He Must Increase

He Must Increase.  In more highly liturgical churches across the globe, today marks Ash Wednesday, the formal beginning of Lent (derived from the Latin word for fortieth). Last year’s palm fronds from Palm Sunday have been burned, their ashes are smeared on the foreheads of the penitent ones who will observe the 40 days leading up to Good Friday (not counting Sundays) in mourning over their sin. Such is a worthy gesture, especially if the day before Ash Wednesday, Mardi Gras (from the Latin phrase meaning Fat Tuesday), was raucous. Traditionally, people give something up for Lent: meat, one meal per day, etc. Modern examples often include giving up chocolate, booze, sugar, social media, etc.

Yet, on a basic level, giving up to gain something is faulty logic. I can’t subtract my way into addition. I can’t decrease my body fat index by simply tightening my belt. I can’t balance my family budget by solely turning off a few lights in the daytime. So then, why would decreasing my luxuries for six weeks increase holiness? We need holiness, for sure, but holiness isn’t added by subtraction. Only because Christ’s holiness has been added to our account (i.e., imputed)—by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8)—can unholiness ever be subtracted from our account. Ultimately, we need Christ, not math.

According to faith, we can and should sometimes fast from certain rights and privileges, as Christ assumed was normal in the rhythm of faithfulness. “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast” (Matt. 9:15). We fast not that Christ might sanctify us, but because Christ has sanctified us, is sanctifying us, and will sanctify us. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

When John the Baptist spoke his wise words as almost a prayer, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30), the increase of Christ was not the result of John’s decrease, but the cause of John’s decrease. In other words, the only way John could possibly decrease was that Christ had arrived in a state of fullness. The increase that John desired was not for Christ to increase in essence but in recognition. Christ was already preeminent; John wanted everyone, including himself, to see Christ as the Preeminent One. “He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all” (John 3:31). Recognizing Christ as maximum displaces all other ambitions, desires, and rivals.

By Faith Abraham Obeyed When He Was Called

By Faith Abraham Obeyed When He Was Called.  When the kids were little, we would say to them as often as the situation required, “Slow poking is not obeying.” Unnecessary nonchalance in compliance to a direct instruction, to maintain plausible deniability and perhaps to avoid discipline, did not fit the spirit of obedience. For instance, picking up toys while playing with said toys on their way to the toybox was slow poking, dragging feet on the way to the car when we were late for church was slow poking, reading past Lights Out time was slow poking. Abraham was non-compliant in some ways, unwise in other ways, and dreadfully wrong when he lied twice about Sarah being his sister to save his own skin (Gen. 12:13; 20:2), but he did not slow poke when God initially called him (Gen. 12:1-3).

The quickness of Abraham’s initial obedience is emphasized in Hebrews 11:8: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.” By using a present tense participle—when he was called—with a past tense verb—obeyed—the grammatical effect is spontaneous action. His obedience virtually accompanied his calling, as if while God was calling him Abraham was already packing. He had an eagerness to obey despite a lack of knowledge about where this journey would take him.

Making application to our faith response to God’s calling could be endlessly varied, but the eagerness of our faith response is worth evaluating. Do we slow poke? Will we get around to it, whatever it is? Or will we masterfully construct excuses like the potential followers of Jesus? 

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:57-62).

God, who sees the end from even before the beginning, says that Abraham, despite his many fumbles, is “the father all who believe” (Rom. 4:11). Sarah also, who might have been pigeon-holed by humans as the mother who doubted, since she first scoffed at God’s announcement that she would have a baby at 90 years old (Gen. 18:12), is honored by God to be as important in faith as Abraham. “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11).

You Have Need of Endurance

You Have Need of Endurance.  Without checking our heart, biting our tongue, and pumping the brakes on our pride, we are prone to misinterpret advice and encouragement as meddling. Granted, unsolicited advice often is meddling, but not always. In those cases when it is meddlesome, we react nearly automatically with: “Who asked you?” or “What gives you the right to speak that way to me?” or “You don’t know me.” If manipulation happens regularly enough, then we will always suspect advice as an external force attempting to bend us toward somebody else’s agenda. But God’s advice is never less than good and always welcome because we have, in fact, asked him for wisdom, because he does have the right to speak that way to us, and because he knows us intimately, far better than we know ourselves. How easily we receive biblical instruction parallels how spiritually mature we are.

