Ultimate Safekeeping

Ultimate Safekeeping

by | Apr 24, 2016 | Character

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​Secure safekeeping of important or valuable items is never easy.  Throughout recent history the safes and vaults developed for individual and bank use have become ever stronger as thieves continually find ways to bypass or crack into protective safekeeping devices.  

Even in the past century, the renowned Mosler safe-making company produced safes that withstood the nuclear attack on Hiroshima in World War II, and the vault now installed at the United States’ Atomic Energy Commission’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee weighs approximately 138 tons and has two door blades weighing 58 tons (52616 kg) each.  Today, even the vault in your local bank is probably a formidable device for safekeeping.

But safekeeping of valuable and important things works in two directions – it involves the safe or bank vault we use to keep whatever we store safely, and also the key, password or combination we must keep to open the secure housing.

Paul speaks of a similar situation – of two ways safekeeping – in his second epistle to Timothy. Speaking of God, he wrote: “… I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day” (2 Timothy 1:12). The words “that which I have entrusted to him” are literally “my deposit” in the Greek, and Paul’s statement ties directly into the analogy we are using here.
 
But what is it that the apostle had entrusted to God? When he wrote 2 Timothy Paul knew that his death was near (2 Timothy 4:6), and he almost certainly speaks of entrusting his spirit to God.  Paul may well have had in mind Psalm 31:5: “Into your hand I commend my spirit.”  The Jewish philosopher Philo, who was almost a contemporary of Paul, uses the expression in the same way, calling the soul “a deposit.”
 
So Paul was entrusting his very self – the totality of all he had become in following the calling he had been given – to God for safekeeping (see also 1 Peter 4:19).  But this is not all that the apostle speaks of in his letter regarding safekeeping.  Only two verses later Paul tells Timothy: “Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us” (2 Timothy 1:14).  This is clearly the other half of the safekeeping arrangement – the part that we as “depositors” must keep safe.  Just as something – a key or password – is committed to us in any safekeeping arrangement, so Paul reminds Timothy that he too must keep something safe, and he makes it clear what this is in the previous verse:

“What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:13).

There is a clear echo of the apostle’s great “faith hope and love” triad of 1 Corinthians 13:13 here – with the “teaching, faith and love” being only a slight variation of “faith, hope and love.”  The concept of teaching, doctrine or truth is related to that of hope in the Scriptures (2 Timothy  2:25, etc.,), but the point here is that Paul encourages Timothy to securely keep the way of life (faith and love) he has been given, along with the teachings or doctrines upon which our hope is based. 

So in these few verses Paul reminds Timothy of the two aspects of safekeeping, and there is a great deal of encouragement underlying the truth of his words. It is a simple message, yet an important one.  We are given a great responsibility in the safekeeping of the truth and way of life (“doctrine” and “practice”) that is revealed to us, but if we do our part in this and are careful not to lose what has been given to us – as Paul showed with confidence – despite age, health or any other circumstances, God is certain to keep safely the treasure of character and attitude of service that we develop with his help and commit to him.

Stand With the Persecuted

by | Apr 17, 2016 | Persecution

Today, Sunday April 17,  eight major Christian organizations — Open Doors USA, the Institute on Religion & Democracy, The Voice of the Martyrs, In Defense of Christians, Christian Solidarity Worldwide USA, International Christian Concern, 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative and the Family Research Council — are calling on Christians around the United States and everywhere to pray for the persecuted.

According to Open Doors USA,  more Christians were killed through persecution in the 20th Century than through all of history till then – and the 21st Century is already seeing even more widespread and savage levels of violence against those of our Faith. 

As FRC President Tony Perkins has recently said: “The persecution of Christians is at an unprecedented level and we are even seeing it here in the United States, but the hostility that Christians here in America are facing pales in comparison to the mistreatment, displacement, violence, rape, crucifixions, and beheadings experienced by followers of Jesus in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, and other parts of the Middle East and beyond.”

For further information on the growing crisis in the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities, see the interview with Open Doors President and CEO, David Curry, on our sister site, here.  

