Tag: Bible studies

Should We Find Our Identities in Christ?

Should We Find Our Identities in Christ?

Marissa

Sometimes, as Christians, we hear and use phrases that sound good but aren’t actually in the Bible. Many common Christian phrases like “What would Jesus do?” are inspired by scriptures, but aren’t actually a quote from anywhere in the Bible. For phrases like this, we need to make sure that we’re not just using them because they sound good. We need to check if they’re actually backed up by the Bible. Sometimes they’re accurate according to scripture, and sometimes they’re not.

We talked about one example earlier this year: “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” This sounds like something from Proverbs, but it’s really from a 17th-century poem by Samuel Butler. In this case, the popular phrase distorts the meaning of similar (though not identical) Bible scriptures.

Another common phrase in modern Christianity is “find your identity in God” or “find our identity in Christ.” There is no scripture that tells us to do this exact thing; it’s not a quote from the Bible. That doesn’t necessarily make it inaccurate, but it does mean we need to check it out carefully and examine the underlying assumptions.

Based on the tagline for this blog (“Finding our true selves in the people God created us to be”), you can probably guess that I think finding our identity in God is a solid Biblical idea. But it is good to remain open to questioning our assumptions and being corrected by the Bible, particularly for topics like this where it’s not a quote from scripture. It’s good for us to study to prove whether our assumptions are right or wrong.

Image of people standing in a circle, holding hands to pray, overlaid with text from Genesis 1:27, NET version: “God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.”
Image by Matt Vasquez from Lightstock

What Does It Mean?

When someone says you should “find your identity in Christ,” what do they mean? Answering this question is a first-step toward checking if the phrase lines-up with scripture.

The word “identity” in this context means “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is” and “the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is” (Google/Oxford Languages definition). It’s about who you are and who you or others think you are. In today’s world, it’s become increasingly common to talk about how we identify ourselves. We’re told we can fill in the blank in, “I identify as …” however we want. People today want to determine their own identities.

In a Christian context, the phrase “find your identity in Christ” generally means a couple similar things. It means we should let God define who we are rather than listening to our own “I am” or the world’s “you are” statements. In other words, we believe what He says about us is true even (especially) when it contradicts what we might say about ourselves or what others say about us.

It can also mean becoming more and more like Jesus until His identity becomes our own. If identity is “who or what a person” is and “the characteristics determining” who they are, then having the same identity as Christ is just another way of saying we should become like Him. For the purposes of this post, we’ll operate on the assumption that “find your identity in Christ/God” means 1) believe the things God says about who you are, and 2) become like Jesus Christ. As we’ll see, both of those ideas do show up in the Bible.

Image of two hands, palms up, overlaid with text from Matt. 5:13, 14, NET version: "You are the salt of the earth. ... You are the light of the world."
Image by Who Is Like The Lord from Lightstock

What God Says About You

I’ve written about this topic before, but it’s worth revisiting in today’s context. There are many places in the Bible where God makes “you are” statements to His people or where God’s people make “I am” statements that we can identify with. From scripture, we know that we are (collectively) the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 2 Cor. 6:16-18) and we belong to Him (1 Cor. 6:19-21). God also describes us as people worth dying for (Rom. 5:8), as salt and light in this earth (Matt. 5:13-14), as called and chosen (1 Pet. 2:9), and as friends and siblings of Jesus Christ (John 15:14, Rom. 8:16-17). We are greatly loved and highly valued by both the Father and the Son (John 3:16; 15:13-14).

We can also look at examples of how God interacted with specific people to see how He encouraged them to redefine how they see themselves to line-up with how He saw them. Let’s consider Moses for a moment. When God appeared to him in the burning bush, He called Moses to free his people from slavery in Egypt. Moses did not think he was qualified (Exodus 4:1-17). He protested, “they will not believe me, nor listen to my voice” and “I am not eloquent … for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue” (Ex. 4:1, 10, WEB)).” God answered both these protests; He could make Moses believable and give him the ability to speak. God did agree to make Aaron Moses’s spokesperson, but with God’s help Moses eventually grew to the point that he could speak on his own (all of Deuteronomy, for example, is an address from Moses to God’s people). God knew who Moses could be, and He helped Him get there. God did a similar thing for Jeremiah.

The Lord’s message came to me,
“Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I chose you.
Before you were born I set you apart.
I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.” 

I answered, “Oh, Sovereign Lord, Really I do not know how to speak well enough for that, for I am too young.” The Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ But go to whomever I send you and say whatever I tell you. Do not be afraid of those to whom I send you, for I will be with you to protect you,” says the Lord. Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I will most assuredly give you the words you are to speak for me. Know for certain that I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.”

Jeremiah 1:4-10, NET

In terms related to our topic today, Jeremiah didn’t identify as a prophet. He identified as a poor speaker too young for the Lord’s important work. But God had a different identity for him that was backed-up by God’s protection and power. Later, God offered even more reassurance, saying, “I, the Lord, hereby promise to make you as strong as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall. You will be able to stand up against all who live in the land” (Jer. 1:18, NET). Like many of us today, Jeremiah probably wouldn’t have described himself as a strong person, but with God’s help he became someone who can stand against any foe (as we can today with God’s armor [Eph. 6:10-18]).

Image of a couple reading the Bible to their two daughters overlaid with text from Eph. 5:1-2, NET version: “Therefore, be imitators of God as dearly loved children and live in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.”
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Becoming Like Jesus Christ

Jesus is our model for living a Christian life. If we say we have a relationship with Him and His Father, then we ought “to walk just as Jesus walked” (1 John 2:6, NET). He left “an example for you to follow in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21, NET; see also John 13:14-15). Over and over, New Testament writers point to Jesus as the one we’re supposed to be like. We “walk in love, even as Christ also loved us” (Eph. 5:2, WEB), we’re told to “please his neighbor for his good to build him up” because that’s what Christ did (Rom. 15:1-3, NET), and “have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had” (Phil. 2:5, NET).

