“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light…” Ephesians 5:8 (NIV)
My generation grew up living for Saturday mornings. For most children, we had only three major broadcast channels on television. Saturday mornings were when all three networks packed in their children’s programming. Every Saturday morning found me in my bean bag chair, on the shag carpeting, ready to binge cartoons for four hours.
It was during those years that ABC had a series of legendary educational music videos generally known as Schoolhouse Rock. The music videos taught basics in math, grammar, history, and civics with catchy, ear-worm tunes. I can still sing many of them. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago during breakfast I annoyed Wendy with my rendition of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence a la Schoolhouse Rock.
The best Schoolhouse Rock song was, however, Conjunction Junction, in which a train conductor taught us the grammar of conjunctions which are always “hookin’ up words phrases and clauses.” The conductor taught me that “and,” “but,” and “or” will get you pretty far.
Conjunction Junction came to mind this morning as I read the chapter, especially in continuation of yesterday’s chapter. The Apostle Paul spends a lot of time at Conjunction Junction, not just in today’s chapter, but in all of his letters. If you pay attention, you discover that he loved to contrast the old with the new, the. light with the darkness, and a life lived in the Spirit, following Jesus into God’s eternal Kingdom, with a life lived in the flesh, following the world to nowhere but the end of the earthly line.
Here are examples from today’s chapter:
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light…” “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” “Be careful how you live, not as unwise, but as wise.” “Do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” “Do not get drunk on wine…[but] be filled with the Spirit…“
The message from Paul’s perpetual crossing at Conjunction Junction is simple, yet profound. Being an obedient disciple of Jesus will increasingly create spiritual, mental, relational, and behavioral contrasts to those who simply and mindlessly follow fallen human nature and its worldly appetites. To say “I believe in Jesus” yet otherwise remain on the track to nowhere but the end of the earthly line means I missed the spiritual junction where life’s railroad track to Dark Valley switches to the line leading up to Sonrise Mountain.
So, in the quiet this morning, I find myself pondering the implied question Paul is asking from Conjunction Junction. As I look at the landscape of my own life, which line am I on, and where is it leading?
One of the things I love about Jesus’ Message is that it’s never too late to make the switch.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 1 Corinthians 2:6 (NIV)
I have found myself surrounded by some rather interesting and challenging circumstances in recent months on a number of different fronts in life. There is always a challenge when navigating diverse human temperaments, personalities, motivations, and conflicts in an effort to getting people unified and moving in a positive direction.
One of the things that has struck me as I’ve been meditating on these different circumstances is the differences between wisdom and folly. In some cases, I’m a bit further down life’s road than many of those I’m working with. There is a wisdom that comes with age and experience that others have simply yet to learn and develop. I’ve noticed that it’s easy for me to see things that others don’t as it relates to foreseeing the outcomes that particular choices, words, or courses of action will elicit. I can see a larger picture of what will be profitable and productive, and what will only stoke more problems and complications. Hopefully, I can be effective in influencing people toward the former while avoiding the latter.
At the same time, I have been faced with other circumstances that involve individuals my own age or older. Despite having traversed relatively the same amount of life’s road, these individuals appear to have learned nothing from their respective journeys. Their lives are a train wreck of perpetual poor choices and a refusal to learn from the painful consequences they’ve brought on themselves. There is little or no self-awareness, and appears to be zero desire to actually make any kind of meaningful positive change. At this stage of life’s journey, it’s a pretty good bet that tragedy will continue to follow them.
In today’s chapter, Paul continues to lay down a foundation for addressing the challenging circumstances among Jesus’ followers in the city of Corinth. Like the circumstances I have found myself navigating, the believers in Corinth were experiencing conflict, differences in motivations, differences in personalities, poor choices, foolishness, and unwillingness to change. Paul pleads that what is needed is God’s wisdom, which he points out is not like the wisdom the Greek sophists at the Corinthian temples espoused.
