Word Magazine # 66: Review: DelHousaye on Mark's Ending

I just posted Word Magazine # 66:  Review:  DelHousaye on Mark’s Ending.  That’s right, another WM on the Ending of Mark.  This time the review is of comments made by Dr. John DelHousaye of Phoenix Seminary during a panel discussion at the January 16, 2015 Together for the Gospel Arizona Regional Conference (watch the video here; comments on Mark’s ending begin at the 11:46 mark).  The conference topic was “The Bible: Canon, Texts, and Translations.”  Speakers included Wayne Grudem, John Meade, and John DelHousaye, all from Phoenix Seminary, and Peter Williams of Tyndale House.  The panel was asked about how the ending of Mark should be handled and DelHousaye gave what has come to be a rather typical response from evangelical scholars.  That is, he dismisses the traditional ending of Mark (16:9-20) as spurious on external and internal grounds and suggests that Mark’s original ending was Mark 16:8.

I close with two observations:

First, I note that the current evangelical rejection of Mark 16:9-20 is actually a far more radical position even than that taken by Bruce Metzger.  In his book The Canon of the New Testament (Clarendon, corrected 1989) Metzger notes regarding Mark’s Ending:

There seems to be good reason, therefore, to conclude that, though external and internal evidence is conclusive against the authenticity of the last twelve verses as coming from the same pen as the rest of the Gospel, the passage ought to be accepted as part of the canonical text of Mark (p. 270; thanks to AJM for the heads up for this quote).

So, Metzger did not believe that Mark 16:9-20 was original, but he did believe it should be accepted as part of the canonical text of Mark.  Oddly enough today, it is the “conservatives” who are taking the far more radical position of rejecting Mark’s traditional ending altogether!

Second, I offer a challenge to my fellow pastors, expositors, and preachers to read at least five suggested works defending the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 before preaching or teaching on the ending of the Second Gospel.  To be even handed, I also suggest reading five works making the case against the originality of the traditional ending.  Read my blog post extending this challenge here.

JTR  

Pastoral Challenge: A reading list before you preach on the Ending of Mark

I’ve recently recorded several Word Magazine podcasts on the ending of Mark.  Many contemporary evangelical and even Calvinistic and Reformed men are suggesting not only that Mark 16:9-20 was not written by Mark but that it is a spurious and uninspired addition created by a “rogue” scribe and should not be considered part of the canonical text of Mark’s Gospel.

To my fellow pastors and expositors I want to offer this challenge:  Before you preach on the Ending of Mark, exercise due diligence and read at least the following five sources which defend the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20:

1.  John W. Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark (original 1871; Sovereign Grace Publishers Reprint, 2000).  You can read the entire book online or download a free pdf at ccel.org (look here).

2.  William R. Farmer, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark, Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 25 (Cambridge University Press, 1974).

3.  Maurice A. Robinson, “The Long Ending of Mark as Canonical Verity,” in David Alan Black, Ed., Perspectives on the Ending of Mark:  4 Views (B & H Academic, 2008):  40-79.

4.  Nicholas P. Lunn, The Original Ending of Mark:  A New Case for the Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 (Pickwick Publications, 2014).

5.  James Snapp, Jr., Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20.  2016 Edition.  Find the Kindle version here.    Read a summary of Snapp’s arguments here.

To be completely fair and even-handed, I would also suggest that you read the following five sources which reject the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20:

1.  B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek with Notes on Selected Readings (original 1882; Hendricken reprint, 1988). See notes on Mark 16:9-20 in Appendix, pp. 29-51.

2.  Bruce M. Metzger, “The Ending(s) of Mark” in A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition (Deutche Bibelgeselschaft, 1994):  pp. 102-107.

3.  D. C. Parker, “The endings of Mark’s Gospel” in The Living Texts of the Gospels (Cambridge University Press, 1997):  pp. 124-147.

