Roots by the River

Posts

"I AM"

by Larry Lucas (continued from 8/31) The four accounts mentioned above are named for their authors: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Mark’s profession is never mentioned, but Matthew was a tax collector, Luke was a physician, and John was a fisherman. Jesus called John to come and follow him at the very beginning of his ministry. He told John he’d make him a fisher of men. So John, along with his brother James, left his father Zebedee in the boat and took out after Jesus. They never turned back. The most explicit statements Jesus made about himself are concentrated in the Gospel of John. It’s there that you’ll most often find Jesus using the defining phrase “I am.” If you want to know what Jesus said about himself, it doesn’t get any more basic and to-the-point than this. Here, from the Gospel of John, is Jesus talking about who he is: “Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty’” (John 6:35...

A Kiss on the Lips

by Larry Lucas Three thousand years ago, a king named Solomon ruled in a land east of the Mediterranean Sea. That was 30 centuries ago. Since then, kingdoms large and small have regularly risen, flourished, and disappeared—and their rulers with them. Of all those kings, few are widely remembered, but Solomon is one of them. The curious thing though, is why he is remembered. Other names endure because of what they accomplished—they conquered, they built, they fended off. Not Solomon: he is remembered for a quality he possessed, and because he possessed more of it than any one before him or anyone since. That quality was wisdom . This post isn’t about Solomon. It’s about Jesus. However, the way you think about Jesus, what He said, what He did, or whether you’ll even give Him a hearing, has everything to do with wisdom—the very quality Solomon owned above all others. Wisdom is not the same as knowledge. The distinction is important, especially in an age when the process of acqu...

Defining Christianity (Part 2)

by W. Robert Smith, Th.D. Christianity is a body of facts, it is the interpretation of those facts, but more than that, it is a way of life. Christianity says something about how a man treats his wife and his child; it says something about whether a man is honest in his work, about how he pays his taxes, how he spends his time, about his attitudes of life, whether he is kind and loving, generous and patient, whether he is jealous or has a self-centered ambition. It says something about his aspirations and the purity of his thoughts, about his relationship to the church of Jesus Christ, about how he loves his fellow men, about how he spends his money and makes his money, about how much he charges for his services. Christianity deals with government, politics, medicine, philosophy. Christianity is a way of life which is supposed to dominate every aspect of a person’s being: "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, and hath...

Defining Christianity (Why It Matters)

by W. Robert Smith, Th.D. Two young men who had fought side by side in the mud and blood of the Anzio Beachhead and were now enjoying life together on a college campus stopped at my desk one day after a class in logic. “Professor,” one of them said, “we are grateful for what you said today, only we wish you had said it about two weeks ago.” This must be a rare day, I thought, as I asked, “What was so interesting about what was said today?” “Well,” he explained, “you were saying how necessary it is to define terms. About two weeks ago we got into a bull session that turned into a hot debate. About three in the morning, when we were getting wild-eyed and desperate, we accidentally discovered that we were using different words to describe the same idea and actually we agreed. If we had thought to define our terms, we wouldn’t have lost that sleep.” These men illustrate the need for clear definition of terms. How often we use two different words for the s...

Reading the Word

“Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near” (Revelation 1:3). Here is a promised blessing to those who read or hear it and take to heart what is written in it. Periodically, I take an informal poll that goes something like this: How long have you been a Christian, in years? How many times do you know that you have read the whole Bible? How many times do you know that you have read all of the New Testament? The last time was a few months ago in an evangelical church in another state. We collected all of the answers, added up the years and divided the total times into the total years. The results were, as I remember, for the New Testament once every four years; for the whole Bible once every eight years. At a men’s conference a few years ago, the results were New Testament once every 17 years, the whole Bible once every 27 years. If we have a conference of cons...

Trusting, Not Seeing

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). It was at a Bible conference in Japan in 1956 where I heard Bill Pape teach on faith. One of his statements stayed with me over these many years. It was, “ Faith requires ignorance .” Recently,* I received a letter from a man named Gary, a Young Life staffer in San Jose. Let me quote them both, starting with Gary. “It became quickly apparent that I had indeed relied very heavily on clarity and detail when it came to seeking God’s answers. Whether for myself or for those I work with, I was guilty of wanting clear answers and direction as the ultimate assurance of God’s will. “I began to consider people in the Bible that God directed. It seemed that in almost all cases He gave them only enough information to take the next step. ‘Leave your family and go to a far country that I will show you,’ ‘Stay in the city for three days until I send someone to you,’ ‘Stay in Jerusalem until I se...