June 5, 2020 (today’s lectionary)
A riddle from scripture
Paul is so thankful for Timothy, the son he never had. I think that way about Chris, Marc, Andrea, their husbands and wives and kids, the children we DID have. I am so thankful for them. Their friendship and loyalty, their challenges to us both to stay awake, stay current, stay loving … we tried to be consistent with them and often failed, but their consistent affection for us is a great joy.
Now Paul, after appreciating Timothy’s adoption of Paul’s purpose, faith, patience, love and endurance, adds persecutions and sufferings. And he reminds us of what Jesus said, All who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Doesn’t matter. Keep on keeping on. Keep calm and carry on. It worked in the first century A.D., it worked in 1939 in England, and it works today.
But Paul does not want Timothy to rely solely on what he’s learned from Paul or from others. He wants Timothy to know Scripture backward and forward. Paul’s travels and debates have shown him how often those scriptures (the Old Testament then, both Testaments now for Christians) are used to manipulate truth rather than illuminate it.
DON’T MANIPULATE, Paul says. Learn to use Scripture accurately and with integrity to back up everything you say. Know and use the “biblical credentials of your faith,” as John Stott writes. God breathed into our nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7), and he breathes life (theopneustos) into his word. Stott says it this way:
It originated in God’s mind and was communicated from God’s mouth by God’s breath or Spirit. It is therefore rightly termed ‘the Word of God’, for God spoke it. Indeed, as the prophets used to say, ‘the mouth of the Lord has spoken it’.
It’s unlikely that the men and women who wrote down the words of Scripture were in a trance, or even that they waited to write what they “heard.” But somehow, what they wrote “originated in God’s mind.” Rather than argue about how that happens, I’d rather just put it in my pipe and smoke it. Because in my own life, and certainly in Paul and Timothy’s lives, the Word of God has earned the right to be heard.
It HAS been profitable. I have taught and been taught, corrected and been corrected, changed and helped others change. I have learned the lessons of righteousness from the inside out, starting with humility and maturing on from there.
But Paul says this other cool thing in verse 15. “The sacred writings are able to make you wise for salvation through Christ Jesus.” As you learn to read the foretellings and foreshadowings of the prophets and the histories and the psalms and the proverbs through these new lenses, then you will discover Christ Jesus here and there and everywhere. And the living water Jesus gives me is SALVATION water.
Be complete, mature, equipped for every good work.
How great is that feeling when you KNOW you are guided by God and every step on your path is true? Like Tolkien’s hobbits in the Shire he wanted us all to inhabit, just like Frodo and Bilbo, during the day I breathe deep and sing, at the end of the day I come home for dinner and rest with a peaceful heart.
And that’s it, isn’t it, Lord?
There is
great peace for those who love your law.
Your words are enduring,
The sum of your word is truth
All your righteous rules endure forever
And my heart stands in awe of your words
My life’s an open book before you, and
It’s only YOUR salvation that I seek
My own frail “salvation” isn’t worth a hoot
Jesus promises me
Juat love me, keep my word and be loved.
We will come and live with you.
Wait, no … not with you, but IN you.
We will live in you.
They’ve been asking him questions, so now he asks them one. Jesus poses a riddle for the Pharisees. What does King David mean in Psalm 110 when he wrote, “The Lord (Yahweh) said to my Lord (Adonai, or Messiah) …?”
David called the Messiah Lord, but Jewish tradition (with ample biblical reason) calls him the Son of David. How can he be both? That is the riddle.
Jesus points to the answer: the Messiah is David’s Son and David’s Lord at the same time. In other words, the Messiah is both God (David’s Lord) and man (David’s Son). The irony is that while the experts cannot answer the apparent contradiction, Jesus himself as the Son of God as well as the son of David is the living answer to the riddle.
So cool to see Jesus modeling exactly what Paul later taught Timothy to do. Jesus’ biblical credentials were impeccable.
The great crowd heard all of this with delight!
(2 Timothy 3, Psalm 119:157-168, John 14, Mark 12)
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