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January 29, 2012
“A Picture of the Church”
Acts 18: 1 - 5 & 18 - 28
Sunday, January 29, 2012
As I begin, I am holding up a copy of the directory of Faith Presbyterian Church. On the front of this directory is a picture. Some might say that this is a picture of Faith Church. But some might say that the real picture of Faith Church is inside the directory in the list of the names of its members and friends and in the information that is listed about them. The picture on the cover is really a picture of the front façade of the building we meet in for Worship and come to for other church meetings and activities.
We are, by the way, planning publish soon a new edition of the Directory which we hope will provide a more complete picture of our church. This will be a pictorial directory. We hope to have your picture in it and pictures of some of us participating in some of the activities of the church.
But as we think of how to capture the essence of faith church in photographs I want us to think of how we picture some of the details of THE CHURCH, the bride of Christ as she waits on earth for her Groom, the returning Jesus Christ.
I think the book of Acts, containing parts of the story of the beginning of the church, provides some snapshots in words of some of the details of the church. Today I have chosen to look at one of those snapshots or photographs in words that occurs in the book of Acts. It involves 4 people, several cities, and covers a territory of thousands of miles.
Our story or snapshot begins at the City of Corinth in Greece. The Apostle Paul had just come there to tell the people there about Jesus. Paul usually traveled with his partner Silas and their associates, which included at various times, Luke, Aristarchus, Titus, and others. But he had left his partner and his associates in Berea and had taken a little working vacation in Athens. Now he had come, alone, to the vital city of Corinth. He would of course go to the Synagogues in Corinth on the Sabbath and, when given a chance, tell the Jews gathered there about Jesus, and that He was the Messiah.
That would only take a few hours a week, and as he had no financial support for this work, he would have to work for a living. Fortunately, all who had been trained to be Rabbi’s or Scribes had also been trained to work at some trade to support themselves. Paul, when he had been Saul, had been trained to be a tentmaker, which was a trade involving making tents, clothing, and other items out of animal skins and animal hair.
When he arrived in Corinth, he found a married couple who were also Jews and practiced the same trade. They were originally from a town on the Southern coast of the Black Sea in what is now Northeastern Turkey. But they had lived and probably worked in Rome for awhile until they had been expelled from Rome along with all other Jews because of an order of the Emperor Claudius.
The Roman Historian Suetonius wrote that the Jews were expelled at this time because of disturbance among the Jews by a certain Chrestus. We do not know if this one called Chrestus is a misspelling or misunderstanding of Christ and if the Jews were expelled because of divisions and perhaps riots caused by some Jews persecuting other Jews who had become Christians. We know that such riots had occurred in some of the towns in Asia Minor.
We also do not know if Aquilla and Priscilla were Christians when they met Paul. If Aquilla and Priscilla were Christians, they had three things in common with Paul, being Christians, Jews, and Tentmakers. If they were not yet Christians, they would have two things in common with him, being Jews and Tentmakers. Paul worked with them and probably lived with them for a while until his partner and associates arrived.
After their arrival, Paul devoted himself more to his evangelistic work but he evidently remained close to Aquilla and Priscilla. They also at some point had become Christians.
After a while, Paul left Corinth. He was about to end what we call his second missionary journey and head back to Palestine and Syria. We do not know if Silas and Timothy traveled with him or stayed in Corinth. But we do know that Aquilla and Priscilla left Corinth with Paul and went with him to Ephesus, a city on the West Coast of Asia Minor, present day Turkey. Paul stayed there just long enough to stir some interest in Jesus, but then sailed east to Palestine. Aquilla and Priscilla stayed in Ephesus. We assume they worked as Tentmakers there, but they also seem to have been lay-leaders in the fledgling church at Ephesus.
I want you to notice that before Paul went to Ephesus, at Cenchrae, Paul had his hair cut for a vow. Cenchrae was the Eastern Port of Corinth. The vow was one of the Jewish vows like a Nazirite vow, that Jews took to show some devotion or gratitude to god. Ones hair was cut short at the beginning and end of the period of the vow and the hair grown during the vow was dedicated to God.
