Tag Archives: Jesus

Unexpected faith

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As I began to unpack in my last post, it’s easy to think that faith thrives when the environment shelters it. However, faith actually suffers when roots don’t need to run deep. There’s something about hostile or dry environments that draws out deep faith.

And when faith springs up and flowers in dark places, it shines even brighter. 

The Bible puts Sidon firmly in the “dark” category. The region became wealthy through the trading done by their sea merchants, and the triumvirate of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel all predict Sidon’s downfall for her sins against God (Is 23; Jer 25:15-22; Ez 28:20–24). But it turns out that the widow’s faith is not exceptional; it’s actually part of a pattern. 

First, Yahweh’s Temple is built with Sidonian cedar (1 Chron 22:4). How did that happen? While God intended for Joshua to drive out the peoples in modern-day Lebanon (Josh 13:6), the Sidonians were among those who remained as a thorn in Israel’s side (Judg 3:1-4). But when King David sets up a system of tribute and forced labor for many of these tenacious peoples, he instead works out a cooperative relationship with Sidon and Tyre. 1 Kings 5 records that the king of Tyre loves David so much that he willingly contributes huge amounts of cedar and woodworkers to build the Temple. 

Jumping to the New Testament, Jesus shames the Galileans by telling them that if Sidon had seen the miracles he performed among them, they would have repented quickly (Matt 11:21). Clearly he sees them as spiritually open and much more willing to accept his words than his own people are. Indeed Luke 6:17 notes that large numbers of people from Sidon come to hear him preach and be healed. 

Then in Mark 7:24-30 and Matthew 15:21-28, Jesus brings his disciples to the area for a retreat. They’ve been running flat out, and John the Baptist has been martyred. Jesus intends to give them a break in a resort town, but a local woman recognizes Jesus and pesters his disciples relentlessly about her daughter’s demonic possession. Jesus first puts her off by saying his primary mission is to Israel. But her tenacity, her submission and her scrappy logic impress him. Jesus responds, “Woman, you have great faith!” He then rewards this faith by healing her daughter. The receptivity of this audience seems to change Jesus’ priorities in the short term. The next thing Jesus does is head for the Gentile region east of the Sea of Galilee. In fact, Jesus never commends the faith of anyone in Israel, but only among foreigners (for instance, Matthew 8:10). 

So the Sidonian widow is not really an aberration. There are a number of reasons why this woman might find Israel’s God appealing:

  • Power: Baal, her people’s god of harvest, seems powerless to defeat Yahweh’s control over the rain.
  • Compassion: Israel’s God shows himself willing to hear the cry of widows and orphans, even foreign ones. As Exodus 22:21–23 says: “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt. Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.” 
  • Grace: She’s encountering grace on a daily basis. In spite of her sin, Elijah and his God are still providing for her rather than judging her.

There’s something about Sidon, this land in such close proximity to God’s people, struggling to hold onto its beliefs and stand against Israel’s religion. Spiritual sensitivity and hungry seekers keep popping up from that region throughout the Bible. Perhaps this is the ultimate answer to Jesus’ provocative question to the Jews: if there were lots of widows in Israel, why did God use a widow in Sidon? (Luke 4:25-26). 

But what if these aren’t one-off examples? What if the roots are connected? What if the widow is open to Yahweh because of David’s kindness to King Hiram? What if the woman with the demon-possessed daughter reaches out to Jesus because the story of that widow was embedded in her culture? A seed had been planted centuries before.

Something similar happened in Ethiopia. My wife Becky and I once had the opportunity to visit an Ethiopian Coptic Church in Israel. The priest we spoke with recalled the Church’s long history, pointing to a tapestry behind him depicting the Queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon (1 Ki 9). He then connected her story to a God-fearing Ethiopian who centuries later made his own pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Acts 8:26-40) and was baptized as a Jesus-follower. Both the Coptic Church and the Beta Israel community in that country have ancient roots.

In Wycliffe, we hear about these seeds all the time. Before a missionary sets out for the most distant place she can imagine, she needs to understand that God is there and working before she arrives. As I noted in my last post, there’s a second narrative: the purposes God is pursuing in the lives of the people before the missionary arrives. If you have any doubts, read Don Richardson’s 1981 classic, Eternity in Their Hearts. 

Faith can spring up in surprising contexts, standing out even more because of the darkness it’s set against. And dormant seeds that were sown centuries before can suddenly spring to life.

Do you have one of those stories, where you’ve seen God at work in unexpected places? I’d love to hear examples of God revealing a little spark of faith where we’d never expect it. Leave me a comment with your story.

Elijah series:

Unexpected testing

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In my last post I looked at the remarkable sources of God’s provision for the prophet Elijah: God mobilizes scavengers, multiplies the assets of the poor and enables the marginalized to contribute. In doing so, God challenges the assumptions and mental blocks of the privileged and presumptive sources of provision—people like me. In fact, the story is told in a way I can identify with, because its focus is Elijah.

