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We Will Be Immortal

The New Testament is a book written in the context of the world of Greeks and Romans. For the Greeks and Romans, there were two types of “people” (or rational beings) in the universe. There were the mortals and the immortals.

The immortals were those who could not die and possessed great power and abilities. Mortals were human beings on earth. The line dividing mortals and immortals was porous. Those who did great deeds or possessed exceptional beauty or skills on earth could become immortal. For example, the Roman Senate usually “deified” the Emperors, which meant that they were recognized as now having a life with the immortal gods.

In his letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul wrote, “For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” I have no doubt that the Corinthians would have thought of the distinction between mortals and immortals when the leaders of the church read this letter to them.

So, when the Apostle Paul said, “I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” (1 Cor. 15:50), this would have made complete sense to the Corinthian Gentiles. It did not mean that the physical body was bad. It meant that the kingdom of God was a place for those who were changed into immortals.

In the movie Thor, Oden casts Thor out of Asgaard, and Thor becomes a mortal in a flash, in a twinkling of the eye. The Apostle Paul envisions something like this but in reverse when he contemplates our destiny: “We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” (51b-52a). This would have made sense to the Corinthians as well.

In spite of the similarities between the conceptions of Greek culture and Paul’s description of the end time event, there were significant differences as well.

First, in the Greek view, humans became immortal at death. In Paul’s view, immortality begins with Jesus. Jesus was not declared immortal or a god upon His death. He rose from the dead. He obtained immortality by conquering death (note, by the way, that the word Paul uses for conquering death is the word, “victory” [Greek: nikos (or in the feminine, nike!]).

Second, people become immortal at the end of the time. Jesus raises those who are dead or changes those who are living to be like Him in His glorious immorality. It occurs at what Paul calls “the last trumpet.”

Third, it is not only the great leaders or kings who become immortal, it is all people who believe in Jesus. “For as in Adam all die, so all in Christ shall be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). It is not our great deeds that bring about our immortality but the great deeds of Jesus Christ.

At the same time, like the Greek heroes, the Christian’s immortality follows upon labor. This should encourage us that no matter how difficult things may be or how little results we may see, the result of the Christian life is eternal glory. “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58). The glory of immortality awaits!

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The River

The river is its own world. I never knew this until this August when I took my birthday money and purchased a kayak from Dick’s Sporting Goods.

My son, David, had known this for a long time. The river is about a hundred yards from our house. Three summers ago, he and his friend Josh walked up and down the river for miles, fishing in every conceivable spot and getting to know the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River like the back of their hands.

This summer, David worked at Dollywood Splash Country. He is conservative with his money, but I encouraged him to use his money to get something he really liked. He bought a kayak to expand his fishing range.

I have been on a kayak many times and always enjoyed it. I thought it would be fun to go out with David and explore the rivers in our area. So, I bought myself a kayak as well, even though I didn’t work at Dollywood Splash Country.

Having purchased our kayaks, we went to a little island in the river near our home where we could get in. We made our way slowly down the river. When we first started, we were as cautious as Southerners driving in Michigan in January. We soon learned, though, that kayaks are sturdy little boats and would do quite well in the rapids or even small waterfalls.

The river is a place for wildlife. It’s like a nature preserve in the middle of the city. As I floated over the clear water, I saw a huge snapping turtle with a shell probably 18 inches in length. It wasn’t the biggest I’d ever seen, but it’s the closest I’d ever gotten to one that big. Not too long after that, I saw a very long snake slithering along the bottom.

The river is a place for interesting people. We encountered one gentleman who spoke to us out of the bushes. He was just wandering the heavily wooded banks with his shirt off. He told us he just enjoyed having adventures and seeing new things. He had come up from Wears Valley to see this area of the river. There are also homeless people living under bridges. Some areas are so isolated it looks like people have fled civilization and set up a little settlement like our ancestors did as they traveled westward. The river is its own world.

As I moved on down the river, I looked around and saw only nature, no sign of the busyness of one of the busiest tourist destinations in the nation. You might as well have been in the middle of the mountains.

It’s hard to fish in certain sections of the river. There is so much pressure from the fishermen who access the river that the fish are few and far between. Taking a boat just a little ways down from those places, you encounter areas humans rarely visit. There, the fish live in abundance: carp, small mouth bass, blue gill, catfish, and gar.

