Be Stirred, Not Shaken

"We ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled..." ~ II Thes. 2:2 *** "But stir up the gift of God that is within you by the laying on of hands..." ~ II Tim. 1:6

“He Bears Our Burdens”:  The Deeper Meaning of Psalm 68:19

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On October 10, 2025

In Old Testament, Verse Studies

When you read the verse, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits”, what is your first thought?  If you’re anything like me, you might assume that it is about physical and spiritual blessings, with God piling new ones on us each day.

But…it turns out this verse (Psalms 68:19) doesn’t really mean that at all.  I typically consider the New King James Version bible (NKJV) my “default” translation, the most reliable and straightforward.  I’ll definitely consult other versions, but it’s my go-to.

However, there are occasionally times when the NKJV just doesn’t quite get it right.  This verse in Psalm 68 is definitely one of those cases, and if we only read the NKJV then we’ll miss out on something special about our relationship with God and His role in our daily lives.

What does Psalm 68:19 mean?

It’s always important when studying one specific verse to first get the context of what comes before it. Psalm 68 is a psalm of David, in which he proclaims the many ways that God cares for His children.

Early in the psalm David notes that He’s a father to the fatherless, defender of widows, and “places the lonely in families” (relationships).  It goes on to speak to how God gives us abundant rain and provides for the needy (resources), and scatters His enemies and defeats those who rise against Him (protection).

This all builds to verse 19, where he cries, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation!” (Ps. 68:19).  But “with benefits” is not in the text at all, and this translation doesn’t really capture either the literal translation or the intended meaning well.    It’s a rare case of the NKJV translation falling short.

It’s not surprising that the translators went astray, because almost every time that word translated “loads us” (amas, H6006) is used in the Old Testament, it’s in the context of heavy loads, burdens, and even putting on a heavy yoke.  To me, it feels like they didn’t quite know what to do with it.

Overall, more contemporary translations seem to do a much better job of capturing the essence of this verse…

  • ESV “bears us up”
  • NIV “daily bears our burdens”
  • NLT “for each day He carries us in his arms”
  • CJB (verse 20) “every day He bears our burden”

So we see that rather than the positive abundance vibes that the New King James was giving off, the lens of most translations is instead around God’s care and support for us in our daily struggles.

Our load-bearing pillar

In the NIV translation, David exclaims, “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.  Selah.  Our God is a God who saves”.  The “selah” that David adds tells us to pause and meditate on what we’ve just sung.

The bible translations that speak of God bearing our burdens or bearing us up seem to be the closest to what’s intended.  Adam Clarke’s commentary notes that some other good ways to think about this turn of phrase are, “our prop day by day”, “He supports us day by day” and he also agreed that “He bears our burdens” or “bears us up” work well too.

We’re meant to picture God underneath us, behind us, and around us, bearing our weight and making sure we don’t wobble, fall, or crumble.  In a different psalm, David commands:

“Give your burdens to the Lord, and He will take care of you.  He will not permit the godly to slip and fall” (Ps. 55:22, NLT)

You know that sigh of relief you give when you’ve been struggling to carry a heavy load, you’re weighed down and straining and can barely keep from dropping it—and then you finally get to set it down?  That’s how we can picture giving our burdens to our Father.  We roll it off our shoulders and onto His, able to breathe again now that we don’t have to carry it ourselves anymore.

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Did You Burn the Ships?  Reflections Coming Out of the Spring Holy Days

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On May 17, 2025

In Christian Living, Holy Days, Topic Studies

There’s a famous story about the conquistador Hernán Cortés who, upon landing in Mexico, ordered all his ships to be burned, to ensure his troops would have no other option but to conquer or perish.

It’s given rise to the phrase “burn the ships” (or “burn the boats”), signaling an irreversible commitment to a course of action—by eliminating the possibility of retreat.

You’ll often hear it in the business world to describe making a decisive choice, leaving no safety net or Plan B, but it is just as relevant in many aspects of life.

This idea has been on my mind as we’ve come out of the Passover season and headed toward Pentecost.  We’ve been purged of leaven (sin), we took in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (picturing Jesus Christ) for seven days, we’re a new lump.

But did you burn the ships?

