Bill Smith, Author at Kuyperian Commentary

On March 10, 2019 By Bill Smith In Counseling/Piety 1

The Need for Approval

In the beginning, after the final act of creation was done, God saw everything that he made and declared it “very good.” This declaration included man himself, man and woman. Since that time man has had the need to be approved, vindicated, or justified in the eyes of God himself and those who represent him in our lives. Children need to hear “Well done” from their parents, reflecting the divine pleasure of God himself. A spouse needs to hear approval from the lips and attitude of his wife or her husband. The employee needs approval from his employer in the form of praise or pay. A peer needs vindication from his peer group that he is accepted. We are beings created with a need to be judged and found acceptable.

One of the problems we have in our sin is that we set up false gods, gods who make themselves readily available, to judge us by the wrong standards and give us the acceptance we crave. This vindication is quick and easy. The echo chambers we create in our society through social media and other avenues gives us a great cloud of judges surrounding us to tell us that we are accepted, that we are justified because of the way we think, act, talk, and the positions we take on issues. These gods are all too happy to grant us quickly the justification we long for, and we are all too happy to be satisfied with their judgments. The more they approve of us, the deeper our affection for these gods.

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On March 5, 2019 By Bill Smith In Counseling/Piety 1

Some Thoughts on Lent & Fasting

Every year around this time the internet is flooded with essays and interviews concerning Lent: Should we observe it? If we observe it, how should we observe it? And so on. Good folks disagree about these issues. But it is a good discussion to be having. I thought I’d chime in on the issue. Hopefully, I can help keep people thinking through the issue.

First, let me clear some ground here. I agree with many of my brothers who despise some of the Lenten practices. There are people who have superstitious views of the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, for instance. I’ve even heard of one church who set up shop in a local business so that you can get your ashes to go. This was a one-stop shop for groceries and a dose of humility and repentance. People who do this sort of thing are, in most cases, viewing the imposition of ashes as some type of talisman that is going to keep God off their backs for a little while longer. I have witnessed people through the years from many branches of the Christian church act as if the religious ritual itself (whether it is the imposition of ashes, fasting, attending worship, going to revival services, or whatever) was an end in itself. After you do the deed, then you are free to live any way you want outside of the time of that special rite. According to what God said through the prophet Isaiah in his opening salvo, he has never taken kindly to superstitious views of religious rituals (cf. Isa 1.10-20. Mind you, the rituals that God is condemning in Isaiah are the ones that he himself set up. These were not manmade rituals. These were God’s own rituals that were being abused by superstitious views.) Superstitious views of the imposition of ashes or even fasting have no place in the Christian Faith.

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On March 3, 2019 By Bill Smith In Counseling/Piety, Theology Like

Jesus’ Temptation and Ours: Grasping for Glory

The Transfiguration of Jesus was a taste of future glory. Jesus ascended the mountain to pray, leading Peter, James, and John to join him. While there, the form of Jesus’ face changed and his clothes turned white, like flashing lightning (Lk 9.29). Moses and Elijah appeared and spoke to Jesus about the exodus that he was to accomplish soon in Jerusalem (Lk 9.31). This exodus event would involve his suffering, death, and resurrection, something about which Jesus spoke to his disciples before ascending the mountain (Lk 9.21-22). If any man desired to participate in the exodus and future glory of Christ, he would have to take up his cross daily and follow Christ (Lk 9.25-27).

Before Jesus ascended this mountain to receive a foretaste of future glory, he ascended another mountain. On this mountain, he wasn’t leading disciples. He was being led. On this mountain he would also be promised glory, feasting his eyes on all the kingdoms of the world. But this mountain-top experience was the anti-transfiguration, for it was the promise of the devil.

