MENU

Theology
Category

On June 7, 2022 By In Theology

Inspiration and the Breath of Prophets

The doctrine of Biblical inspiration is central to any effective defense of the Christian faith and serves a foundational element in any discussion on why the Bible is a reliable source of truth. Yet many Christians today undermine the doctrine of inspiration by either rejecting its claims flat-out or by neglecting attention to what such a doctrine requires – namely infallible and inerrancy. As Rev. JI Packer points out in his commentary on the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy “We affirm that canonical Scripture should always be interpreted on the basis that it is infallible and inerrant.” (Link to Chicago Statement text)

In the New King James version, St Paul’s words in 2 Tim 3:16a are translated as “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God…” The phrase “inspiration of God” is related to the idea of breath and implies that Scripture is God-breathed (Greek: θεόπνευστος) and while this word itself only appears but once in the New Testament, the idea of God’s breath can be found elsewhere in the text of the Bible.

God’s Breath for Adam

Starting in Genesis we find Adam brought to life with two actions.

First, “God formed man from the dust of the ground” and Second, “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The phrase “breath of life” in the Greek translation of the Book of Genesis shares the word for breath employing πνοήν ζωής to describe how God made Adam alive. The word for breath will also be used throughout the Bible in describing the third person of the Blessed Trinity as the Holy (ἁγίου) Spirit (πνεύματος). Christians recognize this connection between the breathing out of Scripture as spoken words by the Holy Spirit in the very words of our Creed when they proclaim, “And I believe in the Holy Ghost… Who spake by the Prophets.”  And it is claimed in the New Testament itself by St. Luke (Luke 1:70) and the author of Hebrews (Heb. 1:1). 

Beyond this we have the Hebrew collection of his spoken utterances collected into the medium of written books which were publicly breathed out before the people. This Scriptural tradition of God’s breathed word through prophets and repeated back to the congregation is therefore a type of re-creation of mankind. Christ himself speaks of the power of resurrection by speech in both his examples of Lazarus called from the dead and his words in John 5 where he assures his listeners with, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.” (John 5:25). “For the word of God is quick…” writes the author of Hebrews in 4:12. ‘quick’ here is the archaic English phrase for living just as Adam’s first breath from God might be referred to as his quickening. The idea of God’s word as life-giving is drawn from the narrative of Adam’s creation, but also in the sense that men find life worth living as they live by his word. A sentiment echoed by our Lord who proclaimed, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

The Hebrew culture operates around the paradigm that God’s word and our covenantal faithfulness to its demands determine our outcome as stated in the Book of Deuteronomy, “…that thou mayest obey his voice… for he is thy life…” (30:20) There is therefore a clear connection in Hebrew literature itself to the idea of God’s spoken word and the gift of Life. 

Expiration of Scripture

It is with this background on the significance of God’s breathed out word, that we move to understand the context of St. Paul’s doctrine of inspiration. Primarily, what St. Paul is interested in describing with the phrase  “inspired” or “God-breathed” is that God is the one who is breathing out words. Dr. RC Sproul once quipped that a more accurate terminology would therefore be “expiration” because our God is more about the exhalation from God. While we can certainly draw out implications for the way God has communicated, St. Paul’s emphasis is on God as the authority, origin, and impetus behind the Scripture.

St. Paul includes the phrase ‘all’ to emphasize that divine source of inspiration applies to all of the Scripture. For the Christian, this all is significant in that the Old Testament canon is varied in the types of Scriptures it contains history, poetry, and prophecy. St. Paul is affirming the validity of these texts and without qualification. As a student of St. Peter and the Apostolic tradition, we can also infer that the historicity of the Old Testament was not in doubt during the life of Christ. Critics of the Reformation are quick to point out Dr. Martin Luther’s comments on James as the “epistle of straw” as the Great Reformers evaluated the theology of the letter through his narrowed lens of Reformation theology. In a similar vein, it would be unsurprising to see a figure like St. Paul, who struggled with Judaizers, taking opportunity to critique or even nuance his acceptance of the Old Testament canon to fit the distinctives of the Christian sect. Remarkably, St. Paul instead maintains a complete continuity of the entire Old Testament canon and takes it one step further by claiming that they,  “are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” 

Claiming that the Hebrew scriptures point to Jesus is quite the claim for the former Pharisee who trained under Gamaliel. St. Paul’s conviction that the scriptures are God-breathed is therefore spoken from a mind with complete confidence in what is contained therein. The notion that the word of God had faithfully spoken to God’s covenant people is a conviction inherited from his devotion to them as an ancestral document, divinely preserved by real men in history, and confirmed by his experiences with Christ himself at the Damascus Road.

