The Character of God- Part 1

Subtitle:  Introduction

Exodus 34:6-7.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 8, 2024.

Structure of the verses

As we approach these verses today, we find a scene where God is declaring his character before Moses on Mt. Sinai.  He refers to Himself as Yahweh, which is often written in English as “LORD” or “Lord.” Some older English versions brought it across as “Jehovah.”  Regardless, this is the name that God reveals to Moses at the burning bush.  It is often recognized as the special name that God uses in making covenant with Israel.  It essentially means, “I am that I am” and is a declaration of being the essence of existence itself, “The One Who Is Existence Itself” or “The Eternally Existent One.”

We will look at these verses in more detail in the weeks ahead, but let me point out a notes on these verses.  In verse six, we have a five-part description of God’s character.  It is poetically designed to have two sets of two character traits surrounding one.  It looks like this.

• “A God compassionate and gracious
  • Slow to anger,
• And abounding in lovingkindness and faithful truth.”

This has an effect of surrounding a central character trait and bringing focus to it.  This is not to say that God’s slowness to anger is the most important one, but that it sticks out.  This will make more sense when we look at the structure of verse seven.

Verse seven picks up character trait number four, lovingkindness, and comments upon it.  This second verse has a bracketing structure, or bookended one.  This bracketing helps to highlight a central point in this verse similar to verse six.  It looks like this.

• “Who keeps lovingkindness
  • For thousands [of generations]
    • Who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin;
      • Yet, He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.
    • Visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren
  • To the third and the fourth generations.”

As  you can see, the numbers (“thousands” versus “third and fourth”) correspond to one another.  Also, the next indents correspond as well (“Who forgives iniquity” versus “visiting the iniquity…”).  These contrasting brackets surround a central point that God will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.  Thus, these two verses highlight that God is slow to anger (because of His compassion, Grace, Lovingkindness, and Faithful Truth), and yet, He will not let the guilty go free.  He is merciful, but He is no pushover.

A way to highlight why this is so important is to look at how this tension, between God’s mercy and His ultimate judgment, affects people from different parts of the world.  In the West, we tend to be uneasy about God’s judgment.  We read the second part of verse seven and we think that it has turned bad.  Whereas, people in the Middle East would look at the same verses and think it is the first verse that is problematic.  It makes God sound like He is too merciful.

If you still don’t understand then think of it as a tension between God’s love.  He will be compassionate, but He must hold the wicked accountable for the sake of those they hurt.  Of course, God perfectly satisfies this tension.  Yes, He is slow to anger, but He can eventually get there.  When He does, He is not like us, losing control and choosing to go down the path of overkill.

We should also notice the contrast of ratio.  God keeps lovingkindness to a 1,000 generations, but only visits the iniquity of the fathers to the 3^rd and 4^th generation.  We see this kind of ratio in Isaiah 61:2.  There the prophet proclaims the “acceptable year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of the LORD our God.”  Here the ratio is roughly 365 days of favor to 1 day of vengeance.  I don’t believe this is intended to emphasize the ratio, but rather the magnitudes of difference.  God’s character requires Him to eventually judge, but He is not “Vengeful.”  His character is about doing what is good to His creation.  However, what do you do when a particular created being seeks the harm of many others?  Eventually the goodness of God requires that creature to be held accountable.  Yet, God does so quickly without relishing in it. 

You could say that it is harder to get into the “doghouse” with God than it is to get out.  This is very different than people.  In fact, some people who are very judgmental of the “God of the Old Testament” will never let others out of the doghouse.  They will hold a grudge against you until they die.  God is not this way.  God’s wrath is intended to be quick, surgical, and a warning to others that they should repent before they end up in that situation.

The Message of Genesis

This revelation to Moses is not in a vacuum.  The context leading up to this passage is the books of Genesis and Exodus.  Let’s look at Genesis first.

Genesis essentially presents the problem with the world and then explains God’s solution to that problem.  Have you ever asked this question, “What in the world is God doing?”  Chapters 1 and 2 establish that the problem is not God’s fault.  He made the creation “very good.”  See Genesis 1:31.  God made the heavens, both the material stars and galaxies as well as the immaterial angels and spirit-realm.  He also made the earth where humans dwell.  All of it was made very good.  Whatever you do, don’t think you are going to get far blaming God for the evil in the world.  What we see today is not what God made.

Chapter 3 then describes how everything went bad.  It has two important aspects.  Adam and Eve (humanity) have a breakdown in their relationship with God.  They had no reason to doubt God, and every reason to trust Him.  Yet, they chose to reject His wisdom and do their own thing.  Fractured relationship with God is at the heart of this world’s problems. 

However, a second issue is highlighted, there has been spiritual interference in that relationship.  The serpent lied to Eve and deceived her into distrusting God.  Revelation 12:9 makes it clear that this ancient serpent is the devil, satan, the dragon.  Regardless of whether you think this is a literal snake that is possessed of the devil or a serpentine manifestation of the devil, the end-result is the same.  The devil meddled in the relationship between humans and God.  He talked them into trusting him rather than trusting God, Who had never failed them before.  What is at question in Genesis 3?  It is God’s character.  Does He speak the truth?  Can He be trusted?  Is He actually holding us back so that we do not become as great as He or greater?  These are the aspersions satan stirs up in their minds.  Humanity has broken faith with God, but a crafty, spiritual meddler took advantage of their youthful innocence.

This sets up Genesis 3:14-15.  God curses the serpent, but gives a promise to mankind through the woman.  First, there will be hostility between the woman’s seed and the serpent’s seed (the devil’s).  Second, a particular seed, “he,” will crush the serpent’s head while having his heel injured.    If you look closely at those verses, you see that this is a powerful promise from God that their enemy would one day be dealt with through a mortal blow.  Though satan is a spiritual being, he will eventually die like a man. 

This sets up a promise or hope that humanity can hold onto, even when it seems bleak.  God particularly emphasizes the seed of the woman.  The serpent attacked through her, and so God’s counter-attack will come through her.  Yet, it will be a man who crushes the serpent’s head “he.”  God’s solution is a particular man who will be the serpent-crusher.

Genesis 4 becomes important because it shows us what the hostility between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent would essentially look like.  Cain and Abel are both seed of the woman in a biological sense.  Note: if you have listened to YouTube videos or documentaries that try to make Cain the offspring of a physical union between the serpent and Eve (or even Yahweh), then know that this unequivocally cannot be so.  Genesis 4:1 tells us that Adam had sex with his wife and she gave birth to Cain.  She then “gave birth again,” and it was Abel.  There is no room to insert a physical serpent offspring here.  The point of the passage is that Cain is making a spiritual choice to follow (to image) the serpent, rather than God, which is what Abel did.  There is even a scene where God talks to Cain in a Fatherly way, warning him that sin sought to master him.  The two seeds are spiritual dynamics between the sons of righteousness and the sons of wickedness.  The sons of wickedness are hostile to the sons of righteousness and choose to persecute and kill them.  However, Cain didn’t have to choose to be a son of wickedness.  God truly did put a door of hope in front of Him.  He had no reason to break faith with God and follow the path of the serpent (who was a murderer from the beginning, John 8:44).

