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Theological Emphasis Some time ago we sent an email to our church family asking what sort of topics they’d like to hear teaching on, or which parts of Scripture and theology they felt hadn’t been given enough airtime. I’m glad we did so. We were able to identify some prominent pastoral needs across the congregation and plan our teaching program with that in mind. But it can be a mixed blessing to send out such a survey. Not every aspect of Christian theology is equally crucial. And while every verse of the Bible is equally true, not all are equally weighty. So whatever responses people may submit, some things should always be given more emphasis. But it served to remind me of how many focal points exist in a typical church family. The Christian world is full of options of things to make central to our churches. We are not short of hobbyhorses, special interests, and theological eccentricities, all of which lobby for more and more prominence in our thinking and church life. Because of this, a certain amount of any pastor’s time is spent letting people down gently—disappointing them at a rate they can absorb, as one older pastor friend put it. So it is common for people to want particular theological truths or cultural matters to be put front and center. All of this can make it difficult, therefore, when we are presented with a theological issue that genuinely is of crucial importance. The doctrine of our union with Christ is a case in point. To say so is not to force into the center something that deserves to be kept at the side. It truly does matter this much. The simple fact is this: without our union with Christ, Christianity is nothing . We’re not left with a diminished Christianity; we’re left with no  Christianity at all. It’s not the difference between original Coke and Diet Coke but between any  Coke and no drink at all. This becomes clear when we consider this doctrine’s prominence, importance, and significance. 1. Prominence Even a cursory glance through the pages of the New Testament reveals a startling truth: its main way of talking about a follower of Jesus is different to ours. Our default term is “Christian” and sometimes “disciple” or “follower of Jesus.” These are all terms we can find in the Bible, but the overwhelming descriptor of what we mean when we talk about being Christians is the phrase “in Christ” and “in him.” Front and center isn’t just our relationship with Jesus but the particular shape that relationship takes. We do indeed follow him and are disciples of him, but more fundamentally we are united to him—so closely that we can be said to be in him (and he in us). Paul can write that “he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” ( 1 Cor. 6:17 ). Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” ( John 15:5 ). Faith in Jesus unites us to him. We are one with him such that we now abide in him and live in him. This relationship is so all-encompassing of our Christian lives that the terminology of being united to Jesus comes up a staggering amount in the New Testament. In contrast, the word “Christian” is found only three times. This alone should make us consider what we might be missing if Scripture’s main way of talking about those who belong to Jesus is different to ours. 2. Importance It is not just that the language of union with Christ is ubiquitous in the New Testament; it is theologically pivotal too. Consider the following texts: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ  with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. ( Eph. 1:3 ) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ , he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ( 2 Cor. 5:17 ) For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him  we might become the righteousness of God. ( 2 Cor. 5:21 ) For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him . ( Phil. 3:8–9 ) For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ . ( Rom. 12:4–5 ) If Christian theology is an ecosystem, union with Christ is like a vital keystone species; if it is a house, union with Christ is a load-bearing wall. There are no blessings to be received from Jesus without being one with him. No union, no blessings. Not a one. With that union, we have all blessings, missing nothing. Through union with Christ we have justification. Apart from it, the righteousness of God would be forever beyond our reach and hope. But in Christ, what is his can properly become ours, just as in marriage what belongs to one properly belongs to the other. 3. Significance In addition to its theological importance of union with Christ is its practical and pastoral significance. I can think of no other doctrine that has been such a powerful balm for my soul. All of us ache for deep friendship and connection which no human relationship can ever fully provide. We have it in Christ. We can enfold ourselves in him. He will never let us down or fail to be enough for us. He will never tire of us or be too preoccupied to notice us. We each have his full attention all of the time. His union with us is how he fulfills the promise, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” ( Matt. 28:20 ). All of us make pledges to those near and dear to us to “always be with them.” But we can never truly live up to those words. I can’t be there fully for anyone, however much I mean to or try to. But Christ can be. We need not experience any moment of life apart from his presence. And the more we get to know his goodness, the more that presence means to us. All of us ache for deep friendship and connection which no human relationship can ever fully provide. We have it in Christ. Sam Allberry is the author of   One with My Lord: The Life-Changing Reality of Being in Christ  .

The Trinity is undoubtedly one of the most mysterious Christian doctrines. It can be intimidating to explain and we tip-toe carefully with our words so as not to slip into heresy. However, we would miss the point if we left the Trinity as a mere doctrinal discussion. How does the Trinity practically apply to our everyday life?   The practicality of the Trinity is clear in John 13–17. The disciples were deeply troubled at Jesus’ words about leaving them, thinking it would bring a devastating break in their relationship with God. But Jesus spoke tenderly to them, giving them guidance for continuing their walk with God after his departure. In giving this instruction, Jesus spoke about God’s Trinitarian nature. This passage of Scripture teaches that knowing God as three in one should be at the center of our daily relationship with him. Responding to the Father's Love   In light of Christ's lessons on the nature of the Father . . .       He is the fountain of divine love. He is the source of the encouragement we receive in the Scriptures, in answers to our prayers, in the grace of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and in all the other blessings we receive.       As the source of all, He is to be served as the object of all. He is the One to whom we respond with love, prayers worship and adoration. We also worship the Son and the Holy Spirit, but because even the Son and the Spirit give glory to the Father and share in his glory (e.g., John 16:14-15; 17:4-5), we worship the Three-in-One with an understanding that the Father is the ultimate object of all.       We should honor the Father with the fruits of our lives. Just as a vineyard owner plants his vines in order to receive a harvest, so the Father (the Vinedresser) rightly receives the fruits that Jesus (the Vine) brings to our lives (the branches). John 15:1-5.   Responding to the Son's Mediation   There are four main ways we are to respond to the Son's Mediation . . .       We look to the Son to bring us into favor with God. It is only in the words and work of Jesus that favor with God is provided.       We join ourselves with believers—specifically within a local church. Jesus instructed his disciples: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, your are also are to love one another. (John 13:34-35; cf. John 13:13-17; John 15:12)       We pray to the Father in Jesus' name. (John 16:23)       Jesus brings the Father's words to us, so we respond to his role within the Trinity by using the Scriptures as the standard for our faith and life. Because of the promise of the Spirit . . .       We expect the Spirit to instruct our decisions through the Word. This doesn't mean the Spirit will produce new meanings from the Bible tailored to our individual questions, but we expect the Spirit to help us as we bring our lives under the light of God's Word.       We expect the Spirit to guide Christians as a community. It is important for us to study our Bibles with confidence that the Spirit will help us, and to do so with careful attention to the counsel of others who have studied the same Scripture.       We trust that the Spirit authorizes us to serve as witnesses. Wherever Christians live, the Spirit is with them to make them witnesses to their communities.       We respond to the continual presence of the Spirit by welcoming his conviction. When we lack faith, the Spirit stirs our hearts to believe at the hearing of Scripture. When we sin, the Spirit brings conviction and draws our hearts to remember and obey the words of Scripture.   This article is adapted from Our Triune God by Phil Ryken and Michael LeFebvre.