One of the goals of our Christian walk is to become like Jesus, inside and out. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians about how we understand the things of God because God’s spirit is inside us, he also said “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16, NET). In the same passage, he talks about those who are “mature” (1 Cor. 2:6) and those who are “infants in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1, NET). I think the implication here is that the more mature we are as Christians, the more we understand the things of God and have the mind of Christ (see also Heb. 5:11-6:3). Becoming like God is our goal.

(See what sort of love the Father has given to us: that we should be called God’s children—and indeed we are! For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know him. Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that whenever it is revealed we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is. And everyone who has this hope focused on him purifies himself, just as Jesus is pure).

1 John 3:1-3, NET

Much of what we are told to do as God’s followers is “so that you may be like your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:45, NET; see Matt. 5:43-48). He is making us fully part of His family, to the point that “we will be like him” in the future. When we have that hope of eternal life with God as His family members, the natural and necessary response is to work on making ourselves like God the Father and Jesus Christ.

A Higher Identity

Image of a woman facing the camera, with different images of the same woman reflected in three mirrors behind her. Image is overlaid with blog's title text and the words, "There isn’t a Bible verse telling us to find our identities in Jesus, but the phrase does reflect solidly Biblical ideas: believe what God says about who you are and become like Jesus Christ."
Image by Respostas com Você from Pixabay

Being part of God’s family is an identity that is higher, better, and far more important than our other identities. Paul is a great example of someone who had an “identity” that most people of his time would envy, but he gave it up so that he could identify with Christ.

If someone thinks he has good reasons to put confidence in human credentials, I have more: I was circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. I lived according to the law as a Pharisee. In my zeal for God I persecuted the church. According to the righteousness stipulated in the law I was blameless. But these assets I have come to regard as liabilities because of Christ. More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things—indeed, I regard them as dung!—that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not because I have my own righteousness derived from the law, but because I have the righteousness that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness—a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ’s faithfulness. My aim is to know him, to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, and to be like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:4-11, NET

Paul didn’t stop being an Israelite, Benjamite, or highly-educated Pharisee when he started following Jesus. Those identities just didn’t matter nearly as much anymore. Similarly, I don’t stop being a wife, mother, American, red-head, or someone with a master’s degree when I follow Jesus, but those identities aren’t nearly as important as my primary identity as a Christian. Being Christian makes me a better wife and mother, putting both of those roles in a new perspective. My citizenship in heaven (Phil. 3:20) supersedes my identity as an American. My visible/ethnic identities like red-head and white take a back seat to knowing I’m a child of God, part of one human race He created (Acts 17:26-28). My education becomes something that’s not worth boasting about because knowing God is so much more important (Jer. 9:23-34; 1 Cor. 1:26-31).

There isn’t a Bible verse telling us to find our identities in Jesus, but the phrase does reflect solidly Biblical ideas: believe what God says about who you are and become like Jesus Christ. Believing God is a first-step of faith (Heb. 11:6), and that includes believing the things He says about us and about the future He has planned for us as His family members. As we grow in our relationships with God and follow the example of Jesus Christ, we’re supposed to become more and more like Him. Just like Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, and other faithful men and woman throughout the ages, we should find our primary identity–the fact of our being and the characteristics of who we are–in God.

Featured image by Respostas com Você from Pixabay

Song Recommendation: “You Say” by Lauren Daigle

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Learning from the Context of John 3:16

Learning from the Context of John 3:16

Marissa

We all know John 3:16. Even non-Christians know this verse. It’s displayed and quoted perhaps more than any other part of the Bible.

But do you know where it is, contextually? I’m fairly good at remembering where scriptures are, but it’s easy to get your memories mixed up and if I’d had to guess, I might have said it’s in one of Jesus’s many addresses to crowds of people. It’s actually part of his answer to a question Nicodemus asked when he came to Jesus privately, at night after the crowds were gone.

Knowing the context doesn’t change the profound truth that “God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16, WEB). But it does enhance our understanding of Jesus’s point if we know what else Jesus said when He made this statement.

Image of a man reading the Bible overlaid with text from John 3:1-3, NET version: Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council, came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Image by Inbetween from Lightstock

Setting the Stage

Unlike other gospel writers, John begins not with Jesus’s human birth but with pre-Creation. He establishes Jesus’s divinity before anything else (John 1:1-18), then goes into John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus (John 1:19-26), and the first disciples gathering to Jesus (John 1:27-51). Then he records Jesus’s first miracle (John 2:1-11), then the first Passover during Jesus’s ministry, when He cleared those buying and selling out of the temple and began attracting attention from the religious leaders (John 2:12-25). Then, while Jesus is in Jerusalem for Passover, we come to the conversation we’re studying today.

Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council, came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?”

John 3:1-4, NET

We learn several things about Nicodemus in this introduction. First, he was a Pharisee, a member of an influential religious and political group whose members “were strict and zealous adherents to the laws of the OT and to numerous additional traditions” (NET footnote on John 1:24). In addition, he was “a member of the Sanhedrin, the highest legal, legislative, and judicial body among the Jews” (NET footnote on John 3:1). He was an expert in the scriptures and how to interpret them. It was enough to recognize Jesus as a teacher sent by God, based on the miracles He performed, and to prompt him to come to speak with Jesus privately to learn more. I have to wonder if he might have suspected Jesus to be the Messiah, but came privately because he didn’t want others to know what he was thinking.

As is often the case, Jesus jumped right in with a statement that doesn’t seem like a logical reply to the other person’s remark, but which starts the conversation that they need to have with Him. In this case, one of the words He uses has a double meaning in Greek. When Jesus says, “unless a person is born from above,” the word translated “from above” (anōthen) can also mean “again” (NET footnote on John 3:3). Nicodemus seems to assume Jesus meant the second meaning, since he asks if a man can be born from his mother a second time.

Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus replied, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things?”

John 3:5-10, NET

I often marvel at how much people in New Testament times knew based just on reading the Old Testament. I’m not sure if I could have read those scriptures and realized what signs to look for to recognize the promised Messiah (of course, the main thing it would have depended on is if God decided to open my eyes). But here, Jesus is marveling at the fact that Nicodemus was a “teacher of Israel” and didn’t understand that someone would need to be born of the spirit. He should have known this already, at least in part, just like he should have been able to recognize from the law, prophets, and psalms that Jesus is the promised Messiah (Luke 24:44; John 5:39). Jesus doesn’t hold Nicodemus’s lack of knowledge against him, though. He continues the conversation and reveals more of God’s amazing plan.

