• The call to be a disciple of Jesus is to join all believers in being a very different kind of priesthood, where everybody represents God to man, and intercedes for man with God
This is The Living Word (TLW) for Sunday, May 7, 2023 — a Bible study based on the Bible readings set for this Sunday according to the revised common lectionary scheme used by a wide variety of churches and chapels.
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 — Security is deeply trusting in God’s goodness
John 14:1-14 — Disciples have a place prepared for them in heaven
Acts 7:55-60 — Stephen in his dying moments sees heaven open
1 Peter 2:2-10— Living stones make a heavenly temple here on earth
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 — Security is deeply trusting in God’s goodness
• Relationship with God enables us to entrust our times and lives to Him
1-2 In You, Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in Your righteousness. Turn Your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me.
“Be my rock of refuge” — as David feels abandoned as he faces conspiracy.
3 Since You are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of Your name lead and guide me.
“For the sake of Your name” — having promised through the prophet Nathan to be with David, 2 Sam. 7:8—11, God’s covenant reputation is at stake.
4-5 Keep me free from the trap that is set for me, for You are my refuge. Into Your hands I commit my spirit; deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.
“Into Your hands” — David pledges total dependence on God; Jesus spoke these words in His dying moments.
15-16 My times are in Your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me. Let Your face shine on Your servant; save me in Your unfailing love.
“My times are in Your hands” — submitting all circumstances and timing.
16 Let Your face shine on Your servant; save me in Your unfailing love.
“Let Your face shine” — an expression of God’s favour, as in Aaron’s blessing.
• For further study, see Numbers 6:24-26; Psalms 4:6; 67:1; 80:1, 3, 7, 19; 97:11; 118:27; 119:135.
Reflection
SUMMARY This is about trusting God — in faith or more like hope? More the latter, which is a confident expectation in God’s faithfulness.
APPLICATION This is what Jesus, racked with pain, was expressing in His dying moments. We too can choose to put our times in God’s hands.
PRAYER Lord, I trust You — but help me in my moments of not trusting very well. Amen.
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John 14:1-14 — Disciples have a place prepared for them in heaven
• Jesus reminds them that they know Him and He is the Way
1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in Me.
“Hearts be troubled” — after difficult news, John 13:33, 36.
“Believe in God… also in Me” — Jesus’ simple but also profound solution to heart anxiety. “Believe” means personal, relational trust, as in the OT, Psalm 56:3-4; Isaiah 26:3-4.
2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?
“My Father’s house” — like the errant son’s return in Luke 15. Jesus promised a welcome into “eternal dwellings”.
• For further study, see Luke 15:11-32, Luke 16:9, Rev. 21.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me, that you also may be where I am.
“I will come back” — Jesus’ second coming. If we believe in Him (v.1) we will be expected.
4 You know the way to the place where I am going.
“You know the way” — or you know the Way, anticipating what He will say, v.6.
5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we don’t know where You are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus answered, “I AM the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
“I AM the Way” — an answer rich with double meanings. Jesus’ I AM sayings echo God’s revelation of Himself to Moses, Exodus 3, and signal His divine origins as Messiah. Early believers were known as followers of the Way.
“Except through Me” — the only way to God, Acts 4:12, a claim opposed by our culture, but reasoning must not invalidate what Jesus plainly states. Those who claim to know God but reject Jesus, do not know Him, John 5:39-47.
7 If you really know Me, you will know My Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.”
“Know Me… know My Father” — to know Jesus is to know the Father.
• For further study, see John 5:37-38, John 8:19; 1 John 2:21.
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know Me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
“Seen Me… seen the Father” — Jesus sets out His deity as He faces Philip in His humanity. Philip has yet to grasp that Jesus came to reveal the Father, John 1:14, 18, John 12:44-45.
10-11 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in Me? The words I say to you I do not speak on My own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in Me, who is doing His work. Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.
“I am in the Father and the Father is in Me” — as explained in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one” where “one” is the neuter ‘one thing’, not one person. So one in essence, will and purpose — not identical persons. With the Holy Spirit, Matt. 28:19, 2 Cor. 3:14, the three distinct Persons constitute only one Being.
12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in Me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
“Works” — Greek erga; all of Jesus’ mission, teaching, merciful acts — and signs — would continue.
“Greater things” — the Holy Spirit to be given would replicate and multiply the ministry beyond Palestine and worldwide.
13-14 And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it.
“Ask in My name” — meaning coming to God in the will of Jesus. Our alignment with Him (not just a form of words) is the key to this arresting promise.
