Ah! Remember those heady days when we shook hands and inwardly laughed at the Asian tourists who wore masks?  It seems years ago, but it was only March 2020.   How we long to return, to undo all that Covid has done.   Some still look forward to the day when “all this is over.”  But will it be?  Will it ever really be ‘over?’ 

Epidemiologists define ‘over’ in two different ways.   First there is disease elimination.  Elimination means zero cases in a defined geographic area.   Elimination is ‘over’ with a small ‘o.’   Elimination does not mean the disease is gone, just inactive in a particular region.  Eradication is what we want.    Eradication means zero cases world-wide following deliberate efforts to prevent and treat a disease.   The only human disease considered eradicated is smallpox.  And it was only declared to be eradicated in 1980.   To be eradicated, a disease must be both preventable and treatable.   But we currently have no proven strategies for either when it comes to Covid-19.   As with smallpox, eradication, if it were to ever come, is a difficult and distant future reality.   Will we every be ‘over’ Covid-19?   

Eradication is unlikely.  Elimination is probably a distant likelihood.  But ‘over’ could come sooner in a different form factor.  Most probably being ‘over’ Covid looks like learning to live with it through lifestyle adjustments that become a permanent part of our social intercourse.   Practical eradication comes when, though still present, we by and large ignore it.   This kind of practical eradication through a willful apathy is probably the best we can achieve in the near term.   And while this may be a necessary coping strategy when it comes to Covid, it is deadly when it comes to Scripture.

Since the dawn of time, ungodly tyrants have sought to eradicate scripture.   Yet, no matter how often it has been confiscated or burned, God’s Word will not be silenced.  The Bible is eradication-proof and proves Newton’s third law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.    Every attempt to forcibly eradicate the Bible only caused it to proliferate.   Though practical eradication does occur.  Like Covid, learning to coexist with the Bible, while largely ignoring it, provides a kind of practical inoculation against its truths.   Unfortunately, this is reflective of our society today.

In his article, The Scandal of Biblical Illiteracy, Al Mohler concludes.

While America’s evangelical Christians are rightly concerned about the secular worldview’s rejection of biblical Christianity, we ought to give some urgent attention to a problem much closer to home–biblical illiteracy in the church. This scandalous problem is our own, and it’s up to us to fix it.

Researchers George Gallup and Jim Castelli put the problem squarely: “Americans revere the Bible–but, by and large, they don’t read it. And because they don’t read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates.” 

Christians who lack biblical knowledge are the products of churches that marginalize biblical knowledge. Bible teaching now often accounts for only a diminishing fraction of the local congregation’s time and attention. 

We will not believe more than we know, and we will not live higher than our beliefs. The many fronts of Christian compromise in this generation can be directly traced to biblical illiteracy in the pews and the absence of biblical preaching and teaching in our homes and churches.

In Jeremiah 36 we find the terrible picture of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, burning the words of the Prophet Jeremiah.  He was not open to what God’s Word had to say.   But he was not the only one.   The people of his time neither listened, nor inclined their ears to hear God’s word through the prophets.   “Neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments.”   When God’s people have little concern for God’s Word, disaster cannot be far behind.   The people of Jeremiah’s day only wanted positive messages.   Words of sin, judgment, and wrath, were not what they wanted to hear.   While Jehoiakim’s Bible burning shocks us, what should shock us more is that the people who heard all these words were not afraid, nor did they think God’s Word applied to them.

It is easy to sit in judgement on Jeremiah’s generation, but how different are we?   How careful are we to hear and heed God’s Word?   We have more flavors of the Bible than Baskin-Robbins has ice-cream.   God’s word has never been more accessible.   Mao and Stalin and Voltaire tried their best to eradicate it, but could not.  But what Mao, Stalin, and Voltaire could never accomplish, the Church effects through growing ignorance.   We profess to be a ‘people of the book,’ but is the Bible authoritative and sufficient in our lives?   The response of Judah’s king and Judah’s people to the word of God offer a warning and challenge – how careful have we been to love and live God’s Word?

Join us this Lord’s Day as we examine Jeremiah 36 and consider faithful and unfaithful responses to God’s Word. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP. Here is the order of service.

One of the biggest challenges to space exploration is the sheer amount of time required to travel from one place to the next.   Given today’s propulsion technology, inter-stellar travel is, by necessity, multi-generational.   Project management in our digital age focuses on compressing the schedule, getting it done faster and more efficiently.  We roll out major technology platforms and build skyscrapers in months, not years.   But how good are we at project management spanning generations?   Can we maintain vision?  Sustain design commitments?  And keep our attention focused for three or four consecutive generations? 

As we turn our eyes to the heavens to think about traveling to Mars and beyond, our greatest challenge is the shortness of our life-span.    Here it is helpful to look back to our medieval past.    Men in the middle ages also had their eyes to the heavens.   But they planned to travel by building great cathedrals.    Projects that, without hydraulics and power equipment, took hundreds of years to complete.  