Part your heavens, Lord, and come down; touch the mountains, so that they smoke. Send forth lightning and scatter the enemy; shoot your arrows and rout them. Psalm 144:5-6   David doesn’t want small favors from God. He begs the Lord to rip open heaven. He urges God to stretch out his hand and make mountains smoke. He wants bolts of lightning to send his enemies running. And those are just a few of the items on his list of prayer requests.   David needs an unusual brand of divine assistance to help him rule Israel. His enemies pursue him with deadly swords (verse 10). He fends off foreigners spewing lies (verse 8). He worries about enemies breaking through city walls, and he hopes he never hears cries of distress rise from the streets (verse 14). So he asks the Lord for military victory. He praises God for training him to win at war. He counts on God to make entire peoples submit to him (verses 1–2).   As David watches over the nation, he looks for God’s blessings not just for him but for every person under his care. He wants young women and men to grow up like well-fed plants (verse 12). He prays for barns full of crops and fields covered with flocks (verse 13).   David’s requests for military triumph might not resemble what you need from God. But you can make your own bold requests of the Lord, asking him to meet your real needs. He knows you’re a mere mortal. Your life is but a breath. But because he is your God, you can count on his care.   Takeaway Be bold in your requests and trust God actions and timing. We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).   Drawn from the NIV Bible for Teen Guys.

Doubting Thomas? Sometimes it is hard for us to believe in life after death. The true Bible story that shows this perhaps most clearly is the story of “Doubting Thomas,” as he is usually called. I prefer to think of him as Believing Thomas, but he did have his doubts. Most of us would have shared the man’s skepticism. Thomas was not with the other disciples when they first encountered Jesus after his resurrection from the grave ( John 20:24 ), which understandably made it hard for him to believe. We don’t know why he was absent, but God surely knew that his experience of doubt would help us believe. The fact remains that Thomas had more than the fear of missing out; he did miss out! So, when the other disciples said, “We have seen the Lord” ( John 20:25 ), frankly, he didn’t believe them. This is very relatable. The man’s associates were making the incredible, world-changing claim that a dead man had come back to life, never to die again. Evidently, they told him that this was a physical resurrection—that the risen Christ had appeared to them in an indestructible body. But Thomas wasn’t there, so how could he believe? Unwilling simply to take his fellow disciples at their word, Thomas wanted Jesus to prove himself, as we sometimes do, especially in the face of death. Thomas said, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” ( John 20:25 ). Thomas wanted to see for himself. He also wanted to touch the Savior’s glorified wounds. He wanted what the philosopher Thomas Paine once enviously described as an “ocular and manual demonstration.” Otherwise, the disciple declared, he would never believe. Because of his famous nickname, Thomas has the reputation for being the only skeptic of the resurrection. His fatalistic comment after Lazarus died reinforces the popular view that he was an inveterate doubter: “Let us also go, that we may die with him” ( John 11:16 ). We may get the mistaken impression from all this that none of the other disciples doubted, and maybe we think that good Christians never doubt. But, in fact, most of the disciples had trouble believing in the resurrection of the body—or at least the men did. Luke tells us in his Gospel that three days after Jesus was crucified, the eleven original disciples gathered in Jerusalem with other followers of Jesus. They were discussing the testimony of some that Jesus “had risen indeed” ( Luke 24:34 ). Suddenly, Jesus was there, standing among them, giving them God’s peace. But according to Luke, “they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit” ( Luke 24:37 ). The disciples were scared out of their minds, as we would be if someone we knew to be dead suddenly showed up standing next to us. What Jesus said to these frightened men exposes their spiritual skepticism. He said, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” ( Luke 24:38 ). It wasn’t just Thomas: they all had their doubts. Similarly, Matthew tells us that later on, when the disciples met Jesus in Galilee, “they worshiped him, but some doubted” ( Matt. 28:17 ). Matthew’s use of the plural indicates that Thomas was not alone in his skepticism. The Greek word he chooses to describe their spiritual struggle is a form of distazō , a word that indicates hesitation, such as we sometimes experience when we feel caught between faith and disbelief. Amazingly, the first disciples had this inner conflict at the very moment when Jesus commanded them to go into all the world and preach the gospel. The Great Commission was given to doubter-believers who worshiped Jesus but also struggled to have faith, even when they were in the physical presence of the risen Christ. Christian Wiman finds this encouraging in his personal struggle to believe the biblical gospel. He writes: The Gospels vary quite a bit in their accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and the ensuing encounters he had with people, but they are quite consistent about one thing: many of his followers doubted him, sometimes even when he was staring them in the face. This ought to be heartening for those of us who seek belief. If the disciples of Christ could doubt not only firsthand accounts of his resurrection but the very fact of his face in front of them, then clearly, doubt has little to do with distance from events. Some interpreters are critical of Thomas’s demand for more evidence, but I think we should commend him for his quest to know the truth. When he had his doubts, Thomas did not stop struggling to believe. And at least he was willing to consider the evidence. The notorious atheist Richard Dawkins—who taught evolutionary biology at Oxford and advocated outspokenly for the elimination of the School of Theology—once defined faith as “the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.” He continued, “Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” Thomas is a good counterexample to Dawkins’s dismissive claims. Thomas believed not in spite of the evidence; rather, he insisted on evaluating the evidence fairly for himself so that his belief would be well justified. To that end, he was willing to encounter Jesus, which some skeptics aren’t. Thomas was open to the evidence, and open to Jesus. His example is especially important for anyone who is doubtful about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Are we willing to weigh the evidence? Truthfully, it is the only intellectually responsible thing to do. There is too much at stake simply to walk away. What is at stake, specifically, is the infinitely valuable possibility of eternal life. I have tried to be honest about the doubts that most Christians have, and to grant the freedom to be honest about our doubts. It is not necessarily sinful to be skeptical. But it is wrong to shut the door on God, to have what Barnabas Piper calls “unbelieving doubt”—the perilous perspective of someone who is unwilling to believe. In his analysis of the story of Thomas, Keith Johnson explains the difference between doubts that honor God and doubts that don’t: Doubt crosses into sin when a person stops trying to address it. Thomas doubted the resurrection, but he did not sin as he did so. His doubt arose because of his limited knowledge and his inability to make sense of what he heard. He had sincere questions that prevented him from affirming that Christ was alive, and he wanted more information to answer these questions. This is the key: Thomas