We Don’t Wanna Talk About This
In 2021 American pastor Eric Tonjes wrote Either Way, We’ll Be All Right (NavPress). He and his wife married young, and while still quite young, Elizabeth got cancer and eventually died from it. This book is about his story, and his wrestling with God. I want to highlight one chapter here. Given that I wrote a piece yesterday discussing purpose and meaning, how does cancer fit into this? Is there a reason for it – does God have a purpose in it? Most believers are aware of the famous statement that our chief aim in life is to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.” But with cancer?
In the West at least, the related topics of suffering, grief, dying and death are not something we like to talk about. Sure, these are not pleasant things, so one can understand the reticence. But they are also universal things – we ALL experience them.
In fact, to speak of certain people having a terminal condition is misleading – we all have a terminal condition. Because of the universality of sin, death is universal as well. We will all die. But unless one is going through this, or knows someone who is, we shy away from it and really try not to think or talk about it.
And that includes most Christians. But it should not be this way. We all pay lip service to the truth that ‘this is not our home, we’re just passing through’. However most believers live as if the opposite is true. We avoid thinking about the next life and we put everything into this one.
It often takes some tragedy or illness to get our attention, and to get us to refocus. Cancer – whether in yourself or a loved one – will certainly do that. Millions of people right now are struggling with cancer. Some of it is curable, some not. Some people seem to get through it, yet often remission occurs.
We have friends in this situation. And much closer to home, my own wife is in this boat. While we all know about the word ‘cancer’ and many would know the word ‘metastasis’, it is usually not until it happens to us or someone we love that we really stand up and take notice.
There are different ways to deal with this. If you are like me – a hardcore reader – you will start buying books on the topic. I already have many hundreds of books on the broader topic of suffering and evil, and many of those books would cover practical matters such as dealing with grief. A subset of this would be dealing with cancer.
There are hundreds of books out there on this. Let me highlight just one very good volume. In 2021 American pastor Eric Tonjes wrote Either Way, We’ll Be All Right (NavPress). He and his wife married young, and while still quite young, Elizabeth got cancer and eventually died from it. This book is about his story, and his wrestling with God.
I want to highlight one chapter here. Given that I wrote a piece yesterday discussing purpose and meaning, how does cancer fit into this? Is there a reason for it – does God have a purpose in it? Most believers are aware of the famous statement that our chief aim in life is to ‘glorify God and enjoy him forever.’ But with cancer?
Tonjes cites Isaiah 43:7 among other passages: “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Says Tonjes, “Isaiah’s point is inescapable: God’s purpose, and the purpose of his people, is his glory.” He continues:
How does God’s glory meet our grief? We think that happiness is the goal of life, but happiness is a mediocre purpose. Those seeking it never accomplish much of worth. Given that life includes suffering and, ultimately, death, what we need is a purpose big enough to make that struggle worthwhile. We need something worth laboring for, and there is no worthier goal than God’s glory embodied in our lives.
Pursuing the self cannot sustain us in the face of this world’s brokenness.
-
The Hope of the Gospel Is Someone, Not Something
Written by Kevin W. McFadden |
Monday, November 20, 2023
The Father is indeed our source of peace (Col.1:2). And his work of reconciliation through the death of his Son is the foundation of our future and final hope. Thus the hope of the gospel is Christ. The Father has accomplished our redemption and reconciliation through his Son in order to present us blameless at the final judgment. When he appears, we will appear with him in the glory of his resurrection (Col. 3:4). But until that day he remains hidden in heaven at the right hand of God (Col. 3:1), and our lives are hidden with him as well (Col. 3:3).Christ, Our Hope
What is the hope of the gospel according to Colossians? In a word, it is Christ. Paul tells the Colossians that “the hope of glory” is “Christ in you” (Col. 1:27). Those who have Christ dwelling in them (by his Spirit) have the hope that they will one day share in the glory of his resurrection (cf. Rom. 5–8). Hope is by definition oriented toward this unseen future reality, “for who hopes for what he sees?” (Rom. 8:24). But the hope of the resurrection is also rooted in the past reality of the cross of Christ through which the Father has accomplished our redemption and reconciliation.
Redemption in Christ
In his opening prayer, Paul reminds the Colossians that the Father has accomplished redemption in his beloved Son (Col. 1:14). While redemption can be used to describe salvation generally, here it specifically refers to a payment for our release from captivity.1Paul’s reasoning is fleshed out in Ephesians, a letter probably written at the same time, in which he says that this payment is the cross: “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7).