What is important about this is that it demonstrates that although a Christian, Paul was still thoroughly Jewish, participating in distinctively Jewish rituals. He did not give up his culture and ethnicity when he became a Christian.
We Christians are a varied bunch and we always have been. We come from different cultures and ethnic groups and are allowed to continue our connection to them, as long as the individual practices of our culture do not clash with Christian morals. But, back to our picture of the Church.
Paul, having cut his hair and sailed for Israel, went to Jerusalem to visit the First Church. The Church at Jerusalem was still recognized at the first Church, or the Mother Church. Paul had had some disagreements with some who were there and who had come from there, but he still honored their place in the church and visited them and probably reported to them about his work and the new churches he had started.
Then, he went to Syrian Antioch to report to the church that had commissioned him as a missionary and sent him out twice.
Then he started his third missionary journey, visiting some of the churches he had started earlier.
Meanwhile, back in Ephesus, the fledgling church received an interesting visitor. Apollos was a Jewish Christian who was born and raised in Alexandria Egypt. He knew the bible well and was a great preacher and teacher, as well as an evangelist and apologist.
But Apollos had one problem. His theology of the Sacraments was incomplete. He did not know of the Baptism into Christ, he knew only of the Baptism of John the Baptist.
When Aquilla and Priscilla realized this, they did not dispute him in public, but they took him aside and privately taught him about Christian Baptism. Then, eventually they and the other Christians at Ephesus recommended him to the Christians at Corinth when he desired to go there. Apollos proved to be very helpful to the Church at Corinth.
Now, what do we see in this picture of the church? We see laypeople and pastors/missionaries working together and separately to build up the kingdom of God. Aquilla and Priscilla worked side by side with Paul in Corinth and in Ephesus, in the church and in their trade as tentmakers.
We see Apollos, a pastor and missionary receiving instruction from two laypeople and them being willing to help him where he had a weakness.
And we see both Paul and Apollos working separately in two places to build up the churches. As I speak of both Paul and Apollos in this picture of the church I want you to realize that Paul and Apollos may not have ever met. But they knew of each other and respected each other.
So in this picture we see two pastors, and two laypeople working together helping and educating and equipping each other as they together and separately built up the church. We also see, that through Paul, they were all connected to Christians over a thousand miles away from them who were of different cultures and ethnicities. They were all building up Christians, Evangelizing in their cities proclaiming Christ to all, and increasing the church of God in quantity and quality.
That is a good picture for us to study. We too are comprised of Pastors and lay people and we, too are related to Christians in other places and different circumstances.
We too, reach out to others with the good news. Each Tuesday people from this church conduct a Bible Study at the Work Release Center in Lafayette. Each Tuesday and Thursday afternoons people from Faith Church go to Klondike Elementary School and help children with their homework.
And we are all related to each other through Christ and responsible to each other and to other Christians around the world both within our denominational structure and beyond it.
This picture of the church in Acts is sort of a picture of us. May we continue to be accurately described by some of the word-pictures in Acts and in other books in the Bible.
Pastor David L. Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 01:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2012
“Prelude to a Shipwreck”
II Kings 1: 2 – 17/Acts 27: 9 - 12
Sunday, January 22, 2012
It seems that many people are enamored with shipwrecks. Most of us have recently seen pictures of a shipwreck near Italy in the Mediteranean Sea. Such pictures always seem to generate a lot of interest.
In connection with that interest, I have a warning for you. April 15, 2012 will be the 100th anniversary of the wreck of the Titanic. For almost 100 years there has been great interest in that wreck, partly because of the questions about its’ construction and partly because of the way the ship was handled by its crew after it struck the iceberg. And then there is the fact that the depth of the water in which it sank is so deep that it is extremely difficult to access and do research to answer some of those questions
This morning we are going to look at a shipwreck that is described in the book of Acts in chapters 27 and 28. Since it was a shipwreck that occurred between 59 and 62 AD, the ship was of a much smaller size than other shipwrecks we have seen or heard about. This shipwreck is important to Christians because it is described in our bible and because it was a part of the Apostle Paul’s trip to Rome as a prisoner.