Gar are prehistoric looking fish. They have a long nose filled with sharp teeth. On our trip down the river, my son saw them and wanted to catch one. He moved over to the side of the bank and switched his bait. On his first cast, he caught a blue gill. Then, he said, “I’m going to do a David White special.” He proceeded to cut up the blue gill and prepare it for bait.

Within a few moments, David was fishing with the blue gill on his hook. It did not take long for a gar to bite. It struggled a long time, but David reeled it in. Here is a video of it:

That gar bit him on the arm when it flung itself up, leaving a few small scratch marks.

After that, David and I went on toward our place of exit, the bridge under Chapman Highway on your way out of Sevierville. We had never gone that way before. The water was shallow, and it was very hard to paddle. Eventually, we decided to just walk the kayaks out.

David got to the ramp first, and I saw he was doing something with his paddle. He turned it toward me and on the end of it was a snake. He then flung it away from us, and we got out.

My wife came with our van, and we strapped our kayaks to the top of it. We headed home leaving behind the river, leaving behind a different world.

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How to Structure Your Day and Week to Connect with God

Connecting with God won’t happen by accident. We’ve got to be intentional.

The good news is that we can structure our day and week to connect with God. This can give us strength and refreshment in the midst of the daily grind.

Two ancient practices help us understand how to structure our lives to connect with God: the daily office and the Sabbath. I put these together based on the teaching of Peter Scazzero in his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

The daily office refers to structuring your day around connecting with God. It refers to the practice of Christians throughout the ages who have read the Bible, meditated, sung, and prayed at set times throughout the day.

I think this practice can really help us in our busy, distracted lives. The key thing is to take what we already do and add short or long moments of connecting with God. Here are some examples:

  • Getting up ten minutes early to pray and read Scripture.
  • Listening to songs of praise while you shave or shower.
  • Praying with your children before they go to school or work.
  • Memorizing a Scripture passage or verse on the way to work or school.
  • Read a psalm and pray at the conclusion of your work time.
  • If you have a job where you work with people, pray through the people you work with.
  • Get a Bible app on your phone and have it send you a daily reading.
  • Have a meal time with all or some of the members of your family, and conclude it with reading the Bible and prayer.
  • Take a walk and observe nature around you, lifting your heart to the Lord.
  • Read a book at lunch time.
  • Have a regular phone or in person meeting with someone who will encourage you.

I wouldn’t suggest you do all of those things. Just try doing one or two of these things regularly instead of randomly. Make these practices a rule of thumb for yourself. Making them a rule helps ensure that we will actually do them. Urgent things tend to push out the most important. We have to fight for the important things. Also, we sometimes don’t feel like doing things in the moment that we should. The rule helps motivate us and keep us on track.

Don’t make your rules too iron clad. For example, if you didn’t pray before work one day, don’t worry about it. Do it the next time you go to work! A rule is meant to help you, not discourage you.

The Sabbath refers to our weekly structure. God commanded in the Ten Commandments that we would take one day in seven to set aside our normal labors and find delight in Him.

Most Christians observe a Sabbath to some degree. They also often incorporate other weekly practices that help them connect with God such as a Sunday School or small group. Some may have regular informal meetings with other Christians.

Think about your week. What are key things that could help you keep on track spiritually and connect with God? Schedule those in. That is the principle of Sabbath applied to our week.

Adding little times to connect with God throughout our day and longer times in the week can really help us find the joy and peace that God intends for us to have. Short times are less daunting, and they can be more regular. This keeps us connected to a refuge for our souls throughout the day. As Peter Scazzero explains in his book, the daily office and Sabbath can improve our emotional health and build our relationship with God. When we connect with God, we can be less frantic and more joyful. It just takes a little planning.

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Don’t Be Too Righteous

Ecclesiastes 7:16 contains a statement one would not expect to find in the Bible: “Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself?”

How can you be too righteous or wise?

I was reflecting on this passage in connection with the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling. There he tells us, “[If you can be] lied about and yet don’t deal in lies or being hated, don’t give way to hating . . .” In other words, don’t let the wrongs other people do pull you into wrongdoing.

At the same time, Kipling adds, “and yet don’t look to good, or act to wise . . .” This is virtually a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 7:16. He explains the concept by using the word “look,” which reminds us of Jesus’ warnings in Matthew 6 not to do our good deeds to be seen by men.

