Jesus taught that the Holy Spirit, otherwise named the Advocate in the NIV, would come from the Father and from Jesus. That this Advocate the Holy Spirit would come after Jesus returned to the Father. This Advocate was going to be sent. The Advocate would not be “God’s JV team” although the Holy Spirit is sometimes thought of in this way. The Advocate would be a tremendous helper, teacher, and witness. Jesus saw his earthly departure and heavenly ascension as a great thing. Jesus’ departure was not to be a source of sorrow, but a source of rejoicing as the helper who would come would come being sent by the Father and Jesus the Son. 

Over the past year I am finding myself over and over going back to the Gospel of John and falling more and more in love with Jesus. I hold no grudges against the other gospels of Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Perhaps this is merely a part of my own journey or a phase, but the way how John reveals who Jesus is grows my affection and confidence in our God.
The verb “send” or “sent” is used 32 times in the Gospel of John. Being “sent” matters as it becomes a question of authority, position, power, and jurisdiction. Think of some children playing together. One of them decides to begin climbing a fence. “Hey, you aren’t allowed to do that!” says one of the other children. “Oh yeah? Who sent you to be in charge?” retorts the climber.
Being sent by someone carries with it weight. Representatives act on behalf of others who otherwise are not present. Those who are sent often bear a message, or act on behalf of the sending party. In John’s Gospel the issue of who sent Jesus is one that continually comes up. “πέμπω” (Pempo is how you pronounce this ancient Greek word) is the word that gets used to denote being sent, or sending.
30 out of the 32 uses of this word are by Jesus (the other two instances are people questioning John the Baptist in 1:22 and John the Baptist in 1:33). While teaching Jesus would frequently refer to the one who sent him:
22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. (Jn 5:22–23)
36 “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. (Jn 5:36)

38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. (Jn 6:38)

16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. (Jn 8:16)

24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. (Jn 14:24)

5 but now I am going to him who sent me. (Jn 16:5)

Jesus was continually referring, revealing, and teaching about the one who sent him. In this way Jesus was sent.

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Written by Thomas R. Schreiner |
Friday, December 16, 2022
All that is evil and defiling in this world will vanish. There will be discontinuity and continuity with the world we live in now. We will still reside in a physical universe, but it will be a world cleansed and purified from all sin. Some have interpreted 2 Peter 3:10–13 as teaching that the present world will be annihilated and burned up and then God will create a new universe out of nothing. This interpretation is certainly possible, but it is more likely that we should understand the burning to denote purification instead of annihilation so that the present world is purified and cleansed and renovated.

What will our heavenly existence be like? Some have envisioned believers as having an ethereal disembodied existence in which we float on clouds and strum on harps, but this picture does not fit with the biblical witness. The Scriptures teach that believers will be raised from the dead (1 Cor. 15:12–19; 1 Thess. 4:13–18) and that we will have physical bodies forever. Resurrected bodies can’t exist without a place, however, and thus there must be a new world that we will inhabit. We are not surprised, then, to discover the promise that there will be a new creation (Isa. 65:17; 66:22; Rev. 21:1), a new world that is free from sin. “The first heaven and the first earth” will pass away, and “the sea [will be] no more” (Rev. 21:1), and then the new creation will come.

The removal of the sea doesn’t mean that there won’t be waters or seas in the new creation. The sea stands symbolically for chaos, for evil, for all that deforms and defaces the present world. The cleansing of the world from evil accords with Romans 8:18–25, where we find that in the present time the created world groans and is full of futility. We see such futility and groaning with tornadoes, tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and other natural evils. The world that God created is good (Gen. 1:1–31), but Romans 8:18–25 teaches that when Adam sinned, both the human race and the created world were marred by sin. Of course, creation itself didn’t sin, but the sin of Adam was not restricted to him. It also affected the world that he had been commissioned to care for and steward. When Adam fell, the world fell with him, and thorns and thistles sprang up (Gen. 3:18).

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Written by Jeffrey A. Stivason |
Friday, September 30, 2022
The response of Habakkuk is not to pull up his bootstraps but to call upon the Lord. He asks him to bring about faith that shall enable him to live. It seems that this is an excellent example of where inducements ought to lead hearers. When they hear them, they should turn to the Lord.  However, it is also a good reminder for preachers and teachers. They are to persuade men, women, and children, yes, but they are to realize that God’s Spirit is the ultimate persuader.  They are only instruments in the hands of the Redeemer. They are not more. But they are certainly not less. May God make his ministers persuasive men.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of pastoral work is the work of persuasion. In other words, how do we persuade others? How do we persuade unbelievers to see the beauty of Christ (II Cor. 5:11)? And how do we persuade Christians to do what they ought to want to do (Heb. 3:12)? The temptation for the minister is to act like a magistrate. However, there is a problem. We don’t have the power of a magistrate. John Chrysostom delineates the difference between the magistrate and the minister in his worthwhile, The Six Books of the Priesthood.[1]He writes,
“For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumbling of sinners by force.  When secular judges convict wrong doers under the law, they show that their authority is complete and compel men, whether they will or no, to submit to their methods. But in the case we are considering it is necessary to make a man better not by force but by persuasion.  We neither have authority granted to us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were, should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by force, but by choice. For this reason a lot of tact is needed, so that the sick may be persuaded of their own accord to submit to the treatment…and be grateful for the cure.”[2]
A page after this quote Chrysostom writes, “But if a man wanders away form the right faith, the shepherd needs a lot of concentration, perseverance, and patience.  He cannot drag by force or constrain by fear, but must by persuasion lead him back to the true beginning from which he has fallen away.”[3]Strikingly, we have an example in Scripture as to how to do this very thing.  The Christians in the book of Hebrews were thinking of deserting the Faith and returning the Judaism. And in Hebrews 10:32-39 we have an example of persuasion.  I’d like to briefly unpack the thought.  In other words, I am going to show the inducements used by the preacher to persuade.
The Experiential Inducement
The preacher encourages his hearers to “recall former days when, after you were enlightened…” In other words, he asked them to remember the early days of their faith when God’s gospel light poured through the windows of their soul (II Cor. 4:6).  Obviously, the days had become difficult.
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