Blog Archives - WELCOME TO THE JOY OF TROY

April 10, 2021

4/10/2021

A Revolutionary Message

        And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Luke 4:16-21, NASB

    Nothing like returning home to have the honor of preaching to those who knew you as a child. They now viewed Him as an accomplished rabbi or teacher. As a result, they asked Him to take the Scripture reading and the homily on the text.

    Probably known as the boy "who was a bit different," Jesus had come a long way since His boyhood days in that village. And He was different, but in ways that they did not suspect. He had in fact become the most famous person ever raised in Nazareth. Stories of His teachings and miracles had spread everywhere. He was truly a celebrity. It was only natural that He should have the honor of the Sabbath service.

    His choice of a text is an interesting one. But how He treated it is even more so. Jesus considered the passage from Isaiah 61:1, 2 as Messianic. He read the first part of the verse and probably commented on it afterward as He explained its message.

    In essence it set forth the Messianic role in terms of the cup-of-cold-water theology that we examined in the story of the woman at the well, and message that had formed a large aspect of His teaching and healing ministry up to that time. He had preached the gospel to the poor, set at liberty those who were oppressed by disease and sin, healed the blind, and proclaimed that the kingdom was at hand.

    So far, so good. Then He did two things. First he failed to read the last part of the passage, which read: "to proclaim...the day of vengeance of our God" (RSV), thereby signaling that His mission would be divided into two parts: the arrival of the kingdom of grace during His first advent and the arrival of the kingdom of glory when all would be made right at His second coming.

    His first words were that Isaiah's Messianic prophecy had been fulfilled. It was a claim that He was Himself the expected Messiah.

April 9, 2021

4/9/2021

An Unlikely Evangelist

        From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all the things that I have done." So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. Many more believed because of His work; and they were saying to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world." John 4:39-42, NASB

    The woman was an unlikely evangelist. But then she had an exceptional message to match her exceptional (spelled "notorious" here) life. She had met a man, she announced to the villagers, who had told her everything that she had ever done. That had their ears. Because what she had done was much, and everybody knew it. As a result of her testimony, the center of the village shifted toward the well with the woman in the forefront.

    We read in The Desire of Ages that "as soon as she had found the Saviour the Samaritan woman brought others to Him. She proved herself a more effective missionary than His own disciples. The disciples saw nothing in Samaria to indicate that it was an encouraging field. Their thoughts were fixed upon a great work to be done in the future. They did not see that right around them was a harvest to be gathered. But through the woman whom they despised, a whole cityful were brought to hear the Saviour. She carried the light at once to her own countrymen.

    This woman represents the working of a practical faith in Christ. Every true disciple is born into the kingdom of God as a missionary. He who drinks of the living water becomes a fountain of life. The receiver becomes a giver. The grace of Christ in the soul is like a spring in the desert, welling up to refresh all, and making those who are ready to perish eager to drink of the water of life" (p. 195).

    The woman of Samaria might have been an unlikely evangelist, but she was a successful one. She had a message about her sin and her Savior that led others to investigate for themselves. In the process, they also found a personal Savior.

    Before Jesus came into the woman's life both she and her neighbors considered her beyond hope. But Jesus performed two miracles in her life: He enabled her to break away from her past, and He opened up to her a new future.

    From that perspective, there is nothing else that Jesus can be called but "Saviour of the world."

April 8, 2021

4/8/2021

A Lesson for the Disciples

        Just then the disciples came. They marveled that He was talking with a woman....[They] besought him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." But he said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know." So the disciples said to one another, "Has any one brought him food?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work." John 4:27-34, RSV.

    The disciples don't have the foggiest notion about what is going on. All they know is that Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman. Against the background of the rabbinic precepts, that was shocking. "Let no one talk with a woman in the street, no, not even with his wife," ran one of their sayings. Women, rabbinic thought went, were incapable of receiving any real teaching. And here Jesus was speaking to a woman!

    Naturally they were astonished. But by this time they knew Jesus well enough not to ask Him why.  They only did what was foremost on their minds. After all, they were hungry, and Jesus must be also.

    The woman, meanwhile, existed in a state of wonder also. Forgetting who she was, and why she had sneaked out to a well far from town to avoid people, she ran off without her water jar to tell people that she had found the Christ. Her hearers were at that very moment coming to see Jesus for themselves.

