How God helps us love – Love One Another, Part 4

Editor’s Note: This week we welcome David Hundert as guest blogger!

In this week’s five-part series on one of the most repeated phrases in the New Testament, “love one another,” we’ve leaned that it is no small task. Perhaps at this point you’re wondering, “That’s a lot! I don’t know if I can do that.” If so, what can help us to follow through with loving one another? In Romans 15:5-6, the Apostle Paul has this helpful word for us: “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Here Paul is returning to his central theme, which is restoring the unity of the Roman church. He addresses God as “the God of endurance and comfort,” or, we can legitimately paraphrase it as, “the God who is the source of endurance and comfort.” God alone is certainly the author of patience and consolation; for he delivers this to our hearts by his Spirit: using his word as the instrument. We accomplish this task of loving one another, when we spend time in His word and in prayer. When we intentionally spend time with the Lord, it reminds us not only who we are, but whose we are.

If you’re wondering, “I’m already doing that…Am I missing something?” I can tell you that by asking that question, it helps us to remember the next verse, Romans 15:7 where Paul writes, “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”

Here, Paul’s command that believers “accept one another” brings this section to its climax. “Accept” means more than just “tolerate” or “give official recognition to”; Paul wants Christians to accept one another as fellow members of a family, with all the love and concern that should characterize brothers and sisters. There should be genuine love and concern for one another.

Have you ever attended a church, where people say things like, “Hey! How are you?” and yet they really don’t care or really don’t want to hear your answer? I can tell you from personal experience that I’ve heard that response to that particular question for many years, and I got into the habit of just answering that question with a “Great! How are you?” with equal nonchalance.  However, this isn’t what we are supposed to be doing! We accomplish this task of loving one another, when we can look one another in the eye and ask that question and really mean it! When we can ask that question, and really want to know and hear the answer, that’s one way we are loving one another!

If you’re wondering, “Is there anything that I can do that can help assist with this?”, in 1 Corinthians 12:24-26, Paul has an answer for us. This is the part of 1 Corinthians where Paul is comparing the Church to the human body: “While our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

Most likely, what Paul means here is that the parts that appear to be weak and less worthy are in fact deserving of the greater honor or should be the ones receiving special attention. It’s sufficient at this point, for Paul to say that the body is created by God Himself. With that, the first part of his analogy is relatively easy to understand. I’m sure that you can imagine the difficulty someone might have trying to study when that person has a toothache; their whole body suffers when the one part that is aching. However, this is what Paul uses to describe how we are to be toward one another. We are one body in Christ and individually members of it, therefore we are members of one another. We need to reflect the empathy needed to understand when our brothers and sisters are suffering. We need to be able to come along and lift our brothers and sisters onto our shoulders and celebrate their successes! When someone struggles, we all struggle. When one wins, we all win. We accomplish this task of loving one another, when we can set aside our personal pride for the sake of the whole.

But how do we Christians do that? In the next post in this series, we’ll learn more!

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How to practice peace and defeat pride – Love One Another, Part 3

Editor’s Note: This week we welcome David Hundert as guest blogger!

As we learned in the previous post, one way to apply the principle of “love one another” is to make it our goal to strengthen each other’s faith. Why is this important? How can we remember to do this?

To attempt to answer that question, consider what Paul writes in Romans 12:5, “So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

Paul, working from the assumption of the unity of the body, argues for the need to recognize a healthy diversity within that one body. That means it’s okay for us to be different and still be part of the same body! We don’t all have to belong to the same political party. We don’t all have to root for the same football team. We all don’t have to enjoy the same hobbies. What we do have to do is remember that we are all different parts of the same body, and love one another. We accomplish this task of loving one another, when we can remember and respect each other as members of the same body and remember that we belong to one another.

How can we do that? Just a few verses later, Paul continues this thought. In Romans 12:16 we read, “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.“

So we are commanded to live in harmony with one another and Paul tells us how. We have to abandon our pride and be willing to associate with all people regardless of their station in life. To add to this, just a few verses earlier in 12:3, Paul makes it easier by saying, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.“

Paul is saying the same thing: Don’t be proud. Don’t think of yourself as more than what you are. It’s a lot easier to treat everyone else the same when we realize that we are no different. We accomplish this task of loving one another, when we can remember that just as we deserve to be treated, we should treat others because we are no better than anyone else.