Eve’s next son is called Seth, “Appointed One,” because God had appointed another seed for her, one to take Abel’s place.  He is not just taking his place physically, but as one appointed for the chosen line, the line from which the Serpent Crusher would come.  We see this chosen line of Appointed, spiritual men who personally represent, and have faith in the promise of God to crush the serpent’s head through a particular seed of the woman. This is revealed through prophecy, which Eve does here with Seth.  We see it several more times with Enoch and Noah.  These men are prophets who hear from God.

Thus, Genesis builds off of the First Rebellion of Genesis 3, presenting two more rebellions.  The Second Rebellion is seen in Genesis 6 as rebel Sons of God come down and create a wicked race of beings.  Regardless of how you interpret this passage, the overall point is that this speeds up wickedness until it fills the whole earth.  Noah and his family are the only ones left faithful in all the earth.  The wickedness threatens the Chosen Line and the possibility of bringing forth the Serpent Crusher.  God sends a flood to cleanse the earth and allow humanity a fresh start.

The Third Rebellion is after the flood in Genesis 11.  At the Tower of Babel, Nimrod leads a rebellion against the purposes of God.  As God confuses the languages, He also casts the nations out of relationship with Him, like Adam and Eve.  They want to worship fallen angels, and so He hands them over to these beings.    From now on, God would not deal with humanity as a whole, but only through the man Abram and the nation of Israel that would come forth from him.  Through Abraham, the chosen line, and later through Israel, a chosen nation, God would bring forth the ultimate Chosen One who would crush the serpent’s head and then bless those people and nations who would bless him.

The book of Genesis ends with Jacob prophesying over his sons in chapter 49.  There he prophesies that the tribe of Juda would hold the kingship, until Shiloh comes.  Shiloh can be translated as “The One To Whom It Belongs,” which in the context of Genesis is clearly the promised Seed of the Woman who would crush the devil’s head.

This book would serve to help an ancient Israelite understand their part in the world and what God was doing.  Things were not hopeless.  God had a particular man that He would bring forward at just the right time.  It was their job (and it is our job) to keep faith in God’s plan and His Man.  They must wait for God’s Serpent Crusher.

But, one might complain with this question.  How will that help me when I am dead?  Yes, that is the question that is eventually answered through the prophets.  Even Job believed that he would see God with his own eyes at the last day, even though he would die (see Job 19:26).

The Message of Exodus

This brings us to the next book.  We find God’s chosen nation in bondage in Egypt, making bricks for the power of this world, Pharaoh.  This is partially because the Egyptians had betrayed them, but also partially because they had begun to worship the God’s of Egypt.  In fact, the Egyptian’s betrayal follows the earlier story of Joseph’s betrayal by his own brothers.  Joseph was then sent on ahead of his brothers to become the one in charge of Egypt in order to save them from a famine.  What happened in this family of Jacob was a picture of what would happen in the family of nations.

You see, you can be the chosen line, the chosen one, the chosen nation, but if you aren’t careful, you can end up in a cast out position, serving the gods of this world.   You can end up as a metaphorical slave in Egypt (your life of bondage to sin) in meaningless work for the false gods of this world.  In that condition, you can cry out, “God, where are you?”  Of course, His response would be something on the order of, “That was my question for you along time ago!”

The chosen line, and chosen nation, are not shown as perfect.  The Serpent Crusher is not a genetic experiment to breed a champion.  It is a miracle of God, despite their (our) failures.  Yet, Abraham believed God; Jacob came to believe God; Joshua, David, Isaiah, Joseph and Mary, all of them believed God.

What does Adam do following the Genesis 3 punishment?  He has a choice.  He can either walk in his own wisdom in further rebellion against God, or, he can go to work in the sweat of his brow.  He can labor to feed his wife and kids.  He can bear that punishment in the hope that God will keep his promise and crush the head of his enemy, the devil.

The message of Exodus is that no matter how chosen we are, and how much God has promised to work through us, we all end up in slavery (personally, nationally, globally).  Salvation can only come by a supernatural work of God.  God must redeem us by His own Right Hand!

Exodus is the template of God’s salvation.  He will come to us in our slavery and powerfully show up the false gods we have been serving.  He will then lift us out of bondage and cause us to inherit what we had lost.  Of course, we must simply trust Him and follow Him.  Jesus Christ is the supernatural intervention of God, and we would do well to put our trust in Him and follow Him at this juncture.

Exodus 1-18 is all about God bringing Israel out of Egypt and to Mt. Sinai, where a covenant He will cut a covenant with them.

Chapters 19 to 40 is all about the covenant.  Yet, the people are afraid of God, so they have Moses be their intermediary.  Moses goes up on the mountain for 40 days (chapters 20 to 32).  As God gives to him the details of the covenant, Israel gets tired of waiting for Moses to come back.  They make a golden calf and worship it as the god who brought them out of Egypt.  This is akin to a person cheating on their marriage partner during the ceremony!  They couldn’t even give God 40 days of faithfulness before they were going astray from Him.

What happens in a case like this?  Does a man simply say that this kind of thing sometimes happens, and then, continue to marry the woman?  God even gives Moses an offer.  He would destroy Israel and make a nation from Moses.  However, Moses points out that this will only make God look weak to the nations.  It would appear that He couldn’t really save people. 

I believe that God is actually provoking Moses to see and give voice to what God was going to do all along.  God would have mercy on Israel.  He would continue into this covenant with them.  For better or worse, He would be their God and they would be His people.  God doesn’t just want to give us the answers to the test.  He wants us to come to the realization for ourselves that His way really is the better way.  If we listen to God and pay attention, we can come to understand the God who became human and died on a cross for our sins.

Perhaps, we might understand Him enough to follow Him and lay our own lives down in such a way that others may be saved.  How many of us haven’t found ourselves trying to follow God, but then falling short and missing the mark?  Of course, we all have.

How can God put up with Israel?  Their story is our story.  God’s character is such that He helps us, forgives us, is slow to anger.  Yet, He will judge in the end.  This is the backdrop to the event in Exodus 34, where Moses goes back up the mountain after confronting Israel with their sin.  There, God reveals His amazing character to Moses.  This is what we will be looking at for the next 5 weeks.

Character of God 1 audio

The Afflicted One

Matthew 27:45-54.  Psalm 22.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 20, 2024.

We are going to take a break from the book of Acts this week and look at Jesus, the Afflicted One.

Isaiah 53:4 says, “We esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.”

Also, Psalm 22:24 says, “He [God] has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted [one].”  It is worth noting that “afflicted” is singular.  It could be referring to all who are afflicted as a singular group.  However, in light of the rest of the psalm, it is more likely that it is speaking of the particular afflicted one that David presented earlier in the psalm. 

Before we go to Psalm 22 though, let’s start in Matthew 27.

The cry of Jesus and the silence of God (Mt. 27:45-54)

Our passage picks up with Jesus having been on the cross for three hours. Verse 45 uses Roman time terminology.  The hours of the day are counted from 6 AM forward.  Thus, the sixth hour until ninth hour would equal noon to 3 PM.  To remind ourselves, Jesus is first put on the cross at 9 AM.

