Bonded

Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God ~ Romans 1:1

My personal Bible,  the one that I have for,  (ahem) everyday use,  is an NKJV.  It's not through a particular preference for that translation but rather because out of my half a dozen bibles,  it is the only one with print big enough for me to read without my glasses.

And my Bible has some study notes.

It has two notes on this verse.  One about apostleship and one about Paul's  description of himself as a bondservant.

On looking at other translations it seems that this word is also translated as 'Slave' or simply 'servant'.

I have no idea about the Greek,  and were I to have,  I would be reliant on someone else's explanation anyway,  but I like the word Bondservant.

Slave

I am pretty sure,  elsewhere,  that Paul describes Christians as slaves to Christ.

And I think this is true.

He says,  'you are not your own,  you were bought with a price'.

And what a price.

Ransomed from the slavery of sin,  and enslaved only by love and gratitude to freely serve our new master.

But the connotations of slavery can't help but be tainted with this notion of the loss of freedom.

Slavery to Christ is freedom.

But here,  Paul does not choose thats word.

Servant

We are to serve Jesus.  This is obvious.

But yet Jesus tells us. I do not call you servants but friends.

And this relationship is more than that of an employee and employer.

This is not simply some sort of trade off,  whereby we serve Jesus for what he gives us. We have relationship.  We are more than servants.

Bondservant

My notes say,

Bondservant: The word also translates "servant" or "slave" and refers to an employee who was paid wages, often had considerable skills and responsibilities,  and was usually well treated and protected by law
But a Bond servant could not resign and work for another employer. Highly skilled and educated people,  as well as ordinary labourers, were bondservants.

So then,  a special relationship.  One in which loyalty and respect were legally instilled and ensured by both parties.

It's a great picture,  but it doesn't really do the relationship justice.

When I was a kid we used to sing a song which contained the lines,

Pierce my ear,  oh Lord my God,
Take me to your dwelling place,
I will serve no other God,
A free man I'll never be.

Apparently there was a custom whereby a slave,  on their release, could choose to stay and serve their master of their own free will.

This was symbolised by having one's ear pierced against the gatepost of the house.

Symbolically the point of entrance and exit.

We have all kind of notions of slavery.  It is an anathema to this modern world.

To belong to someone is an almost alien concept.

I have heard many times, in TV and Radio dramas, women saying to husbands,  you don't own me,  I'm not your property!

But the truth of marriage is that it is a bond.

We belong to each other.

We are each others property.

And we came here by choice,  enticed by love,  of our own free will.

That concept of covenant has gone from modern society.

But why is marriage a picture of Christ and the church?

Because Christ is covenanted to her,  and her to him,  through his shed blood,  which he shed because he loved.

So when Paul asserts thats he is a bondservant,  I think this is what he alludes to.

He is secure and protected by his master, he is valued and rewarded,  and yet he does it through choice and for love.

Because God had first loved him,  a murderer,  the 'chief of sinners '.

And those who have been forgiven much,  love much.

But in reality,  if we understood it,  all sin being sin,  we have all been forgiven much. We have been forgiven everything,  so you couldn't be more forgiven.

So then we too are bondservants. Committed to him,  bonded through love,  faith and forgiveness for life, which include...

This day,
And all days,

Amen.

I, Paul.

 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God~ Romans 1:1

The inspiration for this new series came to me whilst listening to a Sermon on this very verse, by Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones,  hitherto known as The Doctor. It is fair to say that I am likely to lean heavily on him,  certainly for this first devotion.

It seems to me that to get an entire sermon out of this verse is a bit of a challenge. But I am given to understand that The Doctor Could spend weeks on a verse,  such was his attention to detail and understanding. He even preached,  famously,  on a full stop.  (period to my USA brothers and sisters).

And he points out to us that it is a mistake to rush through the introduction just to get to the meatier bits.  He says we should always pause here and see what God is saying.

Firstly, Paul writes to a church he has never visited. So some sort of introduction is essential. Indeed all of the epistle is,  in some sense,  an introduction.  Paul is laying out his credentials, authority and authenticity through his message.

The Doctor points out,  much as Jesus and the gospel came at exactly the right time,  Paul was exactly the right man.

The roman empire were road builders. Greek was the trade language of the time (the English of its day) and Jerusalem and Israel at the crossroads of the known world.

All these factors came together to bring the perfect conditions for the spread of the gospel. And boy, did it?

God knew the exact time to send his son and bring the gospel.

And here comes Paul. Formerly the Pharisee Saul.

A Roman Freeman,  with the citizenship that enables him to go anywhere in the empire. Literally his get out of jail card on occasion.

