Tag Archives: Mission

Chapter-a-Day

“What’s it to You?”

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"What's it to You?" (CaD John 21) – Wayfarer

When Peter saw [John], he asked [Jesus], “Lord, what about him?”
John 21:21 (NIV)

I grew up fishing with my dad, though I never acquired his love for it. I am too impatient, and was especially so when I was a kid. As a young man, both my body and imagination were too active to sit in a boat for hours waiting for fish to bite. Nevertheless, I do have great memories of doing so.

There is one day in particular that stands out. I was around eleven and Dad and I were fishing on the Canadian side of the boundary waters. We fished a couple of coves on an island we’d never fished before. Oh man, the fish were definitely biting that day. It was unlike anything I’d experienced fishing. It felt like every cast of my Johnson’s Sprite pulled in a fish. In a couple of hours we had our limit, including two or three of the largest fish we’d ever landed. And, we’d thrown a lot of them back. I’ll never forget that day.

I think of that day whenever I read about one of the miraculous catches Jesus facilitated, as in the one in today’s chapter. Jesus told the disciples to go to Galilee and wait for Him there. So they did. And, they waited, and waited, and waited, until Peter couldn’t handle waiting and decided to go fishing. All night they fished, and didn’t catch so much as a minnow. Then the dude on the shore frying up some breakfast yells out to try the right side of the boat. “Voilà!” Suddenly there’s 153 lunkers in the net and the net is too heavy to pull into the boat! I remember that shot of adrenaline and the rush of dopamine flooding through my brain that day dad and I had our big catch.

The boys know in the moment that it’s Jesus on shore cooking breakfast. Peter abandons the boys with the net, dives in, and swims to shore (Did he, perhaps, think for a faction of a second of trying to walk to Jesus on the water?).

John chooses to end his biography with one of the most interesting conversations recorded in the Great Story. Jesus asks Peter to go for a walk, and John follows. Three times Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” and three times he commissions Peter to “Feed my sheep.” Peter probably didn’t even understand what Jesus was doing in that moment.

Three affirmations cover the three denials Peter uttered the night of Jesus’ arrest. “Leave your shame behind, Rocky. The Good Shepherd is heading home. You’re the shepherd in charge now.” Jesus then tells Peter to plan on a rough end to his earthly journey. He will be forcefully taken where he doesn’t want to go. He will be stretched out. As the appointed shepherd, they will crucify him, too.

Then Peter does something so human. He looks over at John and asks Jesus, “What about him?”

Along my life journey, I’ve observed that we humans have a thing with equity and fairness. I love the idyllic fantasies of everything working out the same for everyone. I so easily fall down the rabbit-hole of envy and jealousy cleverly disguised as political and social righteousness. I so easily grieve when looking over at the grass that appears so much greener on another person’s lot in life.

As a follower of Jesus, I’ve had to submit to the reality that my notions of equity and fairness are not part of the Kingdom economy. That’s why Jesus responds to Peter, “What’s it to you if I have different plans for John? We’re not talking about him, we’re talking about you, Peter. You each have a part to play in this Great Story but the roles are different, your lives and experiences will be different, and your deaths will be different. Peter, you’ll die about thirty years before him. The Romans are going to crucify you. John will live to old age, be exiled to an island, and pen the visions given to him of the final chapters of the Great Story. What’s it to you?”

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned as a follower of Jesus is that my focus is to be on God’s Kingdom, even on this earthly journey. Not checking-out and biding my time, but rather bringing a Kingdom perspective and mission to all that I am, think, say, and do. Jesus said to “set my heart on things above,” which means my earthly perspective has to change.

Like Peter, I have a journey to walk and a mission to accomplish, but I’ve had to let go of the notion that everyone’s journey looks like mine, or that my mission is going to look exactly like someone else’s. My father was beautifully and wonderfully made to be a gifted accountant, artisan, and patient fisherman. I’m not anything like that, so what’s it to me if dad’s journey looks different than mine, or mine looks different than his?