Image of a man sitting in a pew and praying overlaid with text from John 3:16-18, NET version: “For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.”
Image by Shaun Menary from Lightstock

Earthly and Heavenly Things,

Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things? I tell you the solemn truth, we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

John 3:10-15, NET (italics mark an allusion to Num 21:5-9)

I find this part a little confusing. When Jesus said, “we speak,” who is “we”? I’m not sure if He’s referring to Him and His disciples or to Him and His Father. And what did He mean, “I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe?” Their conversation up to this point is about spiritual rebirth and resurrection, but is that an earthly thing? Or is He referring to something that happened earlier during Passover, like rebuking people for making the temple a marketplace?

We’re not the first to ask these questions. The NET translators have an extensive footnote on John 3:12. They suggest that, since it’s most logical to assume Jesus is speaking of what He just told Nicodemus, that “earthly things are not necessarily strictly physical things, but are so called because they take place on earth, in contrast to things like v. 16, which take place in heaven.” This would make “the necessity of a regenerating work from above, by the Holy Spirit” an “earthly thing,” but God’s love motivating His plans a “heavenly thing.”

Maybe we could think about it like this: the “earthly things” are related to what God is doing here on earth. Being “born of water and spirit” sounds like something that begins with baptism. The process of being born into God’s family as spirit beings starts now, during the physical lives of those who commit to following Him. It’s a process initiated by something God in heaven chose to do, a “heavenly thing” that’s described in the next part of this conversation.

 “For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.”

John 3:16-18, NET

We don’t have record of Nicodemus saying anything after verse 9, but I have to wonder what he was thinking at this point. Was he struck with awe at the revelation that God had sent His own Son to earth as the promised Messiah? Did he understand what Jesus was telling him here? Or did he walk away confused, unsure what it meant for God to give His son to save the world? We don’t know, but he does speak up for Jesus when other Pharisees tried to arrest Him (John 7:45-52) and he helped Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus after His crucifixion (John 19:38-40). It seems logical to assume Nicodemus became one of Jesus’s disciples, though perhaps not very openly.

Life in the Son

Image of an open Bible with sunlight shining on it, overlaid with blog's title text and the words, "Knowing the context doesn't change the profound truth of John 3:16, but it does enhance our understanding of Jesus's point if we know what else He said when He made this statement."
Image by Lamppost Collective from Lightstock

We’re here to look at John 3:16, one of the most famous Bible verses. It shows up near the middle of Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus. We’ve already looked at the lead-up to this verse and the discussion of being born from above/again. Now, let’s look at how Jesus concludes this discussion.

 “For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God.”

John 3:16-21, NET

It might seem a little weird to read about judgement and condemnation right after reading that Jesus came to save the world. But it really does fit very neatly into a whole-Bible understanding of the plan of God. When people choose sin (as all do [Rom. 3:23]) the natural consequences of that is death (Deut. 30:15-19; Rom. 5:12-15; 6:23). God’s justice and righteousness specifies that there is a consequence for sins. He also has the right to judge His creation. Now that the Light has come into the world, it is time for people to repent and change before the judgment (Acts 17:30-31).

When God judges, He doesn’t want to condemn. That’s one possible outcome, but that’s not His goal. God loves (agape) everyone and wants them to come to repentance, receive salvation, and gain eternal life (1 Tim. 2:1-4; 2 Pet. 3:8-9). That is made possible through Jesus and because of His and the Father’s love: “for God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16, WEB). This incredible truth ought to prompt us to believe in Jesus, practice the truth, and come to the light to walk with our God.

Featured image by Pearl from Lightstock

Song Recommendation: “How Deep The Father’s Love For Us” by Selah

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We Need To Watch Our Words

We Need To Watch Our Words

Marissa

In the aftermath of another polarizing United States election, I think it’s a good time to revisit the topic of how God’s people should use language, especially when speaking about other people. Even though most of us in the U.S. agree) that there aren’t any really good politicians we could vote for, we often have very strong opinions about which is the “lesser of two evils” and equally strong opinions about people who come to a different conclusion than we ourselves did. These other people are very likely in a similar position to us, not agreeing 100% with either candidate but coming to a different conclusion about which option is a little better.

There’s a temptation to mock, belittle, and despise others who vote differently than us or have different viewpoints (whether or not they chose to vote). But when we stand before Christ, we will answer for every idle or worthless word we speak (Matt. 12:36), the times we judged, despised and condemned other people (Matt. 5:22; Rom. 14:10), and our coarse jesting or foolish talking (Eph. 5:4). Our thoughtless, angry words or the things we excuse by saying, “I was just joking,” might be something that God takes very seriously.

Today, we’re going to look at three key areas where we need to be careful about what we say: 1) passing judgement on others, 2) despising them or calling them foolish, and 3) coarse jesting. Finally, we’ll look at one overriding principle for how we ought to interact with other people: love.

Image of a man and woman having a business discussion overlaid with text from Matt. 12:36-37, NET version: " I tell you that on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every worthless word they speak. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."
Image by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi from Pixabay

Passing Judgement

There’s a difference between passing judgement (condemning) and making a judgement call (discernment). That’s one reason that you see seemingly contradictory scriptures like “Judge not” (Matt. 7:1) and “judge righteous judgement” (John 7:24). We must be careful not to usurp a role that God reserves for Himself as judge, and so bring harsher judgement on ourselves (Matt. 7:1-5; James 2:13).

Now receive the one who is weak in the faith, and do not have disputes over differing opinions. One person believes in eating everything, but the weak person eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not despise the one who does not, and the one who abstains must not judge the one who eats everything, for God has accepted him. Who are you to pass judgment on another’s servant? Before his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. …

But you who eat vegetables only—why do you judge your brother or sister? And you who eat everything—why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me, and every tongue will give praise to God.” Therefore, each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore we must not pass judgment on one another, but rather determine never to place an obstacle or a trap before a brother or sister.

