How the Context of a Scripture Offers a Panoramic View Of God’s Character: An Excerpt from Living in the Underground Church

Posted on August 8, 2017 by Pastor Foley

Most of us would agree that to understand a passage of scripture we must understand its context. In fact, this is why many people do not read the Bible very much or very deeply on their own: They think they cannot understand it fully or correctly unless the context is first explained to them by a professional like a pastor, or by Bible study notes or commentaries and books written by theologians.

Pastors and theologians reinforce this idea by filling their sermons and books with information about scripture that is only available outside of scripture: cultural insights, historical information, theological commentary, and word studies. The unspoken message is clear: Context is necessary for proper scripture reading, and context is the domain of professionals.

As I was writing this, for example, I heard from a sister in our ministry how she has established a weekly gathering of mothers from her neighborhood to read the Bible according to the method described in this book. “Except we don’t do the context question,” she added. She did not need to explain why. To her it was simply obvious: She and the other mothers are not pastors or Bible scholars; therefore, they do not know enough to provide the necessary context for the passages of scripture they read each week in their study.

But there is another kind of Bible context that is readily available to everyone. It is the most important kind of context of all. This kind of context requires no professional training or theological background to discover. In fact, professionals are often more likely to overlook or neglect this kind of context because it seems so basic.

The kind of context commended here is simply a deep attentiveness to all the information about a passage that is available from inside scripture itself.

By “deep attentiveness,” I am not referring to anything mysterious or supernatural. I am referring to the practice of consciously asking and answering each of the following questions as simply and straightforwardly as possible each time you read a passage of scripture:

  • Who is speaking?
  • Who is being addressed?
  • Where are they located as they are speaking, and why are they there?
  • Why are they speaking, according to the scripture (e.g., What is the presenting issue)?
  • How does this passage of scripture connect to the scripture directly before it?
  • How does this passage of scripture connect to the scripture directly after it?
  • How does this passage of scripture connect to other scriptures in the Bible? Are there any other scriptures that:
    • use the same or similar wording?
    • involve the same people, place, or time?
    • make reference to this scripture, or to which this scripture makes reference?

Every question given here except the last one can be answered by someone opening a Bible for the first time. The last question gradually becomes answerable to more we read, even when we read with no outside help or coaching.

Yet it is surprising how seldom these questions are asked. One reason why is that many of us take up the Bible to read because we are seeking a direct word from God to address our present situation. Perhaps the most extreme form of this is people who open the Bible to a random page, point, read the verse, and receive it as God’s direction.

But we must remember that the primary purpose of scripture is not to give us guidance but to reveal God’s character. To say it a little differently, God did not create the Bible as a way of passing notes to us supernaturally to tell us what to do. As the writer of Hebrews put it:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.[5]

This is why Christ tells the disciples that he is the way, not that he shows the way.[6] When we read the Bible to find God’s direct word to us in our present situation, we are actually ignoring or overlooking God’s self-revelation, which is the whole meaning and purpose of scripture. There is no way to ignore or overlook God’s self-revelation and yet receive his guidance in our present situation.

That is because God’s self-revelation is his guidance: As he reveals his character to us in scripture, we come to know him. As we come to know him, we are then able to identify his presence and work in our lives and in the world around us, and we then know how to act so as to submit to and advance that. Understanding context in the scripture is the prelude to understanding our life as context for God’s work. The context for God’s work changes across countries and centuries and cultures, but his character remains the same. His activity in any context is thus identifiable, provided we learn to recognize it in as many different contexts as possible. Scripture is where we learn to do this.

