B, The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany - 1 Corinthians 1b-3 "A Conscience Known by God"

To see, to know, and to love.   Paul encourages the Corinthians to use their knowledge in a right way that upholds the person whose conscience is weak.  Use your God-given faith in a way, that encourages those who are weak, to have their consciences strengthened by God alone! 

Paul teaches the hearer about the direction of knowledge.  Paul says, “…we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ This ‘knowledge' puffs up, but love builds up.  If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.  But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.”  (1 Corinthians 8:1b–3 ESV)

To see, one is known by God, is to know that God knows the whole truth of who we are, and not just the half-truths we want others to see.  This is the faith to which God calls his church on earth, through Paul’s letter to the Corinthians!  It is a change of direction that sees knowledge, as not what we know, but that we are known by God!

For those who wish truly to be Christian in belief and practice, the organ of faith is the ear.  True God given faith is nurtured when one hears the Word of God.  Not to our immediate glory, but, to God’s glory.  This is how followers of Christ, see, know, and love. 

We see, know, and love, trusting that the bible is the Word of God.  So, truly believing, one allows the Holy Spirit to lead one to works that, glorify God, and love our neighbour, which encourages them to glorify God too.

Moved by the Holy Spirit, this is what Paul teaches the Corinthians about eating food offered to idols.  God schools the Corinthian believers to look outwardly in what they do, so the weak are not led into sinning with their conscience.

Those who are weak, are the weak in faith, new Christians, and those unbelievers before whom the Christian faith is lived, in the hope of winning them for Christ.  Those who are weak, are weak because they have not one organ of faith, but many.  The ear, the eyes, sensations, feelings, touch, and taste, all contribute to one’s heart, and therefore, the collective tastes and feelings of the community’s conscience.

The difference between a believer’s conscience and an unbeliever’s conscience is that being known by God, the flow of knowledge is reversed.  Our knowledge brings a knowledge of our weakness that leads to repentance, receptive forgiveness, and joyful service, rather than a knowledge that puffs up!

Because the Christian Church lives in the world, we continue to struggle with the knowledge to love our neighbour, and please God.  This comes about, by what the world teaches us about knowledge, and how we allow a worldly understanding of knowledge to be impressed on God’s church.

We need to know what the conscience is! 

There is both the conscience of an individual and then there is the conscience of a community, or a collective conscience.

The conscience of an individual is moulded by a group’s conscience.  Conscience comes from a Latin word that means, “being privy to knowing”.  Having a conscience is having “shared knowledge” or “knowing together”. 

For a worldly knowledge or conscience, one sees and experiences what is going on around them and it becomes the norm, and then it’s expected to be common practice.  When one works with a worldly conscience one survey’s the self, fashioned by their experiences and emotions, and then their conscience places faith within what one hears from there heart!  The heart becomes conformed to the world, to keep in step with the shared experiences of the world. 

With our hearts driven by the world and its opinions, the church is oppressed, when we seek to impress, or allow, a worldly conscience to steer God’s church.  The direction of the conscience is turned about face.  As a result, our knowledge of good and evil is gleaned from the world and driven by the feelings of the heart, rather than God and his Word having singular authority.

The bible, God’s written Word, becomes a book that just “contains” words about God, rather than “being” the holy and inspired Word of God, written down by faithful servants of God.  With worldly suspicions then one can pick and choose what one wants to take from God’s Word.  Parts can be rejected because, those who wrote it were working with an alternative agenda.  In short, one then can stand in judgement over God’s Word, rather than remain under and in submission to it.

So called believers, no longer believe the Word of God.  But believes what the heart feels about the Word of God.  Knowledge is not being known by God.  But becomes puffed up in protecting what one thinks is God. 

Dear friends in Christ, when we do this, we stand naked before God, with an idol of God in our hearts. This idol is an image of the heart that imagines that we know something.  The idols of our imaginations tell us plainly that we do not yet know as we ought to know.  This faith is not from the Holy Spirit but from the imaginations of our human spirit, without the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  This faith covers what is truly known by God, our sin!