You say, “But Dave, I don’t do that. I don’t think of myself as better than anyone else. How can I do that if I’m not treating others as if I were better?” Take a look at how Paul responds to this question in Romans 14:13, “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.”

I know that we don’t mean to most of the time, however all of us in our own little ways, can be guilty of judging one another. Someone walks up to you for the first time and what do people say? First impressions are important, right? Why is that? Because we tend to pass judgement. Some people call it a “snap judgement.” We have preconceived ideas about people. The Lord says, “No! Don’t do that!” When we pre-judge, we are putting a stumbling block between the other person and us, and that stops ministry in it’s tracks! We accomplish this task of loving one another, when we stop standing in judgment over one another; because God has accepted each one of us, and it is to Jesus our master who has redeemed us, and not to anyone else, that we are answerable!

If you’re thinking,”That’s great, but how am I supposed to do that? What can I do to make sure that I’m treating everyone equally?” look at Romans 14:19 where Paul writes, “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.”

Having made “peace” a basic feature of the kingdom of God, Paul now encourages the Roman Christians to “pursue…those things that make for peace.” This is an active effort. It’s a continual effort. This means when you do something that someone else takes offense at, you actively pursue the reconciliation of your relationship with that person.

Someone told me a long time ago that the reason someone might feel offense, is because they feel they “have a right to” something. For instance, you’re driving down the highway and someone cuts you off. You get angry. You get indignant, thinking, “How can that person do that to me? I had a right to be there in that lane at that time and that person put their needs above mine. They put my family’s life in jeopardy because they valued what they were doing above me! How dare they!”

Brothers and sisters, we are bondservants. We were bought and purchased by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We have no rights! We accomplish this task of loving one another, when we remember that we are called to be servants to all, which means as servants, we put the needs of those around us above our own! I know that this can be tough to hear, and it’s even harder to put into practice, but this is exactly what Paul is calling us to. Put your own needs and rights aside and pursue what leads to peace and mutual edification or mutual growth.

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Followers of Jesus are salty foot-washers? – Love One Another, Part 2

Editor’s Note: This week we welcome David Hundert as guest blogger!

In the previous post, we learned one of the most repeated words in the New Testament, “one another.” So, how do we, the Church of Christ, apply the concept of “one another” to our churches, our relationships?

Jesus once taught,  “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.” (Mark 9:50)

So, what is this salt that the Lord refers to? The word can be translated as seasoning for food, or as fertilizer. It can be figuratively defined as the spiritual qualities of the disciples. This principle of salt needing to be salty leans on its historical purpose, and it is a vivid reminder to us that salt was a necessity of life in the ancient world. It preserved food from rot!

What it means for us today is that it sets forth the demanding requirements of discipleship. The disciples have a responsibility toward all humanity in a world which is subject to the judgment of God. Jesus warns them that the disciples can lose that salt-like quality which can mean life for the world. Here salt typifies that quality which is the distinctive mark of the disciple, the loss of which will make the disciple worthless. We accomplish this task of loving one another when we are called to be that which promotes growth and prevents decay in a world that is rife with rot.

How to we do this? In John 13:14-15 Jesus says to his disciples, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

Jesus is stating, that if he, who his disciples refer to as Teacher and Lord, can serve them by washing their feet, then they shouldn’t look down at any task that can be seen as an act of service. The point of what Jesus has said is that they should have a readiness to perform the lowliest service for one another. Nothing was more menial than the washing of the feet. Therefore, no act of service should be beneath them. We accomplish this task of loving one another when we are there for one another. If your church has a need for childcare volunteers, or to help your fellowship team prepare refreshments, there should be a stampede to sign up! When there is a need within the body, we should be lining up to meet it.

What does this accomplish? Romans 1:11-12 reads,

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.