sought to address the causes of his doubt. He was willing to learn, and he embraced the truth immediately after Jesus appeared to him. Believing Thomas Yes, despite his doubts, Thomas did come to faith. When artists portray his famous encounter with Jesus, they often depict the disciple reaching out and touching his wounds. Caravaggio’s painting The Incredulity of Saint Thomas  might be the most famous. Caravaggio’s Thomas takes his index finger and probes the fleshy folds of his Savior’s side, trying to comprehend what happened to the body of Jesus. I am not sure Caravaggio’s rendering is totally accurate. Certainly, Thomas said  that he wouldn’t believe unless he could put his fingers in the nail marks or place his hand in the Savior’s sword-wounded side. Maybe he said this because the other disciples told him that this is what they had done when they saw Jesus after he rose from the grave: they handled the evidence for themselves, touching his glorified body. It is also true that Jesus invited Thomas to touch him. “Put your finger here,” he said, “and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side” ( John 20:27 ). His instructions are so specific that Thomas may well have obeyed them. However, the Bible never says whether Thomas took Jesus up on his invitation and touched his wounds. All that John records is the answer he gave as soon as he was convinced: “My Lord and my God!” For Thomas, seeing was believing, maybe without any touching. This is one of the emotional high points of the Gospels. At the very moment when he became an eyewitness of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, everything within Thomas bowed down and worshiped. What made this reverent response possible was our Savior’s sympathy for skeptics. Jesus did not blame Thomas for his lack of faith or condemn him for his disbelief. He did not hold himself back until the disciple showed him more trust. Instead, Jesus moved toward Thomas in love and said, “Peace be with you” ( John 20:26 ). He held out his hands and invited his friend to step forward in faith. “Do not disbelieve,” he said, “but believe” ( John 20:27 ). Jesus is always moving toward us, especially if we have our doubts. In the face of everything fearful, he says, “Peace be with you.” He holds out his hands to welcome us—hands that were pierced with sharp nails for the payment of our sins. He tells us to stop doubting and start believing instead. The best way to respond is the way Thomas did, not only by seeing and believing but also by worshiping and surrendering. Declare that Jesus of Nazareth is both Lord and God, and then start serving him, as Thomas did. By all accounts, Thomas is the apostle who carried the gospel all the way to India, founding the church that honors his memory there to this day. Keith Johnson rightly concludes: “John’s goal is not to portray Thomas as a sinful doubter whose example is to be avoided at all costs. Rather, John presents Thomas as a role model for Christians.” Jesus is always moving toward us, especially if we have our doubts. This article is adapted from   I Have My Doubts: How God Can Use Your Uncertainty to Reawaken Your Faith   by Phillip Graham Ryken.

When you think about the gospel, do you think it is primarily redemptive or preventative in nature? Does the gospel primarily rescue us from trouble, or does it primarily stop us from getting into trouble? Redemption v. Prevention A redemptive gospel says, “No matter what we’ve done and what has been done to us, we can always come home.” Forgiveness, restoration, repentance, second chance, a new creation. A redemptive gospel focuses on God’s unconditional and specific love for each human being . God makes the first move, always toward us. This gospel focuses primarily on God’s love for us. A preventative gospel says, “Live within these guidelines to honor God and express your love for God. As a side benefit, you will avoid a world of pain and heartache.” Its goal is a life relatively free of regret and relational damage, a life based on a series of habits and decisions oriented around God’s ways—faithfulness, obedience, worship, wisdom in choosing friendships, generosity, let our yes be yes and our no be no, build our houses on the rock so we withstand the storm. The preventative gospel focuses on us moving toward God and our love for God. There is no question that the gospel of Jesus is both redemptive and preventative, but which do you think is primary? In the game of “Would You Rather?” we are forced to choose between two difficult options. If you were forced to choose only one dynamic of the gospel, which would you choose? I think most of us would choose the gospel of redemption as primary. To be sure, Jesus taught both dynamics, but his life arc, his teachings, and his death and resurrection bend strongly toward the redemptive as the foundational reality of the gospel. Day-to-Day Life The problem is, most of us live day-to-day as if the gospel is primarily preventative. That makes sense to me. When I think of God’s redemption, my default posture is to think of it in the past tense—God redeemed me, and now I live in response to that reality by orienting my life around God’s commands . I do not do this to curry favor with God or to earn anything. I do it to please God and because I believe God’s ways are the best ways for a human to thrive with unfettered freedom. I have come to believe that all God’s commands are designed for human flourishing and to access true peace. Who wants to blow their life up with secret habits? Who wants to cause relational damage to the people they love? It is better, and frankly easier, to live in God’s ways and avoid all of that. We love because God first loved us (see 1 John 4:19 ). That is true, and it works.   Harmful Consequences But when we live primarily in view of God’s preventative gospel, we create harmful consequences, especially if we have been Christians for a while. As a pastor, I have worked with many parents who want their children to love God in the same way they love God, but their language and posture are preventative, not redemptive. When parents ask for my help, they rarely say, “We really want our children to experience God’s love for them.” Instead they say, “We want our kids to love God,” except for when they have never experienced God’s love first and primarily. If we try to love God before we experience God’s love, we are in danger of practicing legalism, getting on the more-of-the-same and try-harder treadmills, and that can be soul-sucking. Other religions teach us to love God, but the Christian gospel teaches that “God loves us.” It is first and foundational. We love God because God first loved us. After a while, we keep that love in the rearview mirror, and by doing so, we unintentionally communicate to those around us, including our children, that the preventative gospel is primary. God’s Love First Before God’s kingdom ever issued a rule, it issued an invitation. That invitation is ongoing, never-ending, and always available. God’s mercies are new every morning; great is God’s faithfulness (see Lamentations 3:23 ). God’s love first. God’s love always. God’s faithfulness as primary. Our love for God pours out in response to God’s love for us. God’s love is scandalous to humans. Rich Mullins calls it a “reckless” love in his song “The Love of God.” Humans will always default to a posture in which we are at the center of everything, and it can cause us to cast ourselves as the primary actor in our own life. But the gospel of Jesus is that God acts first, and we react, not once but always. God makes the first move, and we respond. Unfortunately, over time, we tend to think our faith originates from us. These dynamics are why we quickly make our way to the preventative side. Prevention or redemption? How might your language and posture change as you raise kids or disciple others? How might it benefit your own faith to intentionally think redemptive first and always ? Adapted from The Expectation Gap  by Steve Cuss.