The Old Testament word for conscience is heart.  A heart pleasing to God is that which sees with the ear!  However, one’s heartfelt feelings that misplace having a true heart for God, is a common teaching we’re called to hear in God’s Word as sin. 

Jesus says, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:21–23 ESV)

The first mention of man’s heart is recorded in Genesis chapter six, causing God to send the flood. 

“The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”  (Genesis 6:5–6 ESV)

When we become conscience bound by anything other than God and his Word, it grieves God to his heart. 

Jesus pleases God the Father.  He does not turn away from following the Father.  Therefore, he is set apart as holy.  In his holiness, he became like you, without doing what you do, to set you apart from the evil intentions and thoughts of your heart, that is your nature and its sin.  By his holiness he continually prays before our Father in heaven and sends the Holy Spirit to make you holy. 

Jesus came to cleanse you and me from the unholiness of our hearts.  Jesus seeks to cleanse your spirit from the common corruption that the Law of God reveals in the heart, but that the world feels and says is okay.

Humanity’s sinful nature, from Adam and Eve, throughout the ages, to the end of time, seeks to reject the Word of God, outrightly, as a lie!  Even within the church it’s in our nature, to water down God’s Word to the point where we, with the world, are tempted to regard the Word of God as a lie.  With the world, our hearts become deceived in a shared knowledge, that evil is good and good is evil.  Humanity’s collective conscience of the “good and evil” lie, replaces the truth. 

Isaiah warned the priests and the people of Jerusalem, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!  Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!”  (Isaiah 5:20–21 ESV)

This same puffed-up worldly conscience continues to deceive pastors and people in the church today!  Many are shamed by the truth of God’s Word and have turned to idols of God in their hearts.  The love of God is exchanged for an image, a contrary imaginary puffed-up love.  

This love is a lie!  It’s love that’s opposite to a love of being known by God.  It’s a love that hinders the Holy Spirit, making us unable to serve our neighbour, like Christ serves us. 

Instead of hearing God in his Word, a worldly heart seeks the word within one’s conscience, deflating one’s knowledge of the power and holiness of God’s word within themselves.

However, knowing we are known by God; we stand accused by his holy Word of the Law.  We know, if we stand before God with a knowledge of good and evil based on the conscience of the world, we stand before God, calling what is written in his Word, a lie. 

Knowing that God knows our knowledge of good and evil is a lie, the Holy Spirit unites us with Jesus Christ, so we know Jesus Christ.  We know, he knows us, died for us, and now intercedes for us before our Father in heaven. 

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, pleases God our Father.  The Holy Spirit pleases God our Father and God the Son.  We please God our Father when we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us into God’s Word, to cleanse us.  We please God our Father when our hearts hear, receive, and believe Jesus Christ.  We please God our Father when we hear the Word of God, and not what’s within our sinful hearts or within the ways of the world.

Being a Christian requires that we are in the world and not a part of the world.  Jesus sets you apart from the world, so being known by God, you can love your neighbour in the world.

Let us pray.

Change my heart, O God, make it ever true.  Change our hearts, O God; may we be like you.  You are the potter; we are the clay.  Mould us and make us to be set apart as servants like Jesus your Son, in this we pray.  Amen.

B, The Third Sunday after the Epiphany - Mark 1:15 & Psalm 62:5-12 "Standing under Jesus"

Understanding Jesus Christ, in its simplicity, is simply standing under Jesus. 

Understanding Jesus is so straight forward, a child or an adult can stand under him, the poor or the wealthy can stand under him, a new convert can stand under him, and so too can a mature believer on their death bed.

Why then do we struggle to understand Jesus?  Is it because when one seeks to stand out from under him, that the outstanding person has little to no understanding of Jesus Christ?

From where does one get an understanding of Jesus?  One gets it from standing under Jesus’ Word! 

Standing under Jesus can only occur when the fullness of the Good News comes to us, causing one to repent and believe. 

Therefore, we trust!  We believe and receive the Holy Spirit, moving us to confession, bringing us to Jesus’ power over sin and death.