Paul wants to visit the Roman Christians so that an insight or ability given to Paul by the Spirit, can be shared with the Romans. What gift Paul may want to share with the Romans isn’t specified, and it wouldn’t be made plain until he sees what their needs might be; however, its purpose will be to “strengthen” their faith. This is an example for us. Whenever we gather together, we accomplish this task of loving one another, when our goal is to strengthen each other’s faith.

Why is this important? How can we remember to do this? In the next post we’ll attempt to answer those questions.

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One of the most repeated words in the New Testament – Love One Another, Part 1

Editor’s Note: This week we welcome David Hundert as guest blogger!

The television show, Ted Lasso, is about an American football coach attempting to coach an English soccer team. Lasso often brings his unique style to the locker room, and in one episode it seems he borrowed from a famous Allen Iverson press conference that happened in real life. As you watch the clip, Iverson and Lasso seem to be hung up on a word. See if you can figure it out.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and they keep repeating a word or a phrase? Why do they do that? Have you ever heard or even used the expression, “If I told you once, I told you a thousand times…” Why do we repeat ourselves like that? It’s because there was something to say that was important and we want the person we’re talking to, to remember it. As pastors and teachers, we may repeat the point of a sermon or a lesson because it’s important, and we want to drive that point home.

The same goes for Scripture. When you’re reading a passage, and you see that a point is repeated, or there is a word that is used multiple times in the passage, you have to ask yourself, “Why is that? What is the point that the Lord is trying to make here?”

In this week’s five-part blog series, there is a word that I want to focus on. This word or one of it’s iterations are used 100 times in the New Testament alone, and it’s used in 94 verses! Do you think that the Lord might be trying to tell us something? It is the Greek word allelon, and it is pronounced “Ah Lay Lon.” In the Greek, it is only one word, but in English, it is predominately translated into two words, “One Another.”

Are you a statistic-loving, numbers person? You might appreciate the stats on this word. This is by no means an authoritative list, but it is just my attempt to categorize how the New Testament writers use this word. After reviewing all 94 verses and 100 uses of allelon, 27 of them referred to conversations people had with, “one another.” 40 of them dealt with how we need to relate to “one another.” 12 of them really didn’t fit in one category or another. For instance, 2 were mentioned in John’s book of Revelation, so they were in the middle of a prophecy, but there was one usage of the phrase that stuck out to me. There was one use that could have been put in the category of how to relate to one another, but 21 times Scripture tells us to treat each other the same way: “love one another.”

In those 21 verses, fourteen times that Scripture uses the word “love,” it means to “cherish; have affection for.” Five times, it refers to “esteem; affection; or regard for.” Twice it refers to the love of a brother and sister.

“Cherish, have affection for, esteem, regard for, have the love of a brother for a sister…,” how does one accomplish such a monumental task? Especially in consideration of all the stuff we read in the news today. There are kids robbing and killing adults. There are kids walking into stores and walking out with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise that they haven’t paid for. There are parents killing their own children. There are people spewing hate for others based on their race, on their religion, their birthplace, the color of their skin or their politics. What in the world has gone wrong? What is going on today? Most importantly, how do we fix it?

Those that grew up in earlier generations probably have heard that the three things that you don’t discuss around the dinner table were politics, money and religion. However if you look around at the majority of violence in the world today, it comes back to money, religion and politics! What our parents didn’t teach us was how to have a difficult discussion about difficult topics!

So, what do we, as the Church of Christ do with this? We’ll talk about that in the next post.

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How to grow your relationship with the Holy Spirit – Ezekiel 37:1-14, Part 5

How can we be filled with the Spirit like the Christians in the early church, which we studied in the previous post. In those days, what was happening was precisely what the Apostle Paul described in 1 Corinthians chapters 3 and 6, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” 

This is very much in line with what Paul would later write in Ephesians 5:18, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” What this verse suggests is that just as alcohol in the bloodstream can lead to a person losing control of their faculties, and therefore we should not get drunk, we should, however, allow ourselves to be filled with, and be under the control of, the Holy Spirit. 

Paul explains this further in Galatians 5, a passage that I refer to very frequently, the fruit of the Spirit.  Verses 16-25 are where Paul gives a mini-teaching on what a disciple of Jesus will look like when they are filled with the Spirit.  In Galatians 5, he calls the filling by a number of other actions: live by the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, have the fruit of the Spirit, and keep in step with the Spirit.