Twice in the book of Hebrews the author tells his audience what they need. Is he rude, or is he right? His instruction is quite forceful, especially in contrast to the two times that Paul tells his audience in Thessalonica what they do not need. “Your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything” (1 Thess. 1:8). “Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another” (1 Thess. 4:9). But to the Hebrew Christians in Jerusalem, the author admonishes them to grow up spiritually. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb. 5:12-14). “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised” (Heb. 10:36).

Immediate defensiveness to the revelation of God is a symptom of spiritual immaturity. Pliability or receptivity to the revelation of God is a mark of spiritual maturity. It’s not personal, it’s spiritual! You have need of endurance! You are in the crucible of suffering which lays bare your underdeveloped receptivity to the word of God. That said, endurance itself is not the point, per se; it is the means to the point, which is doing the will of God. Survival is not the goal; it is the way toward the goal, which is receiving what is promised. Stay in the battle; continue with the struggle; persevere so that you can obey. Endure the race so that you can glorify God in the running of the race that was set before you. No one else’s race is exactly like your race, but everyone else’s race needs the same endurance. “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Heb. 12:1-3).

And He Said to Man

And He Said to Man.  At our core, we are meaning makers. Humans seek meaning in the universe. Across language, education, religion, and geography meaning-making is an unstoppable internal force that compels us to seek answers to the question, Why? Note the contrast with some humor, my dogs do not ask me why the stars seem to twinkle in the night sky whereas my children do. Asking why? is a valid but often disappointing question. The answers are usually either unavailable or unbearable. But setting all answers aside, the asking of this question shows the universal characteristic of humanity to connect to significance. We seek understanding. This is a wonder; it constitutes one aspect of bearing the image of God!

But there is a bend in the framework of our insatiable drive to find meaning. While we are born hungry to ask meaningful questions, we initiate double trouble when we: (1) look to the wrong source for meaning, and (2) neglect the right source of meaning. A principle emerges in the Scriptures: we search for but cannot find understanding from the universe about the universe or our purpose in it. We need an infusion of wisdom from the outside. We need God.

In the 28^th chapter of Job, Job takes a pause in the unprofitable back-and-forth between himself and his so-called friends as to why Job suffers. Their many words generated zero wisdom, so a stand-alone poem on wisdom is dropped in the middle of their futile opinions.

The first half of the poem (vv. 1-11) argues effectively that while man mines for treasure, better than the rest of creation, he cannot find wisdom. Two pairs of questions emerge in the second half of the poem (vv. 12-28), the first two ask about discovery and the second two ask about source. “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?” (vs. 12). “From where, then, does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding?” (vs. 20). Where can we find wisdom? Clearly, it is undiscoverable (vv. 13-19). From where does wisdom originate? Clearly, it is unsearchable (vv. 21-22). God alone is the source of wisdom. “God understands the way to it, and he knows its place” (vs. 23). To find wisdom is to know God. “And he said to man” (vs. 28a). Wisdom is personal, “And he.” Wisdom initiates relationship, primarily through his spoken word, “he said.” Wisdom enlightens humanity, “And he said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding’” (vs. 28).

Now Faith Is

Now Faith Is.  “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” sank the barb by Alexander Pope (An Essay on Criticism, 1711) that shamed over-confident critics who bullied young writers though they themselves had not published anything. The same danger exists when offering commentary on faith if, while attesting self-expertise in faith, I functionally discourage another’s faith. The far safer and wiser course defers to The Faith to make comments on faith.

“The faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), unsurprisingly, says a lot about faith, comprising the distinguishing characteristic of Christianity. The same Greek word (pistis) sometimes translated as belief, faith has over 200 occurrences in the New Testament as a noun (faith), over 200 as a verb (to believe/have faith), and over 60 as an adjective (faithful). Faith is a huge subject. To give faith its proper attention would take centuries, but the Bible itself offers roughly three aspects of faith, equally true and truly equal in the exaltation of Jesus Christ as the epicenter of all faith: (1) covenant loyalty, (2) Christological understanding, and (3) hopeful expectation of the future.

This triple-tiered view of faith helps us see its generous overlaps and appreciate its exquisite texture. James emphasizes faith’s covenant loyalty, Paul emphasizes faith’s Christological understanding, and Hebrews emphasizes faith’s hopeful expectation of the future. Thus, the first verse of Hebrews’ Chapter of Faith leans toward the hopeful expectation of the future in its characterization of faith. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). It is not a technical, exhaustive definition of faith, per se, but a functional explanation for a particular situation in the historical, mid-first century, Jerusalem church (60-69 ad). Faith is the way, the only way, that we can functionally relate to God’s invisible order. “Physical eyesight produces a conviction or evidence about visible things; faith is the organ which enables people to ‘see’ the invisible order” (F. F. Bruce). This unique aspect of faith is trust in things unseen, especially when spiritual pressure is applied. 