The cathedral in Rouen, France, took 735 years to complete and the great Münster in Cologne, 632 years.    On average the great cathedrals of Western Europe required 275 years to complete, three or four generations of craftsmen.  Andreas Hein has written a fascinating comparison between the challenges of space travel and cathedral building.  He concludes that “the products of our space program are today’s cathedrals.”

The sheer faithfulness of multi-generational craftsmen, to commit generation after generation of their families to build something they would never see finished, brings to mind the great hall of faith in Hebrews 11.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for…. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

Hebrews 11:1-2, 39-40

How steadfast is our faith?   We often struggle to maintain “faith once for all delivered to the saints” in our own lifetimes.   Do we have a vision to see that all the generations of our family, love the Lord with heart, mind, soul and strength?   The promise annexed to the Second Commandment is that the Lord shows “love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”   Is that our vision?  Do we have a multi-generational vision for faithfulness to Christ in our families?  Are we Cathedral builders?  Do we have our minds set upon things above?  And do we desire this to be the vision that animates every generation of our progeny?

During the reign of King Jehoiakim, the prophet Jeremiah warned the people to turn back to the Lord.   They were a faithless generation and they were training the next generation to be even more faithless.  Time and time again, Jeremiah points out that even Judah’s young ones were caught up in their parent’s idolatry.    They refused to listen to the words of the living God, or even incline their ear to what he had to say.    But in their midst, God had placed a ready example to rebuke His people.   

The Rechabites had been commanded by their forefather, Jonadab, not to drink wine or live in houses or cultivate fields or have vineyards.    They were to live a simple, pastoral life, avoiding the settled comforts of contemporary culture.   For over 250 years, they had carefully followed the instructions of their dead ancestor.   God instructs Jeremiah to publicly challenge their convictions.  Yet their commitment to Jonadab’s instruction was unshakable.   While the Lord does not specifically commend their commitments, He does commend their commitment.

It is rare in scripture for God to commend men for their faithfulness.  Jesus commends a centurion in Matthew 8:10, saying, “truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.”  And in Jeremiah 35, the Lord commends the example of the Rechabites.  In faithless Judah, they are a remarkable example of steadfast commitment.    They provide a powerful illustration of one generation discipling the next.   

What do our lives illustrate?   Can the Lord point to us in the midst of a faithless generation as an example worth nothing?  What will the world know of our faith by observing our descendants in 250 years? Join us this Lord’s Day as we examine Jeremiah 35 and consider the power of multi-generational faithfulness. 

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP

Novelty is a fickle temptress.    We are all fascinated with new things.  The promise of something new is alluring.   A new restaurant, no matter what its offers, will boom for six months.    Every new social media platform renders all others passé.  And when Dr. Oz recommends a new product, demand skyrockets.   But it doesn’t take long for the euphoria of fashionability to yield to a longing for the good old ways – the old places, the old platforms, and the tried and true products.    Novelty is a fickle temptress.    We love change, so long as it doesn’t actually change anything.   As the excitement of discovery cools, we see that newer is not always better.  

But novelty does offer an appeal.   Businesses understand this.   This is why beloved restaurants tinker with their menus and discount furniture stores are perpetually going out of business only to reopen under a new name.   When market share stagnates, products become ‘new and improved’ and businesses go ‘under new management.’    The word ‘new’ pricks our attention.  It arouses consumer desire, but often, not consumer discernment.   

Just what is new?  How is it improved?  Why, if at all, did it need to be improved?   Is the change an improvement?   Some of us are old enough to remember the New Coke debacle of 1985, and it jaded us.   The phrase ‘new and improved’ evokes suspicion.   And ‘under new management’ is often an admission of serious problems — code for ‘we swept the floors and the staff out the door.’   When we hear ‘new and improved’ or ‘under new management,’ we would do well to ask some hard questions and exercise discernment.

But what is true of our economics is even more important for our theology.    When we hear of new teaching or a new interpretation of scripture or a newly discovered ancient text, we must ask some hard questions.    Just what is new?   How new is it?   Why is something new needed?   Is this new thing contrary to the clear truth of the whole counsel of scripture?    The easiest way to lead Christians astray is to provoke our fickle love of novelty – novelty in worship, in teaching, or in practical living.   Ever since the Fall, God’s children have fallen prey to new teaching about God’s nature and His promises.

When we hear about something new, we would do well to ask hard questions and exercise discernment.  Especially when we see that claim in scripture.   Theological understanding demands it.   God promises a new heart, new heavens and a new earth.   He promises to do a ‘new thing’ in the lives of his people as he unfolds redemptive history.  And in the midst of Jeremiah’s Book of Consolation in Jeremiah 31:31-34, God promises a New Covenant – a promise formative in the history and theology of the Church.   

Jesus speaks of the New Covenant as he institutes the Lord’s Supper.

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”  

Luke 22:19-20

And the author of the Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31 twice as he examines exactly what is and is not new about the New Covenant.  