There is an interesting change that happens at noon.  For the first three hours that Jesus was on the cross, everything seemed natural.  A man is dying.  It is day time, and the world is going on like normal.  However, at noon, a darkness comes over the land.  This cannot be a solar eclipse because Passover is during the full moon.  This would put the moon on the opposite side of earth from the sun.  There are conjectures on the mechanism that God used to “turn off the lights” for three hours.  A common one is to link it to a large volcanic explosion.  Regardless of how it was done, this ominous situation continues until the death of Jesus.  In fact, after the death of Jesus, a large earthquake hits Jerusalem.  The darkness followed by an earthquake coinciding with the execution of Jesus would leave the average person watching freaked out.  Anyone watching this would think that something really bad had just happened.  For the first three hours, a guy like Caiaphas, the high priest, would feel justified.  But from noon to 3 PM, it would leave one with a strange sensation.

We see this with the Roman soldier mentioned in verse 54.  He has seen a lot of men crucified.  He is shocked and states, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

The death of Jesus is accompanied by a sense of God’s apparent silence.    How could God let this happen?

This is where we should remind ourselves of the hopes of the populace of Israel.  Jesus had healed people and taught them in a way that amazed the multitudes.  They had come to believe that he must be Messiah.  However, the leaders of Israel figured out very quickly that Jesus was calling them to repent too.  This provoked them to despise him and to work to kill him.

The populace hoped that Jesus, who must be messiah, would begin removing the yoke of the Romans, and  yet now, he has been publicly executed.  Think of it.  If you have put all your hopes in a man, and then, he is killed, it shocks you to your core.  On top of this, they heard Jesus crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  It could appear to some that Jesus himself expected God to stop his execution and is now in the throes of disillusionment.

This idea is quite common today.  The average person who doesn’t believe in Jesus will point to some bad thing that happened, or simply that there is evil in the world, and ask, “How could God let that happen?”  If God exists and really is all-good, then surely He would stop all the evil that is happening on this planet.

Jesus at the cross fundamentally challenges this contention.  We think we understand, and we think that God should stop evil.  Our tendency is to talk about these things as if we really understand all the repercussions.  However, these things really are greater than we understand.  This is probably why God designed humans to become parents.  This way, we too can learn what it is like to bend over backwards for the good of a young person who will give you flak for your choices, at some point.  I think parenting is God inviting us to know Him just a little more than we did before we became parents and can have every one of our decisions second-guessed.  There is a certain wisdom to the circle of life.  We generally do not understand these things until we grow old.

The reality on the ground at the crucifixion of Jesus says, there is no way that this man can be Messiah.  Otherwise, God would have stopped it.  So, what about this question that Jesus cried out about God forsaking him?

I mentioned earlier that the first thought of skeptics is the cynical angle.  Jesus realizes that he is going to die, and somehow he thought God would deliver him.  He is no messiah, and he was wrong.

There are good reasons to completely reject this idea.  First, throughout the Gospels, Jesus warned his disciples over and over again that he was going to Jerusalem and he would be killed there.  Of course, the cynic will believe that the disciples made this up after the fact.

Before we look at the next reason to reject this idea, I do want to say this.  I believe that a part of the reason that Jesus cries out this question from the cross is to let us know that he gets it.  For every time we have felt that God has abandoned us while something evil, something bad, does its thing, here is God in the flesh telling us that He gets it.  It is hard, and our flesh doesn’t like it.  The weight of God’s silence in the face of such injustice can be crushing.

We can place ultimatums on God, challenging Him to do such and such by this time, or we are going to cast our faith aside (whether in a rejection of His existence, or of His goodness).  Of course, Jesus knows better than that.  Still, he lets us hear these words from his mouth.

I believe that there is a spiritually immature part of all of us that wants God “to fix” our problems and the bad things in our life.  We typically pray for God to take away anything bad.  We want Him to bail us out of any nightmares that come our way.  Of course, wise parents know that it is often better to help kids through their problems and through their consequences, rather than taking them away.  A wise parent will come alongside their kids and help them through the problem, rather than completely removing it for them.

I think that God is doing this in the Garden of Eden.  He is not judging Adam and Eve because He is hurt and wants to make them pay.  He definitely doesn’t give the decree and make their sin and its consequences just go away.  Rather, He chooses to walk with them down this tough road they have chosen, and He gives them aid against an enemy that is far to strong for them.

The cross causes us to shout, “Take it away, God!”  “Remove the wicked people, and remove all injustice!”  However, Jesus tells us, “Pick up your cross and follow me!”

This leads us to the second reason why this cry in verse 46 is not a cry of disillusionment.  This was a time when books were not divided into chapters and verses.  Though the Psalms are small units within a collection, they were not known by a number.  Jews would not say, “Let’s read Psalm 22.”  Instead, they would use the first line, the first sentence, to refer to it.  Thus, Jesus is not just telling us that he knows our pain of feeling forsaken by God.  He is actually telling us to read Psalm 22 and pay attention to it.  He is connecting that Psalm to his current situation.  Of course, there were some people who couldn’t quite hear what he was saying.  Jesus was also in agonizing pain, making it harder to enunciate his words.  The Aramaic word “Eli” means my God.  However, some thought he might be calling out for Elijah (it was prophesied that Elijah would show up to help Messiah).  However, some would have wondered why Jesus was quoting from this psalm (what we call Psalm 22).

The prophecy of David in Psalm 22

David wrote this psalm roughly 1,000 years before Jesus.  David wrote many psalms.  However, he was more than a musician.  David was also a prophet.  In 2 Samuel 23:2, David says, “The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue.”  He goes on to tell what God had told him.  God had told him that the one who rules men should be just.  He should be like the rising of the sun and the coming of the dew in the morning.  These are beautiful images of something that is a blessing.  Yet, David also says that his family was not so.  He had fallen short, and his family would fall short too.  Remember, that David had two sons try to take the kingdom from him while he was alive.  Yet, God also told David that He would still cause the promise of an Anointed King to “shoot forth,” or “branch out.”  Isaiah (chapter 4) and Zechariah (chapters 3 and 6) both picked up this verb and turned it into a title for Messiah, The Branch, or The Shoot.

What I am getting at is this.  David is not just writing a psalm about something bad that happened to him.  This is a prophetic psalm that looked forward to something that God showed David.

Jesus and his apostles also quoted and spoke of David’s psalms as prophecy.  So, why did Jesus point out this psalm?

Psalm 22 is a strange psalm.  It has two different types of psalms stitched together.  It starts off as a lament psalm.  A lament psalm basically cries out to God about a suffering situation.  Often, wicked people are involved, causing the pain.  Or, they at least pile on with condemnation.  Lament psalms typically plead to God for help and will end with a statement of faith in God’s character.  Verses 1 through 21a of Psalm 22 are exactly this.

Yet, in the second half of verse 21, something happens that changes the whole character of the psalm.  Verses 21b through the end of the psalm (verse 31) switch to a psalm of Thanksgiving.  This is somewhat odd.  It would be like a song that starts out singing the blues, and then turns into Pharrell Williams singing, Happy.  More than this, it is not quite clear what exactly happened to change a scene where someone is being put to death by wicked men, into a scene that is praising God and calling everyone to join him.