Please remember this call for unity with the persecuted today and pray for your brothers and sisters around the world who are now facing increasing danger or who have already suffered greatly as a result of persecution.

Roman Roads

Roman Roads

by | Apr 17, 2016 | History & the Bible

PictureRoman road: Via Appia antica, Rome

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Romans 11:33).

The ancient Romans prided themselves on their roads. The famous “Roman roads” were not only expertly constructed (many still survive today and are still in use),  but they also formed a massive network stretching virtually from one end of the known world to the other.  Great highways radiated outward from Rome (you have doubtless heard the expression “All roads lead to Rome”),  and by the time of the late Empire all Rome’s 113 provinces were interconnected by 372 great roads totaling almost a quarter of a million miles (over 400,000 km). 

The Roman roads were used to move armies as well as for trade and international communication, and virtually everyone used the vast network of roads for any kind of travel by land. In fact, the roads of Rome became a kind of institution, and they were carefully maintained and protected by laws appropriate to their importance. 

So it is interesting to realize that, despite the vast amount of national and international travel in which the Romans regularly participated, they made few maps as we know them, with landforms and other features. Instead, the Romans made itineraria which were simply lists of roads (and in some cases, sea routes) with distances between the major points along the way.  These itineraria ranged from small local road lists to ones covering vast distances.

Julius Caesar and Mark Antony commissioned the first known master itinerary of all Roman roads in 44 BC.  Skilled Greek geographers were hired to compile the information on the Roman road system, and this task took over 25 years to complete. The result was a master itinerarium which was engraved on a stone set up in Rome from which travelers could make copies. The famous Tabula Peutingeriana is a later copy of another, Fifth Century, schematic listing of the Roman roads from Spain in the West to India in the East.
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So, with such an itinerarium, if you knew where a person was from, you could know where he or she could go and how long it would take them to get there. The possible roads any person could take were well documented, and the Romans were doubtless especially proud of this.  We should remember this fact as the context in which the apostle Paul wrote, in his letter to the Romans themsleves, of the wisdom and knowledge of God – whose paths (Greek hodoi: “travelled ways,” “roads”) were “beyond tracing out” (Romans 11:33).

In writing this Paul makes a point about the greatness of God that is easy to read over.  The documentation of the Roman roads demonstrated not only human ability to know exactly where and how others could come and go, the itineraria symbolized Rome’s – and humanity’s – knowledge and control of the world: over the very universe from a human perspective. 
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In pointing out to the Romans that God’s paths were beyond “tracing out,” Paul did more than simply tell them that God was great beyond our comprehension. That is an essential part of his meaning, of course, but he also reminded them of the true scale of things and that it was God, not Rome, who “mapped” the world and controlled it with unimaginable power.  

When Bad People Do Good Things

When Bad People Do Good Things

by | Apr 10, 2016 | Relationships

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​Sometimes it seems that it’s easier for many Christians to understand good people doing bad things than it is for them to accept the idea of bad people doing good things.  It’s not that we don’t want to give others the opportunity to turn their behavior around, of course, but experience and common sense often cause us to be suspicious of seemingly “good” deeds by those who are not normally known for them!

The Book of Jeremiah contains a fascinating example of just such a “bad person” and his good behavior, however. Jeremiah 52, the last chapter of the book, tells us how:

“… in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, graciously freed Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison. And he spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin put off his prison garments. And every day of his life he dined regularly at the king’s table, and for his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, according to his daily needs, until the day of his death, as long as he lived” (Jeremiah 52:31-34).

To understand the significance of this story we must realize that the Babylonian king the Hebrew biblical text calls “Evil-merodach” was Amil-Marduk (Man of [the god] Marduk), the son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar.  Amil-Marduk is mentioned in several ancient king lists, and some 30 Babylonian cuneiform tablets are dated to his reign between 562-560 B.C. His reign was also recorded by the Hellenistic Babylonian historian Berossus  who used ancient Babylonian records and texts that have not survived to us to write his Babyloniaca or History of Babylonia.  Berossus tells us that Amil-Marduk was a bad man who ruled in an “illegal and impure manner,” and that he was eventually deposed and killed by his successor, Nergal-sharezer who was praised for his good deeds.