4.  Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament:  Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Fourth Edition (Oxford University Press, 2005):  pp. 322-327.

5.  Daniel B. Wallace, “Mark 16:8 as the Conclusion to the Second Gospel,” in David Alan Black, Ed., Perspectives on the Ending of Mark:  4 Views (B & H Academic, 2008):  pp. 1-39.

Reading these sources will allow you to make a better informed judgment about the text of the ending of Mark and the canonical status of Mark 16:9-20.  I also believe that a fair evaluation of the evidence will convince many who are skeptical about the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 to change their minds and confidently affirm it.

JTR 

The Benefits of Christian Community: Marriage

This post continues notes from my sermon preached on December 11, 2016 on "The Benefits of Christian Community" from Ecclesiastes 4:9-16.

We should realize that not every Christian will be called to marriage.  Jesus himself never married, and he was the perfect example of contentedness and satisfaction in all his relationships.  Some will be called to singleness, and some will be single due to the providential circumstances of their lives.  In fact, man in the glorified state will be single, since at the resurrection there will be neither marriage nor giving in marriage (Matt 22:30).  The glorified man will be singly devoted to God alone.

In this life, however, we have the institution of marriage as the bedrock of the family.  Even those who do not marry benefit from the community that comes through marriage and family.

When God made the first man we read:

Genesis 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

Sin and the fall brought distortion into that relationship, but it is still good in God’s sight.  In fact, Paul tells us in Ephesians 5 that the marriage relationship reflects the great mystery of the relationship between Christ and the church.

We are living in a culture that is increasingly hostile to marriage, whether that comes in the form of the culture’s attempt to disregard God’s good design of gender or the state’s attempt to replace the father’s care for his household.  But Jesus said:  “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:6b).

Marriage provides mutual economic benefit in the division of household labors (cf. Ecc 4:9).

It provides mutual aid in times of trouble (cf. Ecc 4:10).

It provides mutual warmth in an often cold world (cf. Ecc 4:11).

It provides mutual defense against temptation and attacks (cf. Ecc 4:12).

And when the two conceive a third, their own child, this is the cord that binds them even closer together and makes their union even stronger.

For a Christian, of course, the standard is that he would only seek marriage to a fellow believer.  He cannot be unequally yoked (2 Cor 6:14). Paul told Christian widows they could re-marry but “only in the Lord” (1 Cor 7:39).

For the Christian, marriage is an act of discipleship.  Your partner becomes your dearest companion and your co-laborer in the gospel.  Think of Aquila  and Priscilla in Acts 18 who ministered both to Paul through hospitality and to Apollos through discipleship.

In the third century a Christian theologian named Tertullian wrote a treatise on marriage wherein he said the following:

Beautiful the marriage of Christians, two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow, one in the religion they practice.

They are both servants of the same Master.  Nothing divides them either in flesh or spirit.

They are two in one flesh, and where there is one flesh there is also one spirit.

They pray together, they worship together; instructing one another, strengthening one another.

Side by side they visit God’s church; side by side they face difficulties and persecution, share their consolations.

They have no secrets from one another; they never bring sorrows to each other’s hearts.

Unembarrassed they visit the sick and assist the needy.  They give alms without anxiety.

Psalms and hymns they sing.  Hearing and seeing this Christ rejoices.  To such as these He gives His peace.

Where there are two together, there also He is present; and where He is, there evil is not.

Christian marriage provides the benefit of Christian community.

JTR

The Benefits of Christian Community: Friendship

Here is a continuation of the notes from last Sunday's sermon on Ecclesiastes 4:9-16 on "The Benefits of Christian Community":

Back in 2001 Harvard public policy professor Robert Putnam wrote a book titled Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.  The work argued that over the previous decades there had been a steep erosion of “social capital” [the social networks that provide real personal benefits] in American society.  The title came from research finding that while more people were bowling in America sharply fewer were doing so in community bowling leagues.  They preferred to do it alone.

