We observed yesterday that through Jesus we have moved from “priests in a place” to “priests in ALL places.” We are the priests, and it’s our job to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2.9)

I just discovered a marvelous story, reported by World Magazine about Denver’s own Randy Gradishar, who was just inducted into football’s Hall of Fame last week. It’s embarrassing to read about this in a national publication, but if this story was covered locally, I don’t know by whom. Anyway, here it is:

Randy Gradishar on Saturday dedicated his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in a Saturday speech at the hall in Canton, Ohio. The former linebacker was there to be remembered as a member of the Denver Broncos’ “Orange Crush” defense in the 1970s. Gradishar referenced a recent sermon series his pastor preached on the book of Nehemiah about individuals who make a difference in the lives of others and the world around him. Gradishar characterized his wife and his parents as difference-makers in his life, but credited one person with giving him the best invitation he’d ever received.

What exactly was that invitation? Former NFL running back Archie Griffin, who attended Ohio State University alongside Gradishar, invited Gradishar to a campus Fellowship of Christian Athletes Bible study. Gradishar grew up in church but never heard the gospel of salvation preached to him, he said. At that FCA meeting, he heard that gospel for the first time. During his Hall of Fame speech decades later, Gradishar credited that Bible study with teaching him four truths...

At the age of 22, Gradishar accepted Christ as his Savior. Fifty years later, at the Pro Ball of Fame on Saturday, Gradishar thanked Griffin for inviting him to that Bible study. – Josh Schumacher, World Magazine, August 5, 2024. (The whole article includes a summary of what some of you will recognize as “The Four Spiritual Laws.” The “speech” link above connects with the official Hall of Fame story and includes a link to Randy’s entire speech.)

Randy Gradishar, former linebacker for the Denver Broncos, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, August 3, 2024.

So this blog is a shout-out, not to Randy Gradishar, but to Archie Griffith, who, as a sophomore, invited his teammate, Randy Gradishar, a senior at the time, to a Bible study. Archie was one of God’s “priests in ALL places,” even a football team at Ohio State University.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2.9, ESV)

We are thinking of Jesus as priest, a distinctive concept in the book of Hebrews, even while reminding us…

Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. (Hebrews 8.4, ESV)

But Jesus is a special priest which Hebrews chapters 8 – 10 goes into in great detail, contrasting the Old Testament tabernacle system with what that system foreshadowed. I just want to capture a few highlights. The basic theme is that we are moving away from “priests at a place.”

But Jesus’ priestly work far surpasses what these other priests do, since he’s working from a far better plan. If the first plan—the old covenant—had worked out, a second wouldn’t have been needed. But we know the first was found wanting, because God said,

Heads up! The days are coming when I’ll set up a new plan for dealing with Israel and Judah. I’ll throw out the old plan I set up with their ancestors when I led them by the hand out of Egypt. They didn’t keep their part of the bargain, so I looked away and let it go. This new plan I’m making with Israel isn’t going to be written on paper, isn’t going to be chiseled in stone; This time I’m writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts. I’ll be their God, they’ll be my people. They won’t go to school to learn about me…They’ll all get to know me firsthand, the little and the big, the small and the great. They’ll get to know me by being kindly forgiven, with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean. By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf…. (Hebrews 8.6 – 13, MSG, emphasis mine)

The new plan is so important, the author repeats it, again contrasting it with “priests in a place:”

Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem. As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then he sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in. It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process. The Holy Spirit confirms this:

This new plan I’m making with Israel isn’t going to be written on paper, isn’t going to be chiseled in stone; This time “I’m writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts.” He concludes, I’ll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins. Once sins are taken care of for good, there’s no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them. (Hebrews 10.11 – 18, MSG)

The new plan was foretold by Jeremiah:

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31.33, 34, ESV)

And it happened through Jesus – not priests at a place. Hebrews is offering us a behind-the-scenes, “this is how things work” look at what happened on the cross.

