Matthew 15:21-28 & The Grace of Hunger

A father might be delighted or annoyed by his child’s persistent cries. You are at task and single focus is necessitated. You have explained this once to your son. Shortly “dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad…” are said in rhythm with a drumbeat of taps on your back. No emergency need be declared, and they do not want you, they just want some of your stuff and they want it now.

“Let’s play Nerf guns,” they later beg. And it is clear it’s not playing Nerf guns that they want, but playing Nerf guns with dad. You draw them out. You say no, but in such a way and in such a tone that they get what is happening. They persist and cry out, “please, please, pleeeeease?” The child wants their father, and the father wants to give himself, so what is a father doing in such instances? He is soaking in the moment, and heightening their hunger to maximize their shared joy at his yes. Which one is closer to what Jesus is doing in this text? I believe the point of this text isn’t simply that Jesus answers the humble, persistent cries of Gentiles, but that He loves to do so.

Jesus intensifies the hunger of this “dog,” so that she might rejoice all the more in the “crumb” that she receives from her “master’s table.” While this woman is shown the depth of her need and the extent of her unworthiness she is receiving God-glorifying backdoor grace that sees Jesus as her only hope, and keeps her coming back.

Jesus is glorified in our hunger as well as our satisfaction. Jesus is glorified in our groans as as well as our “ahhhs.” He is glorified when we long for Him in the valley of the shadow of death as well as when we rejoice that our cups run over. Whatever drives you to Jesus, whatever makes you grasp for Him more vehemently, whatever turns your casual prayers into earnest screams – is grace! So if you are crying out for the salvation of the Lord, keep crying out. When you sense your need, cry out. When He is silent, cry out. When conviction lays you prostrate before Him, keep crying out all the more. He is magnifying His name in you. He is increasing your hunger to maximize your shared joy at His yes.

The Pilgrim: Sweeping the Dusty Parlour of Our Heart

Then he took him by the hand, and led him into a very large parlour that was full of dust, because never swept; the which after he had reviewed a little while, the Interpreter called for a man to sweep. Now, when he began to sweep, the dust began so abundantly to fly about, that Christian had almost therewith been choked. Then said the Interpreter to a damsel that stood by, Bring hither the water, and sprinkle the room; the which, when she had done, it was swept and cleansed with pleasure.

CHR. Then said Christian, What means this?

INTER. The Interpreter answered, This parlour is the heart of a man that was never sanctified by the sweet grace of the gospel; the dust is his original sin and inward corruptions, that have defiled the whole man. He that began to sweep at first, is the Law; but she that brought water, and did sprinkle it, is the Gospel. Now, whereas thou sawest, that so soon as the first began to sweep, the dust did so fly about that the room by him could not be cleansed, but that thou wast almost choked therewith; this is to shew thee, that the law, instead of cleansing the heart (by its working) from sin, doth revive, put strength into, and increase it in the soul, even as it doth discover and forbid it, for it doth not give power to subdue.[Rom. 7:6; 1 Cor. 15:56; Rom. 5:20]

Again, as thou sawest the damsel sprinkle the room with water, upon which it was cleansed with pleasure; this is to show thee, that when the gospel comes in the sweet and precious influences thereof to the heart, then, I say, even as thou sawest the damsel lay the dust by sprinkling the floor with water, so is sin vanquished and subdued, and the soul made clean through the faith of it, and consequently fit for the King of glory to inhabit. [John 15:3; Eph. 5:26; Acts 15:9; Rom. 16:25,26; John 15:13] – John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

Matthew 15:1-20 & Holiness is a Dance

In the Old Testament Israel was drowning on one side of a boat. God delivered them. To prevent drowning again on that side of the boat they decided to throw themselves off the other side. To avoid falling off the starboard side of the vessel into the ocean of pagan libertinism, they jumped off the port side into the ocean Pharisaical legalism.

The Pharisees evaluated every boundary that the Bible establishes, and then tried to move the fence a few yards back, thus their traditions became more revered than the law. They thought that if you kept the traditions, you would never get close to breaking the law. But any time man tries to draw his own lines, his concern isn’t holiness, it’s sin. The Pharisees are like the lust filled adolescent who asks, “How far is too far?” I have no doubt that Jesus would reply to them as He did the rich young ruler, “One step, one thought, one glance, one touch!” The inflamed teen who asks this question, isn’t concerned about pursing purity, but lust. They want to know how close they can get to sin and be “ok.” Wanting to walk a line close to sin, is sin. It is the worship of sin.

God does draw a line in His law, and that line does differentiate between good and evil, righteousness and transgression, but it is less like a fence line, and more like the line of a rocket trajectory. It is not a line that you walk where sin is on the other side, and you can envy its green grass. It is like the rocket trajectory that lifts your eyes away from worldliness toward the heavens. The line God draws is a line toward perfection. Walk it and you walk away from sin, not towards it.