Romans chapter 8 is another excellent place to study the work of the Spirit.  Consider just a few verses. Paul writes, “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.  And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”  When the Spirit is in us, filling us, it shows by our behavior.  The good things of the Spirit cannot help but flow out of our lives.

All of these passages, and there are many more, help us understand that when become true disciples of Jesus, our dry bones come to life, and God’s Spirit lives in us, and he changes us to think, speak and live in line with the way of Jesus.

What this means is that Christians are people in whom God the Spirit has made his home.  In this theology, frankly, the charismatic and Pentecostal streams of the church can teach us much.  I am from the Word stream of the church, and by that I mean that I focus on the Bible and on Jesus.  Not bad things to focus on.  The Bible is vastly important to study.  There is also nothing wrong, in my view, with praying to God the Father, and believing that we have a close friendship with Jesus.  But clearly, because God the Spirit lives with us and has made his home with us, it is of vast importance that we deepen our relationship with the Spirit.  

With that in mind, consider this amazing prayer in Ephesians 3:16-19.  “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” 

In that prayer all three persons of the Trinity are mentioned, Father, Son and Spirit; all three depicted as making their home within us, empowering us to so deeply know the love of God that we are filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Do you see yourself that way?  You should.  That is what it means to be filled with the Spirit.  That doesn’t mean we need to speak in tongues, or ever will.  Some might, and that’s okay.  Paul wrote a very specific guide for speaking in tongues in 1 Corinthians 14.  It seems instead that there is something much more important at stake here, the critically important dynamic of the Holy Spirit living in us and empowering us to live like God wants us to live.

As Paul insinuates, and as the early church experienced, the filling of the Spirit is not permanent.  We, by our choices and actions, our thoughts and words, can experience a significantly reduced relationship with the Spirit.  In Ephesians 4:30 Paul talked about grieving the Spirit right in the middle of a section about unity and about how we talk and interact with people.  Paul says in verse 29, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen,” and the very next thing he says is, “Do not grieve the Spirit.”  The implication is clear, if you have a pattern of being negative, critical, and discouraging, you are grieving the Spirit.  Instead you should be focusing on building the other up.  Likewise in 1 Thessalonians 5:19, he wrote, “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.” 

So if you look at your life and think, “I don’t know that I feel the Spirit living in me,” I recommend that you do a thorough and deep examination of your life.  If you look at your life, and you do not see much of the Fruit of the Spirit flowing from you, it is highly likely that you have made choices to grieve the Spirit, to put out the Spirit’s fire, by rebellion, by being divisive, discouraging, and by many other sins.  This is precisely what Israel was dealing with in Ezekiel’s day.  Of course they were like dry bones, people without God’s Spirit, because they were so rebellious. 

What will you do, then, to grow your relationship with the Spirit?  First, do what Peter said in his sermon in Acts 2, repent and be baptized, and receive the Spirit anew.  Do what the Apostles did in Acts 4, pray a bold prayer requiring God to work.  Make time to get to know the Spirit, listen for the Spirit’s leading and voice.

The valley of dry bones is an amazing vision of the hope that we have in God’s love, grace and forgiveness.  That, though we can struggle with sin, with feeling dead inside and disconnected with God, there is hope.  God wants to us experience that hope through the deep inner life of his Spirit.   

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The filling of the Spirit – Ezekiel 37:1-14, Part 4

Nearly 600 years after the time of Ezekiel, Jesus taught his disciples about the soon-coming Spirit of God.  In John 14, after telling his disciples that he was going to leave them, he promised that God would send another counselor to be with them, the Spirit of truth.  Jesus said in John 14:17 that though the world would not accept, see, or know the Spirit, the disciples would know the Spirit because the Spirit lives with them and will be in them.  The Spirit would remind the disciples of Jesus’ teachings.  Jesus went so far as to say that it was better for the disciples that he left them.  To that I think, “No way Jesus.  I wish you were still here.”  But upon further examination, Jesus’ is right.  Because Jesus left, the Spirit will come, and that is better because it means that the Spirit would live with all Christians.  The Spirit would make it possible for God to live in every person who gives their heart and life to him, which is just what Ezekiel prophesied through the Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones. 