You can still go to the website bowlingalone.com and read about his study, including the following factoids:

Trends over the last 25 years indicating declining social capital:

Attending Club Meetings:  58% drop

Family dinners:  43% drop

Having friends over:  35% drop

Other factoids:

Joining and participating in one group cuts in half your odds of dying next year.

Every ten minutes of commuting reduces all forms of social capital by 10%

Watching commercial entertainment TV is the only leisure activity where doing more of it is associated with lower social capital.

He wrote this book just at the internet was getting taking off, and my guess it has likely only gotten worse. Social media gives plenty of Facebook “friends” but often leaves social media users feeling more isolated, lonely, longing, and dissatisfied.

Never has there been a better time for the Biblical truth:  “Two are better than one.”

We might also ask what social relationships are being specifically addressed here under the banner “Two are better than one.”

I think it can apply to at least three sometimes overlapping spheres of relationship:

Christian friendship.

Christian marriage and family.

Christian church.

Let’s begin by considering the benefits of Christian friends:

We have the Biblical models of the friendship.  Perhaps the greatest is that between David and Jonathan.  In 1 Samuel 18:1 it says, “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”

For women we can point to the friendship between Ruth and Naomi.  Though they had a relationship that came through Ruth’s marriage to Naomi’s son, clearly their friendship persisted even beyond the death of Ruth’s husband.

Think also of the example given us of our Lord.  Jesus called his disciples his friends:

John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

Consider the close friendship Jesus had especially with Peter, James, and John who often walked with him in important times of his life (the mount of transfiguration, Gethsemane).  John, in particular, was called the beloved disciple.  And it is said that at the death of his friend Lazarus Jesus wept (John 11:35).

The Proverbs describe the benefits of having close friends:

Proverbs 27:6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

Proverbs 27:9 Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel.

Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

One might ask, Well, where can I find friends such as these?  We must first understand that a Christian can only find true friendship with someone who shares with him a like precious faith in the Lord.  Compare:

Amos 3:3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

There will be limits to how close we might become to unbelievers.  Toward unbelievers our goal is evangelism. With fellow believers it is edification.

We must also understand that true and deep friendships must be formed over long periods of time and through many shared experiences.  There are so many things that work against the forming of lasting friendships.  One is the constant mobility of our society.  People often cannot form real friendships because they are constantly leaving and moving.  Another is the lack of taking the time and making the commitment to friendship.

One verse that speaks to the discipline of forming friendships is Proverbs 18:24a:   “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly [though some modern translations alter the wording].”

If we lack friends, is it because we have not shown ourselves to be friendly?

Will we seek the benefits of Christian community that come through friendship?

JTR

The Vision (12.16.16): The Benefits of Christian Community

Video: Simon and Garfunkel singing "I am a rock."

Image:  CRBCers at Leaf Raking Day (12.3.16)

Note:  Devotion taken from the introduction to last Sunday's sermon on Ecclesiastes 4:9-16.

In 1623 the English poet John Donne wrote these well known words:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee (from Meditation # 17 in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions).

In the 1960s the pop duo Simon and Garfunkel riffed on Donne’s line in their song “I am a rock” in which the lyrics read in part:

I’ve built walls, a fortress, steep and mighty, that none may penetrate.  I have no need of friendship.  Friendship causes pain.  It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.  I am a rock.  I am an island.

Later, the song adds:

            I touch no one and no one touches me

And it ends:

            And a rock feels no pain.  And an island never cries.

That song certainly captures the loneliness and isolation that can sometimes plague even the most friendly and sociable of men.

Loneliness was probably a sensation or experience with which the Preacher, the author of Ecclesiastes, was familiar.  And yet guided by the Holy Spirit of God he was led to record one of the most poignant Scriptural statements describing the benefits of Christian community, coming in its various forms:

Ecclesiastes 4:9 Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. 10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. 11 Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? 12 And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

In his respected commentary on Ecclesiastes Charles Bridges rightly observes that this passage has to do with “the deep responsibility of our social obligations” (Ecclesiastes, p. 92).

