I missed the night

My normal routine when Mary works is to sit outside till about 9 pm and then, once it’s dark, go back inside and watch an hour or so of TV. Last night, however, it was so pleasant I decided to have a fire.

Been a while since I had a night fire.

As I sat by the fire, in the dark, I realized I had missed the night.

I was out in the back, under the trees. The moon was in its first quarter. The crickets were cricketing. Off in the distance I could hear a train. Even though there was the occasional sounds of traffic, it was still and quiet. This is a quiet neighborhood, but night quiet is different.

I truly had missed the night. It is so peaceful. Calming. Beautiful.

The Fellowship of the Used to Be

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.     (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

I started thinking about this passage the other day. Now, I know that some of you think you know where I’m going with this and are either beginning to get angry or are thinking, “Yeah, yeah, heard this before.” But stick with me, I believe you will be surprised and find a blessing.

I see three things in these verses:

1) We get an insight into the message Paul preached.
“Oh yeah, what is that?” The kingdom of God. We tend to overlook the kingdom of God. I mean, John the Baptist and Jesus talked about it but it seems to have gone away. Yet here is Paul preaching the kingdom in Corinth. And this is very common in the Book of Acts:

 As Clement, Bishop of Rome, wrote in his epistle to the Corinthians (AD 96), “the apostles went forth proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand.”

And it looks like he also preached repentance, the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Maybe something like, The kingdom of God is coming and you are not ready for it. You must turn from your idols and your sins. Now let me tell you about Jesus who will forgive your sins . . .

2) We see the kind of people Paul attracted with the preaching of this Gospel:
fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners What a list!

As I mentioned, it seems to me that Paul’s preaching included warnings of judgment and calls to repent of sin. He liked to make lists in his epistles, reminding the readers of behavior that will keep one out of the kingdom:

Paul preached the gospel concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ and people responded. And what a motley crew this gospel drew!

3) We see the transforming power of the Gospel
the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God... And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Amen! and such were some of you. That’s what you used to be. The Gospel calls all people, accepts all people, but, and here’s the good news, it doesn’t leave them there! No, Jesus saves us from sin! The Church is The Fellowship Of The Used To Be. You don’t come to Jesus and continue in your sin. And that’s what Paul continuously warns us about, the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. No, I must repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. But it’s not just me trying my best to be better, no, ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins. Amen! When you get a hold of Jesus, or rather, He gets aholt of you, you will be transformed and you will join The Fellowship Of The Used To Be!

That we being delivered 
out of the hand of our enemies 
might serve him without fear

in holiness and righteousness before him
all the days of our life.

Words used by Jesus for the Second Coming

This past Advent I did a series on my blog I called The Second Coming in 1 & 2 Thessalonians. I looked at the description of the second advent in each chapter and highlighted the particular words used for His return. I summarized my findings this way : His coming is called parousia, apocalypse, epiphany. He will be revealed from heaven with power (apocalypse), he will appear in glory (epiphany), he will come to be present with us (parousia). It is a very good study and I would encourage you to check it out.

A few weeks ago, in a Bible study I am teaching, we were in Mark 8 and concluded with this verse:

38 Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

I had a fleeting thought, “I wonder what word He used for ‘coming’?” Then, at church this past Sunday, a reference was made to Revelation 22:20, …Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. I wondered again about the word used, but this time I had the opportunity to look it up. And was I surprised! It was not one of the words referenced above. It was actually a fairly common word. A plan formed - This week I will look more fully into this. And I did. This was illuminating and exciting!

I looked at every occurrence of come in the Gospels and Revelation (since I was wondering what word Jesus used in connection with the second coming).

First, He does use the word parousia. It occurs four times, all in Matthew 24 – verses 3, 27, 37, and 39. Actually, Jesus used it 3 times, and the disciples once.