The good news, Jesus promised, is an equitable eternal homecoming where there is no more sorrow, or pain, or envy, or jealousy. Until then, like Peter, I’m called to contentedly walk my own journey and allow others to walk theirs, even if it appears to me that their journey is better, or easier, or more fun, or [place your favorite envy descriptor here]. I have come to believe that when I look back from eternity, I will see how wrong our human perceptions were with regard to what a “good” life looked like on this world, and also believe my eyes will be opened see all the “good” I experienced but never really saw or appreciated.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

A “New” Command

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A "New" Command (CaD John 13) – Wayfarer

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34-35 (NIV)

The other day I was in a video conference with my business colleagues. We were meeting a new vendor for the first time. At the end of the meeting our vendor made a statement that struck me.

“It’s obvious you guys have a really good synergy.” he said. “I do a lot of these meetings and it’s amazing how often people don’t talk to one another or don’t seem to like each other. You clearly have a good thing going. I like it.”

It made my day.

Todays chapter marks a way-point. We are two-thirds of the way through John’s biography of Jesus, which means that over one-third of his biography focus on roughly 43 days of Jesus earthly journey. The night before His crucifixion. The day of His crucifixion. His resurrection, and His appearances over 40 days.

As today’s chapter begins, it is Thursday night. Jesus and The Twelve have a private Passover meal. Even in the telling, John carefully chooses the elements of the events that he wants to share. As I’ve noticed throughout the book thus far, the elements John chooses are connected. The thread that connects them is Jesus’ foreknowledge of what will happen, and His driving of the events. He is not a helpless victim of circumstance. Jesus is a man on a mission.

The first event described is that of Jesus washing the feet of The Twelve. In dusty, hot Judea at a time when everyone wore sandals or went barefoot, one was bound to have dirty feet. Washing the feet was an act of hospitality and it was performed by lowly servants, which is why Peter balked at having the “Master” washing their feet. Jesus then tells the boys that He had done this as an example of what He expected them to do for each other.

Jesus knows He’s leaving them. He also knows that even that week they were having incessant arguments about which of them is the greatest and who was top dog in the pecking order. He provides them a word picture to remember: “If you want to lead, you have to serve those you’re leading.”

At the end of the chapter, after Judas’ departure, Jesus tells The Twelve Eleven, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

What’s “new” about it?” Jesus has been talking about love His entire ministry. He’s talked about loving others, loving your enemies, blessing those who persecute you, loving outcasts, loving the sick and poor…love has been central to all of Jesus’ teaching. So what’s “new” about this command?

He’s talking about them directly. Peter the brash one. James and John the angry “Sons of Thunder” whose mother tried to arrange places of honor in Jesus’ administration. Simon the right-wing, militia member. Matthew, the left-wing Roman collaborator. Thomas the cynic. This rag-tag team of largely uneducated men, who have always been more-or-less at one another’s throats, who have constantly been playing “king of the mountain” with their egos, are going to be left to carry out Jesus’ mission. If it’s going to work, they must love one another and serve one another.

Along my life journey, I’ve observed that there is a spiritual contrast between good and evil. Good is willing to humbly sacrifice self for others and the good of the whole. Evil demands its way until it eats its own.

I’m reminded of a client who became a follower of Jesus during the stretch of life’s journey when our company worked for his. He later told my colleague that it was the way our team members treated each other that led him to seek out what motivated us to treat one another with such love, respect, and service towards each other. “It was obvious to everyone,” he said. “People at work would talk about it.”

I think that’s what Jesus was getting at with the “new” command He gave The Twelve Eleven. If they were to succeed at their mission, they had to stop devouring one another, and start serving one another with humility.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Wayfarer Podcast

A Dentist on a Mission from God

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On this Wayfarer Weekend (WW) podcast I welcome Dr. Eric Recker to the Vander Well Pub for a conversation about his mission from God that sprung out of the COVID-19 pandemic and one of the most difficult days of his life. On our conversational journey, we intersect on exceptional situations, finding relationships, and how essential it is to have good companions on this earthly trek.