So, when it comes to the Bible, life in the underground church is a three-step process, not a two-step one. Here is the erroneous, incomplete two-step process:

We read a scripture –> That scripture reveals God’s presence and direction in our present situation

Here is the correct, complete three-step process:

We read a scripture –> That scripture reveals God’s character –> Because God’s character is unchanging, we are increasingly able to recognize God’s presence and direction in our present situation

When we read the Bible according to this three-step process, we can see why context is so crucial: We cannot fully understand God’s character or actions in any scripture passage without it. In fact, the role of context is not to provide us with historical or cultural background information about the passage of scripture we are reading. It is to provide us with as panoramic a view as possible of God’s character in the passage of scripture we are reading.

Consider a simple example: Jesus’ sending of the twelve disciples in Matthew 10:1-4:

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.[7]

Using the list of context questions noted above, we can see that some are quite easy to answer:

  • Who is speaking? Jesus.
  • Who is being addressed? The twelve disciples.

But very quickly, even simple questions become more challenging:

  • Where are they stranding as they are speaking?

Here, Matthew provides no exact answer. If we read the verses before and after this scripture passage (which are two of the context questions also noted on the list), we can see in Matthew 9:35-36 and Matthew 11:1 a few details about Jesus’ location:

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.[8]

…

After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.[9]

The last of our context questions (to which we will return later in this chapter) asks if there are other scriptures that are connected to this scripture. Mark 3:13-19 and Luke 6:12-16 also record Jesus’ sending of the twelve. Mark 3:13 does give a specific location: “Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him.”[10] Luke 6:12-13 adds even more details, specifying a time of day:

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles.

Part of understanding the context of a scripture, however, is noting what the writer does not say. In this case, Matthew omits the mention of a place. We should not presume that this is because Matthew overlooks the detail or disagrees with Mark or Luke about it. Instead, we should recognize that Matthew may be emphasizing something different here about the character of God than is emphasized in Mark and Luke. We can understand this emphasis in answering the next context questions:

  • Why are they speaking, according to the scripture (e.g., What is the presenting issue)?
  • How does this passage of scripture connect to the scripture directly before it?
  • How does this passage of scripture connect to the scripture directly after it?

If we read only Matthew 10:1-4, the presenting issue for Jesus sending out his disciples is not clear. But if we read beginning in Matthew 9, a picture begins to emerge. Immediately before the scripture this week, Jesus is teaching in a synagogue. The religious leaders had seen him strengthen the legs of a paralyzed man, raise a girl from the dead, give sight to two blind men, and, most recently, heal a demon-oppressed man. Yet they whispered amongst themselves, “He does this through the devil” (Matthew 9:34).

The religious leaders, who God had charged with leading people to him, could not recognize God—even when he stood right in front of them in human form. They even said he was in league with Satan.

Yet wherever Jesus went, God’s people followed him around.

When Jesus saw these people, he was “moved with compassion” because they were “weary and scattered.”[11] It is precisely because of his character—specifically, his compassion and concern for the weariness and scattering of his beloved sheep—that he decides to send out his twelve most fully trained under-shepherds.

Matthew helps us to see that the “sending of the twelve” was not a timeless, formal occasion, such as might be portrayed by an artist’s skillful brush. It was an event spurred by the deep, biting pain that Christ felt upon seeing his lost sheep. Truly, this was more like a harrowing moment in the wilderness than a graduation ceremony on a mountaintop. Jesus gave out rapid-fire instructions: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons” (Matthew 10:8). Do, in other words, whatever is necessary to care for these sheep.

One final context question will bring this aspect of the character of God fully to the forefront of our understanding of this passage:

  • How does this passage of scripture connect to other scriptures in the Bible? Are there any other scriptures that:
    • use the same or similar wording?
    • involve the same people, place, or time?
    • make reference to this scripture, or to which this scripture makes reference?

The phrase in this passage that will gradually come to catch our attention as we read more and more scripture is “sheep without a shepherd.” It is a phrase that goes all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, in Numbers 27:15-17:

Moses said to the Lord, “May the Lord, the God who gives breath to all living things, appoint someone over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the Lord’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”[12]

What Jesus sees when he looks out over God’s people is exactly what Moses fears: sheep without a shepherd.