Standing under Jesus, we need the Holy Spirit, so we are willed into God’s Word.  We all know this by how difficult we can find it to engage ourselves in God’s Word. 

When you seek to read the bible, notice how easily you’re distracted by other tasks that always seem to pop up!  Before you realise it, the bible is not opened, the dust settles, and weeks pass by!  The devil then works on the spirit of the sinful self and guilt drives you further away from receiving the Word of God.  Therefore, standing under Jesus’ Word, requires the full help of the Holy Spirit. 

When one is starved of God’s Word, every other word floods in, to fill the void.  The word of the human spirit within, is led by the words of the world, so one becomes use to being without the Word of God.

This is the struggle all face who seek to stand under Jesus.  Our old nature would rather us forget and lose interest in prayer and praying.  Confessing one’s sin, hearing God’s Word preached, and practicing the faith in a God pleasing way, becomes detached and dysfunctional!  The busyness of life quickly takes over and the spirit within becomes comfortable with the status quo.

Standing under Jesus requires faith.  Faith does not come from understanding, but rather, the other way around, understanding comes from faith, and faith sees one standing under what we allow our ears to hear.

As Paul says to the Romans, “For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’  How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?  And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’  …So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:13–15, 17 ESV)

Jesus understands that standing under him, requires us to be put in a position of hearing.  Not just any word, but the Word of Jesus Christ.  God the Father, together with God the Son, know this.  That is why we receive the Holy Spirit when we hear the Word of God.  He leads us to the Father through the Word made Flesh, Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ spoken word drew an immediate response from Simon, and Andrew, James, and John.  So much so, they left their families and Galilean fishing boats and followed Jesus.  Through Jesus’ word the fishermen became his disciples and followed him. 

We are discipled by Jesus and grow in our understanding of Jesus, when we stand under his written Word, just as those of his disciples, who remained under his word.  All, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, and that didn’t end well for him!

To get a greater understanding of Jesus Christ you are called to stand under his written Word.  Standing under it allows the Holy Spirit to work faith in the Word within you!  The Holy Spirit continually points us back to Jesus’ way, the truth of Jesus’ Word, and his life.

We are in the season of Epiphany.  In it we hear that Jesus is proclaimed as the Son of God.  In the New Testament, Jesus is declared as the Son of God, some forty-three times.  Of these, it’s recorded only four times in the Gospel of John, where Jesus refers to himself as the Son of God.

Jesus is the Son of God, but as Paul tells us in Philippians, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6–8 ESV)

Jesus put aside his standing as the Son of God and stood under God the Father, and indeed stood under all of humanity as the Son of Man.  He served you, and still does, in human flesh!

Standing under the Father, Jesus Christ demonstrated great faithfulness towards the Father and all who trust in him.  His understanding or nature was such, he put aside his self-assurance in his  divinity, and lived in the weakness of the flesh, allowing himself to be guided perfectly by the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus, the Word made flesh, went away to pray, he prayed his Word, the Word of God.  The Psalms are Jesus’ Words of prayer, given and written down years before he was born. 

When we stand under the Psalms as an anthology of Jesus’ intimate prayers, our faith is encouraged by the depth of his faithfulness to God the Father.  He allows his servanthood to stand, not on his Godliness!  But rather, is led by the work of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, the Psalms give a very personal insight into Jesus’ life as he submits to the will of God the Holy Spirit.

In the same way, when we stand under the Psalms, the Holy Spirit increases our understanding of the perfect relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Standing under God’s Word of the Psalms will increase faith!  So, we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us just as Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit. 

Jesus was led by the Spirit to do the will of the Father, having put aside his heavenly divinity.  As faith grows within us, we are led to do the will of the Father, when we put aside our human spirit’s self-assurance and desire for ill-gotten selfish divinity.  Faith allows us to surrender and lets the Holy Spirit point us to God the Father and God the Son.