Do you ever try to control God’s plans for your life instead of trusting him to do what is best? God had promised to make Abraham the father of a great nation. The only problem was that Abraham’s wife, Sarah, couldn’t have kids. In those days, infertility was thought to be the ultimate curse, and Sarah was running out of time. As she got older, Sarah became more and more desperate to provide a child for her husband, so one day she decided to take matters into her own hands. Imitating the cultural practices of the nations around her, Sarah gave her maid Hagar to her husband as a kind of substitute wife and surrogate mother. Abraham showed his desperation as well and went along with the plan instead of trusting God to do things his way. Sure enough, Hagar became pregnant. You can imagine the tension in the household at that point. Not surprisingly, Sarah grew jealous of Hagar despite the fact that the whole thing was Sarah’s idea in the first place. Sarah began to make Hagar’s life miserable, and Hagar responded by running away. Only an angel from God was able to convince her to return. Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, and Abraham finally had his heir. However, things got messy a little more than a decade later when Sarah herself finally became pregnant. When Sarah gave birth to Isaac, the tension between her and Hagar increased. Rather than taking steps to ease the tension, Sarah pressured Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away from their home. But even that didn’t quell the family feud — a feud that has continued to fester for thousands of years. This historical event is still a main point of contention today between the boys’ descendants, the Arabs (Ishmael) and the Israelites (Isaac). Lessons for Us Today This story is not a fairy tale; the domestic war that was waging between Hagar and Sarah really happened and has implications for your life as well. One of the biggest lessons here is understanding how different everything would have turned out had Abraham and Sarah simply trusted God without taking things into their own hands. God doesn’t need our help. Our job is to trust him to carry out his plan in his way, according to his timetable. Another lesson can be found in how Abraham responded. God made a promise to Abraham, and Abraham knew it; however, Abraham still went along with Sarah’s plans and did not speak up about the promise God had made. Rather than standing up for the truth, Abraham passively sat back and let his wife and her servant fight it out. Learn from Abraham’s mistake. Stand up for what you know is true. It’s normal to struggle with giving up control to God — people of all ages wrestle with this, as Abraham and Sarah show us. At the end of the story, though, God did exactly what he said he was going to do. Drawn from the NIV Revolution Bible .

1 Timothy 6:1–2 Let all who are under a yoke as bondservants regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. 2 Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers; rather they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved.— 1 Timothy 6:1–2a Regard Their Masters as Worthy of All Honor? Paul issues his command to “bondservants” who are “under a yoke” and have “masters.” The word translated “bondservants” is the Greek term doulos , the standard term for slaves used throughout the NT. These particular slaves are “under a yoke.” A literal yoke is a “frame used to control working animals” (BDAG, s.v. ζυγός). The word appears here and elsewhere to describe the condition of slaves in the Roman world. Such slaves were the property of their masters and were required to do whatever their masters told them to do. If they failed to do their master’s bidding, the master could use coercive violence to compel them to do the task at hand. In Roman slavery, a master had the power of life and death over his slave. The master could take his slave’s life if he so desired because his slave was his property to do with as he pleased. At first glance, Paul’s words may appear to be an endorsement of human slavery, but they are not. Elsewhere, he states that slaves should pursue their own freedom if at all possible, and he also forbids free Christians from becoming slaves ( 1 Cor. 7:21–23 ). In this way, Paul seems to suggest that slavery is a sinful institution to be avoided. But in 1 Timothy 6:1–2 , Paul is not making a statement about systemic injustices and social inequality. Nor is he intending to offer a moral evaluation of the institution of slavery. Rather, he is instructing Christian slaves about how they are to follow Christ in the situation in which they find themselves. Faithfulness to Christ does not require slaves to mount an armed rebellion against their oppressors, nor does it require them to pursue a massive reformation of the institution of slavery. These kinds of opportunities were not available to slaves in the Greco-Roman world, and modern readers need to be careful not to read their own democratic expectations into the strictures of a first-century slave’s life. Paul seeks to spell out for the slaves in the congregation how they may remain faithful to Christ in a very difficult situation. Paul directs his command to slaves, those who are “under a yoke.” They must “honor” their masters. Commentators such as George Knight are correct to contend that “under a yoke” indicates an oppressive situation, one in which a slave is treated as little more than an ox with a yoke about his neck. Such language implies that Paul means to address slaves serving non-Christian masters in verse 1. These servants are to regard their masters as worthy of all honor. Paul does not say that such masters are worthy of all honor, only that the servant must treat this authority in his life as if  he were. Thus Christians who find themselves with an unbelieving authority over them are to serve that authority with respect. They are not allowed to disrespect or mistreat the authorities in their lives merely because they do not like them or because the masters do not believe as Christians do. On the contrary, Christians must honor unbelieving authorities precisely because Christians seek to persuade those authorities to believe the gospel. This does not mean that a slave must obey everything that human authorities tell them to do. As Paul makes clear elsewhere, human authorities are not ultimate ( Rom. 13:1–2 )—only God is. If a human authority instructs a Christian to do what God forbids, or forbids a Christian from doing what God commands, the Christian must defy that authority, as Peter and the other apostles did when they said, “We must obey God rather than men” ( Acts 5:29 ). But when it is possible to follow human authority without breaking God’s law, Christians are to do all they can to honor that person’s position, “so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.” The “name of God” is his reputation; the “teaching” is the gospel. These Christian slaves must not give any occasion for unbelievers to disrespect God or ignore his gospel. When a slave renders difficult obedience, he presents a powerful testimony that can serve as a compelling witness to his master. He images forth the very suffering that Christ himself underwent ( 1 Pet. 2:18–21 ). The Bible and Slavery Some people read this text and believe that because Paul tells slaves to honor their masters, he must be endorsing slavery. But is this view correct? The answer is no,for several reasons. 