(WW) Dentist: On a Mission from God – Wayfarer

Chapter-a-Day, Wayfarer Podcast

The Church’s Blueprint

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The Church's Blueprint (CaD Ex 27) – Wayfarer

You shall further command the Israelites to bring you pure oil of beaten olives for the light, so that a lamp may be set up to burn regularly.
Exodus 27:20 (NRSVCE)

I was raised attending a Methodist church that many would describe as “high church.” The sanctuary was designed to reflect the ancient churches of Europe complete with stained-glass and a pipe organ. In the center was an altar raised so that one had to ascend to it. Above the altar hung a giant cross and from the cross hung what appeared to be a candle holder, but was actually an electric light bulb that was always illuminated.

In today’s chapter of Exodus, God continues to give Moses very intricate and detailed plans for the traveling temple that the Hebrews will build for worship and sacrifice. Todays chapter describes the altar on which sacrifices would be burned and an oil lamp that would be placed outside the entrance to the Most Holy Place where the Ark of the Covenant was held. The lamp was to burn continuously, an eternal flame.

You can probably see where I’m going with this. An altar? A lamp that burned continuously? Those were front-and-center elements of the church in which I grew up. And yet, when I became a follower of Jesus (in contrast to simply being a member of my church) and I read Jesus’ actual words, I found it interesting that Jesus never gave instructions for church buildings and altars and choir lofts and pipe organs. Nowhere in all the letters of Paul, Peter, James, and John are there Exodus-like instructions for the construction of a church, cathedral, basilica, sanctuary, altar, or an eternal flame.

In part, this is because the followers of Jesus were originally part of the Hebrew tribes and they continued to worship in the Hebrew tradition. But, as Jesus’ followers fulfilled their mission to take the message of Jesus to the world, the Hebrew believers became outnumbered by the non-Hebrew followers. Many of the letters that make up what we call the New Testament address the division and the conflict that followed. Nevertheless, the Jesus movement had no church buildings for the first three hundred years, though there were gathering places. It was only after the Jesus Movement became the institution of the Holy Roman Empire in the fourth century that churches were built for all the citizens of the Roman Empire who dutifully obeyed Emperor Constantine and signed up to become members of the new state religion: Christianity.

The Roman Empire then built churches, cathedrals, and basilicas and borrowed the basic elements of all the religions they knew including altars, lamps, candles, and incense. Fast forward 1700 years and we who belong to Christian institutions around the world continue to think of “church” a the local building where we sign-up for membership and gather to worship.

I can’t help but be reminded of the words of Jesus that I quoted in yesterday’s post in which He said that He would “destroy the Temple and raise it in three days.” That was the point of yesterday’s post, and the further I get into the description of the Hebrew Tabernacle the clearer it comes into focus for me. Jesus never gave His followers blueprints for building the church because the church was never meant to be a building. Jesus didn’t tell His followers to go to church. He told them to be the church.

Jesus promised to be wherever two or three believers gathered, which makes worship possible anywhere.

Jesus never gave instructions for lighting candles or having an eternal flame because He called followers to be the Light of the World through their acts of love for others.

Jesus never gave instructions for an altar because with His death the ultimate sacrifice had been made, once-for-all.

Jesus never talked about the designs for the central location where His followers would gather because the mission was not about gathering, but dispersing to bring God’s Kingdom to earth and to bring Light to dark places.

Please don’t read what I’m not writing. A central meeting place for believers to gather and worship is a no-brainer. Jesus prescribed the sacraments. Music, liturgy, and traditions of worship began with Jesus and the Twelve and were part of worship for believers meeting in homes for hundreds of years.

In the quiet, however, I find myself feeling adamant about a few key points. Jesus didn’t ask me to go to church, but to be the church. An altar is not a table in my local church sanctuary, it’s my life itself at home, at work, and wherever I happen to be carrying my cross and sacrificially giving myself to bring God’s Kingdom to earth. The eternal flame is not a 40 watt light-bulb hanging over the altar in a church, it’s the Light of Christ that is supposed to shine through my words, actions, and relationships with others.

