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For I know the plans I have for you,declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer 29:11 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Today's Passage : Today's Passage:Christian Lifestyle Bible Verse:1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 "9-10 Concerning love for your brothers and sisters in Christ, you hardly need instruction. It seems you have learned how to love one another on your own, directly from the Holy Spirit. In fact, your love spreads throughout the lands of Macedonia. We want to encourage you in this, brothers and sisters, that your love will thrive more every day. 11-12 Aspire to live quietly; mind your own affairs; work with your hands. The aim of your lifestyle should be to become a model of conduct to the outside world and to need nothing from them. They will respect you for it. Verbatim Translation 9 Concerning now the brotherly love 5Fyi, philadephias. no need you have to write to you, for yourselves you taught-by-god are in the to love one another; 10 for also you do it for all the brothers in whole the Macedonia. And we urge you, brothers, to abound even more, 11 and to aspire to live quietly and to engage in activity your own and to work with the own hands of you, just as to you we instructed, 12 that you might live becomingly with6Or before. the outside and of nothing7Per BDAG, nobody. need you might have. _____________ Footnotes: v9 - 5 Fyi, philadephias. v12 - 6 Or before. 7 Per BDAG, nobody. DP Parallel Bible (3-Column) - 1 Thess. 3" Message:
The Thessalonians have not only learned and incorporated all that Paul, Timothy and Silas taught them — a remarkable occurrence, considering how radical and fraught with danger their teachings were — but they have been getting instruction from God, as well. Their brotherly love exceeds what Paul had expected, and he tacitly credits it to the Holy Spirit. Paul's expression “God-taught” occurs nowhere elseHere's a great word for anyone who enjoys that sort of thing: A word that only occurs once in the Bible is called a “hapax legomenon”. in the New Testament. No doubt Paul, educated as a Pharisee, has Isaiah 54:13 in the back of his mind: “All your children shall be taught by the Lord.”
1) Live quietly, 2) Mind your own affairs, 3) Work with your hands. I suppose one could fill a book with a discussion of any of these. “Live quietly” is easily understood, if difficult for some people to do, and it goes hand-in-hand with “mind your own affairs”. This surely recalls Christ's advice, to pull the log out of your own eye before you turn your attention to the splinter in someone else's eye.
The difficult teaching is “work with your hands.” Is this supposed to be taken literally? Pretty much every saint, disciple, and apostle in the New Testament earns their living at manual labor. Also, the Amish, one would guess, take it as a straightforward commandment.
Nobody really knows how literally or strictly Paul meant this. I doubt many of us would say that someone who spends their time working at something directly productive breaks this instruction, even if their labor is not manual. (I hope not, since I am one of them!) But we really need to take a hard look at Paul's teaching here. We need to hear it, think about it, and think about how it relates to our own lives, rather than dismiss it out of hand. One can imagine 99% of the people who read it saying, “Oh, but he meant . . . he didn't mean . . . .”
But why do people dismiss it so casually? Here we have an easily understood normative statement, in the New Testament, directing us to do something. It is not something most of us want to do — unless we are already engaged in manual labor, in which case, we probably agree with it and feel a bit superior. Do we read the Bible to learn, or do we read the Bible to make ourselves feel better? What do we do, when the Bible tells us something we don't to do and, actually, don't even want to hear?
What about when it doesn't say something we do want it to say? (See the quote from Alistair Begg, above.)
One of the most important abilities a Christian must learn, in reading the Bible, is to read what is written, and not to read what is not written. This is, in fact, a commandment made by the Bible itself, which is to say, an instruction from God. Almost the last words in the Bible are, to paraphrase, “If anyone adds to the words of this book, God will plague him; and if anyone takes words away from it, God will take away his share of heaven.” (Revelation 22:18-19)
So, we will end on a note for thought: If this passage does not make us say, “I should support myself by working with my hands” . . . why not? Look at the words and, when you are satisfied with your answer, treat it as a rationalization. Pretend you are someone who thinks you are just saying it because you don't want to hear it or do it, and argue against your rationale.
We will be taking a break from Paul's epistles for Advent and Christmas, starting tomorrow, so you have a good month to do your homework.
Meditation : [I am as weak before God as a newborn child.] Prayer : Let the word of Christ richly dwell within me all this day; and whatever I do in word or deed, may I do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father......Amen |
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