Category Archives: Theology

Lessons on Prayer from 1 Samuel 1

Posted by on August 28, 2011 No comments

1 Samuel 1

1There was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephrathite. 2He had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

3Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the LORD of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the LORD. 4On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. 5But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the LORD had closed her womb. 6And her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb. 7So it went on year by year. As often as she went up to the house of the LORD, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. 8And Elkanah, her husband, said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”

9After they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the LORD. 10She was deeply distressed and prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly. 11And she vowed a vow and said, “O LORD of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.”

12As she continued praying before the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. 13Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman. 14And Eli said to her, “How long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away from you.” 15But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD. 16Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.” 17Then Eli answered, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.” 18And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.

19They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the LORD; then they went back to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. 20And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, “I have asked for him from the LORD.”

Recently reading this, I was struck by the way Hannah prayed…

I read the first two paragraphs (v1-8) as a backdrop of the following couple of paragraphs. Even at the very beginning of the book in the second verse, we find a pretty blunt description of what’s going on: “Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.”

In the verses that follow, we find more on Hannah’s circumstances: Elkanah loved Hannah, and gave her a double portion on the day of the sacrifice (v5). On the other hand, Hannah experienced some emotional trauma when “her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb” (v6). This was an annual thing–Hannah endured year after year of provocation, which led her to such sadness that she “wept and would not eat” (v7).

Imagine being continuously tormented like Hannah was. She was (at this time) barren, and was provoked because of it. The interesting thing is that her physical condition was not something she had any particular control over–”the LORD had closed her womb.” This must have been pretty emotionally traumatic for Hannah. But how did she respond?

We find in verse 10 that “[s]he was deeply distressed and prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly.” Read her prayer:

11 And she vowed a vow and said, “O LORD of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.

It was curious to me that she would say “if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant…” And she eventually confesses that “[she had] been speaking out of [her] great anxiety and vexation” (v16).

Matt Chandler commented once that it is in God’s mercy that he would allow us a “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:6-8) for the sake of our humility. And this is certainly the case in Hannah’s situation. She was barren and emotionally traumatized, but she brought her trouble humbly before the Lord, petitioning for a child according to his will, while promising to be faithful. Eventually she left convinced of God’s faithfulness, and “went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad” (v18).

When we have requests, let us bring it humbly to the Lord, asking them according to his will, promising to be faithful no matter the circumstance. And let us be convinced of God’s faithfulness–we can be assured that “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

It seems that rather soon, God provides Hannah with a child. How does she respond? She commends it to the Lord. She says, “I have asked for him from the LORD” (v20).

When God responds to our requests, let us commend it to the Lord, again remembering that “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Epiphany

Posted by on January 6, 2011 2 comments

Hey guys, today is Epiphany! It’s a feast day that celebrates the incarnation.

“Epiphany means ‘to make manifest.’ By the fourth century, Epiphany was a major annual celebration for the church. It is a season when we see Jesus’ divine mission revealed when the magi visit him, and then we remember his baptism, miracles, ministry, and his call for us to follow.”

Just something to think about. And maybe pray about?

Have a great day, friends!

Assurance of Salvation (Part 3)

Posted by on May 26, 2010 2 comments

[If you haven't yet read Part 1 and Part 2, please do.  For your sake and mine.]

Recently I’ve been reading through the book of Hebrews, a book often used by those who believe you can “lose your salvation” as scriptural support, because it contains several exhortations for those in the visible church (in Rome) to make sure not to fall away, with the surface implication that it is possible for those who are truly regenerate to not be saved in the end. Understandably, this book can present somewhat of a challenge to those who believe in the doctrine of assurance. However, I’ve been studying the book with Dr. George Guthrie’s commentary on Hebrews (NIVAC series), and he does a very good job of illuminating the true meaning of the text and it’s implications to the doctrine of assurance without bending over backward to accommodate crooked theology or blindly taking these passages out of context of the teachings of the rest of scripture (a concept I talked about in Part 1). So I want to share the perspective he presents (though if I say something totally wrong, don’t hold him accountable–it’s probably me not understanding him).