What Did St. Paul Know?

St. Paul, of all men, best understood the claims the Old Testament makes for itself insofar as it claims to speak as God’s revealed word and his own conversion experience with “scales” falling from his eyes he is able to see the Christ and hear his voice in these same traditional scriptures of his ancestors. Similarly, he is able to encourage Timothy, “from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures,” largely because this is his own experience. What Paul learned as the child called Saul is now the wisdom of Christ sufficiently revealed in ages past. 

It is often pointed out that the canon of the New Testament is beyond the scope of St. Paul’s claims of inspiration in 2 Timothy 3 use of the word “scripture.” One primary evidence for this argument is the lack of a completed New Testament at the time of Timothy’s reception of this letter. Timothy may not at the time of Paul’s writing even have a copy of a Gospel and no piece of the New Testament would fit St. Paul’s expectation that Timothy had been trained in it since his childhood. Others argue that St. Paul’s “all” demands an acknowledgement of a completed canon which the New Testament and apostolic writers did not have sufficiently organized at this point in Church history. Yet these details do not prevent St. Paul from believing and teaching that Scripture beyond the Old Testament is inspired. As we can see in his letters to the church at Corinth, St. Paul believes he speaks with a divine authority. “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual” writes Paul, “let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 14:37). An individual with experience in rabbinical tradition would recognize that no previous spiritual leader could lightly take the mantle of prophetic voice, yet Paul clearly aligns his own words with the same weight as Isaiah or the like. St. Peter confirms Paul’s place as God’s mouthpiece in describing Paul’s writing as Scripture in his own Epistle. (2 Peter 3:14-16) 

 Beyond this Paul’s use of New Testament quotations as Scripture imply that he believes them to also possess a like authority. St. Paul’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper communicated to the Church at Corinth is based on quotations from the Gospel of Luke. Comparing 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 and Luke 22:19–20 reveals that St. Paul considers the Gospels to be authoritative as well. One of the more significant of these New Testament references is St. Paul’s statement, “that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:4). Yet where is this “third day” citation of the Scripture? St. Paul’s is looking to St. Matthew’s written testimony that, “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:40). 

Inspiration and Inerrancy

Common objections to inspiration are related to the idea of Biblical inerrancy. If the Bible is God’s breathed word, it would be reasonable to expect it to reflect its author in perfection. Yet many struggle to accept the Bible as God’s word because of suspected errors or additions in the transmission of the text.

The Christian position is that the Scripture breathed from God is inerrant in its original manuscripts, often described as autographa, and this sense of perfection does not apply to translations and copies.

Yet St. Paul did also imagine that the inspiration of God was for a purpose and outlines this in the phrases, “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Profitable for doctrine explicitly outlines that God is knowable through his scripture and that Scripture itself is the tool that God has appointed for teaching who he is. The idea of reproof in the second statement relates to the power of Scripture to bring about conviction and serves as the means by which the Holy Spirit may persuade man to believe. St. Paul’s idea that the Scripture is for reproof echoes Jesus’s command to “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” (John 5:39).  The authority of the Scripture is also seen in St. Paul’s perspective that the Scripture have a sanctioning authority over against the conscience and life of a man. When he teaches that Scriptures are for correction, he is also claiming that they may be appealed to straighten (as a literal translation of correction would be rendered) a man’s waywardness.

Finally, Paul’s view of inspiration is confirmed in that the Scriptures are places as model records for “instruction in righteousness.” It is this last characteristic that makes our Scripture the “Holy” Bible in that their contained wisdom reflects the divine approval of the author. St. Paul’s final piece conveys the idea that the Scriptures are not only good for us, but because they are from God, they represent the standard of God’s judicial approval.  