However, even as God is working his purposes in Elijah’s life, he’s also working in the widow’s life. He yearns for her to know him, and he’s using Elijah to bring about his purposes for her. The widow’s version of this story might read a lot differently, but there’s not much detail on which to build that retelling. So we try to read into the woman’s actions and the small handful of words captured in this story.

For instance, I would like to know if, when she enters the scene, she already has a spark of faith. Did God reveal in some way, prior to her meeting Elijah, his plan and calling to her? Even as she has lived on the edges of Israel’s border, has she been seeking Israel’s God? I also wonder how this widow responds to God’s daily miracle. 

In the previous act of this story (1 Ki 17:8-16), this widow took a leap of faith to trust the man of God. In this final act (1 Ki 17:17-24), she faces a crisis of faith. Just as things are starting to look hopeful, her son dies, and this setback seems to confirm her worst fears: that this God is just like all the others.9 For most people in her situation, there is no rags to riches outcome. She may even have been bracing for bad news because it figures, after the series of misfortunes she has experienced. Her words reveal her resentments and core beliefs: she asks Elijah what he has against her, but she’s really asking what God has against her. This loss might not be as painful if her heart hadn’t opened a bit.

It’s interesting that she raises the issue of sin (v18). Romans 5:13 tells us that “sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law” (see also Rom 5:15); therefore, she’s not under the Hebrew Law. However, she understands in some way that she has missed the mark; she’s not in right standing with God. 

In that comment, she reveals that she understands sin has a price. But she also reveals that she was expecting grace, the primary characteristic of Yahweh she has personally experienced so far. In her pain and anger, she reveals a level of conviction and a fragile faith. 

Digging further, history tells us that worship of Baal sometimes required child sacrifice. Now the God of Israel seems to have taken her son. So again, is this God any different? It’s an enormous test of her faith, beyond what many fledgling believers could withstand. 

In fact, this is where Western believers sometimes get tripped up in their faith. Why would God allow this kind of trial when the woman’s faith is so fragile? It’s appalling to read stories like Jesus confronting the rich, young ruler and then watching him walk away (Matt 19:16-22) or offending his followers and chasing away those who weren’t serious (John 6:60-66). Why wouldn’t the God who doesn’t snuff out a smouldering wick or break a bent reed (Is 42:3) shelter this widow’s simple expression of faith until it’s strong enough to withstand a storm? What if her faith breaks? 

Elijah’s response suggests he has the same mindset; he even seems to be having his own crisis of faith. He doesn’t speak to the woman at all: no compassion expressed for her loss, but instead, a brusque, “Give me your son” and a march up the stairs to his room. His prayer reads to me as rather accusatory: God, did you bring tragedy on her? Did you kill the boy? Perhaps he expected his presence in her home to have brought her some kind of covering rather than make her life worse.

The passage says God listens—even to sullen, angry prayers like Elijah’s. Yet, for Elijah, the son’s resurrection was probably more of a relief than a moment of great joy. Maybe the woman’s faith will survive this crisis now.

Don’t miss the amazing faith in Elijah’s prayer; he asks God for something no one had ever dared to dream of before. Up until this moment, death was always the end. We get used to the New Testament stories, but this was the first recorded resurrection in the Bible.

Take a minute to read one of them: Luke 7:11-17. Jesus is traveling in Galilee when he encounters a funeral procession. The only son of a widow has passed away. Jesus raises the young man to life, then gives him to his mother. In this parallel story I see two insights into the Zarephath story.

First, Jesus responds with compassion and cares for the widow before addressing death. The contrast to Elijah’s bedside manner exposes where his response was lacking. Perhaps the difference is simply one of character and personality: Elijah was full of faith, but he was also a flawed individual who was prone to emotional ups and downs. But it also reveals power and knowledge: Jesus knew how the story would end, because even then he had authority over death, while Elijah was pleading for the impossible.

Second, we see the response of the witnesses: fear seizes them and they glorify God. They conclude two things: Jesus is a great prophet, and God has visited his people. The Sidonian widow concludes the same thing about Elijah and God:

  • She says, “Now I know.” She has experienced it herself.
  • She recognizes Elijah as a prophet—his words are truth, and in his mouth are the words of Yahweh.
  • When she identifies Elijah as a man of God, she refers to God as Elohim—the supreme God, the God of gods, the God over Baal.
  • The deeper message is a profession of her belief in God. She no longer refers to Yahweh as Elijah’s God, as she had in v12. God has visited her.

In God’s miraculous resurrection of her son, she encounters even greater power and even greater grace than she has been experiencing on a daily basis.

So why does God give her such an extreme test? I believe he knows that her faith can’t stay in its current condition. Elijah will soon be leaving, and she needs to be able to stand on her own feet. It is time for her to reach a decision about whether she and her household will believe, and serve the Lord (Josh 24:15).