To understand Jesus’ life, understanding the Word of Jesus’ prayers written in Psalms is as simple as standing under the word by questioning; who is speaking, who is the speaker addressing, and who is the speaker speaking about?   Is a singular person speaking or listening?  Or is it a group of people, usually Israel represented by those gathered in the temple? 

We get understanding of the Psalms and can stand under the Word of the Psalms when we realise, how we, as individuals, or, as a heavenly congregation, are grafted into Words of the Psalm by Jesus himself!  Into Jesus either, as the only Son of God, or, as the head of his body, the new Israel, the church.

Psalm sixty-two demonstrates the perfection of the Triune relationship, and the faithfulness of God’s perfection into which we are grafted by Jesus.

(Psalm 62:5-12)  For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. 

Here, the speaker is speaking about our Father in heaven to the hearer.

He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. 

The speaker hear is King David having been given these words from the Word made flesh, the King of kings, Jesus.  So, Jesus is the real speaker of these words having inspired King David by the Holy Spirit to write them down.  By the Holy Spirit, it’s Jesus who confesses and knows God the Father is his rock, salvation, and fortress.  He trusts God despite the weakness of his flesh.

Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath. 

Jesus trusted in God our Father at all times on earth, and he calls us to do so too.  Jesus our King calls us to pour our hearts out to our Father in heaven.  Jesus, the Son of God, put aside his divinity and gave up his human spirit on the cross.  God is a refuge for us because Jesus is our Good News.  

Jesus did this for Israel; he is the New Israel, into which we have been grafted.  When weighed up, next to Jesus’ perfection in the flesh and sacrificial suffering as the Lamb of God, our human haughtiness and lowliness are as long lasting as a warm breath on a cold morning.

Put no trust in extortion; set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, set not your heart on them. 

Israel failed in the wilderness for forty years, then continued in failure right the way through to Jesus’ revelation as the Son of God.  Similarly, we fail time and time again in our lives too.  Jesus, the new Israel, did not fail having been tempted by the devil in the wilderness for forty days.  Jesus calls us to trust in his work, rather than our lifetime of fruitless works, vain expectations, or earthly riches!

Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God,  and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.  For you will render to a man according to his work.

Alone Jesus hears only God speak.  Therefore, we hear him proclaim two things he hears and abides by about our Heavenly Father.  That power and steadfast love belong to God! 

We know from the gospel; God the Father rendered the man Jesus according to his work.  We know; the Holy Spirit led Jesus to finish his work of suffering and death and was then raised to life by the Holy Spirit having completed this work for our sake. 

The Holy Spirit works faith within us to trust the power of God.  We become willing recipients of his steadfast love made complete, for us, and in us, by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit creates and maintains our faith in God’s promises, in his Word.  God the Father renders or completes our salvation when we believe the work of his Son Jesus Christ, hearing by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

When we stand under Jesus and his Word, we allow the Holy Spirit to foster faith within.  Then we understand, standing in daily repentance and belief, is standing under Jesus.  Trusting the gospel or good news of our salvation is knowing the kingdom of God is ours eternally.  Amen.

B, The Second Sunday after the Epiphany - 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 "Pleasure"

1 Corinthians 6:12–20 (ESV) “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.  “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other.  The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.  And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.  Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?  Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?  Never!  Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?  For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”  But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.  Flee from sexual immorality.  Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.  Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?  You are not your own,  for you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body.

Saint Paul tells his congregation in Corinth, “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.” (1 Corinthians 6:12 ESV) 

Paul will not be dominated by anything.  He speaks about food, sexuality, then paints a picture of one joined with a prostitute, breaking the union held with Christ, turning the body from a temple of the Holy Spirit into a temple of sin against oneself.

Corinth was a place of pleasure, and Paul goes to the heart of the believer’s struggle in Corinth by confronting the common practise of those inside and outside the church.

The philosophy of the Greeks at that time, was a false dichotomy, dividing the flesh from the spirit of a person.  The flesh was evil and must be escaped, and the spirit of a person was good if only it could discharge the evils of the flesh. 