As I meditated on all of this in the quiet this morning, I found myself thinking about the outcomes Jesus says He wants from me as a disciple. I’ve observed that many people who call themselves Christians seem to have two primary outcomes in mind as it relates to being a Christian. First and foremost is making it into heaven. Second is to maintain some kind of social perception of moral goodness.
My perpetual journey through the Great Story, however, (of which this chapter-a-day post/podcast plays a part) reveals that when I made Christ Lord of my life then heaven was in the bag, and part of the surrender to His Lordship was becoming brutally honest about my moral failings instead of trying to hide them. If heaven is in the bag and I no longer need to pretend like I don’t have my own shit, what are the outcomes of this life journey that I am reaching for as a disciple? I discovered that what Jesus really asks of me and all those who follow Him is spiritual maturity. He wants me to grow up, grow wiser, learn from my mistakes, increase my spiritual knowledge, deepen my relationship with God and others, and to continue pushing further up and further in towards God’s Kingdom while letting go of this world and the things of this world.
So, here I am in the quiet once again, reading the Great Story, meditating on the daily challenges I’m navigating, praying for more wisdom, and attempting to be spiritually fruitful in my thoughts, words, actions, and relationships. My hope is that I speak “a message of wisdom among the mature but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.“
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
So David’s fame spread throughout every land, and the Lord made all the nations fear him. 1 Chronicles 14:17 (NIV)
When I was a teenager, I spent two years being spiritually mentored. The first thing my mentor had me do was memorize Joshua 1:8, the words Moses gave to his successor, Joshua:
Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
It was the beginning of my fascination with the Great Story and a commitment to reading it, studying it, and applying its principles and lessons to my life. You might say it was the seed that took root and eventually led to these chapter-a-day posts.
Of course, there’s also that promise the verse gives of prosperity and success if one lives according to the Book. Which, I have meditated on long and hard over the years. The promise has been a source of both tension and wisdom.
Today’s chapter is fascinating both for its content and its placement in the Chronicler’s updated history of the Kingdom of ancient Israel. One of the things I’ve learned in my decades of studying the Great Story is that the Hebrews were very deliberate in the structure of their writing. Today’s chapter is a great example.
In the previous chapter, the Chronicler reveals the priority King David placed on his faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. He leads a procession bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem where a temple will eventually be built for it. However, the Ark is not yet brought into the city. The Ark is left at the house of a man named Obed-Edom for three months. The Chronicler is sure to mention that while the Ark was in Obed-Edom’s home he and his household were blessed.
In the next chapter, the Ark is brought into the city of Jerusalem and David makes it a major event.
So, what happens in the three-month interlude?
The Chronicler tells of God blessing David in every way.
A foreign King makes a treaty with David and builds a palace for him. This shows David’s growing prominence in the region, as well as the respect and fear neighboring Kingdoms have for the powerful David. (verses 1-2)
David is blessed with more wives and children. (verses 3-6)
David, who the Chronicler is sure to mention always inquires of God before engaging in battle, is given major military victories over the Kingdom’s biggest rival. Not only this but when David and his men capture the idols of the Philistines, he dutifully burns them in accordance with the law of Moses. A detail marking David’s obedience to God that Samuel failed to mention. (verses 8-16)
With his structured account of David’s commitment to God and David’s blessed life and reign, the Chronicler is making the same connection that Moses was making with Joshua in the verse that I memorized all those years ago. Make God your priority, live according to His Book, and you will be prosperous and successful. One might say that this is the pre-Christian version of a prosperity gospel. The Chronicler is lifting up David as the example for his people to follow.
In the quiet this morning, I feel the nagging tension that comes with the fact that I regularly observe people making God into a good luck charm and a shortcut to worldly wealth and prosperity. It’s easy to do with the simplistic equation that is given. In my wrestling with this tension over the past 40-plus years, I have made a few conclusions.
