We use other people as examples and benchmarks for our lives all the time.
We consistently take a person, hold them up in front for everyone to see, and then say, “Here is how you ought to live.” And, to be honest, it’s not a bad idea if the person has their stuff together. It’s even (in at least some sense) biblical. Paul did that with Jesus and then with himself (1 Cor. 11:1).
What’s this have to do with Psalm 1?
Since God is triune, there is a trinitarian shape to everything he does. It doesn’t matter if it’s creation, his revelation to the world, the cross, or Scripture; it has the fingerprints of the Trinity all over it. The same can be said for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. If we look at the resurrection as if it exists apart from the Trinity, we’ll inevitably misunderstand something at the core of the event.
Who raised Jesus from the dead?
Without the resurrection we have nothing.
If Christ did not rise bodily from the grave after being put to death on the cross, our faith is worth nothing. We would be a pitiable bunch hanging our hope upon something that is nothing more than fantasy. All the Apostles, all the disciples, all the New Testament authors, all of those in our day who identify themselves based on the person of Jesus Christ would be wasting their time—giving it to something void of all real meaning—if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.
The Sermon on the Mount begins with one of the most recognizable and repetitive blocks of speech ever recorded. Blessed are you is the repetition. Blessed are you gets its hooks in you because Jesus says it over and over and over again. If you want someone to remember something you’ve said, say it again and again. The repetition, however, is not the only reason the statements Jesus made are memorable.
A good number of the blessed ones stand in sharp contrast to whom one would expect the blessed ones to be. Pretend, for a moment, you don’t know who the first blessed one is. If I said to you “blessed are the…” and then I asked you to fill in the blank, do you think you would choose poor in spirit?
What in the world could the Ethiopian eunuch and Philip have to do with English Bibles?
I hear you, I hear you. Let me explain.
In Acts 8 Philip is told by an angel of the Lord to go south to the road that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza (v. 26). On his way to the road he met an Ethiopian eunuch who was in his chariot. The Holy Spirit told Philip to go to the chariot and stand near it (v. 29). As Philip ran to the chariot, he heard the eunuch reading from Isaiah (v. 28), so Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading (v. 30). The eunuch said he couldn’t unless someone explained it to him (v. 31). So, Philip took the passage the eunuch was reading (Isaiah 53:7-8) and explained to him the good news about Jesus (vv. 32-25).
The best actors are those who disappear into the character they playing—think Meryl Streep or Daniel Day-Lewis. If you’re watching a movie and the main thing you see is not the character but the actor, that’s a problem. The same type of thing can be said for Bible reading plans.
The best Bible reading plans are those that disappear into the actual reading after a bit. The difference, however, between actors and reading plans is that if the actor doesn’t disappear into the character, it’s the actor’s fault; but, if the Bible reading plan doesn’t disappear into the actual Bible reading, it’s the reader’s fault.
Most of us want a guarantee of something before we’re willing to step forward into whatever that something is.
I’ll take this medicine if it can be shown that it has worked for others. I’ll buy this car if other owners of the same type of car like it. I’ll take this job if they can guarantee that I won’t be laid off in the next year.
We want a promise or even a sign proving to us that someone or something is reliable. And the thing is we’re not that different from those in the first century.
One of the ways people throughout the history of the church have come to understand the individual themes and the overall story of the Bible is by looking at the ways biblical authors related to one another’s writings. They quote, allude, and echo back to specific statements and more fluid ideas their contemporaries have made in the past. It seems they do this because God is the ultimate author of Scripture and because the writers themselves were soaked in the story they were moving forward with their writings.
What is life when it looks as if everything is coming undone at the seams?
For Job, life was like a house built upon the solid rock of a particular theological truth. A truth that stands behind and underneath every terrible, horrible, awful thing that comes into our lives. The rock upon which Job saw his house built was this: God is behind the trouble.