by Barry Newton

Imagine going to a Bible class or listening to a sermon where the Scriptures are never consulted. Instead, a story like Little Red Riding Hood or perhaps a current event is used to illustrate a principle such as: telling the truth is rewarding or following evil ways will get you into trouble. While we might agree that these principles are good, whose message is that? Would it not seem like the preacher or teacher simply picked out of the air what he considered to be "a good idea" and then looked until he found a suitable story to illustrate his belief?

Possibly you will agree with me that this would be a spiritually anemic manner to teach a Bible class or preach a sermon. But what would you think about someone employing a biblical story such as Gideon to encourage using "a fleece" to determine God's will? If this was not the intended message, then whose message is that?

Is this not methodologically identical to never even opening the Scriptures? If the message being taught is simply some notion which the teacher thinks is worthy, then why even feign that the message comes from the text? Will not contemporary stories work just as well?

At least in my mind, there is a huge difference between using Biblical stories to illustrate a lesson clearly taught in Scripture and compiling a bunch of stories to illustrate a principle without showing that the Bible teaches that principle. Why?

1. There is no guarantee that the message being presented will teach what God desires. Is not such a message based upon whatever the teacher considers to be a good idea?

2. Does this not obfuscate that the class is not really a Bible class but actually a diet of the teacher's own ideas?

3. Even if the teacher has a good biblical knowledge, how is the student going to grow in learning how to accurately understand God's Word?

by Barry Newton

Don't you just hate it when Jesus takes away a perfectly good excuse? After all, is it not much more convenient and comforting just to blame others than to face your own responsibility?

If you dare ingest straight medicine, consider Jesus' all-too-personal parable about growing plants. Through his story we discover we can not blame the sad state of the sickly and dying plants, as well as those which never even germinated, upon the leadership of a church, the preacher or a Bible school teacher. In the same conditions where some plants had withered, others had thrived! Why the difference? The hard-to-hear message is one of personal responsibility.

Jesus' parable reveals that what makes the difference between the spiritual growth that produces a harvest verses the spiritually stunted or dying is the state of a person's heart. Call it whatever you like, but a diseased spirituality occurs where people are more concerned about having fun, their bills, and other pressures in life than they are concerned about how God's word should change their thinking, habits and lifestyle. Similarly, spiritual death can occur when a person's greatest desire involves avoiding persecution or trouble on account of God's word. The reason why some plants were stunted, died or never even germinated comes back to personal responsibility.

For those who want to understand, Jesus' Parable of the Sower is a story calling us to allow God's word to change our values and mold our lifestyle so that our character will reflect his word and we will deliberately use our time and lifestyle to achieve his purposes. Good soil produces a harvest.

Jesus' parable steps all over our toes. I'm not so concerned about this. Good soil understands that being uncomfortable presents the needed opportunity to change and grow. What I'm concerned about is that person who simply doesn't care, or who understands but whose final response involves being defensive or aggressive against the message. Such is not the behavior of growth.

by Barry Newton

Had the ancient city of Ephesus ever seen a fire quite like this one? The year was probably about 52 A.D. Neither the intense heat nor the rising column of smoke would have been unusual.

What may have been a novelty was the Ephesian desire for this fire to burn at great personal loss. The calculated value of what that fire consumed exceeded what a common laborer could earn if he worked 365 days for 136 years! Why had one fellow and then another willingly carried to this great fire their personal items which had been so dear to their hearts? What could have caused such a reversal of their values?

Perhaps we will be surprised to realize that a handful of Jewish exorcists achieved in a single hour what neither years of Paul's preaching nor the extraordinary miracles God had worked through Paul had done. These exorcists had made the mistake of simply invoking the authority of Jesus' name like another lucky charm in their bag of spiritual tools. What happened next was both unexpected and revealed the greatness of Christ.

The evil spirit had acknowledged knowing Jesus and Paul but then a question of disdain emerged, "who are you?" The authority of Jesus was not a power they could subdue and wield for their own bidding; Jesus was far greater and more powerful than them or any of the tricks they had been using. The exorcists were standing before raw evil alone and unprepared for this encounter. The result was not pretty. Wounded, bleeding, and naked men had fled from that evil presence out into the streets.

Because both Jews and Gentiles clearly understood what this meant about Jesus, they became afraid. What followed next represents what happens whenever people come to fully realize the greatness of God and His Son. They confessed their evil deeds and burned what they understood to stand contrary to Christ.

When Paul later wrote the letter of Ephesians, in essence he insisted that Christians visit the bonfire. They are to cast off everything which is incompatible with serving Christ. What are some of those items which belong on the bonfire?

Using unwholesome locker room talk

Sticky fingers that shoplift

Being bitter and set against certain people

Putting down others

Sexual immorality

Being driven to simply acquire more and more

Jokes at another’s expense

Have you been to the bonfire? Are you in need of visiting it?

by Barry Newton

Perhaps you have read a book or heard a sermon about the God who gives second chances. Scripture is filled with stories about lives which had been ruined in one way or another only to be picked up out of the ashes by God. The hope of a second chance strikes a resonant chord. We recognize that our only hope is for a fresh start made possible by God.