First, I believe the promise is genuine. Making God and God’s Word the center of my life has led to success and prosperity for me. But, those words are layered with all sorts of meaning that I don’t believe are intended. God’s ways are not our ways, the prophet Isaiah reminds me. His thoughts are not my thoughts. Prosperity and success in God’s Kingdom does not look like it does for the Kingdoms of this World and people who are focused on this life and worldly things. Exhibit A is God’s own Son who revealed that success at the Kingdom of God level is taking up one’s cross and laying down one’s life for their friend. Prosperity in God’s Kingdom is ultimately an eternal concept, not a temporal one.
Second, living according to God’s Word has benefitted me in so many ways. I have avoided a lot of foolish mistakes because I followed God’s wisdom. I have diminished stress and anxiety with the antidote of faith and hope. I have found joy and contentment in enjoying the blessings I’ve been given rather than the envy and stress of chasing after the blessings of others.
Finally, I have learned that God’s view of “success” and “prosperity” comes at the expense of trials, struggles, tribulations, obstacles, and suffering. The Chronicler is holding up a specific piece of David’s story and an example for his people to respect and follow. However, he does so at the cost of providing context that is essential for wisdom and understanding. Before David was king he was an outcast and branded as an outlaw. David spent years on the run, living as an exile in the desert. The anointing and promise given to little boy David that he would be king would not come to fruition for decades in which his everyday life was a constant struggle for survival.
So, in the quiet this morning I once again find myself back at a place of understanding. Yes, there is success and prosperity in surrendering to Jesus and living my life according to His Word. No, that doesn’t look like success and prosperity as the world defines it, though it may look that way at certain times for certain individuals like King David. It does not, however, change a couple of basic principles that the Great Story gives as necessary context. First, spiritual blessings and maturity in this life are rooted in struggle. Second, this world is not my home. True prosperity is found in eternity.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. John 17:15 (NIV)
When our girls were teenagers, we did an exercise as a family in which we took the Myers-Briggs personality tests and then sat down with a therapist to unpack the results. I’ll never forget the point at which we got to the introvert-extrovert conversation. The therapist asked our daughters what they thought I was and our youngest immediately said I was an introvert. This shocked me because I am a pretty gregarious person and very comfortable in crowds. Madison explained that she assumed I was an introvert because “every morning when I wake up, Dad is by himself in the quiet reading his Bible.”
She’s not wrong, but even extroverts need regular doses of quiet.
I confess that there is something about monastic life that has always appealed to me. The simple, small, and quiet life of solitude seems so nice in a world of seemingly endless noise.
As a disciple of Jesus, however, I believe that a sequestered and cloistered life hidden from the world wasn’t what Jesus asks of me. A simple life? Yes. A quiet life? Yes. A small life? Sure. But the point is to be in the world. Just as Paul wrote to the believers in Thessalonica: “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” The point, Paul writes, is to be where others in a complicated, noisy, crazy, and messed-up world can see the contrast. A little ray of light in a dark and chaotic world.
Today’s chapter is the final of four chapters in which John records Jesus’ final words to His disciples before he is arrested. It ends with Jesus praying. In it, Jesus not only prays for His disciples but for all who would eventually believe in Him. He then specifically prays for us to be in the world but protected from the evil one (who, for now, has dominion in the world). That’s the point. That’s the mission. I’m to provide those in my circles of influence with a contrast that they can actually see. I can’t be the light of the world if I’m hiding the light under a box. I can’t be the salt of the earth if I’m still inside the salt shaker in the cupboard. I don’t need protection from the evil one if I’m never a threat to him or his dominion.
So, in the quiet this morning I am thankful for the quiet. The discipline of taking time for quiet and meditation in the mornings helps fuel the light, adds flavor to the salt, and fills my spirit in preparation for whatever it is I might face out there today. And, believe me, I am going out there into the world. That’s where Jesus’ footsteps lead.
I’m back on Facebook for those who liked to read my chapter-a-day posts there! Facebook refuses to give me access to my old, hacked account, but I have started a new account. Please feel free to search for me on Facebook and friend me. If Facebook won’t let you friend me, please go to my Facebook profile and “Message” me on Facebook Messenger, which should then allow me to friend you. Cheers! -Tom
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
“Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns.” Luke 22:53 (NIV)
I once knew a good man and follower of Jesus who worked for our local rural county on the road crew. As I was asking him about his job he told me hated it. I found this fascinating as it seemed like the kind of work he would enjoy. As I continued to question him, it became clear that the hatred of his job had nothing to do with the nature of the work but the nature of the workplace.