I started this series researching to see how non-Westerners read this chapter. The North American approach would likely be to coddle such fragile faith by protecting the seedling, growing it carefully and guarding it from any real test in the early years. Many in the East and the South would say that’s unrealistic and point out that too much water or protection of a plant leads to shallow roots. Years later, when the plant is growing and should be mature, it is actually still fragile because of its roots. They would expect sacrifice, suffering and danger to come for a new believer, and rapid root growth is necessary for resilience.

We don’t know what happens with this woman after this. But her story can’t be looked at in isolation. Her line will now continue, and when seeds of faith are planted, you never know when they might pop back up again. We’ll look at that in our final post in the series.

References (intentionally seeking non-Western views)

9. Tse, Justin. “Elijah.” (Hong Kong) A Sermon for Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Proper 5. Patheos. 27 July 2016. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/ecperson/2013/06/10/preaching-elijah/

Elijah series:

Unexpected preparation

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I’ve been studying how God provides for his mission—sometimes surprising the recipient and the provider of that resource. There are few more surprising examples than one that Jesus comments on when trying to make a point to the Jewish leaders of his day:

There were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon (Luke 4:25-26).

As I studied the story he’s referring to, in 1 Kings 17, I had to set aside my Sunday School understanding of the story. Reading it through a traditional Western lens wasn’t much better, so I intentionally sought other perspectives—especially sources in Africa and Asia, as you can see in my reference list. Many are not from my denominational segment, and I admit I’m not entirely comfortable with all that these authors write. But their perspective helped challenge my assumptions and fill in what I might be missing from my cultural lens.

Let me start with a leadership principle: Leaders sometimes fail to think of those who live downstream from their decisions or actions. 1 Kings 17 is set in a larger context, as the end of chapter 16 begins to explain. Queen Jezebel and King Ahab are leading the people of Israel to worship a god from the nearby land of Sidon, the god of rain and harvest: Baal. God’s intent to expose Baal’s actual powerlessness leads to a political and religious battle between representatives of God and Baal. But rather than focusing on those in power, this passage zooms in on the story of two people caught downstream from that battle: Elijah, the unwitting victim of his own action, and a widow and mother caught in the crossfire. So the story selection itself lifts up the weak and marginalized, which was part of Jesus’ point as well.

If you are familiar with the prophet Elijah, you likely picture characteristics like moodiness, fears, inspiring faith, living in the moment, and a sense of theatre. But all the character development in this story takes place along the way; he gets no introduction. So I want to encourage you to look at the chapter with fresh eyes. The reason we know Elijah is a prophet is because of his name and his first words. For a Jewish reader, the story starts this way:

Now Yahweh-is-God… said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” 

Yes, Elijah’s name gives away his purpose. God intends to show that he is above all other gods by attacking the source of Baal’s power and identity; he will withhold rain. 

Immediately after this proclamation, God tells his man to run and hide, and then offers a series of provisions to get him through the next 42 months. God has an intentional season of preparation in mind. First, he offers the prophet a hiding spot by a brook (v5). There Elijah discovers a ready supply of food Jews were expressly forbidden to eat. The means of delivery, a raven, will make him unclean1 (Lev. 11:15), and the food any scavenger delivers would have unknown origins or preparation methods. So the first thing to consider: What did it take for a kosher Israelite to receive food from a scavenger?

For that matter, why would the God who gave the Law intentionally ask Elijah to defy the Law? He does the same with the apostle Peter in Acts 10, and that gives us a clue: God prepares both men ahead of time to minister in a foreign environment. They could never engage cross-culturally if they were sticklers who couldn’t even set foot in a Gentile house or eat their food.2 

There’s another lesson for Elijah during this period. He can’t look too far ahead, because relying on a brook during a drought is a losing proposition. He has put all of his trust in God, and God seems to have only anticipated some months of provision.3 Elijah watches the water level drop day by day, not knowing how God will meet his needs in the future. 

Having learned the life of a fugitive and daily dependence on God4, Elijah is now ready for the mission God is sending him on. That’s right: God’s goal isn’t just to meet Elijah’s needs while he waits for Jezebel and Ahab to soften; God intends to use him as a cross-cultural missionary, to meet the needs of someone else hurt by the drought and famine.

Only after the brook dries up does God reveal phase 2 of his plan. God’s solution for his prophet’s needs means sending Elijah:

  • Over 75 miles away, on the opposite fringe of Ahab’s kingdom, a journey either through a hostile kingdom or around it. No doubt fraught with danger.
  • Into the heart of Baal-worshiping Sidon, the land ruled by Jezebel’s father (16:31, 17:9). This location was no less safe for Elijah than staying in Israel.
  • To a widow preparing her last meal before giving up.

Can you feel the objections and questions rising in Elijah? Before experiencing and receiving God’s provision, he has to overcome his own mental blocks. 

Have you ever gone through a season that in retrospect, seems designed to break your previous patterns of understanding? God can use failure to do that. Or a cross-cultural clash. Or a crisis. It’s painful in the moment, but God’s plan for your next phase wouldn’t be possible without it. For Elijah, it’s going to get even more challenging.

