Bill Smith, Author at Kuyperian Commentary

On April 20, 2019 By Bill Smith In Counseling/Piety, Theology 2

Holy Saturday: Joyful Tension

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth in the space of six days. On the seventh day, he rested. The Sabbath was a time of enthronement in which God enjoyed his work. Man, created as the image of God, was to follow God’s pattern of creative work in six days followed by a day of enthronement rest. After six days of work, man was called to ascend with God to be enthroned with him and enjoy the fruits of his labor with God.

The purpose of man’s labor was to develop the world so that it looked like God’s heavenly throne room. As man’s work progressed, God drew nearer, drawing heaven and earth together at the Tabernacle and, eventually, the Temple. God’s throne was established in the Holy of Holies, above the cherubim who sat atop the ark of the covenant (2Kg 19.15). This was the footstool of God’s throne, uniting heaven and earth. This was God’s resting place (2Chr 6.41). In worship each Sabbath day, man ascended to the throne of God through the mediation of animals, grain, oil, and fragrances, there to enjoy Sabbath rest, celebrating the work of the previous six days.

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On April 14, 2019 By Bill Smith In Theology, Worship 2

Ride On, King Jesus!

One perspective from which to read John’s Gospel is to follow Jesus as he walks through the Temple. Throughout his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus is ending the old Temple system by fulfilling its purpose.

John’s purpose in this is fairly clear from the beginning. The eternal Word who dwelt with God and was God “became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1.14). Jesus equates his own body with the Temple, telling the Jews to destroy it, and he will raise it up in three days (Jn 2.19).

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On April 7, 2019 By Bill Smith In Counseling/Piety 1

Dealing With Shame Faithfully

“For we walk by faith and not by sight.” So says the apostle Paul in 2Cor 5.7. Paul is, of course, dealing with a particular issue there in that context, but this statement is a general principle of the Christian faith that he is applying to that context. Paul is laying down the way that all Christians must walk in every area of life: by faith. Faith is relying upon what God says and having your thoughts, actions, and desires shaped according to his word. Faith is thinking Christianly.

Learning this way of life is a struggle. We have enemies within and without. Our own sin that seeks to exalt itself and our own word of authority fight submission to what God says. We hear the voices of the world echoing the words of the devil, “Has God really said?…” God’s authority is challenged in our lives at every turn. We are tempted not to listen to him and exalt our own word or the words of others above his, conforming our lives to those words.

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On March 31, 2019 By Bill Smith In Worship 1

Word Fishing Company

Jesus obviously knew a great deal about the Scriptures, demons, and healing people, but apparently, he didn’t know much about fishing. Simon, James, and John along with their fishing crews had been fishing all night on the Sea of Galilee and hadn’t caught anything. Jesus tells Simon to launch out into the deep and let down their nets for a catch. If Jesus knew anything about fishing in that region and with the sorts of nets with which they fished, he would know that you only use these nets at night. The nets were made from linen and were bright in the daylight hours. Fish could see and avoid them. This is why the fishermen fished at night and washed their nets in the morning (Luke 5.1ff.).

“Nevertheless, at your word I will let down the nets,” Simon faithfully acquiesces. None of the conditions were right. All Simon and his crew had to go on was Jesus’ word of command. In that command was the tacit promise that the venture would be a success.

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On March 24, 2019 By Bill Smith In Theology 1

Thy Kingdom Come

On a daily basis around the world, Christians are praying as our Lord taught us, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” But what is it, exactly, that we are praying for?

We know from numerous places in Scripture that God sovereignly reigns over all things. There is never a moment in time in which God does not sustain every molecule in the universe by the word of his power (Heb 1.3). As Nebuchadnezzar confessed,

for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say, “What have you done?” (Dan 4.34b-35)

Nothing at any time in history changes this kingship.

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On March 17, 2019 By Bill Smith In Theology 1

Total Salvation

Seven hundred years before Jesus returned home to Nazareth after his forty-day testing in the wilderness, Isaiah prophesied of an Anointed One, a Messiah, who would come to glorify Israel and fulfill her purpose of bringing salvation to the Gentiles. When Jesus stands and reads from the scroll of Isaiah on that Sabbath in Nazareth, he tells his family and hometown friends, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your ears” (Lk 4.16-21). Jesus is the Anointed One who would announce that God’s promised salvation had begun.

The nature of his salvific mission is summarized in Isaiah’s prophecy:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send away the oppressed/broken ones in pardon, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Isa 61.1-2a)

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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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