We often read the story of Israel’s deliverance from Pharaoh’s bondage and the exodus out of Egypt during the spring holy days.  God worked amazing miracles and we’re told that the Israelites, loaded down with the gold and silver of Egypt, “went out with boldness” (Ex. 14:8).

Yet as soon as they saw Pharaoh pursuing them—faced their first trial—they panicked and regretted that they’d started along this path (Ex. 14:10).  This pattern repeated over and over throughout their desert journey.  No water?  Let’s go back to Egypt.  No meat?  We had plenty to eat in Egypt.  God provides the same food every day?  Boy, wasn’t the food in Egypt great?!

They were always looking back, trying to turn back.  Spiritually, they’d moored their boats along the coast just in case they needed to make a quick escape back to their old life if this “God’s chosen people” thing didn’t pan out.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to look at the Israelites and be like…”Seriously?!  You had piles of miracles, a pillar of fire leading you, God parted the sea to deliver you.  How are you not getting the message??”  But the fact is, we’re often not much better.

What does it mean to burn the ships, spiritually speaking?

To spiritually burn the ships symbolizes our forceful and decisive commitment to our chosen path, leaving no room for doubt or hesitation.  It means giving ourselves COMPLETELY to God—without reservations, without holding anything back.

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The Long, Dark Night (Passover Study)

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On April 6, 2025

In Holy Days, New Testament

When it comes to bible study around the holy days, I usually love delving into different themes, connections, and the infinitely-rich meanings that we can glean from God’s word and His plan for mankind.  The holy days are like a cut gemstone, with dozens of facets that reflect light differently as you examine them.

As the Passover approached this year, however, I was led in a slightly different direction.  For whatever reason, I found myself meditating on Jesus’s actual experience in the hours leading up to His crucifixion.  It became visceral and REAL to me in a way it hadn’t been before.

Have you ever really considered what it was like, knowing what awaited Him in terms of the torture, humiliation, pain, and abandonment?  What if you knew something like that was awaiting you?  Would that make it easier to bear, or harder?  Personally, I think it would be much harder.

I’ve never watched “The Passion of the Christ”, Mel Gibson’s movie about Jesus’s crucifixion.  Honestly, I know I don’t have the stomach for it.  But after spending some time really sitting with it, I thought I’d share with you a more personal, intimate, raw consideration of Jesus’s experience in His last hours before dying for our sins.

I think we often don’t really grasp what it meant in this moment for Jesus to be a physical man.  Even though we know “the Word became flesh”, we tend to focus on Him as our perfect, sin-less Savior, who could see the heart of a person and always reacted in a Godly way.

The gospel accounts are fairly dry, so it’s easy to keep an emotional remove from what we’re reading.  Artistic renderings tend to show His face as serene and mournful, peaceful and accepting of His role.  And while He was not only accepting but lovingly offered Himself for us, that doesn’t diminish what He actually was experiencing as a human being.

In the garden of Gethsemane, He told His closest friends how sorrowful and weighed down He was feeling, and asked them to watch with Him.  But they failed Him, and later deserted Him.  These men that he’d spent practically every moment with for years ran at the first sign of trouble.  He was abandoned and alone.

Though a full moon illuminated the landscape, this was, for Jesus, the darkest night.  As He knelt for hours and prayed to the Father, asking for courage and strength and comfort—likely marveling that this moment They had envisioned for thousands of years had finally come—He contemplated what He was about to go through.  I can’t begin to imagine what was running through His mind.

Do you think He was scared?  I do.  Not bone-deep mental fear, because He was still connected to the Father and knew what would happen to Him and why.  But the human body can’t help it.  It reacts physically even when our brains try to tell it otherwise.  The heart jackrabbits until it feels like it will come out of our chest.  Our adrenaline floods with the “fight or flight” instinct, muddying our thoughts.  Our hands tremble and our breath comes in gasps.

He fell on His face before the Father multiple times, praying fervently that if there were any other way for Their plan to be accomplished, He would not have to go through with it.  When we really think about this, it’s astonishing, and gives us a tiny glimpse of how truly horrific Jesus knew the coming hours would be—if our perfect Savior would go so far as to ask if there was even a miniscule chance that there might be another way?

Luke tells us that Jesus’s prayers were full of agony and struggle, and He was pouring sweat that fell to the ground like huge drops of blood.  God even sent an angel to comfort and minister to Jesus at this time, to help strengthen Him for what was to come.

