Other preachers have spoken to me of being challenged by preaching at seasons like Christmas. I suspect that perhaps the reason is a too narrow view of what is acceptable for a Christmas series. If we simply return to the Christmas passages in Matthew and Luke again and again, it can get difficult. One can only exegete so much out of these very familiar passages, especially when our people have heard it all before.

I don’t wish to make a big point on this post, but simply to ask a few questions of any preachers who read it. First, do you find Christmas to be a “homiletical challenge”? Do you dread Christmas for that reason? If not, why not? And what do you do to preach Christmas? What are your goals in preaching for the Christmas season?

I am thinking of writing up some of my approach, but I’d like to hear from others first. Is it a topic of interest?

Is this a Biblical way to look at one’s gifts and/or talents?

There are three major passages in the New Testament dealing with spiritual gifts. They are Romans 12.6-8, 1 Corinthians 12, especially vv. 8-10 and vv.28-30, and Ephesians 4.11. There are a few other minor passages, but these are the significant ones.

We could divide the gifts between gifts of certain men to the church and gifts to many men in the church. Eph 4.11 lists four or five classes of men given to the church for the equipping of the saints. Their role would include training people in using their spiritual gifts. We could further divide the gifts to many men in the church between supernatural manifestations and internal capabilities. 1 Cor 12.28-30 seems to mix all the types of gifts, gifts of men to the church and gifts to many men in the church, both the ‘manifestation’ gifts and the internal capabilities gifts. Perhaps it might be better to list them all so you can see what I mean:

I have to concede that my analysis here is somewhat subjective and dependent on what I understand the various gifts to be. Regardless of the subjectivity, do you think my analysis of the categories is accurate: supernatural manifestations – that is, the ability to do something as a public display of the power of God; internal capabilities – that is, something that exists within the person that is displayed in ministry, not in public display; individual men – that is, particular men in particular offices within the church for the edifying of the body.

Now, to my thesis… where do musical talents fall in this grid?

I read a number of articles on the subject. Most writers seem to agree with my basic thesis: musical talents are not spiritual gifts, but they are physical gifts that can be used by a spiritually gifted person for ministry.

There are people who are very gifted musically but have no spiritual gifts at all. Name a big name opera singer for example, or one of the well-known instrumentalists of our day. They are very gifted musically. Most of them, the vast majority of them, have no spiritual giftedness at all. How could they? These men and women are not born again. How could they have spiritual gifts?

There is no doubt that physical gifts, like musical ability, are given by God, but they are not given on a spiritual basis. They are given to men in general, not to the church in particular. They are a matter of genetics, the ‘luck of the draw’ in parentage, God’s sovereignty, and training.¹

Should we decide how we will serve God in his church solely on the basis of musical ability? In other words, should someone refuse to serve in some other way if they are unable to use their musical ability regularly in church ministry? Suppose we have two or three pianists in a church (I always am thinking ‘small church’ when I say this!) They can’t all play at once, and often one of them becomes the regular pianist. Should the others just do nothing else, no teaching, no involvement in other ministries, child care, church cleaning, evangelism, what have you? Should they just sit and wait till they have a chance to serve on the piano? Should they look for another church where they can use their musical abilities and be the ‘first string’ pianist? Are these ‘spiritual’ approaches?

The reality is that musical ability can be used in a spiritual way for the edification of the body. But you should serve God where there is a need, not according to what you think your gift is. Perhaps God will give new gifts when a new opportunity needs to be filled by you. And surely God can use your physical abilities, like music, in almost every ministry of the local church even if you don’t get to use it every Sunday in the worship service.

1. Although some, like me, have so little musical giftedness that no amount of training will help, assuming I would submit to it!

Psalm 148 is called the Choir of Creation by Derek Kidner, one of the supreme commentators on the Psalms. His little work is just outstanding and has taught me an incredible amount about Hebrew poetry and how to pick out the features of the psalms, not to mention keen insights into each individual psalm.

