Giving Thanks Always

“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:20).

Under the law and its sacrificial system, there were sin offerings. Sin offerings were constant reminders of the sinfulness of the ones bringing the sacrifices, continuous reminders of their ongoing need for forgiveness, atonement, cleansing, and righteousness (Heb. 10:3).

The sacrificial system included not only sin offerings, but also thank offerings. These sacrifices were outward expressions of thanksgiving by the children of Israel in response to God’s merciful provisions for both their spiritual and physical needs. God wanted them offered, not by obligation, but by free will: “And when ye will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving unto the Lord, offer it at your own will” (Lev. 22:29).

As believers under grace, we don’t bring an ongoing sacrifice for sin; instead we praise God and rest in the once-for-all, perfect sacrifice for sin by Christ at the Cross. We also don’t bring thank offerings to the Lord in the manner Israel did under the law but, like Israel, we do offer our thanksgiving to God out of our own free will, thanking Him for His grace in providing for our spiritual and physical needs.

Thanksgiving crucifies self. It is unselfish and humble. Thanksgiving recognizes God as the Source of everything. Thanksgiving, the holiday, and thanksgiving in everyday life, remind us of our dependence on God and the continual blessings that flow from His hand.

Ephesians 5:20 instructs us when to give thanks: “always.” It tells us what to give thanks for: “all things.” It shows us who we give thanks to: “God and the Father.” It teaches us how to give thanks: “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The appropriate response to what God has done and given is thanksgiving. If we are thankless, we’re not looking for or seeing God in our lives. We give thanks always because we are continually the beneficiaries of His grace and goodness. In Acts, God’s Word tells us that “He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things” (17:25) and that “He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (14:17).

We give thanks to God “for all things.” “All things” means both spiritual (Eph. 1:3-14; et al) and physical blessings (1 Tim. 6:17). To thank God for both spiritual and physical blessings consecrates everything and all of life to Him. And above all, we thank God for His greatest gift of all: His Son and the victory over sin and death that we have in Him.

“But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57).

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.


Two Minutes with the Bible lets you start your day with short but powerful Bible study articles from the Berean Bible Society. Sign up now to receive Two Minutes With the Bible every day in your email inbox. We will never share your personal information and you can unsubscribe at any time.

The Answer to Peter’s Prayer – Acts 10:9-16

 

Summary:

Cornelius had been given a trance vision to tell him to send men to Peter (10:1-3), and Peter was given one (v. 9, 10) to prepare him to receive them.  Peter’s hunger (v. 10) was symbolic in the same way the Lord’s hunger was (Mark 11:11-14).  The fig tree was a symbol of Israel, and the Lord hungered for spiritual fruit in Israel, and  He was doubtless praying for it as well, since He was a man of prayer.

And Peter’s hunger was symbolic of his hunger for fruit in Israel, and for fruit among the Gentiles.  Remember, the Lord sent him to the Gentiles (Mt. 28:19) but told him Israel had to be reached first (Lu. 24:47) so God could use Peter and all saved Jews to reach the Gentiles (Isa. 49:6).  When Israel rejected Christ instead, Peter hungered for fruit among the Gentiles as well as the Jews.  After all, he was in Joppa “by the sea” (10:5-8), and the sea was symbolic of the Gentiles (Isa. 60:5).  And he was no doubt praying for it too.

Peter was probably thinking of how he got to Joppa in the first place.  He was called there to raise a Jewish damsel from the dead (9:36-38).  She deserved it because of her “good works,” making her a type of Jews who were saved by faith plus works.  God brought Peter to Joppa to assure him that despite Israel’s rejection of Christ the Gentiles will still be reached when saved Jews are raised from the dead and Gentiles come to them for salvation (Isa. 60:5).  Being in Joppa also reminded Peter of this, for that’s where a Gentile brought Solomon riches for the temple (I Chron. 2:1-16).  That’s what will also happen after saved Jews are raised (Isa. 60:5).

But God also brought Peter to Joppa to teach him how He planned to reach the Gentiles in the meantime.  You see, He just saved Saul in Acts 9, and sent him to the Gentiles (Acts 16:16, 17).  And here in Acts 10, God is preparing to introduce Peter to Paul’s new ministry among the Gentiles by sending him to a Gentile named Cornelius.

