Fully Trained

Fully Trained.  For some like military personnel, researchers, athletes, nurses, and educators training for the job can feel like the lion’s share of their jobs. Readiness is a journey not a destination. Disciples of Jesus are similarly always learning. A diagnostic question that provides some definite edges to the indefiniteness of continual training is this: how does a disciple know when he or she has been successful at training? In other words, what are the marks of spiritual maturity, or when is a disciple ready to transition into making disciples of others? Jesus gives a concrete answer to the abstract concept of spiritual maturity. “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). 

In this way, a disciple is different from a trade apprentice. An apprentice could learn all there is about plumbing and soldering, etc., and become fully trained without any character resemblance with the teacher, but a disciple is fully trained only when he or she resembles the character of the Teacher. It is spiritual training of the heart. Truly, it is when Jesus is represented and reflected in the disciple’s life, decisions, and values (effectively skipping over the human disciple-maker to the Lord himself) that a disciple is ready to make disciples of others. And the beat goes on!

An overarching study of the near-synonym maturity (teleios) comes in handy at this point for setting some specifics about when a disciple is fully trained (katartizo). The verse list for spiritual maturity (teleios) divides into three noticeable categories: maturity of thought, maturity in relationships, and maturity as a skill-set (e.g., orthodoxy, orthopathy, and orthopraxy). True, the training never ends for a disciple, but a spiritually mature disciple is ready to make disciples of others when he or she KNOWS Christ deeply (Bible literacy, gospel fluency, and theological competency), LOVES God and others authentically (worship, identity, and interpersonal balance), and SERVES the world purposefully (spiritual disciplines, spiritual gifts, and spiritual calling).

 

Knowing Christ deeply corresponds nicely with the Great Confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). Loving God and others derives from the Great Commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind … and you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37, 39). Serving the world purposefully follows the trajectory of the Great Commission, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19-20).

I Lift Up My Eyes

I Lift Up My Eyes.  As we age it is funny, or perhaps absurd, how we have two tracks for memories. We can remember most lyrics from many songs of our adolescence but not why we walked into the kitchen. A mental block applies to the kings of ancient Israel and Judah, for instance, but not to the character list in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Even the proper spelling of certain common words evades our immediate recall, such as the word trilogy.

Maybe that is why wordsmiths, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, frequently coined new words, because they couldn’t quite remember the conventional word to finish a sentence. Without researching it, I’m fairly confident that unlooked-for was not an entry in the dictionary when Tolkien needed a word meaning: a surprising arrival of assistance when hope was flagging and help was doubtful. But since Tolkien wrote his masterpiece, his often-repeated word unlooked-for has entered the portal of proper English. “Twice blessed is help unlooked-for.”

But the psalmist speaks of divine help that is definitely blessed because it is deliberately looked-for! “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psa. 121:1-2). The strident determination to set a faithful gaze “to the hills” marks the pilgrim. Yet it is not precisely the hills themselves that provide the necessary help, though that was a contemporary belief in ancient Israel. It is the Lord who often arrives via the mountain to help his people. Such is the stare into redemptive history that forms a present relief and a future hope. The Lord has been faithful to help, so he is faithful still, although his path leaves no artefact or footprint. The Lord’s help is sought after.

The Lord’s help is also reasonable, consistent to his character. The faithful have every indication that personalized help is on the way. “He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psa. 121:3-4). The hearts of men may fail, but the Lord is fully attentive of the unsteady pathway that we must walk through the mountains. He is fully able to save, day or night.

Finally, the Lord’s help is effective, willing, and eternal. “The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore” (Psa. 121:5-8). God’s help is looked-for, sought after, and trusted. Every time we find his help reinforces our confidence in his help. 

Walking on the Water

Walking on the Water. Matthew 14:22-33

 ²² Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.

 ²³ And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,

 ²⁴ but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.

 ²⁵ And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea.

 ²⁶ But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, "It is a ghost!" and they cried out in fear.