We know when that outpouring of the Spirit happened. If you read chapter 2 in the book of Acts in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit shows up in a rushing wind, just as Jesus said he would.  The Spirit filled the Christians and empowered them to speak in other languages, a miraculous gift they used to preach the Gospel to the crowds of people in Jerusalem for the Jewish Pentecost feast.

On that day, the Apostle Peter stood up among the people and he invoked the words of another prophet, named Joel, through whom God previously said, “I will pour out my Spirit on all people.”  Peter said that Jesus was the Messiah who was the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel, to be the savior, and the confirmation of that fulfilled promise is the fact that the Holy Spirit was being poured out right that very day.  Thus, Peter continued, the people should repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus the Messiah, for the forgiveness of their sins, and they too will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Three thousand people did so that very day!  The dry bones coming to life that Ezekiel had prophesied about 600 years before was coming true before their eyes. 

There you have it, the famous story of the beginning of the Church.  The Spirit was unleashed and on the move. What we can forget is that the same Spirit of God is still at work bringing the dead to life today.  When we think about that day of Pentecost when the Spirit first arrived, it is not as though the Spirit arrived once and then faded into the background. The Spirit was alive and well and active.  In fact, you don’t have to look much further in the book of Acts to see what I mean.

Turn to Acts chapter 4 verse 23.  We don’t know how much time passed between Acts 2 and Acts 4.  Maybe a couple months.  In Acts 4, Peter and John have been thrown in jail for healing a man and preaching the Gospel.  But they were released by the religious authorities who couldn’t decide what to do with the disciples.  Look at verse 23, and we read that after the disciples are released, they go back to the Christians and report what happened.  There is a spontaneous prayer time in which the Christians, unphased by the persecution Peter and John had just endured, pray one of the most exciting prayers in the Bible in verses 29-30, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

And how does God answer that request?  We read in the very next verse, “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly”!!!  How about that?  The Spirit arrives again!  The Spirit fills them anew for ministry.  And more and more people experienced their own dry bones coming to life.

Has that happened in your life? Check back to the next post as we’ll talk about how to experience the Holy Spirit today.

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The meaning of the vision of the valley of dry bones – Ezekiel 37:1-14, Part 3

What does Ezekiel’s Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones mean?  God explains it to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 37, verses 11-14.

How about that?  The entire vision is symbolic.  Ezekiel wasn’t at the scene of battle from years earlier.  The vision of the valley of dry bones, God says, symbolizes the people of Israel, who had long since died to God.  Yes, some people of Israel had lost their lives when the Assyrians and Babylonians invaded their land.  But God, through this vision, is addressing the spiritual condition of the people.  He says that the Israelites were at that very moment crying out to God because they were feeling dead inside.  They express their feelings of hopelessness, of being cut off. 

Maybe you know the feeling.  That’s what the prophecy means when it describes dry bones.  People can feel like life is hopeless, like they have no means for changing their situation, and they feel cut off from God.  That’s what the people of Israel felt like, and that’s what so many people feel like today.  Of course, Israel, as we have seen in many chapters in the past, including last week in chapter 36, got into their situation of being cut off from God and feeling dead because of their own choices to rebel against God.  And God has regularly called them out for that. 

But here in chapter 37:1-14, the vision is only about restoration.  God is not avoiding talking about their sin.  Instead he is choosing to focus this vision on renewal.  He says that he will not only give them a new life through the work of his Spirit, but he will bring them back to the land of Israel.  This is an important concept to note because after the Assyrians and Babylonians decimated the land, they also exiled the people.  Like Ezekiel, many of the Israelites had been carted off to and had been living for years in foreign lands.  God now promises to not only deal with their spiritual death, but also to give them once again a physical home. 

Then, he says, they will know that he is the Lord.  There it is, the key phrase of the book of Ezekiel.  God wants to be known by his people.  Please don’t read that phrase and let your eyes glaze over or your mind to get distracted.  I know that we have heard this phrase too many times to count in our study of Ezekiel.  But God repeats it so many times because it is a concept that is very important to him.  He wants to be known. 