Integrity of Manuscript Tradition

The turbulent world of textual criticism has been unable to shake scholarly confidence in the Scripture largely due to the work of faithful scholars who have been able to demonstrate the historic integrity of our received manuscript tradition. At the same time, it is the confidence gathered by St. Paul’s firm commitment to divine inspiration that encourages scholars to press forward against the doubts of liberal and neo-orthodox critics. St. Paul’s devotion to the Scriptural tradition is a reflection of his devotion to the God who speaks.  Princeton theologian BB Warfield explained the significance of our doctrine of inspiration best in this succinct definition: “In a word, what is being declared by this fundamental passage is simply that the Scriptures are a divine product, without any indication of how God has operated in producing them.” As did St. Paul believe, so does the faithful church believe. 

Read more

On June 2, 2022 By In Culture, Theology, Worship

Holy Priest, Holy Warrior: Reflections on Psalm 110

Reading through Psalm 110, one cannot but help notice that by the end of the psalm, the dead bodies are piling up. In verse 1, Christ’s enemies are made into a footstool for his feet. In verse 2, he rules in the midst of his enemies — and has a scepter to smite them. In verse 5, he shatters kings on the day of his wrath. In verse 6, he executes nations and fills them with corpses. 

And yet right in the middle of this “messiah on the warpath” imagery, we have a reference to Christ being an eternal priest after the order of Melchizedek. It is perhaps easier for us to see how the battle imagery of the psalm fits with Jesus’ kingship. After all, we expect kings — especially Davidic kings — to be battlefield heroes. Jesus does not disappoint in that way. He strikes and smashes his enemies from the beginning to the end of this psalm. The psalm paints the portrait of an utterly victorious king.

But since the psalm also pays homage to Jesus’ priesthood, an astute reader might wonder where priestly imagery shows up in the psalm. I would contend that the battlefield imagery fits not only with the motif of Jesus as reigning king but also with him as everlasting priest. In the Bible, priests are warriors just as much as kings. Waging holy war has been a priestly calling from the beginning.

There is a lot of biblical evidence for this truth, and we will only survey a fraction of it here. Start with Adam. Adam was a priest, serving in the sanctuary of Eden. We know this because the verbs used to describe Adam’s task in Eden, “tend and keep,” or “serve and guard” (Gen. 2:15), are used later to describe the tasks of the priests at the tabernacle, e.g., Num. 3:7-8. A priestly vocabulary is used for Adam’s task from the very beginning; he is to guard and keep Eden, just as the later priests would guard and keep the tabernacle. Of course, this also came to mean that he was to guard and keep the woman (the embodiment of Eden) after she was created, just as the priests were to guard and keep the people of Israel (the living tabernacle).

When Adam was told to guard the Garden, he should have deduced that there would be an invader. And sure enough, an intruder shows up. As soon as the serpent started questioning God’s Word to the woman, Adam should have stepped between the serpent and the woman to protect her. He should have silenced the lying serpent by crushing its head. That was his priestly task, and because he failed at that priestly task, he lost both his priesthood and his sanctuary. Adam should have piled up at least one corpse in Eden; he should have made the serpent a footstool for his feet. He should have ruled in the midst of his enemy (the serpent) by shattering and executing the serpent in a show of righteous wrath. Unfortunately, he did none of those things. What should have been the day of his power became a day of weakness and failure. He failed as a priest because he failed to fight. He refused to exercise holy violence and so he lost his holy status and access to the holy place.

(more…)

Read more

On June 2, 2022 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Loose Lips Sink Ships

When the Spirit comes, he creates bonds; he binds people together. He does this as the Spirit of the Word, and, therefore, he binds us together with words. When we share the same language and confession, we are able to know one another and work together in a common mission. This is why Pentecost has always been associated with words. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt after the Passover and Exodus, Pentecost was the time that God gave his Law through Moses to Israel to bind them together as a new nation. Pentecost was memorialized every year in a feast that culminated in the giving of the Spirit after the great Passover and Exodus accomplished by Jesus. God gave his Law, his word, to the nations and formed a new holy nation, the church, through the preaching of the gospel as every man heard that word in his own language. The Spirit created new bonds with the word of the gospel so that the church might be able to work together in our common mission to disciple the nations.

