The more I become like Jesus, the more flak I can expect.

The apostle Paul exhorted Timothy:

“Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” [2Tim. 3:12]

And Jesus Himself reminded His faithful disciples during their last supper:

“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me first. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, and [because] I chose you from out of the world—because of this, the world hates you…

Remember the word that I said to you, ‘[A] slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also.” [Jn. 15:18-20a]

A slave cannot be exempt from the consequences of obedience to his master. But just like obedience, persecution can also take on a subtle nature. And, for the most part, in this hemisphere anyway, the persecution of Christ’s disciples hasn’t yet risen to the level of bloodshed.

But it still hurts. And rejection seems to be the weapon of choice.

It’s wielded with a tongue rather than a sword. As a result, we often lose relationships, opportunities and even jobs. But the tongue has two sharp edges as well. The faded reticence of a lifelong friend also cuts like a knife.

Yet it rarely unfolds as an emotional spectacle with regrets. Instead, the deafening silence takes captive what once seemed precious and genuine and reduces it into a fleeting memory.

That’s the type of persecution that’ll destroy us if we let it.

So, today I encourage every reader to take up his cross and drag it confidently and passionately through the mud of this age. [see: Heb. 12:1-2]

For the next age is on the horizon, and, the last time I read, it’s still a privilege to suffer!

“For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake…” [Phil. 1:29a]

Jesus planted kingdom seeds in the minds of men during His earthly ministry.

And we confirm that every time we repeat what’s known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” He taught His disciples to say, “Let Your kingdom come,” and then, “Let Your will be done” on the earth as it is in the heaven. [see: Matt. 6:9-13]

The verb ἔρχομαι (êr’-kô-my], meaning to come or to go, and the verb γίνομαι [gî’-nō-my], which means “to be” or “to happen,” were both recorded in the Greek Imperative Mood. This was a method for the author to apply force to his words. So, perhaps what Jesus was trying to get across here was that, while He laid a foundation for the Lord’s kingdom in this age, we, His disciples, are expected to build upon it. [see also: 1Cor. 3:11-15]

It was a command for each us to put on the mind and heart of a kingdom builder. But to be a kingdom builder, a man must perceive religion and morality as indispensable to freedom.

Our nation’s founders understood the realm of civil authority in the same context that Jesus and the apostles did.  His ἐκκλησία [ê-klā-see’-uh], which is translated in the New Testament as “church,” is called out not just to set itself apart from the world, but also to govern in Christ’s behalf!

For a constitutional republic to exist, it’s crucial for those living in it to realize that spiritual principles are not simply private accessories to life, but rather public necessities for liberty, because righteous people will never willingly become separated from their desire to govern themselves righteously.

Nor will they allow themselves to be separated from the means to accomplish and sustain that goal. Christ’s mission was to renew minds (Rom. 12:2) and write God’s law on our hearts (Heb. 8:10), which is the very essence of internal government.

In order for His kingdom to come “on the earth as it is in the heaven,” it must first originate in the mind of the man, because, as history can confirm, a free nation cannot stand without internal governance grounded in morality and truth.

Indeed, our united States were designed to protect and reflect the very thing Jesus came to accomplish: A nation of individuals transformed by truth, living in liberty, producing fruit in their labor, and governing righteously.

The purpose of our government is to secure the blessings of liberty, meaning it exists to make room for what Christ came to bring: life, liberty, purpose, justice, righteousness. Our Republic is the outer framework.

The kingdom of God is the inner engine.

And when both align, you have a nation truly under God.

  

It’s easy to shame the rich.

If you ask someone, he’ll probably tell you how Jesus did it. After explaining the basic qualifications for inheriting eternal life to a rich man, He added yet another hoop for him to jump through:

“One thing you still lack. Sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in the heavens, and [then] come, follow Me.” [Lk. 18:18-22]

[ἔχω: [ê-kō] transitive: to have, hold, possess, keep, receive, get, regard, consider, think, be able, be married to, wear, be situated]

But, if you feel rich, don’t be in a hurry to follow suit.

Because, as a transitive verb, the Greek word ἔχω had a broad range of meanings. We can see that it sometimes described an attitude which sought possession of something very valuable. More interesting though, It was often recorded as a measure of a man’s capacity for having belief.

So then, that’s a clue to what the rich man still lacked.

And Jesus wasn’t suggesting that everyone liquidate his wealth here. His motive, rather, was to get us to think about how we perceive our possessions.

When Jesus told him to, “sell it all and give it away,” He was waiting for a reaction, and what He heard told Him everything He needed to know. The issue was the focus of the man’s covetousness. We might not covet everything we own, but if we covet [or possess] anything more than the Lord Himself, the kingdom of God will remain a peripheral matter as well.

But there was another thing all too obvious: The rich man was demonstrating that the kingdom was less important that he was letting on.

