Embracing the Past

Oh, save your people and bless your heritage! 

Be their shepherd and carry them forever. (Psa 28:9 ESV)

 Harry Reeder, in his book Embers to a Flame says that the paradigm for church revitalization comes from Revelation 2:5. Jesus says, in his letter to the Ephesian church that they had lost their first love, and he tells them that they must, "Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first." I think Reeder is right. This is the pattern that any church that is to be revitalized must follow. We must remember the past--not in a nostalgic way of trying to get back to the glory days, but celebrating God's faithfulness in the past. We must repent of things we've done wrong. If there are ways that a church has wronged past members, or if there are current practices that are unbiblical, the church must repent of those things and take steps to make amends to those who have been wronged. We must restore the first things--that is, there needs to a return to making the glory of God and the gospel the consuming passion of the church.

The man in the picture above was Fred Edmund (Ed) Brown. He was the pastor of Woburn Baptist Church from September 1924 through 1925. It appears his pastorate was interrupted from January through March of 1926 because the records show another pastor during that three month period. He returned as pastor during March 1926 and stayed as pastor until August 1928. The same pastor who interrupted his tenure is the one who followed him from 1928 until 1935. The church tried to get him to return in 1935, but the records indicate that they could not afford it, and there were four more pastors between his leaving in 1928 and when he returned as their pastor in 1939 through 1940. During those years Woburn Baptist Church had services only twice a month. Ed Brown was my great-great-grandfather on my mother's mother's mother's side, and there are a few current members of the church who knew him. 

Why is this relevant? Am I writing this merely to point out a historical curiosity? No. I think this is relevant to my sense of calling as the pastor of Woburn Baptist Church. Reeder says that the first step in the revitalization paradigm is to remember the past. As I have been serving as the pastor of Woburn Baptist Church I have been encouraged in my sense of call because I believe I'm uniquely situated to embrace our past. I don't want to "toot my own horn" here. There's really nothing special about me, and there is no virtue is pastoring the same church that my great-great-grandfather pastored, but it has helped my sense of motivation and commitment to the church. I feel a sense of connection to the church that goes beyond myself. When I preach there, I'm building on the labor of a man I never met but whose influence affected me in inestimable ways. 

This fact helps me to embrace the past of Woburn Baptist Church. I am optimistic about our future because I can see the faithful hand of God preserving the church through the years. God has worked through many other men who have pastored Woburn Baptist Church, and Lord willing the church will out live me by generations as well. My time of calling to Woburn Baptist Church is a link in a chain that ultimately goes back to a movement that started on Pentecost Sunday 2000 years ago and which extends on to the return of Christ. My calling at Woburn Baptist Church is to be faithful with what God has given me to do right now. And for those reasons, I'm incredibly excited about being at Woburn Baptist Church at this time in her history, and look forward to what God will do in our future.

Noah and the Preservation of the Promise

"So the LORD said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.' But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD" Genesis 6:7-8

The story of Noah does not happen in a vacuum. It is not a disconnected story with no relation to what has come before or after. The story of Noah comes at the end of a genealogy which connects it to the preceding narrative. The story begins with a perfect creation--Man and Woman created to live together in harmony in the Garden of Eden. Conflict is introduced--Man and Woman sin by eating of the forbidden fruit and introducing death to mankind. The plot is developed--God promises a hero would come to defeat man's enemy and restore the blessing of creation. The story progresses--the next generation continues in sinful patterns and escalates the violence of sin. Cain murdered his own brother, and every generation from Adam to Noah dies with one notable exception--Enoch, the one who walked with God. 

Now we come to Noah. By this time we are told that the earth was filled with violence. Mankind's thoughts were "only evil continually." The conflict of chapter 3 has escalated to the point that it is almost time to scrap the whole thing and start over. However, God will be faithful to his promise. God promised a hero who would be one of the descendants of Eve. If he destroys everyone and starts over he would be breaking his promise. So, instead, he has favor on one man and his family--Noah. 