Do you really know him?  Do you really have a close relationship with him?  Or do you feel dead inside and disconnected like the people of Israel?   God wants to breathe new life into you! What can you do to experience that new life from God?

First, return again to the amazing promise in verse 14, “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live.” 

What a wonderful message of hope for people who feel broken and in the depths of despair.  God is saying here, “I want to heal you, to be with you.  I want to see you flourish, and I will help you flourish!”  This is a message that speaks of hope, life, and flourishing, specifically because God is actively making it so. 

As we fast forward a bit through the history of the nation of Israel, we can see how this promise comes true when the people return to the land and rebuild, as described in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.  But that the was physical fulfillment of the promise.  What about the spiritual fulfillment of the dry bones coming to life through the breath?  What about the Spirit of God giving them life?  How does that happen?

From an Old Testament perspective, the idea that God would fill his people with his Spirit is rare.  Only a few people in the entire Old Testament experience the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.  Leaders like King David.  Some prophets, like Ezekiel.  The Spirit certainly filled people, but it was uncommon.  In Ezekiel 36 & 37, God speaks of a time when his spirit would fill the hearts of all his people.  But when?

In the next post we’ll learn when.

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The power of God’s breath – Ezekiel 37:1-14, Part 2

“Can these bones live?” 

That’s the question God posed to Ezekiel. God had just taken Ezekiel, through a prophetic vision journey, to a valley filled to the brim with human bones.

The obvious answer to the question is, “No!”  Dead things do not come back to life.  When you’re dead, your dead.  It could be that God made the valley full of very dry bones to make sure Ezekiel knows that these are not recently dead people.  There is no amount of CPR that will resuscitate them.  These people have been dead so long that their flesh has rotted away, and it is gone.  The bones are dried out.  You could pick up a bone and easily snap it in two like a dry twig.  Ezekiel can answer, “No, there is no coming back to life here.” 

But Ezekiel doesn’t answer that.  He makes a surprise move, and one that just might reveal to us a bit about Ezekiel’s heart and faith.  He says, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”  Isn’t that a curious answer?  In that answer, Ezekiel could simply be hesitant or nervous.  In this world some people have strong opinions and are not afraid to share them.  Sometimes those people have lots of opinions, and they let you know it.  You also probably know people who have opinions, but they might struggle a bit to share them. Maybe that was Ezekiel. Maybe he was feeling shy or scared.  Or maybe he was demonstrating trust and faith in a God who has the power to make those bones come to life! 

God’s response to Ezekiel in verses 4-8 is that he wants Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones!  From all we’ve read so far, this is a new one for Ezekiel.  God wants him to prophesy to dead people.  Very dead, long dead, people. 

On the surface, this prophecy could seem to be pointless.  Prophesy to inanimate objects that cannot hear, see or think?  As we know from so many of Ezekiel’s other prophecies to objects like mountains, God has a deeper meaning he wants to convey.  What is that meaning?

God says that the whole point of the prophecy is to miraculously make the bones come to life.  He is not thinking of making walking skeletons like the pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean.  God says that the prophecy will result in a miraculous resurrection of the people.  Tendons, flesh and skin will grow on the bones, and most of all, breath will make the people live.

Ezekiel does what he is told; he prophecies to the bones. There is a noise of bones rattling together to form skeletons, and then tendons, flesh and skin grow to cover the bones.  That must have been astounding to witness.  Modern medicine can do some miracles of its own, but nothing like total regeneration of dead skeletons into living bodies.  As Ezekiel is almost certainly watching wide-eyed, the process of making the new bodies stops short of the most important step.  There was no breath in them.  They were not living.  They were just piles of corpses. 

But that is about to change.  Look at verses 9-10.

God asks Ezekiel to prophesy again, to call the four winds to breathe life into the people, and that is exactly what happens. A word is used here that we’ve heard numerous times already in this passage.  Breath.  Wind.  God says that he will make breath enter the corpses.  In verses 9-10 the four winds arrive, through a miracle of God, enter the corpses, and the people come to life.

