Traveling through the Bible now brings us to a book that is as challenging as it is insightful both to ancient audiences as well as today, the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet who lived and preached during rough political times in Judah (southern Israel). There were alliances being formed with pagan nations which was against God’s commandments for His people. This was done to ward off threats from other pagan nations that threatened to invade Israel because rather than trust in God as the king and the people were supposed to, they began to trust in military alliances, kings, their own power. God had saved Israel from slavery in Egypt and had crafted a covenant, an agreement, with them where He would be their God and they would be His people. In essence, God and Israel had entered into a marriage. Yet, whereas God was the committed husband, Israel was the unfaithful wife and the biblical text uses language to convey as such. 

Jeremiah was chosen by God to attempt to change all of that. He prophesied to the people, urging them not to trust in military power, divine human kingship, or even their own religion, for all of these had become corrupt but to trust in God, the incorruptible. The military was not all-powerful, the kings of Judah had forsaken the Lord, and even the priesthood of the Temple was not reflecting God, yet He was still in control and could be trusted. What has always saddened me about Jeremiah’s story is that he spent nearly his whole life preaching to a people who would not listen to him! The only reason I can find for why he continued to do so is because he wanted to be faithful to God, who’s eyes were the only eyes that mattered. Despite Jeremiah’s best efforts, Judah was destroyed by Babylon in 586 BC, the people were killed or enslaved, and the Temple was leveled to the ground. All hope seemed lost, and yet Jeremiah gave the people hope. He said that in the future there would be a “new covenant”, not like the one that came before it, but one that looked more like the agreement God had with Abraham, through faith. God would take His law and write it not on stone tablets, but on the human heart, meaning that through the Holy Spirit applying Christ’s sacrifice and grace to our hearts, our entire human nature would be changed so that we would want to obey God and delight in doing His will. One further point about Jeremiah ought to be stressed: He wrote to the exiles in Babylon he gave them advice that may have seemed strange at first. On the one hand, some Jews wanted to rebel against their invaders in which case they could face death. On the other hand, they could just forsake their culture, religion, and God and just blend in and become Babylonians. Jeremiah suggests a third option: go into exile and wherever you are, be faithful to God so that you will show others what it means to be in a relationship with Him, to be a special people and work for the good of wherever city you end up. 

This is our situation as Christians today. Yes, the temptation is always there to trust in other worldly powers for salvation, yet we must remain faithful to trust in the One who has always been faithful to us. Whereas Jeremiah could only look forward to this new covenant, we as Christians can joyfully look back in history to the moment when that covenant was created, signed, sealed, and applied to us: the cross and resurrection of Jesus. At the Last Supper, it was this covenant which guaranteed our “forgiveness of sins” which freed us to be in a relationship with God. Part of that relationship is to take the final point of Jeremiah to heart. We Christians are to be “in the world, but not of the world”. We cannot forsake and abandon our faith, but we also should not “bunker down” and not be in the world. We can shine Jesus’ light anywhere we go, our workplaces, families, friends, social gatherings, everywhere! We must remember Christ and maintain our integrity, but not be afraid to “put ourselves out there”. We should be befriending those who are not Christians for how else can they experience the gospel unless they see it in our lives? We are God’s people in Jesus Christ and this broken world is our “Babylon” for we have dual-citizenship, one here and one in God’s kingdom and we are to live out the later while we live in the former. For this is how we will be salt and light, purifying and illuminating the world so as to show them Jesus Christ, our true priest and King.

Your Brother,

Craig

Traveling along the road through the Scriptures, we now come to rest at the book of Isaiah. Many of us have read portions from the book of Isaiah even if we didn’t realize we were doing so. Remember the Christmas stories? Many of the strands that weave the story together comes from Isaiah. Even read Matthew’s entire gospel? He is led by the Holy Spirit to look at Isaiah in order to understand Jesus. Throughout the book of Isaiah, especially the latter half (verses 40-66), we see verses that point to Jesus Christ’s birth, death, resurrection, glorification, and so much more. This is truly marvelous and miraculous when we consider the point that Isaiah was written nearly 700 years before Jesus had arrived on earth. Interestingly enough, because his writings have found fulfillment in the Savior, Isaiah has sometimes been nicknamed “the Fifth Gospel”. Furthermore, another interesting fact to point out is that there are 66 books in the Bible as there are 66 chapters in Isaiah. The first 39 books are known to us as the Old Testament, and the first 39 chapters of Isaiah deal with many Old Testament themes. The remaining 27 books of the Bible are what we Christians called the New Testament, and likewise Isaiah 40-66 has 27 chapters and the theme dramatically shifts, from Israel’s sin and God’s judgment to God’s promise of a deliverer in order to save Israel. 