References (intentionally seeking non-Western views)
1. Ruolngul, James R. (India) “The Wisdom of God in His Providence.” Independent Church of India. 11 November 2022. https://www.ici.net.in/the-wisdom-of-god-in-his-providence/
2. Compare the centurions in Mathew 8:8 and Acts 10:24-26, for example.
3. Seifert, Marlon. (Brazil) “Elijah and The Widow.” Sermon. 2 Oct 2025. https://prmarlon.com/blog-2/elijah-and-the-widow
4. van der Walt, J.S. (South Africa) “The recipient becoming a participant and the participant becoming a recipient: A strange encounter in 1 Kings 17 with a not so strange outcome.” Acta Theologica, University of the Free State. 10 December 2021. https://scielo.org.za/pdf/at/v41s32/13.pdf. 
Quoting Wyatt, Stephanie. (South Africa) “Jezebel, Elijah, and the Widow of Zarephath: A Ménage à Trois that Estranges the Holy and Makes the Holy the Strange.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. SAGE Publications. 15 May 2012. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309089212438020

Elijah series:

An overlapping circle model for mission

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In my previous post, I introduced a way of seeing Acts 1:8 as a call to global Church partnership through the idea of overlapping circles. Like intersecting ripples that radiate across a pond from a rain storm, the location of one church’s “ends of the earth” might be another church’s “Judea,” and one church’s “Samaria” might be another’s “Jerusalem.”

Jesus’ plan for mission could be summarized by four concurrent strategies:

1. Local, indigenous evangelism. Local people have real advantages to being missional in their own context. Instinctively, they know the community and the language. Travel costs are reduced and they don’t need cross-cultural training. The problem is that they lack the ability to step back and notice things that would be obvious to an outsider. In other words, they have blind spots about their own language and culture. To expose those blind spots, it takes a visitor from another ring with fresh eyes showing up and asking dumb questions or breaking the culture and language down through analysis.

2. National outreach. Likewise, everyone has a pretty good grasp of the surrounding and near culture, and some of the same savings in travel and training apply here as well. Certainly local citizens need less help to understand and relate to their culture than a foreigner would. However, there are some problems. They are vulnerable to absorbing the surrounding culture without question or noticing how it’s changing them, perhaps developing nearsightedness or even nationalistic tendencies. One specific trap is that they might gloss over differences like regional biases and flavours. Missions within their own country might still require cross-cultural skills to bridge gaps to their neighbors.

3. Marginalized reconciliation. To my mind, Samaria refers to the groups anyone marginalizes or has trouble getting along with. These are the places where regional biases cross the line into prejudices, and generations of pain and even hatred may need to be unraveled. Ministry in these contexts therefore begins with truth-telling reconciliation. Only after addressing woundedness can individuals or churches be effective witnesses. The good news is that other nations and cultures can act as a neutral third party to set the table. In fact, others’ experiences can help churches with their tensions and struggles if they can learn from and honestly apply the others’ lessons to their own failures and successes.

4. Expatriate missions. In order to reach every nation, some will need to leave their home country to go overseas. This is the costliest approach to missions, but we shouldn’t underestimate the way the gospel has spread and brought transformation around the world because of the faith and risks taken by foreign missionaries. To do it well requires a great deal of understanding in order to fully contextualize the gospel and Scriptures across cultural borders without adding our own cultural ideals and historical assumptions. We go in as servants to the local community or local Church. It also requires making long-term commitments and taking the long view in expectations and metrics.

Bottom line: mission is most effective when the global Church comes together and works together—in local evangelism, national outreach, reconciliation and cross-cultural mission, but also mixing roles like prayer, funding, and other forms of resourcing—to participate together in God’s purposes to draw all people to himself.

Acts 1:8 Series

Overlapping Circles

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After considering how the disciples understood Jesus’ words in Acts 1:8, and how a global, current day Church understands those words, let me get to my point. It starts with two statements:

1. I believe Jesus was speaking to all believers, and he was laying out a pattern for mission that could be applied worldwide: You, the Church, will be my witnesses in concentric circles: wherever you consider your Jerusalem, your Judea, your Samaria and your ends of the earth. 

2. Each circle must be engaged with the humble realization that your “Jerusalem” or “Judea” is someone else’s “ends of the earth,” someone else’s “Samaria.” Our circles overlap. 

This is how I believe Jesus pictured the Church in Acts 1:8:

There are numerous implications of this metaphor.

First, the overlap. Each part of the Church has an epicenter for its missional activity but has responsibility to engage in other rings as God leads them and opens doors. In that way, every part of the world is covered, double covered and triple covered, each location or category the responsibility of multiple branches of the Church.

Second, the ripples crash into each other. These overlapping circles interact with each other and even interdepend on each other. But, as with ripples in a pond, there are secondary impacts as the ripples affect each other. Such overlap is unpredictable, bound to create additional opportunities, consequences and disruptions.