Paul had been arrested in Jerusalem, transferred to the State capitol of Caeserea, and incarcerated there for two years while awaiting the decision of the governors about how his case would be handled.
At the end of that period, Paul appealed his case to the Emperor in Rome, as was the right of every Citizen of Rome. Paul and other prisoners who were headed for Rome were entrusted to a Roman Centurion and his squad. It was the duty of this Centurion to arrange transportation and security for these men and see that they arrived safely at Rome. Somehow Luke and Aristarchus arranged to accompany Paul on his journey.
The journey began at the man-made seaport at Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast of Palestine or Israel. Herod the Great had called for the creation of this port because Israel’s portion of the Mediterranean Sea had no natural cove or port. It was a magnificent accomplishment and feat of engineering in its time.
The Centurion booked passage for himself, his men, and his prisoners on a Coastal vessel headed North to Sidon. After a stop at Sidon, the ship went North and then West around the island of Cypress, then traveled between Cypress and the Coast of Asia Minor until it arrived at Myra. It seems that the ship they were on was not going to Rome, so they changed ships at Myra. This second ship seems to had the wind against them proceeding from Myra. Luke wrote that they sailed slowly for a number of days, and sailed with difficulty between Rhodes and Cnidus, then turned South and passed the East End of Crete and turned West and entered the Harbor at Fair Havens.
They were at about the halfway point of their journey, but the slowness of their travel thus far presented them with a problem. They were now in the early to mid days of October. The seasonal weather in the Mediterranean Sea made it difficult to travel by sail from September 15th to November 11th and impossible after that until Winter was over. So at Fair Havens, the people who were sailing on the ship had a meeting. They had before them 3 options.
As their first option they could stay where they were and winter in Fair Havens, though it was not the best port in which to spend the winter. It was protected by islands, but the harbor itself did not provide much shelter from the open sea.
Option two involved heading to the West-Northwest to the port of Phoenix and spending the winter there.
Option three was to sail out of Fair Havens and head out to sea to one of the ports of Sicily or Italy.
Those of you who love the democratic systems of government will be pleased to read from our second lesson that at the meeting in Fair havens they discussed their options and took a vote, although the Centurion and the ship-owner seemed to have more votes or their votes carried more weight. As a result, the majority decided to sail for Phoenix.
Those of you who watched the old TV series Gilligan’s Island may want to join me at this point in singing the Chorus of the theme song from that Show “A Three Hour Tour”.
This decision was the prelude to shipwreck that I refer to in the sermon title.
Almost as soon as the ship left Fair Havens the trouble started. They were hit by a strong wind from the Northeast that drove them away from being able to reach Phoenix in the west-northwest. They had a life boat or dingy that was trailing the ship, as they went to the south of the island of Cauda and as it sheltered them from the wind a little, they hauled in the boat, emptied it of water, and secured it on board. During the next 14 days they were driven across the Mediterranean Sea until they struck a sandbar on the coast of Malta. The bow was stuck while first the stern and then the rest of the boat was broken up by the pounding of the waves. The ship and its cargo was a total loss, but all the people on board were saved by swimming to shore or floating to shore on pieces of the boat or its contents.
So, where did they go wrong? They had a democratic process but the majority proved to be wrong. They should have stayed in Fair Havens. Paul had told them that. God revealed the right way to them through Paul. But there was no shining light or trumpets sounding or angels singing as Paul spoke to them recommending that they stay in Fair Havens. He was just a prisoner, it was a wonder they gave him a voice at all. And yet this prisoner had the guidance from God.
You know, it is not easy making the right choices in our lives. Or making the best choices. Most of us seek sources, people or groups to advise us. But how do we choose between the various voices?