But by far the most frequently used word is ἔρχομαι  (erchomai). It occurs 643 times in the New Testament and is translated come 616 times. According to Thayer it means: “to come; to come from one place to another; to appear, make one's appearance, come before the public.” Actually, it is used in the New Testament more often for the second coming than parousia – 22 times compared to 16. I was really surprised by this discovery.

I will simply list the references in the Gospels and Revelation where erchomai is used and hope you are motivated to look them up.

Matthew 16:27, 28; 24:30, 42, 44; 25:13, 31
Mark 8:38; 13:26
Luke 12:40; 18:8; 21:27
John 14:3
Revelation 1:7; 3:11; 16:15; 22:7, 12, 20

This raises a question, Why did Jesus use this word so often?

Because his teaching on the second coming is based on Daniel 7. What? Yes, it’s true. Let’s take a look. Here is Daniel 7:13 from the Septuagint (the Greek Translation of the Old Testament, which is the version most often quoted in the New Testament)

I beheld in the night vision, and, lo, one coming with the clouds of heaven as the Son of man, and he came on to the Ancient of days, and was brought near to him.

The key phrase is, coming with the clouds of heaven as the Son of man. Compare this with Matthew 24:30

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

The Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. The word for coming in Daniel is erchomai and since Jesus is quoting Daniel, he uses erchomai as well. We find the same expression in Mark 13:26 and Luke 21:27. And this is even more striking in the Greek.

Here is the full picture painted by Jesus of his second coming, Matthew 24:30-31

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. 

Why am I presenting this? Because Paul quotes Jesus concerning the angel, the trumpet, and the gathering of the elect

1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

John also quotes Jesus when he describes the second coming

Revelation 1:7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

And he closes the book with, He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

And every time it’s the word erchomai.

What is the benefit of all this?

1) Well, I learned there is another word used for the second coming, erchomai

2) We see that the teaching of the second coming comes from Daniel 7:13. Jesus quotes Daniel and the Apostles quote Jesus. That is cool.

3) And of course there is this, they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

A weekend in Ohio

"Take me out to the ball game, take me out to the park"

We just returned from a wonderful long weekend in Ohio. Our daughter lives there with her neat family and we went up to see them. What did we do while we were in Ohio visiting with the Meesters? We went to baseball games, we talked baseball, we watched college baseball on TV... yep, that pretty much sums it up. A great weekend it was, too!

Friday
We arrived mid-afternoon. Couple of hours after arriving we headed to the ballpark to watch Scarlett and Ryan play.

Scarlett waiting to take a swing at her softball game

Ryan slugging a double

Anne always makes pizza on Fridays so we had delicious pizza on the run

Saturday
In the morning I drove up to Urbana to watch Drew play. It is an hour drive and the field is way out in the middle of nowhere! Just before his game ended I hopped in the car to drive back to Springboro to watch Chase’s game.

Chase getting a hit

That night we all went to a Japanese Steakhouse for supper.

Sunday
We took Aimee to the Dayton airport so she could catch a flight to a writer’s conference then headed back to Urbana to see Drew’s game. We hung out at the ball field from 9 to 3.

He drew a walk on this at bat

We retired to the hotel pool and ate Chipotle’s.

Monday
I walked over to the Meester’s house in the morning then we all headed back to the hotel for more frolicking at the pool.

we thoroughly enjoyed the pool!

Anne got the makings for sandwiches and we ate poolside. I went up to the room to watch the Wake Forest game and afterwards we headed to United Dairy Farmers (my favorite convenience store!!) for ice cream. Then I went to watch Drew umpire a game.

Drew is on the right. He was the home plate umpire

We took the children to Doubleday’s for supper while Anne & Dave had a candle-light dinner to celebrate their anniversary.

Tuesday

Shortly after hitting the road we saw this. We drove home in torrential rain for much of the trip. Took us 11 hours to make an 8 hour drive!

All in all it was a great trip!!! Be sure to look closely at the batting photos - I was amazed that I was able to capture the ball so often!