Words are spiritual tools and weapons to build and to fight. When we walk in the Spirit, we speak words that build. Our words may also be used to do evil just as any tool or weapon may be used. When we speak evilly, we grieve the Spirit because he is the Spirit of unity who creates bonds of peace.

(more…)

Read more

On May 31, 2022 By In History, Theology

Messianic Prophecies and Covenant Renewal

“When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.”  

St. Matthew ii:14-15
Image by Robert Cheaib

The prophetic witness of the Old Testament is a central theme of the gospel writers and appears throughout St. Matthew’s work as evidence of Jesus’s status as the Messiah. Through textual quotations, allusions, and implicit references St. Matthew offers his Hebrew audience dozens of examples of how Jesus fits the messianic qualifications of their own Scriptural tradition. Yet, St. Matthew often handles these references in ways that seem out of context with their original narratives. Established stories and characters are recast from their historical plots to take on symbolic or even typological meaning in the life of Jesus. While St. Matthew’s interpretation of the Old Testament is under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, it is unlikely that his contemporaries or even the prophets themselves always understood how their words pointed to a future Messiah.  One example is the fulfillment of “Out of Egypt have I called my son” cited by St. Matthew from the Book of Hosea. St. Matthew understood how the phrase fulfilled Scripture in terms of messianic prophecy, but also informs our interpretive lens for the Old Testament.

Prophecy and Providence

Basic to the idea of Biblical prophecy is the doctrine of providence by which we understand the divine governance of God in history. God fulfills his purposes as he unfolds the natural years of human history. Dutch-American theologian Louis Berkhof describes providence as, “whereby He rules all things so that they answer to the purpose of their existence.” a God’s sovereign orchestration of history is clearly explained in passages like Psalm 103:18 where we read, “The LORD has established His throne in heaven, And His kingdom rules over all.” The mechanism of messianic prophecy demonstrates the special promises possessed by the Hebrews as they expected the God over their history to also superintend a savior in their future. Contrast this with the writings of Sophocles and his Delphic oracles that entrap man’s future into an Oedipal tragedy.

St. Matthew’s use of messianic prophecies is therefore primarily a matter of demonstrating God’s power in time and not intended to be mere proof texts for qualifying Jesus’s own messianic candidacy. We see in the messianic prophecies God’s fingerprints of providence and signposts of his imminent work in establishing his renewed Kingdom. Dr. Edmund Clowney of Westminster Seminary explains in his popular book Preaching Christ in All of Scripture that the patterns that seem to repeat and find fulfillment in Jesus point to the magnifying work of Israel’s Messiah. “God will not merely repeat his deeds of the past; he will do greater things, climatically greater: a second exodus, involving spiritual deliverance; a new covenant, a new creation, a new people, including Jews and Gentiles; and a greater than Moses, than David, than Elijah.” b We should then expect that the interpretive methodology that St. Matthew will employ in relation to the fulfillment of the Old Testament will cast a greater weight to prophetic statements and allusions that point to the Messiah’s greater role in the destiny of the covenant People.

Greater Fulfillment in the Gospels

The narrative employed in Matthew 2 functions to highlight God’s past faithfulness and connect it to the greater promises that come through or are fulfilled by His Son. St. Matthew’s emphasis on the holy family’s refuge in Egypt employs not only a reference to Old Testament scripture, but invokes the historic symbolism of Moses and Hosea. Harkening back to an Exodus-like story, St. Matthew introduces Herod as a new Pharaoh and Jesus as a new Moses. The Messianic prophecy itself attempts to connect or memorialize a past event in redemptive history to the life and ministry of Jesus. This method of weaving pictures of previous covenantal epochs into the successive stages of Israel’s growth matches the entire pattern described as “covenant renewal” in James B. Jordan’s book Through New Eyes. Jordan explains that, “…time is opportunity.” and the Covenant history builds in a linear-spiral fashion. c The connections between messianic prophecy and their fulfillment point to God’s work at fulfilling his promises through successive covenantal renewals with mankind (e.g. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David). With each successive Patriarch’s renewal, God reveals more of his glorious plan to be fulfilled in the future Messiah. Here St. Matthew appeals to Jesus as a new stage of covenant renewal. 