I almost always carry a briefcase with me (although a friend of mine who has practiced law says that since I carry no legal briefs in my case, I should call it a sermon-case). Anyway, I nearly always carry it because I keep my calendar in it along with several other lists that I might need at any moment. Once, when I was leaving the house for a Youth Group meeting, Diane asked why I was taking my briefcase. I replied that I might need it if someone asked me a question. She said “Do you have answers in there?” Then proceeded to ask for permission to look into my case whenever she had a question.
I am sure that most of us have wished for such a handy source of answers to the questions we have and guidance for direction.
We need to pray that God will help us see what He wants us to do. He can direct us in the midst of varying voices, opinions, and guidance, but we need to seek his help. Sometimes he guides us through a feeling, sometimes a word from someone, sometimes through closing off to us some of our options, sometimes through what seems to be happenstance. Sometimes a scripture verse seems to speak to us or our situation. But through these means or others, God can guide us to the right decision. Sometimes God’s help comes to us through an unusual or ordinarily disrespected source. In the case of the meeting of the passengers of the ship, God spoke through a prisoner in chains
For further pointers I refer you to the first lesson. Wasn’t that fun? King Ahaziah of Israel sought out the advice of another god regarding his health. God spoke to him through the prophet Elijah and asked him why he, the king of Israel would consult another God about his health. Then he told him that he was about to die.
Then there is that bit about the captains and their 50 men being destroyed by God because they haughtily commanded the prophet to appear before the king. God does not tolerate arrogance. He does not care if you are a king, or a captain, or a father or mother with much experience of raising children, or one of the most brilliant and accomplished scholars in your field. When we come to God asking for help or guidance, it is best if we come cloaked in humility. The third captain learned to approach God’s prophet with humility and kindness and was allowed to live.
God has answers and advice for us. We need to pray for them, we need to look for it to come through regular and unusual channels. We need to listen for his voice through others, and we need to seek God’s will for us in humility, not making any claims on him.
Pastor David L. Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 05:51 PM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2012
“God Speaks”
I Samuel 3: 1 - 18
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Samuel had been dedicated to God by his mother before he was born. Her name was Hannah and she had been unable to have children. She asked God for help in this matter and promised that if she had children, the first son would be dedicated to serve God. When Samuel was still a boy, he was taken to Shiloh, where the Tabernacle of God was, to serve God there. He was raised from that point on by the people who lived and worked at the Tabernacle. Those would have been mostly priests and Levites.
The High Priest in those days was Eli. He evidently lived within the temple courtyard or just outside it, as did Samuel.
The tabernacle was that portable place of worship that the Israelites had built according to God’s plans while they were in the wilderness after having come out of Egypt. They carried it with them during their 40 years in the wilderness and after they conquered much of the promised land, they set it up permanently in Shiloh. It would have been over 300 years old at this point, and since it was basically a tent with boards reinforcing the walls, it had obviously been repaired and embellished a bit over time. In this passage we discover that there were people, including Samuel and Eli sleeping in it. I greatly doubt that this passage was intended to convey that people were actually living and spending their nights in the Holy place or Holy of Holies of the tabernacle. I think it is more logical to understand that shelters had been built in the courtyard or against the outside wall of the courtyard for those who worked in the temple. I know that verse 3 says that “Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the Ark of God was.” But I think that is just to identify the temple, and remind the readers that at that point the Ark was in the tabernacle. That would be important because in the next chapter the ark was taken out of the tabernacle and it would remain absent from the tabernacle during the rest of the narrative of I Samuel and at least until II Samuel 6, but it is possible that the Ark never got back into the tabernacle.
The place in the Tabernacle where the Ark was kept, was the Holy of Holies, into which only the High Priest was to enter only once each year, on the day of Atonement. To think that a young boy would be allowed to live and sleep in the Holy of Holies is nonsense.
So, Samuel was living as a boy in the tabernacle area and it seems that one of his duties was to tend to the physical needs of the High Priest Eli who had become blind.