Be wary of reading this passage and concluding that, “Jesus is about a relationship, not rules.” Jesus want’s your heart. That is the point of this text. But the contrast here isn’t heart verses law, but tradition verses God’s commandments. When Jesus gives a new heart, it is a heart that loves the trajectory of the law (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

John is known as the apostle of love. The language of love pervades his writings. Listen to how often He connects love to obedience to God’s commands.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. …If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. ” (John 14:15, 23)

“And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.” (1 John 2:3)

“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3)

“And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments…” (2 John 6)

Commandments are not contrary to love, they are a means of expressing it.

Holiness is a dance. God wrote the steps. Jesus leads. We follow. No one looks at two skilled dancers who are wildly in love with each other and think that all the “rules” get in the way of their love. No, the dance does not choke love, it is a means of manifesting it, and it is beautiful, it is a delight.

The law for those redeemed by Christ is not merely a bridge between the two oceans of libertinism and legalism. It is a bridge toward holiness. Jesus traversed this bridge perfectly for us, in the power of the Spirit to the glory of the Father. All whom He saves from the oceans, He sets on this bridge, and empowers by His Spirit to follow Him to the glory of the Father.

This is true holiness. Let’s dance.

The Pilgrim: Sunday is A Market Day

Make the Lord’s day the market for thy soul; let the whole day be spent in prayer, repetitions, or meditations; lay aside the affairs of the other part of the week; let thy sermon thou hast heard be converted into prayer. Shall God allow thee six days, and wilt thou not afford him one? -John Bunyan, Mr. John Bunyan’s Dying Sayings

Matthew 14:22-36 & Great Faith Is a Belly Full of Jesus

Our works are born out of our faith. Faith is not born out of our works. Many sincere Christians long for deeper faith, but dig for it in all the wrong places. A better shovel may help you dig better, but it won’t make water exist below the surface. They think if they read the Bible more, they will have more faith; or if they pray more, then they will have more faith. Surely the Bible and prayer are means of grace, but not because we use them. Faith is not something we cook up in the empty kitchen of our own souls borrowing God’s ingredients. Faith grows when we feast on the Bread of Life God has already spread before us. God’s Word holds out faith-producing grace for us, not because we’ve read it or heard it, nor because some godly man has studied it or preached it, but because God spoke it, and He has spoken of His Son (Romans 10:17).

The point this text is not, “if you have faith, you can walk on water,” but, “Jesus walked on water and therefore He is worthy of your faith!”

It’s as if we go to a wine tasting and expect it to be great because we emphasize our technique. Perfect technique does not make a wine tasting excellent when the wine is wretched. The highlight of a great experience is the wine, not the technique; the tasted, not the taster. The emphasis here isn’t on the disciples faith, but the one “faithed”. What makes faith great is stressing not the beholder, but the Beheld; not the taster, but the Tasted (Psalm 34:8).

Man since the fall has tried to be a self-sustaining cannibal. Eating the apple was an infant’s attempt to be self-feeding. We were meant to be children reliant on our Father’s provision. Though made in the image of God, man is finite. When man tries to be self-reliant, to be his own source of life and thus eat on himself, there is always less of him after the meal. Seeking to be god, man becomes less godlike. Instead of living, he dies.

Better technique might help your Bible reading, but it is not decisive. It’s a shovel, it’s not water. You can’t quench thirst with a shovel. If you want good nutrition, it might help to chew your food better, but it is even better to chew better food. Introspection is good to see if you are of the faith, it is not good to grow faith. Faith will come when you look without, not when you look within. Look within for a faith-checking evaluation, look without for faith-giving revelation.

Put the emphasis on your conjuring up more faith, and you will eat yourself to death. Look to Jesus and see the feast that is. Great faith is a belly full of Jesus.

Tolle Lege: 10 Who Changed the World

Readability: 1

Length: 178 pp

Author: Danny Akin

Sometimes brevity is a virtue. Sometimes exhaustiveness is. Context can be a determining factor. When ripping off a bandaid or doing a graveside service in freezing weather, brevity is a virtue. When doing intricate surgery, brevity is not called for, exhaustiveness is.

Other times brevity and exhaustiveness have a more subjective basis, as regards biographies. I believe I remember reading the Doctor (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones) giving reasons why he believed long biographies were best. He had some good reasons and I tend to align with Him, preferring lengthy biographies myself, but I believe the best biography is a well read one. By all means, read biographies, short or long, and read them well. The virtue lies in how you read, not how much you read. Whatever your fancy concerning length, read of great men of God, and learn from both their mistakes and their virtues, prayerfully seeking to be conformed to the image of Christ. Most especially read missionary biography.