Romans 14:1-4, 10-13 NET (bold italics mark a quotation from Isa 45:23)

Here, Paul used the example of disagreements about what we should or shouldn’t eat to make a point. When you disagree with someone about an opinion, your duty as a Christian is to refrain from passing judgement or despising them. Rather, you should guard your behavior to make sure you’re not putting a stumbling block in front of them.

To be clear, this does not mean we can’t make judgement calls about sinful actions. It is love (agape) to point out a sin in a fellow Christian for the purpose of restoring someone to a right relationship with fellow believers and with God (Matt 18:15-22; 2 Tim. 2:24-26). Our goal should always be restoration rather than condemnation, even when we have to stop associating with someone because they refuse to repent (1 Cor. 5). Even when Paul ” judged the one who” committed “the kind of immorality that is not permitted even among the Gentiles” (1 Cor. 5:1-2, NET), it wasn’t to mock the sinner or call them names. We should be grieved by other’s sins and moved by love to help them reach a point of repentance. How much more, then, should we withhold condemnation when we disagree with someone on an opinion?

Image of two older men talking overlaid with text from Col. 4:6, NET version: "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer everyone."
Image by pxby666 from Pixabay

Despising Others

When someone disagrees with us on something we see as important, fails to see our point of view, or cannot be convinced by our arguments, the natural human response is to label them a fool. But despising someone else, particularly a “brother” (either by blood or because they’re fellow children of God), is not the way Jesus said to do things.

“You have heard that it was said to an older generation, ‘Do not murder,’ and ‘whoever murders will be subjected to judgment.’ But I say to you that anyone who is angry with a brother will be subjected to judgment. And whoever insults a brother will be brought before the council, and whoever says ‘Fool’ will be sent to fiery hell.”

Matthew 5:21-22, NET (bold italics mark a quotation from Exod 20:13; Deut 5:17)

Let’s look at two of the original words used in this passage. “Whoever insults a brother” could also be translated, “whoever says to his brother ‘Raca,'” which is “an Aramaic word of contempt or abuse meaning ‘fool’ or ’empty head'” (NET footnote “b” on Matt. 5:22). The word translated “fool” is the Greek moros, which is where the English word “moron” comes from. Most scholars assume it means “you fool” but a few argue it could mean “rebel” (NET footnote “e” on Matt. 5:22). God holds His followers to a high standard of conduct, higher even than what was outlined in the Old Testament laws like “do not murder.”

Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work.  They must not slander anyone, but be peaceable, gentle, showing complete courtesy to all people. For we too were once foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another. 

Titus 3:1-3, NET

In Paul’s letter to Titus, he instructs this pastor to remind the people he’s teaching that they need to be mindful of their speech. Specifically, “they must not slander” (“‘discredit,’ ‘damage the reputation of'” [NET translators’ note]) anyone. This verse is also translated with the instruction, “to speak evil of no one” (Tit. 3:2, WEB). When we’re considering how to talk about someone else, we must remember that if we think someone is foolish, misled, evil, or hateful that we were once like that too, and we’re not supposed to be like that anymore now that we have God’s spirit and have committed to following Him. We have to stop talking out of bitterness or malice, and remove slander and insults from our speech (Eph. 4:31-32; 1 Peter 3:9).

Image of two women sitting on park benches smiling at each other overlaid with text from Eph. 4:31-32, NET version: "You must put away all bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling, and slanderous talk—indeed all malice. Instead, be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you."
Image by svklimkin from Pixabay

Coarse Jesting

Humor is such a tricky subject (as I mentioned in my newsletter earlier this week). One person might find something hilarious that another person would find offensive, repulsive, or hurtful. What people find funny varies between cultures and individuals. Because it’s so subjective, people often say that if someone is offended by our humor they just “didn’t get the joke” or they “need to lighten up.” But just because we find something funny doesn’t mean it can’t hurt someone else. All too often, people use humor to cover up the fact that they’re being mean or thoughtless. Jokes that hinge on cruelly mocking, belittling, and hurting people shouldn’t be something we find funny.

You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is beneficial for the building up of the one in need, that it would give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. You must put away all bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling, and slanderous talk—indeed all malice. Instead, be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.

Therefore, be imitators of God as dearly loved children and live in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. But among you there must not be either sexual immorality, impurity of any kind, or greed, as these are not fitting for the saints. Neither should there be vulgar speech, foolish talk, or coarse jesting—all of which are out of character—but rather thanksgiving. For you can be confident of this one thing: that no person who is immoral, impure, or greedy (such a person is an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Ephesians 4:29-5:5, NET

In this passage, Paul covers a lot of sins that are related to our speech. These include:

  • “unwholesome word” (translated from sapros [G4550] and logos [G3056])– “unwholesome” refers to something that’s corrupt, rotten, putrefied, or worthless and “word” is speech or communication. Hebrews 13:5 tells us the “fruit of our lips” should praise God and acknowledge his name, but this is the opposite: disgusting, rotting, foul words.
  • “vulgar speech” (translated from aischrotes [G151])–obscenity, filthiness. Comprises “improper conduct whether in action or word or even thought and intent” that brings shame when it is “exposed by the light” (Zodhiates).
  • “foolish talk” (translated from morologia [G3473])–“silly talk, that is, buffoonery” (Strong). It’s from the same Greek root word as our English word “moron.” This is the “type of speech that betrays a person as foolish” (Zodhiates).
  • “coarse jesting” (translated from eutrapelia [G2160])–in a bad sense, this word for “humor” includes “scurrility, ribaldry, low jesting” (Thayer). Basically, it is someone skilled at twisting their words wittily, which can be used to amuse others or to manipulate (Zodhiates).

Clearly, there are some types of humor that God would not excuse as “just a joke.” If the words we’re speaking are rotten and disgusting, improper or shameful, moronic and foolish, or twisted to amuse others with coarse or scurrilous jests, then they’re not funny–they’re sinful. And right after telling us these things are wrong, Paul warns that we “can be confident of this one thing: that no person who is immoral, impure, or greedy (such a person is an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God” (Eph. 5:5, NET). This is a very serious matter. People who misuse their words to hurt others are not going to be in God’s kingdom.