The author of I Samuel has already informed his readers that Eli was allowing his sons, who were also priests, to misuse the sacrifices and to abuse the people who came to the Tabernacle to Worship God. The author had also informed his readers that a man of God had told Eli that God was going to judge him and his sons for their abuses.
Then God started to speak to Samuel. We are informed that there weren’t many prophets in those days, that’s what it means when it says, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread”.
This is mentioned because that was going to change with Samuel. He was about to receive the first of many prophecies and visions from God. He was to be the first of the great prophets of Israel and the last of the Judges. He would bring in the era of the Kings of Israel. But at this point he was still a boy. Josephus, writing over 1000 years later informs us that Samuel was 12 years old when he received this first prophecy.
The fact of God’s word and visions being rare in those days is also mentioned to explain why Samuel did not recognize the voice of God when he heard it.
The story is not without humor. The boy is sleeping in the hours before dawn, when he is awakened by a voice calling his name. He assumes that Eli needs assistance in the night and goes to Eli who tells him he did not call him and to go back to sleep. He did, but God called again and again he thought it was Eli and was sent back to bed. God called Samuel a third time. This time Eli began to think that God might be speaking to the boy, so he told him to go back to bed and that if he heard the voice calling his name again, to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
The voice spoke again, Samuel replied as instructed, and God did have a message for Samuel. But I would like to pause here and ask you some questions. Have you ever thought that God was trying to get you to do something or to understand something? Did you ever get some idea to do something based on something that you read in the bible? You may never have heard God speaking to you directly, but maybe you have felt God moving you in a certain direction. Have you ever prayed for directions or guidance from God?
Well, if you answered any of those in the affirmative, I want you to notice that Samuel did not realize what was happening at first. Then, when he did understand what God was saying, He did not want to tell Eli what he was supposed to.
So, God gave Samuel help through Eli. Eli told him to speak back to God and tell him that his servant was listening. Sometimes we need to sit or lie still and listen for God or look for some guidance from God. This is not easy for us who live in the 21st century. We do not like silence. We have portable music players and radios in our cars so we do not have to drive in silence.
And sometimes, when we are searching for guidance, we need to seek out a Christian who is more mature and maybe older than we are, Well, maybe not older. But one whose life God has obviously given guidance. Eli was that person for Samuel.
But I want you to notice that receiving the word of God was not Samuel’s only problem. He also did not want to follow God’s instructions. He was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. Eli was the High priest after all. And Samuel may have loved Eli after all his years of being with him and now helping him.
The message from God announced judgment on Eli and his sons. Samuel did not want to tell Eli that he and his sons were about to be punished by God. Eli had to use covenant language to compel Samuel to tell him. If you look at the 17th verse you will see what I’m referring to. Do you see where Eli says, “May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.”? Those words were commonly used in covenant making ceremonies. The parties to an agreement would cut up a sacrificial animal and scatter the pieces on the ground walk in the midst of the blood and gore and say “may God do so to me and more also if I break this agreement.”
Samuel complied and told Eli. It turned out that it was worse news for Samuel than it was for Eli. Eli had already been told by another unnamed prophet that God was about to punish him and his sons.
I think Samuel may have had what I like to call the “Only Prophet Syndrome”. We find it most blatantly displayed years later by Elijah, who after calling down fire on his altar, ordering the execution of the prophets of Baal, and ending a drought by praying for rain, ran away and hid from Queen Jezebel. God came to him and asked why he was hiding. He answered “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”
God answered Elijah in several ways, but one of them was by saying “I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” Elijah thought he was the only one who remained on God’s side. He was not.
Samuel thought he was the first and only one to receive the message about God’s upcoming judgment of Eli and his sons. Eli already knew.
Sometimes we feel as if we ought to talk to someone about Jesus or about our faith, or that God wants us to take some stand on a certain issue. But we are afraid that we might be singled out for ridicule. But often, we are not the only ones God is moving to do something or say something. There may be seven thousand others. We most likely will not be alone.