But when the Messiah arrived, high priest of the superior things of this new covenant, he bypassed the old tent and its trappings in this created world and went straight into heaven’s “tent”—the true Holy Place—once and for all. He also bypassed the sacrifices consisting of goat and calf blood, instead using his own blood as the price to set us free once and for all. If that animal blood and the other rituals of purification were effective in cleaning up certain matters of our religion and behavior, think how much more the blood of Christ cleans up our whole lives, inside and out. Through the Spirit, Christ offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice, freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God. Like a will that takes effect when someone dies, the new covenant was put into action at Jesus’ death. His death marked the transition from the old plan to the new one, canceling the old obligations and accompanying sins, and summoning the heirs to receive the eternal inheritance that was promised them. He brought together God and his people in this new way. (Hebrews 9.11 – 17, MSG)

Therefore…

Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out…spurring each other on… (Hebrews 10.24 – 25, MSG)

So it’s not “priests in a place,” but it’s priests in ALL places! WE are the royal priesthood, encouraging one another, spurring each other on, reminding each other that we are exiles.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light…Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. (1 Peter 2.9, 11, ESV)

Priests, “proclaiming the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” I have a hot-off-the-press example. Stay tuned.

If you’re in the reading program, you’ve noticed several references and nearly an entire chapter devoted to “Melchizedek.” Say what? Who is he, and why does he matter?

It’s often said, although I know of no single scripture that states this, that Jesus is “Prophet, Priest, and King.” We’ve seen Jesus as prophet, and he even announced himself as king. But priest? Hebrews is the only book to address this subject, beginning early:

That’s why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people’s sins… (Hebrews 2.17, MSG)

But what kind of priest? He couldn’t be king (in the line of David of the tribe of Judah) and priest (descended from Aaron of the tribe of Levi) at the same time. The author of Hebrews explains, quoting a Psalm:

So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him… “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 5.5, 6, ESV, quoting Psalm 110.4)

We have another short reference in Hebrews 6 and then most of Hebrews 7 is given to explaining and drawing applications from the story of Melchizedek which occurs after Abraham’s (still called “Abram” in Genesis 14) defeat of the kings who had defeated Sodom and captured his nephew Lot:

After [Abraham’s] return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. (Genesis 14.17 – 20, ESV)

That’s it. There’s nothing more about Melchizedek in Genesis and only the short reference in Psalm 110.

Hebrews 7 goes into detail about Melchizedek and shows how Jesus is a priest of that order – not the Levitical order, especially since “death prevents them from continuing in office!” (See Hebrews 7.23)

• Jesus always lives
• Jesus is holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens.
• He doesn’t offer the sacrifice daily but rather once for all
• Jesus is “perfect forever”

Jesus is better than the priesthood and the law which establishes the priesthood.

As I read Hebrews 9, perhaps the real significance of Melchizedek comes through even though he is no longer mentioned. It talks about the place and the rituals.

Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared…[and] the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. (Hebrews 9.1 – 7, ESV)

Melchizedek had neither place nor rituals. He met Abraham outside, served him bread and wine(!), blessed Abraham, and Abraham gave him the tithe. That’s it. 

Jesus fulfilled the place and the rituals:

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9.24 – 26, ESV)

We continue to complicate what Jesus came to simplify. He’s the high priest, and the rest of us are all priests – 1 Peter is clear about that – and our work is “outside” also.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2.9, ESV)

Portions of this blog first appeared on March 19, 2022.

Sometimes something pops up that’s too good not to share…

A few days ago I heard from a young man I haven’t talked with in probably 15 years. (Probably not quite so young anymore!) He asked me if I had taught him a 5-step process for decision-making and suggested what several of the points might have been.

I responded that I didn’t remember that I had such a template, but I sent him some preliminary thoughts. The next day, I was continuing my reading in a marvelous book on prayer, and and an answer to his question popped out. I sent him a follow-on letter, most of which follows:

My brother,

I’ve come to a bit more clarity…

I was reading the excellent book: Lead with Prayer: The Praying Habits of World-Changing Leaders by Skoog, Greer, and Doolittle. In the chapter on “Leaders Listen,” there are these snippets. First from John Wesley:

John Wesley had his own tool for confirming God’s voice, later named the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Wesley taught that there are four elements that together help confirm direction: 

• Scripture first and foremost 
• Christian experience 
• Wisdom of Christian tradition through the ages 
• Godly reason

The direction we receive in prayer—the impressions and nudges—must be tested against these four authorities, which provide guardrails for us as we listen for God’s voice. And even after the direction passes these tests, Scripture gives us another “runway light”: our Christian community. Page 104, bullets mine

The chapter closes with counsel from George Mueller:

As we seek to listen well, we’ve found these practical steps from George Müller instructive.

1. I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine-tenths of the trouble with people generally is just here. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord’s will, whatever that may be. When one is truly in this state, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is.