That might actually have been more embarrassing than anything.

Jesus washed His disciples’ feet to demonstrate that a slave isn’t above his master:

“You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. Then, if I, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is the apostle greater than the one who sent him.” [Jn. 13:13-16]

This significance of this verse could be lost if I think He was just explaining to us how to humble ourselves. Sure, He was setting an example of servanthood for His disciples: “…you [all] also ought to wash one another’s feet.“

But I used to miss what was perhaps the real intention of that example.

While the obligations of a slave always fall beneath the authority of his master, his ability to endure the tiresome nature of that task must also. In other words, the results of his obedience don’t always provide visible evidence of persecution or humiliation.

More often than not, they’re simply routine and uneventful. So, I don’t get to pick and choose how or when I want to demonstrate obedience to my Master in a manner that the world will notice it.

If I did, I’d be placing myself above Him.

If He struggled to exist in a fallen world, I have to be willing to do the same. If He was willing to die that others might live, so should I. And if He takes the time to accomplish something so menial as washing feet, I’d better be able to follow that example.

But I don’t have to have an audience.

Obedience is most often a measure of a man’s unwitnessed capacity for endurance, held confidently of being confirmed and rewarded in the presence of The Light when He returns.

“But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.” [the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matt. 24:13]

The “believer’s” short answer, of course, would be simple. It doesn’t matter, he’s not headed there. The Bible tells him so—or at least tradition does.

And tradition isn’t afraid of levity either.

Any spirited request from one to another to go there is often met with the confidence that there’d be more than a snowball’s chance of many friends awaiting him—perhaps having even arrived there in hand baskets as well.

Oh how we love to have fun with Hell.

But it seems to me that the man who claims to be a faithful follower of Christ would also want to accurately establish in his mind any “place” he must avoid as he otherwise strives to enter through the narrow gate toward what Jesus also urged His disciples to seek first. [see: Matt. 7:13-14; 6:33]

More importantly though, he could enhance that effort by learning to read for himself rather than accept without question the things tradition claims this place to be. And sometimes I wonder if anyone really notices what the man, Jesus Christ, was actually talking about when He spoke of Hell?

Because, if I realize that, then I can determine where and what it really is.

Since much of tradition claims to base its “doctrine of Hell” on the written Word of God recorded in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, that seems like a good place to start—that is, of course, if I’m willing to recognize that every text has a context. But there’s something critical to consider first about His judgement.

More than any apostolic author in the New Testament, Jesus Himself talked about a place that comes across in our English translations as “Hell.” And those passages are the ones to remember, because He wasn’t describing a place of conscious suffering, but rather a condition of utter separation from what was living and breathing.

So, for the record, when you see the word “Hell” in your translations, it’s describing only one of four things:

1. שְׁאוֹל or שְׁאֹל:  [shē-ōl] which meant the underworld [or tomb, or grave] in Hebrew. It’s always translated as Hades in the Greek Septuagint. It’s always translated in English as “Sheol” in the Masoretic [Hebrew] texts of the Old Testament.
2. γέεννα: [gê’-ên-âh] was actually a valley West and South of Jerusalem, It’s also used as a symbolic name for a final place of punishment described as the Lake of Fire in the Book of the Revelation.  It’s always translated in English as “Hell” or “Gehenna” in the Greek New Testament.
3. ᾅδης: [hâ’-dāys], meaning the grave, the place of the dead or the underworld.  It’s always translated in English as “Hell” or “Hades” in the Greek New Testament.
4. ταρταρόω: [târ-tâ-rôh’-ōh] is a verbal derivative of the Greek noun Tartarus, which was considered a place of torture and torment lower than ᾅδης in (pagan) Greek and Jewish apocalyptic literature. The Aorist Active Participle form is translated in English only once in the New Testament as “Hell” in 2Pet. 2:4. The cognate noun is not found in any manuscripts of either the Old or New Testaments.
   
   

And, most of the time, it was Jesus using the word γέεννα—speaking to His faithful disciples.

But He wasn’t talking about a fiery hothouse tucked away somewhere miles below the earth’s crust. Every Jew in Jesus’ day knew what Gehenna was.  It was literally “the place of the dead”—an actual deep ditch outside of Jerusalem where animal carcasses, organic waste, and the corpses of criminals and transients and other debris were deposited. 

It was a place which successfully portrayed the full impact of what they surely wanted to avoid.

But, more importantly, it was a location which symbolized the absence of life rather than some kind of perpetual torment.

The notion of universal justice seems to resonate clearly in even the most calloused heart.

So it’s easy to see then how, over the centuries since Jesus walked on the earth, men have taken the documented words of God and the Person of Jesus Christ and twisted them to accommodate whatever misguided understanding they might have about the Scriptures. [see: 2Tim. 4:1-4]

Actually, “Hell” isn’t a funny subject at all.

It’s just that men have made it one.