Eli went on to his judgment. Samuel went on to become one of the greatest men of God in the History of Israel. He followed Eli’s advice and proved himself faithful to do and say what God had so instructed him.
That’s Something to think about when you think God wants you to do or say something.
Pastor David L. Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2012
“The Spirit of Baptism”
Acts 10: 44 - 48
Sunday, January 8, 2012
We just read the last 5 verses of a long story that is 48 verses long and takes up the entire tenth chapter of the Book of Acts. That so much space was given to this one story would lead us to believe that this was an important story in the development of the church. And it is. It is the story of a Roman Soldier, a Centurion or Sergeant Master in the Roman Army and how he and his family became Christians.
The Story begins with a vision given by God to Cornelius the Centurion. In the vision, Cornelius saw an angel who told Cornelius to send people to Joppa and to bring Simon Peter to Cornelius.
As those people from Cornelius approached the town of Joppa, Simon also received a vision from God. You have probably heard about this vision. It is the one where Peter saw a sheet or blanket let down from heaven and on it were all sorts of animals that were defined as unclean in the Jewish laws given by Moses and therefore could not be eaten by Jews. But in the vision a voice told Peter to get up and kill some of the animals and eat them to which Peter responded that he could not because he had never eaten anything that was unclean. The voice then said “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This same conversation occurred three times and then the vision ended. The Holy Spirit then told Peter to go with the men who were at that moment arriving from Cornelius.
Peter went to Caesarea to see Cornelius, preached to him and his family and friends about Jesus, and they all believed in Jesus. At that point, the Holy Spirit came upon all of them and they “began speaking in tongues and extolling God”. So Peter asked the Christians who had accompanied him from Joppa if Cornelius and those with him should not be baptized, since they had obviously received the Holy Spirit. And they were baptized. Now the reason this story was so important to Luke, who recorded it in the book of Acts, is because it was the first occasion of Gentiles who had not become Jews believing in Jesus and receiving the HS and being baptized.
But I wanted to look at it for another reason. First, I must confess that I have been involved in the baptism wars. Ever since the reformation there has been a war going on between those Christians who require believers-only immersion baptism, like Baptists and many other denominations and independent congregations, and those who baptize with only a little water and also baptize children, like Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians and others. Since two of the three colleges I attended were run by Baptists of one sort or another, and I am a born-and-raised Presbyterian, I fought the baptism wars or participated in the discussions about baptism.
But I now think that with my involvement in that subject I missed something really important that the Bible says again and again about baptism.
If you will look at this story in its entirety you will see that it begins and ends with the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit gave two men visions which started a chain of events which led to another visitation of the Holy Spirit, in which Cornelius and those with him spoke in tongues and extolled God, and upon which, Peter declared that they should be baptized. This, by the way is the only instance in the bible when the gift of the Holy Spirit precedes baptism. All others who are mentioned in the NT as receiving the HS had already been baptized. But here there is still a connection of Baptism to the Holy Spirit.
And if you will look at our first lesson you will see that in it the Holy Spirit is mentioned as connected to Baptism at least two different times: John said that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with Fire, and when Jesus was Baptized, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him as a dove. There are many more places in the NT where Baptism is linked to the Holy Spirit.
It seems that in all our concerns about the symbolism of baptism as a cleansing and our discussions and concerns about how much water to use and what parts of the body to cover with water, which are not trivial issues, we have neglected the connection of Baptism with the Holy Spirit.
We view baptism as a connection to the church and an introductory rite into the church. And it is. But we need to recover the connection of the Holy Spirit to Baptism. As baptized persons we need to make room in our lives for God’s Spirit to dwell in us and work in us. If our children and or grandchildren have been baptized we need to raise them in ways that will encourage them to receive the Spirit into their lives and to allow the Spirit to Work in their lives. We need to pray for the Spirit to work in us and pray that we will be open to allow the Spirit to work in us. And we need to pray that the Spirit will move into our children
In Galatians 5: 22&23 the Apostle Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit or the evidences of the presence of the Spirit as: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control”. As people who have been baptized, we should be trying to assist the Spirit in building these qualities into our lives. Those of you who are officers in this church should be trying to build the members of this church up in these qualities. As parents, grandparents, and friends of baptized children, we should be looking for and encouraging these traits in them.
