Sermon Series:
Five Words You Must Understand
1 Corinthians 14:19
Yet in the church I had rather speak
five words with
my understanding,
that by my voice I might teach others also,
than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.
Part
Twenty-four: Luke 15:7
“Joy
shall be in heaven.”
Introduction:
On the old Daniels
and Webster program on ROCK107 we often heard from one Walter Nepasky. He would begin his commentary in his very
recognizable “Coal Cracker” dialect with either, “I'm Walter Nepasky
and today I wanna talk about tree tings.”, or “Hi. My name is
Walter Nepasky. How ya doin’? Today I want to talk to you
about tree tings.”
What if we had a modern Christian radio station —The Rock of Ages 316 — with a program
that began, “Hi, I’m Paul of Tarsus, and today I want to talk about five
words.”
The Apostle Paul wrote: Yet in the church I had rather
speak five words with my understanding,
that by my voice I might teach others also,
than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.[1]
Paul follows up his introduction on The Rock of Ages 316 with his personal example — an extreme
preference framed as a mathematical proportion: 5 versus 10,000. This is Paul’s
“druthers”! This is when 5 is better
than 10,000!
If Paul were here, and you could pin him down to a
literal selection of five words, what do you think he would choose? “Gimme Five Paul!”
Before we get to a selection from the list of five word
Scripture passages that might be in Paul’s “in box” we should also consider how
Charles Haddon Spurgeon went even beyond Paul, perhaps due to “spiritual
inflation” in the intervening centuries!
“But the seed, though very small, was a living
thing. There is a great difference between a mustard seed and a piece of
wax of the same size. Life slumbers in that seed. What life is we cannot tell.
Even if you take a microscope you cannot spy it out. It is a mystery, but it is
essential to a seed. The Gospel has a something in it not readily discoverable
by the philosophical inquirer, if, indeed, he can perceive it at all. Take a
maxim of Socrates or of Plato, and inquire whether a nation or a tribe has ever
been transformed by it from barbarism to culture. A maxim of a philosopher may
have measurably influenced a person in some right direction, but who has ever
heard of a someone's whole character being transformed by any observation of
Confucius or Socrates? I confess I never have. Human teachings are barren. But
within the Gospel, with all its triteness and simplicity, there is a divine
life and that life makes all the difference. The human can never rival the
divine, for it lacks the life-fire. It is better to preach five words of God's Word than five million words
of human wisdom. Human words may seem to be the wiser and the more
attractive, but there is no heavenly life in them. Within God's Word, however
simple it may be, there dwells an omnipotence like that of God from whose lips
it came.”[2]
Note: The five word
statements from Scripture selected may not actually be five word statements
in either the Hebrew or Greek originals,
nor are they necessarily complete sentences or verses in English language translations
from the Hebrew and Greek, including the King James Version which is the source translation for the
statements. Nevertheless, they were
selected for the fundamental truths and span of doctrine that they
present. The current list of 37 examples
is not intended to be comprehensive, and may easily be expanded or
consolidated.
The 37 selections are categorized under the following
four headings:
The Person of Christ — The Redeemer
The Work of Christ (as Prophet, Priest and King) —
Redemption Accomplished
The Salvation of Christ — Redemption Applied
The Return of Christ — Redemption Revealed
The advantage of short simple sentences like these is
that they are easy to remember. There is little or no danger of our failing to
see the forest for the trees! May these words ring in our ears, resonate in our
minds, and abide in our memories.
Now for one of the possible
selections from Paul’s “in box”:
The five word statement to be considered on this occasion, “Joy shall
be in heaven,” falls under the third of these four headings, The
Salvation of Christ — Redemption Applied.
Outline:
I. The Issue of Joy in Heaven and the Identification of
the Parable
II. The Lack of Joy on Earth and the “Deparabalization”
of the Parable
III. The Reality of Joy in Heaven and the Point of the
Parable
I. The Issue of Joy in Heaven and the Identification
of the Parable
How many parables are here?
