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EVERY DAY

May

Isaiah 40–66

June

MAy/Jun 2012

2 Peter and Jude

PHILIP GREENSLADE

Peter Hicks

PLUS …

Weekend reflections on the Psalms, and the Big Picture by Philip Greenslade

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Philip Greenslade Having originally trained for the Baptist ministry, Philip has over 30 years’ experience in Christian ministry. He has worked with CWR since 1991 in the areas of biblical studies, pastoral care and leadership. With his passion for teaching God’s Word, he offers a refreshing and challenging perspective for all those who attend his courses. Close to Philip’s heart are the long-running Bible Discovery Weekends. Course Director for CWR’s recent postgraduate programme in Pastoral Leadership, Philip is currently leading a Pastoral Care course focused on Christian identity and vocation. He is the author of several books including God’s Story, Voice from the Hills and Ministering Angles.

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Peter Hicks Peter Hicks has been engaged in ministry and preparing others for ministry for over 40 years. Born in Bristol, he has pastored churches in the Midlands and the London area, and served on the staff of London Bible College/ London School of Theology where he specialised in philosophy and pastoral theology. He has written a number of books on Christian living and issues such as the nature of truth and the problem of evil. He and his wife Gwen are currently involved in an outreach project in rural Wales.

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• Copyright © CWR 2007, 2012 First published 2007 by CWR. This edition published 2012 by CWR, Waverley Abbey House, Waverley Lane, Farnham, Surrey GU9 8EP England. CWR is a Registered Charity – Number 294387 and a Limited Company registered in England – Registration Number 1990308.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of CWR. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are from the Holy Bible: New International Version (NIV), copyright © 2001, 2005 by Biblica. Used by permission of Biblica®. Other versions: ESV: The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, published by HarperCollins Publishers c 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. NLT: Holy Bible New Living Translation, c 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc. RSV: Revised Standard Version, c 1965, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. The Message: Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

AV: The Authorised Version.

Concept development, editing, design and production by CWR Cover image: Photodisk Printed in England by Linney Print

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Isaiah 40–66 Philip Greenslade Isaiah has been rightly dubbed ‘the evangelical prophet’. He is the herald of the ‘gospel’ in the Old Testament. No part of Scripture more powerfully shapes our understanding of the gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

• Addressing those exiled in Babylon – a traumatic period with events gathering pace from 606 BC onwards – Isaiah raises the sights of his hearers to see that the deepest traumas can yield fresh hope, that beyond the judgment of exile lies new life with God, that they are not to be intimidated by Babylonian power and prestige. God’s scenario of salvation – if only they will see it and believe it – is larger and more lasting than the world-view offered by Babylonian culture and propaganda.

• Finding ourselves in the current exile of the Church in a largely secular society, we may discover how Isaiah reinvigorates our faith so that we can dare to be counter-cultural, and can find out how we might ‘come back home’ in such a situation.

• To this end, Isaiah has stunning visions of servanthood, suffering and salvation that move the heart, rekindle the imagination, renew the mind and revive our belief that God can not only restore His Church but His whole creation too.

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Tues 1 May Isaiah 40

The good news of God

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t’s over. You can go home now.’ So Isaiah announces the end of exile in Babylon – a traumatic period which began around 606 BC and would last until 520 BC. Now God speaks ‘comfort’ (literally,‘to Jerusalem’s heart’, v.2), which is the costly grace of accepting pardon for sin and preparing God’s way to manifest majesty (vv.3–5). Will anything Isaiah says (v.6a) make any difference? Yes, because God’s Word can blow all empires away (vv.6–8). So proclaim the ‘good news’: ‘Here is your God!’ (v.9; see also 52:7ff.; 61:1ff.).

First and foremost, the good news is about God returning with His people to be at the centre of their lives in Zion.

Every mountain will be laid low except the mountain of the Lord (v.9), from which will go forth the news of God’s arrival. In John Piper’s words,‘God is the gospel.’ This God is tough (soldier-like) and tender (shepherd-like, vv.10–11).

Beleaguered exiles need, above all, a fresh vision of God. At once Isaiah shows them a God who is sovereignly independent (vv.12–14). ‘Who has measured …?’ (the more science discovers, the more

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we marvel at God’s creative powers); ‘Who … instructed him …?’ (God is the mastermind); ‘Who taught him the right way?’ (remember this next time you’re tempted to criticise God and say, ‘It’s not fair’).