Reflection
SUMMARY Thomas and Philip ask some good, honest questions, and the answers which Jesus gives are rich in clarity about His purpose.
APPLICATION Jesus is the Way in two senses: He is the exact representation of what God is like; and believing and trusting Him is the way — the only way — to God.
QUESTION How would you answer someone who found difficulty with Jesus being the only way to God?
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Acts 7:55-60 — Stephen in his dying moments sees heaven open
• Through the pain he sees Christ standing to welcome him
55-56 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
“Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit” — in sharp contrast to the unspiritual religiosity of his Sanhedrin persecutors, who reacted in uncontrolled rage.
“Son of Man”, Daniel 7:13-14; Luke 22:69.
57-58 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
“Began to stone him” — without trial and illegally, possibly supervised by the up-and-coming Pharisee Saul.
59-60 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
“Do not hold this sin against them” — strikingly similar to Jesus’ words “Father, forgive them…” on the Cross, Luke 23:34. Jesus greatly emphasised forgiving others, Matt 6:14-15; Mark 11:25; also Luke 11:4; 17:3-4; Matthew 18:21-35.
“He fell asleep” — a common NT way of conveying that death for believers is a transition, Luke 8:52; John 11:11; 1 Thess. 4:14-15.
Reflection
SUMMARY Christ-focused Stephen was a courageous, fruitful evangelist who attracted the same hatred that had put his Lord on the Cross. Seeing heaven opening he proclaims heaven’s mercy towards those who were motivated by hell to kill him.
APPLICATION Stephen’s attitude in his dying moments underlines Jesus’ highest priority for us: to extend His grace to others.
QUESTION Who do you find impossible to forgive? How would Stephen counsel you?
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1 Peter 2:2-10 — Living stones make a heavenly temple here on earth
• Every believer is part of the new priesthood representing God to men
2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
“Grow up in your salvation” — views salvation both as an event (on deciding to entrust your life to Christ) and a lifelong process of the Holy Spirit bringing increasing freedom and spiritual maturity.
4-6 As you come to Him, the Living Stone — rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to Him — you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.
“The Living Stone… you also, like living stones” — Peter describes the church as the new temple inhabited by the Holy Spirit of God. Every believer is a living stone aligned with Christ as Cornerstone— a picture of dependence and connection, echoing Paul’s teaching on all parts of the body being connected to the Head.
“A holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices through Jesus Christ” — in the OT, only priests born into Levi’s tribe had access, but in the NT, there is a shift. Under the New Covenant in Jesus, believers are reborn into God’s family to become a new and different priesthood. Every believer who has invited Jesus into their hearts and lives has ‘priestly’ access through that submitted relationship. Spiritual sacrifices have now become Spirit-led worship and service.
7-8 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message — which is also what they were destined for.
“This stone… the cornerstone… a stone to stumble” — three quotations about Christ as the authentic, unique foundation stone of the new temple. Those aligned with the old temple reject it and it is a barrier for those unwilling to submit to Jesus as Lord. Everyone has the choice: not to stumble, but to step up on the rock.
• For further study, see Psalm 118; Matt. 21:42; Isaiah 8:14, 28:16; Romans 9:33.
9-10 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
“Chosen people, royal priesthood” — Peter redefines familiar OT labels. The people of Israel were the former “chosen people”. The chosen people now in the NT are the believers.
“God’s special possession” — as OT priests were set apart for God, now all Christians, through the experience of the new birth, form a new ‘nation’ in a special relationship with God.
• For further study, read Exodus 19:5-6; Deuteronomy 4:20, 7:6, 14:2; Isaiah 43:10, 20-21; Malachi 3:17.
Reflection
SUMMARY Jesus calls us to leap of faith , trusting Him at the deepest level of our lives. It’s called being born again and it changes us spiritually into what Peter calls “living stones”, which fitted together with all the others, form a living temple of God’s presence on earth.
APPLICATION This is how evangelism is designed to work — spiritually recreated believers being the new priesthood between heaven and earth and showing the world something so attractive that it is hard to resist.
QUESTION How does our church practice and language need to change to reflect Peter’s integrated picture?
PRAYER Lord Jesus, like Stephen we look up and we see Your scarred hands extended to us in welcome. We give our lives to You again. We put our times and our actions in Your hands, pledging to keep aligned with You as Your living stones, and to represent You to others as yet untouched by Your love. Thank You for being the Way, the Truth and the Life. Amen.
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