In my book, I write about those who say that we cannot figure out what the actual intent of a writer is because everyone’s experience is different, and so forth. In response, I write this, “If what they say is true, then it is false. Why? because if we can’t know anything and can’t communicate anything, then they don’t know what they are trying to communicate, and they can’t be sure any of us will hear the message they are sending.”
2 Thessalonians 1:11–12 (ESV)
11 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul’s prayers for the people of God should help us know how we should pray for others. Prayer is a difficult thing, and if you are anything like me, you tend to pray the same things over and over for the people in your life.
Let’s take a look at this prayer from 2 Thessalonians 1.
First, we notice that there is a purpose to his praying: “To this end we pray.” What is this end or purpose? He explains it after the word “that.” So I conclude that it is important to have a purpose in our praying. It should not merely be out of duty or habit, although both motivations are good. But there should be consciousness of who we are talking to, and the reason we are making the request.
Paul’s first purpose is that “God may make you worthy of his calling.” Sometimes we think that we need to be worthy in order for god to call us. But the reverse is true. No one is worthy to be called by God. God calls us, we receive that calling by faith in Him, and then He begins to make us worthy of that calling. In Ephesians 4:1, Paul urges us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling that we’ve been given. We live under the umbrella of the grace of God. There is no condemnation for the Christian (Romans 8:1), and therefore we have space and freedom to grow in our way of living so that we become more worthy of the calling that we already have.
The second aim Paul has is that God “may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.” We all know that our aspirations for living a godly life out pace our ability and resolve to actually live that life. Paul is praying that God would fulfill those resolves. It is God who strengthens the resolve and fulfills those desires for good that we have. And it is also His power that results in the outcomes that we may see coming from our faith.
And what is the actual purpose of these goals? That the Lord Jesus may be glorified in us and ultimately we will be glorified in Him when, at the end of time, all in the universe will be able to see the results of the multifaceted grace of God.
What if we could all pray like this for ourselves, our family members, and our brothers and sisters in Christ. What a powerful effect it would produce in our homes, churches, and country.
| 1 | Immortal, invisible, God only wise, In light inaccessible hid from our eyes, Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise. |
| 2 | Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light, Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might; Thy justice like mountains high soaring above Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love. |
| 3 | To all life Thou givest, to both great and small; In all life Thou livest, the true life of all; We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree, And wither and perish, but nought changeth Thee. |
| 4 | Great Father of Glory, pure Father of Light Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight; All laud we would render, O help us to see: ’Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee. |
| 5 | Immortal, invisible, God only wise, In light inaccessible hid from our eyes, Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise. |
In our Bible reading the other morning, we came upon this verse in 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12: “For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.”
I had always read this as the Apostle Paul encouraging the folks in Thessalonica and challenging them to live a God-honoring life. What I had never seen before is the fact that he explains that his encouragement is the kind a father would give to his children. Then, I began to consider the content of that encouragement. Needless to say, it is quite the challenge for us as fathers to encourage and charge our children in the way he describes here. So let’s take a couple of minutes and look at what we should teach our children.
Paul uses three words in verse 12. The ESV translates them exhort, encourage, and charge. Exhort means to ask for earnestly, beg, plead, or urge. The word encourage means to console, comfort and encourage. And finally, charge means to insist, implore, and involves testifying or witnessing to something. When you put all of this together, it means we as fathers should pursue the instruction of our children in such a way that we urge them along and beg them to follow the path we are teaching them. Along the way there will be failures and so there is a comforting and encouraging aspect to our instruction. No failure is final, and we should make sure our children understand that. Finally it involves imploring and insisting based on our own testimony that we are walking this same path and are witnessing to the fact that it is the right path, a path that leads ultimately to our sanctification and eternal life.
He then says that we should teach them to walk in a manner worthy of God. This can mean a couple of things. First, our walk is our manner of life. Therefore, we should encourage and charge our children to have a certain manner of life – a particular way of living. It’s not something to be taught once and then chalked up as a lesson learned. This is going to require time on our part, as Moses writes in Deuteronomy. We should teach and explain the ways of God when we get up, when we are going through our day, and when we are heading to bed at night (Deuteronomy 6).