Here are a few implications that come to mind for me:

  • Jesus intended expatriates and local citizens to minister together in mission. An expat Kenyan who wants to do ministry in Canada should certainly work together with local Canadians who are trying to reach their Jerusalem. Any ministry to a marginalized group should incorporate the nearby Church who loves and understands that demographic. As some have said, “Nothing about them without them.”
  • If there’s no local Church among a people group, then the overlapping circles create opportunity for partnership to cover the gap until a church is birthed who can focus on their “Jerusalem.”
  • We’d be fools to try to do mission without local and indigenous insight and partnership. When we go overseas, we must take the role of servants, putting ourselves in second place to those who understand language and culture to a degree we never will.  
  • Conversely, we would be negligent in fulfilling our part in Jesus’ mission if we took a “take-care-of-your-own” approach and simply delegated mission in every country to local people. This image forces us to consider the crash of ripples coming together in the interplay between those who provide funds or staff and those who spend the budget.
  • We would be missing Jesus’ intent if we didn’t see the value that immigrant missionaries in our country could bring to help us reach our nation.
  • If you think of the conceptual meaning of “Samaria,” which might be a group with historical tensions with our own, it’s worthwhile asking who considers us their “Samaria.” Other parts of the Church might be able to help break down those barriers and even help heal the rifts.

Ultimately, this metaphor asks who we should partner with to accomplish the mission for any location we feel drawn to or called to. Rather than working alone to impact our city, who else has a passion to reach our neighbourhood, city or province? Could we be the catalyst that makes their ministry effective?

For instance, can you imagine the power of the overlapping circles working together to reach Canada? What if the Church in Montreal or in Eeyou Istchee (a First Nations community in northern Quebec) partnered with a local Ottawa church to reach our nation’s capital? What would have to happen to enable that kind of remarkable inter-circle ministry? Who or what would stand in the way of such a partnership?

I know I’m only beginning to scratch the surface of the implications for this way of thinking. What other applications do you see?

Acts 1:8 Series

We live in the ends of the earth

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I believe Jesus’ words in Acts 1:8 were intended not just for his immediate audience, the disciples who would become apostles, but for all believers, all generations. Indeed, the Church in every generation has applied its own interpretations to these locations. Ours is a translated faith, a religion that Lamin Sanneh argues was intended to be translated from the very beginning and would continue to be translated.1

While the disciples might have been limited in their perception of the ends of the earth, I believe Jesus, the One who spoke creation into being (Col 1:15-16), was thinking of the distant shores of Papua New Guinea and the desert tribes of the Gobi, Great Victorian and Sahara. I also believe he anticipated the state of the global Church today: a decentralized Church existing in every part of the world.

It’s important to understand where we in North America fit in. If Jesus’ disciples could have comprehended Canada and the U.S. at the time, they would certainly have slotted us into the “ends of the earth” category.

Think about the implications of that for a minute. The North American Church is so used to being the center of Christianity, but we started off-center, and the center of Christianity has moved to the southern and eastern hemispheres.

Our contextualization of these verses simply exists alongside the view of other believers around the world. Where do they think of when they hear Jesus’ words? I asked that recently in a Zoom call with two dozen people from every part of the world. Here are some of the results:

What you think of as Jerusalem/JudeaWhat you think of as the ends of the earth
U.K.Outer Mongolia
NetherlandsChina
KoreaAfrica
NigeriaNorth and South Poles
U.S.North Pole
U.S.Siberia
EthiopiaAmerica
NetherlandsNew Zealand
IndiaEnd of India
U.S.Abu Dhabi
U.S.East and West coast of U.S.
CameroonAmerica
U.K.Vancouver

How many of you live in someone else’s ends of the earth? Have you ever visited a place you once viewed as the ends of the earth? The mobility we experience today is truly remarkable! The Church is a global Church, present and engaging in mission everywhere.

We’ll build from these two posts as I get to my main point in the next blog post.

Acts 1:8 Series

1 Sanneh, Lamin. Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel Beyond the West. Eerdmans. 2003, p97.

The disciples’ view of the ends of the earth

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We all know the verse well. In Acts 1:8, Jesus said,

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (NIV).

In a series of blog posts, I want to unpack the four locations in the second part of the verse, with a particular focus on the last part. Throughout church history, there have been different ways to understand Jesus’ words. Others have certainly offered a variety of interpretations springing out of whether they take the locations literally or figuratively. Sill others have pointed out the implications for mission strategy, for instance highlighting the fact it does not say “then” but “and”—that you don’t have to reach Jerusalem before moving to another zone but mission should engage all four zones. I don’t want to repeat what others have said. Instead, I want to underscore a couple of foundational points before proposing a way to think about the implications for today.

In order to consider how we should interpret these words, it’s helpful to understand how the Jesus’ disciples, the original apostles, likely heard these words.

