Tag: Peter

Justified

So I’ve been listening to Mark Driscoll’s Trial series and we’re in 2 Peter now. I was really struck by the message today. Peter opens his letter with a simple statement, but one that is really quite profound:

Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ…

The key phrase here that I love is “obtained a faith of equal standing as ours.”  It’s so obvious, but so awesome – we have, purely by grace, obtained a faith as excellent and powerful as that of the apostles and Peter himself. Equal standing! These are the men handpicked by Jesus to follow him around for years, learning at his feet. Peter, in particular, is one of the three closest to Jesus, and ultimately the leader – he got to meet Moses and Elijah at the Mount of Transfiguration, to preach the gospel at Pentacost, and write books of the Bible before ultimately giving  his life for Christ – and he says we have a faith of equal standing to his own.

Your first reaction should be, “How?”

We obviously haven’t had the opportunities he had. We haven’t made the sacrifices he did. We, on good days, read the Bible – he wrote some of it. So how is our faith even in the same ballpark as his, much less completely equal?

Because it isn’t our own faith.

Let me repeat that, because it’s a big one:

It isn’t our own faith. It’s Jesus’ faith.

There’s an astonishing doctrine called “justification” that a lot of people kind of gloss over as they’re studying the Bible. Justification is the act of making the unjust into that which is just. This is something that sounds simple, but think about how this would look in a day-to-day example: imagine a judge trying a man for murder, and the jury finding him guilty after monumental evidence is brought against him. The judge hears the guilty verdict, then turns to the man and says “you are innocent, and free to go.” If a judge were to do such a thing, he would lose his seat! But that is exactly what God has done for us.

But how can a just God allow that which is unholy, which is sinful and abhorrent into his presence? If heaven is perfect, then how can we imperfect people get there, regardless of how good or faithful we are? The obvious answer is that we can’t, not on our own. This is where the sacrifice of Jesus comes into play.

The faith we are judged upon is that faith which was given us by Jesus, not our own. His is the only one that is perfect and pure and complete, and not even the apostles could add one iota of worth to that gift. So – do you see now? Regardless of what we do, regardless of who we are or how good or moral we are, we are unable to earn our way even into God’s consideration. It is only by accepting that perfect gift of Christ’s, that which is so far beyond anything we are remotely capable of, that we can stand boldly before the throne of grace and expect anything but eternal damnation.

It’s not you. To think you can add anything to his work is blasphemy. While dying on the cross Jesus cried out that his redemptive work was finished, and who are you to dare say you can add anything more to what God himself said was complete?

That’s justification. We’re all in the same ballpark because that’s where Jesus put us all there. Peter didn’t deserve it any more than you do. Knowing that, how can you not be overcome with hope? With joy? With a complete and total sense of unworthiness and thankfulness?

This is the God we serve, people. How awesome he is!

Bible Study: Acts 1-2

The question: in Acts 1-2, what are the apostles feeling and fearing now that Jesus is gone? How do they react?  This is a long one, so I’ve hidden some of it behind a “more” tag.

The initial reaction to Christ’s resurrection seems to be that the political victory they have desired has now come (1:6) but instead they are told that the political power was not yet coming (1:7) – instead, they would receive the Holy Spirit and become the witnesses of Christ to the world (1:8).   We can see that m any of Christ’s followers, while seeing him as a teacher, also saw him as their (potential) political and military leader as well, expecting him to restore Israel to its former power and glory, expelling Rome and its armies, and freeing the nation.

For many then, this must have come as a huge disappointment, perhaps disillusioning them to the other teachings of Christ. And so the initial fallout starts – first with the political zealots who saw Christ as a purely political leader. Those who remained at this point had to shift their focus away from all of that onto the spiritual implications of what they were told. They were to receive power, this Holy Spirit, and they would use this power to bear witness of his deeds and words to the world. Of note is that Christ immediately covers all ground here – he starts with Jerusalem and Judea, the provinces near where he was, where many of his followers had been or came from. He starts by saying in your own houses and neighborhoods, then goes to Samaria – geographically close, but culturally very different – and then adds “and to the end of the earth.”

He has just taken these people out of their comfort zones. He’s said that the power they now have will take them to places they’ve never been, to places they don’t want to go, but would still be there and working even in their own homes.  This would have different effects on different people, and thus I suspect that the apostles and his other followers all reacted differently to the news. Someone like Thomas was probably trying to process what it meant, what he would have to do, while Peter was thinking of where he would go. But what’s interesting here is that the first thing they do after hearing this news is not to talk about it, or immediately go act on it – instead, they return to the place where they have been staying, about a mile away, near Jerusalem, and the remaining apostles (along with about a hundred other Christ followers) meet in an upper room and elect a new apostle.

Continue reading Bible Study: Acts 1-2

The Three Loves

I was having a discussion with Robert about love, being “in love,” and what that all meant. I’ve long been of the opinion that love can be qualified using the three types of love that were present in the Greek language and are found in the Bible. The words are Agapeo, Phileo, and Eros.

Eros is an easily-understood one: it’s where we get our word “erotic.”It is the sort of physical/emotional/sexual love that one feels toward someone they desire. It does not mean lust, though it can lead to it. It is simply that attraction.

Phileo is a strongly emotional, heart-felt affectionate love. It’s the sort of love you might have for not just a spouse, but a sister, or a best friend.  It’s that attachment, that affection, that bond that people have.

Agapeo is a willful, spiritual, deliberate love. It lacks the passion of phileo, but instead has a deliberation that gives it a firmer ground. It is not better or worse because of this, it is simply different. (It is not, as commonly touted, necissarily a “True” or “God” love. There’s a good explanation of it at the Acts 17:11 blog.)

What interests me is where these loves come together.

In Scripture, there is a dialogue between Peter and Jesus, after his resurrection, where Peter is asked if he loves Jesus. It goes like this:

Jesus asked, “do you agapeo me?”
Peter replied, “I phileo you.”
Jesus asked, “do you agapeo me?”
Peter replied, “I phileo you.”
Jesus asked, “do you phileo me?”
Peter replied, “I phileo you.”

This was after Peter had lacked the will to stand up for Christ at the trial, but felt bitterly depressed after doing so. His confession to Christ was that while he loved him with all his heart, he lacked the will at that time to say he could agapeo. I think it was a spiritual victory, for Peter, in that he had finally identified that truth about himself. Later on it became clear that he had both phileo and agapeo for Christ. The passion and fire of phileo found a sturdy ground in agapeo,  and it was then that he became the bold apostle that he is remembered to be.

When phileo mixes with eros, we end up with a sort of love that is not in itself bad, but easily lends itself to disasterous situations. We’ve all seen those all-too-common passionate, but groundless relationships – they usually end up abusive or self-destructive, and are the cause of the high divorce rates we see. They have that fire and attraction to begin with, but without a firm grounding it peters out and dies.

The conclusion I came to with Robert is that only when all three come together can a relationship really be successful.  You must have all three parts there: the eros attraction to each other, the phileo affection and passion to drive it, and the agapeo determination and grounding to stick with it, “until death do you part.”

Any thoughts?