YOUR FAMILY IS BIGGER THAN YOU THINK

¶ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:14-19

My Grandmother, Ruby McCormack, harvesting on their
family farm in the Wimmera, Victoria, in the 1920s.

My Great Grandmother was one of eleven children. My mother was one of six children. After the financial devastation of the Great Depression, my Grandparents, my mother and my aunts and uncles moved from the Wimmera to Bunyip, a small town in Gippsland Victoria, where my Grandparents started over – again, farming sheep, dairy cows, and crops. In the early 1900s in rural Australia it made sense to have a big family because farming was so labour intensive and every farmer depended upon their children to help out on the farm. Today, families of six or more children is far less common. In fact, some couples are now getting married with the intention of having just one child, and even some are telling me that they do not intend to have any children. I wonder what this apparent trend might do to our culture? I wonder whether some of the problems that beset young men who struggle to interact in a wholesome way with young ladies might be due to their lack of growing up with a sister or sisters? While sociologists who study the effect of family compositions on societies examine some of these dynamics and how they maybe contributing to the “me generation”, I think there is also something deeply spiritual and theological to consider as well.

¶ Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers,
older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.
First Timothy 5:1-2

 

A THEOLOGY OF FAMILY

Whenever we follow the words ‘a theology of ’ with another word, such as ‘family’, it means that we are considering what God and His Word state, or teach us, about a particular topic. When we consider our text (Eph. 3:14-19), we might wonder what the reference to God’s family “in heaven” might mean. Eminent New Testament scholar, F.F. Bruce, in his 1983 commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, notes that in Jewish Rabbinical thought, God has a heavenly (“above”) family, and an earthly (“below”). God’s heavenly family is comprised of the following magnificent creatures:

We generally lump all of the heavenly creatures that God created under the heading of angels. But the word angel simply refers to one of the tasks carried out particularly by one category of these heavenly creatures. Here is a brief list of five categories of heavenly creatures whom God created with a word who then constituted His heavenly family. and to whom we generally indiscriminately lump them all together by referring to them all as angels —

1. THE CHERUBIM – We have good reason for believing that quite probably, the first creatures that God created were cherubim. The Scriptures consistently refer to there being four of these magnificent creatures.

And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance:
they had a human likeness, but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings.
Ezekiel 1:5-6

Cherubim are always depicted as guarding the presence of God (Isa. 37:16). When the Redeemer, who would later become known as Jesus, created them, these proto-creatures would bear faces that would one day be revealed to the world in the face of Christ. These four cherubim had four faces. Each had the face of a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. Thus, whenever Christ saw these cherubim, which would have been continually, He was was reminded (if it’s possible for God to be reminded of anything) that He would one day become a human being who would die to redeem all mankind. This work of redemption would be described by each of the four Gospels where the Gospel of Matthew would emphasise Christ as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the King; and the Gospel of Mark would emphasise Christ as the worker, the ox; and the Gospel of Luke would emphasise Christ as the man of compassion, the human; and the Gospel of John would emphasise Christ as the eternal God made flesh, the eagle.

As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle.
Ezekiel 1:10

We are introduced to the cherubim in the opening chapters of Genesis after God had banished our original parents from Eden and sent the cherubim to guard the east gate (Gen. 3:24). They are described most frequently in the Book of Ezekiel. They are present in the closing book of the Bible as “four living creatures” after the Lamb of God is presented as Christus Victor.

And before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
¶ And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures,
full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion,
the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man,
and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures,
each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within,
and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”
Revelation 4:6-8

2. THE SERAPHIM – We have good reason for believing that God created the cherubim, He then created these other tremendous powerful creatures referred to as seraphim. These two creatures must be unimaginably large. While the four cherubim are around the throne of God, the seraphim are described as being behind and over the throne of God who lead all of heaven in worship of the Most High. When the majestic seraphim speak, the whole place shakes – 

Above Him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings:
with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of His glory!”
¶ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called,
and the house was filled with smoke.
Isaiah 6:2-4

3. THE RULING “ARCH” ANGELS – After the Seraphim were created, there is good reason for thinking that God created seven extremely powerful ruling or “arch” angels. The Bible names two of them (Michael – Jude 9, and Gabriel – Daniel 9:21; Luke 1:19) but ancient Jewish tradition refers by name to five others including: Raphael, Uriel, Saraqael, Raguel, and Remiel  (1Enoch 20).