From this came two extremes in thought, stoicism, and epicureanism.  Stoicism was a strict practice that sought to live a good life to achieve a good spirit.  Epicureanism, on the other hand, pursued pleasure in all its perverseness.  They believed one could follow whatever aroused the desires of the flesh, knowing that at death the good spirit would depart the evil flesh.

Put simply, these two extremes seek to please the self.  But Paul does not separate flesh and spirit and he points us to what pleases God. 

Paul reintroduces the oneness of a person as flesh and spirit.  When one seeks pleasure and experiences pain, the human spirit and one’s flesh are both affected by the pursuit of pleasure as well as the experience of pain.    Therefore, all people need the holiness of the Holy Spirit in their spirit, and the perfecting of their flesh in Jesus Christ’s perfect flesh, crucified and raised for the atonement of our whole person.

By Paul stating he will not be dominated, or be empowered by anything, he asked the Corinthians, “what are you empowered by?”  God asks the same question of you in this text!

Paul goes straight to the Corinthians being dominated by prostitution.  Why?  Well, Corinth was rife with hedonistic, pleasure-seeking prostitution.  The general practise was a man had his wife to bear children and manage his household, and at the same time had other sexual partners for pleasure.  Either, a mistress or a catamite, a soft young homosexual partner.  This was occurring in the congregation at Corinth since he called them not to practice this in his letter to them.

But he points to prostitution for other reasons too!  He says, “all things are lawful for me”.   Literally in the Greek, all things are from me, for me, but not all things are helpful.  Even though all things come out of him he will not be powered by anything, from within himself or from outside of himself.  That is except God, “who raised the Lord (Jesus Christ) and will also raise us up by his power.” (1 Corinthians 6:14 ESV)

Paul appeals to the power of the Holy Spirit, over against the power of one’s human spirit.  Paul shuts down the pleasure seekers by calling those “bought with a price”, to glorify God in one’s body. 

It might seem Paul is siding with the stoics, by pushing a strict moralistic code, to do good.  But no, stoicism seeks to rid the spiritual self of flesh.  Paul, on the other hand, proclaims the oneness of the spirit and flesh, in the resurrection, and the Holy Spirit dwelling within and sanctifying our human flesh, despite its corruption.

But what does this have to do with us? 

Some of us appear to live good moral lives and some of us know that our morals are far from good or have been good spirited.  Some of us have had relationships with prostitutes, and some of us have not.  But this text delves deeper into us, than just a moralistic check on, who has, or who hasn’t, been with a prostitute.

Although Paul appeals to the Corinthians to stop the practice of pleasing oneself with prostitutes, he calls into question the greater reality of what pleases God.  Prostitution is a relative part of his question to the Corinthians.  But it’s also the overarching extreme of prostitution’s damaging pleasure that demonstrates the full gamut of corrupted pleasure, from the least to the greatest, within the family, the community, and the kingdom of God.

Paul will not be dominated by anything but that which glorifies God in his body, be it food, his stomach, or his sexuality.

When we understand prostitution as the negative complete extreme of pleasure, all degrees of our pleasure seeking are called into question.  Does it glorify God or not?  Here again we can use the glory test on ourselves to test our appetites of pleasure.  Knowing that God will destroy both stomach and food, what is fruitful for your eternal life and what is not?  What is perishable and what is imperishable?

Are the things your senses seek, benefiting you eternally or not? 

You may, or may not, struggle with prostitution.  But many of us struggle with other pleasures that do not please God or benefit us in the long run.  These failed pleasures fall short in the glory test, examined in the light of truth, God’s written Word. 

It’s God’s good pleasure to make you a temple of the Holy Spirit.  It’s God’s good pleasure to lead you from the lies of this world and the father of lies, the devil, into the unhidden truth of his good impartial pleasure.  It’s God’s good pleasure to forgive all sin, from the least to the greatest!

Prostitution is one of the oldest professions in the world.  Adam and Eve prostituted themselves for their own pleasure at Eden.  There they exposed their nakedness and sold themselves into the slavery of sin before God, for a corrupted knowledge of good and evil.