What was the captivity from which Christ’s blood redeemed us? Paul defines this redemption as “the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14). So the cross has redeemed us from the captivity of the debt of our sins against God. And as a result we are also freed from captivity to “the domain of darkness” (Col. 1:13) or the evil kingdom of Satan. Satan has authority over fallen humanity because of his role in our sins: he tempts us to sin as he did with Eve (Gen. 3:1–5), and he accuses us of sin as he did with Job (Job 1:6–12). People today tend to reject or forget about Satan and demonic powers, but the Colossians were acutely aware of the presence of angels and demons. Perhaps the philosophy promised them deliverance from the threat of demonic powers. But Paul reminds them that the Father had already delivered them “from the domain of darkness” (Col. 1:13), because he had forgiven their sins in Christ (Col. 1:14).
He has also “transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). In Christ, believers are bona fide citizens and heirs of the kingdom of God, for the Father has qualified us “to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12).2 The redeemed, then, are rightly called “saints” or God’s “holy people” now, in the present (Col. 1:2, 4, 12, 26). And we also have hope for the future that at the final judgment he will “present [us] holy and blameless and above reproach before him” (Col. 1:22), provided of course that we continue in the faith (Col. 1:23).3
Reconciliation through Christ
In the famous poem about Christ in Colossians 1:15–20, Paul teaches that the Father has also accomplished reconciliation through the cross of Christ. The word “reconcile” implies the problem of rebellion.
Read More
Related Posts: -
Assembly Required: 25 Reasons to Regularly Participate in Public and Corporate Worship
Written by H.B. Charles |
Tuesday, February 14, 2023
I would go to church if I were not a pastor because I would still be a Christian. There are many good reasons for this. The best reason is that Christ is the head of the church, and the church is the body of Christ. You cannot have a high view of Christ and a low view of the church.A friend and I had a long conversation, a typical discussion that happens when pastors get together. We fixed all of the problems in the church and the world before we got up from the table. Of course, nothing changed when we finished our profound conversation.
After an extended debate about transitions and succession, we considered our future retirements from pastoral ministry, God willing. “When I retire, I’m not going to church anymore,” my friend joked. “I will do like my members and just watch the services via livestream.” My friend assured me that he would faithfully pay his tithes and offerings each week. But he would do so from the comfort of his fishing boat. We laughed. Then the conversation moved on. But the question my friend raised kept gnawing at me.
Would you go to church if you were not a pastor?
There are times I feel like the man who slept in one Sunday morning. His wife insisted he get ready for church. “Give me three reasons why I should go to church today,” he mumbled.
His wife had three ready answers. “First, it’s Sunday and it is your Christian duty to worship. Second, the Lord has been good and we should give thanks for his blessings. Third, you’re the pastor of the church!”
Yes, I am a pastor who is paid to be at church on Sundays. It is my responsibility to be present and prepared. I take these duties seriously. Pastoral ministry has been a vital part of the Lord’s sanctifying work in my life. But I do not go to church merely because I am a pastor who must be there. I would go to church even if I were not a pastor.
I would go to church if I were not a pastor because I would still be a Christian. There are many good reasons for this. The best reason is that Christ is the head of the church, and the church is the body of Christ. You cannot have a high view of Christ and a low view of the church.
I love Jesus Christ. And I love what Jesus loves. Christ loves the church and gave himself for her (Eph. 5:25). Christ is sanctifying the church to present her to himself without spot or blemish. In the meantime, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:24–25).
Read More
Related Posts: -
Knowing the Unknowable God
The chief point of saving knowledge is to know God. And the starting point of the true knowledge of God is to discern how ignorant we are of Him, and to find Him beyond all knowledge.
In Exodus 3:14 the Lord gives a definition of Himself, but such a one as is no more clear than Himself to our capacities. It is indeed a short one, and you may think it does not say much. “I am.” What is there that may not say the same? The least and most insignificant creature has its own being! Yet there is more majesty in this simple style than in all others. Let creatures compare with creatures – let them take superlative styles – let some of them be called good, and some better, in the comparison among themselves. But God must not enter the comparison.
No Comparisons are Valid
Paul thinks it an odious comparison, to compare present crosses to eternal glory (Rom. 8). But how much more odious it is to compare God with creatures! Call Him highest, call Him most powerful, call Him most excellent, almighty, most glorious in respect of creatures – and all you do is abase His majesty, bringing it down to any terms of comparison with them, seeing He is beyond all the bounds of understanding. All these terms only express Him to be in some degree eminently above the creatures. As some creatures are above others, so all you do is to make him the chief of them all, as some creature may be the head of one line or kind under it. But what is that to His majesty? He speaks very differently of Himself. “All nations are before him as nothing, and they are accounted to him less than nothing” (Isa. 40:17).
Certainly you have not taken up the true notion of God, when you have conceived him the most eminent of all beings as long as any being appears as a being in his sight, before whom all beings conjoined are as nothing. While you conceive God to be the best, you still attribute something to the creature. You imagine only some different degrees between beings who differ so infinitely, so incomprehensibly. The distance betwixt heaven and earth is but a poor similitude to express the distance between God and creatures.
Read More