As we reflect on the wider context of the Gospel of Matthew as a whole, we may remember that Matthew, in Matthew 2:6, has already prepared us to recognize that Jesus has been sent by God to be the very shepherd that his people lack, the one for which Moses had prayed:

And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not least among the ruling cities of Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel.[13]

And as we think about the wider context of the Bible as a whole, we may come to see that Matthew is quoting Micah 5:2, in which we learn that the shepherd who will come is the Eternal One, God himself:

But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Too little to be among the clans of Judah,
From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from long ago,
From the days of eternity.[14]

These deeper resonances in scripture may not reveal themselves to us upon our first reading. But it is the nature and the good pleasure of the Holy Spirit to bring them increasingly to our remembrance over time, the more we saturate our mind with scripture, and the more we focus on the character of God each time we open a passage of scripture and seek to understand his character in context.

 

[5] Hebrews 1:1-2a, NIV.

[6] Cf. John 14:5-6.

[7] Matthew 10:1-4, NIV.

[8] John 9:35-36, NIV.

[9] Matthew 11:1, NIV.

[10] Mark 3:13, NIV.

[11] Matthew 9:36, NKJV.

[12] Numbers 27:15-17, NIV.

[13] Matthew 2:6, NIV.

[14] Micah 5:2, NIV.

Posted in Living in the Underground Church | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Why Did John the Baptist Doubt Jesus?

Posted on August 4, 2017 by Editor

To watch other Voice of the Martyrs videos, visit the Voice of the Martyrs Video Page!

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Today’s scripture is about a real mystery. The mystery involves Jesus and a man named John the Baptist. But in order to understand what the mystery is, we need to understand a little bit about John the Baptist.

Who was John the Baptist? The Bible tells us a lot about him:

  • In today’s scripture, Jesus says that John the Baptist was “more than a prophet” (Matthew 11:9).
  • In today’s scripture, Jesus also says this about John the Baptist: “among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11).
  • The mothers of John the Baptist and Jesus were related (Luke 1:36).
  • What made John great? Actually, that’s the wrong question. The right question is: Who made John great? The answer was God. John was not great because of something he did. John was great because God gave him the most important job in human history: He was to prepare the way for the Messiah, God’s chosen one (Luke 1:16-17). The way God had John do this was to send him to baptize in the Jordan River. Many came to be baptized by him. (Luke 3:3).
  • But that wasn’t the most important part of preparing the way for the Messiah. The most important part was that the Messiah himself showed up to receive baptism! Jesus came to John to be baptized by him. John tried to prevent him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, not the other way around!” But Jesus insisted (Matthew 3:13-15). When John the Baptist baptized Jesus, he saw the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus. And then John the Baptists said, in John 1:32-34:

I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.

So when Jesus says that no one is greater than John the Baptist, he is not simply being polite. Who could be greater than the one chosen and prepared to baptize the Son of God?

With this context in mind, we can understand the mystery that is presented in today’s scripture. In today’s scripture, John the Baptist is in jail. Well, that part is not the mystery: John had criticized the king for marrying his sister-in-law (Matthew 14:3-4).

When John the Baptist was in jail, he sent two of his students to Jesus to ask him this question: “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” (Matthew 11:3)

So the mystery is this:

Why did John the Baptist doubt Jesus? He had spent his whole life preparing the way for God’s chosen one. He had seen the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus. God had told him, “Whoever the Holy Spirit descends on, that’s my chosen one.” After all that, how could John come to doubt that Jesus was the one?

Maybe we could just say, “Well, that’s what happens when you end up in prison and suffer: You lose your faith.” Not too long after John the Baptist sent the messengers to Jesus, John’s head was cut off (Matthew 14:10). Perhaps he knew the end was coming, and he was simply scared.