We know but rarely truly comprehend that He was ENTIRELY human, as far as His body is concerned.  His flesh and brain and nerve endings and bones were completely physical, just as frail as yours and mine.  He bled from dozens of raw wounds.  He almost certainly cried.  He poured sweat, His breathing was labored.  He was dizzy from being struck on the head repeatedly.

And while He knew WHY He was doing it—He had waited eternity as a spirit being and then 30+ human years in a physical body to be able to offer Himself in the place of YOU, to pay the ultimate price for MY sins—He also knew that there would be a moment when He would be completely cut off from the Father for the first time ever, and He dreaded that moment.

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Spiritual Nakedness, Clothed in Righteousness, & Eternal Priestly Garments (Leviticus Themes)

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On February 8, 2025

In Christian Living, Old Testament, Topic Studies

What Are You Wearing?  The State of Our Spiritual Clothing

This is part of our “Leviticus for the Modern Reader” series, focusing on themes that God’s people today can take away from what is typically a dry and perplexing book.  You can read the previous ones on burnt offerings and spiritual leprosy here.

The book of Leviticus is challenging to a modern audience.  On the surface it’s the equivalent of an extraordinarily detailed technical manual for Israel’s priesthood, filled with exacting blueprints, animal sacrifice instructions, and purification rituals.

It’s tempting for God’s people today to file Leviticus under “dry historical record; glad it was preserved” and decide it doesn’t have anything to say to us right now.  While that would be understandable, we know that everything in the bible is there for a reason, and that all scripture is God-breathed and given to us for our education, inspiration, and growth (II Tim. 3:16).

But I believe that Leviticus matters to modern-day Christians in more immediate, tangible ways.  If we pull out of a verse-by-verse reading and look at it in totality, Leviticus is ultimately a book about holiness, sanctification, and sacrifice—being set apart for God’s purpose.  God used these instructions to show His newly-established nation how to worship, serve, and obey a holy God—“You shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lev. 19:2).  And He is showing us the same thing today.

In a previous post we examined what Christians today can learn from the burnt offerings, particularly how God wants us to view and worship Him.  In this study we’ll dive into what Leviticus says about clothing and how it connects to our spiritual state.

What does Leviticus cover in terms of clothing?

There are three primary themes in how Leviticus addresses this topic:

  • A person’s nakedness (symbolic of sexual sins)
  • What type of garments we wear, and vigilance in caring for them
  • Instructions for special priestly garments

Just like with the burnt offerings, we’ll see that there are clear spiritual parallels for us today as we look at each theme more closely.

You might also like:  “Come Out of Her My People”: Lessons from Rahab’s Faith

“And they knew they were naked…”

How comfortable are you with being naked?  Most people have an instinctive, visceral aversion to being naked in public, baked into our DNA since Adam and Eve.

After they had sinned and their eyes were opened, the first consequence we’re told of was that “they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings” (Gen. 3:7).  Previously, they both were naked and were not ashamed (Gen. 2:25).

The two words translated as “naked” in these verses are actually different.  In Genesis 2, they were “unclothed” and not ashamed, innocent and pure.  In Genesis 3, the word still means without clothes, but carries the additional idea of being exposed, guilty, and vulnerable.

This “knowing” doesn’t simply mean that they suddenly realized they had no clothes on.  Something changed for them in that moment—in their thinking, their actions, and how they perceived themselves and God.  And their first instinct was to hide from God and to try and solve this problem by themselves.

Whether in the story of Adam and Eve, the vague but unsettling story of Noah and Ham (Gen. 9:21), or the way God talks about rebellious Israel and Judah in the prophetic books (e.g. Is. 47:2, Ezek. 16:36, Lam. 1:8), the concept of nakedness is associated with shame and sin from the very first pages of the bible.

There are times in the bible where being naked is exactly what it means (literally having no clothes on, like in Acts 19:16), but many more times when it’s used to signify impurity, being apart from God’s protection, shame, and as a symbol of sexual sins (e.g. Ezek. 22:10).