The first thing to notice about this psalm is the ‘locale’ of each potential worshipper. The psalmist begins in heaven, calling the angels to worship (1-2). The first half of the psalm (1-6) descends ‘Jacob’s ladder’ to the realm of sun, moon and stars then to the ‘firmament’ and the waters above the ‘firmament’ (to use the Genesis 1 kjv terms!) — that is, the third stage refers to the clouds and the air above the earth. All things in the heights are called to praise our God.

The second half (7-14) of the psalm begins in the ‘deeps’ and works its way up through the earth and the creatures on it, to man, even man in covenant relationship with God, i.e., Israel itself, in the midst of the earth. You can see by this ‘movement’ that all creation is compassed by the various groups called to praise the Lord.

There is a precious kind of parallelism that we often see in Hebrew poetry called chiasm (that is, a parallel outline of the material looks like the left face of the letter X — the Greek chi — hence, chiasm). There is a majestic chiastic structure to this psalm, which intensifies the interest on the covenant people of God. I will try to reproduce it here (this is where a visual aid would have been handy).

Level 1 of the chiasm parallels the ‘sentient beings’ of creation. Level 2 parallels the things ‘on the surface’ of each sphere; sun moon and stars are just ‘above’ the atmosphere, as it were on the surface of the ‘firmament’; while hail and snow, mountains and hills, trees and beasts are on the surface of the earth. Level 3 parallels the things that are ‘below the surface’ of each realm – the waters that are above the heavens (clouds) and the highest heavens that are below the clouds, compared to the deeps and the creatures of the deeps.

The point of this structure seems to be the place man occupies in God’s mind – parallel to the angels in his regard. But notice that God goes a step further in the second summation and names Israel, a special class of men  in covenant relationship with him. They are ‘a people near to him.’ (14, emphasis added)

There is one more thing to note about the structure of the psalm: the ‘summations’ are parallel in thought to one another. The creatures of heaven are exhorted to praise the name of the Lord on the basis of their creation by fiat (command). The whole of them are established and function according to the laws of God’s command. No wonder they reward fruitful study!

Psalm 111:2
Great are the works of the LORD;
They are studied by all who delight in them.

But what of the men who are likewise exhorted to praise the name of the Lord in the second summation? Well, they are reminded of God’s great name, but it is great in their eyes because he provided for men “a horn for his people” (14) – a refuge, a place of salvation!

This is a word of redemption! Hear Zechariah after the birth of John the Baptist:

Luke 1:68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, 69 And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant

Here then we have the real heart of the psalm. All the Choirs of Creation are called to sing praise to the name of the Lord of Heaven because he has caused his people to be near to him through the redemption he himself provides. He is the horn of salvation!

Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,

Praise ye the Lord!

JG recently started writing at Mind Renewers. He is not a ranter and raver like me! I think you will find his writing challenging and uplifting.

A whole world of e-books is available, much of it for no charge. Check out Project Gutenberg for many titles, already formatted for the Kindle.

In addition, I have saved many pdf books, booklets, and articles on my hard-drive over the years, meaning to read them later. My Kindle makes this much easier to accomplish. You can copy your pdf files right over to the Kindle, although you may want to edit the font size for best viewing … or convert that pdf to a Kindle format book. I have discovered several free software packages for performing this task and for managing Kindle content.

• Calibre is a library and conversion program. I think you can convert books from B & N’s Nook format and other e-publishing formats into the Kindle format. (You can also convert from Kindle format to other formats if you use a different sort of reader.) Really an excellent program.
• MobiPocket Creator is a program that converts pdfs into e-publishing format. I have discovered that it may require some formatting and html coding in some books, but it does get you started on the project. This site also offers books for sale, but I would recommend staying away from that portion of the site.
• Sigil is a program that edits html and saves it in epub format. This allows you to customize your file to display how you would like it. Some knowledge of html is required.