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On February 24, 2019 By Bill Smith In Counseling/Piety Like

Jesus’ Temptation and Ours: Seeking Life from the Creation

Baptisms are glorious events. Looking at the baptism of Jesus, we understand why they are glorious events. Jesus’ baptism provides the archetypal pattern for every subsequent baptism into Christ. Whether infant or aged, when a person is baptized into Christ, heaven is opened, the Father declares the baptizand his loved child, and the Spirit is poured out. Though we don’t see all of these happen with the naked eye we know that they happen to us because they happened to Christ Jesus, the one with whom we share baptism.

But sharing Jesus’ baptism is not where our identity with Jesus ends. In baptism we come to share in the life of Christ, and that life moves from baptism into the wilderness. The Spirit poured out in baptism is the same Spirit that leads us into the wilderness to be tested by the devil (Lk 4.1-2). To be declared “son of God” in baptism is a vocation as much as it is a standing before the Father. Part and parcel to that vocation is to be tested in a world that is hostile to us by a Father who graciously withholds from us good things until the proper time.

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On February 17, 2019 By Bill Smith In Theology 1

Jesus’ Baptism and Ours

The baptism of Jesus is recorded in some way, shape, or form in all four Gospels. Each evangelist emphasizes a specific aspect of Jesus’ baptism. Matthew looks at the whole ministry of Jesus through Mosaic lenses primarily and puts the baptism of Jesus in a flow of events that recalls the Exodus from Egypt. (There are resonances of this in Mark and Luke as well, but the Mosaic themes stand out in Matthew.) Mark focuses on Jesus as a new David and situates the telling of the story of his baptism in Davidic terms. Luke widens the scope out to the entire world and, with the genealogy of Jesus placed in conjunction with his baptism, homes in Jesus as the new and last Adam.

Luke’s primary concern, it seems, is to put to the forefront how Jesus is anointed to replace all of the old-world, first-Adam rulers he mentions at the beginning of chapter 3. In Christ God is making a new creation, and Jesus’ baptism is integral to that work. Through God’s actions at the baptism of Jesus, we see and hear the patterns clearly established in Genesis 1: the Spirit proceeds out of heaven and God speaks. In the beginning, we saw a formless and empty mass of water hanging in nothingness be shaped and filled. Here we see Jesus, the new creation; the one in whom all things consist. He is the new and last Adam who is appointed to have dominion over the creation by the blessing of being fruitful and multiplying with his bride.

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On February 10, 2019 By Bill Smith In Counseling/Piety Like

Repent!

Growing up in rural, Baptist, revivalistic culture in South Louisiana, I heard quite a few “turn or burn” sermons. People were warned of the horrors of hell and called to turn to Christ. I preached several of those sermons myself. Those types of sermons are appropriate on occasion. As I preached them on the street and in churches, what I found is that people wanted to turn from hell but not from sin. However, following Christ just doesn’t work that way.

When John the Baptizer bursts on the scene in the wilderness at the Jordan River, he proclaims a baptism of repentance. When people come to be baptized, instead of immediately welcoming and baptizing them, he calls them “a brood of vipers,” children of the serpent himself, and calls them to repentance. They ask, “What then shall we do?” He doesn’t tell them to seal the deal with a “sinner’s prayer.” Neither does he tell them that there is nothing they can do because salvation is a gift that doesn’t require one doing anything. He tells the ungenerous to be generous, the tax collecting thieves to stop stealing, and the bullying, extorting soldiers to be content with their wages (Lk 3.10-14). These are the fruits in keeping with repentance. This is what repentance looks like.

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On February 3, 2019 By Bill Smith In Worship 1

Seeing Christ

No one understands. Though everything has been plainly revealed, no one can get his mind wrapped around just what it means for Jesus to be the Christ. Throughout the Gospel of Luke, it is clear that those we might think would understand don’t.

