week five: genesis 23-28, joshua 23-24, judges 1-3, job 23-28, psalms 23-28, proverbs 23-28, isaiah 23-28, matthew 23-28, acts 23-28, first corinthians 7-12, hebrews 1-6
you have said so
i remember being a student at ASU and taking a few different religion classes with one being the Bible as Literature (aka How to Prove That the Bible is a Work of Fiction). I really enjoyed the class as it challenged a lot of my assumptions and caused me to read the bible in a more critical way. one thing i remember from that class and have heard many times since is that Jesus never claimed to be God.
i love how Jesus rarely answers directly, but always answers straight. Jesus uses a phase a few times to answer in the affirmative, but which scholars sometimes disregard. that phrase is “you have said so”. he uses it while sitting at the table during the Passover feast with His disciples when Judas asks if he will be the betrayer. Jesus answers, “you have said so.” then two more instances occur in which he uses the phrase to answer in the affirmative. first, when standing before Caiaphas, the high priest, he asks Jesus if he is “the Christ, the Son of God” and Jesus responds “you have said so.” then again, when Jesus stands before Pilate and He is asked if He is “the King of the Jews”, Jesus answers, “you have said so”.
rebuke vs. love
i’ve learned in being married that i don’t really like conflict. this may surprise many people who know me well, because i love to discuss, disagree, and debate, but when it comes to personal confrontation and conflict, i’d rather just forget about it and move on.
proverbs 27.5 says, “better is open rebuke than hidden love.”
proverbs by their very nature are wisdom sayings that aren’t always true, but that generally are true and will most likely prove true in real life. so, there are certainly times when we need to hold our tongues, but the general truth here is pretty clear…true love shows itself in rebuke. true love doesn’t hide things, but rather enters into conflict/rebuke when needed.
this verse has haunted me a bit this week as i’ve thought about how much i dislike conflict, but has also proven itself true to form as i’ve engaged in healthy conflict as well.
what are our law and prophets?
acts 28.23 says, “from morning til evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets.”
i’ve often thought of paul’s job as being a bit easier than ours in sharing about the kingdom of God with unbelievers. people knew the bible well, they had a basic understanding of who God is and he could use the bible itself to prove the existence of God. there was no source criticism or JEDP or Jesus Seminar. i’ve often asked what are our law and prophets? how do we contextualize the Gospel, so that people will know that Jesus is the Son of God. but as i was thinking this morning i realized that while paul did work with some Jews, his primary mission was to the gentiles and his primary tool to those gentiles was the law and the prophets (the Old Testament). paul was using the OT to convince complete unbelievers about Jesus. granted, he did use other tools (athenian poem in acts 17.28), but his primary tool was the Old Testament.
i still think we need to look for ways in which the Kingdom is displayed in our cultures and utilize those to connect to people, but our primary and most effective tool is still the Bible, the Word of God, which has the power to pierce “to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
Tagged: 10aday, acts, bible, matthew, proverbs![]()
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Tagged: 10aday, acts, bible, matthew, proverbs