(more…)
  1. Berkhof, L. (2005). A Summary of Christian Doctrine. Part II. Ch. X. The Banner of Truth Trust.  (back)
  2. Clowney, E. P. (2003). Preaching Christ In All of Scripture. pg. 40. Crossway Books.  (back)
  3. Jordan, J. B. (1999). Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World. Wipf and Stock Publishers.  (back)

Read more

On May 26, 2022 By In Theology, Worship

The Ascension

Hidden in the smoke that ascended from the altar that sat in the forecourt of the Tabernacle and Temple was a prophecy, a shadowy type of what was to come. The worshiper brought his offering to draw near to God. Indeed, the word he heard that we translate as “offering” is more literally “near-bringing.” There were several different types of these offerings or near-bringings, each with its own emphasis on what happens in our relationship with God. One of these near-bringings was called the ascension offering. Translations confuse us because they focus on the action taken upon the offering and not what the offering is doing. You will read “burnt offering,” but the Hebrew word emphasizes ascending or going up; yes, the offering goes up in fire and smoke, but it is going up.

After having drained the blood from the animal, skinned it, cut it into pieces, and washed it, the priest put the pieces that were to be offered on the altar, head first, followed by all of the other parts (see Lev 1). The fire set by God himself was a consuming fire, but it was a friendly fire. The fire turned the offering that represented the worshiper into smoke that passed through the smoke of the incense altar, which is the prayers of the saints (Rev 8.4), and united with the glory cloud of God in the Holy of Holies. The worshiper ascended through the mediation of the holy substitute to draw near to God, to join him in his enthroned rest to enjoy his work.

Jesus’ ascension is the fulfillment of this smoky type. His death and resurrection–his blood shed and his body transformed–were not the end of his work. All of his work was leading to his ascension and enthronement. It is no mere bland historical fact that the disciples see Jesus “lifted up” so that a “cloud” takes him out of their sight as they stare into heaven (Ac 1.9-11). Jesus is the near-bringing, the offering, that draws near to God to sit enthroned with him to enjoy his work. He is seated at the right hand of the Father after his ascension, reigning until he has put all enemies under his feet, the last of which is death, which he will conquer at our resurrection (Mk 16.19; Ac 2.34-36; Heb 12.2; 1Cor 15.20-28).

United to Christ Jesus, our substitute, we join him in his ascension, seated with Christ Jesus in heavenly places, reigning with him until our common enemies are put under our feet (Eph 1.20-22; 2.6; see also Rom 16.20). Each Lord’s Day renews this covenant, assuring us of our present and future glory. In the Spirit, we ascend into heaven, incorporated into God’s glory cloud in praise to rule with him.

Happy Ascension Day!

Read more

On May 23, 2022 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Soft Words? Hard Words?

A soft answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

~ Proverb 15.1

The assumption when reading this Proverb is that the soft answer is the wise response and the harsh or, literally, the painful word is the foolish response. The larger context might even push us toward that understanding as a pattern of “wise-then-fool” contrasts follow. (For example, “The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly.” 15.2) To deescalate a situation, to bring water to fiery embers about to burst into flames with a soft answer, is generally a wise approach. Your great aim in dominion is to bring peace because peacemakers are in a favored position with God as God’s sons (Mt 5.9). The fool receives a real or perceived insult and fights fire with fire creating an even larger fire. Painful words escalate the tensions many times to the point of doing irreparable damage to a relationship. Soft answers are, many times, the ways of the wise, and painful words are, many times, the ways of a fool.