You might have a text note at verse 5 saying that this word can mean “breath, wind or spirit.”  If you glance back to verse 1, you read that the Spirit of the Lord carried Ezekiel to this valley of dry bones.  Spirit.  Same word as the word used for wind and breath.  Do you see the symbolism here?  God the Spirit is making the dead corpses come to life.

Last week in chapter 36 verses 26-27 (which we discussed here), God said that he would give the people a new heart and a new spirit, and his Spirit would live in them and empower them to follow God’s ways.  Now in chapter 37, God continues that thought, the thought that God wants his people to be filled with his Spirit.  It is the Spirit of God that brings the dead back to life. 

The vision depicts symbolically what God wants to happen in our lives.  The valley of dry bones has become the encampment of a vast army.  The image we get is that of a battlefield, like that of Pickett’s Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg, during which thousands upon thousands of soldiers were cut down, died, left to rot and dry out, leaving nothing but brittle bones.  The remnants of a battle lost long ago.  But in Ezekiel’s vision God steps in miraculously and brings the people back to life, by his Spirit. Why?  What does this mean? 

God explains it to Ezekiel in the next section. Check back to the next post and we’ll see what God has to say.

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

Why we need to look at human bones – Ezekiel 37:1-14, Part 1

This past Sunday a woman in my congregation told us her story about struggling with health and feeling dead inside, disconnected from God.  Have you ever experienced something like that? 

This is exactly what Israel was feeling.  Turn to Ezekiel 37, and you’ll see what I mean, as we study verses 1-14 in a five-part blog series this week. 

In verse 1 Ezekiel we read, “The hand of the Lord was on me.”  God doesn’t have hands.  God is a spirit.  That means God doesn’t have any body whatsoever.  What Ezekiel is referring to is the power of God at work in his life in a special way. 

When I think about the power of God, we know that God is always at work in our lives.  But you cannot measure the level of the power of God, like a thermometer measures the temperature.  In fact, when God is at work, most often you might not feel anything.  That it is what we might call the normal work of God.  We believe as act of faith that God is at work.

Sometimes, though, God is at work in an elevated way, and we might feel it, or sense it.  It seems to me that God was at work in Ezekiel’s life very often in that elevated way.   When Ezekiel would receive prophetic words from God, he would say “The word of the Lord came to me.”  That indicates an elevated level of God’s work in Ezekiel’s life.  He heard from God.  We read that phrase “The word of the Lord came to me” a lot in Ezekiel. 

Then there are a few times in Ezekiel, so far five by my count, where the power of God is working at an even higher level.  Ezekiel tells us that the work of God gets extra intense when he says, “The hand of the Lord was on me.”   That’s when things gets wild.  That’s when the visions come.  That’s when Ezekiel gets transported to another time and place, when God’s power is at work in him in a rare and deep way.  Ezekiel 37 is one of those times. 

As we continue in verses 1-2, we read that the power of the Spirit of God brings Ezekiel to a valley full of bones.  We’ll learn later in the passage that these are human bones.  How often have you seen or touched human bones?  In ancient times, it was likely that people saw human bones more often than we do.  We’re used to seeing depictions of human bones as skeletons at Halloween, or maybe in the movies or on TV.  But our personal contact with human bones is usually quite rare.  In school maybe you took an anatomy class, and you got to touch some bones. Maybe if you are in the medical profession or an archaeologist, you’ve handled human bones.  Beyond that, very unlikely. 

Human bones can be very freaky, right?  At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, there are numerous pictures and displays with bones of people who were killed in the death camps.  When I was in Cambodia with Michelle, we visited Tol Slang prison, which was part of the Khmer Rouge genocide, and there, too, we saw displays of bones of people that were killed in that very spot.  In the Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge dug shallow mass graves, there are bones sticking up out of the ground.  It is hard to look at.

Some people might think that allowing human remains to stick out of the ground is disgusting or inappropriate.  I respect Cambodia for choosing to leave them.  Sometimes we need to be disgusted, to be appalled.  The Khmer Rouge genocide was certainly one of those times.  When one group of people slaughters millions of other people, we should be appalled, and we need to see it, look at it, to know, with horror, what we humans are capable of. 

