The Amazing Plan of God
Paul was given a captive audience who otherwise would never have listened. It could be that God has placed someone specifically in your life for the sole purpose of hearing the gospel from you. Paul’s imprisonment impacted his followers as they became emboldened by his example. An arrest that was meant to silence and intimidate actually strengthened countless believers to increase their evangelism. The gospel went forth even stronger as a result of Paul’s incarceration.
The apostle Paul knew something about challenges. His circumstances in the context of his letter to the Philippians were terrible enough to create confusion and frustration if not viewed from the eyes of faith! Scripture tells us that Paul was an active man. His travel was constant, his work unending, and his time stretched thin. Yet as he penned his letter to the Philippians, he found himself in chains.
Surely this was a mistake. It had to be. Didn’t God need him traversing the cities sharing the gospel? This just does not make sense from our human perspective. Yet God’s plan was perfect in its timing and circumstance and in the role it played, as the most unlikely converts in that day were now a captive audience. Yes! God planned to advance His gospel in a way no believer could imagine. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:28, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write these words from a heart that had experienced this truth firsthand.
Some may think Paul’s circumstances indicated that the Lord had relegated him to the sidelines during this most dependent and needy stage of the church age. Jesus had returned to His Father’s side, the Church was in its infancy, and Paul was isolated from his spiritual children. How could this be part of God’s perfect plan?
Having established that his imprisonment had actually served to advance the gospel (Phil 1:12), Paul went on to carefully explain in what ways this was true.
Paul and his preaching abilities were not wasted, and God was not in error! Something meaningful was taking place despite Paul’s confinement. A small seed of truth was finding new fertile ground in a small prison cell.
Caesar Augustus established the palace guard and maintained peace in the Roman Empire. It was customary that a prisoner would be handcuffed to a guard while confined. This ensured that escape, as well as privacy, was impossible. However, just as Paul could not distance himself from the guard on duty, neither was the guard to have a respite from Paul! Paul literally and providentially had a captive audience as he continued to share the gospel while in prison.
These men, who otherwise may never have heard about God’s salvation plan, found themselves front and center in Paul’s new ministry. Soon, the whole imperial guard learned that Paul’s imprisonment resulted from his passionate preaching of the gospel.
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The Biggest Disruption to Human Life We Have Ever Seen
Investors see a whole realm of business possibilities. Lots of hardware, including all those 3-D virtual reality helmets, will be needed. Also lots of software. And lots of programming of the different worlds. Some are saying that the metaverse will be the future of fashion, with people spending lots of money to buy impressive clothes for their avatars. And though American manufacturing of actual products has been outsourced to China, corporations are seeing a future in producing “virtual goods.”
We’ve blogged about the Metaverse–which promises to let us live our lives inside shared virtual worlds–concluding that turning ourselves into video-game avatars for work, school, and social life is not an attractive idea. But the corporate world is going all-in on the idea.
Not only has FaceBook changed its corporate name to “Meta,” as it seeks to turn social media into an immersive 3-D environment that can replace even more of your life, Wall Street investors are pouring money into the technology to make that happen.
I was struck by the rhapsodic way that the huge multi-national investment firm the Jefferies Group recommends its clients invest in the metaverse, going beyond money talk to claim that the technology will change life as we know it. From Markets Insider:
Jefferies has said the metaverse will be the biggest disruption to how we live ever seen, as Wall Street bankers warm to the idea of virtual worlds and economies.
Investors need to be thinking about the metaverse as akin to the internet in its early days, according to the firm’s analysts.
“A single metaverse could be more than a decade away, but as it evolves, it has the potential to disrupt almost everything in human life,” the analysts, led by equity strategist Simon Powell, wrote in a Monday note.
“Everything in human life”! Not just work, school, and social life, but entertainment, politics, and religion! Already, in these early stages, a couple has gotten married in the Metaverse, with avatars of themselves taking their vows, avatar children serving as ring bearers and flower girls, and an avatar best man giving a toast before all the avatar guests. (Click the link to see the happy avatar couple.)
Investors see a whole realm of business possibilities. Lots of hardware, including all those 3-D virtual reality helmets, will be needed.
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Music at the GA and the PCA
Written by Terry L. Johnson |
Monday, July 10, 2023
Musicians, vocalists, and choirs have a secondary role, a subordinate role, not even a necessary role (we can sing acapella), what ideally should be a hidden role. They are there to support, encourage, and beautify the singing of the congregation. Recognizing that congregational singing is the divinely authorized element also should determine song selection.Does the PCA in general understand the role of music in the worship of the Reformed Church? The answer must be no if our annual experience at the General Assembly gives any indication. What the Reformation revived was the congregational singing of the patristic church. The medieval church had musical instruments and choirs. They provided the music. Congregations sat mute as the “professionals’ performed. The Reformers rightly restored the singing of the congregation whether hymns (Lutherans) or psalms (Reformed) as one of five essential elements in the ordinary worship of the church. It was elevated to this place of prominence along with the reading and preaching of Scripture, prayer, and the administration of the sacraments. Congregational singing even takes on confessional status in the Westminster standards (WCF XXI.5; Directory for the Public Worship of God, “Of Singing of Psalms).
Yet year in and year out we assemble, 3000 strong, only to have the musicians, vocalists, and choirs overwhelm the gathered congregation.
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How to Really Encourage Your Pastor
Your pastor’s job comes with great responsibility — a responsibility and authority given by the Lord for “building up and not for tearing down” (2 Cor 10:8, 13:10). And it is taxing work, especially emotionally. It can regularly make him groan. These reasons are a real factor in why many pastors burn out. But when we obey our pastors and submit to their teaching — even when it causes us grief at first—we make their role a joy.
Have you heard the old joke about a pastor who has a terrifying dream that he’s in the middle of preaching to his congregation? When he wakes up, he is.
If you’re not a pastor leading a church,1 I’m going to ask you to engage in what you might also regard as a nightmare scenario: imagine for a moment that you’re the senior pastor of your own church. How do you feel about taking on that role? What do you think you might enjoy about it? What would you find hard? And what is just too horrifying to even contemplate? Take a moment. I’ll wait.
Have you ever put yourself in your pastor’s shoes like this before?
In 2 Corinthians 2 and 7, Paul gives us an insight into the emotional life of a church pastor. As he does, we learn some very helpful lessons about the qualities that make someone a good and godly pastor, as well as how we can encourage our pastor — perhaps in a richer way than with a quick throwaway line like “I enjoyed your sermon today”.
Back in chapter 2, Paul explained why he had discontinued his fruitful evangelistic ministry in Troas (which I have reflected upon in a previous article). At the time his “spirit was not at rest” because he was waiting to hear from Titus about how the Corinthian church had responded to the challenging letter Paul had sent them (2:13). He wrote that letter so that when he visited them in person he would not “suffer pain” (v 3). He had written “out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you” (v 4).
You can see in these words the deep concern Paul has for his Corinthian children in the faith, as well as the deep emotional turmoil he goes through as he waits to see whether they respond well to his letter or whether they instead double down on their withdrawal from him as their apostolic father in the faith. Paul is clearly very heavily invested emotionally in the members of this church. He says later in this letter, “You are in our hearts, to die together and to live together” (7:3) and “Apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?” (11:28-29). That sounds like emotional investment to me!
But then he explains in chapter 7 why his disposition has changed and his anxiety has been relieved. He has been comforted by “the coming of Titus” (v 6), who has brought good news from Corinth. Titus conveys the positive response Paul’s letter has received there and the rewarming of their affection for Paul as their apostle (v 7).
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