Our God, furthermore, is incomparable. Earth’s empires are to Him a drop in the bucket (v.15). A bonfire of all the cedar trees in Lebanon would not make an adequate burnt offering for Him (v.16). Avoid man-made gods (vv.18–20), remembering that ‘the essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are not worthy of him’ (A.W. Tozer).

God is not fazed by population explosion (v.22), by powerful world rulers (vv.23–24), by the number of the stars (v.26)!

Here is your God – ‘the Holy One of Israel’. He regards our way (vv.27–28) and never runs out of ideas; He renews our strength (vv.29–31). Exchange your low views of God for Isaiah’s lofty vision; exchange your weakness for God’s strength, and like soaring eagles, relentless runners and tireless walkers, step out into God’s future.

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Isaiah 41 Wed 2 May

Lord of history

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eing a servant is unfashionable. In Isaiah’s world, however, a servant’s dignity depended on his master’s status and was not necessarily a demeaning role.

In commentator John Oswalt’s view, ‘The overarching theme of the book of Isaiah is servanthood’, seeking ‘to answer the question: how can a sinful, corrupt people become the servants of God?’ So Israel is addressed (vv.8–10) as God’s servant people, entrusted with Abraham’s original vocation (v.8b) to bring the blessings of salvation to the whole world.

Sadly, Israel has failed in this mission and, under God’s judgment, is now in exile in Babylon. But, as Isaiah will show, for the sake of His world God will act to save His people on two levels through two agents: • geographically, in the short term, He will get His people back to the land by using a strange agent – the MedoPersian emperor, Cyrus; • spiritually there is a long-term problem to be resolved – that of the deep-rooted human sinfulness that prevents Israel fulfilling its destiny

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and mission. Israel needs not only to be brought back to the land but needs to be brought back to the Lord. And for that another servant will be required who will both embody what Israel was meant to be, and mysteriously do what Israel would never be able to do for its own people or for others – atone for sins by a sacrificial death. Who, we begin to wonder, might possibly fill this amazing role?

Meanwhile God’s exiled people are urged ‘not to fear’ (vv.10,13,14); like a kinsman who assumes a relative’s obligations and debts, so the Lord will act as ‘redeemer’ (v.14).

This is not the end of the story. All God’s people must do is to bear faithful witness to Him, as in a law court, and not be intimidated by the pagan gods which are worthless idols (vv.21–29).

God is the Lord of history. The current international unrest, with Cyrus on the march (vv.1–3), which frightens people into panic production of improvedmodel gods (vv.5–7) is, in fact, God’s doing (v.4).

A servant people’s first task is to trust Him.

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Thurs 3 May Isaiah 42

Modest Messiah

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n this, the first of the so-called ‘servant songs’, we discover what God says about the servant (vv.1–4).

The servant is special (God’s agent, v.1), fully supported by God, secure in being selected by God, Spirit-endowed, with whom God expresses complete satisfaction.

Movingly, Isaiah describes the servant’s manner and method of operation, noting his self-restraint. Public speaker he may be, but the servant will not engage in self-promotion. As for his sensitivity, he handles people like valuable china, his power tempered by goodness. Finding a flicker of hope in every abused and broken personality, he cups hands of love around the needy person as you would around a candle in the wind. Yet his strength of purpose is remarkable. Using subtle word-play, Isaiah promises that God’s true servant will minister to crushed reeds and flickering flames but will himself not ‘break down’ or ‘suffer burnout’ until he ‘establishes justice’ – putting everything right that is now wrong in God’s earth.

God now speaks reassuringly to His

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D servant (vv.5–9), as the God who creates and calls and keeps. From verses 13 to 17 we see that as a champion, God acts with warrior-like zeal, as a childbearer ‘God engages in such a giving of self that only one of the sharpest pains known can adequately portray what is involved for God in bringing to birth a new creation of Israel beyond exile’ (Fretheim). The servant, uniquely, will embody both God’s covenant love and Israel’s obedient covenant response, so fulfilling Israel’s mission to be a light to the nations (v.6b).

