1 John 5:16-17 — If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death. 

Somebody asked a question about these verses on a Facebook page that I follow. It was a good question … these verses can seem confusing. 

The first thing to note is that the verses are about Christians. If you find someone who isn’t a brother sinning there’s no point trying to deal with the sin until the Holy Spirit has dealt with the sin nature!

The next thing to see is that death can be a consequence of sin. We have to reconcile that with:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

The key, of course, is that John is talking about life after death in his gospel. Salvation brings eternal life, but it doesn’t set aside the earthly death that is the unavoidable consequence of Adam’s fall. In the epistle John is talking of physical death which, it seems, could be a result of sin. But we all (barring one or two mysterious exceptions) go through that — “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27). It seems, then, that John is saying that sin can cause death to come sooner rather than later.

So now we come to the most difficult question. John distinguishes between sin that leads to death, and sin that doesn’t. So what is the sin that leads to death? There’s been a lot of disagreement about it. Church of England clergyman Alfred A. Plummer, in his commentary on the Epistles of John first points out that the Greek text should not be translated “there is a sin”, but “there is sin” and then writes:

‘Sin unto death’, therefore, is not any act of sin, however heinous, but a state or habit of sin wilfully chosen and persisted in: it is constant and consummate opposition to God. In the phraseology of this Epistle we might say that it is the deliberate and persistent preference of darkness to light, of falsehood to truth, of sin to righteousness, of the world to the Father, of spiritual death to eternal life.

That seems right to me. If you have a brother who has slipped into a persistently sinful life, you need to help him quickly … because it is sin leads to death, and no amount of praying will keep safe the sinner who will not repent and return to the right way.

Philippians 3:5-6 — Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

As I wrote about Father’s Day gifts yesterday, I thought today I was going to write about what a man needs to do to deserve those gifts. As I started reading though, I realized something else was happening. 

When you write a book or a movie script it’s a good idea to think about the history and context of central situations and characters. That background is called the back story. As I read around the topic of Paul’s view on fatherhood I realized what I was really thinking about was Paul’s back story — which we really know very little about.

It seems probable that Paul was a Roman citizen. He never actually says so, but Dr. Luke tells us several times in the Book of Acts that Paul relied on his citizenship. It’s not all that clear whether Paul’s background was rich or poor. He worked as a tent maker — but he was educated by some of the leading rabbis of his day.

What is clear is that Paul was a diaspora Jew — his family had left Israel for Tarsus. He was raised as a Pharisee, and the Pharisees were a group of very observant and influential Jews in Paul’s lifetime. 

So this all set me wondering. How do you think the phone call went? (O.K., I know it wasn’t really a phone call!) “Hi Dad? It’s me, Saul. Listen — I just want you to know, I’ve crossed over. I’ve Joined Jews for Jesus. In fact I’m kind of a leader”. Alright, I know that’s a little silly, but I’m not sure Paul’s Pharisee family would have been thrilled by his road to Damascus conversion.

As I thought about Paul and his family relationships I realized what the application was. We get hints of back stories for Biblical leaders as we read through the gospels and epistles. As well as being apostles and evangelists, they were all people with friends and families. There were interactions between their kingdom work and their private lives. It’s the same today. Everyone who is involved in evangelism and discipleship is going to deal with those same interactions. In fact for many of us it doesn’t take anything more than choosing to become a Christian. Suddenly, like Paul, we’re not who we used to be … and the back story takes an unexpected turn!

Philippians 4:19 — But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Over the past few days , as I’ve been thinking about how God designs us, builds us up and then — in the person of the Holy Spirit — occupies us, I have been reminded again and again of how God provides for us. From time-to-time, I find myself contemplating this beautiful verse the comes near the end of Paul’s love letter to his beloved Philippians.
Paul has been praising the Philippians for their generous financial support and now he turns to their own needs. He’s got nothing to give them but knows God never lets anyone be the poorer for taking care of His servants. Paul was so sure that the Philippians’ needs would all be satisfied, because he knew that his own had been.

The way this connects to my thoughts of the last few days is the realization of a definition of what the verse means by “all your need”. Of course I’ve known — if not forever, then for a long time — that God provides for my needs and not for my wants. What I hadn’t really understood is what my needs really might be.

