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Colossians 2:1-4

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face…”

Uh oh, here goes Paul’s ego again.

“…that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love…”

Ok, so that may work. If people who are fighting amongst themselves hear of someone else who is suffering for them all it makes their dissagreements seem rather petty–and an insult to the one giving his all for them! Even more, even those who are not in any particularly grievous relationship, when they hear of Paul’s trials and all the pain he endures to “present everyone mature in Christ” certainly this would move their hearts to see the value in one another that is put in them by the sufferings of Christ. Well, now I’ve got the warm fuzzies; why don’t we just all love eachother?

“…to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery…”

Huh? First, how does ‘being knit together in love’ give me assurance of understanding anything, or of knowledge? But forget even that; what’s God’s mystery? Paul sure is setting his audience up for a big disappointment if he doesn’t deliver on that. He doesn’t say ‘a’ mystery, but the mystery of God.

“…which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

This is quite a claim. Christ is the mystery of God, in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and I am supposed to be able to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of this mystery by having the warm fuzzies about Paul’s hardship?

“I say this so that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.”

So Paul is setting up in opposition here the power of the unity of the body of Christ to persuasive arguments that lead to anything but a stronger unity in love as the body encourages one another.

There is no doctrine does not directly support the unity in love of God’s people. For the very identity of the church, it’s very life, the very connection that we have with the eternal and the only truth to be known is Christ crucified for all people in all time for all eternity. This is the encouragement that we have for one another and the doctrine that knits us together.

If anyone should teach anything, whether it be in scripture or not, that is not beneficial to building up in love then it is not completely true–or atleast it cannot be known to be true. For according to this passage all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery is being knit together in love. This is the plumb line and guarantee that Christ will be glorified in all our teaching: if, when judged according to scripture to be consisent with God’s revelation, it encourages the hearts of the believers to love one another.

Pray Without Ceasing

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

We ought always to pray is the same as saying: we must always desire eternal things, the temporal things which serve the eternal, our daily bread of every kind and for every need, life in all its fulness earthly and heavenly.

–A. G. Sertillanges

The Intellectual Life

Lead Us Not Into Temptation But Deliver Us From Evil

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

What is it about temptation that leads us to believe that it is some force outside of ourselves that attacks us? Certainly Satan is called the Temptor, but his temptation is only in the suggestion. He is an accuser. He levels the charge at us and leaves our flesh to keep working on us.

He accused God of hiding the truth from Eve. When he tempted Christ he presented the sin to him, but when Jesus responded with scripture he had to move on; there was nothing else for him to say!

And so it is in our own lives. As we pray for God to deliver us from evil, not leading us into temptation, we are in fact turning our hearts toward the one who counters our accuser. In the very act of praying we refuse the attacks of Satan, for the prayer which we pray is not our own, but the words of Jesus, the living word who intercedes for us before the Father on our behalf.

Satan knows that sin is slavery, and thinking of sin is slavery of the mind. When we refuse to dwell on the temptation, either its attractiveness or the despair that its guilt drags us into, and turn our eyes on the deliverer of sin and death, the battle is already won! For the word is active in every way; it is active through the promises in scripture to reassure us, it is active in revealing the nature of temptation and how our flesh is what gives it real power (James 1). And it is also active in its meaningful repetition as we pray the words that our savior taught us to. We are not repeating an ideal situation, a Daddy-do list, a statement of what should be if we were spiritual enough. No, when we approach our God in faith and adopt his words as our own, the request that he gives us to pray is already answered and being answered!

Is not the deliverence from evil in turning from our sin in humble repentence and relying on the grace of God poured out to us through faith in the death and ressurection of his Son for the salvation from slavery to that sin? Is not the very request “Do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil” that very thing; a turning from the power of sin and death and relying on our maker for all spiritual provision? Know this: the power for the salvation from sin is not just in the acknowledgement of God and Christ, but in the abiding in Christ. This abiding comes about when his word dwells in us. When you pray, speak to God what he has spoken to you, and you will have eternal life.

The Gospel for Relationships

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

In every relationship we must be attentive to two concerns. We must be concerned with what is to be taught or learned, and, more importantly, we must be concerned with how to go about doing this in a manner that builds up the relationship. We have no choice but to consider what is required in a relationship, but it is ultimately our joy and the fulfillment of our lives to live the gospel in each and every experience we have in the contact with those near to us.

Leviticus 10, a Prayer

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Our Father in heaven, may your name be most feared and loved in the eyes of your people. You come from your heavenly throne to your beloved and chosen ones and give yourself to them. You reign among your creation for the sake of your glory. So may you be sanctified by those who are near you and glorified among all the people.

You give us your life in the creation of our being and formed our souls in the mystery of your plan. You seek us when we are, wandering from the love of your communion and setting up the abomination of ourselves in your place. We not only reject you as our God, but reject what you put in us that makes us people. We flee sacrifice of the self, loath love that has eyes only for the beloved, hoard what is not ours rather than giving what has been lavished on us by your grace.

But by your mercy your forgiveness is unending. You seek us not as the master of a runaway slave–though master you are and slave is all we will ever be, be it slave to the freedom to love, or slave to the death of our sin. Nor do you pursue us with the veangance of wronged lover–though love is what you are and wrong is all that we have repaid you with.

Rather your veangance and justice are poured out on the Most Beloved that the Beloved might love the hater and thus consume both the hatred and the its death in one mighty act by the power of him who is all in all, the first born of all creation, and the first born of the dead, the one who is an all consuming fire, becoming that which the fire consumes so that in all things he might be preeminent and thus making peace by the blood of his cross.

For Nadab and Abihu, priests unto God and representatives of your people, offered unto God that which did not come from God. They offered the pride and arrogance, the folly and insult of human nothingness to the eternal God who is the author of all things. In a mockery of the sacrifice that God desires–the sacrifice of his own self given to and for us–they gave what was godless and empty; their religiosity and false piety. And for this they were consumed. As their souls were already consumned by the death of human self-governance so their bodies were consumned by the eyes of him who seeks the glory of his governing Word. What they offered was not a sacrifice but a rebellion and an abomination to the very word sacrifice. The incense they gave, meant to be the prayers of a people wholy given up to their maker, was used as an expression of a people consumned with their own naked selves.

But praise be to you oh God, we have a greater priest who goes before our God and father offering the blood of his own life to you who are the author of that same life. And the incense he burns is the prayers of his Holy Spirit, the holy power of God for the humble repentance and patient perseverence of his people. He is the seal of our inheritance in Jesus Christ until we acquire possession of it in eternal dependence of him through whom and for whom all things were made.

So now give us this spirit of worship, that our sacrifices might be pleasing to you as we grow in the knowledge and spiritual insight, understanding the depths of your will that has been revealed to us who believe in Jesus. May our prayers to you be the humble and contrite spirit of those who have been consumed by the eternal fire and been purged of all pride and guile in order that they might be raise by the power of the Holy One to be presented before you blameless and above reproach. And may our lives be those of complete sacrifice unto you who demand nothing less our all and give nothing less than your own self. For in this is your glory known.