Quick to Hear, Slow to Speak, Slow to Anger
About two months ago I preached on James 1:19-27 (you can listen to the sermon here). James 1:19-27 is probably the most well-known passage in the whole book, especially verses nineteen and twenty. Most often believers understand James 1:19-20 to say that in our day-to-day relationships with people we should be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. In other words, listen carefully, consider how you speak to others, and be self-controlled.
While the Bible has a lot to say about our personal interactions with others (especially with our tongues), I don’t think this is what James has in mind. Remember James is writing to Jewish Christians who are facing persecution for their faith in Christ. The context of chapter one is how the church is to deal with trials.
James 1:2-4: Have joy in trials for God is making you complete.
James 1:5-8: If you lack wisdom in trials, ask God for it and he will give it freely.
James 1:9-11: Understand the nature of trials. Trials can come to all people.
James 1:12-15: Do not find fault with God in trials.
James 1:16-18: God is good and his goodness is demonstrated in our salvation.
I believe that 1:19-20 is a continuation of what James has been talking about in chapter one. In our trials we must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. In our trials we are to be quick to hear the gospel. We are to remember God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. We must be quick to hear (or remember) what God’s word says about our relationship to him in the midst of trials. A loving God brings trials into my life to conform me to the image of his Son (cf., Rom 8:29; Col 3:10; Heb 12:3-11). Likewise, we must be slow to speak. What do we often say in our trials? God is mad at me, he has forsaken me, and he has turned his back on me. We speak out of our frustration, rather than remembering that a merciful God does all things for our benefit. Finally, we must be slow to anger. When we fail to remember the gospel in our trials we are tempted to become angry, bitter, and resent God. When we face trials we must not become angry with God, but with a teachable heart learn what God has for us. It is certainly biblical to have a righteous anger toward injustice, but when we suffer because of injustice we should never assign evil to God. In the midst of our trials we must live out the truth of who God has already made us (1:18) and we must live in the good of the gospel, which reminds us of God’s love, mercy, and grace.
Asaph was faced with the temptation to speak without knowledge in the face of his trials. He wrote in Psalm 73:12-17:
Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.
Asaph realized that he was in no position to be angry with God, but in his presence remembered God’s justice, mercy, and love. As we face trials in our lives we must remember the gospel. We must recall the truth of God’s love found in the gospel. We must not speak falsehoods about God in our trials, but recite gospel truths. Moreover, we must not become angry with God when we face trials of various kinds, but understand that our loving Father deals with us as sons so that we might share in his holiness.
I appreciate what Tim Lane and Paul Tripp have to say about trials.
Trials do not cause us to be what we have not been; rather, they reveal what we have been all along. The harvest the trial produces is the result of the roots already in our hearts. (How People Change, p. 102)
Will we remember the gospel in our trials or will we forget it? What will be revealed to be in our hearts in the midst of trials?
The Gospel and Biblical Theology
Graeme Goldsworthy summarizes the relationship and history between the two.
Because the gospel concerns the work of the historical Jesus Christ as the one who fulfils the OT promises, it is at the heart of biblical theology. When the plain meaning of the OT was lost to parts of the early church, often through the adoption of a dehistoricizing, allegorical interpretation of the Bible, the gospel ceased to be regarded as primarily what God has done in the historical Christ. The emphasis shifted to what God does inwardly in the human soul through piety and sacramental ministrations of the church. The Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century recovered the historical meaning of the OT and, with it, the historical gospel. A biblical theology which had its roots in the apostolic gospel was thus re-established.
Goldsworthy, “Gospel” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, p. 523
Canon Press Book Sale
Canon Press is having a sale on books. The books range from $1-5. Many good titles for an inexpensive price. See the sale here.
Forgetting You Are a Sinner
To the degree that you forget you are a sinner, you will underestimate your daily need for Christ and the relationships in his body that are his tools of change.
Timothy Lane & Paul Tripp, How People Change, p. 12
The Man Nobody Wanted
When God came to earth in Jesus Christ, he was the son of Leah. Oh yes, he was! He became the man nobody wanted. He was born in a manger. He had no beauty that we should desire him. He came to his own and his own received him not. And at the end, nobody wanted him. Everybody abandoned him.
Why did he become the man nobody wanted? For you and for me! Here is the gospel: God did not save us in spite of the weakness that he experienced as a human being but through it. And you don’t actually get that salvation into your life through your strength; it is only for those who admit they are weak. And if you cannot admit that you are a hopeless moral failure and a sinner and that you are absolutely lost and have no hope apart from the sheer grace of God, then you are not weak enough for Leah and her son and the great salvation that God has brought into the world.