(As an important aside, many people read verses like these and wonder, “Is there something wrong with being naked, does God hate nakedness and sex?”  Of course not!  God CREATED them…Adam and Eve were naked before their sin and “it was good”.  We shouldn’t take this type of symbolism or analogy out of context, but should also remember that He intended nakedness and sex to exist wonderfully and privately within the bounds of marriage and nowhere else…this is the context that an analogy of spiritual nakedness sets itself against.)

Okay, aside over…this brings us to Leviticus, which hones in on nakedness as a proxy for sexual misconduct.  In Leviticus 18, the Lord tells Moses to command the Israelites not to observe and mimic the local Canaanite people.  Instead He tells them, “You shall keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them; I am the Lord”—again, instructing us on what it looks like to worship a holy God (Lev. 18:5).

He then goes on to list, in excruciating detail, all sorts of messed up sexual sins that Israel was prohibited from.  From “uncovering the nakedness of” (a.k.a. being sexually involved with) various parents, siblings, step-family member, aunts, uncles, and more, to not committing adultery with your neighbor’s wife, to not having sex with a woman during her period, Moses pulls no punches.  Leviticus 20 continues on in the same vein.

And again, as a modern audience, most normal people read through these passages in Leviticus with a slightly nauseated, cringing expression, and think, “Ugh, who were these people?!” and then move on.  Because clearly this doesn’t have anything to do with us.  So what should we glean from Leviticus on nakedness?

First, there’s no question that our modern society is absolutely immersed in sexual sins.  They look a bit different than the pagan worship sexual rituals of the Canaanites that God was warning against, but from the pervasiveness of pornography, sex before marriage, unfaithfulness, explicit content in our entertainment, and more, we don’t have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to being judgy toward the Israelites and their neighbors.  It is imperative to our spiritual state that we honestly examine whether we are violating God’s laws and “uncovering” our own nakedness.

But beyond the specific sexual sins, the bible has a lot to say about being spiritually naked—the causes, and the solutions.  We’ll jump to the very end of the bible, where Jesus Christ in His letter to the church in Laodicea writes:

“Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—

I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see…As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent” (Rev. 3:17-19)

The church at Laodicea thought that they were doing pretty good.  If you looked at them from the outside, it probably looked like they were doing all the “right” things…gathering together every sabbath, singing hymns, giving offerings, abstaining from major sins.

But like the fabled emperor who believes he’s wearing a luxurious suit and parading through town, Jesus instead tells Laodicea that they are covered by nothing, and they have nothing.  They were blind and naked, exposed and vulnerable…and they didn’t even know it.

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What the Fall Holy Days Teach Us About Impermanence

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On October 16, 2024

In Holy Days, Prophecy

“So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen.  For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever” (II Cor. 4:18)

The fall holy day season is rich with themes to meditate on…God’s final judgment, bringing both wrath and mercy.  Humility, reconciliation, and redemption.

But there’s another theme that God clearly wants us to dwell on during this time, one that’s kind of “baked” into many of the other topics we talk about, but doesn’t often get the focus it deserves—the idea of impermanence, of the transitory and temporary status of EVERYTHING in our current frame of reference.

Now, I can hear some of you muttering, “But of course we talk about impermanence!  It’s in the Feast of Trumpets when Jesus returns to earth, in Atonement when Satan is bound, and in the Feast of Tabernacles in the idea of temporary dwellings!”  And you’d be right.  So let me explain what I mean a bit more.

A lot of what we focus on during this time is the absolute destruction that will be inflicted on a rebellious and sinful world at the end of the age, during the time when Jesus Christ will return to take back dominion of the world.

As we meditate on the seals, the trumpet plagues, and the bowl plagues in Revelation, on the statue of Daniel, and other prophetic passages that give us a shrouded glimpse of what’s to come, it’s hard not to dwell on the devastation that must occur before God’s kingdom is set up.  It’s easy to equate the theme of impermanence with this physical and societal destruction.

But what I’ve been meditating on this fall holy day season goes beyond that.  Specifically, the fall holy days help us start to understand that this is about the impermanence of ANYTHING that is not directed by—and toward—God.  It goes so far beyond just “who’s in charge”.

And in focusing on the physical downfall of the nations, we may be missing some of the deeper, lasting implications…ones that renew our hope and excitement for the eternal kingdom God has planned for us.