Indeed, no Christian is an island. We need the benefits of Christian community.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Word Magazine # 65: Review: Kruger on Mark's Ending

Yesterday I recorded and today posted WM # 65: Review: Kruger on Mark's Ending. Ok, I know what you're thinking: Another WM on Mark's Ending? Yes, that's right. The last few episodes were given to sermon reviews (by Hardy and Purswell). This one is a seminary lecture on the Ending of Mark by Dr. Michael J. Kruger of Reformed Theological Seminary of Charlotte, NC. You can listen to the original lecture under review here. Kruger is a respected NT scholar who specializes in canon studies. He also has an interesting blog called Canon Fodder. His presentation on the Ending of Mark is more even-handed than many. He does, at least, make mention of William Farmer's defense of Mark 16:9-20 as original. In the end, however, he rejects the authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 and attributes its authorship to a "rogue" scribe. He also makes some interesting comments on what he sees as a "positive" side of the supposed patchwork ending of Mark, allegedly cobbled together from the resurrection narratives in Matthew, Luke, and John. According to his analysis, if this were the case it would support the early Christian consensus on the four-fold Gospel (!). He also has some interesting comments on inerrancy, suggesting that rejection of Mark 16:9-20 does not challenge the doctrine of inerrancy since it assumes that Mark did not write it. But isn't this the very heart of the question? Is Mark 16:9-20 part of the inspired Word of God?  

JTR

Thoughts on James Orr, Theistic Evolution, Miracles, and Intellectual Respectability

Image:  James Orr (1844-1913)

I’ve been reading this week through James Orr’s Revelation and Inspiration (New York:  Scribner’s, 1910). Orr (1844-1913) was a Scottish Presbyterian, a contemporary of B. B. Warfield (1851-1921), known, like Warfield, for his critique of the theological liberalism of his day and his defense of traditional views on the Bible and Christianity.  Orr contributed the articles “The Virgin Birth of Christ” and “Science and Christian Faith” to the famed series, The Fundamentals:  A Testimony to the Truth (1910-1915).

As with Warfield, however, I am struck not only by Orr’s critique of liberalism and skepticism but also by some of the concessions he is willing to make in order to maintain the relevance of Christianity in the “modern” world.

On one hand, Orr can offer a sharp critique of Wilhelm Bousett (1865-1920) and the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule in their “evolutionary” view of the development of religion, including their denial of special revelation and the inspiration of the Christian Scriptures (see pp. 31-39) or Hume’s rejection of miracle (see pp. 109-130).

On the other hand, he sometimes cedes much to the modernists.  Like Warfield, he essentially accepts biological evolution and does not see it as being in conflict with the Christian worldview. So he writes, “the theory of evolution, now commonly accepted in principle, has undergone modifications which remove most of the aspects of conflict between it and the theistic and Christian view of the world” (p. 161).  Orr appears to have been in the vanguard of the theistic evolution position.  When it comes to prophetic actions and miracles in the Bible, Orr suggests some might have been the result of “a visionary element” rather than an actual event (p. 100).  Those who seek a “parabolic interpretation” of Jonah’s  three days and nights in the belly of the fish, Orr suggests,  might consider that it happened “in vision” (p. 101).

This dilemma persists among evangelicals who desire to defend traditional views of Scripture’s reliability but who also desire to intellectual respectability in eyes of the secular world. The question is whether or not this can ever really be done without compromise.

JTR

Seasonal Resources on the Regulative Principle

A few years back, before I had come better to understand and then to embrace Reformed confessional Christianity, my conscience was not much bothered by "Advent" and "Christmas" observances in the church.  Like many other Calvinistic evangelicals I promoted the Advent season as connecting our worship with the historical Christian liturgy and the "Christian year."  I also oranized Christmas Eve services and even Christmas day services (when they did not fall on Sundays).  I also saw the observance of the Christmas holiday as a way to promote Christian influence and ideas in the secular culture.