I think the first thing to note from the many exhortations in Hebrews (i.e 2:1, 3:12-13, 4:1, 6:4-6, 6:11-12), is that it is both fitting and beneficial to encourage Christians to beware lest they fall away. This may seem obvious, since the author of Hebrews himself does it so many times (I just named a few), but I think it is easy for us to get so caught up in the doctrine of assurance that whenever we see/hear of those who claim to be Christians wavering in their faith we jump straight to giving assurance of salvation. But the author of Hebrews clearly does not do that; rather, he boldly and confrontationally commands the Christians in Rome to examine their hearts to see if indeed they are in Christ (3:13-14) and to hold firmly to the faith, thus proving their salvation. So if we want to be biblical in our teaching, we ought to encourage those who are doubting and wavering to hold on–an act of the will.

However, we must be careful in what way we encourage and what motivation we give for holding firm. So let’s look at what the author of Hebrews does.

  • His first exhortation, in 2:1, is to “pay careful attention…lest we drift away from [the Gospel]“, which he follows up by saying that since the new message–that of salvation in Christ–is so superior to the old message–that of partial knowledge of God through the Law–how could we not listen? I think this is often misinterpreted, where he says “how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation” (v.3): he is not saying that we should be fearful if we ignore God now (he does imply that later on), but rather, something more like “this is our last hope, our only chance at salvation–there is no longer something greater to look forward to”. So the motivation he gives for holding fast is simply that Christ is our only hope.
  • His second exhortation, in 3:12, is “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God”. Notice what he says: “Take care lest you have (present tense) an evil heart, which will lead you (future tense) away from God”. So here he establishes that the reason why “Christians” fall away is that their heart is evil and unbelieving–and was all along– like those in the desert who disobeyed God and could not enter His rest. So here the author of Hebrews encourages those in the church to examine their hearts to see if they are really regenerate, in case they aren’t really “saved” after all, because unbelief is what prohibits people from “entering God’s rest”. And this is emphasized in 4:1, where he says “let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it”. Or to say it another way, let us fear lest we get to the end of our lives and realize that we were fakes after all, and though we heard the good news, the message did not benefit us because we did not combine it with faith (v.2). So the outward manifestation of unbelief is eventually leaving the visible church and failing to persevere to the end under persecution or doubt (cf. I John 2:19).
  • Next, the author of Hebrews in 6:4-6 appeals to the goodness and beauty of Christ, and reveals how offensive falling away is in God’s sight, and how bad of a sin it is. He writes that “it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened…and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God…and holding Him up to contempt”.* Notice what the author of Hebrews is doing here. He reminds the church at Rome of the precious value of the blood of Jesus, and “how much it cost/to see our sin upon the cross”. He causes his audience to bring to mind how gracious and merciful God was in sending His Son to be crucified, and how undeserving and ungrateful and disrespectful we were/are with that gift, and thus how much we owe and how much we ought to love and cling to Him. So the motivation presented here is gratitude for God’s mercy and the fear of further offending our gracious Savior.
  • Finally, in verses seven and eight of chapter six, the author brings in the fear of judgment due to a lack of fruitfulness. He reminds the church that “you can tell a tree by it’s fruit” (Mat 7:15-20), and that “every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Mat 3:10), urging them to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Mat 3:8). But notice that while this final exhortation before he begins his exposition on the high priesthood of Jesus and the superiority of the New Covenant is very harsh, it is not damning. Because he follows up the confrontation with affirmation, stating that “in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation”. So while the author warns and admonishes and exhorts the struggling church in Rome to examine themselves to be sure that they are truly saved, he encourages them with assurance that they are! It is a very strange paradox indeed, but one which we must believe, and preach, if we want to be biblical.

So here are my conclusions for how to treat doubt either in our own lives or in others. (1) We must examine ourselves–hearts and lives–to see if we are truly saved. (2) We must encourage ourselves to hold fast and persevere through both suffering and doubt. (3) Christ is our only hope; if we cling to anything or anyone else for assurance, we will be standing on shifting sand, and in the end our lack of faith in Christ will become painfully obvious.

Brothers and sisters, as we look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, throwing off the sin which clings so closely and all else that would hinder us from holding fast our confession.

*I’m quite aware that this is perhaps one of the more controversial passages in the New Testament, especially as it relates to the doctrine of assurance, and that I don’t actually tackle any interpretation here. But that’s because I don’t quite feel studied up on it enough to do it any semblance of justice. So give me a couple weeks, and then I’ll post an addendum or something with my take on how to make sense of the passage (though don’t expect anything original–I’ll probably just regurgitate Guthrie or Dr. Howell or something).

Assurance of Salvation (Part 2)

Posted by on May 22, 2010 No comments

[Please read Part 1, if you have not yet, so that you don't take me out of context.  I think it will serve us both.  Thanks.]

Though I may try to act strong on the outside much of the time, I am very familiar with doubt and can very much relate to the Caedmon’s Call song that says “My faith is like shifting sand, so I stand on grace”. And most often I question not necessarily whether God is real or not, but whether I am real or not–that is, if I am really regenerate after all, or if I’ve been just playing the game the whole time. And so the doctrine of assurance is important to me, because often it is all I have to cling to, that “He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus” (Phi 1:6). But there is something I’ve learned: asking the question “Am I a Christian?” is not a simple, quick exercise that has an easy answer, but rather, must involve intense self-examination and self-scrutiny, to see if your heart has truly been changed. There are several things on which you should absolutely not base your assurance: whether you feel God’s presence or not, whether you are a good person or not, and especially whether you prayed a prayer one time or not. All of those things are superficial, subjective, and very unreliable measures of one’s Christian-ness, and also quite unbiblical. So what should you base your assurance on? First let’s define what exactly it means to be a Christian.

When I say “Christian”, or “saved”, what I really mean is one who has been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of His beloved Son (Col 1:13), who has been regenerated and renewed by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5), who shares in the heavenly calling (Heb 3:1), and who will one day be presented blameless before the glorious presence of God (Jude v24). But perhaps the main characteristic of a Christian is that he/she has “seen the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (II Cor 4:3), and has to come to see Christ as beautiful. Or as the late Keith Green so aptly said it, “a Christian is someone who is bananas for Jesus”. A Christian has tasted and seen (Ps 34:8) that all things are loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord (Phi 3:8).

Thus, the way to know if you are a Christian is to examine your heart and see what exactly it is you treasure (Mat. 6:21). Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying to test your emotions to see if you feel love for God; I mean you must look deep within yourself and test your heart of hearts. Ask yourself if you truly hate sin(Rom 7:15), or if you just feel guilt based on social pressure. Ask yourself if you really find rest and strength from God’s Word (Ps 1:1-2), or if you just want knowledge to impress people. Ask yourself if you actually care about people (Mat 22:39), or if you just serve and pretend so that you’ll feel better on the inside. And if you want a basis for this type of self-examination, look to Paul’s example in Romans 7, where he talks of his conflicting desires–his longing to do good but his flesh’s tendency to do evil–but then concludes “Who will save me from this body of death? Praise be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!”. So if you can relate to Romans 7–if you find yourself in sin, but hate it in your heart–hope in Christ, for He will save you from your body of death. Your soul has already been redeemed, and your heart is currently being changed, and one day your flesh also will be restored to perfection.

But such a test, when we are in the midst of spiritual dryness, can also be misleading. And so there is another way in which we can have assurance that we are Jesus sheep (John 10), and it’s founded in Philippians 1:6, which I’ve already quoted/referenced several times, that “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus”. If we want to know if God will bring us to completion, we can look back and see whether or not He has begun a good work–if we are no longer who we were. There are some outer behaviors which man can change on his own power, but only God can change a heart, and so if we want tangible evidence of our own regeneration, we can look to where we came from and where we are now. This has sustained me in many a dry season, when deadened by my hardness of heart and desensitized to sin in my life I nearly convinced myself that I did not even love God in my heart of hearts. But looking back on the arrogance and lack of self-control and abundance of self-centeredness that used to fill my heart an mind, and seeing the progress that God has made (though there’s still much further to go) gives me hope the He’s not finished with me yet, and more significantly that He is indeed working on me. And so I trust not in my own works, nor in my own goodness, nor even in my own faith, but only in Christ’s blood, poured out for me on the cross. And the blood of Christ is good enough assurance for me.

Next we’ll deal with how to stay true to the Bible while talking about the doctrine of assurance.

Assurance of Salvation (Part 1)

Posted by on May 21, 2010 4 comments

[For your convenience I've linked all my Scripture references to the appropriate passages on esv.org, so do yourself the favor and take the time to check them out, and be like the noble Bereans who made sure that what they were taught matched up with God's Word.]

So I’ve tried several different ways to intro this, but I can’t find anything that works, so we’ll just dive in. I want to talk about three different aspects of the doctrine of the assurance of salvation: (1)the biblical basis for the doctrine of assurance, (2) who can have assurance, and (3) the practical application of the doctrine.

So let’s tackle the biblical basis. I want to start with a slight caveat. I very much dislike the phrasing “once saved, always saved”. I think the language of this phrase is very unbiblical, because rarely do the apostles refer to being “saved” as something that happens on earth. Most of the times that word is used, it is within the phrase “you will be saved”, not “you are saved”. When the New Testament authors refer to the state of a person’s heart in the here and now, they use words and phrases like “in Christ”, “saints”, “those who are called”, “regeneration”, etc. Salvation most often refers to salvation from the future wrath to come (at death); so when you ask “can I lose my salvation”, well of course not, because you don’t have it now–but it’s very possible that you may not get it. So anways, back to the topic at hand. Kind of.

There are two ways to approach any issue: the doctrinal basis and the strictly Scriptural basis. In other words, you can develop a general, comprehensive belief system and argue from there, or you can open to specific texts and argue from there. But I would submit that you absolutely must do both. For to only argue from doctrine is to stand on the authority of men’s logic, but to argue only from isolated texts is to miss the broader context of the rest of the Bible. And also, if you only do one but not the other, you can’t really argue with the other side, because both sides have their own doctrines to argue from which are equally logical, and both sides have their own texts that they work from to prove a point which are equally inspired. If you want to really be able to hold a good discussion with the opposition, you have to be able to show that your doctrine makes better sense of the Bible both as a whole and in specific texts. And if you really want to interpret and apply Scripture well, you must be able to understand the specific meaning in the larger context.

So here’s how all that applies to the doctrine of assurance (finally). Those who believe that there is no assurance of salvation offered to Christians very often point to texts such as Hebrews 3 and 6, Rom 2:6-7, Rev 2:10,3:5, and others which emphasize human responsibility and seem to imply conditions upon the surety of our salvation. Or sometimes, those who reject assurance will also argue from the more abstract/logic level, saying that if “once saved, always saved” is true, then it takes away all incentive for holy living and gives license for sin (which, I might point out, Paul addresses in Romans 6, but that’s beside the point). Conversely, those who support the doctrine of assurance bring up passages like Rom 8:31-39, John 10:28-29, 1 John 2:19, Phi 1:6 and other verses that emphasize the inexorable love of God and his promise to save us completely. Likewise, those who preach assurance also tend to debate from the abstract/logic side, saying things like “if we couldn’t do anything to save ourselves in the first place, then how can we do anything to lose it?”. So on both sides you have good logic and plenty of textual support, but obviously one of them has to be right and the other has to be wrong. Either you can or you cannot “lose your salvation”–there is no middle ground.

But the answer, I believe, can only be found by looking at what Scripture says at a whole, and what each passage is really about in context, of itself and of the rest of the Bible. And at this point it would take WAY too long for me to try to walk through all of Scripture and try to show you why I have become convinced that God is sovereign over all things, including salvation (Rom 9:15-16), and that He is the active agent even in the hearts of men (Phi 2:13), so while those in the visible church may not really be regenerate(1 John 2:19), those who truly are in Christ by faith(Rom 3:21-22) will one day enter His rest (Heb 4). But I would love to sit down and talk through it, and/or recommend books and sermons. It’s not just enough to know the right things–you have to be able to understand why, and be able to interpret Scripture for yourself, or else at the first surface challenge you might be misled or shaken in your faith. So I challenge you, if you’ve just always believed in the doctrine of assurance, but could not defend it from both a doctrinal and scriptural angle, dig in. It’s well worth the effort, and along the way you will learn a lot about who God is and what it means to be a Christian.

Next we’ll look at the question “How can I be sure that I will be saved?”

“My Theology Can Beat Up Your Theology”

Posted by on April 26, 2010 3 comments

That is the title of a great post by the late “iMonk” (Michael Spencer) who recently lost his battle with cancer. Or perhaps to say it another way, finally has total victory over sin, as he stands in the presence of God.

At any rate, I think this is an excellent article, and one that people like me need to read, and live by. Not to say that we shouldn’t be bold, and preach the hard truths of the Gospel unashamedly, but that we should be careful about what hills we are willing to die on. And also, we need to be constantly checking our motives to make sure that the reasons we are fighting are pure–that our heart is something other than just wanting intellectual or spiritual dominance.

I don’t know a whole lot about Spencer, and I haven’t really ever read much of his blog before, but I think after reading this article I’m going to have to go back and peruse his archives. He speaks with both wisdom and clarity, and seems to have a clear understanding of what is important (and what is not).