We’re told that even though God has “planted eternity in our hearts”, He also designed it so that we “cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (Eccl. 3:11).  But we yearn, and we study, and we imagine.

As we walk through the fall holy day season this year, I’m meditating on the impermanence of this world—not in the abstract, but on how fully God and Jesus Christ will tear down everything that keeps us from being at one with Them.

So here are some of the temporary things that will be utterly destroyed…

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What Does It Mean To “Guard Your Heart”? (A Meditation on Proverbs 4:23)

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On August 24, 2024

In Christian Living, Old Testament, Verse Studies

“Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23, NKJV)

This verse has always felt like a bit of an enigma.

When I was a teenager growing up in church and going to church summer camps, this verse was referred to frequently in bible studies as an admonition to not rush into romantic relationships, and to be careful who we gave our heart to.

The primary message was to guard against getting emotionally entangled too soon.  And don’t get me wrong, that’s good advice for teenagers.  It’s a bit oversimplistic, however, and I later realized that my subconscious takeaway from this verse was one of putting a barrier up, being guarded and not overly vulnerable.

To be honest, I hadn’t given this particular verse a ton of thought as I passed into adulthood, but it caught my attention recently during my morning bible reading.

I’ve spent some time meditating on it, and I’ve come to the realization that it’s SO much more than that.  We often look at Proverbs through a more practical “life advice” lens.  While this verse can be applied very practically as well, it contains a deep, foundational spiritual truth that we ignore at our own peril.

What does it mean to “guard your heart”?

Part of why it can be tough to understand this concept is because the New King James translation (NKJV, my typical go-to) doesn’t do us any favors.

It’s helpful to see how some other translations have rendered Proverbs 4:23:

“Above all else, guard your heart; for it is the source of life’s consequences” (CJB)

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (NIV)

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (ESV)

“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” (NLT)

In the bible, when it talks about the “heart”, it’s not simply the physical organ that pumps our blood, or even our “feelings place”.

It’s much more than that…the heart means our mind, our will, the “inner man”.  It is the seat of who we TRULY are.

The heart drives our actions and influences our thinking and behavior.  It’s critical that we are aware of what we say and do, because over time, our thoughts and actions will shape and mold our hearts—often without us even realizing it.

So that’s what we are to guard, but how exactly do we do that?  It’s helpful to dig a bit into the word translated “guard” or “keep”.  That’s natsar (H5341), and it means to protect, maintain, or keep safe, as well as to preserve and to observe carefully.

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“Abba, Father” & An Eternal Inheritance:  Adoption Into the Family of God (Pentecost Study)

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On June 16, 2024

In Holy Days, Topic Studies

God’s holy days are a beautiful annual reminder of His plan for mankind, detailing the steps He is taking to bring all of humanity into His family.  And perhaps nowhere is that more explicit than in the Feast of Weeks, or Day of Pentecost.

Let’s quickly rehearse what we know about the Feast of Weeks, to set the stage.  Most of these references are from Leviticus 23, and this study on the wave sheaf and wave loaves may be helpful if this is new ground for you.

  • It was the conclusion of the spring harvest season, which began during the Days of Unleavened Bread with the wave sheaf offering.
  • To get to Pentecost, we count 50 days from when the “wave sheaf” was offered, picturing the resurrected Jesus Christ ascending to the Father to be accepted.
  • It was on Pentecost in 31 AD, 50 days after the resurrected Jesus ascended to the Father to be accepted, that the holy spirit was given to the church (Acts. 2:1-4; John 20:17, 27).
  • Two leavened loaves were offered and elevated on Pentecost, comprised of grain gathered throughout the harvest. They are “firstfruits to the Lord” and are “holy to the Lord for the (High) Priest”.

Most of the messages I’ve heard about Pentecost tend to focus on the historical event of the church receiving the holy spirit, the founding of the church, and how we can use the holy spirit in our lives.

That’s all great and important.  However, I believe that the bible very clearly outlines a much greater future fulfillment that brings the spring (firstfruits) harvest season to a close—when the saints are resurrected, changed to immortal spirit beings, and brought before God’s throne for the marriage supper of the Lamb.  In other words, the two “wave loaves” being elevated before God, holy and acceptable.