But according to today’s scripture, that’s not what Jesus thought. Jesus said that John the Baptist was not “a reed shaken in the wind” (Matthew 11:7). In other words, nothing scared John. And in today’s scripture, Jesus didn’t rebuke John. That’s a very important clue to our mystery. Even at the moment that John seemed to be doubting Jesus, Jesus still praised him as “more than a prophet” and “the greatest born of women.” Jesus said that his mission and John’s were inseparable. He told a parable about children in the marketplace to explain that the crowds had rejected not only Jesus but John also. No, there is no rebuke for John from Jesus; only praise and empathy.

So why did John doubt Jesus, then? If fear wasn’t the cause of the doubt, what was?

The key to solving our mystery is Jesus’ prayer in verses 25-27 of today’s scripture. Here is what Jesus prayed to his father:

I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

From Jesus’ prayer we learn one of the most important truths about the character of God that we need to remember every day of our Christian lives: God is not subject to human perception. Nothing about God can be known by anyone unless the Son chooses to reveal it to them. Nothing! You can read the whole Bible; you can even memorize the whole Bible; but unless God chooses to reveal himself to you, your reading will be fruitless. You can go to church. You can pray 24 hours a day. You can dedicate your life to God. But you still cannot know anything about him unless he chooses to reveal himself to you. God could stand right in front of you, two centimeters away from your nose, and you still cannot see him unless he permits you to see him.

But Jesus’ prayer tells us even more than that. It says that being wise and prudent is no advantage in knowing God. God reveals himself to whomever he wants to reveal himself. He chooses to reveal himself not to the wise but to the babes. In Christ, God chose to reveal himself to tax collectors and sinners, shepherds, lepers, children, divorcees, and uneducated men. He did not choose to reveal himself to the righteous or the religious leaders or the political leaders. God does not reveal himself to you because you are important or because you are interested. He reveals himself to you because “it seemed good to him” to do so. And God does not reveal himself to you because you are holy. You are holy because God chooses to reveal himself to you.

This is a theme that runs all the way through the Bible. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:20-21:

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

But we should not hear these things and say, “Aha! So it is not my fault that I don’t know God. It is God’s fault. He has not revealed himself to me. If he had, then I would have understood him.”

But that is not what Jesus says. In today’s scripture Jesus pronounced woe on all the cities of Galilee (Matthew 11:20-24). But he did not pronounce woe on John the Baptist. Why?

Because John had been faithful to everything God had revealed to him. He had prepared the way for God’s chosen one. He had not wavered from his task. But the cities of Galilee had not been faithful. He had revealed himself to them, and they had rejected him. So in Matthew 11:21-22, Jesus said to those cities, “If the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be much more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.”

Why will it be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for the cities of Galilee? Because God knows what he revealed to them. In the cities of Galilee, he revealed himself—in human form! Standing two centimeters in front of their noses, teaching them and healing them!

But Jesus did not say that Tyre and Sidon would not be judged. In fact, in Ezekiel 26-28, God pronounces one of the harshest judgments in the Bible against Tyre and Sidon! In Ezekiel 26:21, God says to Tyre, “I will bring you to a horrible end and you will be no more.” So in today’s scripture, Jesus is saying to the cities of Galilee, “You thought that judgment was bad? The judgment against you will be much worse!”

In fact, no human being in any city can say, “It is not my fault that I don’t know God. It is God’s fault.” In Romans 1:18-20, Paul writes,

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

So not even North Koreans can say to God, “Oh, we didn’t know about God in North Korea. It was Kim Il Sung’s fault. We were educated in materialism. We have an excuse.” But Paul says: No excuse! God has revealed enough of himself to each human being on earth who has ever lived that no one of any nation has any excuse.

But now we have two ideas that seem to contradict each other. On the one hand, we say that we can only know God if he reveals himself to us; we can’t force that to happen. God reveals himself to the babes, not to the wise or learned. But on the other hand, we say that God has revealed himself to everyone, so we are without excuse. How can we connect these two ideas together?