To lay this down as a template for every situation is unwise. The wisdom in this proverb is deeper, I believe. There are times when soft answers can be foolish and painful words can be wise. The fruit is the same–soft answers turn away wrath and painful words stir up anger–but it will be bad fruit. There are times that soft answers seek to avoid wrath that needs to be stirred up with a painful word. In another proverb, we hear, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend…” (27.6). A man needs to be reminded that when a true friend wounds him, that wound is for his good. Why does he need to be reminded? Because when someone wounds you with a painful word, the initial response is anger in self-defense. Painful words stir up anger.

Consider also Wisdom incarnate, the Word made flesh, who spoke all the right words in the right way. The aim of the Peacemaker was not always immediate peace. He was not always trying to turn away wrath with soft answers. On several occasions, Jesus used painful words that stirred up anger. Those words along with his corresponding actions stirred up anger in the Jews so much that they crucified him. If he had spoken soft words in those situations in order to turn away their wrath, he would have been in sin. Jesus was playing the long game. His great aim was peace, but to have that peace in the future, he had to stir up anger in the present.

There are times that “winsomeness” is a cover for compromise just as there are times when “hard words” are the mouth-sewage of a fool. There are times that we use soft words to avoid confrontation because we know that the person to whom we are speaking will become angry if we tell him what he needs to hear. In that situation, this is nothing short of cowardice possibly under the cloak of a “soft answer turning away wrath.”

Neither the man inclined toward conflict avoidance nor the man who loves to throw verbal hand grenades is justified in his disposition. Wisdom calls us to think in every situation concerning what words are appropriate for the people and situation. We cannot lay a one-size-fits-all template down, expect it to be the right thing in every situation, and then condemn others who don’t use our template as being compromisers or contentious.

Are you avoiding confrontation with a person with soft words because that it is what is best for him and the situation, or are you thinking about your personal comfort, not considering the long-term bad fruit that is being produced by your cowardice? Do you fight fire with fire to protect or build up your ego, or are you using hard words because the short-term anger that is aroused is necessary for long-term health? “This is just the way I deal with things” is not adequate. That, many times, is the statement of a lazy man who doesn’t want to think through situations.

Soft answers turn away wrath. Painful words stir up anger. Which words you need to use, well, that depends.

Read more

On May 12, 2022 By In Theology, Wisdom

The Tongue: A Matter of Life & Death

Death and life are in the power of the tongue,

and those who love it will eat its fruits.

Proverbs 18.21

Disagree with someone, criticize his lifestyle, or question his choices and you might be accused of violence in present-day Western culture. “Words as violence” has become something of a trope for anyone who feels injured and wants to use the power of victim status to cancel another speaker.[1] While the “words as violence” weapon is overused by the thin-skinned narcissists in our culture, there is truth in the fact that words have power that can be used violently, even causing death. The apostle John sees the ascended Jesus, the Word of God, riding a white horse having a two-edged sword coming out of his mouth–words–to strike down the nations (Rev 19.13-16). Words can destroy. But words are equally powerful to give life. They can be used to instruct and encourage people to move in the right direction. Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Solomon’s statement in Proverbs 18.21 is not hyperbole. Rather, his words are rooted deeply in God’s revelation of himself and his relationship with his creation. The many instructions that Solomon gives his son concerning speech in Proverbs are not the words of some self-help guru who is writing chaff about techniques to manipulate situations in your favor. The proverbs of Solomon concerning speech are the meditations of a wise theologian who understands the nature of the world in which we live and how best to align ourselves with the purpose of the Creator to complete the mission he has assigned us.

(more…)

Read more

On May 5, 2022 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Slow To Anger

When you are younger, anger seems almost like a superpower. You cower in the presence of anger, and you see others do as well. Rage gets things done and brings people under your control. If you don’t like a potential decision by the Supreme Court that reverses Roe v. Wade, you yell, scream, and threaten in order to intimidate and make people fearful for their safety in order to try to manipulate the court. If you don’t like what someone does, you verbally or physically bring him into submission through rage. Anger is power.

As you grow older and wiser, you realize that anger of this sort is weakness. You don’t control your passions, they control you. These passions you can’t control are used by others to control you; they “push your buttons” and manipulate you. You are a slave to the unpleasant circumstances around you. Your bursts of sinful anger destroy everything precious to you, isolating you from everyone. Undisciplined anger, far from being a strength, is a display of weakness. Real power is the freedom that comes through patience.