There are other programs out there, perhaps some better than these. I’ve found these helpful, but my projects take on a life of their own and often consume a good deal of time.

As for reading, I find the Kindle to be quite handy – I seem to read a little faster with it as well. You do need good lighting, the e-ink technology can be read in sunlight, but no backlighting makes my living room somewhat problematic in the evenings.

I also am using the Kindle for preaching. I write my sermons in my ‘normal’ 8.5 by 5.5 templates and then copy and paste into a special template for the Kindle. I have to boost the font to 25 or 30 points, then print to a pdf, then copy over to the Kindle. But from there, the file reads very well in the pulpit and it means I can get away from my compulsive saving of paper notes.

One of these days,  I’d like to get an iPad for the preaching – it wouldn’t require “pumping up the fonts”, at least from having a look at a friend’s iPad. And it might be way more cool. However, for now, the Kindle is an affordable and very adequate solution.

And the World is not Idle (1 John 2:15-17)

As a supplement to our Romans series, we go to 1 Jn 2.15-17 to look at a complicating factor in our sanctification, the temptation of the world. The world tempts us because it orients its system along the lines of our fallen natue, something we find very appealing. The shocking fact of this passage is that believers themselves can fail of their love for God because of their love for the world.

I think he might have defined a few of the words from the original language. At one point, he began mis-pronouncing one of the Greek words underlying the point he was making. He kind of lost me there, and I imagine he lost his congregation too. Most of them probably don’t know Greek.

Other than defining a few of the words, there was no interaction with the text. There was no explanation of the thoughts of the text, how they related to one another, what the apostle was teaching through the argumentation of the text, and what that argumentation meant for our situation here and now.

There was a bit of historical context offered. It was… ah… how shall we say it? Not germane to the text. It actually fit more with another text in another epistle. In short, it didn’t expose anything about the text so the hearer could read, hear, and see, “Ahah! that’s it, that’s right, that’s what the text means, and this is what God is saying to me here and now through this ancient text.”

In short, if this was exposition, there wasn’t a whole lot of exposing going on.

Oh, brothers! Please! Be an expositor! Let the text speak! Get yourself and your opinions out of the way! Speak as of the oracles of God!

Our keynote speaker was Dr. Fred Moritz, my good friend and former mission director. He is now ‘emeritus’ with the mission and on the faculty of Maranatha Baptist Seminary.

We had a great week … all in just three days! Lots of preaching and good fellowship. We are hosting the sermons at our church site, so I thought I would make the link available for anyone who might be interested.

Various objectives have been suggested for Christian contention, and especially the Fundamentalist version of it. Ernest Pickering subtitled his book Biblical Separation with the line, ‘the struggle for a pure church.’ Certainly a pure church has to be an objective, but is it the one Jude has in mind ultimately?

Others suggest that Fundamentalist contention is simply lust for battle, ego and megalomania. Fundamentalists are the berserkers of Christianity, or the Idi Amin’s. Such suggestions aren’t very charitable, to say the least.

The Immediate Reason for Contention

Jude, after beseeching us to ‘earnestly contend’, offers a direct reason for contending:

Jude 1:4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

The particle ‘for’ gives us a reason for contending. There are men who have infiltrated believing Christianity. I once heard George Dollar preaching on this passage … he said, “Creeps crept in!” Certainly any honest look at church history will find many ‘creeps’ in the pages of the history books.

These creeps are the immediate reason for contention – they are the individuals to whom the battle must be taken. Their perversion of the grace of God must be identified and their denial of our master must be exposed. There influence must be rooted out, if possible, but it certainly must be checked at all costs.

But is that the end of the story? Is the battle won simply by exposing, rooting out and checking the influence of the ‘creeps’?

The Ultimate Objective of Contention

Jude spends the bulk of his epistle describing the nature and characteristics of the creeps. Near the end, he briefly lays out for us the ultimate objectives of his dominating imperative.

