Devotion to Christ the Word, and His words

One of the challenges in my devotional life is the tension (or balance) between consistency and variety. Too much variety, and my discipline with the spiritual disciplines becomes decidedly undisciplined. Too little variety, and the freshness is gone.

The last six months or so, I've been really enjoying incorporating lifechurch.tv's Youversion app into my devotional rhythm. Ten million downloads must count for something (three of those downloads were mine).

What I particularly like is the 'Plan' component of the app. I used it a number of months ago to devour the book of James repeatedly, and am doing the same with Matthew's Gospel. The nice thing is you can read Scripture (in multiple versions) and listen to it (in multiple versions, with multiple voices and even music accompaniment when the editors think something dramatic is coming up). This is good stuff that St. Jerome and Luther would have drooled over.

The Matthew readings are two chapters a day which gets me through the Gospel in two weeks, according to my calculator. While I generally prefer to read and ponder a single paragraph, this new rhythm has proven kind of cool. I read (or usually listen) to two chapters, and then open up the text and pick a couple of verses, or a verse or a paragraph that has leapt out at me. I jot the verse(s) in my trusty little Moleskine notebook (so portable, I never have an excuse not to have it close by) and a few related observations or questions or applications or a prayer reflecting the truth of the passage.

Since I keep cycling through the whole Gospel over and over (and will be for many months), there's a unity to the unpredictability. Each time I'm in that two-chapter section, there's familiarity, yet new things to pick and ponder.

This morning I was reading in Matthew 23 & 24.
In chapter 24:35, Jesus says:

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." 

I know Jesus said it, cause the words in red. That's what I love about studying the Gospels: there's an awful lot of red. Straight from Jesus lips to my ears or my eye.

(Ok, technically the progression is from Jesus' Aramaic statements to their rendering in the Greek of the Gospels to the English translation I'm using. But here's the amazing thing. . . Jesus (and the apostles) used multiple translations and languages (the Hebrew Massoretic text; the Greek Septuagint; the Aramaic Targums), and revered them all as the Word of God. This English ESV or NIV or NLT I love to hold in my hands, or read in vivid pixels on my Android's Amoled screen, or listen to via digital recording (with sound effects), is the Word of God. Wowser!

And in this one little statement above, Jesus says something not just profound, but astonishing. The physical stuff (the earth) will pass away. Even some of the spiritual realities, like heaven, will pass away as they currently are or perhaps change (don't ask me to explain what Jesus has in view here; ask him). But one thing that will remain for all eternity is Jesus' words. Including that sentence above, that verse.

His words (in red, in English, in Aramaic, in Greek, in Tagalog and Urdu) are so momentous and significant that they will NEVER pass away.

I guess I'd better pay close attention to the red stuff. I guess the words of Jesus in the Word of God are a precious gift--to be studied and pondered and treasured and loved.

But not so I can become a bibliolater--a worshiper of Scripture. After all, the Pharisees specialized in that and they were the spiritual walking dead. No, I love these words of Jesus because they lead me to know and experience Him, the Word of God in flesh (John 1:1,14). To know and experience Him, my only Sovereign. My only Savior.

Kim Jong Il and Jesus

Kim Jong Il is dead. And some of us didn't even know he was ill. So goes one of the many forms of recent online mockery.

Today is the funeral of the "dear leader." It is a bitterly cold day in North Korea, a country some have called the world's last Stalinist state.

Mourners in parkas lined the streets of Pyongyang, waving, stamping and crying as the convoy bearing his coffin passed. Some struggled to get past police holding back the crowd. "How can the sky not cry?" a weeping soldier standing in the snow said to state TV. "The people ... are all crying tears of blood." The dramatic scenes of grief showed how effectively North Korea built a personality cult around Kim Jong Il despite chronic food shortages and decades of economic hardship.*

The cult of King-Herod-like personality shamelessly forced on millions of starving people is, perhaps, most clearly seen in the titles that have been bestowed on the the despot by the North Korean media over the last twenty years or so.

In addition to being the "dear leader" (the most common designation), he is the "wise leader," the "brilliant leader," "the Bright Sun of the 21st century." But wait, there's more: he is the "superior man" and "the perfect incarnation of the appearance that a leader should have." Let it be known to all the world that he is "the Great Man who descended from heaven." He is nothing less than "the Savior."

Kind of a shame that he is still stone cold after eleven days of death. One would think such a savior would be able to deal with rigor mortis after two or three days. Maybe that's a bit much to ask. Still, the list of superlatives above almost makes one feel just a little sorry for his son and successor, Kim Jong Un. Kind of a hard act to follow. And besides, all the best titles have been used up already.

I'm loving going through Matthew's Gospel repeatedly every 14 or so days on my android with Youversion.com.

A slice out of today's two chapters were right on the money (that would be the North Korean "Won").

Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."  - Matthew 20:25-28.

What a contrast: King Jon Il who lived for the people's adulation and presided over a police state which regularly took people's lives on a whim. And Jesus who was so much more than the Son of Man but willingly gave up the power and prestige of genuine Godhood in order to give his life away.

Of course, "Son of Man" is only one of Jesus' titles. As a self-designating title, it is characteristically humble during Jesus' sojourn on earth. Others, however, reveal that He is "God with us" (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 2:23), that He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things in the universe (Colossians 1:16,17), that "in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Colossians 2:9).

Jesus' Revelation to St John connects all the dots for us once the veil to the future is lifted. Jesus is free to reveal that He is, in fact, "the King of Kings and Lord of Lords" (Revelation 19:16). He is the "Root and Offspring of David, and the Bright Morning Star" (Revelation 22:16).

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. . ." - Revelation 22:13.

"I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades." - Revelation 1:17,18.

 Now there's a Savior who really saves!

The little baby who was born in humility 2000 years ago is none other than the only Savior humanity could ever need or want. He gave his life as a ransom for many and rose on the third day to demonstrate his saving power. How astonishingly privileged am I to have been told that "good news of great joy that will be for all the people" (Luke 2:10).

May the people of North Korea fare better under their new leader. May the paranoia and closed borders loosen so that they will, one day soon, hear of the real Savior who is no longer dead but invites them into eternal relationship with Him.

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* Quote from

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/12/27/north-korean-tv-shows-mourners-paying-respect-to-kim-jong-il/?intcmp=trending#ixzz1hqZe2YtJ

The Earliest Picture of Jesus?

"The image is eerily familiar: a bearded young man with flowing curly hair. After lying for nearly 2,000 years hidden in a cave in the Holy Land, the fine detail is difficult to determine. But in a certain light it is not difficult to interpret the marks around the figure’s brow as a crown of thorns.

The extraordinary picture of one of the recently discovered hoard of up to 70 lead codices – booklets – found in a cave in the hills overlooking the Sea of Galilee is one reason Bible historians are clamouring to get their hands on the ancient artefacts.

If genuine, this could be the first-ever portrait of Jesus Christ, possibly even created in the lifetime of those who knew him."

Read more from today's fascinating Daily Mail article here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1372741/Hidden-cave-First-portrait-Jesus-1-70-ancient-books.html#ixzz1IV2JNqH9

Read an earlier caution from a scholar of early Christianity re too much hype: http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/more-on-the-lead-codices/