The verse in Ecclesiastes is a bit stronger. “Don’t be too righteous.” How are we to understand this? Matthew Henry in his commentary on the whole Bible provides a very full and helpful explanation.

“Be not righteous overmuch,” Ecclesiastes 7:16.

In the acts of righteousness govern thyself by the rules of prudence, and be not transported, no, not by a zeal for God, into any intemperate heats or passions, or any practices unbecoming thy character or dangerous to thy interests.

Note, There may be over-doing in well-doing. Self-denial and mortification of the flesh are good but if we prejudice our health by them, and unfit ourselves for the service of God, we are righteous overmuch. To reprove those that offend is good, but to cast that pearl before swine, who will turn again and rend us, is to be righteous overmuch.

“Make not thyself over-wise.”

Be not opinionative, and conceited of thy own abilities. Set not up for a dictator, nor pretend to give law to, and give judgment upon, all about thee. Set not up for a critic, to find fault with every thing that is said and done, nor busy thyself in other men’s matters, as if thou knewest every thing and couldst do any thing.

Why shouldst thou destroy thyself, as fools often do by meddling with strife that belongs not to them? Why shouldst thou provoke authority, and run thyself into the briers, by needless contradictions, and by going out of thy sphere to correct what is amiss? Be wise as serpents, beware of men.

I think this is a warning that I, as a conservative religious person, need. It’s happened to me over and over again in my life. I make some progress in life or in understanding, and it goes to my head. It becomes a tool of my own conceit.

For those who seek after an authentic moral and religious life in God, it’s good to remember: “Don’t be overly righteous or be overly wise.”

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What is Holiness?

“We don’t smoke, and we don’t chew, and we don’t run with boys who do.” If people think of holiness, they may think of something like that old caricature of holiness.

But people don’t usually think about holiness. Holiness is one of those concepts the Bible uses that we don’t run into very often in our daily lives. It’s a concept that is at the periphery of our civilization.

For the writers of the Bible, however, it was very important. When they pictured the throne room of God, they described the angels around God’s throne saying, “Holy, holy, holy!”

God is absolutely holy. This means He is absolutely perfect and pure, set apart from everything else. Now note: He not only has this perfection, He is devoted to it and delights in it. This may seem strange until we remember that God is Triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That means the Father is devoted to the glory of the Son and the Holy Spirit as each member of the Trinity is to the other.

This gives us some idea of what it means when God says, “Be holy as I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lev. 19:2).

In the Bible, God is not the only one who is holy. Places are holy like the temple. Things are holy like the ark. People are holy like the priests.

This means that they are set apart from service to other things. In this sense, the caricature of holiness (“We don’t smoke, and we don’t chew . . .”) has something right in it. We separate ourselves from evil things and even from the misuse of good things.

Take the Sabbath, for example. The Sabbath involves setting aside things we do on the other six days. So, many people think of it merely in terms of not working.

But being set apart is about being set apart for something. It is about being set apart unto the Lord Himself. It means seeing His glory and delighting and finding joy in it. That is holiness.

There is an instructive scene on this point in the book of Nehemiah. When the Israelites returned to the land, they celebrated the Feast of Booths. During this Feast, the priests would read the law of God. When the people realized it, they were filled with a sense of their own disobedience, and this rightly grieved them. However, Nehemiah told them: “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (8:10). Let go of other things and rejoice in the Lord. That is holiness.

In one of my Doctor of Ministry classes, Dr. Steve Childers gave me this definition of holiness that I’ve relished ever since. He said, “Holiness is loving God and others well while maintaining our joy.”

This gives holiness quite a different flavor than what we are used to. The more I think about it, though, the more I believe that Dr. Childers had captured the positive side of holiness. Holiness sets us apart from certain things that will harm us or lead us in a wrong direction to send us in the right direction: finding our delight in service to and love of God. Holiness is about joy. Any talk about holiness that fails to mentions this should be proscribed. We were created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That is holiness.

Even though we don’t use the word holiness much in our society, we are all looking for something bigger that can give our lives meaning, purpose, and joy. The trouble is we seek it in things that can’t really provide it. Thus, the call to holiness–finding that meaning, purpose, and joy in God alone. This is a purpose and joy that will not disappoint, and this is holiness.

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