With the holy day calendar being very late this year (2024), the Feast of Weeks very unusually falls on Father’s Day.  This coincidence provides a perfect opportunity to explore one of the themes of the holy day perfectly—the time when our Father in heaven will bring many sons and daughters to glory.

In our society today, there are two ways you can become a legal family member if you’re not born into that specific family—adoption and marriage.  I believe the Feast of Pentecost pictures both of these for God’s elect (including the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19).

But I want to focus in this study on our heavenly Father’s plan to bring us into His family as sons and daughters.  With the giving of the holy spirit, we celebrate the promise of being adopted into the family of God and receiving our future inheritance…and it’s worth exploring what that really means.

The holy spirit is the “down payment” on our inheritance

The night before His crucifixion, Jesus comforted His disciples by telling them, “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper…the spirit of truth…I will not leave you orphans” (John 14:16-18).

Just over seven weeks later, on the Day of Pentecost, a small group of disciples gathered in Jerusalem as He had instructed them, and they received the promised holy spirit (Acts 1:4).  Paul begins to deepen our understanding of this event:

“In Him also we have obtained an inheritance…in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the holy spirit of promise, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (Eph. 1:11-14).

Adoption confers a number of legal benefits, including a right to inheritance.  Paul says that God gave us the holy spirit as a promise—like a down payment or promissory note that will be redeemed for our future inheritance.  In other words, when the adoption “goes through”.

Who does this apply to?  Paul tells the Galatians that “we are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus…and if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:26, 29).

And this is that promise:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible [imperishable] and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (I Pet. 1:3-5)

Just what does it mean to be a son or daughter in the God family—what, exactly, is that inheritance?

Related study:  The Year of Jubilee & Pentecost — Inheritance & Freedom

What it means to be adopted by our heavenly Father

In our society, when someone is legally adopted they gain the exact same rights as any biological child would have, including the family’s name, a home, and inheritance rights.  They are seen under the law as exactly the same and equal with a family’s natural-born children.

There is also great emotional significance when a child is adopted.  It means that they are being fully and eternally accepted into someone else’s family.  There’s a security and trust that comes with that complete belonging—any foster child who has been adopted could tell you that there’s a world of difference between living with a family and actually becoming part of it.

And these same benefits apply to us as future adopted children in the God family.  A father’s job is to provide for his family’s physical and emotional needs.  To love his children, teach them, and sometimes discipline them.

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Jesus As The “Author & Finisher” of Our Faith: What Does This Mean?

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On May 18, 2024

In Christian Living, New Testament, Verse Studies

“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2)

Sometimes in my bible study, I bump into a phrase that I’ve read a million times, but suddenly consider it in a different way.  I’ve always loved the phrase above—“author and finisher”—but until recently, never went beyond the surface to meditate on what it should mean to me.

But when we spend some time with the words that Paul (at least we think it’s him) used, it really illuminates Jesus Christ’s role even further, and the blessings we receive as a result.

This one small phrase is an interesting illustration of how different translations can decide to lean into individual nuances of a Greek or Hebrew word, because many of our English words are much more narrow in scope.  Let’s look at a few of my favorite bible translations:

  • “…looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (NKJV)
  • “We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith” (NLT)
  • “…looking away to the Initiator and Completer of that trusting, Yeshua” (CJB)
  • “…looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (ESV)
  • “…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (NIV)

I like to think of each of these two main Greek words we’ll look at today like a diamond…having many facets so that when you turn it this way and that, you see the light and color and sparkle a bit differently.

So let’s briefly explore some of these facets…

The Initiator of our faith, blazing a trail for us to follow

The word that the NKJV translates as “author” is G747, archegos, and here are some of the ways we can understand it.

First inventor of a thing, initiator, founder, pioneer

Jesus is the trailblazer, the one who went first to “go boldly where no man has gone before”, as the famous Star Trek line posits.  He was the firstborn from the dead (the first to be resurrected to ETERNAL spiritual life), and the first to ascend to heaven to be with God (Col. 1:15, John 3:13).

And, because HE has gone boldly before us and wiped clean the death penalty we’d earned, WE are also able to come boldly before the very throne of God in heaven and bask in God’s grace and mercy (Heb. 4:16).

Jesus Christ was the forerunner, like a scout sent out in advance to see what lies ahead and set up camp.  He told His disciples that He was going to prepare a place for us, so that He can come back to get us (Heb. 6:20, John 1:2 and 14:1-4).