Love

Image of a woman leaning over a table and talking, overlaid with blog's title text and the words, "As Christians, we should avoid passing judgement on others, despising them or calling them foolish, and coarse jesting. Instead, all our words should be motivated by love."
Image by Thiemo Brand from Pixabay

Now that we’ve looked at scriptures telling us what not to do with our words, let’s turn our attention to what we ought to do instead. It’s not enough to just take the ungodly types of speech out of our conversation; we also have to put godly speech in. Thankfully, there are plenty of guidelines in the bible for how to do that.

Some of the verses we’ve already looked at include instructions on how we should talk right alongside the instructions about what not to say. In Titus, Paul said, “be peaceable, gentle, showing complete courtesy to all people” (Tit. 3:2, NET). In Ephesians, he said, “be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another” (Eph. 4:32, NET). And if we keep reading in Romans 14, we come to this passage:

Therefore we must not pass judgment on one another, but rather determine never to place an obstacle or a trap before a brother or sister. … For if your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy by your food someone for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what you consider good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God does not consist of food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit

Romans 14:13, 15-17 NET

Here, Paul continues addressing the disagreement about whether to eat meat, the principle applies to how we interact with each other through our words as well. Peace, gentleness, courtesy, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, righteousn0ess, joy–all those should be characteristics of our speech. It’s summed-up by the second greatest commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:36-40).

 “I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.”

John 15:34-35, NET

We’re supposed to love our fellow Christians so much that people observing our interactions can tell that we’re followers of Jesus Christ. And it isn’t confined just to fellow Christians: it’s for our neighbors as well (i.e. anyone we’re aware of and have any sort of interaction with). As Paul said in Romans (shortly before the passage about not judging those with different opinions), “Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:10, NET). Unless we’re loving “in deed and truth” as well as in our words, we’re not Jesus’s disciples (1 John 3:18, NET; see 1 John 3:10-18; 4:20-21).

All of our words, thoughts, and actions have to be motivated by love. That’s how God is, and that’s how He wants us to be. Will we do it perfectly? Of course not, but we still need to try. We also need to study the Bible, learn what God expects from us (i.e. how to become more like Him and to walk in obedience with Him), and repent when we catch ourselves missing the mark. Ultimately, the goal is to “take every thought captive to make it obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5, NET) and then to speak out of the abundance of good and godly things in our hearts “for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned”(Matt. 12:37, NET; see Matt. 12:33-37).

Featured image by Petra from Pixabay

Song Recommendation: “Speak Life” by TobyMac

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Keep Planting, Even If You’re Weeping

Keep Planting, Even If You’re Weeping

Marissa

Last week, I’d stayed up later than usual and instead of reading a chapter in Acts before bed, I turned to the Psalms to find a short passage to read. I just happened to open the Bible (a Tree of Life Version that I keep in my nightstand) to Psalm 126. Something about this translation caught my eye, and it prompted today’s post. Here’s the full psalm to start us off:

1 When Adonai restored the captives of Zion,
it was as if we were dreaming.
2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with a song of joy.
Then they said among the nations,
“Adonai has done great things for them.”
3 Adonai has done great things for us
    —we are joyful!
4 Restore us from captivity, Adonai,
like streams in the Negev.
5 Those who sow in tears
will reap with a song of joy.
6 Whoever keeps going out weeping,
    carrying his bag of seed,
will surely come back with a song of joy,
    carrying his sheaves.

Psalm 126, TLV

It’s that last verse that captured my attention: “Whoever keeps going out weeping, carrying his bag of seed, will surely come back with a song of joy, carrying his sheaves.” It might (if you’re at all familiar with American gospel songs and Protestant hymns) make you think of the 1874 hymn “Bringing in the Sheaves.” For me, the part that captured my attention is this “keeps going out” line.

Image of a field just after harvest overlaid with text from Psalm 126:5-6, NET version: "Those who shed tears as they plant will shout for joy when they reap the harvest. The one who weeps as he walks along, carrying his bag of seed, will certainly come in with a shout of joy, carrying his sheaves of grain."
Image by Artur Pawlak from Pixabay

Keeping Going Out

In Psalm 126:6, some translations simply say, “He who goes out weeping” (WEB) but the TLV and others like the NKJV include this sense of continuing to go out while you’re weeping. The setting for this psalm is restoration from captivity. Israel had gone into captivity, and now God delivered them and brought them back to the land. The psalmist is looking back on this and making an agricultural analogy.

Suppose you’re in the spring, ready to plant, but something happens. It’s a set back, a tragedy, a calamity, a grief-inducing event. It’s the sort of thing that would make you weep. At that point, you have a choice. You can “keep going out” and sowing into the future, or you could give up. But you know that if you want to reap a harvest, you need to plant seed. Similarly, the metaphorical future “harvest” that we get in our own lives is determined (at least in part) by what we “sow” now.

Do not be deceived. God will not be made a fool. For a person will reap what he sows, because the person who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So we must not grow weary in doing good, for in due time we will reap, if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:7-9, NET

If the agricultural metaphor isn’t working for you, we can relate it to other things with a cause and effect. If you put a steady diet of unhealthy food into your body, you’ll get an unhealthy body; if you eat healthy foods, you’ll have a healthier body. Sowing (like how we eat and whether we exercise) is an investment in the future, for better or worse.

Notice that Paul says “we must not grow weary in doing good” and that we should “not give up.” Sowing is a long-term investment. It takes time for the seed to sprout, grow, and bear fruit. We might not see the results of it for quite some time. As Psalm 126 says we need to “keep going out” to sow, trusting that God will give us a good harvest.

Image of a field of newly sprouted grain overlaid with text from Galatians 6:7-9, WEB version: "Don’t be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let’s not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don’t give up."
Image by H. Hach from Pixabay

Planting In Hope

The word “hope” isn’t used in the psalm that we’re looking at today, but it’s an essential ingredient for what we’re talking about here.