But who fleshes out the portrait painted here? Sadly, not Israel, by now tragically as much part of the problem as part of the answer (vv.18–25). The evangelist, centuries later, was in no doubt (Matt.12:18–21) as he portrayed a ‘modest Messiah’ (Dale Bruner).

In G.B. Caird’s vivid image, ‘It was as though Isaiah was publishing an advertisement: “Wanted, Servant of the Lord: all applicants welcome”, accompanied by a “job description”. Except that now we know there was ever only one applicant qualified for the job.’

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Defined by God

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he vision of God’s ideal servant beckons us towards God’s future.

Meanwhile, as Barry Webb puts it, ‘The fact that the Lord has pointed to another and greater servant does not mean that Israel’s own servant role has been abrogated.’ Still God values His people. Whatever flood or fire they may have to endure, God’s people are loved by the Lord, and He promises to be with them (vv.2,5). We surely need to hear this.

Once, when in hospital receiving a blood-transfusion, I reflected on how we are wired up to a ‘Babylonian’ culture, which drip feeds us every day with its own propaganda and worldview. But, thankfully, Babylon does not define us. We can hear God say to us, ‘You belong to the hopes and memories of Yahweh. You do not belong to Babylon; you are mine, not theirs’ (Walter Brueggemann).

So ‘blind and deaf ’ as the captive exiles are, they are still brought forward to bear witness in court to the reality of their incomparable God. Only this God has decreed the Exile and

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it has happened. Only this God can declare the future and bring about a reversal of their situation (vv.10–13).

No god exists before or after Him. His servant people, created for His glory and praise (vv.7,21), are His witnesses in the world.

The God who once parted the Red Sea to make a dry way through a wet place (v.16) will now, in a ‘new and greater exodus’, make a wet way through the driest places, giving ‘streams in the desert’ (vv.19–20), as He leads His people home from exile. So wonderful is this new exodus that it will eclipse even the first exodus, which was so foundational for Israel’s national life (vv.18–19). Although God’s people have burdened Him with their sins, God is a forgiving God who ‘blots out transgressions’ (v.25). The forgiven always have a future.

And when you ‘pass through’ the frontier post, the divorce court, the hospital reception desk, the unemployment agency, remember who you are, who values you and loves you, and hear Him say, ‘I will bring you home.’

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WEEKEND Psalm 115

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The Godward life Truly, ‘the human heart is an idol-making factory’ (John Calvin).

The psalmist echoes the prophetic abhorrence of idolatry (cf. Isa. 44).

This, in turn, is based on the first two commandments, which ban the worship of a false god and the false worship of the true God (Exod. 20:3–4). God is not earthbound (v.3) but transcendent and free. Even His felt absence (v.2) does not tell against His sovereignty.

Anything less is idolatry (vv.4–7).

Man-made objects of worship reflect unworthy thoughts about God, so ‘an idol is anything within creation that is inflated to function as a substitute for God’ (Richard Keyes).

Often we are reluctant to say as does the psalmist that ‘our God is in heaven, He can do what He pleases’.

Rather, we tend to domesticate God, constructing a user-friendly deity who does whatever pleases us.

That idol worshippers become like their idols (v.8) is a back-handed tribute to the fact that we are created in the image of God. Worship an impersonal god and we inevitably diminish our true humanity (cf. Rom. 1:21–23). Idols are con-

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veniently unable to hold their worshippers morally accountable, yet have a strange hold over their devotees; whatever we give our hearts to, eventually controls us. So, as Richard Keyes points out, the symptoms of idolatry are all kinds of obsession, addiction and compulsion. Break the tenth commandment and you break them all, putting self-interest before God. So ‘greed … is idolatry’ (Col. 3:5).

False worship spawns what A.W. Tozer styled ‘the hyphenated sins of the human spirit’: self-love, selfcentredness, self-…whatever. If self-love prompts our substitution of the real God by ‘idols’ then there is only one safeguard: a ruthless determination to say ‘not unto us … not unto us but to your name be the glory’ (v.1). Only this Godward life – the daily bending of heart, mind and soul in God’s direction – will keep our worship true and our lives human. Let us ‘trust’ (vv.9,10,11) the true God and He will ‘bless’ (vv.12,13,15).

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The Big Picture Philip Greenslade gives us a glimpse of how Isaiah, 2 Peter and Jude fit together into God’s story.