I’m back to where I ended yesterday’s post. Not bricks-and-mortar but flesh-and-blood.

If there was a blueprint Jesus provided for design of the church, it would look exactly like me.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Being “Like God” or Being “Like God”

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Being "Like God" or Being "Like God" (CaD Ex 7) – Wayfarer

The Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet.
Exodus 7:1 (NRSVCE)

For 21st century followers of Jesus, the idea of being God’s agent on Earth is a common one. Jesus made it clear that He was entrusting His on-going mission to His followers. Holy Spirit was poured out to indwell believers, impart spiritual gifts to each, and empower every believer as an ambassador of God’s Kingdom. Believers often speak metaphorically of being Jesus’ eyes, ears, hands, and feet; We are asked to be, expected to be, the embodiment of Jesus’ love to others.

It struck me then when God told Moses “I have made you like God to Pharaoh.” The only time that being “like God” has come up in the story before now was when the snake tempts Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit, stating that it will make them “like God.” Until Moses appears, God has been intent on making Himself known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. At this point in the story, however, the Hebrews had become a nation of people living in Egypt for hundreds of years with the 1000+ Egyptian dieties.

One of the subtle themes that has already been established in the Moses story is that God wants the Hebrew people to “know” Him, and for Pharaoh to “know” Him. “They will know,” and “Egyptians will know” are repeated statements. In this way, Moses is really the first example of God using a human instrument through which others will come to know God and through whom God will display His power.

This, of course, sets up a really interesting and important contrast.

Being “like God” can be opposite sides of a coin. I can be “like God” by seeking complete control of my life and the lives of everyone around me. If I want to be “like God” by sitting on the throne of my own life looking out for numero uno, doing as I please, and determining my own way with every step, then my path is going to lead to spiritually dark places (even if I wear the facade of being a good and faithful member of my local church). This is the dark side of “being like God.”

When Moses was being “like God” and when Jesus’ followers become “Christ-like” it is a process of humility, vulnerability, and submission. I can’t help but think of Jesus’ words to Peter after the resurrection:

Jesus said [to Peter], “Feed my sheep. I’m telling you the very truth now: When you were young you dressed yourself and went wherever you wished, but when you get old you’ll have to stretch out your hands while someone else dresses you and takes you where you don’t want to go.”
John 21:17-19 (MSG)

Jesus explains that Peter had lived the dark side of being “like God” self-centeredly determining his own way, but now he is going to experience the Light side of being “like God” in which he will (like Jesus’ did) humbly surrender his own rights of self-determination and become obedient to places he doesn’t want to go (i.e. “Father, let this cup pass from me”), even to his physical death.

In the quiet this morning, I’m finding myself surprisingly emotional as I meditate on this very simple concept. In my daily life, in the writing of these blog posts, I take on the mantle of being a follower of Jesus. But, are my daily life, words, and actions a demonstration of the dark side of being “like God” or the Light side of being “like Christ”? Am I living for myself under the veneer of being a good Jesus follower? Is my life a demonstration of the humility, vulnerability, and surrender required to be an agent of Christ-like love?

I’m not sure I like all of the answers I’m coming up with to these questions.

Chapter-a-Day

Not Earth to Heaven, but Heaven to Earth

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But our citizenship is in heaven.
Philippians 3:20a (NIV)

Since last September our local gathering of Jesus’ followers has been engaged in a year-long study of the book of Acts, which starts as a history of the early Jesus Movement. The second half of the book, however, is really a history of Paul. While history records that what remained of the Twelve original disciples gave their lives in service to advancing Jesus’ message to the known world, the latter half of Acts does not mention them. The author, Luke, traveled with Paul and his focus lies there.

In case you didn’t know it, that’s why I’ve been blogging through all of Paul’s letters in, roughly, chronological order.

One of the discoveries I’ve made in my study this year is the degree to which Paul was focused on Jesus’ mission to bring God’s Kingdom to Earth.  “Your Kingdom come,” Jesus taught His disciples to pray. “Your will be done on Earth, just as it is in heaven.” This isn’t a minor point. It’s a transformative shift in paradigm.