He (along with the Father) initiated the process.  No one else could be Mediator of a better covenant, one founded upon the sacrifice of our sinless Messiah as High Priest (Heb. 9).  He was the first.

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“Take Up Your Cross Daily”: How Should Christians Look at the Cross? (Passover Study)

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On April 23, 2024

In Christian Living, Holy Days, New Testament, Topic Studies

As the Passover approached this year, I found myself meditating on the question of the cross and what it should mean to God’s people today.

I grew up in a church tradition where “cross” was practically a dirty word.  We seriously avoided saying it, preferring to substitute “stake” when reading the bible aloud or in songs.  The word made people very uncomfortable, I think mostly because they saw mainstream Christianity putting crosses on everything in a way that felt like worshipping an image.

I’ve also heard many people say, “Why would you put a focus on something that was the torture and death device for our Savior?”  And I can certainly understand that perspective.

But the thing is…both Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul directed our focus there to some extent.  And they both referenced the cross plenty.  So while the idea of the cross may make us uncomfortable, we need to examine which of our concerns are actually biblical.

If you come from a similar tradition as I did, our study today falls into the category of a bit of a paradigm buster.  All I’ll say is, stick with me for a while…my goal isn’t to be deliberately provocative, but rather to wrestle with God’s word in order to winnow what’s biblical truth versus human feelings or manmade tradition.

It’s also important to remember that Christ’s death alone was not what accomplished our salvation.  He also had to be resurrected and ascend to the Father to be accepted as a perfect sacrifice on our behalf (this is what the wave sheaf ritual symbolizes, Lev. 23:9-14 and Heb. 10).  So myopically focusing on the cross at the expense of the complete sacrifice and resurrection process is also not biblical.

One thing I do feel confident in saying is that we should not hold the cross as some kind of icon or symbol of our faith.  We should not worship it.  I don’t believe it should be a visual representation in our walk with God.  That is another ditch, the opposite of the one I was brought up in, but veers away from biblical teaching just the same.

So whether you were brought up to avoid the topic of the cross, or grew up always wearing a cross, or don’t have any relationship to it all, let’s dive into what the BIBLE tells us.

Let’s get this out of the way…was it a cross?

The word translated consistently as “cross” is stauros (G4716), which basically means a stake, upright post, or cross as an instrument of capital punishment.  The Strongs dictionary notes that it also figuratively indicates exposure to death, self-denial, and the atonement Christ made for us.

What it looked like—whether it was a cross or a stake or a T-shaped pole—isn’t the point.  Historical records indicate all sorts of forms were used.  It’s kind of like us saying “fence” or “fencepost” today…that could look like a lot of different things.  It isn’t the focus of the bible’s narrative, nor should it be a semantical obsession for us today.

More importantly, what did the cross MEAN in Christ’s day?  The cross was a death sentence.  It was a shameful, excruciating, and often protracted death, one typically reserved for slaves, disgraced soldiers, and foreigners.  The Romans would force convicts to carry their crosses (or, more likely just the cross beam) to their own execution, with crowds harassing them as they did so, as further humiliation.

While we don’t have the same level of cultural understanding, the bible speaks to the cross plenty.  And in this Passover season, it’s worth spending some time figuring out how it applies to your life and my life today.

“Take up your cross daily and follow Me”

Let’s start with what Jesus tells us about our relationship to the cross:

“Then He said to the crowd, ‘If any of you wants to be My follower, you must give up your own way [CJB: “Say ‘No’ to yourself”], take up your cross daily, and follow Me. If you try to hang onto your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?’” (Luke 9:23-25, NLT)

Matthew 10:38 is very similar, as are Matthew 16:24 and Mark 8:34.  The gospel accounts indicate that Jesus talked to the crowd and His closest disciples on this topic multiple times, usually in the context of trials they would suffer in this life, but particularly as He was trying to get them to understand what HE would suffer (it’s important to read the verses surrounding each account for context).

We don’t know if they “got it” at the time, if they truly understood what would happen.  Almost certainly not, or they wouldn’t have been so shocked, scared, and lost when it did.  They had a paradigm as well, that the Messiah would come as a powerful conquering ruler, to get rid of Rome and establish His kingdom on earth.