Joseph and Mary, though given specific and dramatic revelation from angels, don’t understand. When finding Jesus in the Temple after having lost him for three days, they don’t understand that it is necessary for Jesus to be about “the things of his Father.” (Lk 2.49-50) This lack of understanding plagues Jesus’ disciples throughout. Even though Peter confesses that Jesus is “the Christ of God,” he doesn’t know what being “the Christ” entails. When Jesus tells his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, be killed, and on the third day be raised, they don’t understand. (Lk 9.21-22) Even when he tells them, “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men,” they did not understand what he was saying. (Lk 9.44-45) Even toward the end of his ministry, when he told them again that he was about to die, they didn’t understand. (Lk 18.31-34) After his death, his disciples still don’t understand. Two disciples on the Road to Emmaus speak to the Christ who is hidden from their eyes, telling him all about “Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,” and how the chief priests and rulers “delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him.” They had “hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” (Lk 24.19-21)

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On January 27, 2019 By Bill Smith In Culture Like

A Little Leaven

Leaven, or the absence of it, becomes prominent at the time of the Passover and Exodus. The children of Israel were commanded to rid their homes of all leaven that had been cultured in Egypt. Then, for the next seven days, they would celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Only after this could the children of Israel start a new batch of leaven (or sourdough).

Throughout Scripture, leaven is a principle of growth. It can either be good or bad. There are times, such as in Egypt, that the leaven represents a principle of sinful growth. Leaven, in this case, is something sinful in a life or a culture that has been cultivated. Jesus tells his disciples to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” (Mark 8.15) The disciples, like the children of Israel, were to cut off and avoid the sinful leaven.

Leaven also speaks of something good that needs to be cultivated. Jesus says that “the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.” (Matt. 13:33) The kingdom, though small, will eventually permeate the entire lump of dough that is the world. Righteousness is a leavening agent as well. As it is cultivated, it grows until the whole lump of dough is leavened.

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On January 20, 2019 By Bill Smith In Theology Like

The Circumcision of Christ

Luke dedicates one sentence to the circumcision of Christ Jesus. “And when eight days were fulfilled, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb” (Lk 2.21). Why would Theophilus need to know this? Maybe he doesn’t know that male Jewish children were circumcised. Luke may just want to throw in the information for him. I doubt it. Though not given much shrift, the circumcision of Jesus is integral to the story of the gospel and Theolphilus’s catechetical instruction.

The story of circumcision begins where all human stories begin: in the Garden. No, circumcision wasn’t present in the Garden in the way that God prescribes it in Genesis 17 with Abraham, but its necessity and anticipation were there. When Adam and Eve sinned, their flesh was corrupted. This corrupted flesh was a source of shame before one another and before God. They sought to cover the shame by adding a new layer of “skin,” fig leaves. They knew that they needed new flesh.

The covering they provided for themselves wasn’t adequate. Ultimately, they need new flesh. The only way to create this new flesh is through the ripping apart of the old flesh. Death must take place. God demonstrated this by ripping the flesh of an animal and giving Adam and Eve new skin. This provision was effective for the time, but it only anticipated what needed to be done by the promised seed of the woman (Gen 3.15). Somehow, through this seed, the old Adamic flesh would be ripped apart and a new skin, a new body would be given.

History moves on. God unfolds his plan for the seed through the years and a certain family that draws down to a man named Abram. Abram, “exalted father,” is childless and married to a barren woman, Sarai. God promises them a child early on but waits until both of their bodies are completely dead in terms of procreation (see Rom 4.13ff.). It is at this time that God commands the tearing of the flesh of Abram, now Abraham. Once Abraham’s flesh is torn, then, and only then, can new life be produced. Abraham’s and Sarah’s bodies are resurrected and are able to produce the seed, Isaac.

Like the skins in the Garden, circumcision was effective for the time, but it couldn’t bring about God’s full intention: a new body. In fact, circumcision further clarified the mission of death for the seed of the woman. That is, in order for new life to come, in order for corrupted flesh to be cleansed, the seed’s flesh needs to be torn. Only after this will resurrection occur and the needed new body be given.