 ²⁷ But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid."

 ²⁸ And Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water."

 ²⁹ He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.

 ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me."

 ³¹ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

 ³² And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

 ³³ And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

The Feeding of the Five Thousand

The Feeding of the Five Thousand. John 6:1-15

 ¹ After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.

 ² And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.

 ³ Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.

 ⁴ Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.

 ⁵ Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?"

 ⁶ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.

 ⁷ Philip answered him, "Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little."

 ⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him,

 ⁹ "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?"

 ¹⁰ Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.

 ¹¹ Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted.

 ¹² And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, "Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost."

 ¹³ So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

 ¹⁴ When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, "This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!"

 ¹⁵ Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Worth vs. Value

Worth vs. Value.  In less than one week, I will board another plane to Douala, Cameroon, for teaching theology to pastors. Praise the Lord! By the time I land, after a long 24-hour journey, I will be happy to collapse into bed. Any bed will do. It surely won’t matter about the thread-count of the sheets at that point! Because the students are eager to learn, I am eager to teach, muscling through jetlag. But I am never eager to play the accountant. Bleh. The receipts, the exchange rates, the codes, and the math swim before my eyes. Yet mere money accounts for just one third of the expense. Time and sanity are also full-fledged economies that will not be ignored. But how does one rightly measure time and sanity?

I have tried to evaluate my time on mission trips with a homemade metric, my total travel hours compared to my total teaching hours ratio. When this trip is all buttoned-up, I will have travelled/prepared to travel 48 hours and taught/prepared to teach 48 hours, a 1:1 ratio. That’s a fairly good number as I remember some trips with a grueling 2:1 ratio, travel-to-teaching. (One trip was 3:1, but that will trigger a flashback.) But my sanity would vote for a solid 1:2 ratio, even a dreamy 1:4 ratio, if such were even possible as a part-time missionary. But is this how mission decisions are made, by comparing costs on a spreadsheet? No!

My point is this: worth vs. value. Is it worthwhile to travel 70 hours to teach 21 hours, or 200 minutes to teach 20 minutes? Maybe, but not necessarily. Granted, there is wisdom in calling off a trip when a trip is skewed heavily toward traveling away from teaching. But worth isn’t as operative as much as value is in missions. Worth may determine which ticket I buy, but value drives missions itself.

Worth fluctuates, but value is fixed. Worth depends externally upon supply and demand in today’s marketplace. Others ascribe worth to an object or cause based on like-comparisons. Worth sets a price, a cost of replacement if lost. His time is worth $24/hour. This clock should cost $159. That baseball card cashes out at 8¢ each. However, value determines its significance and importance internally, derived from the source. Like the Creator does for his creation, so an innovator does for his or her intellectual or artistic property, the maker sets the value. Value is prescribed and intrinsic. Thus, the value of missions isn’t measured like the worthwhileness of a cause is calculated, based on cost-benefit analysis or a homemade ratio of time. Value is set by God. What is important to him becomes vital for us.

Accordingly, it doesn’t matter how the world calculates a person’s worth, all persons have inherent value imbued to them by God no matter their level of productibility. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). This forms a necessary tension: humans will remain forever unworthy of God’s redemption but were created as valuable enough to God to redeem. He fixed value on his people, his word, and his name. “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! (Psa.115:1).

I Will Hedge Up Her Way

I Will Hedge Up Her Way.  Modern people often write about stress, treating it as the enemy of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. By contrast, instead of stress, per se, classical authors rather write of suffering—affliction, trial, and the Dark Night of the Soul (St. John of the Cross, 1577). But the contemporary attitude prevails over the classical understanding; if we were to be healthier, happier, and better, then we must eliminate stress from our lives.