What are the three basic elements in this parable?
What are the similarities and differences between the accounts
of the lost sheep, coin and son?
How would you title this parable?
II. The Lack of Joy on Earth and the
“Deparabalization” of the Parable
The Problem of the
Parables[3]
The definition of parable: What is a parable?
Common assumptions and misconceptions about parables —
things to be aware of, and in some cases to be avoided
Which Gospel has the most parables? Luke.
What is the longest parable?[4] Luke 15.
Immediate and larger context:
1) the 3 “parables” in Luke 15
(vv. 3-7, 8-10, 11-32),[5]
2) the rest of the “Travel
Narrative” of Luke (9:51-19:27),
3) the rest of the Gospel of
Luke before and after the “Travel Narrative,”
3) the other parables in the
Synoptic Gospels (esp. Mt. 13),
4) the rest of the New
Testament, and,
5) the Old Testament.
Subject matters and doctrinal emphases to connect to in
these other contexts:
repentance, the love of the
Father, sonship, inheritance, adoption, etc.
Specific passages from the Old Testament with connections
to the parable:
The two sons? Cp. Cain and Abel,
Isaac and Ishmael, and esp. Jacob and Esau (Gen. 27:1-36:8).[6]
The inheritance of the older
versus the younger son? Cp. Dt. 21:15:22:4; Jer. 31:18-20.
What about the cultural context? The cultural context of
this part of the world in the 1st century A. D.
A definition of culture: What is culture?
“Culture is part
of history because it concerns the creative result of man’s actions. Culture
involves the ways, methods, manners, tools, institutions, and literary
productions of any people. These reveal how a people lived, what values they
stressed, and why they did or did not prosper. Culture involves the
totality which emerges out of the
elements that make up everyday life. The terms, “Egyptian Culture,”
“Palestinian Culture,” “Greek Culture,” etc., are not abstractions. These terms
denote the way of life of these people. Idolatry and sorcery as well as the
forms of worship of the living God are all a part of a people and their
culture.”
— A. Berkeley Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), pg. 160.
“…cultural literacy, namely, the network of information
that all competent readers possess. It is the background information, stored in
their minds, that enables them to take up a newspaper and read it with an
adequate level of comprehension, getting the point, grasping the implications,
relating what they read to the unstated context which alone gives meaning to
what they read.”
— E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Cultural
Literacy: What Every American Needs To Know (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1987), pg. 2.
Examples of cultural illiteracy:
“I’m mad
about my flat!” In the USA? In the UK?
“Consider
the phrase fed up or
the word mad.
“In Egyptian English, a visitor might say, ‘Thank you. I cannot eat any more
cookies. I am fed up.” Someone from the United States or United Kingdom would
probably use another word, such as full.
A
British person who says, “I’m mad about my flat!” is likely far happier about
the apartment than an American who says the same phrase but means “I got stuck
with this place.””
— Joan Huyser-Honig, “Kenneth E.
Bailey on Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes” (7 MAY 2008), on the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at
http://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/kenneth-e-bailey-on-jesus-through-middle-eastern-eyes/
[accessed 22 JUL 2015].
“Look at the bottom of my shoe! I
must have stepped on some chewing gum!”
Here?
In Iraq, or a Muslim nation?
“Royal Tulip Al Rasheed Hotel
(sometimes spelled Al-Rashid) (Arabic,فندق الرشيد) is an 18-story hotel in
Baghdad, Iraq, favored by journalists and media personnel due to its location
within Baghdad's Green Zone.”
“It gained worldwide fame during the 1991 Persian Gulf
War when CNN conducted their newscasts from the hotel, propelling the network's
senior war correspondent Peter Arnett to fame. Between the Persian Gulf War and
the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the building was the main housing facility for
Western businessmen and diplomats, as well as foreign press.
A tile mosaic depicting U.S. President George H.W. Bush with a look of astonishment on his face was installed on the floor of the lobby after the Persian Gulf War. This was intended to force any visitors to walk over his face to enter the hotel (a serious insult in Arabculture)….After the invasion in 2003, the mosaic was smashed by U.S. soldiers, who left a portrait of Saddam Hussein behind.”