Even now I understand that different folk hold different views on these matters. There is a distinct historical difference between the "continental" approach (of Calvin, et al) and that of the English Puritans.  Men of good faith and good will might hold different opinions.  I also believe that we can make a distinction between innocent private practices where Christian liberty must be allowed and what is approved for the public exercise of God's worship on the Lord's Day.  In short, I'd like to keep the Lord's Day relatively uncluttered from the Christmas connection. This way folk of various peruasions (whether they approve of Christmas family holiday traditions and celebrations or not) can find a common ground and grant liberty to their brethren to hold their own personal convictions.

I included this note in last week’s issue of the Vision, CRBC’s e-newsletter:

The approach of the Christmas holiday season raises questions about Reformed views on worship and personal practice.  Here are a few resources on these topics:

Sermon on the Second Commandment (a basis for the Reformed doctrine of the Regulative Principle)

Sermon:  Reformed Worship, Holy Days, and Holidays

Sermon:  A Reformed Christian Negotiates Christmas

The 16 part Blog Series on The Westminster Directory of Worship, including this post “Touching Days and Places for Publick Worship” (Part 16) [click the label “The Directory for the Publick Worship of God” at the end of the post to read the others in the series].

JTR

The Vision (12.9.16): But they had no comforter

Image:  Fall leaves, December 2016, North Garden, Virginia

Note:  Devotion taken from sermon notes from last Sunday's message on Ecclesiastes 4:1-8.

Ecclesiastes 4:1 So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. 2 Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive. 3 Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

Solomon begins by noting he returned to consider the “oppressions [injustices] that are done under the sun” (v. 1a).

And he mentions seeing the tears of the oppressed (v. 1b).  Solomon was moved with outrage at the sight of injustices that appear in the world.  This might have been the rich exploiting the poor, the strong afflicting the weak, the intelligent scorning and belittling the less intelligent.  We’d like the world to be like a fairy tale where the good always prevail, the right is always vindicated, the truth always triumphs.  But we know this does not always happen.  Matthew Henry here observes:  “The world is a place of weepers.”

If there is a just God in the heavens why is this allowed to happen?  Why do the tears continue to flow?

Note how Solomon adds to the intensity of our sympathy but saying “and they had no comforter.”  Parents know how piercing God has made the cry of infant children and how this cry will compel them to wake from a solid sleep to attend to the wailing child’s needs.  But Solomon says that in this world there are sometimes those who cry out, but it appears they have no loving Father who arises to comfort them.  Why is this so?

He continues: “and on the side of their oppressors there was power.”  He points not just to the tears of the oppressed but to the massive power granted to the oppressors.  And he repeats the sad refrain:  “but they had no comforter.”  There is an imbalance.  The oppressors have the power and the oppressed have no one to comfort them.

This verse reminds us that when you become a believer you automatically become a defender of the weak, the exploited, the oppressed, the used and abused.  As Proverbs 31:8 exhorts, “Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.”

Solomon was in such a state of despair here, however, that he concluded the oppressed would have been better off if they were already dead. At least then they would be out of their misery.  The dead are better off than the living (v. 2).

In v. 3 he goes a step forward (or backward in the morality of his thinking).  Better than both the living and the dead would be the person who had never even been conceived and born, the person who had never existed!  This recalls Job’s despair: “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived” (Job 3:3).

This is the sentiment of every despondent person who has ever muttered, I wish I had never been born.  It is the unbelief of the couple who pledges never to bring a child into such a world as this.  It denies the purpose and value of every life and it denies the sovereignty of God even over the injustices and inequities that he allows to take place for his own hidden purposes.

The man who is apart from Christ may very well often feel this way. Who cares for me?  Who would comfort me?  Who will take up my cause?

