Combating the Yeast of False Teaching - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Mathew 16:6,

"'Be careful,' Jesus said to them [his disciples]. 'Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.'"

Later in verse 12 we learn that Jesus, in the above verse, was warning his disciples to guard themselves against the faulty teachings of the religious leaders of the day, the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Today we have the same concerns. In that there are so many different denominations, sects, -isms and schisms in the body of Christ with conflicting doctrine and teachings, Jesus' words here are as important as ever.

How do we guard ourselves against faulty teachings? In that Jesus used the metaphor of "yeast" for the faulty teachings of the religious leaders of his day, we understand that faulty or false teaching has the inherent ability to grow throughout a group, infecting the group as it grows, just as yeast does in a batch of bread dough.

Paul provides us help here. "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

We can guard ourselves against the yeast of false teaching by studying the Scriptures.  Never let anyone (including me!) take you where you have not gone first in the Bible! It is the Bible that has God's stamp of authority. It is the Bible that provides us truthful teaching. It is the Bible we can go to in order to learn of God and the things of God!

The Bible can protect us from the yeast of false teaching. Open it today and discover the truth on all kinds of things!

A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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Jesus Offended! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Matthew 15:12-14,

"Then the disciples came to him and asked, 'Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?' He replied, 'Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.'"

The "do-gooders" (we have all kinds of those today!) came to Jesus to complain to Jesus about his disciples not following their definition of a high and lofty lifestyle they peddled about as that which would please God. Why, yes! Of course they thought they had the market on superior religious practices. After all, were not these Pharisees and teachers of the law the "religious elites" of their day?

Jesus simply called them hypocrites to their face and quoted Isaiah 29:13 where the Lord says, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules." What an appropriate message for so many today!

Next in Matthew are the verses quoted above. The Son of God had no use for them, only scorn. When his disciples pointed out to Jesus that he had offended them, he had no concern for their snowflake feelings.

Jesus offended! In pursuit of his own agenda, the hurt feelings of others held absolutely no sway with him.

Is this how Jesus is portrayed in many churches today? Far from the milquetoast pastel-colored fuzzball I have had offered to me on so many occasions, I find the Messiah in the Scriptures to be something else altogether. The lamb of God sacrificed on the cross turns out to be the "Lion of the tribe of Judah"! Revelation 5:5.

A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

Focus on Jesus, Not Circumstances - Ruminating in the Word of God

"The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Matthew 14:29-31,

"Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, 'Lord, save me!' Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. 'You of little faith,' he said, 'why did you doubt?'"

At one point, Jesus walked out on the water to his disciples, whom he had sent ahead of him in a boat. Seeing Jesus walking on the water, Peter yelled over to him to let him walk on the water to go out to him. Jesus said to come and Peter, ever impetuous, got out and walked on the water to Jesus.

As these things actually happened as described to us, it is simply astonishing! The Son of God violating his own laws that govern the order of his physical creation! As we all know, the law of specific gravity prevents us from walking on water. I did my quarter mile at the YMCA pool this morning and I can tell you I didn't do it by walking on the water, I had to do it the old fashioned way - by swimming!

I think many of us are well-versed in this account and are familiar with what happened. Peter allowed the storm they were fighting against in the boat to frighten him and he began to sink in the water. The Lord fished him out and asked "why did you doubt?"

It is a reminder to me that amazing things can happen when I place my faith and trust in the Lord and what it is he is doing. It is also a reminder to me that when I take my eyes off the Lord and allow the circumstances around me to begin to impinge on my trust in him, those otherwise wonderful things he brings in my life just may begin to sink. It happened to Peter and I'm quite sure I could not expect anything different.

"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." Colossians 3:1-3.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

A Storeroom of Old and New Treasure! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Matthew 13:52,

"Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old."

Following a series of parables concerning the kingdom of heaven, Jesus made this comment. The teachers of the law would have been those who taught the folks what the Scriptures had to say. From this vantage point, the Scriptures would have included only what we have in what we call the "Old Testament". Newly inspired writings would be coming shortly and so Jesus' statement here causes me to think of the importance of both the books contained in the Old Testament as well as the 26 in the New Testament.