Danny Akin has put together a smattering of short biographies of missionaries in 10 Who Changed the World. These biographies are also expositions of Biblical texts, so know that you will get just as much of one as you will the other. This isn’t my favorite kind of biographical material, but it could be yours, and it most certainly can be well read.

I leave you with a single temptation to read it. A letter that Adoniram Judson, the second foreign American missionary (you will have to read the book to find out who was first), penned to his future father-in-law.

I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left is heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteous, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?

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The Pilgrim: The Chief Affliction in Affliction

Nothing can render affliction so insupportable as the load of sin; would you, therefore, be fitted for afflictions, be sure to get the burden of your sins laid aside, and then what afflictions soever you may meet with will be very easy to you. – John Bunyan, Mr. John Bunyan’s Dying Sayings

Matthew 14:13-21 & Mediate the Miracle

When the disciples come to Jesus and tell Him to send the crowds away, Jesus flips the table around on them and tells them to put food on it. Does Jesus really mean for them to feed the crowds? Absolutely, and they will. Their failure is that they come to Jesus seeking to be wise when they should come seeking a miracle. They come seeking to give an answer, instead of seeing the Answer. Do they think Jesus less concerned about the crowd’s need for food? Jesus is not only more compassionate, He is more capable. No sin of selfishness makes Him unwilling. No lack of power leaves Him unable. No lack of knowledge leaves Him in the dark.

The disciples think they have only five loaves and two fish. They have infinitely more than that, they have the Bread from heaven. John MacArthur writes, “They are like a person who stands in front of Niagara Falls and asks where he can get a drink.”

Jesus tells them to bring the bread, “to Me.” In all of this the disciples are active yet passive. They will distribute the bread, but Jesus does the miracle. Jesus means not only to be Bread for us, but to be Bread through us. Jesus means for His disciples to mediate the miracle. The task of ministry is impossible for us. We cannot regenerate. We cannot sanctify. We cannot create spiritual appetites. But as we obey, God mediates the miracle through us. We preach, God saves. Jesus is the Host and the Fare, we are waiters. The task is impossible for us, but we do not go it alone. The Great Commission is accompanied by the Great Promise; “I am with you always.”

Truly, he who writes this comment has often felt as if he had neither loaf or fish; and yet for some forty years and more he has been a full-handed waiter at the King’s great banquet. -C.H. Spurgeon

Tolle Lege: Father Hunger

Readability: 2

Length: 207 pp

Author: Douglas Wilson 

Father famine is upon us. The hunger many suffer from is beyond the need for an after-school snack. If there were a camera that could capture the souls, a moving commercial could be made picturing gaunt souls.

Better to starve of food than of fathers. When famine strikes a land its peoples can relocate. Father famine though not only also causes a loss of food, with the loss following you wherever you go, but is also the scourge of a host of societal evils. Even if you are father fed, you cannot ignore this famine around you, it will impact you indirectly.

Father Hunger was my favorite book read in 2012. It was satisfying not simply because the need for such thinking is urgent, but because it is so well prepared. This isn’t a case of going to the grocery store hungry. This is a richly nutritious and exquisite feast.

All this is to say that fatherhood has a point, and that the point goes far beyond the services provided by a stud farm or a fertilization clinic. Fatherhood has a point that extends far beyond the moment of begetting. That point extends into everything, and if we are baffled by what the point might be, wisdom might dictate that we should read the manual—the Scriptures God gave to us. But modernists want to keep that intricate device we call fathers and, when stumped, consult a different manual entirely. This is akin to troubleshooting problems with your Apple laptop by consulting the Chilton manual for a ’72 Ford pickup truck.

Trying to fix society without addressing the central issues of worship is futile in the extreme. A comparable exercise would be somebody who tried to establish a new hive of bees without organizing the new colony around a queen bee. It is not possible to go out into a fresh meadow and organize the bees there by waving your arms. The queen is essential. In the same way, worship is an essential principle in establishing any human culture. Everything else is just waving your arms in a meadow.

Feminism is therefore, at its root, a Trinitarian heresy. God the Son is subordinate to God the Father, but subordination is not inequality of essence. Jesus Christ, the one who submitted and obeyed, was fully and completely God.

Christian men who are taught the ways of Christian masculinity are being taught to imitate Jesus Christ. But when Jesus taught us masculinity, He did this by submitting Himself to the point of death. Biblical authority knows how to bleed for others. So masculinity is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility, and this is what Jesus established for us.

 

The Pilgrim: The Magnitude of Sin

Sin turns all God’s grace into wantonness; it is the dare of his justice, the rape of his mercy, the jeer of his patience, the slight of his power, and the contempt of his love. -John Bunyan, Mr. John Bunyan’s Dying Sayings