But just how good is the news of a second chance? Is this really an accurate way to speak of God's grace? After all, if you could not lift up 1000 pounds before, do you really want another opportunity to prove you can do it? With a second chance, the burden and responsibility still lies upon you. If you could not live a sinless life before, how well do you think you would do with a second chance? We need God's grace to provide us with much more than another shot at failure.

Through Jesus, God sees His people as being blameless before Him, not because they were finally able to master perfection but because they receive what Jesus achieved, sinless perfection. Through Jesus' death as a perfect and sinless lamb, God extends to us what we could never achieve on our own - blamelessness! Through His grace, God has acted in a much greater way than merely giving us a second chance. Through His Son, God did it for us! Here is a message filled with real hope for the whole world.

Footnote - While Scripture is clear that we can not be good enough to merit salvation, Scripture is equally forceful in asserting that God's people have been charged to live in the light and to do the good which God has prepared for them to do. While salvation is made possible through Jesus, the servant who is lazy and does not fulfill His Master's will shall be cast out.

The life of the disciple is not "thanks for salvation, now I'll do my own thing." The Christian life is "thank you for saving me and taking me to be your servant. Now I will do my duty as an unworthy servant." What tremendous grace God has given us that we might be called the children of God! We do not deserve this.

by Barry Newton

Confident? Reality? Fatalistic? Lazy? An excuse? How would you describe the claims: "They will never change" or "I can not change"?

Whether the words trickle forth as a seemingly despairing self-confession or a mumbled pessimistic comment labeling others, some people appear to be determined to believe that what is will always be. To be sure, transformation can be daunting./1 Admittedly, some people may never grow into all that the Lord wants them to be. But there is really good news ... no, it is not good news, it is great news.

People are not forced to remain imprisoned forever in destructive, foolish, immature or ungodly behavior patterns. God has made it possible for people to be transformed from the inside out.

Changed Status (Guilty to Innocent)

The story of God working through Christ is the story of God's efforts to radically alter people. Offered as an undeserved gift, God has created a way for the guilty to legitimately be declared righteous, holy and blameless!/2 No longer should dark memories of their previous deeds haunt their lives and drag their sense of self-worth through the mud. The person in the mirror can not only be respectable and honorable, but also free from any accusation! This is great news.

How has God made this possible? With Jesus' death on the cross, Christ took upon himself our sinfulness in order that we might receive his righteousness./3 Those who rely upon Jesus and his blood are set free from their guilt./4 The gospel calls people to rely upon Jesus by being buried in water that the old self might die with Christ. Then a new man is raised up with Christ to the new life made possible by God through Christ./5

Changed Behavior, Values & Beliefs (Darkness to Light)

God does not want human transformation to stop with a changed status. God expects the whole person of those whom He has redeemed to likewise be changed./6 How can this happen? If we listen to Scripture and were to organize some general steps, they would be:

1. Change from darkness to light in what you think, value, pursue and do

Disciples of Jesus are expected to learn from Christ the values and behaviors which characterize a spiritually healthy life./7 As those who have died in baptism to their former lifestyle, they are to seek to please the Lord who now reigns over their life./8 Disciples are expected to adopt the new beliefs and values associated with Christ. These will create new agendas, new dreams, and a new standard of behavior.

2. Deliberately strive to grow into putting the new mindset into action

God's people are expected to put the new lifestyle into practice; it is not an optional extra./9 While forgiveness is available for sin, this can never become an excuse to hamstring a genuine effort to grow.

Do People Change? People Do!

The status and behavior of self-centered greedy individuals, swindling business dealers, those imprisoned in various kinds of sexual immorality and perversions, gossipers, thieves as well as those condemned by every other form of ungodliness have been transformed in the name of the Lord Jesus./10 People can change. This truth brings a revitalizing freshness filled with hope for a stagnant world mired in harmful routines.

God has made real transformation possible. God can change our status. The question is whether we are willing to put forth the effort to learn of Christ to start the lifestyle change from the inside out. Each of us needs to ask the question, "how is my way of living life different from the image of Christ?" Having created a specific list of new thoughts, motivations and behaviors which need to be adopted, God calls us to act. The Christian life is about continued growth and transformation./11

1/ Jeremiah 5:3; Proverbs 27:22 2/ Colossians 1:21-22 3/ 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 3:18 4/ Romans 3:24-26; Ephesians 1:7-8 5/ Romans 6:1-23; Colossians 2:11-13 6/ 1 Thessalonians 4:7; Ephesians 5:8-11 7 Ephesians 4:21-24; Romans 12:1-2; Colossians 3:9-10 8/ Ephesians 5:8-10; 1 Thessalonians 3:1-12 9/ Ephesians 4:1; 5:1; Philippians 1:27; 3:16 10/ 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 11/ 2 Corinthians 3:18; 2 Peter 1:5-7; Romans 8:29