And we need to tell each other when see these and other traits of the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
We are about to celebrate the baptism of Jesus by renewing our baptismal vows. These vows may have been originally been taken for us by our parents, but when we joined a church, we took them upon ourselves. As we remember our vows and our baptisms, lets also remember that our vows and our baptism have bound us to God’s Holy Spirit. From now on, lets seek to know the Spirit, let us seek to make room for the spirit, let us look for and listen for the directions of the Spirit and let us follow the Spirit as He leads us. And let us encourage each other to demonstrate that the Spirit resides in each of us.
Pastor David L. Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2012
“Claiming the New Year as God’s Children”
Galatians 4: 1 - 11
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Last Weekend we celebrated the coming of the Son of God into the world. As we did so, on Christmas Eve we looked at a passage in John 1 which stated that in coming into the world, Jesus or the True Light gave the people who believed in Him the right to become children of God. The apostle Paul re-stated and elaborated on this idea in the first seven verses of our second lesson.
He likened the status of those who were to become Christians as heirs in families in the Roman empire. Such heirs, when they were children were treated no differently than the children of the slaves and servants in the household. Although they were to become the owners of the entire estate, they had no rights to spend out of the accounts of the family, and they were bound by all the rules that everyone else on the estate were bound by. But when their parents died, they had the rights to spend from the accounts of the estate and they could exempt themselves from the rules of the household if they chose.
Paul wanted the Christians of the region of Galatia in Asia Minor to understand that as Christians they were like heirs who had been given their freedoms by the death of the Son of God. This was important because the Christians were in danger of giving up their freedoms as Christian offspring of God.
I wanted to look at this passage, its teachings and its implications for us on this new year’s Day for several reasons:
Many of us have spent time with families and friends over the holidays in person or via long phone conversations. In those encounters, there have been many remembrances of the way life used to be for us and the way we used to be. In some ways I suppose we are pleased that our lives and relationships have changed for the better, but in other ways, our present ways of life and behaviors might not seem to be an improvement.
This holiday period also presents us with an opportunity to think about what we have become and make resolutions about what we wish to become. As we do that as Christians we need to remember who we are, we are Children of God Adopted into his family by the death and resurrection of Jesus. Our adoption certificate is our Faith in Him.
So, what does our status as Christians at the beginning of a new year have in common with that of the Christians of the district of Galatia in the first century? Well for one thing, we are and they were the descendants of immigrants. The Gauls after whom the district of Galatia had been named had invaded and settled in that part of what is now Turkey in the 4th century BC. So they, like us, had a sense of belonging where they were but traced their roots elsewhere.
Paul had first preached the gospel about Jesus in Galatia during his first Missionary Journey, when his partner was Barnabas. His work there is described in the 13th and 14th chapters of Acts. If you read those chapters you will find no reference to Galatia. But you will find that Paul and Barnabas did have interesting times in the cities of Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. These four cities lay within the district of Galatia.
As we read the accounts of Paul’s ministries in those cities, we learn some interesting things. In each of those cities, in addition to the Gaulian descended Gentiles there were also Jewish populations of considerable size. In those cities, Paul continued his practice of preaching to the Jews first, then to the Gentiles. In Pisidian Antioch, the Jews who refused to become Christians caused trouble and caused Paul and Barnabus to be thrown out of the city.
In Iconium, the non-Christian Jews also caused trouble and there was a plan by non-believing Jews and Gentiles to kill Paul and Barnabus by stoning them.
In Lystra, first the pagan Gentiles tried to worship Paul as Hermes and Barnabas as Zeus. Then later at the instigation of non-Christian Jews from Antioch and Iconium, Paul was stoned and left for dead.