But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”
Jude 9

My Uncle Angus with my mum ca. 1940

4. THE WATCHERS – We can deduce from scripture and Jewish tradition that God then created about two hundred (one traditional refers to two hundred thousand of them) Watchers who appear to have been created by God in preparation for the task of assisting the yet-to-be-made humans who would live on the yet-to-be-formed earth. These Watchers were given the ability to move between the dimensions of heaven and earth and report back to God. We might speculate that they also appear to have been created with the power to shape-shift which apparently enabled them to take on a functional human form. While each of these heavenly creatures constituted God’s heavenly family, it appears that the Watchers were specifically designated as the sons of God (Gen. 6:2; Deut. 32:8) of whom left the boundaries of God’s purpose and became both corrupted and corruptors of mankind. These corrupted Watchers appear to be in view in Genesis 6:2 having sexual liaisons with women and siring the nephilim (the giants). It is probable that Lucifer was one of these Watchers who left his station after God’s final creation – the woman. The prophet Daniel distinguishes the corrupted watchers from the holy watchers in Daniel 4:13.

¶ “I saw in the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and behold, a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven. He proclaimed aloud and said thus: ‘Chop down the tree and lop off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it and the birds from its branches…The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.’
Daniel 4:13-14, 17

5. THE HOST OF ANGELS – Then, it appears that God, with just a word, created billions upon billions of ‘ordinary’ angels, especially when we reflect on Christ’s statement in Matthew 18:10 where He intimates that rather than each person having just one guardian angel, each person may in fact have more than one guardian angels. (Considering earth’s current population is around seven billion, this might mean that there are at least fourteen billion ordinary angels.) I do however feel rather improper to call these phenomenally powerful creatures ordinary. The Biblical data is that they can interact with our material world including the removal of a several tonne stone (Matt. 27:60; Mark 16:4) which had been used to seal the entrance to Christ’s borrowed tomb (Matt. 28:2) and the opening of locked prison doors.

¶ Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
Revelation 5:11-12

 

THE VASTNESS OF GOD’S HEAVENLY FAMILY TELLS US A LOT ABOUT GOD’S FATHER-HEART

All of these magnificent heavenly creatures constituted God’s heavenly family. God the Father had individually named each one (Isa. 40:26)! Therefore, God’s heavenly family consisted of billions of billions of myriads of creatures whom God knew and loved. But still God wanted create an even larger family! To do so, He created man and woman (Gen. 1:26-31). His mandate to the man and woman was to enlarge God’s earthly family by – be fruitful and multiply! To state the obvious, God loves family!!! To state the not-so-obvious: Satan hates family! The Bible tells the story of how God wanted to have an earthly family of children who would love and willingly obey Him. The hope was that Israel could be that model family. But they betrayed God. And every time it appeared that Satan had ruined God’s plan to have a heavenly and earthly family of sons and daughter who would love and honour Him, God redeemed the situation. When the chosen people, Israel, turned their back on God, God announced that He would send His only Son to be the redeemer of a new family, the church.

Jesus told a moving story of the Father’s heart in the story of the prodigal’s son (Luke 15:11-32). The prodigious father in Christ’s story is like our Heavenly Father. Even though his younger son has left home and brought shame to their family name, the father longs for his son to return to him. It powerfully describes God the Father and His heart for His children. God loves His children. God knows each of us by name.

We get a glimpse of what Father God’s ultimate family is going to look like in Revelation 7:9 where it describes all of the redeemed joining with all of the Father’s heavenly family. God clearly loves and wants a big family.

¶ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Revelation 7:9-10

GOD LOVES FAMILY

It’s difficult to imagine how happy, joyous, and full heaven is — and will further be. The suggestion that God created humankind because He was in some way ‘lonely’ becomes apparently and obviously fatuous after considering what we now surmise about those He created to populate the heavenly realm and experience God’s unfathomable and limitless love and goodness. It’s important for Christians in Australia and New Zealand (because we often have the gospel presented to us in a rather individualistic terms) to understand that the gospel is not merely about having a vertical relationship with God — it’s also about a horizontal relationship with other wretches who have also been saved by the grace of the Lamb of God who will ultimately entrust the redeemed with positions of unmerited and unbelievable privilege in the age to come-

They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them,
for He is Lord of lords and King of kings,
and those with Him are called and chosen and faithful.”
Revelation 17:14

Do you not know that we are to judge angels?
How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!
First Corinthians 6:3

If we endure, we will also reign with Him;
if we deny Him, He also will deny us;
Second Timothy 2:12

And you have made them [the redeemed] a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
Revelation 5:10

Thus, when we come closer to Christ in unreserved surrender through prayer and the heeding of His written Word, our hearts are transformed from seeing “our family” as just those connected to us by blood, to seeing our family as our Heavenly Father sees it—that is, when we are redeemed by Christ we are adopted into a new and much larger family – God’s family. There is so much joy in heaven when just one formerly lost person turns to the Saviour and repents –  because God’s heavenly family shares in the Father’s joy every time this happens –

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
Luke 15:7

Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Luke 15:10

Every believer belongs to the family of God. That makes us brothers and sisters. And because we understand that our Heavenly Father’s love for each of us is infinite (Eph. 3:17-19) we cannot possibly be less loved if more people are added to God’s family. Therefore, unlike the Cadbury Chocolate kid sulking upstairs after is new baby sister arrives home from the hospital, is not how the son or daughter of God reacts when a new believer is added to the Church – the family of God. This means that every local church should reflect God’s heart for God’s family. Let us pray for, and seek to reflect, God’s heart for the lost. Let us pray for and take active measures to welcome people seeking to be reconciled to God. And in the process of seeing people find peace with God through Christ, we rejoice that our spiritual (fictive) family has just become bigger, because we share in our Heavenly Father’s joy every time this happens as well.