What does it mean to walk in a manner worthy of God? First, let’s recognize that no one is perfect in this life. But with this understood, the goal is to be an example and to teach them to walk as God would walk. When we talk about living a godly life, we are talking about a life that looks like how God would live it if He were here. And, after all, He was here, wasn’t He? Jesus is God in the flesh and His life is our example. As 1 John 2;6 says, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
As I said earlier, it’s important to be an example in this process. It would do no good to teach your children to live like God would live if you are living an ungodly life. It’s a tough and narrow road, but if we are walking this road as faithfully as we know how, we can encourage our children to walk that same road with us. And we should do this day after day. Think, “How can I teach my children by instruction and example how to walk like Jesus today.” If you don’t do it today, you won’t ever do it.
The God we are teaching our children to follow is the God who calls us into His own Kingdom and glory. Believers are called a kingdom of priests who are to show forth the glory of God, and ultimately, we will be called to rule and reign with Him. You should encourage your children with this truth. If they savingly believe on Christ, they too will be called to participate in the heavenly reign of Christ. What a motivating truth!
Finally, Paul goes on in verse 13 to mention that the Thessalonian believers received the word of God, not as the words of man, but as the word of God. I believe this is an important truth. There are many ways to believe the Bible. But only one way saves, and that is if we believe that the Bible is what it claims to be, the word of God. One of the prayers I have for my grandchildren is that when they read the Bible, they won’t just read it as a historical document, but that they will hear it as God’s word to them. The word is living and powerful and our children need to be taught that, both by example and by direct teaching. Every time you read the Bible to them, tell them, “This is the word of God. Pay close attention.”
This portion of a letter to the Thessalonians that sounds at first like a pastor encouraging his congregation, is more than that. It is a reminder to us dads that this is the way we are to train up our children so that their manner of life will be worthy of God. May God help each of us as we train up our children in the way they should go.
by Julia H. Johnston
Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!
Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured,
There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin!
Sin and despair, like the sea waves cold,
Threaten the soul with infinite loss;
Grace that is greater, yes, grace untold,
Points to the refuge, the mighty cross.
Dark is the stain that we cannot hide.
What can avail to wash it away?
Look! There is flowing a crimson tide,
Brighter than snow you may be today.
Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace,
Freely bestowed on all who believe!
You that are longing to see his face,
Will you this moment his grace receive?
From the back cover of “What in the World is God Doing” – “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” Psalm 19:1,2 ESV.
Nature declares the fact that God exists. The message pours froth from every direction. Yet, the God who exists is a God of WORD. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” Hebrews 1:1,2
God has spoken through the Bible and in his Son, Jesus Christ. He has told us about himself, how he made all of creation, and what is overarching purpose for all of it is. The author makes the case that understanding this purpose, and ordering our lives accordingly, will result in a truly meaningful life that will glorify God now and throughout eternity.
I’ve titled this series “True? False? Or Who Cares?” I’m concerned that the “who cares” crowd is winning. Someone asked me the other day what I thought of subjective truth. My problem is that I don’t even understand what this means. In my reply, I used this example: Suppose one of your friends doesn’t believe in absolute truth. All truth is subjective, he thinks. Ask him to do this – when he gets his next pay check, he should cash it at the bank, bring all of the currency home, wad it up, and burn it in the middle of the driveway.
If there is no such thing as truth, then there is no such true statement as, “That $1500 worth of currency can buy me food or pay down my mortgage.” That’s just a matter of personal opinion and therefore burning it is no more significant than leaving it intact. Now, we all know that this whole example is stupid. In the real world, we work with true and false all the time. It’s just when it comes to religion and morals, and maybe politics, that everything is questionable. And we know what the reason is. No one really wants some Being to be able to tell us what to do.
I started this series by referring to Dr. Willard’s discussion of “profession”, “commitment”, “faith”, and “knowledge.” He was primarily discussing religion and the fact that we often emphasize profession and commitment without the foundation of knowledge or truth. This is not only a religious problem, but a problem in most areas of human life and is at the root of the collapse of so much discourse. Let’s take it out of the field of religion and use the words, feelings, opinions, beliefs, and truth. I maintain that our problem is that we argue at the level of our feelings and opinions. People operate on the assumption that if they feel something is true or are of the opinion that it is true, then it must be true.
It used to be that discussions and arguments were carried out at the truth level. People would say, “What you are saying is not true because of these three facts.” Someone else might respond by stating that fact number 2 isn’t true for the following reasons….
That’s not how arguments go today. People say things like, “I just don’t think you’re right because I just feel that….” Or, “You can’t say that because how will people who disagree with you feel about it if they think you are saying they are wrong?”