As Paul pointed out to Timothy (in the midst of the production of the newly inspired writings of the New Testament), it is all of the books of the sacred library we call our Bible that prepare us for all we need to be in our life in Christ, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

I am reminded that all of Scripture is important. It is there, provided for us through the Holy Spirit because we need it. All sixty-six books are inspired, authoritative, and importantly, intentional - God intends us to use them to become what he wants us to  be.

Just as we would be spiritually malnourished if we only ever read the four gospels, and none of Paul's writings or the general epistles, so we would be not getting all we need if we neglected Moses' writings, or David's or the prophets of old.

Spiritual treasure is to be had in all of Scripture - Genesis through Revelation. A storeroom of treasure to appropriate to equip us for all things!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

The Artful, Skillful and Precise Master Manipulator! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Matthew 12:18-21,

"Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out,
till he has brought justice through to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope."

As Jesus was healing all who were ill in a crowd that followed him, he warned them not to tell others about him. Just previous to this Jesus had healed a man with a shrived hand publicly in a synagogue and after the Pharisees witnessed it, and went to plot how to kill Jesus, he left and went to the place where he healed those ill in the crowd. Matthew cites this as a fulfillment of Isaiah 42:1-4.

Isaiah 42 is a prophetic message about the "servant" of the Lord who will bring justice "to the nations."  The servant, of course, is Jesus and he both proclaimed justice as well as brought justice. I note that as he did so, he did it on his own terms in a very calculated way. At times he would withdraw from people, other times he intentionally brought together a crowd, as when he did so at the sermon on the mount. At times he would publicly perform miracles, as when he healed the paralyzed man brought to him on a mat, while at other times, like here, he warned those he healed not to tell others. It seems to me the part of Isaiah 42 where the servant will not be heard in the streets are these occasions like this one where Jesus tells those he healed not to tell others about him.

It is not difficult to see that Jesus was a master manipulator of people. With precision he brought about events such they would culminate in the way he wanted. He artfully engineered his own death, his sacrifice on the cross to pay the penalty for sins for all mankind with precise skill.

With Jesus, nothing "just happened". Events and people were managed and manipulated by him as he carried out the work he came to do.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

Stumbling Because of Jesus - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Matthew 11:6,

"Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me."

John the baptist's disciples had gone to Jesus to verify he was the Messiah. After providing ample evidence he was, he closed his comments with the above statement.

Why would anyone possibly "stumble" because of Jesus?

Clearly, the stumbling he had in mind was the failure for anyone to achieve the singular ultimate priority this life has: to find our way from this life into eternal life. To not reach the life that awaits those who find God's favor in this age, resulting in inheriting all that will be ours in heaven, is the greatest stumble of all, the greatest failure possible in this life. There exists no greater failure, no greater stumble than this.

From the heart of God, the greatest expression of love than mankind can find is the sacrifice Jesus made of himself that we might inherit life in heaven. "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." 1 John 4:9-10.

Again I ask, why would anyone possibly "stumble" because of Jesus? He answered this question himself when Nicodemus had approached him, "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God." John 3:19-21.

Paul observes this when he referenced Isaiah 8:14 and 28:16 in Romans 9:33, "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame." There he points out that people who have hardened their hearts toward Jesus are unwilling to embrace him in faith, and do so with the mistaken notion that they can "do it on their own." And, of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

We are all sinners, incapable of being enough of a "do-gooder" to earn our way into the kingdom of heaven. If we could, why do you suppose Jesus allowed himself to be nailed to a cross?

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.

Degrees of Judgment - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Matthew 10:14-15,

"If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town."

The judgment of God is an horrific thing. In some passages it is called the day of the Lord, see Joel 2 and Zephaniah 1. Paul speaks of a "day when God judges people's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares." Romans 2:16.

What I find of interest is that when God's judgment comes, it comes in varying degrees. Jesus, in the above passage teaches that judgment will be worse for a town that reject his disciples' message of the kingdom of heaven than it will be for two cities that had given themselves over to pronounced debauchery and wickedness, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. See Genesis 19.

While I certainly do not know how and what these degrees of unbearability might be, it has to be frightening and horrific well beyond anything I would want to face.

This points to the grave importance that those who are exposed to the gospel message respond to it by embracing Jesus Christ in faith.

What a sobering consideration, the degrees of judgment that unbelievers face!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.