Tim Keller, “The Girl Nobody Wanted” in Heralds of the King, p. 70
Gospel-Centered Life Workbook
Tim Chester and Steve Timmis (authors of Total Church) have a new workbook due out soon: Gospel-Centered Life. Read about it here.
Jesus the Nazarene
In Matthew 2:23 we read:
And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: “He shall be called a Nazarene.”
Matthew 2:23 is a puzzling verse for a number of reasons. First, why did Matthew include this quotation in his narrative? Was Matthew merely attempting to prove that the Old Testament was right in predicting that Jesus would live in Nazareth? Second, regardless of the reason for Matthew’s inclusion of this quotation, it is found nowhere in the Old Testament. Furthermore, Nazareth isn’t even mentioned in the Old Testament and was likely a settlement that became a town during the Intertestamental Period.
Since this quotation is not found in the Old Testament, why does Matthew present it as such and what does this prophecy mean? To understand what Matthew is doing in this passage we have to first consider the reputation of Nazareth. Although the reasons are not entirely clear, the New Testament bears witness that Nazareth and the Galilee region in general were not looked upon favorably by Jews outside the area. Nazareth was despised by many Jews. Here are a few examples.
Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” John 1:46
Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee?” John 7:41
They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.” John 7:52
“For we have found this man a plague, one who stirs up riots among all the Jews throughout the world and is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.” Acts 24:5
The Jews were correct to understand that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem (Mic 5:1-2), but only identified Jesus as a Nazarene; therefore, they missed that he was the Son of David. Moreover, the mention of Paul as the “ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes” was meant to be one of ridicule and scorn, which further supports the prevailing attitude about Nazareth and all those associated with it.
The other important feature of Matthew 2:23 is that Matthew uses the word “prophets” rather than “prophet” to refer to the source of the quotation. Since there is no direct quote found in the Old Testament (or other Jewish Literature) stating that the Messiah would be a Nazarene, the reference is likely to the sort of person he will be rather than where he would live.
For various political, social, and economic reasons Nazareth was despised by many Jews and viewed as a place incompatible with the Jewish expectation of a King. However, Jesus began his ministry in Galilee and lived in Nazareth for this very reason. He lived and associated with the despised, poor, and unlovely because he became these things in his identification with humanity. The prophets of the Old Testament predicted that Messiah would be a man despised by men.
But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; “He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help. Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. Psalm 22:6-13
For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. Psalm 69:7
Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. Psalm 69:20
Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.” Isaiah 49:7
I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. Isaiah 50:6
For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Isaiah 53:2-3
By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? Isaiah 53:8
These Old Testament texts testify to the fact that God’s Anointed One would be despised and hated by men. Jesus identifies himself with the despised of Israel by making his home with the poor, destitute, and lowly. The predictions of the Old Testament that he would be despised by men is demonstrated throughout Jesus’ ministry as he is hated for welcoming sinners, prostitutes, and tax-collectors; while condemning the rich, powerful, and religious elite.
What Matthew has done for us by making his statement a quotation from the Old Testament is give us a picture of what Jesus will be like. Jesus is not only the King (we see this picture throughout Matthew’s account), but he is a humble servant who identifies with humanity in their most desperate place.
“But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:26-28
The second person of the Trinity became a man, humbled himself, took on human flesh, subjected himself to the ills of humanity, and offered his own life for God’s people (Phil 2:5-11; cf., Eph 4:7-10). He was born in a barn, lived among the despised, had no possessions, and died with criminals. What the world views as despised we, by God’s grace, consider lovely and what the world views as foolishness we boast in (1 Cor 1:18-31; Gal 6:4). As I think about the reality of Jesus’ humiliation and suffering I can only say one thing in response: “Amazing love! How can it be, that thou, my God, should die for me?”
Jesus Christ is the Gospel
The best examples and instructions–the best doctrines–will not relieve me of the battle with indwelling sin until I draw my last breath. Find me on my best day–especially if you have access to my hidden motives, thoughts, and attitudes–and I will always provide fodder for the hypocrisy charge and will let down those who would become Christians because they think I and my fellow Christians are the gospel. I am a Christian not because I think that I can walk in Jesus’s footsteps but because he is the only one who can carry me. I am not the gospel; Jesus Christ alone is the gospel. His story saves me, not only by bringing me justification but by baptizing me into his resurrection life.
Michael Horton, Christless Christianity, p. 117
The Letter to the Hebrews
Peter T. O’Brien’s highly anticipated commentary on Hebrews is due out March 2010 according to the Eerdmans site. See it here.