The lie of your corrupted pleasure continues today.  The reality of this lie is your suffering.  People do not willingly seek pain, but everyone experiences pain as a result of seeking pleasure.  The pursuit of pleasure is the parent of all addictions, lawful and unlawful.  All suffering occurs as a result of one seeking pleasure within the temple of the self. 

So, to what is it you prostitute yourself?  What is your god and what diet do you need to feed its addiction?

It might well be sexuality, prostitution, or pornography! 

It might be gluttony of the stomach, food, chocolate, sugar, or the gluttony of amassing wealth! 

Perhaps its alcohol or another substance to stimulate the temple tastes of your human desire. 

Is it excitement in gaming, sport, shopping, or risking chance in the gambling arena that produces the feel-good hormones you need to live? 

Then again you might need to be popular, needing glory, the pleasure of being prevalent in public, or the pleasure of being turned in on oneself in private!   

Maybe it’s an addiction of control,  a perverse pleasure in taking control of the biological God-given self, control of others, an addiction of acquiring assets, controlling other people’s stuff, or controlling the opinions of others by spreading gossip!  To have control by knowing good, knowing evil, or knowing someone else’s business!

By far the worst addiction that’s flooding the world with mental anguish and suffering is addiction to oneself in the reflection of a mobile phone.  It’s a device that serves all of the hedonistic addictions listed above, promising pleasure but causing lifelong pain.

The mobile device together with all these other things allows one to practice spiritual prostitution!  All expose us, showing we have sold ourselves into the slavery of our sin’s lie.  The lie that promises pleasure and life but produces suffering and death.  We are caught in the lie, naked, without the truth before God!

The truth is Jesus Christ!  To know and want the truth one needs to turn from oneself to Jesus Christ.  He is the only truth that glorifies God the Father.  The Holy Spirit is the only true spirit builder, that builds us into the temple of God.

At the start of John’s Gospel, when Andrew and John followed Jesus, Jesus turned and said to them, “What are you seeking?” Jesus was asking, “what do you want, what are you coming to worship?”  And they replied, “Where are you staying!”  Jesus said, “Come and your will see.” (John 1:38-39) 

Like Peter, at the end of John’s Gospel, Jesus askes you, “Do you love me?  Do you want me more than anything else?”  Do you want to come and see Jesus?  Is your greatest pleasure to please God?

God askes of you, “What do you want, what do you seek to worship in your life?”  Is it the pleasure of God, the joy of Jesus Christ, and the holiness of the Holy Spirit?  God wants us to come and see we can only love God by letting him forgive our sin!  This is God’s good pleasure!

The truth is, God the Son totally assumed our humanity, spirit, and flesh.  In his being, both as, the eternal Son of God, and, the resurrected suffering servant and Saviour of humanity, it’s God the Father’s good pleasure to forgive those who are repentant and are being united as one in his heavenly glory by the Holy Spirit.  

“Therefore, …let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1b–2 ESV)

Now is time to “come out” as confessional Christians, personally and publicly, one with Jesus Christ! 

May God grant us strength in the Holy Spirit, to not resist his power when he raises up, you, and me, to do so!  Amen.   

B, The Baptism of our Lord, Epiphany 1 - Acts 19:1-7 "Epiphany in Ephesus"

There were many things going on in the years leading up to Jesus’ incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension.

For two to three hundred years within “Jerusalem Judaism”, murder, scandals, power battles, and political jockeying for favourable positions were occurring at a time when big social changes outside the temple were causing much chaos and confusion in a Greco-Roman world.

Jews whom God had allowed to be exiled to the east, were now not returning to Jerusalem.  Instead, they were spreading as diaspora throughout this new world and were seeking to come to terms with paganism and the philosophical thoughts that abounded in the Hellenisation of the Greco-Roman world.  

Years before, the Greek ruler, Alexander the Great, had annexed the known world under his control.  His kingdom spanned from India in the East to Europe in the west.  He became the father of Hellenisation, which sought to integrate Persian and Greek culture, religion, philosophical thinking, language, and identity.  This was the era in which the philosophical thoughts of Socrates, Plato, and the like, spread throughout the Greco-Roman world.