God showed David something about Messiah through his own affliction.  King Saul and Israel had rejected God’s anointing of David.  Yet, Messiah would also be rejected and afflicted by his own people.

Who is this afflicted one in the first part of Psalm 22?  It cannot be David.  David’s descriptions of the afflicted on do not fit him.  Yes, some of the things fit him.  David was afflicted.  Look at verses 7-8.  This description could fit David.  He had become a hunted man by King Saul under a false charge of treason.  This had him always on the run.  It was common for people to despise and ridicule David at this point in his life. 

How about verses 12 to 13.  The bulls and the lions here are symbolic of people who had power within Israel’s society.  King Saul had power and position.  David often felt like he had no where to turn to and was being encircled like a prey hiding in a thicket from predators.

Still, there are too many other descriptions that cannot be about David.  Verse 14 pictures the afflicted one of being poured out like water and having all of his bones out of joint.  Verse 16 speaks of dogs (more animal imagery for people) piercing the afflicted one’s feet and hands.  Verse 17 has the afflicted one being so emaciated that he can count his bones and people are staring at him.  Lastly, verse 18 has his garments being divvied up while he looks on.

This does not describe David.  It describes someone who is being put to death, someone who is not going to need his clothes anymore because he is headed to the grave.

I imagine that David wrestled with God over why He seemed so silent during David’s affliction.  Yet, God showed David that what he went through would be nothing compared to what King Messiah would go through.  David is the little-“a” afflicted one, but Messiah would be the capital-“A” Afflicted One. 

This Afflicted One would come to remove all injustice.  However, God is also a God of grace who doesn’t want anyone to be destroyed.  In the Affliction of the Afflicted One, God is giving space and giving time for us to repent by putting our faith in Jesus.  We could respond to the horrible truth that is displayed at the cross of Jesus: this is what even the best of us do to God.  If it wasn’t for His grace, we would have been destroyed along time ago.

It is easy to miss this message from David.  Yes, they were excited about Messiah removing injustice because that is clearly the Gentiles.  However, they missed the rejected aspect of the Messiah (well, he will be rejected by Messiah, but not us!).

All along this part of Psalm 22 is the idea that God is silent.  God doesn’t do anything about this horrible affliction from the wicked.  At least, up until we reach verse 21.

“Save me from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen!  You have answered me!”  No matter how you translate this verse, two things stick out that cannot change.  The first verb “save me” is a form of the verb that makes it clear that the person is still praying.  There is no question about this.  However the last verb “answered me” is not in this form.  It is a form that says the action of the verb has been completed.  Somehow the afflicted one goes from crying out for salvation to declaring that God has heard him, answered him.  This is the hinge point of the psalm.  God has answered His Afflicted One, but it will not be explained just exactly what God did.  Yet, it must be something really big to change the scene from a righteous man being put to death, to him praising God.

Even if you were being killed, pierced, emaciated, and your bones were out of joint, and God answered you, you would not be in a condition to be praising God.  You would be in a hospital for a very long time asking why God didn’t intervene sooner.

There is not only a switch of genre in this psalm (lament to thanksgiving), but there is a switch in who is narrating the scene.  All throughout the lament, it is first-person narration of what is happening to him.  Even the praise in verse 21 begins by the afflicted one.  “You have answered me!”  Verses 22 and 23 continue the praise, but in verse 24 we see that the narrator has either began to speak of himself in the third-person, or David has taken over and is prophetically calling Israel to pay attention to this amazing thing that God is going to do.  All of Israel are called to praise the Lord because the Lord delivered (will deliver) this Afflicted One.  David will go on to recount how this amazing deliverance will even cause the Gentiles to praise God (verse 27).  What could happen that would cause the ends of the earth and the nations to give praise and worship to God, remembering what God did for His Afflicted One and “turning to the LORD”?  What could cause “all the families of the nations” to worship before him?  Then, verse 28 clearly ties into the Messianic prophecies that picture the Anointed King that God sends to rule over all the nations.  “The Kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations!”  This Afflicted One is that King!  Nothing in David’s life, or Israel’s history, even comes close to something like this, except for one person.  It is Jesus.

However, there is more.  In verse 29, the David employs language of “all those who go down to the dust.”  They will bow before the Afflicted One.  This language of going into the dust is language that speaks of people who have died (can’t keep themselves alive).  They are mortals who go into the grave.  It appears to say that even those who have gone into the grave will bow before him.  How can that be?  Of course, the New Testament testimony of what the Apostles came to know about Jesus shows us that the death of the Afflicted One was overturned by Resurrection.

Jesus is pointing us to this passage.  He is not saying that he has been forsaken by God.  He is saying exactly the opposite.  He is making the declaration of truth in the face of all the devils of hell and what they are unleashing upon him.  It may look like He is, but the Father will not abandon me!

Where are we today?  The Gospel of who Jesus is has gone to the ends of the earth, and many people of every tribe, language, and nation, have bowed before Jesus and worshipped him.  Yet, the powers of the world are not choosing Jesus as Lord of lords and King of kings.

The challenge for us is to believe what Scriptures says, what the Spirit says, about Messiah, even when it appears that it will never happen.  He will be afflicted to death, but God will answer him, has answered him!

Perhaps you are in the middle of affliction right now.  Perhaps you feel that God doesn’t care about you and has forsaken you.  His testimony is that He does love you and won’t abandon you.  You just need to put your faith in Him and trust Jesus. 

Why would Jesus go through all that affliction?  He was paying the price for your sins and for mine.  He was making a way for us to repent of our sins and believe in him so that we can be forgiven by God the Father.

Fatherly wisdom in the Scriptures tells us that God has come down and gone through the fire with us.  He has helped us and will bring us to the other side of this difficult affliction.  We will come out the other side more like Him.

Friend, our weak mortal state is not the final word.  God has promised something beyond this.  Let’s choose to identify with the Afflicted One who chose to identify with us!

Afflicted One audio

The Acts of the Apostles 78

Subtitle: Farewell to the Ephesian Elders II

Acts 20:25-38.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 1, 2024.

We are picking up in the middle of Paul’s farewell to the elders of the Ephesian church while he is in Miletus.  These are clearly Paul’s last words to them.  He does not expect to come back.

In the previous verses, Paul has reminded them of the example of his life while he was among them.  He then spoke about his present example of steadfastly and boldly going towards persecution in Jerusalem.

At verse 25, Paul begins to speak to the future ahead of them in which he will no longer be with them or able to visit.  He isn’t dying, but the message that he is giving does have that feel to it.  In short, the Apostle Paul does not want to leave any important thing unsaid.  He does not expect to have another chance.

Let’s look at our passage.

Paul exhorts them about the future (v. 25-31)

Paul explains that he knows they will not see him again.  He then speaks about the nature of his leaving.  He has been faithful to preach the Kingdom of God to them.  This Kingdom has both present and future aspects to it.