A speaker of Greek,  raised in Tarsus,  one of three Greek cultural hubs. Raised in the knowledge of the Greeks,  in their history and philosophy.  A man of great wisdom.

As mentioned,  a Pharisee, (a pharisee of pharisee's) with exacting knowledge of the Jewish belief system,  knowing Jewish arguments better than the Jews themselves. Perfectly placed to challenge Peter,  who was succumbing to the Judaisers. Literally saving the church.
And a man called to the gentiles.

When you think of Paul, more than any other man apart from the man Christ Jesus,  you think of the man who is responsible for your salvation.

And God set this man apart for the Gospel.

I am so,  so grateful he did.

What a legacy.

And yet this man,  with his phenomenal natural gifts says of all that stood in his favour,  that he considers it rubbish that he may gain Christ.

There is no place for glorying in his natural gifts,  for all gifts are from God. The giver of all good things.

You see here at the start,  the perfect meeting of human and divine.  That the scripture comes from a real historical place,  from flesh and blood human authors and yet it is the divine and inspired,  God-breathed word of life.

And all this, all of this,  why?

So that you can be bought to God.

Sovereign God who appoints our time's.

For if Paul was placed,  the right person at just the right time,  then so are you,  for what God has for you to do.

You were born for such a time as this.

Yes. Even the name Paul,  can carry this weight, right at the beginning.

So come closer and lean in to hear what the spirit is saying to you.  Lean in to Romans. The sovereign God of heaven has a plan for you too.

Because here we can meet God,

The God of this day,
And all days

Amen.

What Next?

Welcome back to all my readers.  I hope that you enjoyed my series of devotionals from the book of Revelation.

I am aware, and part of the reason I picked that book is because of this, that Revelation is a path less trodden. Certainly not my go-to choice for devotional reading, or at least it wasn't before I did this series and came to love some of the stunning views of Christ that it contained.

In the last few weeks of the previous series God started to lead me to the next book to blog through, and unlike Revelation, it could not be a more worn path.

But whereas Revelation was something I was wholly (well largely) unfamiliar with, this book is something I am, if anything, over familiar with.

And I think that, a little like how you may start to take a partner for granted to just do what they do, sometimes you have to stop and appreciate that they (speaking from personal experience here) pretty much hold everything together so as to enable you to do what you do.

This book is that. It is like a marriage partner that is virtually carrying you.

There are many fascinating and passionate books in the new testament that explain Christian doctrine, but without this book much of our understanding would simply fall to pieces.

Can you imagine, or would you even want to, a New Testament without Paul's Epistle to the Romans?

If Romans were to vanish I think you might suddenly understand  just how much you depend on it, in the same way as if one of your legs were to vanish.

God has given us all scripture, and it is all God breathed and inspired, but Romans is undoubtedly one of the most important books. For here the apostle Paul lays out his great theological exposition of Christian Doctrine, bringing to it all the weight of his intellect and broad cultural and linguistic understanding, along with the power of the Spirit and the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And it has, almost beyond any other book been instrumental in the Christian Church.

It was The book that was responsible for the conversion of great Christian thinker, theologian and apologist, Augustine, and pertly the basis for his robust defence of the faith against the heresy of the Pelagians. it could be said that in this Romans itself saved the faith, because without it, it would have surely succumbed.

It was also vital and essential in Martin Luther's rediscovery of the tenants of the doctrine of Justification by faith alone, which in turn sparked the reformation.

It was Martin Luther's commentary on the Epistle that was being read that amazing night when John Wesley felt his heart 'Strangely warmed'. And the result of Wesley's ensuing spiritual awakening was to have a profound affect on many, many lives. Not least mine, because it was Wesley's preaching that lead to the conversion of my great, great, great (I forget exactly how many 'greats' but you get the picture) Grandad. My Father was the first in our line to leave Methodism, but the line of faith from father to son has been unbroken since, by the grace of God.

Yes. Because of the Book of Romans and because of it's depiction of what our wonderful lord Jesus has done for us.

These are just three of the biggest examples but there are many more people who have been profoundly impacted by the book of Romans.


So I want to encourage us , this morning and going forward, to be grateful for this wonderful book and to be inspired afresh by some very familiar truths and see them in a new light. And perhaps see some things that we have never seen before.

To look at it in wonder because it shows us Jesus, and Jesus is at it's centre and is it's divine inspiration and spiritual author, through a man called...

 Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God,

By The grace of God,

The same grace that calls us,
and saves us,

This day,
And all days,

Amen

Amen

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” ~ Rev 22:17

Something I have tried to practice more recently in my personal prayers is to incorporate the things that The Bible specifically tells us to pray for.