Personal Objective: remember the words of the apostles

Jude 1:17 But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, 18 that they were saying to you, "In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts." 19 These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit.

Beloved, we need to be clear eyed about this reality. We need to be shocked to action, as Jude is doing with his epistle, but we shouldn’t be shocked by infiltrators. Infiltrators are inevitable. The apostles repeatedly warned about this.

Jude is writing near the end of the apostolic era. Soon, only John will be left of the original twelve, plus Paul. Both Paul and Peter have gone by the time he writes (probably… there is some debate about Jude’s dates vs. the date of 2 Peter). The beloved saints to whom Jude writes have very few apostles to personally guide them through troubled waters ahead. Jude wants you to remember this. None of us have the personal presence of the apostles. One objective of the contention imperative is to live out the reality of apostolic teaching: there are and always will be arising ‘creeps who creep in’.

Personal objective: develop the Christian armory

Jude 1:20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

Review the Christian armory again in Ephesians 6.13-20. We need to foster and develop our skill in their use – we need to ‘build ourselves up on our most holy faith’. We need to exercise that essential offensive weapon of prayer. We need to keep ourselves in the love of God. That would be our love for God (objective genitive) not God’s love for us. We can’t escape God’s love for us. But we need to keep ourselves in our love for our God. This is another objective of the contention imperative: the saints must be well exercised in the arsenal of Christian graces.

Ultimate objective: rescue the perishing

Jude 1:22 And have mercy on some, who are doubting; 23 save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

These verses give us our ultimate objective in contending. Our objective isn’t merely to expose and root out creeps. Our objective is to rescue the perishing.

There are some, apparently believers, who are doubting and stuggling in their faith. They are almost swayed by the charming creeps. Some of them may have been led aside to unfaithful practices. They need mercy. They need the ministry of faithful saints, well exercised in the Christian graces to restore such ones. (22, cf. Gal 6.1ff.)

There are others who have no faith at all. They are easily captured by the creeps and their errors. Our contention is a means of snatching them out of the fire. I would contend that simple Christian soul-winning is contention at its most grass roots level. Many people are captivated by many foolish ideas. Many of them have a notion that they are ‘just fine with God, after all a loving God wouldn’t cast them into hell, would he?’ Rescue the perishing. Contend.

Some of these who have no faith are immersed in all kinds of vile sins. You may have to get your hands dirty as you contend for their souls. You may be put in fearful situations, places you would rather not be, but who else will you offer them mercy? In my ministry, I have been confronted by many different individuals captivated in all kinds of filthy sins. Their garments are surely polluted. But we embrace these prodigals, offer grace through Jesus Christ, point them to the Saviour. We rescue the perishing. We contend.

There is that to contending for the faith that attempts to purify the church by rooting out creeps. But the ultimate objective is pastoral: the ultimate objective is snatching souls from the burning.

I preached on the passage this past Sunday. The message really centered around the dominant word of the passage and was entitled simply, “Contend”. This post reflects some of my observations from that sermon.

On my computer, I have something like 18 different English translations of the Bible. The Greek word used here, epagonizomai, is translated by all but two of them as ‘contend’. The outliers are Tyndale’s old NT, “ye shuld continually laboure in the fayth” and Young’s Literal Translation, “exhorting to agonize for the faith”. Hopefully you can see that ‘agonize’ is a bit of a transliteration rather than a translation. Our English word ‘agonize’ is picturesque, but it doesn’t really communicate the meaning of the word.

As noted in the earlier post, epagonizomai means “to exert intense effort on behalf of something—‘to struggle for’”¹ [as opposed to antagonizomai, ‘to struggle against’]; and it “signifies ‘to contend about a thing, as a combatant’ (epi, ‘upon or about,’ intensive, agon, ‘a contest’), ‘to contend earnestly,’ Jude 3. The word ‘earnestly’ is added to convey the intensive force of the preposition.”²

The word contend, then, means ‘to earnestly fight on behalf of a cause’, in this case the cause being ‘the faith once delivered to the saints’. I plan to preach on that phrase next Sunday.