Yes, Christians are a family, and salvation is being brought into God’s family through Jesus.  However, the Kingdom references have deep roots into the Old Testament with the promised Anointed Son of David who would rule over God’s Kingdom.  Of course, Jesus is no normal king.  He is seated at the right hand of God the Father, having all authority and power over the heavens and the earth.  Paul had preached to them the open door for all to become citizens of this Kingdom of Messiah Jesus.  Those who enter the Kingdom of God receive the life of Christ flowing into and through them by the Holy Spirit.  Christians are to be a kind of preview of the future Kingdom Age when Jesus will return physically and rule from this earth.

Paul also speaks of being innocent of the blood of all men.  Essentially, he is saying that it will not be his fault if any of them fail to survive the judgment of Jesus at the end of their lives.  He had declared to them the whole counsel of God.  They were not missing any critical information for which they had to wait.  They had everything needed for living their lives in godliness, in short, how to please God.

They had heard the truth, and to hear the truth is to be responsible for it before God.  He was leaving and their eternity would be between them and God.

Of course, it had always been between them and God.  No one can repent for you and have faith in Jesus for you.  However, the Lord Jesus had sent Paul into the lives of these Ephesians (just as He sends you to others) to share the good news of salvation in him.  Thus, God can use Paul today to assist them, and then use others tomorrow.  Ultimately, our spiritual walk is dependent upon our relationship with Jesus. They will not be able to point to Paul and say that he had failed to warn them.

In verse 28, Paul exhorts them to pay attention to themselves and the flock of God that they were in.  Since Paul will no longer see them, the whole burden that Paul had helped them with was now coming upon them.  They would first need to pay close attention to their own lives so that they could then pay close attention to the flock of God in which they had been placed.  They would work together to care for the Ephesian believers.  Notice that this follows the pattern that Jesus gave in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7.  Before we make judgments in the lives of others, we must first exercise judgment in our own life.  Of course, we do not judge with our own thoughts, but by the truth of the Word and by the Spirit of God.  Those who live a life of watching over their own souls will be able to be a help to others in the same endeavor.

We should also see that Paul emphasizes how they had come to this authority of elder and watching over the flock.  It was the Holy Spirit that had made them “overseers,” which comes from the Greek word “episkopos.”  This is where we get the word Episcopal.  It is also the root for the English word “bishop.”  Episkopos was borrowed into Latin as episcopus.   Latin was spoken by Christians for over a thousand years before English became a thing.  It was common for the sound of /p/ to devolve into a /b/.  Thus, the sound would be more like ebiscopus.  English doesn’t use endings and the initial “e” was dropped creating the English word biscop, and then bishop. 

Episcopalians is a term used for a church that highlights the rule of bishops over the Church with one bishop over each church- as opposed to congregational, which believe that the people of the church are to rule themselves.  Another word used in this issue is the term presbyterian.  A presbyter is an elder.  This emphasizes the rule of elders over a church.

Regardless of all these different views on Church polity, the terms overseer (bishop) and shepherd (pastor) are not about a title.  Jesus didn’t die so that men could have titles of authority over one another.  These are functions that are intended to assist, to help, the body of Christ.  Their essential purpose is not about elevating one person over another, but about letting the Holy Spirit use us to come alongside of others in their relationship with the Lord Jesus.  We must not lose sight of this purpose.

An overseer is just another way of speaking about a shepherd, or pastor.  The Greek word has at its root the concept of one who feeds.  The pastor term essentially emphasizes assisting in the care of all that a sheep (believer) needs.  Of course, pastors must also recognize that they too are a sheep doing a work for the Good Shepherd, who is the true head of the Church.  The feeding here is spiritual nutrition, which we obtain from the Word of God.  Shepherds are to give the church words of care rather than control.  Wise sheep will learn to hear the voice of Christ through the care of godly overseers and shepherd.

I like to used Psalm 23 to see all the things that a sheep needs, and consequently, all the things that pastors are to focus their ministry upon.  Sheep need “green pastures,” which is the spiritual food of God’s Word.  Sheep also need “peaceful waters,” which is both the Word of God and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  They also need protection in “the valley of the shadow of death.”  Pastors are only one of the ways that the rod and staff of Christ is used to comfort His people.  Lastly, we can see that the psalmist’s head is anointed with oil.  This can be about the blessing of the Holy Spirit, but with sheep, anointing had more to do with medical care, whether preventative or for healing after an injury.  Believers need help in healing from the wounds of life, and preventatively avoiding some wounds of life.

In verse 29, Paul points to two particular threats that these overseers and pastors should deal with.  The first has to do with “savage wolves” that will com from outside the church.  They are not Christians, though they may pretend such.  Even the metaphorical use of wolf harkens back to the beast kingdoms of Daniel, of which Rome represented one.  These wolves are merely little beastly chips off of the beast block.  These wolves only come for one thing.  They see the sheep as a meal.  Of course, this is not literal, but metaphorical.  They consume people spiritually for financial gain and for their own pride.  Their actions are as destructive as a wolf among sheep.  They destroy the believers by destroying their faith in Christ and robbing them of their eternal inheritance.

The second threat comes from perverse men that will rise up from within the church.  These are believers who have become twisted in their doctrine and thereby also in their actions.  They are on a journey of becoming less and less like the Lord Jesus, whom they claim to serve.  Now, all of us fall short of Jesus.  So, we should be careful in nitpicking each other’s lives in order to label them as perverse men.  Yet, people can become dangerously off course, whether through pride, or through wounds.

What do these perverse men see in the sheep?  We are told that they desire to draw the disciples away to themselves.  They are fixated on “their” ministry, their kingdom, and their glory.  They are too infatuated with being a leader of men rather than being a follower of Jesus.

We are to guard against and recognize the wolves who come in, and we are to guard against the twisting of doctrine and the twisting of living out godliness.  This is actually the duty of all Christians who claim to love the Lord who bought them with His blood.  However, those in leadership bear a greater responsibility, a more severe judgment if they fail to pay attention.  Paul mentions that this was so important to him that he had warned them night and day with tears when he was with them. 

You may not be an official overseer in your church, but when you spend time in the Word of God, and spend time talking with God in prayer, then the Holy Spirit will cause you to see any dangers that come into your life, and into your local church.

Notice that these break down into external and internal threats.  This isn’t just true of the church as a group.  It is also true of us as an individual.  What am I watching out for as I pay close attention to my own life?  I am looking for those ways that the devil brings from the outside into my heart, i.e., temptations from situations and people, but I am also looking for those internal threats that come from my own heart and mind.  Arrogance, pride, lusts, and desires, if not pruned, will grow a thicket of weeds within even the best of overseers, thus destroying their souls.  Be watchful over your life and take possession of your soul by faith in Christ.

Paul entrusts them to God (v. 32-38)

Verse 32 begins with the conclusion to this farewell.  He was a spiritual father to this church and these men.  He had founded it, and he was a vital part of its spiritual success.  However, all spiritual parents, just as natural parents, will hit points along the road when we must entrust our kids to their Heavenly Father.  Of course, they are always in His care, but this is about ways in which we are bowing out of their life.

