Slideshow image

Hi everyone! I hope your week is going well!

It’s hard to believe, but we’re now at the last week of March. I’m tempted to make a lame joke about how “time marches on,” but I don’t want to leave you all groaning and rolling your eyes as you read. 

It’s a weird time of year. One day it’s warm and sunny; the next day it’s cool and rainy and snowy in the high country. (Diane and I went snowshoeing again this past week, after thinking we’d put our winter stuff away for good.) They tell us that some storms are going to blow through this week. But I also look out my window and see flowers blooming, with trees budding and in some cases blossoming bravely. People walk past wearing t-shirts, but tonight they’ll have puffy jackets. It’s spring—but not yet really springy a lot of the time. I can hardly wait until the weather stops dithering and turns to true spring in a serious way.

As I’ve reflected on this weird in-between situation, it’s been a reminder that the tension between the “already” and the “not yet” is a huge theme in the New Testament as well. There, the point isn’t winter and spring, of course. It’s all about the coming of the Kingdom of God. We’re often told by Jesus and the Apostles that the Kingdom is here—it’s among and within us. It is already at work. In dying and rising again, Jesus has struck the decisive blow. Sin and death are defeated, the church is established and destined to grow, and the era of life and righteousness has broken into our dark world. At the same time, we’re reminded that we are still waiting for Jesus’ return, for the full unveiling of His Kingdom, the full defeat of evil, and the completion of all those promises that have been made to us about new life in a glorious and permanent form. It’s a Kingdom “already” present but “not yet” fully unveiled.

In the meantime, we’re caught in an awkward in-between experience. We’re forgiven, redeemed, reconciled, filled with the Spirit of God, experiencing His new life in real ways. And yet we’re fallible, sometimes wayward, not always letting the Spirit have His way, tempted to drift back into our old patterns of life and thought. We are (or at least, we should be) growing more like our Lord as He shapes our lives into His image. At the same time, we see our own bodies and the structures in the world around us gradually aging as we all make the long journey from dust to dust. Quoting Paul in 2 Corinthians 4, “outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” One moment we’re enjoying the sunshine in our t-shirts, the next moment we’re bundled up under our umbrellas.

I realize this is a kind of sober reflection. Perhaps my mind goes here because of the rain storm that I just drove through. But it’s a reality of life. The good news is, for followers of Jesus the Kingdom is not only a certainty in the future, but a growing reality in the present. We’re called to live more and more as citizens of Heaven, enjoying its goodness and making its presence felt to those around us now, even as we wait for its fulfillment just beyond the horizon. And by God’s grace, that’s what we do. That’s a joyful thought, and a joyful reality. May we all experience it in full, as our Lord intends.

Hopefully the temperatures will continue to rise, too, and we’ll have the joy of experiencing more spring in this next week or two!

On other fronts, we’ll tackle another kind of transition this Sunday as we look at the last half of 1 Corinthians 14. The first 14 chapters of this epistle are almost entirely correction, confronting sins and problems in Corinth. Paul changes tone when we get to chapter 15. There are still issues to deal with, but his teaching becomes more positive as he reflects on the resurrection. So, in a sense we’re wrapping up the strongly corrective part of the book. We’re also finishing the section on problems in public worship that runs from chapter 11 through 14.

I’m happy to reach this point. I’ve greatly enjoyed my study of 1 Corinthians. But I confess that I am looking forward to some chapters that aren’t so focused on what the church is doing wrong.

As is often the case, Paul’s final words of correction include some weighty things that will require a little careful thought. I welcome your prayers as I think about how to make this week’s study clear and practical. If you’re looking to do some reading ahead of time, our focus will be on verses 26 through 40. If you have time and you want to put it into better context, you could read the whole of chapter 14, or even scan over the whole section from chapter 11 through 14. Either way, I’m trusting that we’ll dig up some things from this important section of Scripture that will be helpful for us all.

Meanwhile, have a wonderful week. Don’t get sunburned if you decide to wear that spring t-shirt. Blessings!