1. Telling someone to submit to an authority does not imply that the authority is morally approved. God told the Israelites to seek the good of the city while they lived under the authority of Babylon, as all the while God planned to destroy Babylon for its wickedness. Peter tells wives to submit to a husband’s authority, even those who “do not obey the word” (1 Pet. 3:1–2 ). He also instructs Christians to submit to governing authorities, even if those authorities are persecuting them ( 1 Peter 2 ). God condemns any exercise of authority that is contrary to his holy will. And there were many elements of both Roman slavery and American slavery that were against God’s law. Treating persons as property without recognizing their dignity as image-bearers of Almighty God is sinful and is condemned everywhere in the Bible. And yet that feature was endemic to both Roman and American slavery. So telling someone to submit to an authority cannot automatically be an endorsement of the one wielding that authority. 2. The Bible often condemns the means by which slaves were taken as slaves. In the first century, slavery was not race-based, as it was in the American South. People were taken as slaves through a number of means, including warfare, piracy, highway robbery, infant exposure, and punishment of criminals. In all of this, the issue of kidnapping persons in order to enslave them was always prevalent. What does the Bible say about kidnapping? In 1 Timothy 1:10 , the apostle Paul says that kidnapping or manstealing is against God’s law. Most interpreters recognize that this manstealing was for the purpose of slavery. This is why the ESV translates the relevant term as “enslavers” (cf. ESV mg.). The background for Paul’s command is the OT law, which states, “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death” ( Ex. 21:16 ). Who is to be put to death? The one who takes the man and the one who holds him. This is significant, for some have made the case that while the Bible does condemn slave trading, it does not condemn slave holding . If this view were correct, there would not necessarily have been any moral problem with Christians owning slaves in the American South before and during the Civil War. But Exodus 21:16  says that both the kidnapping and the enslavement  are punishable by death. And this is the background for Paul’s own thinking about the matter in 1 Timothy. The entire system of Southern slavery was based on kidnapping persons from Africa. The slave-traders stuffed these Africans into ship holds, where they suffered and died by the thousands. That slave trade was an abomination. And it is fallacious to suggest that the slaveholders were not morally implicated in the slave trade. One cannot defend those who participated in the slave trade, nor can one defend those slave owners who created the market for manstealing. So the Bible definitely condemns the means by which slaves were taken as slaves—especially kidnapping, which was punishable by death. 3. The New Testament forbids Christians from using coercive violence against slaves. Ephesians 6:9  states, “Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.” At the very least, this text confirms that there were Christian slave owners in NT times. Yet Paul says that the slave owners were not allowed to threaten their slaves with violence. And obviously, if they were not allowed to threaten with violence, they were not allowed to do violence against their slaves. It may have been permissible under Roman law for a master to abuse or even kill his slave, but it was not permissible under God’s law to do such things. Some might call that slavery in some sense, but what kind of slavery is it that does not allow the master to coerce his slave through violence? It is certainly not Roman slavery. Nor is it like slavery in the American South. 4. The New Testament commands Christians to treat slaves like brothers. When Paul writes to the slave owner Philemon about his runaway slave Onesimus, he tells him to receive Onesimus “no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother. . . . If you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me” (Philem. 16–17). What kind of slavery is it that tells a master to give up threatening and totreat his slave like his brother? Again, this is not Roman slavery, or slavery as inthe American South. So the Bible does not endorse either of those types of slavery.This is something else entirely. And this is why slavery cannot continue where thekingdom of God holds sway. The Bible completely undermines all of the definingfeatures of slavery: kidnapping, coercive violence, and the treatment of people asproperty rather as brothers created in the image of God. 5. The Bible encourages slaves to get out of slavery if they can. First Corinthians 7:21  says, “Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.)” If the Bible were endorsing slavery, it would not tell slaves to take opportunities to become free. Yet that is exactly what Paul does. 6. The Bible forbids Christians from voluntarily entering into slavery. First Corinthians 7:23  states, “You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.” This command could not be clearer. If the Bible were endorsing slavery, it would not forbid Christians from becoming slaves. 7. The Bible condemns racism. As mentioned above, slavery in the NT was not race-based. But slavery in the American South was. The Bible forbids treating others as less than human because of their race. God created humans in his own image—all humans—not just white or black or any other racial group. Because of that, every person—not just some people—has inherent dignity and worth as an image-bearer of Almighty God. For this reason, the diversity of races is not an evil to be abolished but a glory to be celebrated. God intends to gather worshipers for himself from every “tribe and language and people and nation” ( Rev. 5:9 ). And we know that in Christ “there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all” ( Col. 3:11 ). In conclusion, the Bible does not endorse slavery nor the evils inherent in slavery. On the contrary, it abolishes them in the name of Jesus. Although the gospel of Jesus Christ does not command us to take up arms in violent revolution to abolish slavery, it does introduce a new kingdom into the world that will one day overthrow all unjust authorities. And we are called as the church to be an outpost of that coming kingdom. Wherever the church goes, slavery must flee, because the kingdom of Christ will not abide unjust authorities. When the critics assail Scripture, they often make confident assertions about things about which they know very little ( 1 Tim. 1:7 ). In this case, when they rail against the Bible’s alleged endorsement of slavery, they are misrepresenting what the Bible actually teaches. Every word of God is pure and good and wise and right for us—including what he says to us about those under the yoke. This article is by Denny Burk and is adapted from   ESV Expository Commentary: Isaiah–Ezekiel (Volume 6) .