It was not easy for Isaiah to do this, for he had been the potential to make his way up into the world and become a part of high society. His could have lived his life on easy street, but God had more important work for him to do. His country was in the midst of political and international turmoil, and Isaiah was given the difficult task of speaking truth to power, not only by telling people of their sins and the impending judgment, but also that God is their only true source of salvation and that nothing else could save. 

The relevance for this book for us living today is to remember that what happened to Israel on a small scale is what had happened to all of humanity on a grand scale. All human beings walked away from a relationship with God. Yet, the hope lies in the fact that just as a Savior had come as Isaiah predicted who would be called, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace” that this Savior is not merely meant to save Israel but all of humanity. 

Isaiah also gives us a clue as to how this will all come about: the King of Kings would come, and He would bring victory, but that victory would come through His own suffering throughout His life and especially on the cross. There could be (and probably are) many books written on the topic of Isa. 52:13-53:12, but the key remains the same, “by His stripes, we are healed”. This healing means we have been forgiven of sin and given a new start. 

The same message that was given to Isaiah has been given to us not simply to speak to one individual or one country but all the nations of the world. For just as all have been affected by sin, all now have the opportunity to come to this same Suffering Servant, this Glorious King of Kings. While Isaiah could only look forward in faith and catch a glimpse of who this Savior was, we in the church today have the blessing of looking back and knowing that He is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and by believing we may have life in His name. This holy responsibility is not always an easy one, and like Isaiah, we in the church stand as a prophetic witness, speaking truth to power today, but also like Isaiah, we do not have to fear that we do this alone. When Isaiah was first called by God to be a prophet, he admitted he was a sinner, and called himself a “man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips”, and yet God equipped Isaiah with the Holy Spirit to do the work He called Isaiah to do. So also we as Christians, although we too are sinners, have been summoned by God through His Son Jesus Christ. And like Isaiah, we have been equipped with the Holy Spirit to speak, think, act, and share this gospel to all. 

Read through the book of Isaiah, especially the last 27 chapters and notice the picture emerging. What once was broken has become, through the Servant, restored and this means a new creation has come to birth. Keep reading to see what this new creation is like, as it starts with the coming of the Servant and continues on into eternity. This is done through the One that Isaiah had spoken of in his familiar words we read at Christmastime: “Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him ‘Immanuel’ which means “God with us”, and the blessed news is that He is still with us today!

Your Brother,

Craig

As spring seems to have sprung upon us and the temperatures get warmer, life seems to have returned to nature and new life is being created. It warms the heart and recalls to mind the idea of love. The next book of the Bible in our newsletter series discusses that exact topic: love. Song of Solomon may not be familiar to some, but its message is as relevant today as it was when it was first written, and contained within its words is the perfect expression of romantic love. Furthermore, that love looks beyond itself and points to God’s love for us through the metaphor of marriage. Although Song of Solomon (Songs) contains wordage we normally would not discuss in polite company, the truth that underlies the book must be known to us as Christians so that we can speak to a broken, hurting world that has lost and corrupted the idea of love even as it strives to find it.

Song of Solomon is a poem of love between a man and a woman, describing love as it was meant to be without the effects of sin: intimate, without shame, characterized by genuine admiration and care for each other. This is not only an ideal to strive for in marriage (or to a lesser extent, all of our relationships), but also important for us to understand God’s love for us. Within the love relationship contained in this text, both the husband and the wife give themselves wholly to each other. This is often the opposite of “Hollywood” and our culture’s ideas toward marriage, which is viewed as old-fashioned, dull, boring, or even scandalous. Sin breaks our relationships including marriage by tempting us with selfishness or “how can I get what I want from the other person?” Song of Solomon writes just the opposite, “how can I give myself completely to the other person, sacrificing for their benefit?” This is a beautiful gift of God for when a man and a woman unite in marriage and in the activity that accompanies it, then they really do become “one flesh”. An interesting illustration of this can be seen when we look at couples who have been happily married for a long time. The two of them become one in the sense that they start to act like each other! They finish each other’s sentences, know each other’s thoughts, even begin to look like each other in some cases. Self-sacrificial love is the pattern we seek to embody in our relationships because it is the pattern God Himself lived for us!