Contend is a rather aggressive word. I remarked on Sunday about the difference between ‘defend’ and ‘contend’ this way: When I was a lad, I played hockey. I started out my hockey career (!) as a defenseman. I was a bit of a shy and awkward lad and thought that defense might be safer, a position where I wouldn’t hurt the team too much. Little did I know that defense meant you were the last line between you and the goalie and when you made a mistake everybody noticed!

The point of defense, though, is to react to the attacks of the opposing offense. You respond and repel, you aren’t leading an attack. The forwards, on the other hand, are generally on the offense. They are supposed to come back and help with the defense, but their role is to lead the attack in the other team’s defensive zone. They are to contend. (Of course, the analogy breaks down a bit because hockey defensemen are often key parts of the offense as well, but I think you get my point.)

So to contend is to be on the offense. To take the battle to the enemy. To attack.

Attacking in the Spirit

A regular criticism of fundamentalists, however, is the contentiousness of their contention. We sometimes parody ourselves and make jokes about it (see the audio clip on my about page), but we have to admit that fundamentalists have sometimes (often) erred in their approach to contention, in taking the battle to the enemy.

A couple of other passages inform us about the kind of contention the apostles had in mind.

The first is 2 Cor 10.3-5. The key points in this passage are these:

• We do not war according to the flesh – our contention isn’t intimidation by overwhelming force, manipulation by deceptive practices, etc.
• The weapons of our warfare are not ‘of the flesh’ – not fleshly – but instead are mighty through God to pulling down strongholds. Our weapons are different from fleshly weapons both in their nature and in their power.
• The realm of our warfare is spiritual rather than carnal – we are casting down imaginations/speculations and lofty arrogance against God.

Well, what are our weapons? That brings us to Ephesians 6.13-20, and the list of the Christians armour, first defensive:

• Belt of truth
• Breastplate of righteousness
• Boots of the gospel
• Shield of faith
• Helmet of salvation

These defenses are sure. Satan cannot overthrow us because our vitals are protected by righteousness. We must act on this by faith, but our position is secure.

But the Christian armour is not purely defensive. There are actually two offensive weapons for the spiritual battle. The first is pretty obvious in Eph 6.17b:

• The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God

Our ability to carry the attack in the spiritual battle depends entirely on the power of our sword, not any inherent power or might we hold in ourselves. It behooves us, then, to be mighty in the Word if we would carry the day.

But there is another weapon. Look at Eph 6.18:

Ephesians 6:18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, [NAU]

Our sword is our offensive weapon, but it must be accompanied by another non-defensive activity: prayer. Prayer energizes every use of the Word, it is directed upward as the sword is directed outward.

In our contending, it is not a matter of belligerence and force of personality. It is a matter of being mighty in spirit, filled with the Spirit, and skilled in the use of the Word.

The subjects of contention

The last thing I want to consider in this post is ‘who is called to contend?’ I suspect that many Christians think the spiritual battles are primarily to be fought by spiritual leaders, by pastors and maybe by deacons and ‘ye who are spiritual’ as Paul mentions in Gal 6.

Let’s look at the people addressed by Jude.

Jude 1:1 Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ:

And then note the beginning of v. 3:

Jude 1:3 Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation

Who is Jude addressing in his epistle? All believers in general. Not just leadership. Not just the spiritual. Not just pastors. But all believers.

This business of contending is an imperative – a command – for all believers. Everyone needs to grow in the faith so that they are able to contend intelligently. And everyone needs to grow in the Spirit so that everyone is able to contend spiritually.

Next, we will look at the objective of earnest contention. Stay tuned.

1. Louw-Nida
2. Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words