 For it is written in the law of Moses, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” God is not concerned here about oxen, is he? Or is he not surely speaking for our benefit? It was written for us, because the one plowing and threshing ought to work in hope of enjoying the harvest. 

1 Corinthians 9:9-10, NET (bold italics mark a quotation from Deut. 25:4)

Here, Paul is saying that teachers of the word have the right to make their living by preaching the gospel (1 Cor. 9). The basic principle is that if you put the work into something, you have a right to expect to enjoy the results of that labor. Hope in the Bible isn’t something nebulous. When hope is related to God, there’s a level of certainty to it. God provides a solid anchorage for our hope (Heb. 6:19), giving us good reason to confidently expect that if we keep going out sowing, we will eventually bring in a harvest with joy.

 Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance.

Romans 8:23-25, NET

Come Back Rejoicing

Image of a sheaf of grain standing in a field, overlaid with blog's title text and the words, "Scripture encourages us to look beyond our immediate circumstances with hope, trusting in the glorious future that God has planned for us."
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

One of the things that we humans can find frustrating is that God is a long-term thinker. When He promises to give us the desires of our heart, for example (Ps. 37:6), we want that to happen immediately. I didn’t expect it to take 15+ years and a healthy dose of heartache before He answered my prayers to be a wife and mother, but then I found myself marrying a wonderful man and just over a year later having a beautiful daughter with him. I don’t think I’d be so blessed now if I hadn’t continued “sowing into” my life and my relationship with God during the season of weeping.

When we read, “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28, NET), we often forget that Paul is talking on a cosmic timescale. Before the statement about all things working together for good, he says, “I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the coming glory that will be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18, NET; see Rom. 8:18-30). Sometimes–even often–a harvest of joy happens now, in our human lives. But even if it doesn’t happen now, it will certainly happen at the end if we don’t give up.

My aim is to know him [Jesus Christ], to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, and to be like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already attained this—that is, I have not already been perfected—but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, with this goal in mind, I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let those of us who are “perfect” embrace this point of view. If you think otherwise, God will reveal to you the error of your ways.

Philippians 3:10-15, NET

Scripture encourages us to look beyond our immediate circumstances with hope, trusting in the glorious future that God has planned for us. Long-term, if we’re going to “reap” the future God promises to His firstfruits, we need to keep pressing on toward the goal of eternal life. It’s this perspective that lets us “consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance” and endurance helps bring us to perfection (James 1:2-3, NET). You’ll reap blessings in this life as well (especially if you have a mindset that looks for and recognizes them), but the biggest blessings we have are the opportunity to become God’s children and the promise of eternal life forever with Him after He “harvests” us with great joy.

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Song Recommendation: “Bringing In The Sheaves”

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Our Roles As Keepers

Our Roles As Keepers

Marissa

Two weeks ago, we examined God’s role as our keeper, focusing on Psalm 121. Part of that examination included looking at the definition for the Hebrew word shamar, which is translated “keep” or “keeper” in this Psalm. As with many Hebrew words, shamar includes a range of meanings depending on the context. The Complete Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament states, “The basic idea of the root is ‘to exercise great care over'” (TWOT entry 2414). As we looked at in the previous post, the TWOT breaks the nuances of meaning into these broad categories:

Today, I want to look at our roles as keepers. We are told to keep covenant with God, to keep ourselves in the right way, and to keep care of other people.

Image of a woman reading the Bible overlaid with text from Psalms 103:17-18, WEB version: But Yahweh’s loving kindness is from everlasting to everlasting with those who fear him, his righteousness to children’s children; to those who keep his covenant, to those who remember to obey his precepts. 
Image by Pearl from Lightstock

Keeping Covenant

God faithfully keeps covenant with us. We don’t have to worry that He’ll change His mind, forget about us, or decide His commitments aren’t worth honoring. He’s absolutely faithful and reliable. The same can’t be said about human beings, but with God’s help we can commit to covenant keeping and keep coming back and recommitting when we miss the mark.

You shall do my ordinances. You shall keep my statutes and walk in them. I am Yahweh your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances, which if a man does, he shall live in them. I am Yahweh.

Leviticus 18:4-5, WEB

The obligation to keep God’s laws as part of our covenant relationship with Him isn’t just an Old Testament thing. It’s also part of the New Covenant. It’s actually even more important in the New Covenant because now, keeping covenant with God sinks in at a heart level. God wanted this sort of heart connection under the Old Covenant, but didn’t get it (Deut. 5:29). Now, with His holy spirit inside us and Jesus’s sacrifice to reconcile us to God, we can more fully obey the command to love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls and to keep His commandments because of that love (Matt. 22:36-40; John 14:15, 21; 15:10-12).

I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh; that they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them. They will be my people, and I will be their God. 

Ezekiel 11:19-20, WEB

When we think of shamar as “to exercise great care over,” we might then ask how we can do that to the covenant we have with God. For one thing, it involves knowing what the covenant obligations are. At the most basic level, it’s to fully love God and to love our neighbors. All the other commands hinge on those two (Mark 12:28-34). That doesn’t mean the other commandments aren’t important–it just means that our keeping of the other commandments happens because we love God and others. Sabbath keeping, for example, it something that God instituted at creation, that Jesus did, and which God describes as “a perpetual covenant” for His people to keep (Ex. 31:13-16).

Image of a man reading the Bible overlaid with text from Ecclesiastes 12:13, WEB version: This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.
Image by Matt Vasquez from Lightstock

Keeping Ourselves

As people in covenant with God, we have a responsibility to “exercise great care” over our own conduct. We see one example of this in Deuteronomy, when Moses warns the people of ancient Israel to “keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I command you” then to “be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children” (Deut. 4:2, 9, WEB). This involves carefully guarding our conduct, soul, and words (Prov. 13:3; 21:23) to make sure we’re following God the way He tells us to.

I said, “I will watch (shamar) my ways, so that I don’t sin with my tongue.
    I will keep (shamar) my mouth with a bridle while the wicked is before me.”