So, for example, I regularly pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
I also pray (though this is not an instruction but is clearly at the heart of Paul's teaching) that 'All Israel would be saved.'

Both of these things would have sat a little uncomfortably with me five years ago, when my stance on Israel and all things Jewish was considerably different.

Of course I have no problem (and never have had) with Jews getting saved. On the contrary, I have always thought that a marvellous thing. And I have never been anti-Semitic. I love Jewish people and culture. After all, I owe so much of my heritage to it. And my Jesus was Jewish, and, though I am not sure race has any feature in heaven, he is still Jewish.

But my problem was more jealousy. I suppose I felt inferior, and coming from an insecure place that has been an issue. So my problem was never with Jew's but with the kind of Christians that almost have a reverence for Jews themselves, as if they were some kind of super-race.

I said then, and still say now, that what makes the Jews special (apart from being special in all kinds of cultural ways, in which many cultures are special) is that God chose them.

In my last life-group there are a few of these people who are Jewish groupies. And woe betide you if you say anything to criticise Israel.

And my point was, and often is, that Israel can do wrong just as much as any other nation, and still needs to come under God's righteous standard. They don't have some kind of immunity to behave in any way they see fit simply because they are the chosen people.

But I had become so antagonistic to these Christian Zionists that I almost lost sight of God in it.

And a couple of friends challenged me strongly over my attitude. And they bought me back to scripture.

God blesses those who bless Israel.
God is a covenant keeping God, above all things, and he will not break his promise with the Jewish people.
He loves them still.
And so I came tom a new place of humility on this subject. I needed to bow to God and check my attitude.

And further more, to renew my mind. As Bob Dylan put it, change my way of thinking. 'Get myself a different set of rules'.

So Now I pray for Israel most every day.

Why?

Because God want's me to, and I love him.

And with that, my heart has changed.

Now why have I shared all this when talking about the return of Christ?


The instruction is clear.

The Spirit and the Bride say 'Come'.
So this is the cry of God himself and of the church. A yearning for Christ to come.

But do I want that?

Do I really want that?

We are told; 'Let all who hear say 'Come'.  So this is an instruction.

And who are we saying 'Come', to?

To Jesus.

So it is a prayer. A prayer and a command to prayer. 

I have now started to pray for this daily.


Let me be clear. My feelings towards the second coming clearly delineate my attitude to the next world in relation to the current one.

In short, the temptation to me is to love this world and to hold onto it. After all, on the surface level, it is all I have known.

And yet we are told not to love our lives so much as to shrink back from death. I would go as far as to say that this is the key message of Revelation.

No one is suggesting we ought to be suicidal, or long for death, as such. But there is a sense in which we should never be too comfortable here. 

As the old song says;

This world is not my home, I'm just passing thorough.

This, for me, is the same as my former attitude to Christian Zionists, and by default, to Israel, in that it needs to change. Our minds and hearts need to be renewed.

I believe that this is, in large part, why we are instructed to pray for the second coming.

we are promised;  “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.


And Jesus told us back in the sermon on the mount that Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.This prayer checks out where our treasure is, and therefore where our hearts are at too.

Is our treasure here and now in this life?

Or is it the reward that Jesus brings with him? (as If his coming wasn't reward enough).

This is the end of my blogging adventures in Revelation, and next week I will be back with a new series,
So I thought that there was no better way to end this blog than with the words at the end of the Prophecy we have been studying and give the Amen to the prayer we are instructed to pray.

 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

Yes, his grace be with us,

This day,
And all days,

Amen
.

 

Coming Soon

⁶ The angel said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God who inspires the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.”

⁷ “Look, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll.”~ Revelation 22:6-7

Now, there appears to be an elephant in this prophecy.

And given the appearance of dragons and beasts and angels, an elephant seems almost unremarkable.

But the phrase 'an elephant in the room' refers to something huge and unignorable that people are somehow avoiding to mention,  though they obviously all have noticed.

This Elephant is the word 'soon'.

One of my favourite bands, the smiths, have a track called 'How soon is now? '

The question for us is often 'how soon is soon?' 

Jesus lived,  died and rose again over 2000 years ago. This prophecy was written about 70 years after that. 

So how soon is soon? 

There are so many clichés I could use,   to the effect of saying that it is sooner now than it was then. 

And it is quite clear that the apostles and writers of the New Testament really did expect it to be within their lifespan. 

The Jehovahs witnesses actually went out on a limb and gave a date for Jesus return.... 

Which came...

 and went....