2. Having done this, I do not leave the result to feeling or a simple impression. If so, I make myself liable to great delusions.

3. I seek the will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.

4. Next, I take into account providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God’s will in connection with His Word and Spirit.

5. I ask God in prayer to reveal His will to me aright.

6. Thus, through prayer to God, the study of the Word, and reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment according to the best of my ability and knowledge; and if my mind is thus at peace, and continues so after two or three more petitions, I proceed accordingly. In trivial matters, and in transactions involving the most important issues, I have found this method always effective. Page 106, 107

Thus, we have a 5-point, P-centered outline:

• Prayer (listening for the Holy Spirit)
• Precept (the scripture)
• People (the Christian community)
• Providential circumstances
• Peace

END OF LETTER

It’s a simple list, which in real life would take practice to do well, but it’s a good framework.

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (Isaiah 30.21, ESV)

I like to read The Message from time to time. Its fresh approach often breathes life into a familiar text. If you’re a regular blog reader, you’ll notice it’s my primary text for this year’s readings. Every now and then I’m criticized in a workshop for suggesting it as a reading option, but my response is always the same: “If you don’t like The Message or any other translation I recommend, don’t read it. But be sure you read something. There are no ‘points’ for NOT reading a particular translation!”

I like The Message, but I think Eugene Peterson missed it in this paragraph in Hebrews. I like the beginning but not the end:

I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby’s milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong. (Hebrews 5.11 – 14, MSG)

“You’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening” is way better than “dull of hearing.” But, the last sentence is not quite what the text says. According to the standard translations, it’s not “right from wrong,” it’s discerning between “good and evil.”

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5.14, ESV, emphasis mine)

I associate “right from wrong” with the folks who work hard at their “doctrine” – they want to get their theology just right. But “good from evil” sounds more like behavior and character, way more important values.

Decades ago when my daughter was a little girl, there was TV preacher holding forth. I don’t remember who he was nor why I had it on. I was listening to his content, making sure that what he said was “correct.” Melody listened to him for a few minutes, then looked up at me and said, “Daddy, why is he so angry?” A good observation that I had missed.

Often some of the most vitriolic behavior and all-around lack of love by believers is directed at other believers who disagree with them on some minor point of theology. We need our “powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. “The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer…You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.” (Matthew 23.1 – 3, 23, MSG)

Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2.23 – 26, ESV)

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13.34, 35, NIV)

We just noted that a main theme of Hebrews is “Stay with it,” and Sahil Bloom recommended a fantastic article that’s too good not to share: Repair and Remain: How to do the slow hard work of staying put by Kurt Armstrong. It’s long and worth the read in its entirety. Here are Sahil’s takeaways:

• Repair the small things before they become big things.
• Make the minor upgrades that keep your life feeling fresh.
• Work with what you’ve got, learn to appreciate what you’ve got, and don’t fall for the “shiny object” trap.

The following snippets jumped out at me:

…for twelve years now I’ve had a hybrid operation, juggling a one-man autodidact home-repair business and part-time lay ministry at a little Anglican church in Winnipeg. My basic MO in both roles is simple: repair and remain.

Note: home-repair business and part-time lay ministry. He juxtaposes these in the remainder of the essay.

…Odds are the house you’re in right now needs a few updates and minor upgrades, and I’d be happy to help with whatever you need done: add some new windows, open up some walls, replace the old basement stairs, tile the backsplash. Repair and remain.

Same with pastoring: no point thinking you need a brand-new life, but, well, let’s not kid around—you could use some serious updates and upgrades yourself.

Let’s say time comes to gut and renovate your bathroom: I can help you with that—demolition, framing, reworking the plumbing, moving some electrical, installing some mould-resistant drywall, maybe some nice tile for the floor and some classic glazed ceramic three-by-six subway tile for the tub surround. Should take a month or two, depending on what all’s involved. And as for you, hey, for the sake of your wife and kids, I think you better quit the flurry of furtive late-night texts to the sexy young co-worker and cut back a bit on your recreational drinking because wine is a mocker, so goes the proverb, as if those Facebook posts of you at the bar last week weren’t proof enough.

Repair and remain. Work with what you’ve got. Sit still for a moment, take stock, make some changes. Big changes, if necessary.