1. People and races

The apostles likely heard Jesus list people groups: Jews, more Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles. They were fine with the first two but likely found the next two as uncomfortable, if not repulsive. Their belief was that the Messiah was intended for the Jews, and they assumed that the gospel would be just as exclusive. Indeed, it takes almost half of the book of Acts for the early church to break those preconceptions, and Paul addresses the residual issues frequently, such as in Romans 11, the book of Galatians and Ephesians 2.

2. Geography

But the apostles would also have thought in geographic terms. Let’s look at two of the locations on the list.

Jerusalem

For the apostles, Jerusalem wasn’t their home base; none of them were from the capital city. Rather, in Luke 24:46-49, Jesus told them to wait in the city of Jerusalem. His design was for their ministry to begin there. Why? Was it because it was the cultural or religious capital? The nearby center of influence? More likely the city was chosen as the launching point for salvation because of its significance to redemption. It was there that God provided a substitutionary sacrifice for Isaac (Gen 22:2), there where God promised to dwell with men (2 Chron 3:1, 7:16) and there that Jesus became the sacrificial and substitutionary lamb to redeem everyone. If that’s the case, it’s more difficult to contextualize it to identify “our Jerusalem.” Jerusalem would be Jerusalem.

However, the disciples almost immediately contextualized the verse. As early as Acts 8, the scattered believers became witnesses in Samaria—a literal fulfillment of the verse. But their approach in Samaria seems to start at the center of influence—the capital city (8:5)—followed by a witness radiating out into the Samaritan countryside (8:25). Ronald Hesselgrave says this ‘center mission’ strategy became a pattern for Paul throughout the Roman Empire: “the establishment of young congregations in key cities that served as ‘centers’ or bases of operation for missional outreach” in major metropolises such as “Antioch, Thessalonica, Ephesus, and Rome.”1 In that sense, the apostles did apply the idea of Jerusalem conceptually in other locations.

The ends of the earth

This expression was used in the disciples’ Scriptures (the Old Testament) many times, so the phrase was packed with prior understanding. For instance, Psalm 72 says God will rule from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth, then follows by mentioning desert tribes and distant shores. Isaiah 42:10-12 says God’s praise will be proclaimed from the end of the earth—the coastlands, desert, mountains and islands. Isaiah 49:6 makes it clear that the Messiah will not only be for the Jews but will be a light for the nations (Gentiles), to bring God’s salvation to the end of the earth. Psalm 107:3 refers to redeemed people in all four compass directions. The apostles likely imagined being witnesses in places as far south as Ethiopia, as far west as Spain, as far east as Babylon and as far north as northern Italy. Over time, these very apostles would literally grow the map, as their missionary endeavors took them beyond the edges of the known world, into places such as India.

Like much of the prophecy in the Old Testament, I believe there were multiple levels of meaning in this passage. It’s clear from the apostles’ behavior that they took Jesus’ words both literally and figuratively. I also believe Jesus’ words have been relevant for each generation of disciples who heard the words, and so they are relevant to us today.

We’ll build on the implications of this foundation in my future posts. We’ll build from these two posts as I get to my main point in the next blog post.

Acts 1:8 Series

1 Hesselgrave, Ronald. “The Theology of Mission in Acts 1:8.” William Carey International University. Unknown date. Web. 3 Dec 2024. <https://www.academia.edu/112010880/The_Theology_of_Mission_in_Acts_1_8>

The wisdom of the magi

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Christmas is over, right? Why am I still writing about the three magi who visited Jesus? Well, we are right around the corner from Epiphany, or the Feast of the Three Kings. So it’s timely to focus on this mysterious group of men have been called kings, wise men and astrologers. If you’re not familiar with the story, take a look at Matthew 2:1-12, and then let’s dig in.

Who were the “magi,” to use Matthew’s term? I don’t believe they were kings, but I think they are descendants of a long-time strategy of kings to draw the wisest and most discerning men close to them in a desperate attempt to see the future and lead well. As Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out” (ESV).

Let’s trace this thread through history: 

  • When Pharaoh needs a dream interpreted and finds his magicians and wise men deficient, he gravitates to Joseph, “a discerning and wise man” who can tell him what God is about to do. “Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God? … Since God has made all this known to you, there is no one so discerning and wise as you,” he says as he makes him prime minister. (Gen 41:25-40)
  • When Pharaoh faces his challenger Moses, and Moses turns his staff into a snake, he calls out his wise men and sorcerers to reproduce the miracle. They are also able to turn water to blood and produce frogs but unable to produce gnats. (Ex 7-8)
  • When David is pulling his military together at Hebron, he values Issachar’s contribution: 200 chiefs who understood the times and knew what to do. (1 Chr 12:32)
  • When King Xerxes is faced with a defiant Queen Vashti, he consults “experts in law and justice,” “wise men who understood the times and were closest to the king.” (Esther 1:13-14)
  • When Nebuchadnezzar is baffled by his dreams, he summons “his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers to tell him what he had dreamed.” When Daniel is able to explain the dream—because God “gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him”—Nebuchadnezzar places him in charge of all of Babylon’s wise men. (Daniel 2) 
  • Even Herod, when he first hears from the magi that a star indicates a new king has been born, consults the chief priests and teachers of the law. (Matthew 2:4)
  • When an intelligent proconsul of Paphos, who already retains a Jewish sorcerer named Elymas and a false prophet named Bar-Jesus, hears of Barnabas and Saul, he sends for them “because he wanted to hear the word of God”—likely not out of earnest seeking, but to add to his collection of wise men. (Acts 13:7-8)