All of that should give you some idea of the racial, ethnic, and religious plurality and tensions present in Galatia. And, as it was in the district, so it was in the churches in the district.
As Christians, they were trying to figure out how they were to live with their new identity in a world that was decidedly not Christian, and in which there were tensions and unrest.
Our situation in this respect is a little different. We are or we need to be aware that our culture is changing. It is moving away from traditional Judeo-Christian values and toward a much more inclusive, accepting environment. In some ways this is good, in other ways, not so much. But we too are trying to figure out how as Christians and as a congregation of Christians we fit in to our culture and society.
One way in which I hope we are not like the Galatian Christians is the central theme of this letter. Paul was concerned that the Galatians were abandoning some of the essentials of their faith.
As part of their heterogeneous society, there were many Jews in their locale and in their churches. And some of them were convinced that since Christianity had its roots in Judaism, Christians should also be Jewish. For Jewish Christians that meant that they were to remain meticulously and actively Jewish, still attending Synagogue services with Non-Christian Jews and still celebrating all the Jewish holidays and festivals.
For the Gentile Christians, it meant that they were to become Jews in order to be Christian. The men would have to be circumcised, and all of them would have to attend Synagogue services and participate in the Jewish festivals and holidays. And in the early days, they were probably ordered to go to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices at the temple until it was destroyed.
To make matters worse, some Jewish Christians had come from Jerusalem and encouraged the Christians to become or remain Jewish.
That is when Paul wrote this letter. He told the Christians in Galatia that as children of God they were free from the religious laws and regulations that they had been subject to before they heard about Jesus. For the Jewish Christians, that meant that there was no merit, no salvation in their Jewishness. They could attend the Jewish festivals and Sabbath services, but their salvation did not depend upon it as they had previously believed. For the Gentile Christians it meant that they did not have to become Jews in any way, but neither were they to engage in the pagan and polytheistic rituals to which they were enslaved before they became Christians.
Paul warns them twice in this passage not to be enslaved by the elemental spirits of this world. This phrase and other translations of the Greek here have led to some confusion. What Paul was referring to was the basic religious principles that they had learned as children. These were connected to basic moral principles of right and wrong. They had been raised to understand that their behaviors either pleased or displeased their deities and that based on that pleasure or displeasure they would be rewarded or punished by those deities. These were the elemental principles (better than “spirits”) they had been enslaved to.
In Christ, they were given salvation because of what Christ did, not because of what they had done or had not done.
So what does all of this have to do with us Christian, American, Hoosiers on the first day of 2012?
In all things, and in all areas of our lives we need to remember who we are. We are children of God. And that takes priority over all other conditions of our existence.
The Galatians had to understand that their being Christians was more important than their being Galatian Gentiles or Jews living in Galatia. They were to live not only as Jews or Gentiles but as Christians first, with the character of Christ firmly embedded in and displayed by all that they did and said. They were not to be bound by fears that their salvation depended upon their adherence to specific laws, rules, and rituals.
We need to understand that our status as Children of God takes precedence over our citizenship of particular nations, our racial or ethnic identities, or our political or ideological identities. We are first and foremost Children of God, made free by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
And, as the Christians of Galatia were troubled by Christians from the Jerusalem church teaching them troubling doctrines, so others from other churches are trying to entice us away from believing things that Christians have always accepted as truth from the very beginning of Christianity. And I’m not referring only to the “Big” issue. There are others that are really bigger such as the role and limitations of being inclusive in our church and its theology and whether or not one must actually believe in Jesus to be given entrance into God’s eternal Kingdom.
As Christians living in America we are going to be subjected to 10 more months of politicians trying to get us to see things their way by appealing to our ideals, our race our income levels and how old we are. Each of us needs to remember that before we identify in those ways and become fractured as a Christian Community, we are, each of us Children of God, and everything we do and say should reflect that, the greatest reality in our lives
Pastor David L. Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)