We need to get back to focusing on what the truth is and how we discover it. We need to base our arguments and discussions at that point.
Back to the religious aspect for a minute. When someone makes a profession of faith, it should be faith in something that is asserted to be true, not just in some mystical feeling. The Christian teaching is that in real time and space, Jesus Christ was literally born from a virgin. At some point he was executed on a Roman cross and he died, i.e., his heart stopped beating and his brain ceased to function. Three days later he came alive, proving that he was God in a human body. We assert these things to be true meaning we believe they actually happened.
When we get careless and begin to think at the level of our feelings, then we are exactly where Dr. Willard describes – profession and commitment become dominant, and the grounding in truth that people need won’t be there to sustain them through all of the challenges of life.
Some thoughts about praying for leaders.
1 Timothy 2:1–4 (NKJV)
1 Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
We have a tendency to isolate a verse or two that we’re focusing on from the rest of the passage. That has happened to me in relationship to this passage. We are exhorted by Paul to pray for all who are in authority over us so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life. What we usually think about is to pray for wisdom for our leaders so that things stay calm and crisis free so that there won’t be a lot of turmoil in our lives. Praying for wisdom for our leaders is a valid focus of our prayers. But there is more to this passage. First, I notice that the purpose of living a quiet and peaceable life is for the demonstration of our godliness and reverence. But more than that, the passage is focused on the fact that God is a saving God. He desires all men to be saved, and that includes our leaders. I’m starting to think that this should be the main focus of our prayers for our leaders. Leaders who know Christ will govern with wisdom and promote the quiet and peaceable conditions that we desire.
In the last article in this series we looked at the concept of “presuppositions.” Presuppositions are ideas we believe or accept without proof. Everyone has them. Even in mathematics we have things called postulates which are statements that are accepted as true without proof. I remember a math class I had once where we assumed that the number 1 existed. We also assumed that the next number in a counting series could be found by adding the number 1 to the previous number. Every other “truth” that we used in the course had to be proved from these two postulates or assumptions or presuppositions.
So what does this have to do with our discussion of truth and how we know it? Let’s take the Creation vs Evolution debate for example. I worked in the public schools for 42 years and have seen the nuances that this debate has taken. When everything is sorted out through the legal system it usually comes down to this: Creation is a religious, faith-based idea and therefore has no place within the science curriculum. Evolution however is a scientific truth and therefore can and should be taught within the science curriculum.
I realize that I am probably not going to change many minds in this short article, but this is how I see it in light of our discussion about truth and how we know it. Scientific knowledge and truth come from proposing an hypothesis and then designing a controlled experiment to test that hypothesis to see if it is true. In the case of the origin of life, it seems obvious to me that there can be no experiment designed that will duplicate the conditions, time span, and forces needed to create and evolve life by random processes. Every attempt so far has involved a high level of human thinking and planning involved to set up conditions favorable for the creation of life. The true condition of randomness and chance events were not duplicated. Even so, life has not been created by those experiments.
On the creation side, there is no one alive today who saw God create anything. All we have is ancient documents within various religious traditions describing how God did it.
My point is that those who claim evolution is true are actually proposing something just as faith-based as a creationist is.
But the evolutionist says, “No, that’s not true. You creationists are bringing God into the mix. We are providing a natural and scientific explanation of how life began and evolved.” The problem here is with the assumptions or presuppositions that underlie what we believe. In order to fit the definition of science, God must be left out of the equation. That is an assumption. All of the study and investigation that takes place looks for explanations that leave God out. It is assumed that God either does not exist or does not play any role in any way in the natural world. But suppose God actually exists. If God actually exists, isn’t it madness to try to get at the explanation for why things are the way they are without including him in the mix?
“But”, they say, “we don’t know if God exists or not and therefore, we choose to leave him out of our assumptions regarding science and simply look for the natural causes of things.”
OK. That’s fine. But don’t call your explanation of origins totally scientific because you are basing your “science” on the belief that certain things are true. There are a set of beliefs or assumptions upon which the entire system is built. That makes it a faith based philosophy.
A scientist who includes the belief in a god or supreme being in his foundational assumptions will also build a faith-based science. But he, when he looks at the order and apparent “design” in the universe, will come to the conclusion that there is a designer behind it.
