An Ephesian "Timeline?"

One of the most fascinating practices in Bible study is to take a topic, doctrine, person, or item, and follow its "trajectory" as time passes and as scripture mentions it over that passed time.  One such study is to look at the Church at Ephesus, beginning with her planting and ending with Jesus' letter to her "angel" in Revelation.  After familiarizing yourself with he biblical facts and factoids about the topic, you're then in a position to search the internet for extra-biblical background information.

What fascinates me about this Ephesian study is how the church at Ephesus managed to fare so well, compared to the other churches Jesus wrote to in the 7 letters of Revelation.  To what, in all the prior biblical facts, could one attribute this success?  Paul's two years?  His letter?  The ministry of Priscilla and Aquila?  Timothy's oversight?

I don't believe one can find a definitive answer, but it sure does one good to think on the benefits of all the recorded ministry that God provided the Ephesian church.  Have some fun, as it'll take at least a couple hours to read and note the passages and get some background info. 

Here ya go!

 

Acts 18:19-21

       

    Paul, Priscilla, and Aquila come to Ephesus and begin a ministry there.  Paul stays a short time, then leaves Priscilla and Aquila to manage the work. 

 

Acts 18:24-28

  

    Apollos, a Jew, an Alexandrian, an eloquent, mighty-in-scriptures man, came to Ephesus;  He was familiar with the gospel, but only up to the baptism of John.  He began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wanted to go across to Achaia, the Ephesian brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him; and when he had arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.      

     

 

Acts 19:1 - 20:1

  

    Paul returns to Ephesus, finds disciples, stays two years.

Acts 20:16-38

    Paul makes his way to meet with the Ephesian Elders at Miletus to warn them of false teachers outside and inside their number, and to say goodbye.   

 

1 Corinthians 15:32

    Paul references his fight with "wild beasts" at Ephesus as evidence that he's not in this apostle business for pleasure or profit.

      1 Corinthians 16:8

 

    Paul writes "But I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost" in the close of this letter.

 

Ephesians

    (sorry, but for this study you'd have to read the whole letter,

looking for statements about them (the Ephesians),

and noting what they were taught, either previous to the letter, or in the letter).

 

1 Timothy

    (sorry, but for this study you'd have to read the whole letter,

looking for statements about them (the Ephesians),

and noting what they were taught, either previous to the letter, or in the letter).

 

2 Timothy 1:16-18

 

    An offhand reference to Onesiphorus who rendered service at Ephesus.

 

2 Timothy 4:12

 

    Paul tells Timothy that he sent Tychicus to Ephesus.

 

Revelation 2:1-7

 

    Jesus sends a letter "To the angel of the church in Ephesus," and writes:

"The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: 'I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary. 'But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 'Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place--unless you repent. 'Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.'" 

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But, But, He Offended Me!

Is the following statement true or false?

If you love me, you will not offend me.

If there were a perfect lover, that is, one who loved perfectly, then we could test this question by seeing if he ever offended those he loved.

Hhmm, does such a lover exist anywhere?

If you can think of someone, then test this hypothesis:

Someone who truly loves another will not offend him in any way, whether by speech, or by action.

Test it by looking at his beloveds to see if any were ever offended.

(Oh, and if you subtly define your perfect lover as one who doesn't offend, then you mess up the experiment by creating a circular system.)

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An Odd Challenge

Here's an odd challenge, if you dare:

Carefully check out the two verses below, and see if they aren't backwards when compared to the way many of us operate today:

"Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs" (Prov. 10:12 ).

So when someone wrongs you, and you cover his wrongs, that shows what?
But when someone wrongs you, and you stir others up against him, that shows what?

"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault . . . (Jesus, in Mat 18:15 ).

So when someone wrongs you, and you talk to him about it, you're obeying who?
But when someone wrongs you, and you don't talk to him about it, you're disobeying who?

What I mean is this:
Do you talk directly to the person who sins against, disappoints, or otherwise fails you?
Do you talk about that persons sin, disappointing, failing to others?