God describes His relationship with his people like a marriage (Eph. 5:22-33). In the person of His Son, He too gives himself to us and for us. Jesus Christ embodies God’s self-sacrificial love for us (Rom. 5:8). In Jesus Christ, we see God’s determination that nothing can stand in His way as He pursues us in His love, not even our own sinfulness. His all-consuming focus is on securing a relationship with us, the creatures that He loves so much. It is that self-sacrificial love that took on flesh and walked among us, that knelt down to wash feet, and that bore the nails of the cross in His hands in order to wash away our sins and give us the victory and new life in Him. His love is what gives us life. Take heart as you read these words. You are never so far gone away from the Lord as to outrun His love for you. He continues to court us until we reciprocate his affection and like Song of Solomon says, “My beloved is mine and I am his” (2:16). 

When we respond in kind to God’s love, we too will be transformed so that we start to act like Him. We will think His thoughts after Him, and when people see us, they will see God’s love and grace being lived out, not merely spoken about. The more we grow in our relationship the more godly our lives will become because it is the Holy Spirit changing us from the inside out, weaving God’s love into every fiber of our being so that we can cultivate it and share it with others. God became like us so that we may become like Him. We become like those we love. If we love the world and things of the world, we will start to look like that, but if we love God, then we will start to look more and more like Him. God has provided us the gift of self-sacrificial love to be enjoyed in our relationships with others, but He also embodied that self-sacrificial love so that we could be forgiven and have and enjoy a relationship with Him. This is the goal of the Christian: To love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. 

I once heard it put this way: the reason that a new life is made when two separate lives come together is because the love of the two could not be contained so a new third life naturally emerged. If you are married, read the Song of Solomon as husband and wife. If you don’t have a spouse (even if you do!) read it as a beautiful illustration of God’s love for you. Teach its message to your children and all those around you so that they will know and see what love is like in the Kingdom of God. Show the culture that love and intimacy are not selfish, hedonistic pleasures to indulge in, but beautiful gifts of God to be eternally enjoyed. 

Your Brother, 

Craig

There was a story of a man who had lost his ring, and went outside and knelt down to the grass to look for it. Soon, his friend stopped by and offered to help, asking “Where did you last see your ring?” “In the house” the man answered. “So why are you looking outside for it?” asked his friend. The man only answered “Well, the light is better out here!” 

Sometimes that is exactly our story; we look for the right thing but in all the wrong places. As we continue our walk through the Scriptures in our newsletter series, the author of Ecclesiastes blazes a trail for us to walk, initially by showing us all the wrong places he went looking for the meaning of life, and then finally arriving at the only source that gave it to him: God. 

Our world today continues to believe and promote the idea that material possessions bring lasting satisfaction, but Ecclesiastes says no. The flesh teases us with the notion that pleasure is the meaning of life, Ecclesiastes says, “I tried it, it is not”. Even some of the good things like wisdom and hard work, if they are elevated from being good things to “ultimate things” will leave us in disappointment. What we chase is as unreliable as a puff of wind, and if we set our hearts on only obtaining these things, we will find ourselves crying out with Ecclesiastes, “meaningless! It is all meaningless!” 

The solution to this is to change our perspective. Rather than looking for meaning “under the sun” as the writer of Ecclesiastes tries to do, we as Christians must look for meaning “under the SON” meaning under Christ and His kingdom. On our own we cannot figure out life’s meaning. That is not to say that it does not have meaning, but it cannot be found in the created realm. Rather we must look to the Creator to find it. The meaning lies not in the things that bring us satisfaction, but instead that bring God glory. The goal for the Christian in life is to make these two things one and the same. If our ultimate goal is what Paul talks about in his letter to the Corinthians, that “whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do the glory of God” then this will bring us freedom. It will guarantee us that we can enjoy each of the different realms of life (pleasure, work, material possessions) without feeling like we have to build our entire lives around them or derive our meaning from them. Rather than ruling over us as idols, these things will serve their God-given purpose in our lives because we will see them as servants rather than as masters. 

To find true life in Jesus Christ means to find a life full of abundance, meaning, and purpose, and thankfully the author of Ecclesiastes does end his journey at a good place, “to fear the Lord and to keep His commandments. This is the entire duty of man”. May you find that in your relationship with God through Jesus Christ, you have meaning and purpose.

Your Brother,

Craig