Attributes of Strength

Last year at this time we introduced you to a writer who blogs under the name Daily Echoes at Echoes of Heart. Clicking the title which follows will take you to where this first appeared and the option of listening on audio.

God’s Attributes

The enemy saw God’s attributes and considered Him weak. He really thought he could put himself next to God without breaking a sweat. I wonder, does he regret all he did now? The enemy hasn’t even seen half of what’s actually coming to him in the real near future. He doesn’t know yet, the actual extent, of just how wrong he really was, when he mistook God’s all-encompassing love, goodness, gentleness, kindness, mercy, self-control, patience, etc. as weaknesses.

To overpower a person or take advantage of their gentleness, kindness, patience, or their love, so often wins the battle. But each time someone wins like that, they grow even more blind to reality as they pride-fully bask in the illusion of having won.

Reality is God wins! The war is won by Christ Jesus and those who courageously take the abuse of others, still holding on to His Will, His purpose, His ways, refusing to let anyone shake their faith, they come share in His victory!

You may be able to hurt them, knock them down, break their heart, but you will never be able to take away their victory in Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:8-10 NLT — We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed but not driven to despair. We are hunted down but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.

The attributes of almighty God are not weak!

► To turn the other cheek takes more strength than to fight back.

► To do good to those who hurt you takes more strength than to get revenge.

► To forgive seven times your brother or sister for the same wrongs they have done to you takes more strength than to disassociate.

► To continue to serve the selfish and ungrateful takes more strength than to throw up your hands and give up.

In a world that so aggressively teaches and applauds focusing on self, it takes a lot of strength to put aside your wants and needs for others.

I’m stunned at how many people seem to believe that those who live their lives emulating the attributes of Jesus are weak. Wouldn’t it be wiser to remember who is being emulated? Almighty God, Creator, Savior, Judge! If you ask me, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who is weak and who is strong! Does it?

You can win a battle with temporary strength, but to win the war, you need everlasting strength found only in Jesus Christ.

Galatians 6:8-10 NLT — Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.

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Enjoy a second helping from the same author: Dangerously Desensitized.

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One of the passages of scripture that centers on the mystery of God’s divinity confined in a human body is Philippians 2:5-8 which we’ve looked at here and (in much detail) here.

Blessed Are…

“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:3)

Here are two different takes on the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. If you are not familiar with the full text, or wish to do some comparison, click here.

Author and theologian Monika Hellwig gives us the following:

1. The poor in spirit know they are in need and can’t help themselves.
2. The poor in spirit know not only their dependence on God and on powerful people but also their interdependence with others.
3. The poor in spirit rest their security not on things but on people.
4. The poor in spirit have no exaggerated sense of their own importance and no exaggerated need of privacy.
5. The poor in spirit are less interested in competition and more interested in cooperation.
6. The poor in spirit instinctively appreciate family, love and relationships over things.
7. The poor in spirit can wait, because they have learned patience.
8. The fears of the poor in spirit are more realistic and exaggerate less, because they already know they can survive great suffering and want.
9. When the poor in spirit have the gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threatening or scolding.
10. The poor in spirit can respond to the call of the gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.

~found in files; original source unknown; one blog notes a citation in The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey.

The Beatitude Creed:

I believe that the poor in spirit will inherit the kingdom of Heaven.
I believe there will be comfort for those who mourn.
I believe that being meek is a good thing and that those who give everything will inherit the earth.
I believe that those whose heart is set on seeking righteousness will find it.
I believe the merciful will receive more than they think they deserve.
I believe the pure in heart will be blessed and will see God.
I believe that those who long for peace and do more than others think is safe are children of the living God.
I believe in a place of safety for those who are hurt for trying to do the right thing.

I believe that being poor, and ignored and weak, and sick and tired and broken and messed up and kicked around is not as spiritually dangerous as being self-satisfied and clever and well-clothed and well-fed and degreed and creed-ed and important.

~posted July 17th, 2008 at A Life Reviewed blog – Joe and Heather live in Coventry in the English West Midlands

What’s in a Name? Saul Becomes Paul

Thanks to those of you who recommend blogs or specific posts.  If I don’t use your suggestion, feel free to re-submit the idea. 

Today we introduce the writing of Darrell Creswell, where today’s post appeared as Why Did Saul Change His Name to Paul?

By divine sovereignty the Lord intervenes in Saul’s life and he is genuinely converted during an encounter with the Lord Jesus. Under the ministry of Ananias he is also healed and filled with the Holy Ghost. Saul immediately began preaching Christ in the synagogues of Damascus. It is uncertain when Saul’s name was changed to Paul. The first reference in the sacred record to this name change was while Paul was ministering on the Isle of Cyprus during his first missionary journey (Acts 13:1-9).

• Acts 7:58 – Saul is introduced in the New Testament giving approval to Stephen’s death

• Acts 8 – Saul continues persecuting the church

• Acts 9 – Saul travels to Damascus and is converted by Jesus in the process

• Acts 9:19 – Saul (no name change yet) begins preaching Christ in Damascus

• Acts 13:1-3 – Saul and Barnabas (still no name change) are set apart by the Holy Spirit for missionary service

• Acts 13:4 – Saul and Barnabas set sail for Cyprus

• Acts 13:9 – Saul or Paul name “change” takes place

• Acts 13-28 – Saul goes by the name Paul for the remainder of the book and the remainder of the New Testament

The Bible does not tell us how or when Saul’s name was changed to Paul. In the book of Acts, Luke simply identifies Saul as the one who is also called Paul.

