One of the best ways to read Scripture is to ask yourself, "What is this passage saying by what it DOESN'T say?"

For example, take a look at John 10:10, where Jesus says, "I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly."  Think of all the things that Jesus doesn't say here:

"I have come that you might have life and have an average one."

"I have come that you might have life and have a boring one."

"I have come that you might have life and merely endure it."

None of that.  Jesus declares that in him we can have lives full of meaning, purpose, and joy.

Or consider I Timothy 2:3-4, a verse my Wesleyan bias keeps getting drawn to:  "This is good and pleases God our Savior who wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth."  Think of what Paul doesn't say here:

"This is good and pleases God our Savior who wants the elect to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth."

"This is good and pleases God our Savior who wants a few to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth."

"This is good and pleases God our Savior who wants people just like you to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth."

None of that.  Paul reminds Timothy and us that God's heart beats with a great longing for all people -- and "all" means "all" --  to enter into a living relationship with Jesus Christ.

Or even I John 5:13:  "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know you have eternal life."  

John doesn't say, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may hope you have eternal life."

Or "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may work for eternal life."  

Or "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may wish you have eternal life."  

None of that.  Instead, John gives us a blessed assurance rooted not in our goodness but in Jesus' completed work on the cross and in the resurrection.

Reflecting on what the bible doesn't say gives you a greater appreciation for what it does say.

Today:  read through Colossians 1 and as you read what it says, jot down some of what it's not saying.  I believe you'll be grateful for the experience and reflection.

Last Tuesday, I counted down my five favorite speaking voices.  I kept it to the men, and the winners included preachers, actors, and voice-over guys.

So today, it's the same list though limited to females. 

And let's acknowledge the inherent difficulty that women have in developing a voice for public speaking: the voice needs to have enough depth to be resonant but not so deep that it's masculine.

With that, here goes:

5.  Ellen Pompeo, Grey's Anatomy.  Grey's is one of my least favorite shows, but Pompeo's voiceovers at the end of most episodes are things of beauty.


4.  Mary Carillo, Tennis Announcer.  Carillo's extraordinary vocabulary and witty observations get delivered in a voice that still bears the slightest bit of a Queens' accent.  In the segment below, she is teamed with Mary Jo Fernandez in the broadcast booth.


3.  Diane Sawyer, ABC News.  She sounds like she looks: sleek, professional, and very, very smart.


2.  Jodie Foster, actress.  I love the way she channels her inner Clarice Starling here?


1.  Kathleen Turner, actress.  Haven't heard or seen her in a number of years, but her delivery in Romancing The Stone was a memorable mix of innocence and sophistication.

It's Monday morning.

Time to take stock of the week ahead.

More than most, this week to come has an intriguing blend of the urgent and the important, and balancing those two has always been among my most difficult challenges in ministry.

Here's a glance at some of what is in store:

A memorial service today for a man who succumbed to cancer at the much-too-young age of 56.

The arrival of Devin Tharp as Student & Family Pastor here.  Want to make sure his first week is productive, impactful, and full of clarity about the direction of this church and what it means to serve on staff here.

Supporting John Pavlovitz as he makes arrangements for the funeral for his own father, John Pavlovitz, Sr., who died unexpectedly this past Saturday at the age of 70.  For those of you who listened to John's terrific sermon yesterday at GSUMC, now you know it was all the more terrific considering the news John had heard the day before.

Keep working on the next series, called Not A Fan.

Helping our team prepare for three Sunday evening launches:  ClubHouse, BigHouse, and LifeGroups.  As the X-Ray series will show again and again, LifeGroups are the most vital link in the overall health of our body at Good Shepherd.

Personal soul-tending.

Them's the highlights of what's ahead.

As I look it over, I see that it's an atypically typical week.  Or maybe it's a typically atypical week.






 

Yesterday, I confessed that I am just now learning how to read the New Testament epistles accurately, and as an example took you through the first fourteen verses of Ephesians.

Once readers make the proper distinction between the "we" and the "you," they are much more able to get to the heart of the entire book.

Which is . . . ?

Well, if you had asked me a few years ago for the central thrust of Ephesians, I would have taken you right to 2:8-9:

⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.

What a declaration!  If it was good enough to inspire Martin Luther to start the Reformation, it's good enough to serve as the main point of the book, right?  Ephesians is a mini-manifesto about salvation by grace.

Well, Ephesians includes teaching about sola fide, but that's not its heart.

Or another possible answer to the Ephesians question might have come from the glorious prayer in 3:14-21, a prayer that served no small role in my own call to ministry:

¹⁴ For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family^[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

²⁰ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Glory!  Ephesians is about tapping into the incredible power that resides simultaneously at the center of the universe and in the middle of our hearts!  If that doesn't get your spiritual adrenaline flowing, nothing will.

Except.  That's part of Ephesians' contribution, but it's still not the primary purpose behind Paul's letter to the burgeoning Christian community there.

To discover that, remember how the letter starts in 1:1-14:  a divine fusion of "we" and "you," a melding of Jew and Gentile, a creation of one new community out of what had been discord and division.

We see the culmination of that theme in 2:11-22:

¹¹ Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— ¹² remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵ by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷ He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸ For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

¹⁹ Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, ²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹ In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

The entire section is brilliant, but it's 2:15 that's the nutshell:  "to create in himself one new humanity out of the two."  Paul wrote Ephesians to let Jew and Gentile alike know that when they reside together in a country called Christ, God would create an entirely new race of people.

People no longer connected by blood.  People bought by blood.

People no longer identified by race.  People identified by resurrection.

People no longer separated by class.  People united by cross.

And please note: such unity within diversity is not simply for its own sake.  It doesn't stem from a politically correct, can't we all just get along mindset. 

This kind of diversity happens only as the gift of God and is lived out for the glory of God.

At Good Shepherd, we call it going full color.  God's idea, not ours.  God's doing, not ours.

It's a movement that started in Ephesus . . . and Rome . . . and we're just glad to be part of it.