The Christian Weekly

  “Two cities have been formed by two loves. The earthly by the love of self. The heavenly by the love of God.” So writes Augustine, bishop of Hippo, during the waning years of the Roman Empire in the early 400's. Look about yourself, and see, he suggests, the produce of the love of self. An earthly city whose citizens seek nothing but gratification and gain while sowing the seeds of their own destruction. But look to heaven, indeed, look to the church, and see another city whose people seek not themselves but God, in whom they find peace and home. God judges both the earthly city and the heavenly city, and none except for Christ can stand proud in themselves against that judgment. But the difference between the two is not that one is sinful and the other sinless. The difference is humility: “a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” There was plenty of history for Augustine to look at to see the brokenness of the world, of false hopes and ideologies just in his o...

  Some Questions About Predestination Predestination is the Christian doctrine that God has chosen specific people for salvation from before the creation of the world. Verses like Ephesians 1:4 speak to it: "He chose us in Christ from before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him." Or the description of how God's salvation of a person unfolds in Romans 8:30: "Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." Predestination puts our salvation where it undoubtedly belongs: in God's hands. But it's not unreasonable for us to have some questions about it. If God has predestined me, why should I bother to do good? First of all, if you're only doing good in order to receive a reward or avoid a punishment, there is space in you for great spiritual growth. Do we love someone because we think they will reward us for our love? Though God gi...

Isaiah 12:4-6 And you will say in that day: "Give thanks to the Lord,     call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples,     proclaim that his name is exalted. "Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously;     let this be made known in all the earth. Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,     for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel." Devotional When Isaiah prophesied these words to a lost and fearful people, God's promises struck like a stone through thin ice, shattering their terrified expectation that nothing could be good ever again. God called them to be strong and courageous to face the times they endured, and he gave them a reason to be strong and courageous: he is in their midst. They have two tasks, two divine assignments: to make known God's deeds among the peoples, and to shout and sing for joy in praise of the Lord. Make known God's deeds among people who d...

Isaiah 12:1-3 You will say in that day: "I will give thanks to you, O Lord,    for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away,    that you might comfort me. "Behold, God is my salvation;    I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song,    and he has become my salvation." With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Devotional When there is so much stress, what could make me joyful? When there is so much fear, who can I put my trust in?   When I am so helpless, who will be strong for me? When there is so much danger, what will save me? I would be lost, I would be anxious, except that the Lord is for me. He has every right to be angry with me, for the ways I've turned away from him and rejected him. But on the day that I need it, he sets his anger aside so he can comfort me. Wells are filled with water from underground, and when you draw a bucket out, more w...

Isaiah 11:12-16 He will raise a signal for the nations    and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah    from the four corners of the earth. The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart,    and those who harass Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah,    and Judah shall not harass Ephraim. But they shall swoop down on the    shoulder of the Philistines in the west and together they shall plunder    the people of the east. They shall put out their hand    against Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites shall obey them. And the Lord will utterly destroy    the tongue of the Sea of Egypt, and will wave his hand over the Rived    with his scorching breath, and strike it into seven channels,    and he will lead people across in sandals. And there will be a highway from Assyria    for the remnant that remains of his pe...

Isaiah11:10-11 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples - of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. Devotional Being disbursed is a familiar feeling now. We're been spread out, quarantined, socially distanced, and we can't gather together. Hundreds of years before Christ, God's people, the Jews were disbursed into the surrounding nations. Some lived in exile in Assyria, some in Egypt, some elsewhere. They were spread out and kept from gathering together. Since Christ too, God's people are spread out to all the corners of the globe. Our citizenship is in the kingdom of God, but we live in all the countries of the earth. But God promises that, as he extended hi...

Isaiah 11:6-9 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Devotional Yesterday we saw how Christ is a faithful and strong judge. Today we see the fruits of his judgment. God doesn't judge wickedness to make people unhappy. He does it for the same reason that punishments are always supposed to be done: to make a better future and change people for the better. I don't know what God will do to cobras and adders (and recall how dangerous a snake once wa...

Isaiah 11:3-5 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. Devotional I once attended a conference where the speaker put up a slide with a painting of Jesus softly petting a sheep and asked, "Is this what Jesus is like?", before shouting, "No! Jesus is like this!" and going to the next slide filled with pictures movie action heroes and the main character of the Halo video game series. Jesus is stronger than Satan. That was the speaker's point. Jesus is strong and ready to rumble against sin in your life. He's going to conquer it, beat it, knock it down and thro...