Of course, Peter didn’t want to go to a Gentile—and neither did Paul.  When he headed for the Jews in Jerusalem instead, God put him in a trance to straighten him out (Acts 22:17-21).  His hunger in Acts 9:9 was symbolic of his hunger for spiritual fruit in Israel (cf. Rom. 10:1). But he also didn’t want to go to the Gentiles because he knew God’s plan was to use saved Israel to reach them (Acts 13:47).  So he was standing on God’s Word in his refusal to go to the Gentiles—just like Jonah!  Jonah wanted God to punish the Ninevite Gentiles who had slaughtered Jews, not save them, according to God’s Word in Genesis 12:3.  That’s because if you messed with Israel you messed with God (Zech. 2:8 cf. Acts 9:4)

Peter is also going to stand on God’s Word in his refusal to go to the unclean Gentiles, as symbolized when he stood on it to refuse to eat unclean animals (Acts 10:11-14).  He was “very” hungry (v. 10) but he used God’s Word in Leviticus 11 to resist the temptation to eat unclean things.  When you’re tempted to be sinfully unclean, you should do the same.  God’s Word to you says that He sees you as a new man who cannot sin (Col. 3:9, 10).  Live like He sees you!

Since Peter knew that God told the Jews that certain meats were unclean to remind them that the Gentiles were unclean, he knew that this vision meant they were no longer unclean (Acts 10:27, 28).

The past tense word “hath” (Acts 10:15) means God cleansed meats and Gentiles back in Acts 9 when He saved Saul.  Peter was just learning about this in Acts 10.  But he’s a bit thick-headed, so God gave him the vision three times (10:16) just as the Lord had to call him three times to follow Him

But the main reason the vision was repeated three times was that Cornelius had sent Peter three Gentiles (10:7, 8), and the Lord wanted Peter to make the connection and get the message that Gentiles were no longer unclean.  The law required two or three witnesses to settle things (cf. Deut. 19:15), so the Lord witnessed the vision to him thrice.

Peter wasn’t being a Jewish racist, nor were the other Jews who preached only to Jews (Acts 11:19).  They rejoiced when they heard God sent Peter to Gentiles (11:18).  They just knew Israel was supposed to get saved first.

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: The Answer to Peter’s Prayer – Acts 10:9-16

Are All Our Sins Forgiven?

“Where does the Bible say that our sins are forgiven past, present and future?”

Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, Hebrews 9:25,26 says,

Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;

For then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”

If you are saved, your sins were forgiven by the sacrifice of Christ. If He only died for your past sins, He would have to die for every new sin that you sin. He would have had to begin with Adam’s sins at “the foundation of the world” and never stopped suffering for our sins. Instead, He “put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (9:26), “for this He did once, when He offered up Himself” (7:27).

Of course, you “receive forgiveness of sins” (Acts 26:18) when you believe the gospel. But you don’t have to believe the gospel again every time you sin. If you are saved and forgiven of your sins, then no matter what sin you commit today, you can open your Bible tomorrow and Colossians 2:13 still says, “having forgiven you all trespasses,” past tense. The words on the page don’t change despite how often you grieve God’s Spirit with your sin. Forgiveness for the believer is always a done deal, a fait accompli.

But knowing that you “have…the forgiveness of sins” (Eph. 1:7) and are “sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (v. 13), Paul says to “grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed” (4:30). And the thing that grieves a “holy” Spirit is sin. So if you “have…the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7), then don’t “continue in sin, that grace may abound” (Rom. 6:1).

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.


Two Minutes with the Bible lets you start your day with short but powerful Bible study articles from the Berean Bible Society. Sign up now to receive Two Minutes With the Bible every day in your email inbox. We will never share your personal information and you can unsubscribe at any time.

The Leader of the Italian Band – Acts 10:1-8

 

Summary:

When it says that Cornelius “feared God” (10:1,2), that didn’t mean he was saved.  As a matter of fact, we know he wasn’t saved, for God is about to tell him how to be saved (11:13).  We know being “devout” (10:2) didn’t mean “saved” either, for Acts 17:2-4 describes some people who were devout before they got saved.  “Devout” just means devoted to, and Cornelius was obviously devoted to God.

That’s a good first step in getting saved (Heb. 11:6), but you also have to do what God says to do to be saved.  People often wonder how God can fairly judge people who never hear the gospel, but Cornelius illustrates the answer!  When he sought God, God showed him the gospel (cf. Ps. 25:8-14).

True, “there is none that seeketh after God” (Rom. 3:11), in and of themselves.  But God does things to make men seek Him.  He speaks to them through the stars (Ps. 19:1-3) and He divided men up into different nations (Gen. 10,11) “that” they might seek Him (Acts 17:24-27), to name just a few.

But Cornelius had a problem.  He was a Gentile, and the God of Israel wasn’t receiving Gentiles under the new kingdom program (Mt. 15:23,24).  But a Gentile could be saved under the old program of the law that was still going on as the new program was being introduced.  But Gentiles needed Jews to tell them what the law said about how to be saved.  Luckily for Cornelius we know there were Jews in Caesarea, for there were Jews everywhere (cf. Acts 2:5).  We see evidence that his hometown Jews told him he could get saved by giving alms “to the people” of Israel (10:2).  That’s one thing Gentiles had to do to be saved (Gen. 12:1-3 cf. Luke 7:2-5).

But doing that hadn’t saved Cornelius because the new kingdom program that included water baptism for salvation had now been introduced.  So now Cornelius needed Jews who could tell him about that too!  We know that Philip knew the new program because he baptized the eunuch, and he was living in Caesarea (Acts 8:40 cf. 21:8).  And as an “evangelist” he would have made a lot of converts by that time.  So why hadn’t they told Cornelius how to be saved?

It was because they were still preaching to Jews only (Acts 11:19) until all Israel was saved.  But when unsaved Jews stoned Stephen and made it clear that wouldn’t happen, God saved Saul in Acts 9 and sent him to the Gentiles, changing the kingdom program to His even newer mystery program.

But God didn’t tell Philip about that, for the mystery was given to Paul, not Philip (Eph. 3:1-3).  But to introduce what Paul was starting to do among the Gentiles, God is about to give Cornelius a vision to tell him how to be saved.

We see more proof that Cornelius was obeying the law to be saved in that he was praying in “the ninth hour” (Acts 10:3 cf. 10:30), “the hour of prayer” (3:1).  Because of all that, his prayers came up to God “for a memorial” (10:4).  A memorial is something to help you remember something, as when Memorial Day helps us remember the men who died serving our country.  The Jews had sacrifices for a memorial (Lev. 6:15) to help them remember that the reason they had to keep offering them was that they kept sinning (Heb. 10:3).

Cornelius’ prayers were a memorial in place of offerings like that, just as David’s were when he was on the run from Saul (Ps. 141:2) and couldn’t offer sacrifices in the temple.  So in saying Cornelius’ prayers came to God as a memorial, that means they were as accepted of God as David’s prayers!

Don’t overlook the fact that the angel calls Peter by his original name (Acts 10:5,6).  His full name was “Simon Barjonah” (Mt. 16:17), which means son of Jonah (cf. Mark 10:46).  His father was obviously named after the prophet Jonah, who liked to argue with God (Jonah 4)—like Peter (Mt. 16:22; Acts 10:14).  We see more proof that Peter was a symbolic son of Jonah in that God is about to send him to the Gentiles like He sent Jonah, and both men had to be convinced to go!  Instead, Jonah went to Joppa (Jonah 1:3)—where Peter was (Acts 10:5).  See the parallels?

Peter was “by the sea side” (Acts 10:6), and the sea is a symbol of the Gentiles (Isa. 60:5; Rev. 13:1-4).  When the angel told Cornelius that Peter would tell him what he had to “do” (Acts 10:6), we know he meant do to be saved (Acts 11:13), so Cornelius obeyed without delay (Acts 10:7,8)!

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: The Leader of the Italian Band – Acts 10:1-8

Knock Off the Purloining! – Titus 2:10

Did you hear about the man who got caught stealing a calendar from the office where he worked?  He got 12 months!

All stealing is sinful, but stealing from your employer is a special kind of sin.  That’s why the Apostle Paul told Titus to

“Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters…not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity” (Titus 2:9,10).

The word “purloining” means stealing, but it refers to a very specific kind of stealing.  Webster’s Online Dictionary defines it as: “to appropriate wrongfully… often by a breach of trust.”  When a man robs a bank with a gun, that’s stealing.  But when a bank employee embezzles a bank’s money, that’s purloining, for banks trust their employees to handle their money honestly.