Jesus Can’t Be Penitent If the Psalms give a window into the human emotions and affections of Jesus Christ, we must ask what we are to understand when the psalmists express repentance for sins. Can Jesus Christ be thought to have prayed these prayers? The obvious answer is no because Jesus Christ is without sin ( John 8:46 ; Heb. 4:15 ); he has no sin to confess and no need for forgiveness. Perhaps, we think, we should say that Jesus does not and cannot pray these expressions of penitence. There are, however, three factors that may give us pause for thought. The first factor  is that confessions of sin are woven into the fabric of the Psalms in such a way that it is not easy to excise them. Even when the socalled penitential psalms have been excluded ( Pss. 6; 32; 38; 51; 102; 130; 143 ), we are left with penitence in a number of other places. Examples include (1) Psalm 19:12–14  (where “errors,” “hidden faults,” and “presumptuous sins” are admitted at least as possibilities); (2) Psalm 25:7, 11 , and 18 (“Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions”; “Pardon my guilt, for it is great”; and “Forgive all my sins”); (3) Psalm 39:8  (“Deliver me from all my transgressions”); and (4) corporately, Psalm 90:7–11  (“our iniquities” and “our secret sins” vis-à-vis “your anger” and “your wrath”). The removal of penitence leaves the fabric of many psalms in shreds. The second factor  is that sometimes part of a psalm may be quoted by or echoed of Jesus in the New Testament, while another part of the same psalm expresses penitence. Psalms 6, 31, 40 , and 41 are striking examples. Psalm 6  (traditionally the first of the penitential psalms) begins with an awareness of the anger and wrath of God and a deep sorrow for sins (6:1–7), but it continues—in words strongly echoed by Jesus in Matthew 7:23  and Luke 13:27 —with David telling the wicked to “depart from me.” It is unnatural to suppose that Jesus simply speaks the rebuke of Psalm 6:8  but does not voice the sorrow for sins of 6:1–7. In Luke 23:46  Jesus speaks the words of Psalm 31:5  from the cross (“Into your hand I commit my spirit”), and yet the same psalm has the clause “My strength fails because of my iniquity” ( Ps. 31:10 ). It is awkward to suppose that Jesus speaks the words of 31:5 but not the remainder of the psalm. The words of Psalm 40:6–8  are quoted on the lips of Jesus in Hebrews 10:5–7  (“When Christ came into the world, he said . . .”). And yet in Psalm 40:12 , David says, “My iniquities have overtaken me.” Again, it feels artificial to hear Psalm 40:6–8  on the lips of Jesus but to exclude Psalm 40:12 . A verse from Psalm 41  is applied by Jesus to his betrayal by Judas Iscariot (“Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me,” Ps. 41:9 ; see John 13:18 ). And yet in Psalm 41:4 , David says, “I have sinned against you.” Again, there is something arbitrary about supposing that David is a type of Christ in Psalm 41:9  but not in the whole of the psalm. The third factor  is the deeply theological theme that from the very start of his life on earth, and emphatically from the beginning of his public ministry, the shadow of our sins fell on Jesus. Perhaps we see this most clearly when he submits to a baptism of repentance under the ministry of John the Baptist, in order to fulfill all righteousness ( Matt. 3:13–15 ). He was “numbered with the transgressors” ( Isa. 53:12 ) long before the climax, when he who knew no sin became sin for us ( 2 Cor. 5:21 ). The shadow of that terrible identification with sinners fell on Jesus long before the cross—certainly from the start of his public ministry. As the Heidelberg Catechism expresses it, “During his whole life on earth, but especially at the end, Christ sustained in body and soul the wrath of God against . . . sin.” Jesus Speaks as Our Covenant Head The combination of these three factors makes us wonder whether in some way Jesus can speak words of penitence in the Psalms as our covenant head to whom the sins of his people are imputed. Let me support and illustrate this argument from three modern writers. The first is the nineteenth-century Free Church of Scotland minister Hugh Martin (1822–1885). In his profound meditations on Gethsemane (published in 1875), Martin explores what it meant for our sins to be imputed to Jesus. With the letter to the Hebrews, he sees Jesus saying to the Father, in the words of Psalm 40:7–8  (quoting the KJV), “Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me; I delight to do thy will, O my God.” But he then quotes from a few verses later in the same psalm and writes that Jesus in Gethsemane “exclaims also, as one heavily laden with accumulated sins, and trembling, ashamed, and self-doomed because of them—‘Innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold of me so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs on my head, therefore my heart faileth me’ ( Psa 40:12  [KJV]).” Martin goes on to write this: In forming a judgment of the sorrow and anguish which the imputation of sin to the holy Jesus must have caused, there is a vexing fallacy to be guarded against. We are ready to suppose that however hard and terrible to bear must have been the wrath and death which were the wages of the sins for which he suffered, yet the imputation of these sins to him could have, in itself, cost him little anxiety, or caused him little sorrow, in the consciousness that he was not personally guilty of them—the consciousness of his own unsullied holiness. Martin then points out that even the malicious and untrue accusations that people made against Jesus caused him great sorrow. And yet these were simply from people and were false. How much more, he reasons, when “God imputed to him—the Father whom he infinitely loved—the Judge whom he infinitely revered as one who could not do but what is right—reckoned him among transgressors.” He repudiates and denies the accusations of people (e.g., John 8:48–49 ). But he admits that the Father’s imputation of sins to him is completely righteous, “the proposal of infinitely righteous love and wisdom—the product and decree of divine Triune counsels from everlasting.” “True,” he continues, “the sins which were charged upon him were not his own, but they were so laid upon him and so became his, that he could not merely endure, but accept as righteous, the penalty which they entailed.” Indeed, “the sins themselves had first been made his—verily, really his—to every effect save that alone of impairing his unspotted personal holiness and perfection.” They were “his to cause him grief and sorrow inconceivable in their imputation.” “True,” Martin admits, they were not personally his own; and so they were not his to bring self-accusation, self-contempt, despondency, remorse, despair. But they were his sufficiently to induce upon his holy soul a shame, humiliation, sorrow—yea, sore amazement—as he stood at his Father’s tribunal, accountable for more than child of man shall ever account for unto eternity! Martin writes as one who knows he stands on holy ground. But he helps us begin to grasp what it might have meant for Jesus to speak in the language of the Psalms weighed down by the burden of sins. More briefly, Dietrich Bonhoeffer asks, “How can the sinless one ask for forgiveness?” He answers, In the same way that the sinless one can bear the sins of the world and be made sin for us ( 2 Cor. 5:21 ). Jesus prays for the forgiveness of sins, yet not for his own but ours, which he has taken upon himself and for which he suffers. He puts himself completely in our place; he wants to be a human being before God as we are. So Jesus prays even the most human of all prayers with us and, precisely in this, shows himself to be the true Son of God. Graeme Goldsworthy similarly writes, “In being made sin for us ( 2 Cor. 5:21 ), Jesus takes our place by accepting the role of evildoer for us, and defines the true nature of sin and the wrath of God upon it. There is, therefore, no aspect of the Psalms in the Old Testament that does not point to Jesus and find its ultimate meaning in him.” Despite being himself without sin, Jesus was so deeply identified with his people that he can speak these words as our covenant head. Now he leads us in expressing our sorrow for sins, our confession of sins, and our penitent turning from sins. In my view the most comprehensively biblical answer to this question is that Jesus our covenant head confesses the sins of his people in the penitential psalms and now leads us in repenting of our sins today. Jesus prays for the forgiveness of sins, yet not for his own but ours, which he has taken upon himself and for which he suffers. This article is adapted from   The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary   by Christopher Ash.