But regardless, the cross and the idea of having to carry your cross (or execution-stake, if you prefer) is a word picture they would have understood culturally.  As we saw a minute ago, the cross was a death sentence.  There was no going back from it—that was it.

Once we’ve committed ourselves to God’s way and risen from the waters of baptism, we have made a full, lifetime, unending commitment to follow Him.  It can’t be half-hearted, but must be a full surrender to His will and His ways.  Our previous life ended permanently, there’s no going back.

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What Did Jesus Mean By “My Yoke Is Easy to Bear”? Going Beyond the Surface Meaning of This Verse

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On March 24, 2024

In Christian Living, New Testament, Topic Studies, Verse Studies

Have you ever found, at points throughout your life, all roads kind of leading or pointing to a particular topic, or even a certain bible verse?  It just keeps popping up and you eventually can’t ignore it any longer?  That’s what’s happened subtly over the past year or so with this verse.

Jesus issued an invitation to the people following Him:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy [NLT: easy to bear], and My burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30)

This verse has been one that I’ve mentally skimmed most of my life, picking up the gist but not really internalizing.  And that’s because I’ve never really been completely sure I knew what to make of the last part.

The part about rest, gentle, etc., I was following.  But then I questioned whether the last part contradicted other things Jesus said about following Him being hard…about having trials in this world, counting the cost, and the narrow, difficult way (e.g. John 16:33; Matt. 7:14; John 12:25).

But after having this verse shoved in my face enough times recently, I’ve spent more time meditating on it, and wanted to share some thoughts that may help modern readers apply it in their lives.

What should we understand about yokes in the bible?

In the largely-agricultural society of Jesus’s time, this statement would have been much better understood.  I grew up on a farm, but it’s not like we were yoking oxen together to get work done.  And in today’s world, I think we may even have an instinctive negative reaction to the idea of a yoke…as though we’re coming into bondage somehow, driven and overworked, with no personal agency.

So what should we know about yokes?  A yoke was used to bind two animals together and spread out the weight and effort of a hard task.  By evenly distributing the weight and helping them pull together, it ultimately made the job easier on both.

The animals yoked together need to be well-matched, of equal strength, size, temperaments…getting along and pulling together.  Other places say you’d put an older experienced ox and a younger, untrained one, to teach it.  Both are likely true, depending on the farmer’s need.  And you can easily see spiritual parallels in either scenario.

Yokes actually come up a lot in the bible.  They’re mentioned over 50 times, and most of the uses are figurative…denoting slavery, servitude, or the general influence of (or submission to) an authority—for instance, there’s a lot about breaking “yokes of bondage”, particularly in the Prophets.  The bible also sometimes metaphorically uses a yoke to describe the weight of a task or obligation.

What did Jesus mean about His yoke being easy to bear?

At face value His statement makes sense, particularly when contrasting His teachings with the centuries of exile and oppression that the Israelites had faced, as well as the hundreds of exacting physical rules and rituals the Jews had created for themselves out of fear of inadvertently breaking God’s commands and incurring His wrath.

Beyond that, though, there are some interesting angles concerning yokes that can deepen our understanding of this verse and how we can submit to Jesus’s “yoke” in our lives…let’s briefly explore these.

A yoke is created for work, not rest

I think that sometimes Christians key into Jesus’s focus on freeing us from the bondage of slavery, the truth making us free, and similar verses, and assume that we’re “in the clear”…that Jesus took care of everything and we can just coast through life.

But make no mistake—we are called to do God’s work.  Jesus spoke frequently of doing His Father’s work while on the earth, and that didn’t end with His resurrection.

He said, “My food [what sustains and keeps Him alive] is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work…Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!  And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together” (John 4:34-28).

This was a common theme He spoke about.  Right before giving His disciples power and sending them out to preach, heal, cast out demons, and proclaim the gospel, Jesus saw how much need there was and exclaimed:  “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Matt. 9:37-28).

Who are those laborers?  Matthew 20 directly connects this to God’s people who are called throughout the millennia, right up until His second coming.  Then in Mark 13, Jesus brings this home with the parable of a man going to a far country, who gave authority to his servants “and to each his work”, which the man expected to see diligently completed when he returned.

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