A tile mosaic depicting U.S. President George H.W. Bush with a look of astonishment on his face was installed on the floor of the lobby after the Persian Gulf War. This was intended to force any visitors to walk over his face to enter the hotel (a serious insult in Arabculture)….After the invasion in 2003, the mosaic was smashed by U.S. soldiers, who left a portrait of Saddam Hussein behind.”
For examples of cultural illiteracy see: Benjamin J.
Stein, “The Cheerful Ignorance of the Young in L.A.,” Washington Post, 3 OCT 1983, pg. A15; cited by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs
To Know (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), pp. 6-7.
Another example of cultural differences enabling or
preventing understanding: “Waltzing Matilda,” in E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs
To Know (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), pg. 17.
In order to get the full impact of the Scriptures we must
enter into another culture, and assimilate as much of it as possible. The more
culturally literate we are with the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the
Roman Empire of the 1st century A.D. the better we will be able to understand
the New Testament documents, and the more we will be able to appreciate their
impact on their original recipients. The more culturally literate we are with
the previous centuries back to the time of Moses, the greater will be our
comprehension of what we encounter in the Old Testament.
Luke 15:11-32 —
11 And he said, A certain man had two sons: 12
And the younger of them said to his
father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them
his living. 13 And not many days after the younger son gathered
all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his
substance with riotous living. 14 And when he had spent all, there
arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. 15 And
he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into
his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would fain have filled his belly
with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. 17 And
when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have
bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise
and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against
heaven, and before thee, 19 And am no more worthy to be called thy
son: make me as one of thy hired servants. 20 And he arose, and came
to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had
compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 21 And
the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight,
and am no more worthy to be called thy son. 22 But the father said
to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: 23 And bring
hither the fatted calf, and kill it;
and let us eat, and be merry: 24 For this my son was dead, and is
alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. 25 Now
his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he
heard musick and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants, and
asked what these things meant. 27 And he said unto him, Thy brother
is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received
him safe and sound. 28 And he was angry, and would not go in:
therefore came his father out, and intreated him. 29 And he
answering said to his father, Lo,
these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy
commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with
my friends: 30 But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath
devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. 31
And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is
thine. 32 It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for
this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
For the Muslim emphasis on this parable see especially Kenneth
E. Bailey, Jacob and the Prodigal, pg.
15.
Cultural clues — the more we dig, the more we enter into
it, the more we learn, the more amazing it is[7]
If you were “a fly on the wall,” and were able to observe
the expressions on the faces of Christ’s hearers that day what would you find
inexplicable? Why would that be the case?
When they expressed shock, would you have? Why, or why
not?
When they shook their heads in dismay and disbelief at what
they were hearing, would you be reacting the same way, and for the same
reasons? Why, or why not?
What if you heard some of the members of His audience
muttering under their breath, or exclaiming out loud, “No! No way! That would
never happen! No one would ever do that! Never!” Would you have joined in, and
understood why they would respond in this manner?
For the cultural clues concerning the impact of this
parable on the original audience see especially Bailey, op. cit. pg. 41.
III. The Reality of Joy in Heaven and the Point of the
Parable
“Guess who’s coming to dinner?”
Hebrews
2:5-18
******************************************************************************
…and they caused great joy unto all the
brethren. (Acts 15:3)
This is to be contrasted to the response of the Judean
false teachers in the First Christian Church of Antioch, and the Pharisees in
the First Baptist Church of Jerusalem.
This is the hinge verse in this paragraph, and the mixed responses to
this news highlights the element of internal dissension amongst believers over
this issue.