Acts 13:9 “Then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him.”

So why the change from Saul to Paul?

There are two possibilities.

The first is found in the first book of Timothy when the Lord informs Saul that he would become an apostle to the Gentiles.

1 Timothy 2:7 “For which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am speaking the truth in Christ, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.”

One reason that Paul may have converted his Jewish Saul to the Gentile equivalent Paul is so that non-Jews would accept him more easily. Jews were intensely hated throughout the Roman Empire and very few Gentiles wanted to listen to or be around Jews.

The second possibility and the topic of this piece may be that his new identity reflected a new life in Christ Jesus. After his conversion on the road he was a new man with a new heart. The old man Saul with his persecution of Christians was a thing of the past. I personally believe that Paul knew that this new man with a new heart required a new name.

The name Paul is a fully Romanized name that means “small”, with no Jewish roots attached to it.

Did God change Saul’s name? If He did, the Bible doesn’t say so, and if it wasn’t done by God, then Paul must have done it.

Paul referred to himself as the “least of the Apostles”, a pun on the meaning of “Paul” meaning small in Greek.

It is no small wonder that it was most probably Paul that introduced the word  tapeinophrosune into first century literature. The word was first introduced in Ephesians in about 61 AD. Ephesians 4:2 with all humility (tapeinophrosune) and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love.

In Greek pre-Christian writers, the word tapeinos is with a just a few exceptions used by Plato and Platonic writers, in a bad or inferior sense–meaning something evil or unworthy. In secular Greek literature, the adjective (Greek) “humble”, or “lowly” was used always in a derogatory and negative way, most commonly of a slave, bum or a vagrant. It described what was considered unfit, unclean and having little or no value.

If I were to say to you in the year 20AD, “Hi Buddy, your wife sure is humble”. You would go ahead and punch me out. That is how bad the word humble was. But just as Christ came to change the world, He came to change the word tapeinos to tapeinophrosune and give it a new meaning changing the negative definition to a positive and eternal meaning. Jesus’ death on the Cross and the sharing of that message gave us the meaning of the word we now know as humility, now that’s powerful. Paul understood that as the Holy Spirit directed him to write God’s word. And humility as a believer goes even a step farther than the secular world.

It is Paul who first penned the word as found in the New Testament as a  noun that is translated “humility” (Col 2:18, 23); in several other places in the New Testament it is also translated “lowliness” and “lowliness of mind”.

Neither the Romans nor the Greeks had a word for “humility”. The very concept of humility was so foreign to their way of thinking that they had no term to describe it. During the first several centuries of Christianity, pagan writers borrowed the term (tapeinophrosune) humility from the writings of the Paul  in the New Testament. The pagan writers always used it derogatorily—mostly in reference to Christians—because to them humility was a pitiful weakness. Thus, it is not surprising that the word “humility”, has not been found in any Greek literature outside the Bible before the 2nd century.

The word humility (tapeinophrosune) in the New Testament always has a positive connotation. Humility of mind and spirit is the opposite of pride, pride being the sin that has always separated men from God. Christ through the power of His Blood has transformed the word humble from that of shame in the eyes of man, to that of humility (tapeinophrosune) which carries glory, strength and honor, and is exalted in the eyes of our Lord.

The prominence that humility has gained in Christian scripture indicates the power of this concept in our relationship to God, ourselves and to our fellow man. Jesus not only strongly impressed His disciples with the need of humility, but was in Himself its supreme example. He described Himself as “meek and lowly (tapeinos) in heart” (Matt 11:29) “Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled; and whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted”.

Philippians 2:3-4

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility (tapeinophrosune) consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Here Paul gives us the Scriptural “antidote” for pride, selfish ambition and the pursuit of our own egos and glory. We are to view others as being above and better than ourselves, and to hold ourselves as lower than them, which is exactly the opposite of what our flesh desires to do. The word indicates the esteeming one’s self as small or recognizing one’s insufficiency but at the same time recognizing the powerful sufficiency of God! This the power of the word tapeinophrosune (humility), transformed by the Blood of Christ.

It is not a weakness when we surrender, but in strength when we reject our own wants and desires and look after the needs of others.” It is good to show humility to the world as we follow Christ and humble ourselves that our “labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1Cor 15:58).

This is perhaps Scripture’s clearest portrait of the humility called for in the Gospel. It is not a weak man’s surrender, but a strong man’s rejection of selfishness and determination to be actively concerned with the needs and interests of others. In Christ there are no empty, meaningless lives, only strong eternal lives through humility.

Humility is the understanding of our own insignificance, in light of His significance. I think that what Paul is trying to teach us here in understanding humility is

Colossians 3:12 So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience

The word humility here refers to the saints, to see themselves as sinners saved by God’s grace, to esteem others better than themselves; in ascribing all they have, and are, to Christ; in doing works of mercy and righteousness without ostentation, or boasting of them, or depending on them; owing all to Christ Jesus in humility.

So it is fitting that Saul whose name was changed to Paul after his conversion would refer to himself as the least of the apostles and coin the noun tapeinophrosune (humility) for all of recorded history from the time of Christ to see. The word for humility used by Paul is but a reflection of how he saw himself in Christ Jesus -– Small and Humble. A wonderful legacy in Christ Jesus to leave for us all to see and read.

~Darrell Creswell