For about two thousand years the children of Abraham through Isaac circumcised their male children, anticipating the time when the seed of Abraham would fulfill the mission of Israel, be ripped in half in death, and be resurrected with a new, uncorrupted flesh. Luke tells Theophilus that this time has come in the Person of Jesus.

Jesus takes up the mission of the seed of Abraham, embodying the story, promises, and purpose of Israel. What has been foreshadowed in the circumcision of every male in Israel will reach its fulfillment in Jesus’ death and consequent resurrection. Jesus’ old creation flesh is ripped at the cross so that uncorrupted flesh would be resurrected.

For any of us to be rid of our corrupted flesh received from Adam, our flesh too must be torn. We all need circumcision. Those of us united to Christ in his death and resurrection through baptism have been circumcised. Paul tells us in Colossians 2.11-12 that, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.” Through our union with Jesus’ circumcision—his death—our corrupted flesh has been torn and we receive a new body in Christ, a truth that will be fully realized in our bodily resurrection from the dead.

We look forward to that bodily resurrection, but we have new flesh even now. Our sins are forgiven. We are resurrected. Sin does not have dominion over us (see Romans 6). Therefore, do not allow sin to have dominion over you.

On January 13, 2019 By Bill Smith In Culture, Theology Like

The Gospel of Great Joy

Everybody is angry. When you read or hear the headlines or scroll through social media, the grievance machine is churning up anger at a head-spinning rate. Social justice warriors find racism, sexism, and every other kind of offensive -ism behind every comment. The #metoo movement (though seemingly losing some steam now) stands ready to interpret every male gesture as some form of rape. The Democrats are angry with the Republicans. The Republicans are angry with the Democrats. The Libertarians are angry with everybody. News talk shows feed and feed off of this anger for ratings.

Not all of the anger is illegitimate. There are serious moral injustices in our society. There are reasons to be angry with the murder of the unborn, the violence that fills certain segments of our society, the continual and doubling down on sinful stupidity in the governance of our country, unjust wars, and oppressive tax laws. The world is, in many ways, upside down and inside out. Not to be angry at immorality is, itself, immoral.

Our anger is, at times, rooted in fear. Fear is what overwhelms us when we sense that we have lost control, when we come into the presence of something that overwhelms us. It is the hurricane that threatens our family, the unknown intruder that invades our home, or the earthquake from which we cannot escape. We feel a sense of powerlessness, that the world is coming apart, and nothing on the immediate horizon says that we can change our future.

In the face of all of the worlds perceived and real injustices, we fear, and that fear begins to lash out trying to regain some control over the situation so that we can feel at peace. We only want things to be right, and they aren’t right.

But in the midst of this world where we can be caught up in this tidal wave of anger, fear, and despair, we hear the angel’s word to the shepherds in Luke 2.10 that, in the midst of a world that is racked with sin and its effects, they bring the good news, the gospel, of great joy. When they bring this word Herod, the Edomite, sits as king of the Jews. The scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and priests as a whole are leading God’s people astray. Caesar Augustus has brought “peace” through bloody subjugation and maintains it through fear. What is there to be joyful about?

The gospel is the gospel of great joy, not because everything is immediately made alright, but because it will be. Joy is not a superficial happiness that denies the harsh realities of life so that I can keep a smile on my face. Joy is rooted in faith and is that deep sense of satisfaction and contentment … even happiness … that is nurtured by the hope that we have that God is and will make all things right. This means that I don’t have to be angry all the time. I don’t have to live in fear of losing control because I and all that I am and have are in the hands of the one who is complete control and is for me. He has declared unequivocally in Christ that he loves me and, even though I go through the valley of the shadow of death, he is with me. He is making all things right.

We Christians, we gospel of great joy people, should be the most joyful people on earth. Even while the world all around us seems out of control, upside down, and inside out. The good news of God’s promises in Christ are the source of our joy, and the joy of the Lord is our strength.