If you're like me, there is a great temptation to do precisely the opposite of what those verses say. I suspect that we don't talk directly to the one who sins, disappoints, or otherwise fails, is because we are afraid. Afraid of getting into an argument. Afraid of being confronted ourselves. Afraid of having to "remove the log from our own eye." Afraid of . . .?

Father, only you know the extent to which we've gone in stirring up dissension instead of love.  Only you know how often we've handled our discontents with others in the backwards fashion.  Help us to become people who handle rightly the things that we share with others, and the things we keep to ourselves.  Help us promote love, even when we feel slighted.

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Let Me See as You See

I'm sometimes asked, when I write about sacrificial living, obedience, or the "cost of discipleship," "where has grace gone?"  The questioner usually equates God's grace with some sort of "reprieve" from God's calling His people to holiness, and usually equates things like surrender, obedience, faithful living, and the teaching of the clear instructions of scripture as some form of legalism or "faith AND works salvation." 

And if all those things were given as a means to please God enough to be saved, then the grace-aholics would be absolutely correct:  Shame on us for muddying the pure, amazing, and wonderful salvation that was wrought by Christ's beautiful work on His Cross.  Shame on us for doubting the gospel and for mixing faith in Christ's finished work with our own pathetic obediences, services, and works in order to make us good enough to be saved.

But the New Testament call of faithfulness, obedience, and surrender is not a mixing of faith and works.  It's a merging of faith and works into an amazing, indeed impossible pair.  The N.T. call to obedience is clearly rooted in a salvation that had been received by faith.  The "works" of obedience are to be the fruit of faith, not its precursor.  There is no better passage to see this in than Romans 12.  Next TG, I want to demonstrate from that chapter what I mean.

For now, I'd like to share a song that I learned back in the learning days of my youth as a believer.  I don't hear it sung or played much today, but I still hear it playing in my heart, as a prayer that underlies much of what I do and much of what I write here on TG.  I believe that the song points to a simple truth about obedience.  We will obey when we see things as God sees them.  The link below is a YouTube vid of someone singing the song.  May you be blessed as you listen and read along.

YouTube vid:  http://tiny.cc/LetMeSee

"Let me see this world, dear Lord, as though I were looking through your eyes,

A world of men who don't want you Lord, yet a world for which you died.

Let me kneel with you in the garden, blur my eyes with tears of agony.

"For if once I could see this world the way you see,

I just know I'd serve you more faithfully.

Let me see this world, dear Lord, through your eyes when men mocked your holy name,

When they beat you and spat upon you dear Lord.

Let me love them as you loved them, just the same.

Let me rise high above my petty problems, and grieve for men, hell bound eternally,

For if once I could see this world the way you see,

I just know I'd serve you more faithfully.

For if once I could see this world the way you see,

I just know I'd serve you more faithfully.

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One-Fifth. Two-Tenths. Zero-Point-Two.

Today, one-fifth of 2010 falls behind us.  We've already consumed 73 days of the 365 allotted to us.  Today, I'm pondering the following questions:

Have I accomplished 20 percent of what God placed in my life to accomplish this year?

Have I grown 20 percent of what God intended to grow me this year?

Have I read 20 percent of all God wants me to read this year?

Have I served 20 percent of all the service God calls me to this year?

Have I loved 20 percent of all the loving God positioned me to do this year?

Now we all know that life is full of variables and that most of those questions assume a steadiness, a consistency, that life doesn't provide.  But the questions remain a good reminder that the days of my life are:

1.  Gifts from God.

2.  Limited.

3.  Opportunities for being, doing, and promoting good.

4.  Opportunities for doing less than #3

Moses, after rehearsing the depressing reality of living life in the wake of man's fall and God's resulting wrath, requests from that God several interesting things:

So teach us to number our days,

    That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.

Do return, O LORD;

    how long will it be?

And be sorry for Your servants.

O satisfy us in the morning with Your loving-kindness,

    That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Make us glad according to the days You have afflicted us,

    And the years we have seen evil.

Let Your work appear to Your servants

    And Your majesty to their children.