Is there a connection in these historical events to the
Parable of the Two Sons in Luke 15? This
is commonly referred to as the “Parable of the Prodigal Son”, but when the
point of the parable is understood, along with how it is introduced, perhaps it
is more accurately referred to as the “Parable of the Two Sons”. Is there a connection in these historical
events in Acts 15 to the meaning of the Parable of the Two Sons in Luke
15? Are the chapter numbers merely
coincidental, or is there a meaningful link between what Christ taught in Luke
15, and what the ascended Christ is doing through His Holy Spirit by His
Apostles in Acts 15?
— The Occasion for
the Jerusalem Council (The Parable of the Two Ethnicities?), Acts 15:1-5; Sermon
preached 22 JUN 2014 by Pastor John T. “Jack” Jeffery at Wayside Gospel Chapel,
Greentown, PA.
******************************************************************************
[Sermon preached 26 JUL 2015 by Pastor John T. “Jack”
Jeffery at Wayside Gospel Chapel, Greentown, PA.]
Bibliography
Augustine, Quaestiones Evangeliorum, II, 19 (slightly abridged); cited
in C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the
Kingdom, rev. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961), pp. 1-2; “Augustine's Commentary on the Good Samaritan,”
on Sermons.Logos at https://sermons.logos.com/submissions/47795-Augustine-s-Commentary-on-the-Good-Samaritan#content=/submissions/47795
[accessed 21 JUL 2015].
Kenneth E. Bailey, The Cross and the Prodigal (Downers
Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005).
Kenneth E. Bailey, Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15 (St.
Louis: Concordia Press, 1992).
Kenneth E. Bailey, Jacob and the Prodigal: How Jesus Retold Israel’s
Story (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003).
Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Gospel
Studies Informed by Culture (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2007).
Kenneth E. Bailey, Poet and Peasant: A Literary Cultural Approach
to the Parables in Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976).
Kenneth E. Bailey, Through Peasant Eyes: More Lucan Parables,
Their Culture and Style (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980).
G. K. Beale, and D. A. Carson, Commentary on the New Testament use of the Old Testament (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), pp. 341–343.
D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God
(Wheaton: Crossway, 2000), pg. 12; also in D. A. Carson, “On Distorting
the Love of God,” Bibliotheca Sacra 156:621
(Jan 1999), pp. 3-12.[8]
C. H. Dodd, The
Parables of the Kingdom, rev. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1961), pp. 91-93.
J. Duncan M. Derrett, Law
in the New Testament (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1970), pp.
100-125, s.v. “The Parable of the
Prodigal Son.”[9]
Gordon
D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth: A
Guide to Understanding the Bible, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids: Academie
Books, 1982, 1993, 2003, 2014), pp. 154-167.
Sinclair
Ferguson, From the Mouth of God (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth,
2014), pp. 113-120.
Ada R. Habershon, The
Study of the Parables, 6th ed. (London: Pickering & Inglis, n.d.).
E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Cultural
Literacy: What Every American Needs To Know (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1987), pp. 2, 6-7, 17.
Joachim Jeremias, The
Parables of Jesus, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954.
1963, 1972; from Die Gleichnisse Jesu,
8th ed., Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1970), pp. 128-136.
Timothy Keller, “The
Fellowship of Grace Series” (related to his book The Prodigal God), on gospel
in life at http://www.gospelinlife.com/sermons/the-fellowship-of-grace.html
[accessed 27 JUL 2015]; seven sermons on Luke 15 preached from 28 SEP 2008 to 9
NOV 2008. See especially Keller’s final sermon, “The True Older Brother.”[10]
Timothy Keller, The
Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (New York:
Dutton, 2008).
I. Howard
Marshall, and R. V. G. Tasker, “Parable,” in New Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed., eds. A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer, D.
J. Wiseman, and D. R. W. Wood (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), pp. 867–869.
Robert L. Plummer, 40 Questions about Interpreting the Bible,
series ed. Benjamin L. Merkle (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic &
Professional, 2011), pp. 265-277.