I think something like that is happening when God brings Ezekiel to this valley of dry bones.  It looked to Ezekiel like a mass grave, with bones as far as the eye could see. 

That must have been a ghastly sight.  Can you imagine being surrounded by a sea of human bones?  I wonder if Ezekiel was thinking he was having a nightmare.  You can imagine him pinching his arm and saying urgently, “Wake up! Wake up!  This isn’t real.  You’re just dreaming.”

But he wasn’t just dreaming.  He was surrounded by mounds of human bones.  Also, they were very dry bones.  These people had been dead a long time.  Here’s the thing, though; this valley of dry bones wasn’t real. It wasn’t a dream either.  It was a vision in which it seems Ezekiel felt as though he was in a real place.  But God’s purpose wasn’t to give Ezekiel a nightmare, walking him through the bones, grossing him out.  Instead God has a question for Ezekiel, which we read in verse 3.  “Can these bones live?”

Check back to the next post, and we’ll learn about Ezekiel’s curious answer to God’s question.

Photo by Hikmet on Unsplash

My nephews and the skeleton – Ezekiel 37:1-14, Preview

A couple years ago my extended family went on vacation together to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. My immediate family arrived a day after the rest. After getting settled in, I was playing wiffleball with my nephews in the yard when a foul ball meandered its way through an opening under a porch.

We all turned and looked toward the porch where the ball disappeared. No one moved. My nephews began to argue amongst themselves about who was responsible to get the ball. The fielders were convinced the hitter should go. Of course the hitter thought it was the fielders’ job.

As the accusations flew, I wondered if they were scared of getting a bit dirty or more likely of the darkness in the belly of the porch. So I encouraged the nephew nearest the porch to crawl under and get the ball. He refused and said, “I’m not getting it. There’s a skeleton under there.”

I scrunched my face into a disbelieving scowl thinking my nephew was attempting to play me for a fool, hoping I would take pity on him and get the ball. Even after my further prodding, he would not budge. So I got down on my hands and knees, turned on my phone light, and peeked under the porch. Sure enough, there was a skeleton. A human skeleton.

My nephews knew about it because they had arrived the day before, explored around like kids do when they get to a new place, and they discovered the skeleton. I will admit it sent shivers down my neck and shoulders when I first saw it. Especially there in the dim light under the porch, it was freaky. What was a full human skeleton doing under the porch of this vacation home? Weird, right?

Upon closer inspection, it looked like a Halloween decoration that the owner was storing under his porch for October when he would display it to freak out trick-or-treaters. I still didn’t want to crawl near it, so I used a bat to reach the ball and slide it out. Then I scurried backwards into the light as quick as I could!

Why do skeletons scare us? It’s obvious, I suppose. They are the epitome of images of death, and not just any death, but human death. Skeletons force us to deal with the reality of our humanity. Life is not all there is. There’s also death. There is the dark side, the pain, the hurt, the frailty that is part and parcel of the human experience. We are truly bags of bones. From dust we were created, and to dust we shall return.

With that introduction, you might be wondering if next week’s five-part blog series on Ezekiel 37:1-14 is going to be a dark one. Admittedly, it starts that way. Over the course of 36 chapters, we have learned that Ezekiel is a most unusual book of the Bible. When God commissioned Ezekiel to be a prophet to his fellow 10,000 Israelites, with whom he was in exile in Babylon, little did he know what his life would become. The bizarre visions, the prophetic skits, stares, and stories, punctuating long periods of silence. Now in chapter 37, God takes Ezekiel on a vision journey that is perhaps the most famous, enduring story of the entire book of Ezekiel: a journey in a vision to a valley of dry bones.

There God walked Ezekiel among not just one skeleton, but through a valley filled with thousands and thousands and thousands of bones. Why would God take Ezekiel to that place in a vision? What does it mean? While it starts off dark, it turns out to be one of the most exciting and hopeful promises in the entire Bible, one that we need today, especially when we feel inside like the skeleton, dry, dead and without hope. See for yourself by reading Ezekiel 37:1-4 ahead of time, and then check back in to the blog on Monday!

Photo by Katherine Kromberg on Unsplash