    Here we have an interesting situation. A woman who had known Jesus for possibly no more than an hour was far in advance of the disciples in her understanding of Him. She had already seen her sin and had come to grips with her spiritual needs, while the disciples had yet to struggle with the pride and self-sufficiency that drove their lives. Beyond that, Jesus had plainly stated to the Samaritan woman that He was the Christ. That realization would not completely form in the disciples' minds until much later.

    Jesus was excited in a way His followers only dimly comprehended, saying that He had lost His hunger because He was involved in doing His Father's will. The woman was excited too. In fact, even the townspeople who were on their way out to see Jesus were excited.

    The only people not excited in this story are the 12 disciples, who had their minds on food. In that context Jesus quoted two proverbs about the readiness of the harvest.

    It is still possible that those who have been longest with Jesus may be the ones with the least insight into the wonder of who He is. Even now "old time" saints might have their minds focused on "food" rather than on the Christ. Such can learn from the Samaritan woman.

April 7, 2021

4/7/2021

Facing the Truth

        The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When He comes, He will tell us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He." John 4:25, 26, NKJV.

    Go, call your husband" (John 4:16, NKJV). Now that was a bomb! It completely caught the Samaritan woman off guard.

    A perceptive command, it completely blindsided her. "I have no husband," she blurted out (verse 17). Jesus agreed with that, pointing out that she had had five husbands and was currently "shacked up" with a man she wasn't married to (verse 18).

    That hurt. It may have been the truth but it was uncomfortable. The best thing to do from her perspective was to change the topic to something more neutral: "I perceive that you are a prophet" (verse 19). And in case that didn't work, she could always start an argument about where one should worship (verse 20). Anything but more conversation about her personal life.

    Here we are not much different from that Samaritan woman. We will do anything to escape dealing with our cherished shortcomings and sins. As soon as a possible revelation of them comes up we immediately seek an escape route. And any old one will do. The main thing is to put distance between ourselves and our conscience. Change the subject, argue, flee. It doesn't matter. We will do anything rather than face up.

    But it is facing up that leads to the kingdom. When Jesus confronted her in His gentle way she might try to play escape games, but her whole sordid situation was now in the open.

    Christ's revelation forced her to come to grips with the total inadequacy of her life. Here is an important spiritual dynamic. We never truly see ourselves until we are in the presence of Christ, until we see who we are in relation to God. Then and only then do we feel a need for Him and cry out for the living water that will truly satisfy (verse 15) and the Messiah who "will tell us all things" (verse 25).

    A conviction of our personal sin is always the beginning of salvation. After that comes the cry for help. At that point Christ can offer Himself more fully: "I who speak to you am He" (verse 26), the One who can truly reach out and help.

    Help me today, my Father, to be honest with both myself and You that You might help me where I need it the most.

April 6, 2021

4/6/2021

Evangelist Par Excellence

        Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water....Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. John 4:10-14, RSV.

    We should notice something in the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Namely, He refused to argue with her. Several times she attempted to draw Him into a debate: "Are you greater than our father Jacob" (verse 12, RSV)? Where is the proper place to worship God? On the mountain or in Jerusalem (verse 20)? Did you know that Jacob is our father (verse 12)? Other Jewish teachers would have hotly disputed those last two items.

    But Jesus didn't take the bait. Rather, He calmly kept on track as He revealed gospel truth to her. And in the end, by not arguing over side issues and by keeping to His evangelistic message, He won her over.

    The core of His offer is living water. Living water is from a running source and generally preferable to still water from the bottom of a well. But the woman could obviously see that there were no such streams available. Beyond that, she could tell that He didn't even have a bucket to get still water out of the well. Who do you think you are? she threw at Him. Do you think that you are better than our Father Jacob?

    Jesus didn't get emotional at that not-so-subtle attack. He merely reiterated His offer of something better than she had ever had before.

    And in the process He was making a Messianic claim. Living water in the Jewish mind was not only water from a stream; it was also a phrase linked to the coming Messianic age in which "they shall not hunger nor thirst" (Isa. 49:10), a time when the parched ground would become a pool and the thirsty land springs of water (Isa. 35:7). It was God Himself who was "the fountain of living waters" (Jer. 17:13).

    The message was beginning to dawn on the Samaritan woman. She wanted what Jesus had (John 4:15), even though she wasn't sure exactly what it was.

    Meanwhile, we should recognize that our Savior knew the business of how to get His message out. Be accepting, don't argue, and keep coming back to the truth of the gospel.