It’s interesting that in normal life we do this all the time. If you’re walking through the woods and you come upon a group of similar sized stones lying in the dirt forming the shape of a circle, you assume someone of intelligence placed them that way. You don’t assume that they just fell there randomly. And yet when some scientists look at the brain or the eye, they don’t see a designer at all, but millions of years of random circumstances producing it. So we attribute a simple circle of stones to an intelligent designer, i.e., a human being behind it, but something as complex as an eye evolved with no intelligent activity involved in it at all.
When trying to determine the truth, everyone begins their investigative reasoning with presuppositions or assumptions. Mathematicians do it and scientists do it. We all do it. We need to be careful to recognize that we are doing it. When you make statements of truth or believe what someone else says, look for the presuppositions that underlie those statements. Second, make sure that when you are discussing what you believe to be the truth, acknowledge your presuppositions. Don’t hide them. Finally make sure your presuppositions are logical and consistent. Only in so doing will you be able to get at the truth whether it is in the field of science, politics or religion.
(Part 1 is here: https://thetuinstras.net/?p=1387)
In the first article in this series we talked about the fact that in normal daily life we come at truth in very informal ways and yet in ways that work at the practical level. When we build our homes, we conform them to certain truths about how the construction needs to be done so our homes are safe and function well. We learn these truths by applying what we receive on good authority. This approach seems to be thrown out the window when it comes to discerning, believing and proclaiming religious truth.
In the second article we expanded more on the methods we use to discern what truth is. Here again we discussed the fact that most of us haven’t come in contact with the truth first-hand in most cases. In other words, we don’t learn to build a house by trial and error. We usually learn from somebody who already knows. We weren’t there when historical events took place and we aren’t privy to the information that forms the basis for political decisions. Most of us are not involved in the working out of mathematical equations or scientific principles. We learn these things and base our decisions on them based on good authority. But it’s interesting to recognize that different people accept different authorities. Why is this so? Why, when the President, any President, announces a decision, do some people assume it is a wise and truthful decision whereas others claim the decision is faulty and dishonest? Why do we gravitate to one news source over another or one religious leader over another? Most of these propensities to lean in one direction or another are not driven by facts that we know firsthand.
There are usually unproved and sometimes improvable assumptions, called presuppositions, that move us in one direction or another when we search for truth. The point I would like us to think very seriously about is that there is no guarantee that these presuppositions are directing us toward the truth. Our feelings tell us our sources are true, and we believe they are, but there is no guarantee. I may listen to a particular news source because I feel that it is a truthful source of information. But what makes me think that? And just because I think it, does that make it true? I watch with fascination as CNN fans put down Fox News for presenting a slanted view of the facts. At the same time, I hear Fox News followers cut down CNN for painting a false picture of causes and events. Since CNN and Fox present rather different perspectives on events, they can’t both be giving the true and complete picture. One or the other or both are presenting shaded views of the truth. Our presuppositions drive us to listen to and believe one over the other … or neither. Why is that?
The same thing occurs in religious discussion. Some people do not believe that the Bible can be historically accurate and truthful in the narratives about Jesus Christ, because it describes events which people have never seen with their own eyes. These miracles are described as though they are facts, but some people dismiss them out of hand because of the presupposition that such things cannot and therefore did not take place. Think of the implications if the resurrection of Jesus actually did take place. In other words, if we take it out of the realm of a religious teaching and put it into the same realm as the assassination of Julius Caesar or any other historical event, what would that mean? Think about it. If this man really died, his heart stopped beating, and his brain stopped functioning, someone put him into a cold cave, and then three days later he was alive again, wouldn’t such an event warrant a place in the history books? But somehow it has been relegated to a religious teaching, and the thought that it actually happened has pretty much disappeared. Has this happened because the history of it has been shown to be faulty or because of presuppositions coming into play?
Our presuppositions tend to move us toward some information sources and away from others. We believe some people who purport to be authorities and we reject others. In most cases we haven’t and usually can’t do the research required to independently verify these authorities. This situation shouldn’t drive us to the conclusion that the truth doesn’t exist or that it can’t be known. We don’t do that in normal daily life and we shouldn’t do it in philosophical, political, or religious areas of life. However, we do need to recognize that our presuppositions may not be pointing us to the truth. If we really want to know what the truth is, we sometimes need to work against our natural presuppositions and give other sources a fair and reasoned hearing because it may be that the truth lies in that direction.