in 1 Thessalonians 5:20–22, he is bringing up morality. Teaching can be good and evil. As can life choices.
Paul, in his letter to the Christians in Rome, chapter two writes, “You, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?”
In other words, does the preacher practice what they preach? If you test a preacher’s preaching, and you find that the preaching content is in line with God, but that preacher’s life choices are not in line with God, then there is a problem. Actions truly do speak louder than words.
I started this post be mentioning a social media interaction I observed. Pastor #3 commented the word “Ironic” about Pastor #3’s correct teaching that Christians should practice what they preach.
I know the pastor who commented that single word, “Ironic.” I wrote him and asked why he felt there was an irony, why he felt that the pastor in the video was not practicing what he preached. Pastor #3 said that he knows of ways in which Pastor #2 has not represented Jesus well. Pastor #3 was examining Pastor #2. Pastor #3 believed that Pastor #2’s sermon did not match his personal life. That kind of examination is important.
I am not saying that we have to be perfect in order to serve in ministry or write books or teach. But I am saying that we need to be people who are quick to admit our faults, be humble, self-aware, and teachable.
That goes for all Christians, not just those in ministry. And if you are listening to, watching, or reading Christian teaching, be it scriptural or theological, test it. Use the three tests: Christological, Apostolic, and Lifestyle. If you find that a teacher or preacher doesn’t pass muster, speak the truth in love to them.
So far this week, we’ve studied what Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:20, when he says, “Do not hold prophecies in contempt.” But what do we do with the fact that the person is teaching something or prophesying about something that might be incorrect doctrine or teaching?
Paul addresses that important concern in what he writes in verse 21, “but test them all.”
When you hear a teaching on television, on a podcast, on YouTube, or any sermon like the ones I give at Faith Church, test them. Evaluate them.
In our culture, when we are bombarded with content so frequently, we can get burnt out of the idea of having to evaluate what we hear. Why can’t there be news we can trust? Why can’t we just trust the pastor to be faithful to the word of God?
We might actually feel iffy about evaluating the preaching of the pastor, especially when the pastor has gone to school for this, studied the bible and theology, and, thus, who are we to question him?
Please, question me. Evaluate my blog posts. Test your pastor’s preaching.
The Bereans in Acts 17 did this to Paul. “As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.” (Acts 17:10–12)
This is one reason why at Faith Church, I have sermon discussion class, after the worship service. In sermon discussion class, I invite people to examine, question, evaluate, and test the sermon. There have been plenty of times in sermon discussion when someone asked me a question about the scripture passage or my sermon, and I had to admit that I got my interpretation wrong or I missed something important in the text.
Bible prophets, teachers, speakers, preachers, and authors are not Holy Spirit robots who are spitting out exactly what the Holy Spirit wants to say. Some of the preachers out there are malicious, intent on trying to deceive. Some are just misguided. Some have heard a teaching all their lives, and they have never really examined it, so they are just keeping it alive, even though it has been debunked. Some make interpretational mistakes. Some don’t study enough.
There is also the reality that we Christians have differences of opinion about how to interpret scripture. Faith Church is a member of a denomination called the Evangelical Congregational Church, which has a history in a doctrinal viewpoint called Wesleyan-Arminianism. Then there are the churches that we rent to. One has a Baptist heritage. One is Orthodox. One is Pentecostal. One is Seventh-Day Adventist. All are Christian. All agree on the major doctrines of faith, but we have many, many differences of opinion about minor doctrines. As they saying goes, then, there is much wisdom in majoring on the majors, and minoring on the minors.
That’s what Paul is getting at when he says in verses 21 and 22, “hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.” We Christians come together by emphasizing our unity in the good, and we reject the evil.
My wife, Michelle, and I enjoy watching the late night show monologues. Often the hosts poke fun at politicians, exposing the hypocrisy, or sometimes sheer lunacy, of those politicians. Watching those monologues, I will at times say out loud that a politician is an idiot. Have you ever exclaimed something like that? Contempt is dripping from my mouth when I say, “What an idiot!”
What is contempt? One scholar I read defines it this way, contempt is “to despise someone or something on the basis that it is worthless or of no value.” (Louw & Nida).
Even though we have the normal human right and free will to hold an opinion, even if we are convinced that our opinion is correct, we Christians do not have God’s permission to despise people. Why? Because when we despise someone, we are saying, “You are worthless, you have no value.”
Have you ever despised someone?
One antidote for those times when we are struggling with despising someone, when we are struggling with contempt, is to remember the powerful teaching of the Image of God.
That teaching is on page 1 of the Bible, chapter 1. Genesis 1:26–27,
“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Every single person is invaluable to God, because we are made in his image. Think of the people who have mistreated you, hurt you, even those who have abused you. Think of those people throughout history who are considered to be the worst humans of all time. Adolf Hitler level people.
Every single one of them, invaluable to God. Made in God’s image. Therefore we hold no one in contempt. We despise no one.
If we disagree with a person’s ideology or teaching or behavior, that is normal. It is okay to disagree.
It is not okay to allow our disagreement to grow into contempt. It is not okay to allow our disagreement to become thoughts like, “that person is worthless.”
Michelle doesn’t like it when we are watching the news and I say that a politician is an idiot. To her, that is disdain, contempt, and beyond the pale for a disciple of Jesus.
Instead, we work to change our thinking about a person, we remember that they are made in God’s image, deeply loved by God.
We can be loving, kind, and gentle with those with whom we disagree. We can actually be in close long-term friendships with people who we disagree with.
But what do we do with the fact that the person is teaching something or prophesying about something that might be incorrect doctrine or teaching? More on that in the next post.
In 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 20, Paul writes, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt.”
Prophecies? What prophecies? In this letter Paul has mentioned the second coming of Jesus numerous times. At the end of each chapter, in fact.
There has been a fairly influential interpretation of various biblical passages that equates the idea of prophecies with future events, and especially with the second coming of Jesus. I’ve talked about that quite a bit over the years on the blog, including in this 1st Thessalonians series because, as I just said, Paul talks about Jesus’ second coming 1st Thessalonians. So I’m not going to rehash that. Suffice it to say, Jesus is coming again, we don’t know, we can’t know when, and Jesus himself said that the posture he prefers us to take is to be ready at all times.
But I no longer believe that the vast majority of biblical prophecies are predicting future events. I also no longer agree with what I was taught in Bible college about how to interpret the book of Revelation. Because of that, what Paul writes here is very convicting to me. Don’t treat prophecies with contempt. If I’m being honest, though, I can treat prophecies with contempt.
That is why Paul’s words here in verse 20 are convicting to me. I can think that the interpretation of prophecy from my heritage is so incorrect that I can disdain those who currently believe in it, though I myself was one of those who believed strongly in it for years. I can treat prophecies with contempt. Contempt is always unbecoming of Christians.
Even if a person believes something that is obviously out of line with Scripture, even if they are acting obviously out of line with the Fruit of the Spirit, holding contempt in our hearts has no place in the life of a disciple of Jesus.
Clearly, Paul is talking about those instances when we direct our contempt toward teaching. Toward doctrine. I will talk about that in a future post this week. First, we need to understand contempt, because in those times when we have contempt for a message, we almost always also have contempt for the messenger. What I’m getting at is that while Paul says, “Do not hold prophecies in contempt,” it is a super short leap to “Do not hold prophets in contempt.”
What is contempt? I’ll attempt to answer that question in the next post, and give a suggestion for how we can overcome contempt.
Engaging Scripture 