....and was reinterpreted to mean some sort of spiritualised version, that he had come and yet somehow we hadn't noticed... 

But he will come again,  again.

I have to confess,  I struggle to really be expectant. I almost take the view that it will almost certainly NOT happen in my lifetime. 

But then I look at the speed of developments in the middle East, and I have to concede,  you just never know. 

You never know. 

And that. Surely is the point. 

When I was a teenager I was often delighted to be left alone in the house. 

My Mum would tell me she was going shopping or something,  and I would deduce that she would be so long or at least this long (however long that was)  or maybe longer. 

How long will you be?  I would ask. 

And her answer was always vague. 

You never know how long. 

And then, once she had gone, I would do all the things in her absence that I could not do in her presence. 

I would smoke out in the garden.  I would help myself to something from the liquor cabinet (usually a sherry) and I would rummage through my parent's bedroom,  hallowed ground that I was not allowed access to under normal circumstances. 

And once in a while, mid sinning, I would hear the unexpected but dreaded noise of tyres on the tarmac of our driveway. And sheer terror would beset me.  Rapidly closing the draw. Locking up the cabinet,  spraying air freshener /deodorant. 

She was back Early!! 

Sometimes it was after a few minute having forgotten her purse.Sometimes me little sister had been whining a lot and she had called it a day earlier than expected. 

But the point is, after being caught out, I knew I had to be ready to cover my tracks quickly. 

Yeah. I was a nightmare. 

I saw a T-shirt once with the slogan at the top, 

'Jesus is coming'

And below it said ;

Look busy. 

I suppose,  and it's almost crass to say it,  God wants to keep us on our toes. Jesus himself said that 'no man knoweth the day or the hour'.

Only the Father. 

But he does hint than it will be unexpected. 

It will also be unmissable. 

Every eye will see him. This will be a truly global event. 

But Revelation gives us prophetic warnings so that although we could almost convince ourselves that's it isn't going to happen,  we see historic and world events are all understood and predicted by God. And nothing is outside his control. 

This is still in hand. 

The verses in question today tells us 'I am coming soon.  Blessed is everyone who keeps the words of this book .

The promise is two fold. Yes it is definitely a warning.

Later in verse 12 he says 'I am coming quickly and my reward is with me to give to everyone according to his work. 

Now if Mum had caught me with my hand in hand in the liquor cabinet,  she would have rewarded me according to my works.  It can't help but be a warning. 

But those who are of Christ will not fear that judgement. 

The reward they look for it primarily his presence and favour. 

The reward on offer here is directed primarily at those who have been holding on faithfully in there face of great trouble. Even persecution. 

That is why he says blessed are those thats keep the words of this book. The second purpose of the promise.  To bless us. 

It prepares us. It strengthens us. 

The message is; have a good confession and don't give in,  even in the face of persecution and yes,  even death.

Overcome with the word of your testimony,  the blood of the Lamb and with not loving your life so much as to shrink back from death.  

And there is nothing wrong with being kept on your toes. 

If it was soon then, then how soon is soon now? 

And you will be blessed as you keep these words and hold fast to the faith. Blessed. 

Blessed this day, 

And all days. 

Amen. 

The River Of Life

 Then the angel showed me the riverof the water of life, as clear as crystal,flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.~ Revelation 22:1-2

I don't know whose job it is to give paragraph headings but the one used here in the NIV is Eden Restored.

I suppose that is derived from the Tree of Life being on both sides of the river.

And I suppose that the symbolism us showing that it is accessible,  which ever direction you approach from.

The key to the River is that it flows from the throne.

GOD is it's source.

The vision of the river has it's origins in Ezekiel's own vision (Ez 47) except that in Ezekiel's version the river flows from the temple.

But as we saw in chapter 21 God himself is the temple.

And whereas in Eden there were two different trees, (one of life,  and one of the knowledge of good and evil) here both trees bring life.

Where as the fruit of one of those tree's was responsible (as if the tree itself could bear the responsibility) for the fall of Mankind, and the coming under the curse of the whole world, instead, here the whole world is to be healed by it's leaves.
"No longer will there be any curse." v3

This us truly, truly exciting.

Not a day of your life,  not one single second of your,  or any other human's life in all of history has been lived in a world free from the curse. Not since Eden.

Sure as Christians, in Christ,  we are no longer subject to the curse,  because he became a curse to redeem those living under the curse. 

But we have never lived in a world free from it.

How staggering is it to think that this will end.

Think what the curse bought with it.

Shame.

Sin.

Decay.

Death.

Sorrow.

Pain.