This happens when they reach maturity and move out into life on their own.  You may still have influence through letters, emails, phone calls, etc.  But, they are no longer in your house as little kids.  The relationship changes.  This is also true as one approaches death.  A parent knows that they will no longer be able to do anything after death.  This one that I have cared for throughout all of their (spiritual) life is now cast upon the Lord.   At particular stages of their life, God used you for their good and in different ways.  Now you are bowing out of that role.   Of course, God can use others, but there is also the fact that children grow up to become parents themselves.  Spiritual maturity comes through the tough decisions where we step up in Christ in ways that others stepped up for us.

In verse 32, Paul also points out that God and His Word can build them up.  God through His Holy Spirit, with His Holy Word, and in the community of holy believers builds us up.  This is the same language of Ephesians 4:13, where we are being built up in order to be more like Christ.  This is both individually and corporately.  A spiritual building must have a good spiritual foundation, and that foundation is Jesus.  God has started this building when we put our faith in Jesus, and He will finish this building when we are resurrected and stand in His presence.

Part of our discipleship is learning to cooperate with this work of God among those who have been sanctified, i.e., set apart for God’s holy purpose, of being conformed into the image of Jesus.

Paul refers to an inheritance that is ours in Christ.  This inheritance is definitely an eternal inheritance as an adult son of God.  In this sense, we inherit all things with Christ! 

Yet, this inheritance does have some downpayments within this life.  We inherit a place among God’s people, shining the light of Jesus to the world around us.  We inherit the glory of being a witness of Jesus to a lost and dying world.  We inherit the joy of being used of God to bring some to salvation, and to be persecuted as he was by others.  We are entering into our eternal inheritance even now in our mortal flesh.

Through a series of statements, Paul emphasizes that they follow his example of using strength to care for the weak.  The weak in this context is the Ephesians themselves.  When Paul was among them, he did not have them financially care for him.  Instead, he worked in his tent-making trade in order to supply his needs and the needs of the men with him.  He also did this with the Corinthian church.  In fact, he pointed out to them that other churches sent him money while he was in Corinth so that he could continue to minister to them.

Instead of despising those who are financially weak, or spiritually weak, etc., Paul used his strengths to cover for their weakness, and to help them to become stronger.  He even taught them to care for the Judean church when they were hurting from famine.  Here is the thing.  If we do not use our strengths to help the weak, then we will begin to become weak ourselves.  We will begin to become twisted and not like our Lord.  Jesus laid his life down for us while we were yet sinners (very weak).

Paul wasn’t trying to make money (silver or gold) from them, nor was he looking to have nice clothes.  He was not ministering for material gain.  Instead, he modeled the words of the Lord Jesus.  “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

In many places, Jesus challenged his followers to be givers.  The sermon on the mount speaks to this and the blessing that comes from it.  However, these words are not recorded in the Gospels in this form.  Is this a mistaken quote by Paul?

I believe that this falls into the category that the Apostle John identified in John 21:25.  Jesus said many things and they were not all recorded in the Gospels.  Also, Paul had several visions where the Lord Jesus spoke directly to him.  These are the words of Christ, even if you cannot find them in the Gospels.

There are a lot of people ministering today under the banner of Jesus Christ who pride themselves in their clothing, in the expensive vehicles they drive, as if these are proof that they are a great apostle.  Jesus’ proof of His Apostleship was dying on the cross for us.  The Apostle Paul followed in the footsteps of his Lord.  He wasn’t looking to get anything in the flesh.  He was among them to give.  This is the true mark of an apostle.

Finished with his message, Paul prays with the elders.  He is doing more than setting an example here.  He knows that they will need God’s help to succeed in all that he has put in front of them.  He wants them to overcome, and thus, he prays for them God’s help.  God is ultimately our source and the only way that we will overcome this world by faith.

We then have a great show of emotion in tears and kissing.  This is not a lack of faith, but a recognition of the will of God.  Sometimes God’s will takes away from us.  We are never happy about the leaving of a loved one, nor their death.  Even if they are in a better place, such as heaven, we miss having their fellowship and strength in our lives.  It is only right to grieve the passing of a godly person.

However, this is a godly sorrow and godly tears.  It is full of thanksgiving and gratitude to God for His many gifts into our lives.  In fact, Jesus himself was full acquainted with tears and sorrow.  He wept over Jerusalem and its coming betrayal of him.  Serving Jesus will have times of laughter and times of tears.  In all of it, we have the assurance that God the Father is working all things to the good. 

The scene ends with them seeing Paul and company off at the ship, which is a metaphor for many things in life.  Yet, the God of all comfort stays with them, even as He goes with Paul.  Let us hold fast to this wonderful truth!

Farewell II audio

The Acts of the Apostles 70

Subtitle: Paul Returns to Antioch

Acts 18:12-22.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on June 30, 2024.

In our passage today, Paul finishes his 2^nd Missionary Journey, which has taken him through the central area of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) and throughout the coastal cities of Greece.

We pick up with him ministering in the Greek city of Corinth, where the Lord has told him not to fear because there are many in the city who belong to Him.  Paul ends up ministering there for at least a year and a half.  This is what sets up our story in verse 12.

Let’s look at our passage.

A charge is brought against Paul (v. 12-17)

There is a reason why Paul spent longer in Corinth than he did in many other cities.  It has nothing to do with God loving Corinth more than other cities.  Part of it has to do with the receptivity of the people in the city.  However, how many places did Paul not visit?

The good thing is that these cities generally became hubs of evangelism into the region around them.  Paul isn’t the only one that can tell people about Jesus.  Aren’t you thankful for that?  Paul was faithful share the Good News of Jesus to others who would then become faithful in sharing such to new people.  This was true within nations, regions, cities, and even within the lives of you ministers like Timothy and Luke.

There is a passage in 1 Thessalonians 1:8 where Paul is praising the church there for its faith and evangelism.  He says that “from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out…”

We are not given a direct timeline, but we know that Paul, believers of the Jews and Gentile God-fearers had separated from the synagogue at some point.  The church of Corinth essentially began in the house of a man named Titius Justus next to the synagogue.  Even Crispus who was the synagogue ruler had believed and joined these followers of Messiah Jesus.

We eventually come to this scene where the leaders of the synagogue have brought Paul up on charges before the Roman Proconsul, Gallio.  There charge is stated in verse 13.  They accused him of persuading people to worship God against the law.  It wasn’t against the law to worship God or the gods.  However, the Romans did have a policy that only religions recognized by Caesar could be promoted.  This was not about Romans approving of a religion, but rather about keeping control over disputes, uprisings, and unrest.  They had recognized Judaism as a legitimate religion that had a certain amount of protection under Rome.  Thus, the charge is about Paul starting a new religion.

This reminds me of China’s policy.  There it is illegal to proselytize people to any religion.  However, if a person asks you about your religion, then you are free (it is lawful for you) to speak about your religion to them.  It is different, but in general, it is a similar control mechanism.

We are told that Paul begins to give his defense, but is interrupted by Gallio.  Paul is not promoting a new religion.  He actually represents all that the people of Israel had been praying for and preaching about for millennia, the coming of Messiah.  This is just an in-house disagreement over who Messiah is.  Yet, Gallio doesn’t give Paul a chance to defend himself.