Psalm 39:1, WEB

Doing things according to God’s instructions is key to this: we must be careful to keep ourselves from breaking covenant with Him or following other Gods (Deut. 4:23; 11:16). It’s actually a matter of life and death. On a broad scale, our choice between living in covenant with God (which involves obedience, righteousness, and repentance when we miss the mark) or walking contrary to Him is a choice between life and death (Deut. 30:19).

We can see the seriousness of keeping ourselves in God’s instructions in phrases like, “Be very careful (shamar) if you value your lives! Do not carry any loads in through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day” (Jer. 17:21, NET). The NET footnote on this verse notes that the Hebrew phrase used here could also be translated, “Be careful at the risk of your lives.” In the context leading up to this, God talks about the grave sins of His people, the curse associated with trusting your human heart verses the blessing associated with trusting Him, and the healing available in Yahweh (Jer. 17:1-18). Then, He goes into Sabbath keeping as a key example of the commandments His people broke and that they must begin keeping again if they value their lives and their relationship with Him (Jer. 17:19-27).

The Hebrew word shamar obviously doesn’t appear in the Greek New Testament, but how people “conduct themselves in the household of God” (1 Tim. 3:15, NET) still matters. For example, Jesus told people, “Keep yourselves from covetousness” (Luke 12:15, WEB), the apostles wrote to new Christians that they should “keep themselves from” things like eating blood and committing sexual immorality (Acts 15:28-29), and Paul told Timothy, “Keep yourself pure” (1 Tim. 5:22, NET). When we enter a covenant relationship with God, we’re also committing to keeping ourselves by a certain standard of conduct that He expects from His people.

Keeping Others

Image of a woman sitting at a table reading the Bible, overlaid with blog's title text and the words, "The Hebrew word shamar is often translated “keeper,” and it means “to exercise great care over.” The Bible tells us to keep covenant with God, keep ourselves in the right way, and to keep caring for other people."
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The final application of shamar that we’re going to look at today involves heeding, guarding, or attending to something important. The word can also be used to refer to the person who is guarding or keeping watch (Josh. 10:18; 2 Kings 11:5-9; Est. 2:21; Is. 21:11-12). The most famous use of shamar in this sense is a negative example.

The man knew Eve his wife. She conceived, and gave birth to Cain, and said, “I have gotten a man with Yahweh’s help.” Again she gave birth, to Cain’s brother Abel. Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. …

Cain said to Abel, his brother, “Let’s go into the field.” While they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him.

 Yahweh said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?”

He said, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Genesis 4:1-3, 8-9, WEB

Yahweh warned Cain before all this that sin was crouching at his door like a predatory animal ready to pounce if he didn’t subdue it (Gen. 4:6-7). Cain knew he failed in that task, yet when Yahweh asked him where his brother is, he shot back this question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Perhaps it’s to hearken back to Abel’s profession, i.e. “Am I responsible for keeping my brother the way he’s responsible for keeping his flocks of sheep?”

The obvious answer should be yes, you are responsible to take care of the people around you. I find it very interesting that Cain, who “was a tiller of the ground” was no longer allowed to “cultivate and keep” the earth after he killed his brother (Gen. 2:15; 4:10-12). Failing in his familial duty, he was not entrusted with other shamar duties.

God makes it even more clear in the New Testament that He expects us “to exercise great care over” other people, especially those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ (Gal. 6:10) but also our neighbors (i.e. anyone we’re aware of and able to help [Luke 10:25-37]). Caring for each other and loving each other is the responsibility of every Christian (John 13:35; Phil. 2:1-5). There’s a particular responsibility, though, laid on those who are leaders in the churches to “keep watch” over people’s souls (Heb. 13:17).

As those who follow the God who keeps covenant with and keeps watch over His people, we should follow His example. That includes keeping covenant with Him, keeping ourselves held to His standards, and acting as “keepers” for the people around us. These three things are aspects of our lives that deserve our careful attention and the effort that it takes to exercise great care over them.

Featured image by Jantanee from Lightstock

Song Recommendation: “An Irish Blessing (May the Road Rise to Meet You)” by Celtic Thunder

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Who Pays For Other People’s Sins?

Who Pays For Other People’s Sins?

Marissa

I’d planned to write more about the Hebrew word shamar (which we covered last week) today, but I heard an excellent sermon on the Parable of the Prodigal Son that made me want to write about this topic today. The main point was that we can learn from all three of the characters in this parable. At different points in our lives, we can be the prodigal son, the compassionate father, or the angry brother. The speaker made a point near the end of the message when talking about the angry brother that really stood out to me. He said, “We don’t pay the price of others’ sins.”

Now, at first, something in me grew hot and angry hearing this. I thought, “I’ve absolutely paid a price for other people’s sins when they’ve hurt me.” But then I realized that wasn’t the point of this statement. Yes, other people’s sins can affect us, sometimes very badly. However, the price of their sins that we’re talking about here refers to the price that God’s justice demands a sinner pay for violating His law. Ultimately, this price is death, or it would be without the sacrifice of Jesus (Rom. 6:23).

You see, while we can still suffer because of other people’s sins, we’re not the ones paying the price for forgiveness. We couldn’t; we also deserve a death penalty for our sins and we can’t offer ourselves in exchange for someone else’s soul even if we wanted to (Ezk. 18:20). This also means we don’t have the right to withhold forgiveness.

Image of a man pushing open doors to go outside overlaid with text from Col. 2:13-14, NET version: "And even though you were dead in your transgressions and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he nevertheless made you alive with him, having forgiven all your transgressions. He has destroyed what was against us, a certificate of indebtedness expressed in decrees opposed to us. He has taken it away by nailing it to the cross."
Image by Pearl from Lightstock

Forgiveness and Restoration

Forgiveness can be a tough subject for many of us. Many of us struggle with forgiveness even if we know we should do it, or we come up with reasons why we don’t need to forgive in particular cases. Trust me, I know it’s hard. It’s not like I’ve never been hurt by anyone and I’m saying “just forgive them” without knowing how hard that is. But even if you go through something traumatic and still have occasional panicked flashbacks, you need to forgive. Even if you ended up in counseling for 3 years trying to figure out how to process what happened, you need to forgive.