As I look back on almost forty years of my spiritual journey the emphasis I’ve been taught by teachers and authors and commentators has been on getting to heaven. We want people to walk the aisle, get their ticket punched and their reservation made in eternity. That accomplished, we encourage spiritual growth, but in practice only a few really take the whole thing seriously on a day-t0-day basis. Most go about life without giving it much thought in daily life. But no matter, the important thing is that the sinner’s prayer was dutifully said as a child back in church camp. Your fire insurance policy is paid up. The church can breathe a sigh of relief if you get hit by a Mack truck later today. (In case you didn’t know it, Mack trucks have been unexpectedly sending people to untimely deaths in hypothetical Christian scenarios for many decades).

In today’s chapter Paul certainly has his sights on eternity. He talks about being called heavenward. He tells the Philippian believers “our citizenship is in heaven.” His emphasis, however, isn’t on getting there. His emphasis in today’s chapter is on the work in his here-and-now, Level Three journey on Earth. I paraphrase:

  • Rejoice today in your circumstances (Paul is writing from prison).
  • Watch out for those who would lead you in the wrong direction.
  • I’m giving everything I’ve got, today, to advance the Kingdom (on Earth).
  • I’m approaching everything in this Level Three earthly journey with a Level Four eternal perspective.
  • I’m following and suffering to live out Jesus’ teaching and calling.
  • There’s more to do. I’m not waiting for it. I’m pressing into it every day in every way.
  • I’m not sitting back and waiting to die, I’m doing everything I can right now.

This morning I find myself reexamining my entire life and faith journey. Mental adherence to the right set of beliefs, a muttered rote prayer, a membership certificate, or a religious habit of Sunday attendance were what Jesus’ message was about, but that’s largely been the message that I think I’ve unwittingly lived out in too many ways. I have to confess that bringing the Kingdom of Heaven here to Earth hasn’t been where my focus has been. I regret that.

Well, as Paul wrote in today’s chapter: “forgetting what lies behind, straining toward what is ahead.” I’m getting ready to head into a full day of client meetings. I don’t want to leave the Kingdom in my hotel room once I publish this post. I want to take the Kingdom with me into every meeting, conversation, word, relationship, and action.

Chapter-a-Day

Prisoner of Whom?

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For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles….
Ephesians 3:1 (NIV)

One’s perspective makes all the difference.

Having just journeyed through the season of Lent, I was reminded time and time again that Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, suffering and execution had been predicted. Jesus knew what was going to happen, and He made it clear to His followers. Despite this foreknowledge of what was to happen, Luke writes the Jesus “Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” (9:51)

Jesus wasn’t the victim. He was driving the events that happened. He was on a mission.

As I’ve been studying the events surrounding Paul in the Book of Acts, there is a very clear parallel to Jesus’ story. Paul was a citizen of Rome. It was a rare status that afforded him all sorts of privileges. When Paul was arrested and put on trial, he could have easily gotten off. Instead he appealed his case to Caesar assuring that he would be taken prisoner to Rome. As he waited for his trial before the leader of the Roman Empire, he wrote letters. Ephesians is one of them.

I couldn’t help but notice in today’s chapter that Paul doesn’t call  himself a “prisoner of Rome,” but rather a “prisoner of Christ Jesus.” Paul, like Jesus whom he followed, does not see himself as a victim of circumstances, but a servant of Christ. He’s not a victim. He’s on a mission. There is no moaning about his imprisonment. He tells the believers in Ephesus not to be discouraged by his sufferings. The entire chapter is focused on God’s eternal, cosmic, Spirit-ual, Level 4 power:

  • “God’s grace given me through the working of his power” (vs. 7)
  • “boundless riches of Christ” (vs. 8)
  • “God, who created all things” (vs. 9)
  • “the manifold wisdom of God” (vs. 10)
  • “[God] from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name” (vs. 15)
  • “out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit” (vs. 16)
  • “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (vs. 18)
  • “this love that surpasses knowledge” (vs. 19)
  • “him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (vs. 20)

This morning in the quiet I’m thinking about the perspective with which I approach my own circumstances. Am I walking this life journey as a person who happens to claim to be a follower of Jesus but then lives my life as if I’m a victim of random earthly circumstance? Or, am I on a mission, as well? Like Jesus, like Paul, is my faith-journey propelling me to a larger purpose and mission rooted in Level 4 power and purpose?