Isaiah was perhaps the greatest of the biblical prophets. The book that bears his name has been so influential in shaping the New Testament’s witness to Jesus that from the early days of the Church it has been dubbed the ‘fifth gospel’. This testimony was obscured for a while by a modern critical preoccupation with the three distinct contexts addressed by the book and the supposed three different authors responsible for it. Thankfully there is currently a revived interest in the unity of the book – however it originated – which mirrors a renewed willingness to recognise the unity as well as diversity of the Bible as a whole.

As a result we can more confidently appreciate the inter-connectedness of the stages of biblical revelation, not least between Isaiah, ‘the evangelical prophet’, and the evangelists and apostles. Isaiah’s whole message (especially 40–66) forms the primary seedbed for New Testament theology.

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The ministry of Jesus is best seen as the long-awaited end of exile, with the announcement of forgiveness and the day of grace. This is confirmed by the way in which Isaiah is plundered by the Evangelists to define the ‘gospel’. Mark starts the Jesus story with Isaiah’s ‘wilderness herald’ now identified as John the Baptist who ‘prepares the way of the Lord’ (cf. Isa. 40:9; 42:1; Mark 1:1–11). Matthew, particularly, sees Jesus as the Isaianic bearer of the good news of God’s kingdom of peace and salvation, the one in whom the reign of God takes centre stage again (cf. Isa. 52:7; Matt. 4:14–23; cf. also Isa. 42:1–4; Matt. 12:17–21; 13:11–17). Isaiah 61:1–3 is, for Luke, the Manifesto of the Messiah, Jesus (Luke 4:16ff.). As for John, his unique emphasis on the ‘I am’ statements of Jesus probably derives from Isaiah’s stress on the incomparability of God, the great ‘I am’ (Isa. 40–48).

Paul’s preaching of ‘justification by faith’, at least in part, represents the fulfilment of Isaiah’s hope that God’s ‘righteousness’ or covenant faithfulness would one day act to save and restore

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2 Peter and Jude Peter Hicks Studying the Bible verse by verse is great. But it has one danger: we can get so engrossed in the details that we lose sight of the big picture. So it’s good when working through any book to keep the main theme right at the front of our minds.

2 Peter and Jude are two of the most intriguing books of the Bible. They have a fair amount of material in common, and no one knows if Jude wrote with Peter’s letter in front of him, or if Peter copied from Jude’s letter, or if they both used material from some other source. What’s more, some parts of the letters seem very obscure to us, such as the story of Michael, the devil and the body of Moses (Jude 9).

But in our study of these two books we’re not going to get bogged down in details. For the fact is that both letters have as their main theme one of the most important issues Christians in the twenty-first century have to face, and it’s worth spending a whole month focusing on it. It is the issue of truth.

What is Christian truth? Is the Bible true? What about other religions?

How do we cope when a learned theologian denies the divinity of Christ?

How do we defend the truth in a relativistic age? To these and other questions Peter and Jude give us answers.

Since Jude is shorter and repeats a fair bit of 2 Peter, we’ll spend most of the month with Peter, and then use Jude as a recap.

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Fri 1 Jun 2 Peter 1:1–2

What we’ve got – the truth

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onvention dictated that Peter start his letter with a salutation, telling his readers who was writing, and greeting them with ‘grace’ and ‘peace’. But even in this conventional opening he can’t resist bringing in the key issue on which he’s writing – the vital importance of the truth of the gospel. Whereas in his first letter he called his readers ‘God’s elect’, and Paul used terms such as ‘the church’ or ‘saints’, here Peter writes to those who ‘have received a faith’ (v.1). The phrase is closely parallel to Jude 3 – ‘the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints’ – and is one we need to take very special notice of today.

We live in an age when the meaning of ‘faith’ has been tragically debased.

Faith is seen as something essentially personal and subjective, something I have or feel, and, perhaps as a result, something tenuous and uncertain: ‘I can’t be sure, but I hang on by faith.’ By contrast, faith in the New Testament is rooted in God; it is His gift and His work in us. And since God is utterly trustworthy, faith can be utterly sure.