Magi seems to be a word of Babylonian origin, which is consistent with these magi coming from the east. I believe Daniel was a magus himself and likely became leader of the magi. This group’s thirst for knowledge and early indicators lead them to note a star that no one else has observed, to conclude it indicates the birth of a king and then to seek that king in Israel. 

This Covid pandemic has the feel of a pivotal time. Few previous occasions have really become a global touchpoint we all have in common. What does it indicate? How is it likely to shake things up? Many of us, including me, long to understand our times and know what to do. But we haven’t faced anything like this in our lifetimes. I believe a moment like the one we’re in should not be wasted. It should be a catalyst to move on the things we’ve known we need to do, finally giving us the courage to act. Here are a few quick thoughts from the wisdom of the magi.

Watchful. The magi see the star because they are watching. Jesus tells us we should be servants noted for watchfulness, readiness, faithfulness and wisdom so we’ll be caught doing the right things. (Luke 12:35-48)

Take action on what you know. It’s not enough just to note the star; the magi believe enough to commit the resources to a long trip, but even then, they are still asking questions. They don’t have full information on what they had observed, but they also don’t stay in Babylon.

Discerning. They hear the words of Herod that he also wants to worship this king, but they also hear the warning from God in a dream. They are shrewd enough to defy the local authority and heed the words of God.

Widely read. We can see that the magi seek wisdom in many forms: the movement of the planets, prophecy, dreams and asking questions.

From the magi’s example, we see that wisdom is not static. Being in the right place at the right time does not come from a single bolt-of-lightning moment, but a progressive process. 

Let’s commit ourselves to watchfulness, obedience and discernment about the times we’re in.

And maybe 2022 is a great time to expand our studies to include other forms of wisdom or other sources we haven’t learned before. To prompt your thinking: First Nations elders are called “knowledge keepers,” and many of them can draw on the informal education they received before residential schools gave them a European education; they learned trapping, environmental practices and land management from their parents. Any tradesman has a pool of wisdom gathered from experience: carpenters, mechanics, electricians or farmers. Or why not take up a pursuit you’ve never engaged in before: calligraphy, baking, painting, woodworking or learning a new language?

Concluding shrewd

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So what can we conclude in our study of shrewdness, a megacompetency that I believe is needed more than anything in these days when we are sent out as sheep among wolves?

First, a quick review:

  • Rick Lawrence has proposed a definition of shrewdness: the expert application of the right force at the right time in the right place.
  • The people of our age are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than Christ-followers are.
  • We can learn a lot from observing shrewdness in the world around us, even when done with evil intent—such as in Jacob’s family line.
  • Our practice of shrewdness must be paired with the innocence of a dove—as a number of Bible characters did.

To wrap things up, here are some specific aspects the average believer needs to grow in to deal with this current world.

1. Use situational tactics

When did niceness become the primary value for Christians? Certainly there’s a place for traits like meekness, compassion, sympathy and even naïveté, but Lawrence says those are not an across-the-board rule for the believer. By boiling Christianity down to a single trait, the world is defining us in order to sideline us. Jesus did not use the same approach to every situation, and he urged his followers toward shrewdness in dealing with our own kind and in relation to the world’s hatred of our values. Paul became all things to all people in order to win some (1 Cor 9:19-23), and urged us to wage war with appropriate weaponry (2 Cor 10:3-4). And God shows himself differently to different audiences, including appearing shrewd to the devious (Ps 18:25-26).

2. Counter our enemy’s shrewdness

Paul fully expected believers to be aware of Satan’s schemes (2 Cor 2:11). Lawrence urges, “we must beat Satan (and those in his service) at his own game by practicing a greater level of shrewdness than he does, but with none of his cruel intent or evil motivation” (Shrewd, p34).
He offers an example of Satan’s strategy from James Ryle:

Don’t expect a frontal assault from the enemy. He’s far too clever for that. He knows that you love and treasure the Word of God, and that you would not stand for any attack against it. Instead, he sabotages your time and distracts your attention. He preoccupies you with skirmishes on other battlefronts, or he lulls you into complacency with prolonged cease fire. All the while he feverishly working at cutting you off from communication and supplies. If he succeeds he will win the war!” (Shrewd, p144)

3. Practice obliquity

Oxford professor of economics, John Kay, coined a term, “obliquity,” for avoiding the frontal approach and finding ways to outflank an obstacle or opponent. As mentioned above, this is a favourite practice of Satan’s, but there are positive models we can use to spark our own ideas. Esther learned that King Xerxes could be shifted by an oblique approach rather than the direct challenge Queen Vashti made to stand up to power (Esther 1,5,7). Another great example is the prophet Nathan, who drew King David in with his story about a rich man stealing a poor man’s sheep and then sprang the trap on David (2 Samuel 12). Jesus also used story to cloak hard truth in a deceptively-palatable package.

