REFLECTIONS

“Building on the firm foundation”
 
1 Corinthians 3:11-12

“Here the apostle informs us what foundation he had laid at the bottom of all the labours among them—even Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone. Upon this foundation all the faithful ministers of Christ built. Upon this rock all Christians found their hopes. Those that build their hopes of heaven on any other foundation build upon the sand. Other foundation can no man lay besides what is laid—even Jesus Christ.

“The doctrine of our Saviour and his mediation is the principal doctrine of Christianity. It lies at the bottom, and is the foundation, of all the rest. Leave out this, and you lay waste all our comforts, and leave no foundation for our hopes as sinners. But of those that hold the foundation and embrace the general doctrine of Christ’s being the mediator between God and man, there are two sorts:

“(1) Some build on this foundation gold, silver, and precious stones, v.12, namely those who receive and propagate the pure truths of the gospel, who hold nothing but the truth as it is in Jesus, and preach nothing else. This is building well upon a good foundation, when ministers not only depend upon Christ as the great prophet of the church, and take him for their guide and infallible teacher, but receive and spread the doctrines he taught, in their purity, without any corrupt mixtures, without adding our diminishing.

“(2) Others build wood, hay, and stubble on this foundation; that is though they adhere to the foundation, they depart from the mind of Christ in many particulars, substitute their own fancies and inventions in the room of his doctrines and institutions, and build upon the foundation what will not abide the test when the day of trial shall come, and the fire must make it manifest, as wood, hay, and stubble, will not bear the trial by fire, but must be consumed in it.”

-Matthew Henry  Expositor, Commentator, Minister  1662-1714

From, A Closer Walk with God; Daily Readings from Matthew Henry; compiled by Martin Manser; (Daybreak Books—Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids; 1987), Page 140.

REFLECTIONS

Senseless Shepherds

“Joshua 20-21; Acts 1; Jeremiah 10; Matthew 24

TWO REFLECTIONS ON Jeremiah 10:

            First, the catastrophic punishment about to befall Judah is traced to her incompetent leaders: “The shepherds are senseless and do not inquire of the LORD; so they do not prosper and all their flock is scattered” (10:21). “Shepherds” in this context includes “pastors” (KJV): it includes all who direct the affairs of the nation—king, priests, prophets, and other leaders.

            The arena in which these leaders are incompetent is not general administration, charismatic sheen, financial acuity, or management potential. They are “senseless,” and their folly is manifest in the fact that they “do not inquire of the LORD.” This cannot mean that they do not go through the mere forms of seeking out the Lord’s counsel, consulting the prophets and treating the prescribed rituals like a talisman that brings good luck. It means, rather, that they do not really want to do what God wants. They do not approach him with the contrition and profound reverence for his Word of which Isaiah speaks (Isa. 66). They do not treat him as if he is radically “other” and fundamentally different from the myriad false gods that surround them. Neither nations nor churches rise higher than their leaders. If our leaders are passionate about knowing and obeying the will of the Lord, our prospects are excellent; if they are dissolute and intoxicated by self-ism, our prospects are dim or even desperate.

            Second, in the closing verses (10:23-25) Jeremiah identifies with his people in a startling way. “I know, O LORD, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps. Correct me, LORD, but only with justice—not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing” (10:23-24). These lines might initially be read as referring to Jeremiah the prophet, Jeremiah the individual, and nothing more. Certainly individual believers ought so to be aware of their own sins that they entreat God to spare them from the destruction they deserve. But closer inspection shows that the sins Jeremiah is confessing are the sins of the nation, in particular the smug self-determinism that refuses to acknowledge the sheer Godhood of God, the glorious truth that God alone is God in control. The next verse (10:25) discloses that what Jeremiah wants God to spare is “Jacob,” the covenant people of God. Doubtless punishment is decreed against them, but Jeremiah pleads with God that he will not wipe out the people in his wrath, but reserve the worst measures for “the peoples who do not call on your name.” Thus Jeremiah cries to God for himself, but also for his people with whom he identifies—not unlike Paul in Galatians 2:17-21 and perhaps Romans 7:7ff.”

             

From—For the Love of God—Volume 2, by D. A. Carson (Crossway Books, Wheaton IL; 1999)

REFLECTIONS

“The test of fire”

1 Corinthians 3:13-15

“There is a time coming when a discovery will be made of what men have built on this foundation: Every man’s work shall be made manifest, shall be laid open to view, to his own view and that of others. Some may, in the simplicity of their hearts, build wood and stubble on the foundation, and know not what they have been doing; but in the day of the Lord their own conduct shall appear to them in its proper light.

“For the day shall declare it (that is, every man’s work), because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is, v. 13. The day shall make it manifest, the last day, the great day of trial.

“There is a day coming that will distinguish one man from another, and one man’s work from another’s, as the fire distinguishes gold from dross, or metal that will bear the fire from other materials that will be consumed in it.

“In that day some men’s works will withstand the trial—will be found standard. It will appear that they not only held the foundation, but that they built regularly and well upon it—that they laid on proper materials, and in due form and order.

“There are others whose works shall be burnt, v. 15, whose corrupt opinions and doctrines or vain inventions and usages in the worship of God, shall be discovered, disowned, and rejected, in that day—shall be first manifested to be corrupt, and then disapproved of God and rejected. A person’s weakness and corruption will be the lessening of his glory, though he may in the general have been an honest and upright Christian. He shall be saved, yet so as by fire, saved out of the fire. He himself shall be snatched out of the flame which will consume his work.”

-Matthew Henry  Expositor, Commentator, Minister  1662-1714

From, A Closer Walk with God; Daily Readings from Matthew Henry; compiled by Martin Manser; (Daybreak Books—Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids; 1987), Page 141.