You see, I can reel of a list of “needs” … In fact various well-meaning professionals have been doing it for quite a while. One list is provided by Professor of Political Economy Ian Gough and Professor of Medical Ethics Len Doyal in their book, “A Theory of Human Need.” Their list has the following categories: Adequate nutritious food and water, adequate protective housing, a safe work environment, a supply of clothing, a safe physical environment, appropriate health care, security in childhood, meaningful primary relations with others, physical security, economic security, safe birth control and child-bearing and appropriate basic and cross-cultural education. I disagree (sharply!) with some of those items … but I could provide a similar list of my own. What I now realize is that any such list misses the point!

So what is the ‘all my need” that God will supply? Quite simply, it is all that is necessary and sufficient to complete building me up to be the exact reflection of God’s perfect design for me! Hard though it might be for me to accept, a time of hunger or loneliness or insecurity might be exactly what I need!

God will provide through his riches. In another letter, to the Ephesians, Paul says a little about what those riches are:

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-7)
God will give me all I need — mercy and grace — to make me the man He means me to be. And how will He do it? He will do it, as He does everything, in glory. He will do it, as the passage in Ephesians says, through Jesus, because we are in Jesus.
It is a wonderful thing to think of. God, out of His infinite resources, will give me whatever I need through the agency of His perfect Son, to mold me in His image. 

1 Corinthians 3:9-10 — For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

For the second of my pieces of the steps by which we end up being in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit I want to turn to the “build” step. 

The first thing we might note is that God is the architect … Another way of putting it is that he is the prime contractor. He’s the architect, and the one who manages all the parts of the building process — but some of the work might be delegated to others! In fact Paul describes himself as the master builder, responsible for the foundation. I think it’s like that for all of us. There’s someone who lays the foundation for us, someone who teaches us enough about being a Christian to start building us up.

Once we have a foundation laid, an interesting thing happens. We get to join the work crew! Look what Paul says later in 1 Corinthians:

How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying. (1 Corinthians 14:26)

Did you see that? “Edification” … That means “building up”. The Greek word is “oikodomeo” — building the house.
It is our collective responsibility to build each other up … To build the houses for the Holy Spirit to live in.

If we don’t work with the architect, our building is doomed to fail. All the teaching, preaching, all the good works … none of it will help without proper guidance: “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: …” (Psalms 127:1)

Working with the Great Architect is essential. So is following His instructions! 

“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: .,.

And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:” (Matthew 7:24, 26)

We all work together, building each other up. As we do so, we build the homes for the Holy Spirit to dwell in — and together we build the most beautiful building of all, the church of Christ!

Nahum 3:5-7 — Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock. And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?

Sometimes threads of thought twine themselves together when I’m thinking about these pieces. It was like that today.
Here’s the first thread. For some reason I’ve been more aware of talk of D-Day this year — that 6th of June, seventy-one years ago when the Allied landing on the beaches of Normandy marked the start of the end of the war in Europe. 326,547 Allied troops were involved by the end of the Battle for Normandy. That’s a lot of people committed to letting right prevail.

Here’s the second thread. My lovely Myra has been reading the book of Nahum this week. It’s not, perhaps, the most often read. Nahum is one of those prophets described as “minor” but, as is often said, the only thing minor about them is that their books tend to be short. Nahum might write of God in language as fine as can be found in the Bible, and of the wrath of God in the most graphic language. First Nahum describes God’s protection of those who loved Him and his fury against those who provoked Him. The second chapter describes the fall of Nineveh, and the final third chapter continues that theme, expands on the reasons for it’s punishment and describes the fall of the Assyrian Empire.

Myra has been unable to shake from her mind a conviction that the state of modem Western countries is very like the state of Assyria. I find myself agreeing as I contemplate the present headlong dash into moral degeneracy. How did we fall so rapidly from the heights of moral and physical courage of the D-Day generation?

One thing is for sure — history provides no example of an empire whose fall into moral degeneracy was not followed by ultimate collapse. If we cannot stop the slide, we’d better watch out.

Be very sure, too, that moral collapse is not a cause of disaster — it’s a symptom, even a punishment. It is the punishment Paul writes of in Romans:

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: (Romans 1:22-24)
Do we live in a nation that has provoked God … even rejected Him … Nahum warns us of what’s coming, and we’d better watch out!