There is comfort, however, for the man of faith.  I thought of the opening blessing in 2 Corinthians which describes the God of the Bible as “the God of all comfort” who comforts us in our tribulation (1:3-4).

The God of the Bible is indeed a God of comfort.  The greatest sign of this was the sending of his own dear Son (John 3:16; Hebrews 4:15).  During his earthly ministry he demonstrated unfailing care and compassion for his flock:

Matthew 9:36 But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

This culminated in the ultimate act of compassion when he laid down his life for his friends on the cross.  And even now he has not left us without comfort.  He has given us the Holy Spirit (John 14:16; 15:26).

We are not alone.  The God of all comfort is with us and for us through Christ and by the Holy Spirit.  We have a comforter.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle 

Hitchens on the King James Version

After listening to an audio book version of Christopher Hitchens’ book Mortality, a collection of essays he wrote while suffering from the esophageal cancer that would eventually take his life, and reading his essay collection And Yet…., I have started Hitch 22, the 2010 memoir of the hyper-articulate journalist and “public intellectual,” completed just before the discovery of his fatal cancer.

Hitchens is perhaps best known for his outspoken atheism, especially as expressed in his 2007 book god is Not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything.  Though it would be simplistic to explain Hitchens’ antagonism to religion in general, and to Christianity in particular, based on his biography, the memoir reveals many possible sources for this antagonism.  For one his mother left his father for a former liberal Church of England minister.  They mutually embraced Eastern Religion and the two died in a murder-suicide pact in Greece.  For another he attended boarding schools with nominal (liberal) church affiliation from the age of eight years where, as he puts it, he was “compelled to sit through lessons in the sinister fairy tales of Christianity” (p. 52).  One wonders how his views might have differed if he had been raised in a loving Christian home and if he had been exposed to authentic, Biblical Christianity.

Nevertheless, despite his protests, Hitchens was clearly influenced by the very faith tradition he despised.  He begrudgingly admits, “but I can’t pretend that I hated singing the hymns or learning the psalms, and I enjoyed being in the choir and was honored when asked to read from the lectern” (p. 52).

When recalling the funeral service of his conservative, British navy veteran father, whom he called “the commander,” he describes how he chose Philippians 4:8 as a reading, hedging that he selected the text “for its non-religious yet high moral character” (p. 45):

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

After citing the verse in the KJV, Hitchens adds:

Try looking that up in a “modern” version of the New Testament (Philippians 4:8) and see what a ration of bland doggerel you get.  I shall never understand how the keepers and trustees of the King James Version threw away such a treasure (p. 46).

 JTR

The Vision (12.2.16): That men should fear before him

Image:  Fall scene, North Garden, Virginia, December 2016

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ecclesiastes 3:12-22.

I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

In v. 14 there are three independent statements made about God’s providential works:

First, his work is permanent: “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever.”  Would God have made such an intricate and special creature as man merely for a limited temporal existence?  No. we were made for time and for eternity.

Second, his work is perfect:  “nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it.”  Mere men cannot second guess God’s work. We are in no position to critique his works or presume to improve upon what he had done.  His work is perfect.

Third, his work is purposeful:  “and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.” God made and provided for the world, so that men, his image bearers, made a little lower than the angels, should fear him.

His goal or end in giving us all the experiences of our lives is that we might fear him.  Fear here means to give reverence or awe. Notice, his end is not that we love him or thank him, though we do love and thank him (and it is right to do so!), but that we fear him, that we hold him in reverential awe. This recalls a repeated refrain in the wisdom literature, perhaps best epitomized in Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”

The term “God-fearing” has become one that seems out of fashion, and it has even become one of ridicule and derision, but it continues to convey a key Biblical concept. 

Are you a God-fearing man?  The wise man is one who does not think first of pleasing himself or any other man but of pleasing God. He fears God!  God provides for us so that we might fear him.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle