God So Loved the World

From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps reach out for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us.  For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your poets have said, For we too are his offspring.” Acts 17:26-28

Ahhhhh, the joys of summer travel! Engaging diverse cultures, hearing strange languages, learning new stories, worshiping in churches that don’t do it like we do it, and tasting foods unlike anything Mom ever made! Oh, the wonder of God’s presence in it all!
 
In today’s text the Apostle Paul is speaking to the rich cultural mosaic of our world.  Having been charged by the Athenians with preaching “foreign gods,” Paul reasserts the Genesis truth about the oneness of humanity — “From one ancestor God made all the nations to inhabit the whole earth.” We are one, Paul says. From one human ancestor we have all come. We are one blood. 
 
But if we are of one blood, what are we to make of the myriad of languages and cultures in our world? What is the meaning of all our ethnic differences that so often divide us?
 
Notice Paul says that God has a purpose in all of this. It is God who “allotted” the “times” of the nations. It is God who determined the “boundaries where they would live.” It is God who made us different. And God’s purpose Paul says, is “that they might search for God and perhaps reach out for for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us.”  
 
God is close to all of us. And our differences are designed to lead us to God, to seek after God and to know him.  The Creator and Redeemer has revealed himself in all his creation, and his hand is seen in the histories of all nations, cultures, and dialects. Whoever we are, and wherever we are, we can reach out to him and know him, for “in him we live and move and have our being.” 
 
Let us rejoice in a Gospel that knows no bounds, that leads us beyond our fears and divisions to the ends of the earth, and brings us back to the center, to the Gospel  center — God so loved the world….
 
Grace and Peace,
 
Tim Smith
 

Regular Bible Classes with Tim Smith on
Wednesday, August 26, and September 2
(Noon and 7:00p.m.)
At the Franciscan Renewal Center
(Garces Room of Piper Hall)

A Change is Coming
Beginning September 8
We will move classes to Tuesday
11:00 A.M.
7:00 P.M.

Like A River Glorious!

²⁰God^* put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. ²²And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. 

Ephesians 1:20-22

Two days ago I had the remarkable experience of walking across the Mississippi River. You read that right!  Yes, I walked all the way across the Mississippi River, from one side to the other, and I didn’t even get wet!   It happened as Rita and I were in northwestern Minnesota where the mighty Mississippi River begins its flow.
 
Explorers had long searched for the true headwaters of the Mississippi River but it wasn’t until 1832 that Henry Schoolcraft discovered the river’s true source, and named it “Itasca,” which was his conflation of the Latin veritas (truth)  and caput (caput) meaning, “true head.” 
 
It was there at Itasca, the mighty river’s “true head” that I was able to step rock to rock from one side of the headwaters to the other. Then having crossed over I stood for a few moments watching little children play in waters a few inches deep.  In my mind’s eye I tried to imagine this “true head” flowing and overflowing through ten states, for 2,340 miles, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. As I savored the moment of creation, I thought of our “true head,” Jesus Christ , whose very life flows and overflows to fill all things.
 
In today’s text the Apostle Paul discovers in Christ our “true head.” He traces all life and blessing back to its source in the triumphant, overpowering life of Christ Jesus. It is interesting that in describing Christ as “the head over all,” Paul uses a Greek word (kephale) that denotes a river’s “head,” or “source.”  (By the way, the Latin translators of this text used the same word caput that Schoolcraft had used of the “true head” of the Mississippi.)
 
From the risen Christ’s exalted throne there flows and overflows life and power that is far above “all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.”  Christ’s resurrection life and power will not be defeated, will not be denied. Like the “ole’ man river” Mississippi, his power and grace “just keeps rolling along.” 
 
Lord Acton warned that “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But here is absolute power that blesses and enriches. Here is power expended only for the good of others. Christ has been made “the head over all things for the church. It is for our advantage and good that Christ reigns the “true head” over all!  
 
Christ longs to show himself powerful in your life. He wants to be your souce today! 
 
Grace and Peace that keeps rolling along,
 
Tim Smith

Weekly Bible Classes with Tim Smith
At the Franciscan Renewal Center
(Garces Room of Piper Hall)

Wednesday Noon – 1:00 P.M.

Wednesday Evening 7:00 P.M. – 8:00 P.M.

‘Tis Well

⁹God has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, ¹⁰as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. ¹¹In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance,^* having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will.                   

Ephesians 1:9-11

On the evening of December 14, 1799, George Washington’s family, physicians, and personal secretary had gathered to the patriot’s bedside. The great man was dying. Then around six o’clock, Washington said to Dr. Dick, Dr. Brown, and Dr. Craik: “I feel myself going; I thank you for your attention; but I pray you take no more trouble about me.”  Shortly after ten o’clock that evening Washington breathed his last words: ”’Tis well.”

Having had the privilege to be at the bedside of many people as they spoke their last words, I cannot help but wonder what it was that Washington was seeing, what it was he was experiencing in life’s final moments. “Tis well.”
 
I am reminded of Julian of Norwich. On the eighth day of May, 1373, Lady Julian was dying. One of England’s great saints and Christian mystics was being taken down by the Black Death sweeping the land. Yet thirty year old Julian experienced such a powerful realization of Christ with her that she uttered one of the most famous lines in Christian spirituality: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
 
Yes, all shall be well!  Tis well. So says the Apostle Paul in today’s text as he writes of God’s “plan for fullness of time.” A sovereign God who “accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will” has destined us for an “inheritance” beyond all imaginings! Here is a grand sweep of extravagant grace of cosmic proportions that brings things together in heaven and things on earth.

Straining for words adequate Paul draws upon a rare Greek word to express God’s unfailing purpose to “gather up all things in Christ.” Paul uses a word that speaks of the act of adding up a column of numbers and then placing the sum of the numbers at the top of the column. It is all gathered up into one.

Yes!  According to God’s “good pleasure” he has “destined” to bring all together in Christ into the glorious inheritance he has intended for us from the beginning.

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

Grace and Peace,

Tim Smith

Weekly Bible Classes with Tim Smith

At the Franciscan Renewal Center

(Garces Room of Piper Hall)

Wednesday Noon – 1:00 P.M.

Wednesday Evening 7:00 P.M. – 8:00 P.M.

Drinking of One Spirit

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.                       

 I Corinthians 12:12-13

It was a moment of grace for me last Thursday evening!   I was granted a glimpse of the wondrous, colossal mosaic that God is creating in Christ. This epiphany, of sort, happened to me in a rather unusual way.
 
It began as I was sitting in our living room, quietly reading a presentation to the Moscow Theological Academy by the Russian Orthodox churchman, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. I did not know the man, and his name seemed rather strange to my Western ears, but I quickly warmed to him as I read his address, “For Me Life Is Christ.”  Speaking in Moscow, at the height of the Cold War, in 1983, he said:

“From my very early years, as soon as I, as a fourteen year old boy, read the Gospels, I felt that there could be no other aim in life except sharing with others that life transforming joy which had been granted to me in coming to know God in Christ. Then, when still an adolescent, I began to speak about Christ, whether it was appropriate or not – at school, in the Metro, and in our youth camps – how He had revealed himself to me, as life, as joy, as meaning, as something so totally new that all was renewed.”

I had just paused to re-read and savor Anthony’s words, when my on-call pager chirped. I was being called to the hospital that night to meet with a patient before his liver transplant at midnight.
 
What a delight it was for me when I walked into a patient’s room and saw an African-American man, propped up in bed, reading his Bible and smiling. Then as this Pentecostal believer spoke to me of his faith in Christ, I thought:  This man sounds just like Metropolitan Anthony in far off Moscow!  For him as well, life is Christ.” 

I sat there and marveled that the same Spirit that made life new for a Russian teen years before, was the same Spirit bubbling up life in the Pentecostal brother.
 
What a wondrous thing our God is doing, I thought. We may speak different languages and come from different times and places. We may worship in ways very different. But having drunk of the same Spirit we are one. And life is new, and life is good.
 
Watching for Spirit!
 
Tim Smith

Weekly Bible Classes with Tim Smith
At the Franciscan Renewal Center
(Garces Room of Piper Hall)

Wednesday Noon – 1:00 P.M.
Songs for Life’s Journey:  The Psalms of Ascent
Wednesday Evening 7:00 P.M. – 8:00 P.M.
Profiles of Spiritual Maturity:  The Letter of James