For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you your sins.

Matthew 5:14-15, NET

We think of forgiveness as something God offers us freely, but in reality it’s conditional on something. If we want forgiveness, then we need to forgive others. There’s no wiggle room in here. There are, however, some things forgiveness doesn’t necessarily entail.

Forgiveness doesn’t always mean restoring relationships–sometimes it’s not safe or healthy to continue having any kind of relationship with the person who wronged you. This is especially true if they don’t repent. For example, Paul told the Corinthians to stop associating with someone who was flagrantly sinning without repentance (1 Cor. 5), then later told them to restore someone that we assume is the same man to their fellowship of believers after his repentance (2 Cor. 2:5-11; 7:8-12). The relationship wasn’t restored until the person repented and changed his conduct. Jesus also gave step-by-step instructions for attempting to reconcile with a fellow believer if they sin, but also said that if it doesn’t work you don’t have to keep trying (Matt. 18:15-17).

Reconciliation, peace, and restored relationships is the goal for Christians, but there’s also only so much we can do if the other person isn’t repenting, changing, or trying. We’re only responsible for our own actions and can’t control others (Rom. 12:9-21). One of the actions that we can take on our own without the other person doing anything is forgive. In the New Testament, sin is often framed as a debt (e.g. when we sin, we owe God something that we can’t pay back). This is reflected in one line from Jesus’s model prayer: “forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.” If someone owes you something, you can cancel that debt. In other words, we can let go of bitterness, anger, resentment, and the sense that we’re owed something. Forgiveness is a necessary and healthy thing to do, whether or not the other person asks for it.

Image of a woman's peaceful face overlaid with text from Col. 2:13-14, NET version: "Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if someone happens to have a complaint against anyone else. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also forgive others."
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Why We Must Forgive

One of Jesus’s parables expands on why forgiveness is something He can and does command us to do (Matt. 18:21-35). In this parable, a king (who pictures God) forgives a servant who owes him a massive sum of money. His debt is 10,000 talents, which is equal to about what a typical person could earn in 164,384 years of work (1 talent=6,000 denarii, and 1 denarius=1 day of work; see NET footnote on Matt. 18:24). Incredibly, the king forgives the debt. Then, right after receiving forgiveness, the man goes out and shakes down a fellow slave who owed him just 100 denarii, or about 3 months’ wages. He refuses to forgive right after he’s been forgiven.

 “When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were very upset and went and told their lord everything that had taken place. Then his lord called the first slave and said to him, ‘Evil slave! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me! Should you not have shown mercy to your fellow slave, just as I showed it to you?’ And in anger his lord turned him over to the prison guards to torture him until he repaid all he owed. So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if each of you does not forgive your brother from your heart.”

Matthew 18:31-35, NET

As people who’ve received God’s forgiveness, we’re obligated to forgive others. As in this parable, we should be able to recognize how ridiculous it is for someone forgiven an unfathomably large debt to then refuse to forgive others a paltry sum. No matter how much someone “owes” us (or seems to) for their sin, they owe God more. If He, who is owed so much, can choose to forgive and remove the death penalty for sin, how much more should we, who are owed comparatively little, choose to stop inflicting a penalty on people who’ve wronged us.

God’s instruction to forgive should be enough for us. But there’s also research to back-up the importance of forgiveness for our own wellbeing. According to surveys by the American Bible Society published in their ebook “State of the Bible USA 2024,” people who can forgive are much better off than those who can’t or won’t. The survey asked if the respondent agreed with the statement, “I am able to sincerely forgive whatever someone else has done to me, regardless of whether they ever ask for forgiveness or not.” Those who agreed also scored higher on Human Flourishing and Hope Agency (p. 54-55), demonstrated more pro-social behaviors (p. 73), and were significantly less lonely than unforgiving people (p. 166). Forgiveness is healthy for us, helps us move forward with hope, and improves relationships with other people. God tells us to do this for our own good.

Who Paid For Sin?

Image of a woman in a flowered dress sanding on old railroad tracks holding a book, overlaid with blog's title text and the words, " We might suffer because of other people's sins, but we're not the ones paying the price for forgiveness and we don’t have the right to withhold forgiveness."
Image by Kristen McDow from Lightstock

One of the things that Jesus didn’t touch on in the parable we just looked at is who paid the price for sins. When God forgives a sin, it’s not quite like the king who just waved a hand and made the debt go away. Someone still pays for that debt, and that someone is Jesus Christ.

 For to this you were called, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in his steps. He committed no sin nor was deceit found in his mouth. When he was maligned, he did not answer back; when he suffered, he threatened no retaliation, but committed himself to God who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness. By his wounds you were healed. For you were going astray like sheep but now you have turned back to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

1 Peter 2:21-25, NET (bold italics mark quotations from Is. 53:5-6, 9; 53:4, 12)

Jesus took our sins on Himself. He “is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for our sins but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2, NET). We often think of Jesus as “my savior,” but we might not always think of the implications of Him being the savior of the whole world. God didn’t just love me and send Jesus for me: He agape-loves everyone and sent Jesus to save the whole world (John 3:16).

I’m not preaching universal salvation here. God doesn’t apply salvation to everyone automatically–we have to accept the gift by repenting, believing, and entering a covenant relationship with God. But He does make salvation available to everyone because “he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9, NET). In other words, He’s already decided to forgive people if they ask Him for it.

Here, we come back to the point we started with: “We don’t pay the price of others’ sins.” Jesus did that when He offered His own life in exchange for the world. He canceled the debts of everyone who will come to God and take advantage of that offer. We don’t (and can’t) pay the final, cosmic price of others’ sins and we don’t have the right to withhold forgiveness from them. This is especially true if they repent and ask us to cancel their debt, but it’s also true that we need to let go and let God handle things even if the other person doesn’t repent or ask us for forgiveness.

Featured image by Chris Mainland from Lightstock

Song Recommendation: “That’s How You Forgive” by Shane & Shane

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