Author Archives: BibleMesh

Is the Book of Revelation Only about the Future?

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For some, studying Revelation can become a mere mental exercise, void of life application.  They simply speculate over the meaning of the book’s mysterious symbols—all without necessarily considering what it calls them to do.

Of course, Revelation does challenge the mind. Scholars who devote their lives to studying it will never figure out every detail. Nonetheless, like all Scripture, Revelation is intensely practical. And one unmistakable theme is the need for believers in Christ to persevere in their faith and obedience. In fact, the book teaches that the only true believers are those whose faith endures through trials and challenges. Consider the plentiful references to perseverance:

  • The Apostle John tells the Christians in Smyrna to “be faithful unto death,” for only then will they receive the “crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).
  • The church in Thyatira is told to “hold fast” and that the one “who keeps [Christ’s] works until the end” will receive “authority over the nations” (Revelation 2:25-26).
  • In chapter 7, the multitude in heaven is comprised of those who endured in faith through “the great tribulation” (Revelation 7:14).
  • Chapter 13 issues “a call for the endurance and faith of the saints” (Revelation 13:10), which is echoed in the subsequent chapter, where John adds that the redeemed are those who refuse to defile themselves with sin and who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Revelation 14:4).
  • The final chapter exhorts the righteous to continue doing right and the holy to continue the pursuit of holiness (Revelation 22:11).

Such calls to perseverance make it abundantly clear that Revelation is not just a book about the future, but about how to live in the present.

(Note:  This article is presented within The Biblical Story Course as an Insight under Books of the Bible, Perseverance in Revelation). 



Why Does God Allow Pain & Suffering?

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“Pain Is God’s Megaphone” – C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

An author of more than thirty books, C. S. Lewis taught English literature at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities during his life. As a World War I veteran teaching at Oxford during World War II, Lewis addressed the hard questions brought on by war—specifically the problem of evil. In his book, The Problem of Pain, Lewis understands pain as one kind of evil, which God superintends for the good of mankind—as a megaphone to wake up the sleeping sinner, alerting him to his need.

The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt. . . .[i]

And pain is not only immediately recognisable evil, but evil impossible to ignore. We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. A bad man, happy, is a man without the least inkling that his actions do not ‘answer’, that they are not in accord with the laws of the universe. . . .[ii]

Until the evil man finds evil unmistakably present within his existence, in the form of pain, he is enclosed in illusion. Once pain has roused him, he knows that he is in some way or other ‘up against’ the real universe: he either rebels (with possibility of a clearer issue and deeper repentance at some later stage) or else makes some attempt at an adjustment, which if pursued, will lead him to religion. . . .[iii]

No doubt Pain as God’s megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for atonement. It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.[iv]


[i] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 90.

[ii] Ibid., 90-91.

[iii] Ibid., 93.

[iv] Ibid., 93-94.

Why Is the Biblical Definition of Marriage Important?

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31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.  Ephesians 5:31-32 (ESV)

“Your love is your own possession,” wrote Christian martyr Dietriech Bonhoeffer to a young couple from his prison cell in 1943. “But marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. . . . It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.”[i] What a stark contrast to the contemporary, sentimentalized view of marriage!

One of God’s purposes for marriage is to illustrate the relationship of Christ and the Church. Just as in the old covenant, Israel was Yahweh’s bride (e.g., Jeremiah 2; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 1-2), so in the new covenant, the Church is Christ’s bride (Ephesians 5:22-33; Revelation 19:6-9). This divine marriage encompasses all of time, from eternity past to eternity future. It is not as if Paul is casting around for an illustration of what it means to live a godly married life and thinks of Christ and the Church. Quite the reverse: marriage is the illustration. Christ and the Church are the ultimate reality.

Furthermore, while marriage is a creation ordinance (Ephesians 5:31, quoting Genesis 2:24), the relationship of Christ and the Church is prior to creation. We were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4); and this is the mystery now revealed in the gospel. While human marriage is merely lifelong (Mark 12:25), the marriage of Christ and the Church will last for all eternity.

Just as marriage is public (“a man shall leave his father and mother”), intimate (“the two shall become one flesh”), exclusive, and lifelong (“[he shall] hold fast to his wife”), Christ’s relationship with the Church is public, intimate, exclusive, and lasting. The Lord Jesus is a faithful husband. His commitment to His bride is seen in that He laid down His life for her in order that she might belong to Him (Ephesians 5:25-27). He did this even while she was an idolatrous sinner. His promise is that He will lose none of those the Father gives Him (John 6:39). His commitment to His bride sustains His love for her, even when she sometimes strays.