4. Avoid dichotomy

Imposing false choices is a form of power. In response, shrewdness finds a way to navigate between the poles to find another way. In some cases, it means finding a way to avoid war by creating a third space—a space to establish safety and neutrality and have opposing parties find common ground. In other cases, it might mean discovering an alternative that doesn’t require acceptance of the assumptions behind the two stark choices readily apparent. Jesus regularly avoided the traps the Pharisees laid for him, such as when they asked where his authority came from (Matt 21:23-27) or whether they should pay taxes (Matt 22:15-22).

5. Learn discernment

My final thought is that all of this calls for discernment. How did Paul know when to adjust his strategy and approach to each audience (Acts 22-23)? Even Jesus, who had previously sent out his disciples in pairs as sheep among wolves and telling them to take only shrewdness as their weapon, in Luke 22:35-36 says now is a time for a different approach: his disciples should bring a purse, a bag and a sword. The world these days is volatile and unpredictable. It requires constant awareness of what God is doing and ongoing listening for his guidance. Above all, it requires that our weapons not be the weapons of the world (see my post on under armor).

May God guide you as you put these ideas into practice. Let me know your thoughts, and share your examples. We can all grow in these skills, and we can learn from each other!

Shrewd Series

Commending shrewdness

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These are unique times. Unprecedented, I’m sure you’ve heard. I believe the circumstances we’re facing right now call for a leadership characteristic that most Christ-followers haven’t put any thought into: shrewdness. After all, doesn’t shrewdness suggest cunning, conniving, deceitful and devious characteristics? Yes. Yet Jesus twice urged his followers to grow in shrewdness. In fact, he said we should pay attention to shrewdness in the world around us and learn from it. So we must be missing something. Let’s take a look at what Jesus was trying to tell us through these instances.

The shrewd manager

In Luke 16:1-10, Jesus tells a strange parable about a manager. This man knows he is about to lose his job for mismanagement, so he uses his last days to settle accounts with each of his master’s debtors at 50¢ or 80¢ on the dollar. It doesn’t change the immediate outcome, but as he lets the manager go, the master commends the man’s shrewdness. Sometimes you just can’t help but shake your head at some people’s sheer audacity and cleverness.

So what exactly is Jesus commending in sharing this story, if it isn’t deceit or dishonesty? The big idea is in verse 9: The people of this world, even in their sinful actions, show more shrewdness within their context than the people of light do in theirs.

That negative contrast helps us understand something Jesus said earlier about a context very much like ours.

A critical pairing

After teaching his disciples for a year or two, Jesus decides it’s time for them to put their learning into action. It’s time for a mission trip. So he puts them in pairs and then shares some final thoughts in Matthew 10:16:

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”

They are heading into a context where they will be surrounded by people who hate and seek to destroy them, yet Jesus tells them to take nothing with them. Yes, they’re empty-handed, but with these two things—the shrewdness of a serpent and the innocence of doves—they have what they need.

The pairing is important because there are a lot of traps; Christ-followers’ practice of shrewdness cannot resemble the world’s. Rick Lawrence, who literally wrote the book on Shrewd, explains the nuance in Jesus’ instructions:

“The word He uses here for “serpent” is the same one He uses for Satan. And the word He uses here for “dove” is the same the Bible uses to describe the Holy Spirit. He’s telling His disciples to be as shrewd as Satan is, but as innocent as the Holy Spirit is.”

Remember that comparison Jesus made in Luke 16? The problem is that, while evil has practiced shrewdness, we’re not very good at it. Lawrence summarizes:

“Jesus wants us to study the shrewd ‘people of this world’ like they were textbooks, instead of complaining about them or picketing them or ignoring them or gossiping about them… He’s asking us to watch how shrewd people—even and especially those we’re repelled by—get things done.” (157-158)

Christians are still sheep in a world of wolves, but if we put these two passages together, it allows us to see that world of wolves as an opportunity—an opportunity for study and contextualization. Remember this caveat from Lawrence:

“It’s the tactics, not the heart, we’re to pay attention to—translating the ‘what and the why’… into redemptive resolve.” (163-164)

Jesus is sending us out with the same advice he gave long ago, but we’ve ignored or misunderstood at our peril. It’s time to re-invest in shrewdness. How do you build expertise? By study and by practice. But it starts with a change of perspective.

Shrewd Series