J. C.
Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels,
4 vols., Vol. 2: Luke 11-24 (Grand
Rapids: Baker Book House, n.d.; 1990 reprint of 1856 original), pp. 180-195; s.v. Luke 15:11-32;
on Grace Gems at http://gracegems.org/Ryle/l15.htm [accessed
21 JUL 2015].
G. H. Schodde,
“Parable,” in The International Standard Bible
Encyclopedia: 1915 edition, ed. J. Edwin Orr (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1999);
on International Standard Bible
Encyclopedia Online at http://www.internationalstandardbible.com/P/parable.html
[accessed 11 SEP 2015].
John W. Sider, Interpreting
the Parables: A Hermeneutical Guide to Their Meaning (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1995).
Klyne R.
Snodgrass, “Parable,” in Walter A. Elwell, and B. J. Beitzel, Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1988), pp. 1606-1614.
R. C. Sproul, Knowing
Scripture, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1977, 2009), pp.
94-97.
Benjamin J. Stein, “The Cheerful Ignorance of the Young
in L.A.,” Washington Post, 3 OCT
1983, pg. A15.
R. C. Trench, Notes
on the Parables of Our Lord (London: Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, 1910), 99. 392-428.
Warren W. Wiersbe, Meet
Yourself in the Parables (Wheaton: Victor, 1983).
End Notes:
[1] 1 Corinthians 14:19.
[2] Charles H. Spurgeon,
“The Mustard Seed: A Sermon for the Sabbath-School Teacher” (Lk.
13:18-19), Sermon No. 2110, delivered 20
OCT 1889, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, U.K.; in Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 35
(1889), pp. 565ff.; in Charles H. Spurgeon, The Parables of Our Lord (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2003), pg. 707; and
on The Spurgeon Archive at http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2110.htm [accessed 23 DEC 2014].
[3] “The interpretation of
parables has been a happy hunting ground for misunderstandings….parables can
either illumine or blind us.” Sinclair
Ferguson, From the Mouth of God (Carlisle, PA: Banner of
Truth, 2014), pg. 113.
[4] “Lk xv.11-32, an elaborate, circumstantial, in fact
the longest, parable….” J. Duncan M. Derrett, Law in the New Testament (London: Darton, Longman & Todd,
1970), pg. 100, s.v. “The Parable of
the Prodigal Son.” This chapter, pp. 100-125, was originally published as an
article: J. Duncan M. Derrett, “Law in the New Testament: The Parable of the
Prodigal Son,” New Testament Studies
14 (1967), pp. 56-74.
[5] “Luke chapter 15 as a
whole is a triptych — a picture painted on three panels.” Ferguson, op. cit.,
pg. 118.
[6] On this see especially
Kenneth E. Bailey, Jacob and the
Prodigal: How Jesus Retold Israel’s Story (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 2003). Bailey states, “In my personal study, a list of fifty-one points
of comparison and contrast have gradually emerged.” Op. cit., pg 14. He credits
a footnote in N. T. Wright, Jesus and the
Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 2
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), pg. 127, note 10, with alerting him to the
possibilities in this connection. This was in connection with Gen. 33:4.
[7] “We can take it as a
general rule of thumb that parables paint pictures of something unexpected in
life which — often with marvelous attention to literary details that enhance
the emotional power of the narrative — teach us how God’s kingdom works. They
bring us into a kingdom where Samaritans help Jews, where prodigal sons are welcomed
home, and much else happens to overturn our expectations.” Ferguson, op. cit.,
pg. 117.
[8] Originally presented as
The W. H. Griffith Thomas Lectures (FEB 1998), Dallas Theological Seminary,
Dallas, TX.
[9] This chapter was originally published as an article:
J. Duncan M. Derrett, “Law in the New Testament: The Parable of the Prodigal
Son,” New Testament Studies 14
(1967), pp. 56-74.
[10] I am indebted to a fellow member of Wayside Gospel Chapel,
Mary Ellen Bradley, for bringing Keller’s book and sermon series on this
subject to my attention. I was not aware of either prior to preaching this
sermon, but believe that we are on the “same wavelength.” Keller also credited Kenneth E.
Bailey's work. I have included several of them in the bibliography.
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