Afterwords -- today
"Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts...' ...But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." (Hebrews 3:7-8a, 13)
August 12, 2023
Dear friends,
I've been reading through Hebrews, currently in chapters 3 and 4, and I've noticed the words "today" and "every (or each) day" repeated (Heb 3:7, 13, 15; 4:7; et al).
There is an emphasis on the present time. R. C. Sproul rightly said, "Right now counts for ever." Today, and every day when it becomes "today", is critical. As I read these two chapters of Hebrews, I discovered three present-tense realities we face as believers every day!
The first present reality is the eternal relevance and authority of God's word. "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says..." (3:7) Note that "says" (λέγει) is in the present tense. What was Scripture, written in the past, was by the author of Hebrews to be the Holy Spirit speaking. The passage cited is from Psalm 95, attributed to King David around 1000 BC. It's about an event from 1400 BC, written by David in 1000 BC, and then quoted by the author of Hebrews in AD 60. The Scripture is the living voice of the Holy Spirit, even in 2023! This truth is further reflected in the next chapter: "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." (4:12) God's word applies to me now in whatever circumstance I find myself in. B. B. Warfield wrote, "The Bible is the Word of God in such a way that when the Bible speaks, God speaks." In a similar way, we are told later in the epistle that our unchanging Lord is both timely and timeless, also in his relevance and authority: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (13:8)
The second present reality is the danger we face of hardening our hearts against God, or in being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. We become weary and grow cold in unbelief. We come to believe the lies of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and so we harden our hearts against God. Jesus said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy..." (John 10:10a) And I don't think he takes a vacation from that activity. Temptation to unbelief is a present and everyday danger we face. "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts..."
The third present reality is our ongoing need for encouragement. This need appears both in 3:13, "exhort [or, encourage] one another every day, as long as it is called 'today'..." and in 10:25, "encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." The imperative parakaleite (from παρακαλέω) means to keep giving encouragement, comfort, exhortation, urging, or whatever is needed for one another, in order that we would persevere with the Lord. This is a big reason why Christian fellowship is so important. Furthermore, Heb 10:25 tells us about one more day, "the Day" which draws near. So, one day, that day -- the Day of his return -- will become the new and forever "today", the "day that the Lord has made" (Ps 118:22-24).
So, there are three very present-tense realities that we face every day: the ongoing influence of the deceitfulness of sin; our ongoing need for encouragement; and the ongoing relevance of God's word, applied by the Holy Spirit to our situations.
ARTICLES OF NOTE.
-- "The article uses one of the 'interpretative tools' that are always and only about us, our times, and our concerns, and that simply reinforce that age-old sin of Western imperialists in general—our assumed innate superiority to anybody who might be different and thus of no importance or interest." (Carl Trueman, on "Queering a Tudor Warship")
-- "Women, therefore, shouldn’t harbor hostility to their bodies—wombs, cellulite, wrinkles—which transhuman feminism viscerally fears. Soon after Barbie steps, flat-footed, into the real world for the first time, she marvels at an old woman sitting next to her at the bus stop. Awestruck, Barbie says: 'You’re so beautiful.'” (Elayne Allen, on "Barbie’s Quiet Rebuke of Transhumanism.")
-- What to know about Falun Gong and The Epoch Times.
-- When in Rome, ...come see the cats! One more reason to visit Italy: "The Area Sacra, or Sacred Area, of Largo di Torre Argentina is a world-famous archeological site in downtown Rome that’s been home to a community of feral cats for decades, and it recently reopened to human visitors for the first time in nearly a century."
READING. I've finished Christian Reflections, by C. S. Lewis, a posthumously published collection of essays on Christian themes. (Very good!) Now I'm reading The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis -- Volume 2, 1931-1949 (HarperOne, 2009). Writing to his brother Warren in Shanghai, Lewis describes various kinds of fog.
As to fiction, I have finished Special Deliverance, by Clifford Simak (1982), and will begin A Ghost in August, by Neil C. Damgaard (2023).
Ongoing, I'm reading To Be Near Unto God, by Abraham Kuyper (1905). Also, studies in the book of Revelation with a lunchtime Bible study group. I have found Dr. S. Lewis Johnson's messages on the book to be very helpful. Here are some excerpts on "Babylonianism."
FINAL QUOTE. "No thing, when you have really started on it, can have for you then and there just the same thrill as the first hint. For example, the experience of being married and bringing up a family, cannot have the old bittersweet of first falling in love. But it is futile (and, I think, wicked) to go on trying to get the old thrill again: you must go forward and not backward. Any real advance will in its turn be ushered in by a new thrill, different from the old: doomed in its turn to disappear and to become in its turn a temptation to retrogression. Delight is a bell that rings as you set your foot on the first step of a new flight of stairs leading upwards. Once you have started climbing you will notice only the hard work. One needs the sweetness to start one on the spiritual life but, once started, one must learn to obey God for his own sake, not for the pleasure." -- C. S. Lewis (1932, from Collected Letters, Vol. 2)
That's it for this week!
Sandy
Image credit: photo above of daylily bloom, taken with my Pixel 5a. Note: Each daylily flower lasts just one day. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.