There were both positives and negatives for Jews in this world.  They were allowed to practice the Jewish faith, and at this time the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek by seventy-two translators at Alexandria in North Africa.  The translation is called Septuagint, commonly referred to as the LXX, or seventy, for its numbers of translators.  This was a notable positive for the mission of God the Father of the Jews amongst the Gentiles.  But the danger for Jewish faith was monotheism was now challenged by a pantheon of polytheistic male and female gods and ideologies.

Into this Jesus was born.  John the Baptist baptised Jews in the Jordan, preparing and refocusing the people of God, for the fullness of time came for God to fulfill his promise to Israel, made through the prophets of old.  Three full years saw the completion of God’s covenant with humanity, and then the work of the Holy Spirit continued in a new way, revealing Jesus Christ as “the way of God” for both Jews and Gentiles in Greco-Roman society.

The way of God born of one man and his remaining eleven disciples, at face value, was not going to survive, for all that long, amongst a hostile Jewish culture, from which it came.  Nor did anyone expect the “way of God” to survive the deluge of polytheistic gods and ideologies competing for people’s attention in this diverse new world.

But it did!  Why?  It was the power of God the Holy Spirit!  The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus, the Son of God, who put his divinity aside, and suffered on earth as did any other person.  But he finished it without sinning!  Jesus allowed the Holy Spirit to lead him in life and death, fulfilling God the Father’s will in the fullness of time!  The Holy Spirit then raised Jesus from the dead to the right hand of the Father at his ascension after the resurrection.  Now the Holy Spirit would continue revealing the ascended Christ to both Jews and Gentiles!

The spread of the Gospel through the way of God was helped by what God allowed to occur in the dispersion of Jews in the four hundred years since the exile to Babylon before Jesus’ coming.  Jews are notable traders, and they were found along the trade routes of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) in the Roman Empire, that had grown and won out over all former empires.

Ephesus, once a seaport, was one of these trading places enroute to somewhere else!  But not only were goods traded, many ideas and philosophies were exchanged and intertwined along these routes that passed from the Far East to Rome and onto Western Europe.

Artemis was a female goddess in Asia Minor.  The world worshipped her.  (Acts 19:27) Ephesus housed her temple and the town relied on Artemis for its honour, as well as trade. 

To the Greeks she was known as Artemis, to the Romans, this same goddess is known as Diana.  We might consider her as a Mother Nature cult, since she was the patron goddess of nature, hunters, wildlife, and childbirth, to name a few.

The way of God, the Gospel, first came to the Jews at Ephesus, as Paul briefly passed through its port and synagogue on his way to Caesarea.  This was his second missionary journey.  (Acts 18: 18-21) 

Next came a man named Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria in North Africa.  Being from this town named after Alexander the Great, and encouraged as a centre of academia, diversity of thought, and culture, Apollos was well equipped in the art of rhetoric and debate, and was competent in the Old Testament Scriptures, most likely the Greek Septuagint.

After Paul’s first visit, Apollos made a stand for Jesus Christ in the synagogue in Ephesus.  However, Priscilla and Aquila, known tentmakers and acquaintances of Paul, having heard him, took him aside and explained the way of God more accurately.  From there Apollos moves onto what we would know as Greece today.  (Acts 18:24-28)

After these two encounters some of the Jews begin to believe in the way of God.  They know of Jesus Christ but not of the power of God through the Holy Spirit.  We hear what happens from Acts chapter nineteen…

Paul said to the disciples in Ephesus, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”  And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.”  And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.”  On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.  And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.  There were about twelve men in all.”  (Acts 19:2–7 ESV)

Apollos, like John the Baptist brought a baptism of repentance, preparing for the coming of Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.  Now Paul, in the fullness of time, brings Jesus Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit.  Water and the Law came through Apollos, then through Paul the Holy Spirit brought the fullness of the Gospel.  Just as Jesus has called twelve into service during his ministry on earth, God did the same through Paul’s laying on of hands at Ephesus.