Gallio points out that he would hear the case, if it had something to do with a wrong that Paul had done to them or some knowledge they had of a wicked crime that Paul had committed.  However, he then warns that he is not interested in judging matters that have to do with words, names and Jewish law.  Of course, this is all about Paul naming Jesus as the Messiah.

Now, it is very likely that Paul looks even more Jewish than the Corinthians Jews that are charging him with promoting an illegal religion.  Paul didn’t quit being Jewish.  He dressed like a first-century Jew; he talked like one.  I believe that Gallio sees a group of Jews trying to charge another Jew that is clearly not from Corinth, i.e., he is actually from Judea.  He either knows this is a squabble among Jews about Jewish things instinctively, i.e., from past experience, or he has information from others.  Of course, their Jewishness is not the reason that there is a dispute between them and Paul.  This is a problem for all people of every kind.  We can be very creative in our ways of disputing with one another.  Regardless, Gallio immediately sees that this is another one of those internal Jewish matters, and he is not interested in being dragged into it.

On one hand, these are proper words.  The government of a people should have no part in judging, or controlling matters of faith.  Of course, if our disputes over religion break into criminal activity- God forbid!- then government should intervene in regards to the criminal activity.   Again, I will point to China as a place where Christians are told what they can teach and promote in their churches.  This is inappropriate for any government, much less one that is atheistic.

On the other hand, I get the sense that this has nothing to do with Gallio trying to do the right thing and give justice.  It seems that he is more annoyed with “these Jews and their squabbles.”  Note that, just years prior, Claudius Caesar had made the Jews leave Rome because of disputes over a man named “Chrestus” (see last weeks sermon on this).  Gallio has some knowledge about this rising dispute within Judaism that threatens the precious Pax Romana.

Let me put a finer point on this.  The squabble is the result of God moving in this Corinthian synagogue and some of the Jews didn’t like it.  Gallio is more like these Jews he is standing against than he would like to admit.  Yes, from time to time, we see the Roman government helping to shield Paul from his fellow Jews.  However, this very same Rome will eventually put Paul, Peter, and others to death.  Rome didn’t like this move of God any more than some of the Jews in the synagogue.  Rome executed Jesus who is the very essence of God’s move in His Church. 

This is a spiritual dynamic.  Those who are resisting the work of God are a hodge-podge of many powers, beliefs, and people.  They don’t always like each other.  It is a very dog-eat-dog arena.  At this time, Rome is the top dog, and it is letting these Jews charging Paul know that it is in charge.  So, let us not imagine that there is anything more going on here than exactly that.

We are then told that Gallio drives Paul’s accusers from the judgment seat, the bema seat (bay-muh).  No doubt, this means he had some guards do so.  They are driven from the place of presenting cases back into the area of spectators. 

This is a human bema seat, and not even the highest one at that time.  Any decision by Gallio can be appealed to Caesar by a Roman citizen.  It is one thing to receive or not receive justice in the bema seats of this world.  However, one day, we all will stand before the bema seat (the judgment seat) of Messiah Jesus.  Paul reminded the Roman believers of this in Romans 14:10.  “But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you view your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” (LSB).  Paul reminds them that both sides of any matter will stand before Jesus.  What will he say of your squabble then? 

Jesus warned us of judging one another.  He didn’t say we shouldn’t judge because there is something inherently wrong with making judgments.  Rather, he points out that we are going to receive the type of judgment we give to others, and that we will receive it in the measure  (much or little) that we give to others.  This is a shot across the bow of every human being from the One who will sit on the greatest bema seat ever raised up.  Jesus warns us that he will give us what we gave to others.  This ought to humble all of us, but it generally doesn’t.  Most people give a “meh” over such statements and continue on judging others unfairly and harshly.  The sad thing is that, when Jesus judges them, it will be harsh, but completely fair.

We have all failed in this.  Can we be freed from that future judgment?  Yes!  The Holy Spirit brings stuff to our mind from time to time.  It is called conviction.  Conviction is not condemnation.  Condemnation tells you all the ways you have failed and tells you that you can never get out of it.  It motivates you to quit and go your own way.  Condemnation is not from God.  It is from the devil and our own soul.  Conviction is different though it too starts with how we have failed.  The Holy Spirit points out our failures so that we will feel sorrow, repent and put our faith in Jesus.  When we confess that Jesus was right and turn to him for forgiveness, then he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).  “God, I was so judgmental.  Please forgive me because I don’t want to be that kind of person, much less be judged by Jesus when I stand before him.”  Of course, the Holy Spirit will also lead you to tell people you are sorry for your harsh judgments.  This is called works that are worthy of true repentance.

In 2 Corinthians 5:9-10, it says, “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for [d]his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (LSB).  The point is that we are to do what we do to please Jesus.  We must be less concerned about dragging others before courts in order to obtain justice, than we are about the day in which we will personally be judged by Jesus. 

The amazing thing is that God created humans in such a way that we can be redeemed!  No matter how broken you are, your life can be redeemed (has been redeemed by Jesus already) when you turn to him in faith.

The ruler of the synagogue, Sosthenes, is then beaten.  The New King James Version mentions that this is done by “Greeks.”  However, the word “Greeks” is not some of the ancient manuscripts.  Scholars are left with trying to determine what was the original wording?  The manuscripts that don’t have this word essentially say that “they all took Sosthenes…and beat him before the judgment seat.”  So, is the emphasis upon the Greeks doing it, or was it a simple “they all?”

It seems most likely that the word Greeks was added rather than removed.  There is no evidence that scribes were purposefully removing words from the original writings of Scriptures ever.  So, how could they justify an addition?  Sometimes a scribe would put an explanatory note in the margins of a manuscript.  Later scribes who were copying the manuscript before it became too old to be useable would generally continue the note in the margin.  However, some would put the word in the text, perhaps unsure as to why it was put in the margin or accepting it as inspired testimony from the past.

Why would a scribe feel the need to emphasize this was the Greeks doing this?  The “they all” in the scene could be read as those who were on the plaintiff side.  This would have Jewish people beating up a Jewish ruler in the court.  This seems improbable, though we could suppose some sort of anger that they were made to look bad in public.

The Greek insertion, or marginal commentary, would help to make clear what was happening.  Sosthenes is attacked by the Gentile observers as a public rebuke of bringing a frivolous case before the Proconsul.

This penchant for mob violence is a theme throughout the New Testament, but also in the testimony of history.  Paul and the Christians are not on the side of beating up their accusers, and neither should we be.  It is not good to be “in one accord” (v. 12) when we are doing evil because we will find it rebounding back at us (v. 17).

There is a possibility that this Sosthenes later became a Christian.  First, we already know that Crispus, who also was a synagogue ruler, had become a Christian.  Secondly, in 1 Corinthians 1:1, Paul mentions a fellow brother Sosthenes that is with him when he greets the Corinthian believers.  I wonder if this beating at the hands of the Gentiles was used by Jesus to get Sosthenes attention?  Regardless of whether this is the same Sosthenes or not, this is the kind of God we serve.  In His mercy, God allows hurts and pains to come into our life because they soften us up to what His Holy Spirit is trying to say to us.  In fact, Saul of Tarsus, Paul, came to know Jesus through an eye-damaging affair, and that was done by Jesus himself.  God is not looking for reasons to reject us.  He is faithful to work daily through the good things of life, and through the bad, to draw us into relationship with him, to repentance.