But theological heterodoxy over the nature, membership, and significance of the New Covenant has been divisive in the church, especially since the Reformation.  For some it points to a new way, or dispensation, of salvation.  For others it demotes the Old Testament to a lesser revelation, providing historical background but no continuing authority or relevance for Christian practice.   And many believe it radically changes the nature of covenant membership and therefore the nature of the church.  

With so much at stake, we would do well to ask hard questions when we hear the word ‘new’ in regards to God’s covenant of grace.    Just what is ‘new’ about the New Covenant?   How ‘new’ is it?  And why was something ‘new’ needed?   Jeremiah 31 is the only place in the Old Testament where the New Covenant is mentioned, but the prophet and the whole counsel of God’s Word give us sufficient context to understand just what is ‘new’ about the New Covenant.   And why it is important.

Join us this week as we examine Jeremiah 31:31-40 and consider what is ‘new’ about the New Covenant and why it matters. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP

Absence makes the heart grow fonder!  With some exceptions this is true.   If “Covidtide” has taught us anything, we have experienced this more keenly.  We were not made for social distancing.   Though necessary, we long for what is missing – our people, our places, and our practices.   And if social distancing has made us more loving and grateful then we will be the better for it.

Absence makes our hearts grow fonder, because often we don’t know what we have until it’s gone.   Grief teaches us this.  We so easily take for granted those we see every day, until the day we cannot see them.   Memories of the difficult times fade, leaving remembrance of what was good.   No matter how things were, absence, though painful, makes the heart grow fonder.  Travel teaches this as well.   The excitement of far-away, exotic travel is quickly tempered with a deep soul-ache for the places of home.

How easy it is to take the best things for granted.   The tyranny of the urgent prevents us from treasuring the best life has to offer – more time to listen to the unfolding of a small child’s story or the extra kiss goodbye.  Then we blink and those little windows are closed, gone forever.   Only then do we realize what a gaping hole in our lives has been left vacant, space that can only be filled with our people, places, and practices.   Absence makes the heart ache, but in that aching fondness grows — a fondness we should have had before.

From the moment the Israelites stepped foot into the Promised Land, they began take for granted the blessings of being God’s people– His Word and presence.   A land flowing with milk and honey is a great gift.  But the real treasure was not the gift of land, but the Giver of life.  To know Him was their inheritance, their very great reward.  He had set his love upon them and revealed his gracious ways and promises to them.    The Psalmist captures it well.

He declares his word to Jacob,
    his statutes and rules to Israel.
He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
    they do not know his rules.
Praise the Lord! 

Psalm 147:19-20

But, within a generation of Joshua’s death there “arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.”   Like the prodigal, they filled their lives with every empty thing.  They longed for a king, like the nations around them.   And the Lord tells a dejected Samuel, “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”  And at that terrible moment when the kingdom is divided after the death of Solomon, Jeroboam sets up Golden Calves to keep the people from returning to the “place where the Lord put his Name.”   So easily they forgot, who and whose they were. Israel had the world’s greatest treasure in Christ.  Yet, they ran after every vanity the world offered.   They lived with their backs to God.

Prophets warned them, starting with Moses. If they lived with their backs turned to God, he would turn from them.  And everything would be taken away.   But they would not listen.   They said, “it is no use, we love foreign Gods.”  They had more gods than towns and more altars than streets.  They were not inclined, nor willing, to hear God’s word calling them back from the brink.   They chose to experience his words of justice and judgement, rather than heed words of grace and mercy.   Yet judgment is not the last word.  To reclaim them, the Lord sent them away.  He took away everything, that they might see what had truly been lost. 

For forty years, Jeremiah wept for Judah.   But it was not until the exile, that the people learned to weep.  Psalm 137 captures it well.

By the waters of Babylon,
    there we sat down and wept,
    when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
    we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors
    required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How shall we sing the Lord’s song
    in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    let my right hand forget its skill!
Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
    above my highest joy!

Absence makes their hearts tender.   Not just an absence from the land, but from the One who makes the land and its people what they are.  But is it too late?  Will God remember mercy in wrath?  Has God’s steadfast love worn thin?   No doubt, the exiles remembered their northern cousins.   Exiled to Assyria a century before, the ten tribes of the north never returned, lost forever.    God would be perfectly just to treat them the same way.  Is there any kindness left?  Perhaps, you are wondering the same thing.   Have you filled your life with every empty thing?  And left no room for the only One who can fill?   What hope is there for you?  What comfort?  

God instructs Jeremiah to speak words of consolation to fallen Judah.  And not just speak them, but write them down.  Words for them and for us!  Jeremiah spent four decades warning of judgment and exile.   Now, when hope seems lost, he opens a new chapter – the Book of Consolation.  In the midst of the longest, and most sorrowful book in the Bible, we find bright promises of God’s grace.    Jeremiah 30-33 is often called the ‘Book of Consolation.’ 

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP