The message of 1-2 Samuel is NOT "be like David" and "don't be like Saul."
Reflections on the GOSPEL. Creation, fall, redemption, restoration /consummation /recreation. Inclusive and exclusive. Tabernacle and presence.
Loved by God.

- UBF Gospel Musings
- Chicago, IL, United States
- * It's good to suffer loss, for it draws me to the Cross where God's loss is more than what anyone ever lost. * We cannot hear what the stories of the Bible are saying until we hear them as stories about ourselves. * Let go of control. * Trust God. Thank God. Think about God. Talk to God. Talk about God.
Friday, November 22, 2013
The Gospel in 1-2 Samuel
Sunday, November 17, 2013
The Gospel in Ruth
God cares for his own with great loving kindness. Ruth is the story of a young Moabite widow who comes to know the covenant love the one true God and the joy of belonging to his people through her Jewish mother-in-law, Naomi. Through these two women God's sovereign hand is at work to redeem a people for himself. God, the hero of the story, is the faithful God who cares for his own and provides what they need with great loving kindness (hesed). Like Ruth, we too "were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world" (Eph 2:12). Like Ruth, we too need a Kinsman-Redeemer who will do all that is necessary to remedy our helpless condition.
The Gospel in Judges
Judges portrays the people of God languishing without good leadership. Judges and 1-2 Samuel bridge the gap from the entrance of the people of God into the Promised Land under Joshua to their expulsion from the land due to unfaithful kings in 1-2 Kings. Since the conquest of the land is not complete, Judges begins with the question of who will lead in battle (Judg 1:1) and ends with "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit" (Judg 21:25). The need for a king to lead God's people into their full inheritance is an important theme.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
The Gospel in Joshua
God gives and Israel inherits is the formula that is repeated from the beginning to the end of Joshua. The spotlight is not on Joshua's courageous moral example or on timeless principles of conduct, but on God's fulfillment of a historical promise. Even Joshua's name ("Yahweh Saves!") points away from himself to the real hero of the story. Joshua is a story of grace.
Friday, November 15, 2013
The Gospel in Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy contains Moses' last three sermons and two prophetic poems about Israel's future. It is one of the most important books in the OT because:
- Jesus quoted it more than any other OT book.
- Jesus used it in his own life more than any other OT book (Lk 4:1-13).
- Jesus summarized the supreme command of the Bible from Dt 6:4-5 (Mt 22:37; Mk 12:30).
- It is quoted over 80 times in the NT, and references to it occur in 22 of the 27 books.
The law is surrounded by grace, and keeping the law is a response to grace received (first 4 chs) and anticipated (last 4 chs). The gospel is seen in the overall structure of the book.
Labels:
deuteronomy,
gospel
Thursday, November 14, 2013
The Gospel in Numbers
The Christian life is a wilderness journey of unpredictable transition and testing on the way to our final destination. Numbers narrates the arduous wilderness journey of Israel, fraught with trials and failures every step of the way, on the way to the Promised Land. The "wilderness life" only requires that the people of God exercise faith by trusting daily in his guidance and provision.
The wilderness journey testifies to God's faithfulness in the following ways:
- God's saving grace in delivering them out of slavery in Egypt.
- God fulfilling his gracious promises he swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Gen 12:1, 7; 26:2-4; 35:12).
- That God provided for them and sustained them for forty years reveals that God is indeed their Shepherd (Ps 23:1).
- To be among them in the wilderness meant, above all, to have the Lord dwelling in their midst with his tabernacle pitched at the heart of the Israelite encampment to atone for their sins and to guide them into the land flowing with milk and honey.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Pope Francis' answers the question, "Who are you?"
How can anyone not love Pope Francis?
I am a sinner. During an exclusive interview in August 2013, Pope Francis was asked, "Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?" The pope stared in silence. The interviewer asked him if this was a question that he is allowed to ask. The pope nodded that it is, and he says, "I do not know what might be the most fitting description.... I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner."I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon. The pope continued to reflect and concentrate, as if he did not expect this question, as if he were forced to reflect further. "Yes, perhaps I can say that I am a bit astute, that I can adapt to circumstances, but it is also true that I am a bit naïve. Yes, but the best summary, the one that comes more from the inside and I feel most true is this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon." And he repeats: "I am one who is looked upon by the Lord."
Loving the Bible is like a Husband Loving His Wife's Letters
I love receiving hand written cards from my wife, even if her handwriting is often quite hard to read and decipher. Strangely, I even delight in trying to figure out what exactly did she write to me! She wrote this to me after 32 years of marriage. I can thus relate to what John Stott writes when he equates loving the Bible with loving to read my wife's written words to me:
"A man who loves his wife will love her letters and her photographs because they speak to him of her. So if we love the Lord Jesus we shall love the Bible because it speaks to us of him. The husband is not so stupid as to prefer his wife's letters to her voice, or her photographs to herself. He simply loves them because of her. So, too, we love the Bible because of Christ. It is his portrait. It is his love-letter."
Why Study the Old Testament?
If Christ is the key to human history, the Old Testament carefully describes the lock.
If Christ is the climax of the story, the Old Testament sets the stage and begins the plot. Do you read just the endings of books?
If the New Testament presents God's promises kept, the Old Testament tells us about God's promises made.
In other words, if you don't get what the Old Testament teaches, you'll never get Christ.
If Christ is the climax of the story, the Old Testament sets the stage and begins the plot. Do you read just the endings of books?
If the New Testament presents God's promises kept, the Old Testament tells us about God's promises made.
In other words, if you don't get what the Old Testament teaches, you'll never get Christ.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
The Gospel in Leviticus
Jesus is the Great High Priest and the sin offering. It may be natural to think of Leviticus in terms of the grace of the gospel, because its ideas and concepts find their ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus--sacrificial atonement or the priesthood. Hebrews makes these connections by emphasizing again and again that Jesus is the Great High Priest (Heb 4:14; 10:21), the one without sin (Heb 9:14; 9:7), who offers himself as the ultimate sacrifice that cleanses all our sin (Heb 1:3; 7:26-27; 9:12, 14, 26, 28; 10:10, 12, 14; 13:11-12) which gives us confidence to draw near to God (Heb 10:19-22).
The Gospel in Exodus
Redemption. Exodus records the greatest redemption event in the Bible prior to Christ's incarnation. This is good news to captives who labor in bondage to sin and misery. The redemption in Exodus begins with God remembering his covenant promises offered in Genesis (Gen 3:15; 12:1-3; 15:13-14), in particular by remembering his covenant with Abraham (Ex 2:23-25), and coming to redeem his people through Moses the mediator (chs. 3-4). Central to this redemption is judgment and salvation: judgment on Egypt and salvation through the substitutionary death of spotless lambs (chs. 7-13).
Labels:
Exodus,
redemption
The Gospel in Genesis
The foundation stories of Genesis set the stage for understanding the Gospel in many ways.
- The Creator is the King over all his creation.
- Sin entered the world and took away human freedom.
- God reveals the depth of his love and grace, despite humanity's continual disobedience.
- God called frail and profoundly flawed human beings to represent him: Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
- These giants of faith learned to love God more than the goods of this life.
- The riches of God's grace render people without excuse.
- The Lord of the universe committed himself by oath to one man, Abraham.
Monday, November 11, 2013
The Meaninglessness of Wisdom, Pleasure, Possessions, Accomplishments (Eccl 1:12-2:26)
Eccl 1:1-11 poses a question: What do people gain from all their toil? The sad answer is, "Nothing." Eccl 1:12-18 asks, "What can we discover about life from using our wisdom?" Eccl 1:14 says, "I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind."
- What was the Preacher determined to do to discover about the meaning of life (Eccl 1:12-13a)? What did he conclude (Eccl 1:13b-15; Dt 29:29)?
- What did he acknowledge about what he had attained (Eccl 1:16; 2:9)? What did he set his heart to know (Eccl 1:17a)? What conclusion did he draw (Eccl 1:17b)? Why (Eccl 1:18)?
- In the Preacher's search for meaning, what did he explore (Eccl 2:1-3)? What did he accumulate during his search (Eccl 2:4-8)? How great did he become (Eccl 2:9; 1:16)?
- What did he conclude (Eccl 2:10-11, 12-16)? How did he feel about his achievements and accomplishments (Eccl 2:17)? Why (Eccl 2:18)? Why did this trouble him (Eccl 2:19-21)?
- What was the result of one's labor, striving, and toil for things under the sun (Eccl 2:22-23)?
What did he say was the best man could achieve (Eccl 2:24a)? Who was capable of achieving this (Eccl 2:24b-26a)? What does the sinner receive (Eccl 2:26b)?
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Intoxicated with the Maddening Wine of Adultery
"'Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great,' which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries" (Rev 14:8). "...the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries" (Rev 17:2).
(Today's sermon on The Wrath of God explains how intoxication with the wine of adultery seduces us to our own demise.)
Labels:
revelation
Why is the Gospel Eternal? (Rev 14:6-7)
"...he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people" (Rev 14:6).
The gospel. Like a multifaceted jewel, Scripture describes the gospel with various terms, each looking at it from a different viewpoint: the gospel of God (Mk 1:14; Rom 1:1), the gospel of the kingdom (Mt 4:23; Mt 24:14), the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24), the gospel of the glory of Christ (2 Cor 4:4), the gospel of salvation (Eph 1:13). In Revelation, it is the eternal gospel (Rev 14:6).
Why is the gospel eternal? The gospel is "eternal" because it points to a message that is permanently valid. It also provides the means to eternal life.
Labels:
revelation
Monday, October 21, 2013
What Do People Gain From All Their Toil? (Eccl 1:1-11)
Key Verse: Eccl 1:3
"What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
"What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
What does the Teacher/Preacher (Eccl 1:1) say about God? Nothing! Why? He is reflecting on the world on the horizontal level. He is looking at human life apart from God. He describes life "under the sun" (Eccl 1:3, 9). He describes life from a secular perspective.
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
Sunday, October 20, 2013
What is The Meaning of 666?
This is an expanded edited excerpt from my sermon (10/20/2013) entitled The Beast, 666, and The Lamb:
What is the mark of the Beast? What is the meaning of 666 (Rev 13:16-18)?
666 is one of the most fascinating enigmas in the book of Revelation. Countless and exhausting explanations have been given over the last 2,000 years. It is scary and mysterious. So what is it? How did the Christians in the first century understand 666 when they first heard Revelation read to them?
Labels:
revelation
Friday, October 4, 2013
Show Yourself A Man
1 Corinthians 16:13 says, "Act like a man" (HCSB), "act like men" (ESV, NASB), "be men of courage" (NIV '84), "be courageous" (NIV 2011, NRSV), "be resolute" (The Message).
Labels:
manhood
Monday, September 30, 2013
Take the Word, Eat It, It is Sweet and Bitter (Revelation 10:8-11)
This is my typed recollection of a part of what I preached extemporaneously.
Yesterday (9/29/13), I preached on the Seven Trumpets (Rev 8:1-11:19) with the title of The Two Kingdoms, and the theme of "The Kingdom of This World Becomes The Kingdom of Christ." In a vision John was told to take and eat a scroll that was in the hand of the angel (Rev 10:8-9), which he did (Rev 10:10), and then he was told to prophesy (Rev 10:11). This is similar to what Ezekial was told to do (Eze 2:8-3:3, 10). Though the scroll Ezekial ate tasted as sweet as honey in his mouth (Eze 3:3), it caused him to be deeply distressed (Eze 3:15).
In my sermon I explained four aspects of how to prophesy, i.e., how to communicate Christ well through Scripture.
- Take it
- Eat it
- It is Sweet
- It is Bitter
Labels:
revelation
Sunday, September 29, 2013
C.S. Lewis on How To Write
C. S. Lewis on Writing (#4 is elaborate):
1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn't mean anything else.
2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don't implement promises, but keep them.
3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean "More people died" don't say "Mortality rose."
1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn't mean anything else.
2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don't implement promises, but keep them.
3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean "More people died" don't say "Mortality rose."
Friday, September 27, 2013
What Sad Words Before One's Death
Before his death, philosopher and agnostic Bertrand Russell said, "There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing."
I love quotes because words reveal what is in a man. Russell's words about death reveal plainly in eloquent words what his view of death is: It is darkness and nothingness.
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Half Faith is No Faith (Judges 17-18)
"Judges For You" (by Tim Keller) has helped me share gospel lessons from the book:
- Faithful But Flawed (Judg 1:1-2:5),
- Gideon (Judg 6:1-8:35), who starts well and ends badly, and
- Samson (Judg 13:1-16:31), the womanizer and sex addict whom God choose from birth.
- how compromise always devastates us,
- how success often leads to pride and makes us worse, and
- how God bears with our fallen humanity and depravity---only by his grace.
Labels:
judges
God's Love May Be To Keep You Weak
Paul, the great apostle, was given a "thorn in the flesh," a messenger of Satan, to torment him and to keep him from becoming conceited because of surpassingly great revelations that he received from God (2 Cor 12:7). Despite endless speculation, this thorn is not specifically known. God's specific intended purpose was to keep Paul humble and weak, so weak, that his only recourse is to rely entirely on God's sufficient grace (2 Cor 12:9).
Friday, September 20, 2013
A Manipulative Christian Leader
No one likes to be manipulated or to feel manipulated. Sadly, every person's sinful default is to control and manipulate others to do what we believe they should do. Church leaders are not exempt in being manipulators. They might even be the worst possible manipulators because they know how to skillfully use the Bible to justify their manipulation of others in their church. This post, how-to-spot-a-manipulative-church-leader, helps you to identify manipulative Christian leaders.
A Christian leader who is manipulative will:
A Christian leader who is manipulative will:
Is There More to Life Than This?
How would you start an Alpha Course?
I attended one in downtown Chicago. It is from noon to 1 pm with lunch thrown in (which is an incentive to attend). Consider doing the following:
I attended one in downtown Chicago. It is from noon to 1 pm with lunch thrown in (which is an incentive to attend). Consider doing the following:
* Start with this light-hearted, unoffensive, funny 20 min introductory video (that has been shown to introduce the Alpha Course): Is There More To Life Than This? (Preparing light snacks won't hurt.)
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Painful Percentages
THE BAD NEWS (August 2013)
- 18 percent of today's young adults (age 18-29) say they were raised in a religion but are now unaffiliated with any particular faith. Nearly all come from homes with lukewarm or nominal faith.
- It's the Mainline Protestant churches that have seen marked declines in participation/membership in both real numbers and percent of population.
- The nones have increased from 15% to 20% of the adult population in the last 5 years.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Faithful But Flawed (Judges 1:1-2:5)
"Judges For You" by Tim Keller is a small, short (217 pages), succinct and well written Bible study guide. I have blogged briefly on Gideon, Samson and the six key themes of Judges. This is an overview of chapter 1 of the book: Half-Hearted Discipleship (Judg 1:1-2:5). It shows how the people were faithful yet flawed; they were committed (to God), yet given to compromise, convenience, and common sense.
Labels:
judges
I Can't Hug Every Cat
If that’s not enough, check out this Songify version of Can't Hug Every Cat.
It reminded me of this quote: "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." Albert Schweitzer.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Why Are Leaders Leaving Your Church
This is an excellent post sent to me by my friend David: Why The "Leadership Movement" is Leaving Your Church Leaderless. It answers a question I had asked: Does your church raise Christ-centered leaders of Church-centered followers?
There are two kinds of leaders:- Those who want to raise leaders.
- Those who want to raise followers.
Sadly, all Christian leaders say #1, but in actual practical reality many are doing #2. Why??
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Samson: How God Used A Womanizer
Samson's story has many Hollywood themes: illicit sex, graphic violence, revenge, death and a Rambo style hero. But his story is perplexing. He was conceived miraculously, chosen by God, set apart to serve him from birth, blessed by God and empowered by his Spirit. Yet, he may be the most flawed character in Judges. He is violent, impulsive, sexually addicted, emotionally immature and selfish. Most troubling of all, the "Spirit of God" seems to anoint him and use his worst sins for God's purpose--especially his sexual addiction and violent temper. How can such a person ever be called and chosen by God to fulfill his purpose of redemption?
Labels:
judges
Monday, September 9, 2013
What Is Your Worship Status?
Facebook enables us to share updates on our status and our relationship status, should it change or when it changes. As Christ followers, I thought it would be good to share our "worship status." What do I mean?
My sermon yesterday was entitled Heaven? Worship? That's It?? I wanted to emphasize that the sole predominant activity of heaven is to worship the One on the throne (Rev 4:2, 8-11) and the Lamb who was slain (Rev 5:6, 9-14). Might this seem excessive to some? Will we really only be worshiping God in heaven? Will that not eventually make worshiping God boring and tedious?Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Tips for Overseeing Small Groups
Tips for Small Group Leaders
Tips include:- Active Listening
- Being Attentive
- Telling Your Story (Without Going On and On)
- Group Check-In #1
- Asking Good Questions
- Calling Out the Best in Others
Why It's NOT The Nail
Since posting "It's Not About The Nail," a question was asked, "Can you give an example?" My sermon on Cain and Abel explains how our "deeper" sins hide beneath our conscious awareness, causing all of us to have "blind spots."
Can you identify with any of these statements?
Can you identify with any of these statements?
- "I'm not a Pharisee. I can just see and feel how sinful other people are."
- "I'm not bitter. I'm just expressing moral righteous outrage."
- "I'm not flirtatious. I'm just friendly."
Monday, September 2, 2013
Good to Bad; Grace to Retribution
Judges is downright depressing to read and reflect. It is about despicable people doing deplorable things. Even the "heroes" (judges) are flawed increasingly throughout Judges, doing many appalling things. It is a dismal story...that points to and finds resolution only in the Gospel. In "Judges For You," Tim Keller identifies 6 main themes.
This post addresses elements--both good (initially) and bad (eventually and progressively)--in the story of Gideon (Jud 6:1-8:35), a "hero"/judge who starts out extremely well with the grace of God, but who then gets worse and ends horribly by displaying the overweening pride and arrogance of spectacular success.
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