The Ultimate Purpose of the Atonement Is the Glory of the Father Before determining for whom Christ died, it is necessary first to establish the ultimate purpose of his death. Doing so provides a starting point for evaluating other purposes and benefits of Christ’s death as stated in Scripture. According to the Synoptics and Johannine Literature, the ultimate purpose of Christ’s death is to display the glory of God definitively. The Son glorifies the Father by doing the work of the Father, which is to accomplish effectively the salvation of those whom the Father gave him. The Gospels repeatedly emphasize that everything Christ does is for the glory of the Father. According to John 1:14 , a result of the incarnation is that “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” By alluding to Exodus 33–34 , John asserts that the same glory displayed to Moses is now visible in the incarnate Word. Just a few verses later John further explains that this same Word in the flesh “has made him [God] known” ( John 1:18 ). The Greek verb used here ( ἐξηγέομαι ) means “to provide detailed information in a systematic manner—‘to inform, to relate, to tell fully.’” The stunning point that John makes is that, as the Word-made-flesh, Jesus Christ is the fullest revelation of God. As such, John intends the reader to see that everything that Jesus says and does is a manifestation of God’s glory. Once Judas leaves to betray him, Jesus says to his remaining disciples, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once.” By sending the betrayer off, Jesus sets in motion the chain of events that will lead to the ultimate expression of God’s glory—his sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection. Thus the ultimate sign that displays God’s glory is the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. Doing the Work of the Father Scripture does more than simply present the death of Jesus as glorifying the Father—it sets his death within the larger framework of the Son glorifying the Father by accomplishing the work that the Father gave him to do before he ever took on flesh. The Son agrees to display the glory of the Father by redeeming the people that the Father gave to him. As a result, these redeemed people will participate in the intra-Trinitarian communion shared by the Father and the Son from all eternity. Several passages in the Johannine literature describe this agreement. Let’s consider a particularly important one in the Bread of Life Discourse ( John 6:22–58 ), where Jesus explains the work that the Father gave him to do. After identifying himself as the Bread of Life, Jesus asserts, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. . . . No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. ( John 6:37–40, 44 ) Several times in this section Jesus emphasizes that he has come down from heaven to accomplish the will of the Father. From this passage, the plan established by the Father and the Son may be summarized as follows: (1) the Father gives a specific group of people to the Son; (2) the Son comes down from heaven to do the Father’s will; (3) the Father’s will is for the Son to lose none of them but raise them on the last day; (4) these people come to the Son by looking on him and believing; (5) the Son gives them eternal life; (6) the Son will raise them on the last day; and (7) no one can come to the Son unless the Father who sent the Son draws them. Thus it is the Father’s election of a specific group of people that defines who comes to the Son and is raised on the last day. This progression seriously undermines the contention that “the decree of election is logically after the decree of atonement, where also, in fact, it belongs in the working out of the application of salvation. That is to say, the atonement is general, its application particular.” According to John 6:37–44 , the Father does not plan to send the Son to save everyone, and then only elect some, knowing that apart from such an election none would believe. Such a contention suggests that redemption circumscribes election; in other words, God’s general beneficence to all of mankind ultimately drives the atonement, and election is necessary only because without it none would believe. But John 6  indicates that the Father gives a specific group of people to the Son for whom he then  comes to die in order to give them eternal life. Particularism attends the planning and the making of the atonement, not just its application. Thus it is election that circumscribes the atonement, not the other way around. Jesus Died to Accomplish the Salvation of His People Complementary to the first point, there are many texts that specify that Jesus died for a particular group of people who are described in various ways. Matthew indicates from the very beginning of his Gospel that the work of Jesus is for his people. The angel of the Lord tells Joseph that Mary “will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” ( Matt. 1:21 ). More than simply explaining the etymology of Jesus’s name, the angelic announcement indicates that the salvation which Jesus will accomplish is specifically for his people. The remainder of Matthew fleshes out the identity of “his people,” often with surprising results. Two passages in particular are crucial for determining the referent of “his people.” Matthew 20:28 Shortly before his final entry into Jerusalem, Jesus responds to the request of James and John for special places of honor in the Messianic kingdom ( Matt. 20:20–28 ). In contrasting greatness in the kingdom with greatness in this age, Jesus points to his own example when he states that “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many [ ἀντὶ πολλῶν ]” ( Matt. 20:28 ). Although it is possible to take “many” as synonymous with “all,” there are reasons to see a narrower reference. First, Jesus likely echoes the language of Isaiah 52:13–53:12 , where the Servant dies on behalf of the many. Within that passage, “the many” ( οἱ πολλοί  [LXX]) refers to those to whom the saving work of the Servant is actually applied, including not only Jews but “many nations” ( Isa. 52:15 ) as well. Second, the language of ransom ( λύτρον ) indicates the payment of a specific price (Jesus’s life) for the release of a specific people (many). His life is given in exchange for ( ἀντί ) that of the many, not for all without exception. Matthew 26:28 During the Last Supper ( Matt. 26:26–29 ), Jesus offers the cup to his disciples and explains, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” ( Matt. 26:28 ). Just as the sprinkling of blood sealed a particular people in the old covenant ( Ex. 24:1–8 ), so here the inauguration of the new covenant requires Jesus to shed his blood for a particular people. That particular people is the “many” for whom Jesus gives his life as a ransom ( Matt. 20:28 ). The combination of “many” and “forgiveness of sins” here in Matthew 26:28  forges a link back to the angelic announcement in Matthew 1:21  that Jesus “will save his people from their sins.” Furthermore, this combination likely alludes again to the work of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 . Thus “his people” in Matthew 1:21  is further clarified by the “many” in Matthew 20:28  and Matthew 26:28  for whom Jesus dies to forgive their sins. As the fulfillment of the OT hope, Jesus seals the new covenant by ransoming a particular people from their bondage to sin through his death and resurrection. These texts emphasize Jesus dying for a particular group of people rather than for humanity in general. Regardless of whether the term used is “many” or “his people,” the point remains the same: Jesus gave his life as a ransom for the eschatological people of God, composed of Jews and Gentiles who believe in him. Johannine Literature We find the same kind of particularist statements in the Johannine literature. But unlike the Synoptics, John also includes numerous statements about God’s election of a particular people to receive the benefits of Jesus’s death. In addition to John 6 , which was treated above, the following passages are particularly significant. In John 10:11–18 , Jesus presents himself as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep ( John 10:11 ). Jesus further describes these sheep as “my own,” who know him “just as the Father knows me and I know the Father” ( John 10:15 ). But who are these sheep? They are the eschatological people of God, drawn from Jew and Gentile alike ( John 10:16 ). The religious leaders do not believe because they are not part of Jesus’s flock ( John 10:26 ). By contrast, Jesus’s sheep hear his voice, follow him, and are given eternal life ( John 10:27–28 ). They are his sheep because the Father gave them to the Son ( John 10:29 ). Notice that Jesus does not say that the religious leaders are not part of his flock because they do not believe. Rather, Jesus makes it clear that the unbelief of the religious leaders is an outworking of the fact that they are not his sheep. From this passage we see that Jesus’s sheep are a particular set of people that exist before they exercise faith in him, and that those who are not part of that divinely selected group do not believe (cf. John 8:47 ). As the Good Shepherd, Jesus lays down his life for a particular group of people (his sheep) in distinction from others (those who are not his sheep). John even describes Jesus’s enemies as testifying that his death was directed toward a particular group of people. In the wake of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, the Sanhedrin meets in an emergency session to discuss what to do about Jesus ( John 11:47–53 ). The high priest Caiaphas argues that “it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish” ( John 11:50 ). John goes on to explain that Caiaphas was unwittingly prophesying “that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” ( John 11:51–52 ). Whereas Caiaphas clearly means that the death of Jesus would spare the Jewish people from trouble with Rome, John sees the theological significance of the statement. Jesus’s death is for “the nation” (i.e., the Jewish people) as well as others who must be gathered into the united children of God. Following on the heels of the discussion of Jesus’s sheep in chapter 10, we should understand this as a reiteration of the idea that the true people of God, composed of Jew and Gentile alike, are the people for whom Jesus dies. As Jesus prepares his disciples for his impending death, he once again stresses that it is for a particular group of people. After commanding his disciples to love one another as he has loved them ( John 15:12 ), Jesus describes the nature of his love: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” ( John 15:13 ). Just as the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, so here Jesus lays down his life for his friends out of love for them. This particular love for his friends is grounded in divine election: “You did not choose me, but I chose you” ( John 15:16 ). Summary This collection of texts, drawn primarily from the Johannine writings and supported by texts in the Synoptic Gospels as well, demonstrates that when Jesus lived, died, rose, ascended, and interceded, he did so for a particular group of people. This group is variously referred to as his people, the church, the many, his sheep, the children of God, and his friends. They are the ones whom the Father has given to the Son before he came to earth, and whom the Father draws so that they come to the Son, who then grants them eternal life. Drawn from every tribe and language and people and nation, they are the sheep for whom the Good Shepherd lays down his life and who will share in the intra-Trinitarian love and glory. The Son glorifies the Father by doing the work of the Father, which is to accomplish effectively the salvation of those whom the Father gave him.   This article is by Matthew S. Harmon and is adapted from   From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective   edited by David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson .

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Deuteronomy 8:1-4 When God provided the miraculous manna, he provided just enough. The description’s pretty precise. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered a little had enough. Then he gave them a curious command: “No one is to keep any of it until morning” ( Exodus 16:19 ). Why would God forbid leftovers? What’s wrong with taking a little initiative and gathering enough manna for a couple days or weeks? Here’s my take on the manna miracle: The manna was a daily reminder of their daily dependence on God. God wanted to cultivate their daily dependence by providing for their needs on a daily basis. Nothing’s changed. We want a one-week or one-month or one-year supply of God’s provision, but God wants us to drop to our knees every day in raw dependence on him. And God knows that if he provided too much too soon, we’d lose our spiritual hunger. He knows we’d stop trusting in our Provider and start trusting in the provision. Spiritual maturity is often confused with independence. It’s the exact opposite. The goal is codependence on God. God didn’t design us to “grow up” and be independent from him. Our desire for self-sufficiency is a subtle expression of our sinful nature. It’s a desire to get to a place where we don’t need God, don’t need faith, don’t need a local church home, and don’t need to pray. We want God to provide more so we need him less. That’s just not the way it’s supposed to work. Drawn from the NIV Bible for Teen Guys . Article from The Circle Maker Student Edition by Mark Batterson with Parker Batterson, copyright © 2012 by Mark Batterson, published by Zondervan.

Living in this broken world, people know defeat all too well. Everyone has experienced a relationship where someone let them down, or a situation that didn’t work out the way they hoped. These moments of disappointment or frustration reveal the tragic fact that this world is deeply flawed. Even though believers live in the hope of the resurrection and the victorious life that Jesus promises through his Spirit, he still calls us to live in this world, where we experience death, brokenness, mourning and pain (in contrast to the coming kingdom: Revelation 21:4 ). Jesus’ resurrection reveals to believers the true way to life. Those who think that the abundant life consists of finding one’s way around suffering and hardship have a misguided perception of what Jesus promised. Jesus’ life and example teach that the way to a full life consists of service, hardship, opposition, pain and suffering. Believers look at Jesus’ life and see that God’s best plan for his Son was to stay close to him through the most unimaginable of circumstances. The New Testament shows many times over that God was with his Son until the end, when Jesus took our sin upon himself and suffered on the cross. But the good news is God didn’t leave his Son in the grave! Because Jesus submitted to the point of death, and then defeated death, he paved the way for all people to find eternal life. By submitting himself to death, Jesus found life. “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it” ( Mark 8:35 ). It’s only in surrendering to his will and his way that believers actually find the fullness of life as God intended it. In all of this, Jesus is victorious. He was, is, and will always be undefeated by sin, by death and by the grave. His victory is found in the fact that he was, and is, a selfless servant. In graciously giving his life, he also created a pathway to the life that is truly life eternal. Drawn from The Jesus Bible, NIV .

Shepherds: They appear in surprising places throughout the Old Testament. Beginning with Adam and Eve’s son Abel, who kept flocks of sheep, these biblical shepherds appear not just out in the fields, but in royal palaces as well. Jacob the patriarch started with nothing back in his grandfather’s homeland, but he built enormous wealth through his clever care of sheep and goats (Genesis 30:25-43). Moses was a prince in Egypt before he was driven into exile. Later, he was tending his father-in-law’s flock deep in the wilderness when God appeared to him (Exodus 3). God called Moses to lead Israel out of their suffering in Egypt, shepherding them to their new home. David was, by his own account, a ferocious protector of his sheep, rescuing them from a lion and a bear (1 Samuel 17:33-37). The elders of Israel said to him, “And the LORD your God said to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler’” (1 Chronicles 11:1-2). On the other end of the spectrum, King Ahab worshiped any god but the God of Israel, and he married Jezebel, a princess from Sidon who led Israel far away from worshiping the true God (1 Kings 16—22). In a tragic encounter, the prophet Micaiah uses shepherd imagery to foretell Ahab’s death in battle: “I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the Lord said, ‘These people have no master. Let each one go home in peace’” 1 Kings 22:17). So many key biblical leaders were either actual shepherds or were seen as shepherds of God’s people. But the kings, like Ahab, strayed far from the ways of King David and the heart of God. The prophet Ezekiel lived in Babylon among the exiles from Judah. In Ezekiel 34, he offers an indictment of the leaders who were still in Jerusalem: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them (Ezekiel 34:2-6). What a bleak picture of the leaders entrusted to care for God’s people! Brokenhearted, God declares through Ezekiel: “I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep” (Ezekiel 34:11-12). Can you hear echoes of this glorious Old Testament promise in these New Testament passages? When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things (Mark 6:34). “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesnʼt he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” (Luke 15:4). “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). These moments from Jesus’ life show that He is nothing like the bad kings or bad shepherds from the Old Testament. Instead, He is fulfilling God’s promise to search for, heal, and provide for lost sheep everywhere. And who was more fit to bear witness to the birth of our good Shepherd than the lowly shepherds out in the fields of Bethlehem? And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:8-12). During all seasons of life, let us remember and celebrate that, in King Jesus, God has kept His promise to rescue and care for His sheep. He is the good Shepherd that we need. By John Dunham, Translation Technology Operations at Biblica.