April 5, 2021

4/5/2021

Bridge Building Par Excellence

        A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. John 4:7-9, NKJV

    The apostle John loves a good story. His first one was about Nicodemus, the rich ruler of the Jews. This one is about a Samaritan outcast. The individuals involved have almost nothing in common. What holds them together is the fact that Jesus "knew what was in man" (John 2:25, RSV). Both stories illustrate that truth.

    The setting for John 4 is the province of Samaria, which in Jesus' day was wedged in between the Jewish lands of Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. Right in the midst of those two political entities so concerned with religious and racial purity was Samaria, a land anything but pure. Both its people and its religion were a mixture of the Jewish and the pagan. As a result, Jews had nothing to do with the Samaritans, who were more than willing to return the favor. In typical Near East fashion, the Jews and Samaritans had been in a bitter quarrel for more than 400 years.

    And then Jesus stops to rest while His disciples are off finding something to eat. While He waits, a Samaritan woman shows up at midday to get some water from Jacob's well. At that point Jesus does the unthinkable--He asks her for a favor.

    That very act speaks volumes about Jesus. First, it demonstrates His humanity. Like us, He got hungry and thirsty. That is important in the Gospel that most emphasizes His divinity. Second, it indicates that something about Him led the woman not to just ignore or flee from Him. She sensed that here was a person who was warm and sympathetic.

    Third, Jesus was a bridge builder who was willing to transcend the hatreds and prejudices of His time and place. That breaking down of barriers, however, was not merely between races but also barriers of social custom sanctified by age. Jewish teachers were not allowed to talk to women in public, let alone one with a notorious character. That is evident in her reply to Him: "You are asking a favor from me, a Samaritan woman!" Unheard of. But here we find our Lord demonstrating that God loves the world not merely in theory, but also in practice.

    How is it with me? Am I a bridge builder like my Lord? If not, why not?

April 4, 2021

4/4/2021

Believers Already Have Eternal Life

        The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him. John 3:35, 36, RSV.

    "Eternal life" is the phrase that ties together today's reading with yesterday's. Verse 16 declares that whoever believes will have eternal life. And verse 36 claims that those who believe already have that life.

    Here we have a theme that runs across the first half of the fourth Gospel. John 5:24 finds Jesus saying "he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life" (RSV) and in John 6:47 He tells His followers that "he who believes has eternal life" (RSV).

    The gift is not for the future, but is a present possession of all who believe. What a promise! Every one who truly believes already has eternal life.

    But then, you may be wondering, why do genuine Christians die? Here we need to recognize the biblical distinction between eternal life and immorality. The first we already possess, but immortality is something not given to any human until the second coming of Jesus. Paul tells us that at that time "the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immorality." Only then will death ultimately be defeated (1 Cor. 15:51-55, RSV).

    The facts of the case are that eternal life is subject to the first death, in which people spend some time sleeping in their graves. On the other hand, immorality means that its possessors are not ever subject to death of any kind. Christians have eternal life now, but will not be immortal until God bestows the gift on them at the end of earthly history. The wicked, of course, will never receive it. Thus, being mortal, they will perish in hell fire rather than suffer throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity at the hand of the God of love (see 2 Thess. 1:9; Mal. 4:1; Rom. 6:23; Rev. 20:14).

    Another important thing to note about John 3:36 is that God's wrath is not the same as uncontrollable anger, but His attitude of love that eventually brings to an end a world in which the innocent suffer, Revelation 6:16 describes it as "the wrath of the Lamb."

    The best news in John 6:36 is that each of us has a choice to cast our vote for eternal life.

April 3, 2021

4/3/2021

Needed: A Response to the God Who Loves

        For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3:16-18.

    Here we have the heart of the gospel, the starting place for thinking "Christianly." The "for" of verse 16 reflects us back to verses 14 and 15 and the importance of having faith as we look upon Jesus on the cross.

    But verse 16 carries our understanding a giant step forward. Jesus didn't get on the cross all be Himself. No, He had been sent by the Father who so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son (the real meaning of "begotten") to rescue the inhabitants of Planet Earth.

    Here we find an important truth about God the Father: He took, and always takes, the initiative in our salvation. He is not some standoffish deity who must be pacified or who is stern and angry with sinful humans. To the contrary, He loved sinners so much that He took the lead in providing them with the solution to the problem of sin and death. It is time to move beyond the contrast between a condemning God and the sweet, loving, and gracious Jesus who needs to change the Father's attitude. John 3:16 tells us that They are in this together. It all started with the Father. In His love He sent the Son not to smash and punish sinners, but to save them.