Paul returns to Antioch (v. 18-22)

At this point the story turns and moves very rapidly.  Paul is going back to his home church in Syrian Antioch.  However, he takes time to go to Jerusalem first.

Verse 18 tells us that Paul “still remained a good while.”  This can be interpreted two different ways.  Verse 11 tells us that Paul stayed in Corinth for 1.5 years.  Then, we had the event before Gallio, and then, we have the statement that Paul still remained a good while.

These can be seen as sequential.  Paul was there for 18 months, and then, this charge before Gallio occurred.  Following that, Paul still remained a good while.  That last phrase is nebulous, but it would be interpreted to mean that Paul was most likely there for another 6 months to a year, for a total of 2 to 3 years.

However, verse 11 can be seen as a kind of thesis statement for the section that follows.  Overall, Paul stayed there for 18 months.  During that time, this event before Gallio occurred.  Following it, Paul stayed there for a good long time, but still encapsulated within the year and a half.

Regardless of how long Paul stayed in the city, it is clear that Corinth was very open to the Gospel, even though it was a very sinful city.  Sometimes people who are in the depths of sin are more open to the Gospel because they are daily suffering the bondage and ill-effects of it.  We can’t always know the people or places that will be receptive to the Gospel.  We can only be faithful to follow the leading of Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

Luke mentions hair being cut off in Cenchrea because of a vow.  Cenchrea was a port city to the east of Corinth.  Luke spends very little time on this, so neither will I.  It seems to serve as the reason why Paul will later tell the Ephesians that he cannot stay with them, i.e., the vow requires him to go to Jerusalem within a certain time.

Some will try to say that it wasn’t Paul who made the vow.  However, this is highly unlikely.  All the other verbs are clearly telling us what Paul did.  Even when it mentions Aquila, it does so in a prepositional phrase.  It literally says that Paul took leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria with Priscilla and Aquila.  The most natural way of reading the hair cutting (it is a participle) is that it is describing Paul.

Some immediately connect this to the Nazirite vow spoken of in the Old Testament.  It involved not cutting the hair until the end of the vow, as well as not eating or drinking of the fruit of the grape vine, nor touching any dead body.  However, a person could make a vow regarding their hair without it being a Nazirite vow.  If it was a Nazirite vow, it begs the question as to why the hair was cut off in Cenchrea and not Jerusalem.  A Nazarite vow requires that the hair be cut and offered up with a sacrifice at Jerusalem.

We really are missing too much information to be dogmatic about any of this.  From time to time, Jews would make a vow to Yahweh. Typically, they were either consecrating themselves to a task, or there was something they were desiring from God.  So, what is Paul doing?

Some are troubled by this as if a vow represents Paul hypocritically lapsing into Judaism.  This is a nonsense argument.  First of all, Paul’s teaching was not about getting rid of anything that looked like Jewish things.  He was concerned that certain Jews were trying to require that Gentiles follow the requirements of the Jewish Law in order to be acceptable to Jesus. 

Thus, Paul’s argument to Gentile Galatians is that they should not be circumcised.  They are acceptable to Jesus by the spiritual circumcision of the Spirit, not of the flesh.  He even warns them that they are in danger of cutting themselves off from Christ in such acts.  However, we should not make the non sequitur conclusion that Paul would say the same thing to a Jewish Christian who had a new baby.  “Whatever you do, don’t circumcise that baby or you will have nothing with Christ!”  The church in Jerusalem was made up of a large majority of Jews.  They still did Jewish things, dressed Jewish, went to the temple, etc.  However, they were putting their faith in Jesus now.

Ask yourself, is making a vow to God a Jewish thing or a Christian thing, a law thing or a Spirit thing?  It is clear that many people have made fleshly vows to God, thinking that they can manipulate Him, or impress Him into giving them what they want.  If this is your purpose, then you will be unsuccessful.  In fact, people have made foolish vows.  We are warned about how we make our vows.  We need to do so humbly and led by the Holy Spirit.

There is a holy place in our relationship with God where the Spirit of God moves upon our heart and we vow to put our cell phone away for a week, or social media usage.  This is not a Christian thing or a Jewish thing.  It is a person-having-a-relationship-with-God thing, a person who is having a real relationship with God.  This is not something that everybody has to do.  It is a personal thing that surfaces in the life of a person as they serve Jesus.  This would have been Paul’s heart in the matter.

Next, we see that the ship makes a stop in Ephesus.  It appears they are stopping for supplies, trade, or both.  Paul took advantage of this to go to the synagogue and reason with the Jews and Gentiles who were there.  It appears that the Ephesian synagogue was open to hearing more.  They wanted him to stay longer, but he declined due to a timely need to go to Jerusalem, most likely having to do with his vow.

This may be why we are told that Priscilla and Aquila remain in Ephesus.  They could continue their trade of tentmaking while helping the Ephesian believers to understand how the work of Christ fulfilled the Scriptures and what God wanted believers to do in this new era of Messiah.

However, Paul does promise to return to them, God willing.  We do not need to turn this into a required ending to every sentence, but every servant of the Lord needs to have this humble attitude.  Of course, God often works through our godly desires and intentions.  However, He sometimes has a different plan than we do.  Paul is not rejecting them by not staying.  Rather, he is fulfilling something else between him and God.  When that is satisfied, he will attempt to come back, but even that is dependent upon what the Lord allows or tells him to do.

We should note that the Gospel is not dependent upon any one person.  Yes, Paul is the Apostle to the Gentiles, and God works powerfully through him among them.  Yet, God’s sending of Paul to another place besides Ephesus does not limit what He can do there.  Even people who are being led by the Holy Spirit need to remain humble about what they think is God’s will.

I should remind us that the Holy Spirit forbade Paul from going into the province of Asia, of which Ephesus was a major city, on the first missionary journey.  Yet, he is now here speaking to the Ephesians about the Gospel.  So, we see God’s timing without explanation.  In chapter 19, God will allow Paul to come back and spend 2 years here on his third missionary journey.  Thus, “God willing” is a phrase that recognizes the sovereignty of God in matters of direction and timing.

Paul boards the ship again and sails to the cost of Judea, landing at Caesarea.  They travel from the coast up to Jerusalem.  To give you an idea, the temple mount is about 2,428 feet above sea level. 

Jerusalem is not mentioned by name here.  Rather, it speaks of him greeting the church.  No doubt, he also gives a description of his journey and what God was doing among the people of Greece.

Paul then goes down to Syrian Antioch (modern day Antakya Türkiye), his home church at this point.  It is good to have a home, and a home church as a base of operations.  It represents a safe place, a strengthening place, a re-energizing place, and a place of people who love and support us.  He could share with them the results of their labor of financial support and prayers for him and his missionary group.

We might even think of that as we go out from our churches each week into our daily lives.  We return again, whether at the end of the week or periodically throughout the week.  It is meant to be a place of people being real and loving with one another.  May we be a people who are quick to repent, quick to forgive, and quick to support God’s work in one another’s lives.

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