The quick-tempered man in Proverbs is a fool. A fool is not intellectually disabled or a clownish figure. He is a moral deviant, a man given over to sin. Solomon instructs his son in wisdom, and one aspect of that wisdom is to discipline his God-given anger so that it becomes his servant and not his master. To take up the Adamic mission of bringing God’s wise order to the world, cool heads must prevail. In the end, cool heads, the patient, will prevail.

Quick-tempered men, hot-heads, act foolishly (14.17) and exalt folly (14.29); they bring disorder to the world by creating chaotic, tense, unhealthy situations instead of peace (15.18). Their anger isolates them, causing them to be hated by others (14.17), because they keep everyone at a distance through their anger, and, besides that, no sane person wants to be around this drama queen and live with this anxiety.

In his quick temper, the slave to anger loses perspective, not able to take in and deal with all the information because his hasty anger hyper-focuses his attention on one object, putting blinders on him. His limited vision means that he has no understanding or insight that allows him to put all the pieces of the situation together in a proper relationship because he refuses to see all the pieces. Consequently, the quick-tempered man cannot fulfill his God-given mission of dominion. His outbursts of anger are one of the works of the flesh that Paul says is characteristic of those who will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 5.19-21).

The wise son cultivates patience. He is slow to anger. He has the ability to calm and steel his mind through hope rooted in faith so that he can endure until he reaches his goal. Patience is not passivity or indifference. Patience is actively working on achieving the goal of defeating evil and building what is good by keeping its wits about him.

Patience is a discipline that must be cultivated. When we are young, our parents are responsible to discipline us in patience. As we grow older, patience must become a self-discipline. We must develop the ability to master our minds so as to direct our desires, will, emotions, and bodies to accomplish our mission. As with all self-discipline, the cultivation of patience requires pain, stressors that will challenge you mentally, physically, and emotionally. The way you respond to that pain will determine if it will make you stronger or break you. Because many stressors in our lives are outside of our control, the only power you have is your response. The stress reveals the weakness in your character. It doesn’t create it. If that weakness is to be strengthened, you must accept this stress as something of a frenemy; others may have plans to destroy you through this, but you know that God in his providence has brought this to be a servant to develop the strength of patience (cp. 1Cor 3.18-23). Your loving heavenly Father intends to make you a stronger son through this training. As you keep that in mind, knowing that all things do indeed work together for good to those who love God–faith–you develop the mental toughness and resiliency to endure, not being knocked off track through uncontrolled passions.

Whining, complaining, and moaning all the time about your situation reveals and cultivates weakness. You are not positively acting. You become the cowed victim that is a prisoner to others or your circumstances.

Patience is freedom. People and circumstances don’t enslave you by your own passions. You are free to be who God called you to be and accomplish what he put you here to do. Being patient, you are a true son of your heavenly Father who is slow to anger.

Read more

On April 28, 2022 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

The Love of Anger

What is it that makes you angry? Is it when people don’t pull their weight of responsibility? Is it the traffic, your job, your family situation, the moral evils of our society, or politics? Though we all express anger in different ways, we are all angry people because we are made in the image of God who is a God of wrath. We are created to be angry.

Solomon instructs his son throughout Proverbs concerning anger. Anger cannot be eliminated, but it must be disciplined. But before we can discipline anger, we must first know what anger is in its righteous and sinful expressions.

(more…)

Read more

On April 21, 2022 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Healthy & Wealthy?

The point is, ladies and [gentlemen], that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.[1]

This was the end of the iconic cinematic speech given by Gordon Gekko at the Teldar Paper stockholders’ meeting in the 1987 film Wall Street (a film I do not recommend and have only watched this scene). Greed is considered a virtue and lauded as that which will save. With its insatiable appetite for more, its aggressive impatience, its lack of concern for others, and its myopia, greed gives its host hyper-focus and energy to seek gratification for its appetite. Greed is power, but it is a destructive power, destroying its host and everything around him.

(more…)

Read more