We do not know how much the description of Amil-Marduk that has survived to us is colored by political and other factors of the time, but the historical evidence we do have shows that he was not seen as a “good” person.  Yet his kindness to the Judean king Jehoiachin is made clear by the Bible and reminds us of David’s kindness to Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan and grandson of King Saul (2 Samuel 9:1-13), whom David brought out of obscurity and restored his possessions, telling him “you shall eat at my table always” (2 Samuel 9:7, 13).
   
This act of great kindness that was recorded of David (of whom we might expect it) is nearly identical to that done toward Jehoiachin by Amil-Marduk (of whom we certainly might not expect it). Once again, we do not know all the circumstances – it is possible that Amil-Marduk was being influenced by God – yet the fact remains that he clearly performed a good deed in this case.

It’s a small story that might prompt us to ask if there are  individuals in our lives of whom we don’t expect good deeds or behavior – people we distrust if they do something out of character as we know them. Sometimes we must remember that just as God says he will forget the bad things people have done if they turn and do good (Ezekiel 18:27), we should always be aware of the possibility of good coming from those of whom we might least expect it. 

Mission Impossible?

Mission Impossible?

by | Apr 2, 2016 | Great Commission

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​“Your Mission, should you choose to accept it, is to” … “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15).

The juxtaposition of twenty-first century fiction with first century fact may seem strange, but the analogy works.  The “Mission Impossible” tagline transitions seamlessly into the words of Mark 16:15 because of the difficulty and the scale  – the seeming impossibility – of the mission Christ gave his disciples.   The analogy follows through because in both cases we see a small dedicated group struggling to fulfill its mission – despite the machinations of evil forces bent on the group’s destruction and the thwarting of the mission it has been given.

We know the ending, of course.  We know the movie mission will be fulfilled, and that the Christian mission will likewise be fulfilled eventually, but that doesn’t stop us from living through some tense moments in the “mission” type movies we may watch, or in the “mission” lives to which we are called.  For many of us, in fact, there are days when the “impossible” part seems more real than the “mission.”
 
Sometimes it’s the difficulty associated with fulfilling the mission we are given, at other times it’s the sheer size and magnitude of the task.  But it is encouraging to remember this is how it has always been. If we backtrack to some of the earlier “impossible” missions recorded in the Bible, we find that they almost always involved moments of tension and doubt regarding either the  difficulty or the size of the task that God had given. 

The Book of Judges alone is full of such stories. Put yourself in Rahab’s shoes as she thought about how difficult it was going to be to explain to the king and his security forces where the Israelite spies were who they knew had been staying in her house (Joshua 2), or think about how Gideon felt about the size of the task when he was told to cut his army by  almost 99 percent before a huge battle (Judges 7).   But God has the ability and the will to routinely turn the impossible into the accomplished.

Christ himself had to remind his disciples of this fact:  “… With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27).  We know this intellectually and spiritually, but often it helps to look more closely at the mission briefing and remind ourselves that both the difficulty and the scope of the mission are possible: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8 ESV). 

Notice first that the difficulty of the job is covered in the promise to provide the necessary resources: “… you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”  Next, notice that the Son of God could have just said “you will be my witnesses to the end of the earth,” but he broke the mission down into successive, bit at a time, stages – Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the whole world. 

The mission parameters we are given specifically remind us that we will be given the resources we need to do the job – and they also remind us that we need to do the job a bit at a time.  The answer lies on the one hand with faith in the help we are promised, and on the other hand with our ability to successfully break down the mission and firmly grasp a workable part.  But we have not really accepted the mission if we accept it as an impossible-seeming task. 

Our mission, if we accept it, is to trust, and then to take on a small part of the job and make it happen.    Those are the two responses needed to fulfill the mission we have been given. What small part of the mission will you make happen today?