Those aches and pains that are like white noise in my body.  Just background pain that I have become accustomed to.  That tinnitus that I can hear at anytime if I focus on it.  That hunger for food which never goes and is never fully satisfied,  because without it I would die.
That hunger and craving for honour and significance and love which dominates so much of my motives,  conscious and subconscious.

Gone.

I cannot even imagine.

Can you?

And all this healing coming from the tree of life,  and the tree of life,  fed and sustained by the river of life,  and this river flowing from the Throne,  the rule of Jesus Christ over all that was made by him,  through him and for him,  and sitting on the throne,  The lamb of God,  who took away the sin of the world and laid down his life.

He became a curse to redeem those living under the curse.

My son used the name Jesus Christ last week,  in a way he has heard people do in movies and at school.

He was shocked at my reaction, so common place as that kind of use of his name is.

Yes.

Jesus became a curse.

As it was written.  Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

And he hung there. Cursed and being cursed.

Becoming a curse.

To this day he is known as 'the cursed one' amongst Jewish people.

But the day is coming when his name will be honoured.

Blessed Jesus.

And the day is coming when there will no longer be any curse.

Lord,  give us this hope,

This day,
And all days.

Amen.

Treasure of the Nations

 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. ²⁵ On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. ²⁶ The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.~ rev 21:24-26


When I look at this passage, I am brought back to those words spoken early in Genesis, to Abraham. I will make you a great nation, and through you all the peoples of the earth will be blessed.

It's strange that a promise to one individual to make his family great, a promise that leads to us using the term 'Chosen People' when we speak about the Jews, should seem at once to single out one nation for special favour, but actually be about blessing all nations.

I will bless you, God said, and you will be a blessing.

In short, what seems to be exclusive was really a vehicle for the truly inclusive.

Ask of me, it says in the psalms, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance. Jesus was given all the peoples of the world as his inheritance, and we are told many times that the gospel is to be preached in all the world, discipling nations, because God is calling to himself a people from every tribe and tongue.

We see that God has love for all mankind.

I used to struggle with the idea that the Jews were God's chosen people, until a Jewish believer showed me that God had called the Jews to be a light to the gentiles.

God chose the Jewish people to demonstrate to the world His Faithfulness. And through them , and Jesus particularly, he has blessed all people.

Race is not an issue. All peoples can come freely to their God, and in the holy city the doors will never be closed to them.

And because God is a covenant keeping God, as is demonstrated in his faithfulness to Israel, he keeps his promises.

If we look through scripture we see these promises again and again.

 

“Great and marvelous are your deeds,
    Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
    King of the nations.^[a]
4 Who will not fear you, Lord,
    and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
    and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

Indeed this song of Moses and of the Lamb (From chapter 15) contain references drawn from many places (Psalm 111:2,3; Deut. 32:4; Jer. 10:7; Psalms 86:9; 98:2.)

Isaiah 60 in particular, is fulfilled here in Revelation.

“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
² See, darkness covers the earth
    and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
    and his glory appears over you.
³ Nations will come to your light,
    and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

 

And again in verse 11;

 

Your gates will always stand open,
    they will never be shut, day or night,
so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations—
    their kings led in triumphal procession.

 

I was listening to a sermon yesterday, by the great preacher Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in which he highlights God's hand over history, which is demonstrated through the scriptures. From the time that it was prophesied that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head until the deliverer actually came took four thousand years. He points out that hundreds of years would pass and people would think that God has forgotten, but then God would do something incredible and it would be obvious again to forgetful, short-lived humanity, that he was still working out his plans and his purposes.

With that in mind he says;

 

"Are you troubled by something that is happening in the world today? Well put it in the context of the old testament. 
I was never worried for a second about a man like Hitler. It was enough for me to read the thirty seventh psalm, and there I read of a man like him, spreading himself like a green Bay tree, like a sort of a colossus striding the whole earth, and I read of a day when a man wanted to go and see him and speak to him..., and couldn't find him. Searched everywhere for him but couldn't find a trace. 
 

He'd vanished!

Why?

GOD had blown upon him. 
 
The old testament is full of that sort of thing."


You see, God has NEVER forgotten a promise. His broad and generous love, extended to all the peoples of the earth will be worked out, in spite of the turmoil we se about us.

Look at the world today, and Israel's position in the middle east. On the 14th of May 1948 the state of Israel was declared after two thousand years of expulsion. Yes 70 years ago, Israel did not exist.

The man who was used to bring this about was the man of whom Dr Lloyd-Jones spoke of. The man Hitler, whose purpose was their extermination.

Don't think because you cannot see what God is doing that he is not at work in the world.

He is loving.

He is faithful.

This day,
And always.