“The whole system is corrupt,” he told me. “This week I was sent out with a co-worker to fix a stretch of gravel road. It was a two-man job, however, and my co-worker refused to work. He just sat there and refused. So, I was stuck sitting there all day, too.” He went on to explain that the county government was controlled by a union that protected and perpetuated corruption and behavior like that of his co-worker. If my friend complained he would be threatened and punished. It was better to just keep your head down and your mouth shut.
Welcome to how things work in the “real world.”
A few years ago, I did a major study on the final hours of Jesus’ earthly journey. What I discovered in my study was that Jesus was tried and condemned by a fascinating combination of “real world” systems that included the earthly kingdoms of government, religion, and commerce.
The chief priests who arrested Jesus sat atop a political machine and cash cow in the Temple system. They were rich and powerful and they would not sit idly by and let anyone mess with the system that they controlled. As Luke points out again in today’s chapter, they were afraid of the crowds Jesus was drawing, and Jesus’ public criticism of them. They needed to get rid of the threat quickly and quietly.
The arrest of Jesus happens in the middle of the night in a garden on the Mount of Olives. It was illegal to hold a trial or condemn someone to death in the darkness of night. When Jesus points out that they could have arrested him any day that week as He taught in the Temple courts, He was making a legal point-of-order to the Temple officials arresting Him. This clandestine arrest and the series of kangaroo court trials they are about to put Him through are illegal. Jesus ironically points out that it is the “reign of darkness” that has arrived in the dead of night to arrest the Light of the World.
Along my earthly journey, I’ve learned from experience how things work in the “real world.” While not every system is corrupt, I’ve observed that the larger a system is, the more power it has in society, and the more money that’s involved, the more given to corruption it becomes. I’ve personally encountered corruption in the same systems of government, religion, and commerce that Jesus faced in his six trials. Like my friend who worked for the country road department, it’s easy to feel stuck in a corrupt system when there’s seemingly no way to fight it.
Luke wrote back in the fourth chapter that the evil one led Jesus up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to Jesus, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” (Luke 4)
Jesus passed on the offer, and now those kingdoms of this world under the evil one’s dominion have come for Jesus. Jesus finds himself stuck in a corrupt worldly system with no earthly way to fight it.
In the quiet this morning, I find myself reminded that sometimes being a disciple of Jesus is very simple. I observe how the “real world” works and I choose to do the opposite.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
Matthew 2:16
In recent weeks the world watched on video tape as two females approached the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jon Un in a Malaysian airport and, wiping a nerve agent on his face, assassinated him. This is the dark side of worldly power, and it has been this way since people began ruling over one another. Once you ascend to power you have to figure out a way to stay there, which means eliminating those who might try to take your place.
What a powerful contrast Matthew provides us in today’s chapter. Herod had qualities not unlike the North Korean dictator. A regional monarch put into power by the Roman Senate, Herod “the Great” murdered his own wife, three sons, his mother-in-law, his brother-in-law, his uncle and many others whom he suspected might try to rob him of his position and power.
Contrast this with the infant Jesus, who…
had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion. Philippians 2:5-8 (MSG)
This morning I’m thinking about my place in this world. It’s easy, even in relatively small ways, to succumb to the desire to gain, keep, and cling the things this world has to offer. As a follower of Jesus, the example I’m given is to embrace an eternal mystery of kenosis: in order to have anything of eternal value, I must let go of everything and empty myself.
Herod’s slaughter of the boys of Bethlehem, commonly referred to as “the massacre of the innocents,” stands as a horrific testament to the lengths one minor regional ruler will go to maintain his addiction to power, and it stands in stark contrast to the baby who emptied Himself of omnipotence to show us a better way.