And this is the focus of today’s scripture: We must accept God’s revelation the way he wants to give it, when he wants to give it. But instead, we insist that God reveal himself the way we want it, when we want to receive it. In Jesus’ generation, the people rejected both John and Jesus. Neither revealed a God that they were willing to receive. Jesus said in Matthew 11:18-19, “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man [Jesus] came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” We are blind to God because we have a certain picture of God in our mind. When God reveals himself to us, it does not match the picture. So we do not see the real God, or we reject him.

Even John the Baptist had this challenge. He had a picture in his mind of the kind of messiah Jesus would be. In Matthew 3:12, we can see the picture John had in his mind. John says, “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” But during his lifetime, the only fork Jesus seemed to have in his hand was a feasting fork. No wonder John was confused. John had the right picture of the Messiah, but the wrong timing. In Matthew 25 we can see that one day he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. John the Baptist wanted that day to be today. But it was not the right timing. So he struggled to understand Jesus’ ministry, and this is why he sent messengers to ask Jesus.

But notice that John the Baptist did not reject Jesus. He doubted, but he brought his doubts to God. As long as our doubts take us to God, not away from God, he is honored, and he does not rebuke us.

But when our picture of God causes us to doubt the true God, or when our human wisdom leads us away from God, we can expect hell, not acceptance of our excuses for why these things happened.

So what did Jesus tell John? What is Jesus telling us? You can see the answer in Matthew 11:6: “Blessed is he who is not offended because of me.” In other words, blessed is the one who accepts God in the way God wants to reveal himself, whenever God wants to reveal himself. Hebrews 1:2 tells us how God wants to reveal himself: by his son. In fact, according to Jesus in today’s reading, the Son is the only one who can reveal the Father, and the Father is the only one who can reveal the Son.

Do you know who struggles to accept that? The wise.

Do you know who accepts that without struggle? Babes.

Let us be humble to accept God the way he wants to reveal himself—by his Son—when he wants to reveal himself—which (as the writer of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 3:7) is today. Respond as humbly and as receptively as a babe as you hear his voice saying to you by means of the Holy Spirit,

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

 

Posted in Lectionary Year A | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Seeing as Infants through the Nicene Creed: An Excerpt from Living in the Underground Church

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Pastor Foley

Each time we open the Bible to read a passage of scripture, we should begin by asking, “How does the Nicene Creed help me to see the Triune God here?”

 

In Matthew 11:25, Jesus speaks of those to whom the Father and Son are revealed. He praises the Father, saying, “you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.”[5]

Picture a wise and learned person entering a room, or a subway car, or a street, or a home. What will the wise and prudent person do? Instinctively they will look at the whole space and try to get a sense of who is present, what is happening, and what if anything they should do in response.

Now, picture an infant entering the same space. What will the infant do? Instinctively, the infant will look only for the face of the parent. Until the infant finds the parent and is in the arms of the parent, the room remains a blur and an uninteresting mystery. The mystery for the infant is always: Where is my parent? Until that mystery is solved, little else about the room is noted or engaged.

In the same way, each time we take up the Bible to read a passage of scripture, even on the very first reading, we should see it with the heart and eyes of an infant. We should ask, Where is my parent, the Triune God? The words and the whole passage of scripture should remain a blur for us while we search urgently for God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit therein. We should not rest on any other word or question or insight or theological truth about a scripture passage even for a moment. Otherwise, the Triune God will be a blur for us in the scripture while the rest of the passage will command our focus. We must first find him, always. Scripture will not serve its purpose in us until we rest in his arms within it.

That is the purpose of the Nicene Creed for those living in the underground church. It gives our lives an unwavering, uncompromising attentiveness to the one true God.

When we read the Nicene Creed carefully, we will see that it is not the work of the wise or learned, but of infants, for infants. This is quite a different perspective than how we may have previously been taught to regard the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed is often and mistakenly regarded as a work of deep theology, an intrusion of Greek philosophy into the simple beauty of scripture. But that is simply not true.