Paul remained in Ephesus for about three years on his third missionary journey.  (Acts 20:31) For the first three months he boldly persuaded them about the kingdom of God in the synagogue (Acts 19:8), but then moved to the hall of Tyrannus, where for the next two years, he continued to preach and teach, not only the Jews, but the Gentiles as well. 

The Holy Spirit gave Paul extraordinary healing powers while in Ephesus.  The sons of Sceva, sons of a Jewish High Priest, sought to copy Paul with their own exorcisms, but were overcome by the evil spirits they were trying to exorcize, because they sort to do it by their own power, without the power of the Holy Spirit.  Here stands a warning to anyone who seeks to work apart from the Holy Spirit, through their own human spirit.

So extraordinary was the event, the Sons of Sceva, were wounded and fled the house naked, bringing a sense of awe upon all at Ephesus.  So much so, a greater depth of reverence for Jesus Christ was fostered.  Even believers came confessing and divulging their practices.  Imagine that!  Such was the faith generated by the Holy Spirit in this event, they made public what they were doing, rather than chance being cut off from the power of God, by continuing in their hidden deeds.

Nearing the end of three years, as the Holy Spirit grew the way of God through Paul and the gathering in Ephesus, some became concerned their livelihoods were being diminished as more and more worshippers of Artemis became believers in the way of God through Jesus Christ.  There was much chaos and controversy in Ephesus, so much so, Paul’s fellow believers would not let Paul speak to the mob for fear of what might happen to him.

So, Paul left after being in Ephesus for just under three years, to continue his third missionary journey in Greece. 

On his way back to Jerusalem from Greece, Paul stopped in Miletus, to the south of Ephesus in Asia Minor and called the elders of Ephesus to him.  Paul teaches the elders in the wake of what had occurred earlier in Ephesus, and by what power he did it. 

He says, “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia,  serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews;  how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house,  testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.  And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.  But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.  …for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.  Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”  (Acts 20:18–24, 27b-28 ESV)

Paul knows these overseers at Ephesus will be attacked by those seeking to subvert the way of God to the ways of men. (Acts 20:29-32) In fact, Paul was so gifted with discernment in the Holy Spirit, the ministry to Ephesus continues to them through his epistle to them (the book of Ephesians) and in his encouragement for Timothy to remain at Ephesus.  (Paul’s first and second letters to Timothy)

Paul’s letters to Ephesus and Saint Timothy, give us great insight into the congregation and the pastoral care of it in the face of pagan and Jewish persecution of the way of God.

Through Paul, the Holy Spirit leads the church in this era of transformation.  As the pendulum of change swings, Paul seeks to keep the centrality of the cross before the people of Ephesus. 

Paul places the fulfilment of God’s fatherhood in Jesus Christ before the Ephesian congregation, which is caught between, the fatherhood through circumcision in the Law and its extreme opposite uncircumcised fatherless chaos and corruption.

Through Paul and Timothy, the Holy Spirit seeks to put the brakes on the pendulum swing from Judaism to pagan chaos and disorder in the church.  He does this by encouraging faith in the complementarian order within the church, as God had originally ordained in creation and then corrected and restored in Jesus Christ at the cross.  This is done in the face of “new woman” Artemis cultic worship in Ephesus, which is not unlike the mother earth and egalitarian imbalances pushed in our society today.  Not to mention, the Artemis magic similarities with the powers and principalities of the occult.

During 2024, as the LCANZ considers the expectations put before us in the last Synod, we will do well to further investigate and listen to the work of the Holy Spirit in Ephesus in the book of Acts and through Paul’s letters to the Ephesian congregation and Timothy it’s young pastor.  We know and do this trusting the Holy Spirit will keep us in Christ Jesus so like Paul amongst the Ephesians we can be faithfully testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Further reading: Acts 18:24-20:1, 17-38, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and letters First and Second Timothy, the pastor at Ephesus when Paul wrote to him.