By taking a bold stand for lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual marriage, Christians can speak against an overly sentimentalized view of marriage that pervades the culture. And by committing themselves to marriage as a covenantal institution, Christians reflect the commitment of Christ to His Church and, thereby, proclaim the gospel in their very unions—making marriage a blessed tool of evangelism.

 

[i] Gary A. Anderson, “A Marriage in Full,” First Things (May 2008): http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/04/003-a-marriage-in-full-3 (accessed April 29, 2013).



Is There Ever a Time We Are Permitted to Test God?

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Malachi 3:10 stands among the most unique verses in the Bible, for in it God grants His people permission to test Him. Through the prophet, He tells the Israelites to donate a tenth of their incomes (a tithe) to His work at the Temple. Then He issues a remarkable challenge: “And thereby put me to the test … if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need” (Malachi 3:10).

The phrase “put me to the test” translates the Hebrew verb bachan, which also can be rendered “examine” or “try.” Most of its uses in the Bible refer to God testing humans. For example, Psalms 11:5 says that “the LORD tests the righteous,” and in Job 23:10, Job says of God, “When he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.” Similarly, God told Jeremiah, “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind” (Jeremiah 17:10), and Proverbs 17:3 declares that “the LORD tests hearts.” In other instances, bachan references humans examining ideas or testing one another, as when Joseph tested the truthfulness of his brothers (Genesis 42:15-16).

But the word’s usage in Malachi 3:10 is one of only three instances in the Bible where it refers to man testing God. And in the other two, the testing under consideration is portrayed as sinful and arrogant (Psalms 95:9; Malachi 3:15). Indeed, only here does God invite man to test (bachan) Him legitimately.

By its uniqueness, this test emphasizes God’s seriousness about His people’s giving their resources to advance His kingdom—a principle that holds true in the New Testament as well as the Old. Though it takes faith to let go of hard-earned money, the Lord commands His people to give through their local churches and other worthy ministries. He incentivizes such giving by allowing them to test Him in this wonderful way. Of course, the blessing God returns to generous believers is not always material. Still, no giving Christian will ever lack concrete reminders of God’s favor and friendship.

(Note:  This article is presented within The Biblical Story Course as an Insight under Books of the Bible, Malachi – “Testing God”). 


The Bible and Today’s Contraceptive Culture

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27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 1:27-28 (ESV)

Procreation is at great risk today; yet God favors procreation. He told Adam and Eve, and by extension, men and women of all eras, to go beyond mere replacement of themselves to the multiplication of progeny. Although the Bible does not specify the optimum number of children per family, this would suggest, statistically speaking, that the average number of children per family would be more than two.

Parents and their offspring are to bring their God-given reason, conscience, and skill to bear on making the most of creation—stewardly dominion. The task continues from generation to generation. Since humans are mortal and since neither virtue nor culture is inherited, both mankind and civilization are always a generation or two away from extinction.

With a contrasting, rebellious spirit, modern society is an increasingly “contraceptive culture.” More and more couples postpone childbirth for the sake of career, affluence, or convenience. Birth control pills are the “drug of choice,” but the “morning-after pill” is increasingly popular. If the array of contraceptive options fails the anti-natal couple, abortion beckons. (Over 50 million abortions have been performed in the United States since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.)

Paul praises singleness for the sake of ministerial focus (1 Corinthians 7:1, 7), but he does not make it the norm. Marriage is more typical, and within it, children are cherished. As the psalmist puts it, “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalm 127:3).

Parenting is no sideshow to God’s great work in history; it is integral to His purposes. After the flood, God repeated the “procreation mandate” to Noah (Genesis 9:1). Three chapters later, He promised Abraham, “I will make of you a great nation” (Genesis 12:2). That nation continues to grow today as Christian couples bring forth children and win them to the Lord.

Population hysterics have persuaded some that the earth is already full, but there is vast room to spare. If all six billion people on the planet were comfortably seated together, a square yard per person, hence over three million per square mile, they could fit into the state of Delaware (2,000 sq. miles). And whatever the general populace of the world may be, no one could argue that there are too many Christian homes, where children are conceived and raised in the fear of the Lord.

God’s plans are always good, and society is now reaping the whirlwind for rejecting them. According to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, couples who delay childbirth suffer a greater risk of infertility. Furthermore, researchers at Ohio State University have concluded that women who postpone pregnancy are more likely to face high blood pressure and diabetes after age 50. And in Europe and Japan, where the average couple has fewer than two children, the social cost is high; relatively few young people are caring for the many aged citizens, and employers must lure foreign workers to fill their payrolls.

The Bible encourages and celebrates procreation in godly families. Surely the burden of proof falls upon Christian couples who avoid parenting. And just as surely, blessings fall upon those who embrace and support parenting.