…

Over the past dozen years I have had hundreds of pastoral conversations, mostly with young men, about the challenges of family life. They tell me it’s exhausting, that there’s no more free time, that they’re having a hard time setting aside their dreams and wishes, that kids can be unbearably frustrating. I get it. They tell me that the marriage isn’t what it used to be, that they don’t really have anything in common anymore, that the passion’s gone, that she isn’t who she used to be, that the sex isn’t what it used to be, that they’re tired of all of it. I sip my coffee and nod in agreement with every word. I understand. I feel it too. It’s the same at my house. Marriage is hard.

But when they say, “I’m thinking of leaving,” I think, Now hang on a sec. You had me right up to that last bit. Fine: you’ve changed; she’s changed; life has changed. And the kids—well, they’ve disrupted, interrupted, confronted, confounded, and otherwise fundamentally altered everything. All very, very hard. And yes, sometimes it feels impossible. I know what it’s like to feel trapped, and my wife undoubtedly knows what it’s like to feel trapped, because she’s stuck with me, the more irritable and moody ingredient in our marriage. But you’re thinking of leaving? What is that going to fix?

We have, all of us and to varying degrees, been duped by the sales pitches, the flashing cascade of advertisements traipsing through the sidebar. That jam-packed flow of ads is full of shiny new things, new techniques, new experiences that promise to finally alleviate the so-far insatiable, burning, lonely, primordial ache. Bono laments, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” Springsteen cries out, “Everybody’s got a hungry heart.” k.d. lang bemoans the “constant craving.” Augustine says, “Our hearts are restless.”

…

So it goes. I’ve said it more than once to some guy across the table who tells me he’s planning to leave his marriage: You should stay. Sit in the awful, agonizing sorrow of it all, and figure some things out. Your life is very hard. I know you’ve thought it through more than I can imagine; I know you’ve calculated the cost-benefit, weighed your options; and all that is fine and good. There is no way of knowing how this will play out in your very real life. Nobody can predict the future. Something has to give, yes. But it doesn’t need to be this. I think you should stay.

It’s a tough sell. I understand, because my undisciplined imagination, formed like everyone else’s by countless half-minute ads and building-sized billboards, frolics among fantastic, glamorous possibilities of something other than what I’ve already got. It’s a cornucopia of options, with countless cathedrals and priests promising salvation at the marketplace, be it a new app, new phone, new car, new house, new job, new city, or new spouse. The promise is always the same: this thing will make you happy. Never mind trying to fix what you’ve got. Just get a new one and start over.

Repair and remain sounds simple because it is. But simple is not the same as easy. “For better, for worse,” we say, and everyone likes to stay when it’s the better. But staying through the worse—that’s the whole point of the vow, for Christ’s sake.

Mostly they do what they’ve already decided to do, and they leave. My track record for counselling couples to stick it out is pretty poor. I still think the better part of wisdom says stay. Endure. Wrestle. Suffer. Struggle. Keep working. Your heart is restless, my heart is restless, all our hearts are restless, “until they find their rest in Thee”—a rest that may well be found in full only after our death. So be it. Until then: stay.

Repair and remain.

Repair and remain.

Repair and remain.

– End of article –

The author’s primary application to “repair and remain” is marriage. But remember, Sahil’s applications were broader than that. And if the marriage counsel is not for you right now, it might be for someone you know. I’ve had these conversations. About 30 years ago, a brother had a wife who was given (as he told it) to temper tantrums. She would throw things. He told me, “I can’t take it anymore.” I looked him in the eye and said, “Yes you can.” And he did. I’m happy to report they are happily together today.

So don’t throw it all away now. You were sure of yourselves then. It’s still a sure thing! But you need to stick it out, staying with God’s plan so you’ll be there for the promised completion. (Hebrews 10.35 – 36, MSG)

Yesterday, we observed the emphasis on intention in Hebrews. Intention is closely bound to another constant emphasis in Hebrews: perseverance:

“So let’s keep at it and eventually arrive at the place of rest, not drop out through some sort of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4.11)

This is a main theme of Hebrews:

Stay with it.

• The Israelites didn’t.
• The Southern Kingdom of Judah didn’t.
• The church at Ephesus didn’t.

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. (Revelation 2.4, 5, ESV)

Let’s not let it slip through our fingers.”(Hebrews 4.14, MSG)

“Until the end…”

And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (Hebrews 6.11, 12, ESV)

PS I’ve just found a fantastic article on “stay with it,” that’s too good not to share. Stay tuned.