Since

Since.  Any American child in the 70s and 80s knew School House Rock, the animated educational shorts, put to music, about various grammar rules, how a bill becomes a law, the Shot Heard ‘Round the World, and the magic number three. Some adults in that demographic still remember the songs, decades later. For instance, can you sing with the train engineer, “Conjunction junction, what’s your function?” as he joined various trains of verbal thought with connector words like for, but, since, and therefore. Conjunctions continue to rock!

In the Scriptures, there are few conjunctions more prominent than in Hebrews chapter 10. Because Jesus is the perfect sacrifice for sin (vv. 1-18), a personal response is warranted: “Therefore, brothers” (vs. 19a). Conjunction junction, what’s your function? The function of the therefore is to engage the engine (vv. 19b-25). Revving the train’s engine in neutral, for example, on a fact — “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (vs. 14) — is insufficient to move forward if the drive shaft remains unengaged. The conjunction therefore makes the connection; the locomotive drops into first gear. The repetition of since (vv. 19, 21) moves up through the gears: second and third. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God” (Heb. 10:19-21). The three following commands (vv. 22-25) propel the train into serious speed: “let us draw near” (vs. 22), “let us hold fast” (vs. 23), and “let us consider how” (vs. 24). Faith is meant to be mobile.

Each junction has its appropriate conjunction. Notice how the flow grinds to a halt if conditionals (e.g., if, perhaps, maybe) had been used instead of conjunctions. Christianity might look something like this: perhaps, brothers, if we have confidence to enter … and if we have a great priest over the house of God, then let us draw near/hold fast/consider how …. Do you see how important the proper transition is? Since is certain. If is iffy. Since says, “Done!” If shrugs, “Maybe?” In the text, thankfully, we have a string of therefore-since-since instead of a series of perhaps-if-then. We can stand on a since, whereas we might slip on an if. With an if, our behavior determines our acceptance. With a since, our acceptance through Christ determines our behavior in Christ. Thanks be to God through Christ for the conjunction since!

Remember Those Who Are Mistreated

Remember Those Who Are Mistreated.  As sophisticated as we think we are in global society, we are equally, simultaneously, inescapably brutal. If the optics generated on our screens are true indicators of reality, then we seem to show more compassion for distressed animals than for distressed people. Collectively speaking, we typically get the treatment of others horribly wrong when we ourselves become the judge, jury, and executioner of our own twisted moral codes. Antisemitism, class warfare, bigotry, and political attacks aside, which are all indefensible and abhorrent to the biblical worldwide, Christian persecution specifically is on the uptick globally, especially steep in Nigeria in 2025. In northern Nigeria nothing seems to slow down ISIS-aligned terror cells from brutally abducting, killing, and mistreating anyone they suspect as non-compliant to their own interpretation of their own version of Sharia law. 

Although Nigeria justifiably grabbed the most headline news in 2025, the World Watch List compiled by Open Doors, a global ministry dedicated to serving persecuted Christians, lists Nigeria as the seventh worst nation in terms of Christian persecution. The Worst Fifteen are: 1). North Korea, 2). Somalia, 3). Yemen, 4). Libya, 5). Sudan, 6). Eritrea, 7). Nigeria, 8). Pakistan, 9). Iran, 10). Afghanistan, 11). India, 12). Saudi Arabia, 13). Myanmar, 14). Mali, and 15). China.

All in all, 2025 was a particularly bloody year. Murdered in 2025 were 4476 people, for no other reason than their public faith in Christ. Churches and personal property of church members burned or confiscated in 2025 were 7679, for no other reason than their open association with the gospel of Christ. Imprisoned in 2025 were 4744 people, for no other reason than their Christian witness. The statistical aggregate is appalling: one in seven Christians worldwide are persecuted, one in five Christians in Africa are persecuted, two in five Christians in Asia are persecuted.

The church in Jerusalem suffered terrible persecution in the First Century, yet they banded together. “But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one” (Heb. 10:32-34). Against that backdrop, the entire church is commanded to remember the prisoner (e.g., the ones imprisoned because of their Christian faith, not because of wrongdoing [1 Pet. 2:20; 4:15]), empathizing with their plight, identifying with the mistreated, and understanding the theological ramifications that if persecution touches one Christian, then the entire church is impacted. “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” (Heb. 13:3).