Noah was a good man. He was "righteous in his generation." He wasn't sinless, but he "walked with God." God warns Noah that he is sending a flood, and he gives Noah instructions on how to be saved from the wrath to come. He gives Noah precise instructions that he is to follow exactly--and his life depends on it. Noah faithfully builds an ark according to God's design and he, his family, and all of the animals on the earth are saved, while everyone and everything outside of this boat is killed. God promised judgement and it came with certainty. Just as his judgement is certain, so is his promise. Though the earth was destroyed in the flood waters, God remembered Noah, and he remembered his promise to Eve. The flood waters receded, and the ark came to rest upon a mountain. At the end of the flood narrative we see Noah and and his family exit the ark along with all of the animals, birds, and creeping things--they came out of the ark "by families." This is similar to how the children of Israel exited Egypt, and marched in the wilderness, and took the land, arranged by families. 

This is the pattern that God uses throughout the Bible--salvation through judgement. God brings judgement on sin, yet he brings salvation to his people to preserve a messianic seed and to preserve a remnant who will bring him glory. We see the same in the Exodus. God judges Egypt and brings his people out. We see the same in the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego--they went through the fire and were saved without even smelling like smoke. We see it in the exile--Jerusalem was destroyed and the people were scattered but God preserved a remnant to be faithful to his covenant promises. We see it in the cross. God's judgement on sinners is poured out on Jesus for us and all who have faith in him are saved. 

The story of Noah teaches us some things that we see all throughout the Bible and which are essential components to the gospel. Judgement is real and certain and coming, and God has provided salvation through is appointed means. The same things are true for us. First, he is going to come in judgement--that is certain. We will all stand before his judgement seat one day and we will answer for everything we have ever done--even any careless word that we have spoken. Second, He has provided a way of salvation such than anyone who believes upon him will be saved from eternal destruction. That way of salvation is through the cross of Christ. Christ has come into the world and died as a substitute for the judgement we deserved for our sin. He is our ark and there is no other way of salvation outside of him. 

"But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth and the waters subsided." Genesis 8:1

How Am I Going to Preach a Genealogy? Part 2

In the last blog post on this I treated how to interpret the text. What is the theological message that we should get from this genealogy in Genesis 5? In this post, I'm going to try to answer the question, "so what?"

Let's review the theological concepts of Genesis 5:

1. Humanity after Adam is still created in the image of God. Seth was created after the image and likeness of Adam who was created in the image of God.
2. Humanity has been broken and experiences death and the painful toil of labor. Every person listed in the genealogy except for Enoch experienced death, and Lamech acknowledges the desire for relief from the pain.
3. There is hope for eternal life and communion with God. Enoch was the grand exception to the pattern of death because he walked with God.
4. There is a Messiah who would reverse the curse, crush the Serpent, and bring relief to our pain. Lamech expected Noah to give rest to humanity from the curse upon the ground.

 Now how does that affect us today? I'll name two ways that affect us at Woburn Baptist Church this week. First, Dorothy, our piano player is in the hospital right now after having knee surgery. Second, another member, Jerry, lost his house to a fire this week. The concepts we see in this text connect to our current experience in this way. Why do human bodies wear out and experience pain? Because of the curse. We can do many things to try to relieve our pain. We can go to doctors. We can take pain pills. We can have surgery, but ultimately the curse of death that we have all inherited in Adam will take its toll. We will all one day die and after that face the judgement. This is one of the fundamental universal experiences of all humanity. We all want relief from this problem. The other problem is the futility of work. Solomon wrote of this experience. You work for a lifetime acquiring stuff, and you come to the end of your life and you leave it all to someone who didn't work for it. Jesus told a story of a man who horded wealth and didn't know that in that very night his life would be required. In an instant, we can loose everything. This is another consequence of the curse on the ground. Our labor will be futile. We can work and work all our lives, and in the end what we have can all be gone in a moment. This is another fundamental problem of human existence.

Lamech expected an answer to this problem. He was hoping in the promise that a seed of the woman would crush the head of our enemy and reverse this curse. He was trusting that God's provision would set all the wrong things right again. In this hope, he named his son Rest (Noah). In a sense, Lamech was right. Noah would be a man who saved the world. Noah was a type of Christ. Just as all those who were in the ark were saved from the flood waters, 1 Peter 3 says that all who are in Christ will be saved from death in Christ.

Jesus is relevant to our problem with sin's curse both in the next life and this one. We will be saved from death when we are resurrected at his coming, but we have hope in the midst of our painful toil now as well. We know that our labor is not in vain, in the LORD. God is working all things together for our good, so when our house burns down or when we are sitting in a hospital bed, we will know that our greatest treasure is Jesus, and while our outer man is wasting away our inner man is being renewed in Christ every day.

The message of the genealogy in Genesis 5 is a message of hope in the Messiah to bring healing to a broken world.

How Am I Going to Preach a Genealogy?

This is the book of the generations of Adam. (Genesis 5:1a)

I'm currently preaching through Genesis. We started with Genesis a few months ago and I felt like after completing chapter 3 we were at a good stopping point to do something different for a while. Last week I returned to Genesis 4 and I intend to preach up through chapter 11 before taking another excursion into something different. While I want to bring variety to the preaching diet, I also want to have the consistency of regularly systematically going through the biblical books. One of the reasons for this commitment is that I don't want to give into the temptation to skip over hard texts. This week is one of those weeks. In Genesis 5 we will look at the Genealogy of Adam through Seth's line. Genealogies are often looked at as boring and monotonous. However, because of my commitments, I'm not going to skip it. So, how will I preach it?

Options

There are basically three options I can think of for doing this. Two of these options are ones that I would not advocate, and one is the one I will be putting to practice. 

First, a preacher could preach through a genealogy going through and looking at the meaning of the names of each character presented. I would say that this is a mystical approach. The idea is that there is a hidden meaning in the names of the people in the genealogy and that knowledge of the original languages will reveal a hidden meaning of the text that isn't obvious to anyone else. While I'm definitely a proponent of the use of the biblical languages, I think this method falls short of faithfulness to the text. It falls into what is called the "word study fallacy." The problem with it is that texts have their meaning as words are put together into sentences. Looking at a word by itself will give you information about the language, but it's missing the forest for the trees! The meaning of the words is determined by the way that they are used, not their etymology, and not necessarily by combining all their lexical possibilities. While I've heard of people using this method before and church members being impressed, I think it misses the point. 

Second, a preacher could create a chart with all the lengths of the lives of all the people in the genealogy to try to show how old the world is. 

While I've seen this done before by people I love and respect, I think this misses the point as well. I am a six day young earth creationist, and I actually think there are a few things we can gain from this kind of exercise, but I don't believe this is the point. God didn't reveal these things to us to satisfy our curiosity about the age of the earth. I believe he had something much more deeply theological for us to understand. 

Finally, I advocate a literary approach. There are two principles that I will keep in mind as I describe this literary approach. First, the genealogies in the biblical text function as a bridge between narratives. Before this genealogy we see the narratives of creation, the Fall, the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, and a brief story about Cain's descendant, Lamech. The next major story in the narrative will be the Flood. The genealogy functions as a literary bridge from what has happened already to what is coming next in the narrative. It is showing us that all of these things are happening are connected. It is giving us a framework for the Pauline theology that all human beings are all descended from Adam and that the events that happened in the Flood narrative are further consequences of the Fall that had happened earlier.  Second, if we want to know what is significant in the genealogy, then we must look for the items which break the normal pattern. The emphasized points will be found in the variations.

Variations

The genealogy of Genesis 5 follows a distinct pattern. It goes like this: 

When (X) had lived (Y) years, he fathered (Z). (X) lived after he fathered (Z) (W) years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of (X) were (V), and he died. 

 There are three significant variations from this pattern that I see. 

1. Adam varies from the pattern. Instead of saying "When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered Seth," it says "When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth." This is significant for a few reasons. It shows us that the image of God from the creation narrative was passed on through successive generations. It shows us that even though sin had drastic consequences for humanity and introduced death, human beings are still image bearers of God. This variation in the pattern also does one more thing. It links Seth to Noah. It says "he fathered a son...and named him...." This is something we don't see in any of the following generations until you get to Noah, and it will be mentioned again later. 
2. Enoch varies from the pattern as well. It says, "When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he had fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters.... Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." This break in the pattern does two things. It highlights an important part of the pattern. Everyone died! Every generation in the list ends with the words "and he died" except Enoch. From this we should see that the genealogy intends to show us that death came to all men through Adam--just as we read in Paul. However, Enoch is a significant break in this pattern. What does this mean? What does it mean that he walked with God? What does it mean that "he was not?" What does it mean that "God took him?" Each of those ideas are ambiguous in the text. It is hard to say with certainty. It has been traditionally understood that Enoch never physically died and that he was taken directly into Heaven just as Elijah was taken in a fiery chariot. Why didn't Enoch die? It can be assumed that it was because he walked with God. Enoch apparently had a close personal walk with God. We don't have any details telling us what this means. I do not think that it means that Enoch was sinless. Rather, Enoch walked in reliance on God. He trusted in God. I would guess that it means that he lived a life of faith in God. Unfortunately, we aren't given much information. Jewish apocalyptic literature abounded with curiosity and speculations as to what happened to Enoch, but as for the biblical record, we don't have much to go on. 
3. Lamech also varies from this pattern. Lamech was Noah's father, and he was also the last person in this genealogy to die. His record says "When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son, and called his name Noah, saying, "Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands." Just as I mentioned before, the only other person of which it is said, "he fathered a son, and [called his] name" was Adam. This begins and ends the genealogy with the same break in the pattern. Then it gives a reason for Noah's name. "He will give us relief." The word for "relief" or rest is built off the same word as Noah's name. So Lamech named his son "Rest." What would Noah give humanity rest from? Noah was expected to give relief from "our work" and from "the painful toil of our hands" because of "the ground which the LORD has cursed." These are all references to Genesis 3. The "painful toil" that Noah was to give relief from was the painful toil mentioned in the pain of childbearing from 3:16 and the pain of man's labor in 3:17-19. The vocabulary links these passages, but so does the author's explicit reference to the LORD's curse on the ground. In short, I believe that Lamech expected Noah to be the seed of the woman who would reverse the curse and crush the serpent's head. It is on this basis that I believe it is legitimate to preach Jesus from the genealogy here in Genesis 5.  

When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, "Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands." (Gen 5:28-29 ESV)

 

Cain and the Seed of the Woman

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD." (Gen 4:1 ESV)

From Genesis 3 to the end of the Old Testament, the entire story centers around the promise of a coming Messiah who would crush the serpent's head. Chapter three ends with the punishment upon Adam and Eve for their sin in the Garden of Eden. Yet mingled in the curse upon the Serpent there is a promise of a seed. There would be enmity between the seed of the Serpent and the seed of the woman which would one day be culminated when a specific descendant of Eve would defeat the Serpent of old. Chapter three ends with the grace of God when he made coverings for Adam and Eve out of animal skins, and the discipline of God as Adam and Eve were exiled from Paradise--East of Eden.

The next passage in the narrative picks up with a birth. The curse foretold that Eve would have seed, and that there would be difficulty in childbearing, so it is important to see a connection between these stories. The announcement of Cains birth was in answer to the promise of God. Yet the words used suggest that there is a problem before Cain and Abel ever bring their sacrifice. Eve names Cain with a word based on the verb for what she says she has done. She says, "I have "Cained" a man, with the LORD." The word means to acquire or to get, and while the ESV says "with the help of the LORD," the Hebrew text is more ambiguous. When she says this, is she meaning with God's help? Or is she meaning alongside him? Did Eve mean to take credit as though she had acquired Cain in her own effort--in a manner equal with what God can do? Ultimately, it is too ambiguous to be dogmatic about, but it would fit with a repeated theme within Genesis if she does claim to do it on her own. It would fit with the Tower of Babel when the people sought to make a name for themselves, and it would fit with Abraham and Sarah, when Sarah gave Hagar to her husband to acquire a seed through the work of man. Either way, there is reason to think that Eve saw Cain as a fulfillment of the promised seed. The question in an attentive reader's mind must be, "Is Cain the one? Is he the seed that was promised in 3:15?"

As the narrative continues it becomes clear that this expectation is wrong. Instead of destroying the seed of the Serpent, Cain appears to BE the seed of the Serpent who had enmity with his brother. This brings a tension to the story. Up to that point, the only sons of Adam and Eve that we had read about were Cain and Able. The first born was a murderer, and the second was dead, and the question remains, "how will God's promise of a seed be answered?" 

The last verses of chapter four answer the question. After tracing the line of Cain's descendants, the narrator returns to Adam and Eve and tells us that they had another son--Seth. It also tells us that in the days of Seth's son, men began to call upon the name of the LORD. Chapter 5 consists of Seth's genealogy and it comes to an end in Noah, another seed who was expected to bring the people rest and who saved all of mankind. The last verses of this story tell us that the LORD provided a seed who though whom the promise would ultimately come to fruition. As Genesis continues, the seed promise is narrowed down to the line of Abraham, and even to the line of Judah. And as New Testament believers, we know that the seed was ultimately fulfilled by Jesus the Son of David. 

And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, "God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him." (Gen 4:25 ESV)

The Greatest Treasure

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 

where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 

(Mat 6:20 ESV)

This Sunday we will be looking at the last section in 1 Timothy. At my first look at the passage it seemed that there were three separate topics. First, there is an encouragement to fight the good fight of faith. Then, it moves into a doxology of praise to God. Next, there are specific words of instruction for the rich. Finally, Paul closes the letter with an encouragement for Timothy to guard the Gospel deposit. I spent some time thinking about how these three things are related and I think I've found at least one way that they are. Each of the parts to this text relate to the most valuable thing in the world.

How to Take Hold of the Greatest Treasure

1 Timothy 6:11-15a is where Paul is telling Timothy how he is to take hold of the most valuable thing in the world.

  11But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time.

The first things Paul tells Timothy and us to do is to run away and to run forward. We are to flee something--specifically, the love of money and false teaching. This takes intentional effort. Paul doesn't want us to take these things lightly. He says, run away. Then he tells us to run forward. We are to pursue certain characteristics. We are to chase after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness. This list has overlap with the fruits of the spirit. The Christian is to pursue all of these qualities in order to take hold of the most valuable treasure of all. Next, Paul tells us to fight the good fight of the faith. The Christian life involves struggle and wrestling. We fight, and the biggest enemy we fight is within--the flesh. Next, Paul tells us to take hold of the eternal life to which we were called. God has initiated here. He has already done the calling. In response to the effectual call of the Holy Spirit, believers then take hold of eternal life. We grab it and we hold it tightly. Finally, Paul tells Timothy, and us to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach. In the context of 1 Timothy, I think that this is talking about Timothy's charge to the Gospel ministry. How will Timothy take hold of the greatest treasure? He will do all these things, in the power of the Spirit, and he will faithfully carry out his ministry. 

What is the Greatest Treasure?

1 Timothy 6:15b-16 is where Paul tells Timothy and us of the supreme value of and the greatness of God.

He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. 

 Paul then turns from explaining how to take hold of the greatest treasure to describing that treasure. God is the greatest treasure. He breaks into an expression of praise and states that God is the blessed and only Sovereign. He is blessed--he is happy. He is the only Sovereign--he is in a class by himself. he is Sovereign--he rules over all the universe as the omnipotent creator. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords--a term that appears in Daniel 4 in the LXX and in the book of Revelation to describe Jesus. Nebuchadnezzar used this language to say that the true God rules over all the kings of every nation. In revelation this designation is applied to Jesus Christ. God is the only one with immortality. While believers have been promised eternal life, we are not truly immortal because we are dependent on the sustaining power of God. We will face death in this life unless we live to the return of Christ, but we will be raised to live with him forever. However, we will not be independent. Our eternal life will forever be dependent upon God. He dwells in unapproachable light. Like the experience of driving into the sun and being blinded by the light, except multiplied by a million times--the light of God is so bright we cannot look upon it, yet he dwells there in the middle. No one has ever or can see him, and as John 1:18 says, Jesus is the only one who has, and Jesus has revealed to us what we are not able to see on our own. To him be honor and dominion. He is worthy of all of our praise and honor. He is the king of all creation.

Our Attitude Toward All Other Things in Comparison to the Greatest Treasure

Finally, 1 Timothy 6:17-21 tell us how we ought to think of everything else due to the surpassing value of God.

 17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. 20 O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called "knowledge," 21 for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.

 God is so valuable, that the rich in this life who are believers are to live in a way that shows that He is their greatest treasure and not their money. They are to not be proud. They are not to trust in their money, but in God. How often are we looking for money to answer all our problems? They are to do good with their money. They are to hold their money loosely and to give it away generously for Kingdom purposes--so that they can send their greatest treasure on ahead of them to heaven.

 Finally, Timothy wasn't rich; he was a pastor. Paul's instruction to him was to guard the deposit of the Gospel. If God is of supreme value, then the gospel is to be guarded like an armored truck with armed security guards. Don't be fooled by false teachers who try to be impressive by their so called knowledge, but stay firmly planted in the Gospel as it was passed on to us.