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Peter and Jude write specifically of ‘a faith’ or ‘the faith’ which has been ‘entrusted to the saints’ and which we have ‘received’. This is primarily the revealed truth of God, summed up by Peter as ‘the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ’ (v.1). And this isn’t something we conjure up; God gives it to us, whole, complete and glorious – in just the same way to us as to Simon Peter (‘as precious as ours’, NIV; ‘of equal standing with ours’, RSV; ‘as valuable as ours’, Phillips).

Revealed truth, however, is never sufficient on its own. Peter had watched as the Jewish leaders had heard and seen all the truth Jesus revealed; but they had refused to accept it. ‘The faith’ has to be welcomed and accepted and lived. When I become a Christian, just as I acknowledge ‘Jesus is Lord’, so I accept the revealed truth of God as the truth, whole, complete and glorious – and authoritative. I entrust my everything to Him and to it, and as I do so I find both Him and it utterly trustworthy.

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Psalm 119:49–56 WEEKEND

Comfortable words As the saying goes, God’s Word comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. This is true, but it tends to endorse a soft view of what God’s comfort is. According to a much used illustration, in the Bayeux Tapestry the caption ‘The king comforts his troops’ refers to a scene where the king is depicted prodding his soldiers forward with the point of a lance! So the ‘comfort’ of God’s Word is tough grace, as it is here (vv.50,52).

How does God’s Word comfort us?

(1) By stirring up our hope.

Such hope often rests on a specific promise (v.49), as it did with Abraham (cf. Rom. 4:18). Indeed, the Scriptures as a whole have this effect on faith (cf. Rom.15:4).

(2) By giving us life (v.50). God’s Word ‘made me alive when I was dead in sin: it has many a time made me lively when I was dead in duty’ (Matthew Henry).

(3) By enabling us to withstand pressure (v.51). As the meaning of the English word ‘comfort’ implies, God’s Word puts strength in us, and so opposition does not deter us from doing God’s will.

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(4) By stocking the memory with God’s past mercies (v.52). The record of what God has done in the past galvanises faith in the present (cf. 2 Pet. 1:12–13).

(5) By clarifying moral vision (v.53). God’s Word enables us to make moral distinctions and to draw lines in the sand.

(6) By inspiring new songs (v.54).

At the start of the Holy Spirit’s current renewal of the Church, Scripture in Song was our new hymn book, and God inspired the wave of singing that flooded the Church and set us on a new path of pilgrimage.

(7) And God’s Word comforts us in the night by bringing God’s revealed name to our hearts (v.55).

As someone has said,‘Don’t doubt in the darkness what God has revealed in the light.’

Comforted, strengthened and emboldened by God’s Word we may, like the psalmist, stay true to God’s Word (v.56). ‘Trust and obey, for there’s no other way …’

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Mon 4 Jun 2 Peter 1:3

What we’ve got – everything we need

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ut, Peter, that’s a fantastic claim. You’re saying that the “glory” and “goodness” and “divine power” of Jesus are so great that when He calls us He gives us everything we need to live a godly life.

To be holy, to serve Him, to be like Him, to stand firm under pressure, to be salt and light in the world – everything we could ever need. Surely if that were really true, Christians today would be much more Christlike and effective in the world?’

‘But it is true. There’s absolutely no lack in God’s provision. He wants us to be holy and Christlike and effective in our Christian lives. He knows what it takes to make us like that; He’s got all the power and resources in the universe, and He’s committed to giving good gifts to His children (Matt. 7:11).

So whatever we need He can and will give us. You may have noticed that I put the Greek word for “everything” at the beginning of the verse specifically to stress this. He’s given us just everything we need.’

‘Then what’s gone wrong? Why do we fail so often? Why, if you don’t mind me

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asking, did you deny Jesus or fall out with Paul?’

‘Because I faced those situations in my own strength, or rather weakness, instead of allowing His resources to carry me through.’

‘So you’re saying that in any situation – opportunity, challenge, problem, suffering, temptation – He gives us what we need to make it through in a truly godly way, but that it’s up to us whether or not we accept what He gives?’

‘Right. It’s the same as with faith. We can choose to see faith as something that primarily depends on us, in which case it’ll generally be pretty small and weak, or as something that’s rooted in Him and is His gift to us, making it amazingly big and strong. In the same way, we can choose to live the Christian life depending primarily on our own paltry resources, or recognising that He’s already provided all that is necessary, and so consciously drawing everything we need from Him. And I know from experience which is the one that works!’

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