Month: April 2022

Lent 2022 | Day 28: Teach

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is the closing of chapter 7 of the Gospel of Matthew. As the final words concluding Jesus’s sermon on the Mount. What Matthew captures for us is the feeling of the people as they reflect on Jesus’s teaching to them.

28 and when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

Matthew 7:28-29 ESV

What was it about Jesus’s teaching that was so different from that of the scribes? On the surface, it is difficult to say exactly what it was. But I would guess that Jesus’s willingness to speak about difficult things with confidence and without hesitation was one of the clearest differences the people could notice. We know that because Jesus is God he spoke with the authority that only God can have. But the people at the time would not have known that. So what they saw had to of been something anyone could have seen.

The power of Jesus’s words can still be felt today. One of the principal reasons is because of the way Jesus’s words cut through to the heart of the topic under discussion. On more than one occasion Jesus was told that his sayings were difficult to accept. Not that they were difficult to understand. It was precisely because the people understood what Jesus was asking that made the sayings so hard.

This is one of the key attributes of faithful teaching. It is something we should look for in those to whom we submit for instruction. Good teaching is not about growing in the quantity of information we can accumulate. Good teaching produces in the listener the desire to be transformed into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. This is how we know if we are growing. That when we hear teaching that calls us to a deeper obedience to Christ and a more consistent faithfulness to God we accept the challenge offered by such a teaching.

Over the course of the last few weeks, we have strived to speak to a variety of topics that may be taken for granted. Where we do not think to consider them as we could. God can oftentimes be most easily missed in the simple and ordinary moments of life. This is why we need times like the season of Lent to slow us down and see we can look again with fresh eyes where God may be active in our lives.

Over the next few days, we will continue our journey towards Easter morning. I would encourage you to maybe take a look at some of the previous devotional thoughts and think again about what it would look like to become more aware of that particular subject.

You can find all the Series Posts by clicking on the link below.

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Lent 2022 | Day 27: Write

“Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it.”

Habakkuk 2:2 ESV

In the verse above found in the book of the prophet Habakkuk, there is a moment when God instructs the prophet to write the vision he has given to him.

The purpose of the instruction has two parts. The first is to make the meaning of the vision plain. God did not desire for those who read what the prophet wrote to be confused about what he intended for them to do. Even though the mind of God is beyond our ability to apprehend God has chosen to speak and reveal himself to us. And he has chosen to do so in ways we can understand. This gracious act by God is one we oftentimes take for granted.

The Scriptures serve as a clear example of God’s desire for us to know what God wants us to know. When we do not avail ourselves to this revelation from God we do so to our own detriment. This does not mean the Scriptures are easy to understand. There are challenges to reading it and understanding it properly. But these challenges are the same that can be found in any book in the rest of the world. Not because the Bible was written BY men. But because the Bible was written FOR men. Therefore God used the same means of producing the Scriptures as any other book would need in order to be interacted with by other men.

The second part of asking the prophet to write the vision was to ensure the correct response was elicited by those who read it. When God speaks it is not merely the transfer of information from his mind to ours. God has taken the time to codify his word in such a way that we can return to it again and again. And as we return we see with new eyes what has been there from the beginning. This is one of the most remarkable attributes of the Scriptures. It is one of the characteristics that sets it apart from any other written book in the history of humanity.

This very practical admonition by God to the prophet can serve as instruction for us today. We too often think we can remember everything God has shown to us through his word. But that is not the case. The human mind is not designed to hold all that information at one time. But God has given us a way of recording our thoughts so that we may return back to them and consider them over and over again. If you do not have a habit of making notes as you read Scripture I would encourage you to do so whether it is with pen and paper or in a digital app on an electronic device. I would encourage you to begin to do so.

We would do well to remember God’s love toward us in giving us his word in written form. But God went one step further. That step was to send the living word to the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. When Jesus walked upon the earth it was the very word of God walking and talking among men and women. This fact is so mind-blowing in its implications that it is difficult to even begin to describe it adequately.

In a little over a week, we will celebrate again the glorious resurrection of Jesus from the grave. One of the reasons we can celebrate is because we have a written record that we can return to. I thank God for his wisdom in providing us a written record to consult and engage with. It is one of God’s greatest gifts to us as his people.

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