    John 3:16 tells us something else about God. Namely, that He "loved the world." All of it, not just some nation or social group, not merely a part who have been selected out of the masses of spiritually destitute for heavenly bliss, but all of it. He "loved [and loves] the world." That includes you and me.

    And that thought leads to what John 3:16 teaches about us. The key ideas are two. One is that without God's rescue plan we will perish. The second is that we must respond to God's offer. We are born needing salvation. Thus "whosoever believeth" is the truth set forth by Jesus.

    The good news is that the gracious God who loves the world also supplies each of us with the power to believe in that Jesus who was uplifted on the cross for us. Today is the day to take God's gift of belief and let Jesus into our hearts.

April 2, 2021

4/2/2021

Jesus the Serpent

        As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. John 3:14, 15, ESV.

    Here Jesus takes us back to a story recorded in Numbers 21:4-9. In it the children of Israel were up to their favorite "churchly" pastime--grumbling and complaining. They regretted ever having left Egypt.

    In punishment for their lack of faith in the face of His miraculous leading, God sent them a plague of deadly fiery serpents. Repenting, the people cried for mercy. In response, the Lord instructed Moses to make an image of one of the serpents and to hold it up in the midst of the camp. All who followed God's instruction in faith and looked upon the serpent would be healed.

    The Jewish people loved that story and were fond of retelling it. The major problem with it was that God had also told them never to make an idol or to worship one. But the Lord had commanded the manufacture of this one, in spite of the fact that the serpent had been a symbol of Satan since Eden. The Jews apparently stored the bronze serpent itself in the tabernacle and later the Temple as a sacred object until King Hezekiah, after discovering that people were worshipping it, had it broken in pieces (2 Kings 18:4). About the time of Jesus one Jewish writer found it necessary to point out that it wasn't the bronze serpent that had healed the people, but God (Wisdom of Solomon 16:7)

    At any rate, Jesus used that rather peculiar Jewish story to make an important point in closing off His discussion with Nicodemus: Just "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."

    Like other portions of the discussion with Nicodemus, we find a mystery here. After all, how can we possibly compare the crucifixion of Jesus to a snake on a pole? Isn't the snake in biblical history the problem rather than the solution?

    While we might not understand all the ins and outs of what Jesus said, His meaning is absolutely clear: that a faith response on our part conditions spiritual healing, the new birth, and the working of the Spirit in our hearts and lives, just as it did among the ancient Israelites in the desert.

    Individuals are not born saved for eternal life. It comes through looking at Jesus upon the cross in an attitude of profound faith in the power of God.

April 1, 2021

4/1/2021

Christianity Is Not a Discussion Group

        "How can a man be born when he is old?..." "Do not marvel that I say to you, 'you must be born anew.' The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can this be?" John 3:4-9, RSV.

    But how do I move from being a "water" Christian to being a genuine part of the family of God, a Spirit Christian? What is the process? How does it happen?

    Those are the same questions that Nicodemus had. He also was perplexed. And he should have been. Here we stand face-to-face with one of the great mysteries of the faith, that of the new birth from above, the process through which people become Spirit-filled believers.

    We could wish that Jesus' answer would have been more straightforward. But using the Greek word pneuma, He provides a play on words that still gets the point across. Pneuma means both "spirit" and "wind." The new birth, Jesus tells Nicodemus, is like the wind. You can hear and see the wind but you can't tell where it came from or where it is going. The wind has a mystery about it. And while there are many things about the wind that you do not understand, its effect is visible to all. The Spirit, Jesus continues, works in the same way. You may not understand how He does so, but you see the effects of it in human lives.

    In short, Jesus tells us that we really cannot comprehend the way the Spirit works, but we can understand the results. William Barclay tells the story of a converted drunk. His fellow workers did their best to ridicule the man's new faith. " 'Surely,' they said to him, 'you can't believe in miracles and things like that. Surely, for instance, you don't believe that Jesus turned water into wine.' 'I don't know,' the man answered, 'whether He turned water into wine when He was in Palestine, but I do know that in my own house He has turned beer into furniture.' "

    Jesus has made it plain that we cannot really understand conversion. And here is a point on which many church members get hung up. They think Christianity is an endless discussion group in which perpetual debating is what it's all about.

    Not so, says Jesus. Christianity in the end is something that must be experienced. It is, in part, the Spirit filling our lives, transforming them, and using them for God's glory.