Isaiah 11:1-2 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Devotion I feel like I've always been encouraged to reminisce about the past, even about events that happened long before I was born. History class practically celebrated it, encouraging debates over who was the best president: Lincoln or Washington. Even my heroes on Star Wars lived a long time ago in a galaxy far far away . Looking to our past heroes isn't something new. In ancient Judah and Israel, people remembered King David longingly. He was the legendary son of Jesse. He presided over a golden age of military and spiritual victories. Someone might quip to her neighbor, "I wish we had a king like David again." People knew that he hadn't been perfect - t...

Ephesians 3:14-19 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may  grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Devotional In English classes growing up, I often ran into trouble for run-on sentences. But I kept writing sentences that, even if they weren't run-ons, just went way too long. "Don't have a sentence more than two lines", they said. Mine were usually pushing five lines. I knew I wasn't doing it right. I knew this was a problem. They're not supposed to b...

I want to pose something that I believe is one of the most essential questions for our society today: “How do you make someone a good person?” We have no shortage of resources, of ideas to answer that question. Talk shows, daytime television, movies, there are so many people speaking to it. “How do you make someone a good person?” In fact, I suspect that you're already giving some thought to how you would answer it. I'm going to, briefly, describe three ways to answer that question that are persuasive, popular, and, ultimately flawed, and then I'm going to describe what the Bible says about how God answers that question. “ How do you make someone a good person?” The first answer: “You force them.” You force them. There's something in us that immediately reacts against that: You force them? I don't want anyone to force me to be good. I don't want to force someone else to be good. That wouldn't work. But if I ask you how...

    Three weeks ago, John Allen Chau was murdered after coming peacefully with gifts and the message of Jesus Christ to an isolated tribe on an island off India. It was his second attempt to reach the tribe. The day before, he had shouted to them from a distance, "My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you," and offered fish. A tribesman about 10 years old shot an arrow at him, striking his Bible. Before he went ashore the following day, he wrote his parents, "You guys might think I'm crazy in all this, but I think it's worth it to declare Jesus to these people." Many people do think he's crazy. He took extreme steps to avoid bringing outside diseases, including quarantining himself for many days, but online comments sections are filled with people, not knowing that or deeming it insufficient, condemning him for exposing the island to disease. Many people – including some American Christians – don...

" Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! " Psalm 100:1 When I was a high schooler, I decided that, since the Bible was apparently such an important book, I would read it all the way through. I got as far as Psalms. As a kid, I hated poetry. It was boring, it either didn't make sense or it said something so obvious there was no reason to put it in verse. So when I got to Psalms, I gave up and stopped. Today, the Psalms are one of my favorite books of the Bible. Later on, I discovered that in the Psalms, God has given us two things: a prayer book, and a hymnal. There's a reason that the Psalms are the book the New Testament quotes from the most. People know it, and God speaks to us in it. The Psalms have many authors – sometimes the author is named (David wrote quite a few), and sometimes they are anonymous. But they were brought together because they were all inspired by God and resonate with God's people. Like modern music, the Psalms come in a...

I don't always like the church, but I believe in it. I especially don't like the church when I hear about awful crimes committed by church leaders. There's child abuse, sexual assault, and there are people who have made it their policy to cover up and excuse predatory ministers. I really don't like the church then. Or maybe that's the wrong phrase. I do like the church. I'm angry because of what some men are doing to the church. I'm angry because God's people are being hurt. There have been prominent cases in the Roman Catholic Church in recent months, but Protestants have seen popular pastors, bishops, and seminary presidents revealed to be bad – or even evil – shepherds. All over, the Christian church is under assault from within its own institutions. But we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that the institutions are the church. They aren't. And the bad shepherds aren't part of the flock either. These predatory...

“ For by grace you have been saved through faith.   And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. ”   Ephesians 2:8 I suggest you read Ephesians at home. It’s not that long. Honestly, it’s only the length of a “long read” article, or a couple newspaper columns. And this is a really rich letter. Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, to his own old, dear friends whom he served as pastor years before. He  reminds them the incredible things that God has done and will do for them, and reminds them who they are in Christ. He tells them what God is blessing them with, and what following Jesus means in their lives. And it is written for us today as well. This is the letter that gives us the verse that is at the core of what Christians believe: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” - Ephesians 2:8. This was the theme verse at Lutherans Outdoors church camps this summer, with th...