A common tool, The Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory, which has been useful in clinical settings, helps to gauge a person’s stress in relationship to time and physical health. To the 43 categories of stressful events on the Inventory a numerical value has been assigned, based on extensive polling of counseling patients regarding life-changing events indexed against subsequent health problems. For instance, ranging from greater to lesser stressfulness, “death of spouse” charts 100 points, “divorce” racks up 73 points, “marital separation from mate” tallies 65 points. “Vacation” (13 points), “major holidays” (12 points), and “minor violations of the law such as traffic tickets, jaywalking, and disturbing the peace” (11 points) fill out the bottom of the list. By adding up the points, a stress-per-year quotient is measured against the likelihood of a stress-caused negative impact on physical health. Thus, 150 points or less means a relatively low amount of life change and low likelihood of stress-induced health breakdown, 150-300 points implies a 50% chance of a major health breakdown in the next two years, whereas 300 points or more raises the odds to about 80%.

It is true that hypertension is a predictor of poor health, therefore, go see your doctor if you are hypertensive! But, thinking more generally and abstractly, is stress really the main enemy to a person’s overall health? Could there be any benefit to health caused by increased stress? I can think of at least one biblical character whose life was greatly benefited from an increase of stress that was directly caused by God himself. Gomer’s life, not to mention her marriage, was saved by an increase of stress!

Of Gomer, God spoke, “Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths” (Hos. 2:6). God’s actions run completely contrary to our modern distaste for stress. He intentionally increased Gomer’s stress. He added frustration and disappointment. Gomer sought satisfaction, happiness, and personal expression, but she was completely wrong, evil, and engaged in deadly behaviors. God mercifully choked down her options to one: she turned around. Her way forward started by backtracking to the fork where she left the narrow way. “She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now’” (Hos. 2:7). By giving the gift of stress, God provided true life, genuine liberty, and the pursuit of real happiness.

Call His Name Jezreel

Call His Name Jezreel.  What’s in a name? Is it just a random cluster of letters, or does a name signify something more than the way it sounds? In some cultures, entire traditions exist for naming a child—after the father, after the mother, after a grandparent, after a hometown, after a saint, etc. But tradition does not seem to factor much in contemporary naming practices. 

The New York Post reported (6/13/2025) one non-traditional baby name that many readers thought was so bad that it must have been a spoof. Alas, once again, truth is stranger than fiction. A mother-to-be revealed that her daughter would be called Chernobyl Hope, unaware of the 1986 Chernobyl, Ukraine, nuclear crisis. “We just thought it just sounded nice.” Of course, readers of the story roasted (pun intended) the name, Chernobyl. “I’m sure everyone at the celebration will be radiant.” “Speak for yourself; if I were a guest at that shower and heard that name, I’d have a total meltdown.” “I guess it’s a nuclear family.” It is clear from the reactions that a name is more impactful to the entire community than just the way it sounds.

For sure, biblical names take the significance of names to a whole new level. Some names were prophetic, like Josiah, Immanuel, and John. But far more often, biblical names took the shape of a prayer, like Seth, Deborah, and Stephen. However, for three siblings in 8^th Century b.c., Israel, their names were ordained by God to be harbingers of doom. “Call his name Jezreel” (Hos. 1:4). “Call her name No Mercy (Lo-ruhamah)” (Hos. 1:6). “Call his name Not My People (Lo-ammi)” (Hos. 1:9). At every birthday party, every playground game, every school function the whole community would have to wrestle repeatedly with God’s intent for Jezreel, No Mercy, and Not My People.

In one sense, naming him Jezreel shares something in common with naming her Chernobyl, Jezreel and Chernobyl are both place names of terrible, man-made events that caused a deadly ripple extending several generations. But unlike the parents of Chernobyl, everyone knew what Jezreel meant when Hosea and Gomer named their firstborn after the place polluted by King Jehu’s bloody massacre of hundreds of people (2 Kings 10).

By naming him Jezreel (then No Mercy, then Not My People), everyone would be bothered. It was God’s design to provoke the community with these baby names since the community was unprovoked by their own sin. The babies’ names were wake-up calls to the nation. More than symbolic, their names were messages, object lessons, even parables to people who had stopped listening to the Bible.