Your pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

WHAT A PITY IF IT WAS PETTY

 WHAT A PETTY

Photo: A page of a biblical manuscript known as Papyrus 46 [“P46”]. This page contains portions of Galatians and Philippians, and has been dated to around A.D. 150.

Nearly all of Paul’s epistles were an attempt to correct a series of problems. Except one. Paul’s epistle to the Philippians was full of warmth and affection. He loved this church more than most. Of all the churches that Paul pioneered, only the Philippian church maintained financial support for him. Paul had no need to correct any doctrinal error there. But the seeds of a looming problem were beginning to germinate. This is why Paul’s epistle to the Philippians stands apart from his doctrinal corrective epistles — because he is speaking to hearts not just minds.  

¶ I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
Philippians 1:3-5

THE ULTIMATE HEART

When Paul corrected doctrinal error in his other epistles he drew upon glories of Old Covenant theological truths to illustrate the wondrously surpassing glories of the New Covenant. But in writing to the Philippians with a view to guarding their hearts from the poison of envy and dissension, Paul draws on the greatest example of a right heart and attitude. 

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
Philippians 2:5-7

Paul sought to vaccinate the hearts of the Philippians from the spiritually deadly virus of contention by drawing their attention to the Perfect Heart. 

And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:8

 

TWO STRONG WOMEN

A depiction of Euodia and Syntyche

Several people in Philippi were very dear to Paul. These people laboured with Paul  and Timothy and had suffered along side him as he endured cruel opposition. These included: Mr. Epaphroditus (Phi. 2:25), Mr. Clement (Phi. 4:3), and Ms. Euodia (Phi. 4:2) and Ms. Syntyche (Phi. 4:3). But something had been simmering then festering between Ms. Euodia and Ms. Syntyche. It threatened the entire church at Philippi because it is apparent that Euodia and Syntyche were the co-pastoral leaders of the Philippian church. They may have been sisters, we can only speculate, but at the very least they were fictive sisters. It seems to me that the entire purpose of this epistle was to gently address this brewing problem between these two strong women particularly because the health of a church rarely ever surpasses that of its leaders, and Paul knew that for this dear church to flourish — let alone survive — it needed its leaders to reconcile. 

¶ I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
Philippians 4:2-3

What could have come between these two precious sisters? The history of similar disputes tells us that chances are it wasn’t anything particularly important. It certainly wouldn’t have been the last disagreement that caused the fracture in their relationship. Probably, as with nearly all offences and grudges it happened much much earlier as a very little – almost inconsequential incident – that was never forgiven, and then subsequent offences simply compounded the unnecessary problem.

complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:2-4

Paul seems to instruct all of the Philippians, not Euodia and Syntyche, to remember that they represent Christ to a broken world and that the day will soon come when they will all kneel before Christ and give an account of how they stewarded their witness for Christ. Such things as envy, contention, and petty unforgiveness, if allowed to become septic, could jeopardise the Philippians from enjoying God’s best and lead to Christ being misrepresented to their already spiritually wounded community (idolatry always wounds its deluded).

So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. ¶ Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling
Philippians 2:10-12

 

WORSHIP MEANS SURRENDER TO GOD 

Our expression of worship to God is our demonstration of surrender to God. This is why Christian worship from its inception has involved singing. When we sing it forces our minds to focus on what we are singing. When we sing together we are reminded that true Christianity is not about me and the Lord, it’s about us and the Lord. When we sing to the Lord we are rejoicing and this is good for our soul. Worship realigns our vision onto Christ. Worship resets our hearts toward Christ. To learn to get along with each other and settle petty disputes, we must worship together so that we glorify Christ together.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.
Philippians 3:7-8

Paul concludes his epistle to the Philippians with a tender exhortation to worship God with their whole mind by choosing to dwell on the beauty of Christ and what He has done for us. His exhortation is a wonderful injunction for us today lest we too risk missing out on God’s best for us because we chose instead to dwell on a petty dispute. What a pity if we ever became distracted by the petty.

¶ Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:8-9

 

Your pastor,

Dr. Andrew Corbett