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;

    And confirm for us the work of our hands;

    Yes, confirm the work of our hands. 
                                                                         Psalm 90:12-17

I believe Moses' first request very wise.  I've written earlier about redeeming time( http://tiny.cc/RedeemTime ), and it seems to me that the biggest battle I face is the battle to turn (redeem) time into good.  Whether from good in me, good in my family, good in my church, or good in my world, I am easily sidetracked into selfish, shallow, and even sinful consumption of time.  I need God's help to see what the time of my life is given for, and then more of His help dedicating myself to doing just that.

The remaining requests seem equally wise.  Moses has earlier described the burden of God's wrath on the world of men, and here he seems to ask God to lift or circumvent the effects of that wrath.  He asks for fresh revelation of who God is (return, loving-kindness, your work, your favor), a better "take" on life (satisfy us, sing for joy, glad), and that, rather than the frustration of working "by the sweat of your brow" and finding meaninglessness, he would see God bearing fruit in his labors.

Can any of us relate to Moses' prayer?  Can we relate to the desire for wisdom regarding time and its use?  I wrote earlier ( http://tiny.cc/QuicklyPasses ) that we exist in time like a waterwheel exists in a stream.  Just like the water goes by, harvested for its energy or not, so time goes by, harvested for good or not.  Do we look for, think about, and then do all the good that God has "prepared beforehand?"  Or do we leave undone some, or many, good words and good works that God had intended and gifted us to do?  Or, worse yet, do we actually do evil in those instances where good was intended by God, because of our ignorance of His will, or the shallowness of our wisdom?

Can we relate to Moses' desire for God to freshly reveal Himself?  Do we serve, or have we served, a god who is actually a faded memory of the God who really is?  Can we feel the lack of passionate love for God?  Has our god become a theory, a worldview, or a set of talking points, instead of an almighty Person?

Can we relate to Moses' desire for God to better his life, to "satisfy us in the morning with your loving-kindness?"  How many mornings go by where we simply set our sights on the shallow, empty satisfactions that the world offers.  Do we really believe that and live like true satisfaction can only be found in God?

Can we relate to Moses' desire for God to favor us, and "confirm the work of our hands?"  Most of us realize that someday the work of our hands will soon be passed through a fire?  At that time, the work of our lives will be tried for its woodness, hayness, and strawness, or its goldness, silverness, and gemness (1 Cor 3:9ff)?  Wouldn't it be good for God to show us ahead of time that our work either would pass through that final fire, or would burn up in it?  And having seen ahead of time, we could make changes in our lives, our efforts, our goals, or our methods. 

Father, I see the wisdom in Moses' prayer, but I lack the passion.  Help me to want what you want out of my time in this life, in this world. Help me to see and do the good that you've placed around me to do.  And help me to not miss the good, nor do evil in place of the good.  Help me see my life with your eyes.

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Slightly You Have Received, Slightly Give?

In yesterday's TG, (  http://tiny.cc/Lamb_Lesson  ) I pictured the difference between a forced and voluntary sacrifice.  I imagined voluntarily offering myself to God, as a response to God's mercy given me.  Today, I wonder about my grasp of God's mercy.

Luke writes of an incident (7:36-50) where a woman came to Jesus while he dined in the home of Simon, a Pharisee.  She wept over his feet, wiped them with her hair, poured perfume on them, and kissed them.  When Simon saw this, he questioned (to himself) Jesus' "prophetness" since he obviously didn't know "what kind of woman he allowed to touch him this way."  Jesus responded with a brief parable:

"A moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. "When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both."

Jesus then asked Simon which debtor would love more in response to the forgiveness of their debts.  When Simon answered that the one forgiven more would love more, Jesus continued his lesson, saying:

"You have judged correctly . . . Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. "You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet. "You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume.

Jesus took the Pharisee down a few notches, didn't he?  He did so point by point as He compared the Pharisee's treatment of Him against the woman's treatment.  The woman's offering included expensive perfume, blatant public humbling of herself, and risk of malignment and worse from the piously religious.  Simon's sacrifice included lunch, but with Simon criticizing Jesus to himself, and using the woman's worship as another opportunity to see himself as better than her (or at least her worse than him).

In so teaching, does Jesus reveal a variable in the formula we got from Romans 12:1?  If we, by God's mercy, offer ourselves as living sacrifices, but "God's mercy" becomes a variable ("forgiven much" v. "forgiven little") wouldn't that make our living sacrifices variable as well?  As in Simon's answer above, would those who have been given greater mercy offer more, and those given less mercy offer less?

Applied to Romans 12:1, the formula could look like this:  "I urge you therefore, by the level of mercy you have been given, to offer yourself in like kind as a living sacrifice."   Such variability can explain why some believers seem more sacrificial with their lives, while some believers seem less so.  Have we known or seen some believers live like they see great mercy in that their great sinfulness has been forgiven by Christ's great work?  They seem moved to respond as did the woman in Luke's story.  On the other hand, have we not also seen others who live like they don't see such a great mercy in Christ's forgiveness?

I doubt that the work of Christ is variable.  The Apostle John taught (1 John 2:2) that Jesus is the propitiation (the sacrifice that turns away wrath) "for the sins of the whole world."  So why, in Luke's story, did two different people see themselves as so differently forgiven?  I'm thinking that the variable lies in each individual's perception of his own need of forgiveness.  Those who think that their load of sin isn't so bad might see themselves as forgiven, but not like those whose load of sin was nothing but an unforgivable wretched stench.

Father, we all know from the gospel that all of our sins have been paid for, and have thus been forgiven.  And I thank you for such a forgiveness!  But do I always see what an amazing or great forgiveness that has been?  Do I, like the Pharisee, see myself as better than other sinners?  Do I think that Jesus shouldn't deal with others while He should deal with me?  Do I miss the fact that I too am like the woman and like the Pharisees of Jesus' day?  Help me see the depth of my sinfulness so that I can see the height of your grace.  Help me not compare my life and doctrine to those around me.  Rather, help me compare my life to that of Your Son, and my doctrine to that as taught in your word, so that I can see my true failings.  Help me know that my huge, impossible, unforgivable debt, has, in fact, been wiped clean by your gracious kindness.  Help me, by that mercy, to stand with the body of me sacrifice living, holy and well-pleasing, and offer me to you.

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Learning Lessons from a Lamb

Imagine, if you dare, a lamb being brought to the altar for sacrifice at the portable tent/tabernacle of ancient Israel.  Cruel as it may seem to some, the sacrificial act soon renders the lamb lifeless.  Before the sacrifice the lamb had possessed a mind, a will, and a demeanor that reflected both.  Now, the lamb has neither mind, will, nor demeanor.  With that picture in mind, listen now to what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Church:

"I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.           Romans 12:1

Imagine the lifeless lamb as you answer the following questions:  What does the lamb now desire?  What does the lamb now feel about his surroundings/circumstances?  If a lamb could possess an "agenda," what would this lamb's agenda be?  How much would this lamb want to be pleased?  If you made it through my questions without giving me up for ridiculous for even asking such things about a dead lamb, then grant me one more question.  What is the difference between a dead sacrifice (as the lamb above) and a living one (as in the quote above)? 

I'm thinking that the difference between a dead and living sacrifice is the ongoing act of surrender.  Obviously, a dead sacrifice surrenders nothing.  His desires, feelings, and agenda now offer no competition.  But the living sacrifice still has desires, feelings, and agendas.  And they must be consciously surrendered.  To clarify the picture of that living sacrifice, let me give you the direct "interlinear" translation, from the Greek, of the central phrase of the verse above:

"to stand with the body of you sacrifice living, holy one, well pleasing" which is your logical service." 

Imagine again, this time it's you standing there, holding your fleshy body, with it's dreams, desires, hopes, aspirations, it's frustrations, worries, fears, and pains, it's goals, demands, and agendas.  And there you stand, handing you over to God.  Surrendering all that you are to Him, so that you can be all that He created you to be. 

For that reason, this interlinear phrasing painted a beautiful (but difficult) picture for me.

Father, I have so much of me that competes with your will for me.  I have so much of me that isn't ready, willing, and able to follow your Son.  Help me daily to remember your great mercy, your amazing grace toward me.  And help me every morning to stand with the body of me sacrifice and offer me to you.  Help me surrender all the things that the lamb could not choose to surrender. Help me live the life You created me to live.  Help me do the good You created me to do.

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