In fact, the Nicene Creed was formulated even before the infant church finalized the list of books that compose the New Testament.[6] The infant church established the Creed as a commitment to always read the Bible in a certain way: Dominated by the fullness of the Triune God, with all else as blurry backdrop. The Nicene Creed is the infant church’s joyful cry: Here is the Triune God—we have seen him! Let no part of him ever escape our sight, not even for a single moment or a single verse! Early Christians were required to memorize and thoroughly understand every statement in the creed even before they were baptized and fully admitted to the worship of the church.[7] Only in this way could the infant church be assured that an infant believer—and the infant Christian faith—would remain infants and not become captive to the wise and learned, and to all the things that hold the wise and learned captive.

The Nicene Creed tells us all the things about the nature, character, and activity of God that are necessary and sufficient to identify him in the Bible and in the world around us. Every statement in the Creed is a statement that is only true of God, and always true of God. Even the statements in the Nicene Creed that are about baptism, the church, the final judgment, and the world to come are ultimately statements about the Triune God; they gain their right meaning only in relation to him. Because the Triune God never changes, all of the statements in the Creed are always true of God in every passage of scripture and at every moment in history and eternity, including this one.

Here is what has always been most important: The Nicene Creed is what opens our eyes wide enough to see the fullness of the Triune God in each passage of scripture, and in our own lives.

Consider an example from Matthew 8:23-27.

Then [Jesus] got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”[8]

If we read this passage of scripture as wise and learned people, we might be drawn to examine the experience of the disciples, since we, too, are Jesus’ disciples. We might think about whether we would respond the same way as they did. We might think of situations in our own lives when we experienced metaphorical storms and waves and wondered if Jesus was present. We might wonder about why Jesus was sleeping, and how it was possible for him to sleep through a storm at sea (especially while his disciples were working so hard around him). We might decide that the purpose of this scripture is to teach us about faith and to challenge us to have more of it. We might struggle with this kind of natural miracle and whether such an event really happened, since we are so wise and learned and have never seen wind and waves calmed like this.

But if we read this passage of scripture with our infant eyes trained by the Nicene Creed, we will read it entirely differently. We will begin by looking urgently in this scripture for the Triune God as described by the Creed. Our attention will first be drawn to the words in this scripture that we have memorized from the Creed: Jesus. Lord. Save. Man. There are also words here like storm, wind, and waves that remind us of heaven and earth and their Creator, which are also mentioned in the Creed. So when the disciples ask, “What kind of man is this?”, we are already ready to give an answer, even without yet reading the rest of the passage.

The Nicene Creed says that God the Father is “the maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.” Because he is the maker of the wind and the waves, he is the only one they obey. But the Nicene Creed reminds us that Christ is “God from God, light from light, true God from true God.” The wind and the waves that appear in this passage of scripture know this, too, and thus they obey him. They know what the Creed teaches us: The Son is not less than or lower than the Father; he is his exact visible image. The Creed tells us, “For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven. By the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary and become man.” What kind of man is this? He is God the Son, who is fully God. The Son has come to save us. He can save us because he is God. All of creation bears witness to this and submits to him.

Through the Nicene Creed, we like infants have entered the scripture passage and first, with great urgency, found our parent, the Triune God. Having found him in his fullness, we can then go on to look at the rest of this scripture using the questions detailed in subsequent chapters in this book. Through his Holy Spirit, he will then guide us to hear the word the way he wants us to hear it and to do it the way he intends: Embraced by him, with his power pouring through us.

 

[5] Matthew 11:25, NIV.

[6] Cf. http://www.scborromeo.org/papers/nicenecreed.pdf.

[7] E. Ferguson. “Catechesis, Catechumenate.” In The Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 1999, p. 224.

[8] Matthew 8:23-27, NIV.

Posted in Living in the Underground Church | Tagged , | Leave a comment