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it….”

Chapter-a-Day

The People v. Paul of Tarsus (Part 3)

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Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.”
Acts 26:32 (NIV)

What do I believe in so strongly that I would be willingly imprisoned for it?

That’s the question that came to mind as I read today’s chapter which Chronicles Paul’s trial before Porcius Festus, King Agrippa II, and Agrippa’s sister, Bernice. One of the reasons the Roman Empire was so successful at occupying so much of the world for so long was that they found a way to occupy a region while allowing the local ruling families to continue to have certain power and jurisdiction. In this hearing, Paul is allowed to make his defense before both the local monarch, Agrippa II, and the Roman Procurator who represented Rome’s interest in the area.

Paul wastes no time in making his appeal to Agrippa who had life-long knowledge of Judaism, its laws, and the various sects that brokered for power within the Temple system. Festus may not have had very limited knowledge of what it meant for Paul to have been raised a strict, law-abiding Pharisee. Agrippa, on the other hand, could fully understand the weight of Paul’s testimony and defense. Sure enough, Festus appears baffled by it all and thinks Paul’s whole story crazy. Paul then calls on Agrippa’s belief in the prophets and attempts to convince the king of Jesus’ Message.

Today’s chapter ends with Festus and Agrippa agreeing that Paul could have been released had he not appealed to Caesar. But Paul knew his fate when he made his appeal. He knew what he was doing. He would write to the believers in Ephesus, “I am an Ambassador in chains.”

To the believers in Philippi he wrote:

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.

To the believers in Colossae he wrote:

And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.

Once again, as I read all of the events of Paul’s choices, his arrest, and his trials, I don’t find him to be a victim. I find Paul to be a man on a personal mission of his own choosing. He’s sacrificing his own personal freedom and well-being to advance Jesus’ Message .

Which brings me back to the question spinning around in my spirit in the quiet this morning:  What do I believe in so strongly that I would be willingly imprisoned for it?

Chapter-a-Day

The People v. Paul of Tarsus (Part 1)

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Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus.
Acts 24:24 (NIV)

I and my team at work have had many different business engagements over the years with a number of very different companies. I’m glad to say that our team has had several on-going engagements with clients that have lasted 15, 20, and even 25 years and counting. Others engagements have been relatively small projects that lasted a week or a month. The difference between a long engagement and a short one is often dependent the level of person we’re working with within the organization.

If we’re working with the CEO and/or senior executives of a client company, we have the opportunity to positively influence the client’s entire operation along with the  health and well-being of the customer experience for decades. A middle manager, on the other hand, typically has limited means and influence. They usually bring us in for a moment in time to treat a symptom in their service delivery system.

In today’s chapter, we find Paul in the midst of a tectonic shift in his ministry. For years he has traveled the Roman Empire in Judea, Asia Minor, and Greece. He’s been among the people. He’s expanded the number of believers and followers of Jesus. He’s organized them into local groups. He’s provided for himself by keeping his day job as a maker of tents. Paul has been on a grass-roots, boots-on-the-ground, non-stop mission among the common, everyday people in the streets. Now, like Jesus before him, Paul finds himself in the justice system of the Roman Empire being accused by the leaders of the Hebrew religion who want him dead. Unlike Jesus, Paul is a citizen of Rome, and that affords him the ability to appeal his case all the way to Caesar himself.