As we get into Hebrews, one theme is “avoid Jesus and…” But I’m seeing another in these first few chapters. What do you think?

• Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. (2.1)
• Now, if we can only keep a firm grip on this bold confidence, we’re the house! (3.6)
• So watch your step, friends. Make sure there’s no evil unbelief lying around that will trip you up and throw you off course, diverting you from the living God. (3.12)
• For as long, then, as that promise of resting in him pulls us on to God’s goal for us, we need to be careful that we’re not disqualified. (4.1)

Pay attention, lest we drift…keep a firm grip…watch your step…be careful. The Jews now in captivity in Babylon, that we’ve been reading about, didn’t set out to be idolatrous…but that’s what they became. How could France, a Christian country for centuries, builder of the Notre Dame Cathedral, be proud to produce an Olympics Opening Ceremony that mocked Christianity?

My son the stair racer won another race, Saturday, July 27. It was the Coors Field climb, 3,600 steps around the lower stands. I watched him do it. The runners run individually, a staggered start. His friend Christopher Baker shown with Mark after the race finished a minute slower than Mark.

Why am I highlighting Mark again? Because he doesn’t win these races by accident. He trains. And to get worse, to go from winning to being an also-ran, he wouldn’t have to do anything. Literally. Just stop training. The application is clear.

Stay alert; be in prayer so you don’t wander into temptation without even knowing you’re in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there’s another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire. (Matthew 26.41, MSG)

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. (1 Corinthians 9.24, 25, NIV)

As we get into Hebrews, and as the political climate heats up, let’s remember that it was specifically written to counteract “Christianity and…” Eugene Peterson’s introduction to Hebrews in The Message contains this sentence:

In the letter, it is Jesus-and-angels, or Jesus-and-Moses, or Jesus-and-priesthood. In our time it is more likely to be Jesus-and-politics,…

C.S. Lewis said much the same thing, way back in 1942. In Screwtape Letters (highly recommend!), senior demon Screwtape is writing to junior demon Wormwood on how to get a new believer off track. In letter VII, Screwtape asks Wormwood to find out whether the new believer is a “Patriot” (in favor of the war against Germany) or a “Pacifist,” and Screwtape really doesn’t care which. Screwtape writes:

Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the ‘Cause,’ in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war effort or of pacifism. – C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters

The application to our day is clear. I wrote on July 28, 2020: Where are our loyalties? that no political party has the five elements the early church had. Four years ago I made the point that we ought to be loving each other regardless of where we are on the political spectrum.

Our focus needs to be Jesus.

Regarding angels he says, The messengers are winds, the servants are tongues of fire. But he says to the Son, You’re God, and on the throne for good; your rule makes everything right. (Hebrews 1.7, 8, MSG)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1.15 – 20, ESV)

Parts of this blog were originally published October 20, 2020.

Olympics are in full force, and I’ll probably do some lessons learned as I usually do. But this story can’t wait. It’s about the Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina after a successful ride on an epic wave:

According to What’s the story behind this insane, viral Olympic surf shot? by Laylan Connelly in the Orange County Register, Gabriel is not saying that he’s #1 or that the Brazilians are #1, he’s pointing to Jesus:

So what did the finger mean? Was Medina telling the world he’s No. 1? A premonition that the Brazilians will come in No. 1 spot at the Olympic games to win gold?

Medina, who is devoutly religious, days earlier had to cover an image of Jesus on his surfboard due to Olympic rules.

But his faith-based messaging came in a new form as Medina pointed toward the sky, the photo capturing his relaxed body floating above the saltwater in the air in a seemingly mystical image.

“I can do everything through him who strengthens,” Medina wrote on social media under the unbelievable shot shared around the world.

The article is worth the read in its entirety and includes this picture of him on the actual wave:

God has people everywhere, even if there are those in Paris trying to proclaim another message.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4.13, NKJV)

All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s household. (Philippians 4.22, ESV)

P.S. There is doubt in some circles about whether what I wrote yesterday about the Opening Ceremony mocking Da Vinci’s Last Supper is accurate. Here’s an alternate view with some good lessons by a Christian art teacher: The Paris Olympics’ Altar to an Unknown God. And here’s another alternate view that explains that how art is perceived is as important a consideration as how it was intended to be perceived: The Lessons of the Paris Olympics Tableau.

P.P.S. Christianity Today published a beautiful article on this photo on August 9, 2024.