Masters in Bible days often trusted their servants with their money—often with all their money, as when Potiphar made Joseph his “overseer” (Gen. 39:1-6).  A man in a trusted position like that could easily rob his master blind.  Other Bible servants were trusted with just enough money to buy something at the market.  If such a man told his master that an item cost 100 shekels and it only cost 90, he could easily pocket 10 shekels and his master would never be the wiser.

While the word “purloining” doesn’t always refer to stealing something by a breach of trust, we know that it does in our text, for Paul says that servants should be: “not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity.”  That’s a word that means faithfulness.  The Marine Corps motto is Semper Fi, which is an abbreviated form of the Latin phrase Semper Fidelis—“Always Faithful.”

When I was a boy, my mom had a “hi-fi” in our living room.  The manufacturers called it that because they claimed the sound you heard from their record player had high fidelity, that it was highly faithful to the sound recorded in the studio.  They claimed that their device made the record sound exactly like the original music.  So in saying that servants shouldn’t be purloining, “but shewing all good fidelity,” Paul was saying if a master trusted a servant with 100 shekels that he should give his master his item and the exact change, with no purloining.

While we don’t have masters and servants today, plenty of purloining goes on in the workplace!  Employees bring home all kinds of things from work.  Years ago Johnny Cash sang a song called “One Piece At A Time,” a song about an employee at the Cadillac plant in Detroit who couldn’t afford a Caddy so he proceeded to steal one by taking it home one piece at a time.  It’s funny to laugh about that, but one of the lines of the song says, “I’ve never considered myself a thief, but GM wouldn’t miss just one little piece, especially if I strung it out over several years.”

Well, you might not consider yourself a thief for purloining, but you are one, and it’s not funny.  A recent study showed that purloiners steal 50 billion dollars’ worth of things annually.  Compare that to the losses sustained by thieves who steal the old fashioned way, by breaking and entering, or by robbing people at gunpoint—a comparatively paltry 14 billion dollars’ worth!

Employees also steal time from their employers.  A recent study says that the average employee steals 4.5 hours per week from his boss while ostensibly working a forty-hour week.  That adds up to 6 weeks per year per employee, costing companies hundreds of billions of dollars.

Now I know that it’s easy to think, “My boss doesn’t pay me enough anyway, so I’m just evening the score.”  But if that’s how you feel about this issue, consider that Paul was telling slaves not to be guilty of purloining.  If anyone had a score to settle, it was men who weren’t getting paid anything for their labor!  But Paul tells even them not to be guilty of purloining.

So if you’re stealing from your employer, knock it off, and show him all good fidelity instead.  You’ll be Pauline in practice, not just in doctrine, and you’ll be eternally glad you did.

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.


Two Minutes with the Bible lets you start your day with short but powerful Bible study articles from the Berean Bible Society. Sign up now to receive Two Minutes With the Bible every day in your email inbox. We will never share your personal information and you can unsubscribe at any time.

The Builder and His Building – 1 Corinthians 3:12-15

 

Summary:

Paul wants us to build the “building” of the “house” of our own personal spiritual lives on the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ (v.11, 12) so that your house can withstand the storms of life (cf. Mt. 7:24-29).  But it’s also important what you build your house with (v. 12).

You say, “Who builds a house with things like gold?”  Solomon!  He built the temple with it (I Ki. 6:17-21), and that house was a type of what God will someday make the house of Israel into (Rev. 3:12).  That’s the living temple of God He had in mind when He said He’d live in the Jews (II Cor. 6:16).

But that wasn’t God’s only house of people.  Paul told Timothy about a “house” that was “the church, which is His Body” (Eph. 1:22, 23).  That’s God’s other house of people, and it’s also the other house He wants us to build on the foundation of Christ!  It’s a house made up of all the individual spiritual houses of the members of Christ’s Body.  God wants us to build up their houses as well as our own.

This “great house” of the Body contains vessels made of gold and silver (II Tim. 2:20).  A vessel is a container used to carry things (Ge. 43:11).  Ships are called vessels because they carry cargo.  God put the cargo of the gospel in us (II Cor. 4:3-7) expecting us to carry it to others, as He did Paul (Acts 9:15).

And He doesn’t want the vessel carrying His salvation dishonored by sin (I Thes. 4:3, 4), like the vessels of dishonor in II Timothy 2:20.  And when Paul talks about honorable vessels of gold and silver in the context of rewards in our text, that tells us the personal conduct of our testimony is the first thing God plans to reward.  Not because our sin hurts Him—Christ paid for that hurt!—but because it hurts the gospel.

But the gospel isn’t the only thing God wants you carrying in your vessel to others.  To build up the spiritual house of other believers, you have to carry Pauline truth to them.  If you fail, you are a vessel of dishonor.  We know this because the “these” Paul says you have to purge to be a vessel of honor (II Tim. 2:20-22) are dispensational errors (2:16-18).

God plans to test our works for wood, hay and stubble like that (I Cor. 3:13) at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Rom. 14:10) with the “fire” of God’s Word (Jer. 23:29) to see what “sort” it is.  “Sort” means kind (cf. Deut. 22:11).  God is going to judge the quality of your work when the fire of His word burns up your wood and hay, and leaves the gold and silver that can “abide” the fire still standing (I Cor. 3:14, 15).

He won’t put you in the fire.  He did that when He identified you with Christ on the Cross and His fire fell on Him for your sins.  So your sins will only be judged as they affect your work.  The word “wrong” in Colossians 2:22-25 doesn’t mean servants will be punished for their sins at the Judgment Seat.  It means they’ll suffer a loss of reward for being bad servants.  The wages of sin is death, not a loss of reward!

All believers will suffer that loss for the “bad” work they’ve done as servants of the Lord (II Cor. 5:10).  “Bad” doesn’t mean sinful (cf. Num. 13:20; Jer. 24:2; Mt.13:48), it means we did a bad job building up the church.  A bad carpenter doesn’t follow the blueprints, and a bad believer doesn’t follow the blueprints for the church found in Paul’s epistles.

A believer who does a good job building according to Paul’s blueprints will be rewarded with a “crown” (I Cor. 9:25) so he can “reign” with Christ (II Tim. 2:12) over the angels (I Cor. 6:3).  God wants us to run so we can reign at the highest possible level (I Cor. 9:25-27).  Paul compares the Judgment Seat to Olympic games like that because it will be a joyous day, not a somber day, like when sinners are judged and sent to the lake of fire.  The “terror” we’ll know in that day is the kind Israel had just standing in God’s presence, when He wasn’t even mad (Ex. 20:18-20). The “mercy” Onesiphorus will need is the kind Israel got when God didn’t leave the Jews in captivity (Ezr. 9:9), the loss-of-reward kind.

But our motivation to serve the Lord isn’t rewards, it’s the love Christ showed in dying for us, as Paul went on to say (II Cor. 5:14, 15).  But the foundation of your spiritual house can’t burn, because it is the rock-solid foundation of Christ. So even if all your work burns at the Judgment Seat, you’ll still be saved in that day “yet so as by fire” (I Cor. 3:15).

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: The Builder and His Building – 1 Corinthians 3:12-15

Did Jesus Quote the Apocrypha?

“A friend of mine said that Jesus quoted from an apocryphal book (Sirach 37:2). How do I answer his insistence that this means the apocrypha belongs in the Bible?”

In your letter you don’t mention where the Lord is supposed to have quoted this verse, but it doesn’t matter. Even if He did, that wouldn’t prove that God wanted that book included in the canon of Scripture. The Bible mentions a lot of books that aren’t included in God’s Word.

For instance, in the Old Testament it mentions “the book of the wars of the Lord” (Num. 21:14). In the New Testament, Paul talked about an epistle that he wrote before the Book of 1 Corinthians (5:9). And there are many other examples of this (Josh. 10:13; 2 Chron. 9:29; 12:15; 13:22; 1 Kings 11:41; Col. 4:16; Jude 1:14; etc.).

The bottom line is, if God wanted those books included in His Book, they’d be in His Book. The fact that they are not indicates that they may have contained trustworthy and quotable information, but they were not “given by inspiration of God” as “all Scripture” is (2 Tim. 3:16).

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.


Two Minutes with the Bible lets you start your day with short but powerful Bible study articles from the Berean Bible Society. Sign up now to receive Two Minutes With the Bible every day in your email inbox. We will never share your personal information and you can unsubscribe at any time.