The first trial Paul faces against the religious leadership of the Jews is before the Roman Procurator, Antonius Felix, who had authority over Judea. Felix, like many Roman regional authorities of the time, was a corrupt official with a reputation for both cruelty and debauchery. The trial, as recorded in today’s chapter, should have ended with Paul’s release. The Jewish leaders had no accusation that should have stood up in Roman court. They did not produce a single corroborating witness willing to be cross-examined, and they had no evidence. Paul’s defense was persuasive and, as a Roman citizen, he should have been released immediately. Felix, however, was in a tough spot politically.

One of the top responsibilities of Roman provincial leadership was keeping the peace. The Jewish leaders bringing charges against Paul had tremendous political and social influence, and Felix knew it. His predecessor, Ventidus Cumanus, failed to respond to a racially motivated murder of a Jew in Samaria. The result was riots and uprising. Cumanus was held responsible by Caesar and exiled. Felix wants to avoid this fate so he decides to appease the Jewish leaders by keeping Paul in prison. But the Jesus movement has been gaining popularity, as well. Tens of thousands of people had become believers and Paul is one of their leaders. So, Felix can’t just have him killed without potentially igniting a backlash.

The compromise Felix came up with was to keep Paul under a relatively comfortable house arrest within the palace. For two years Felix and his wife (the daughter of Herod Agrippa) regularly meet with Paul to have lengthy discussions. Felix, being a corrupt Roman official, is hoping Paul will offer him a bribe to let him go. Paul is on a very different mission, however. He could have easily stolen Peter’s line: “Silver and gold I don’t have, but what I have I give to you.”

This morning as I read, I thought about Paul’s situation in terms of my own experience in business. For years Paul has been working with the front-line workers of the corporate Roman Empire. Now Paul finds himself invited into the executive suite. Paul has the opportunity to influence an influencer. To convert a Roman official, to even make him aware of the Message of Jesus, could have a tremendous ripple effect throughout the Empire. Paul is fulfilling the very mission Jesus spoke of to his disciples: “On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.” (Matt 10:18)

Convert an Ephesian shopkeeper and you change a life. Convert a Roman official and you might just change an empire (which is exactly what eventually happened two hundred years later with the Roman Emperor Constantine).

Chapter-a-Day

Final Words

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The words of Jeremiah end here.
Jeremiah 51:64 (NIV)

Along my journey I’ve had the privilege of officiating a  host of funerals. Some of them have been family members with whom I’ve had a life-long relationship. Many have been complete strangers to me. No matter the case, I’ve always approached these meaningful events with a desire to honor the person, her/her family, and to comfort those loved ones by telling the person’s story well.

I usually start by simply meeting with the family and asking them questions. As I listen, a story begins to emerge about the deceased, what the person did with his/her life, how he/she impacted the people around them, and what his/her journey was really about. I’ve got to be honest, sometimes the story is heart-warming, and other times it is painfully tragic. Either way, there is always a story to tell.

One of the things I’ve most appreciated about this long slog through Jeremiah’s prophetic anthology is the realization that we have a fairly thorough retrospective of Jeremiah’s 40 years of prophetic works from beginning to end. Jeremiah had a very specific message to convey throughout his career: Babylon was going to destroy his city of Jerusalem and take his people into exile. Then, Babylon would eventually suffer the same fate. When the former happens as prophesied, Jeremiah sends the latter message with a servant headed to Babylon. With that act, the editors tell us that they are Jeremiah’s final words (though the story ends with tomorrow’s final chapter).

Jeremiah’s words were never popular. He was threatened, attacked, imprisoned, left to die, and yet he always remained “on message.” He stuck doggedly to the message God gave him. When the Babylonians showed him unusual mercy for his prophetic “support” of their invasion, Jeremiah didn’t hesitate to tell them that their turn was coming. He never backed down. He completed the job. He stuck to the mission.

This morning I’m thinking about the end of Jeremiah’s words, and it’s prompting thoughts about my own life, and my own story. Someday the responsibility will likely fall on someone to listen to my family members and to sum up my story in just a few minutes of oratory. With each day of my journey I slowly pen that story. I hope it’s not unlike Jeremiah’s: sticking to the mission, completing the course set before me. More than anything, I hope the theme of the story is love.