Routinely inspections are carried out on public buildings as a way to keep the building safe and up-to-date. Fire extinguishers, exit signs, and elevators need to be inspected regularly to ensure that they are in good working order. A fire extinguisher might hang on the wall, but if a fire breaks out and the extinguisher has lots its pressure, a small fire could rapidly become a large one, even destroying the entire building and taking lives. If we never had people inspect our building, it’s likely that we would let things slide, to our detriment. It is true that quite often these inspections cost the owners of the building some money, for fire extinguishers need to be replaced from time to time.

We often balk at rules and regulations, and sometimes they are a bit onerous, but we also understand that most of them are there for our own good. We don’t like to admit it, but most of us need someone else to hold us accountable so that we do what is expected of us. If things aren’t inspected, chances are we won’t do what is expected. As has often been said, we tend to do what is inspected rather than what is expected.

Perhaps another example: a few years ago two similar houses were being built in the lots next to our house. The framers for the first house were able to finish all the framing in one week while the framers for the second house took more than two weeks, and both crews had about the same number of guys with the same level of experience. The contractor for the second house wondered why his workers were so slow, and the answer came back: because the contractor for the first house was on site and made sure that his workers knew what to do and ensured that they did it. This second contractor showed up once or twice a day, if at all. While his workers were not incompetent, they were not being guided to do what was expected of them, they tended to be inefficient, and there were times when they were inactive.

We tend to do what is inspected not what is expected. In other words, if we are going to do what is expected of us, someone needs to hold us accountable. This is also true of living for Jesus. If we are not inspected, we may find ourselves not doing what is expected. For this reason, we need others to inspect our lives and hold us to what we should be doing. We call this being held accountable.

1 Corinthians is a prime example of the apostle Paul holding a church accountable. In that letter we find about ten different problems in the church that Paul has heard about from others, some of them more harmful than others but all of them significant. For example, a man was having sexual relationships with his stepmother, and Paul challenged the Corinthian church to discipline that man with the intention of leading him back to a Christ-like lifestyle. Or, as another example when the Corinthian church celebrated communion, they did so in such a way that they drew sharp lines between the various kinds of members. Because they did not treat their fellow believers are brothers and sisters, Paul warns them that they were eating and drinking judgement on themselves and putting the whole church in danger. Or, as another example, some of the members of that church were adopting dress codes and hair styles that would identify them as participating in the worship of the Roman pantheon of gods. Paul challenges the Corinthian church to consider what they are doing and urges them to live in unity with each other even while they are fully obedient and committed to following Jesus Christ.

If Paul wrote a letter to our church, and if he identified some of the things that we are doing that are not fitting for a follower of Jesus Christ, how would we respond? I suspect that we might be offended following the pattern of the world which tells us that when we identify an unsuitable behaviour in another, we are being judgemental. And judgementalism, according to our culture, is one of the greatest sins we can commit today. “You may not judge me,” we are told.

It becomes very difficult to hold each other accountable if accountability is seen as being judgemental. But there is a difference between the two. Being judgemental is to be condemnatory at the same time. Holding someone accountable is to do so for their own good. Paul, when he wrote his letter to the Corinthians, was not being judgemental, for his goal was not to condemn the church but to bring it back so that it conformed with the will of God. His purpose was for the Corinthian church to thrive and grow in Christ so that it could be a faithful witness to the gospel.

A few weeks ago someone went through our church building and inspected our fire extinguishers. The person who went through our church building and evaluated them was not being judgemental when she noticed that some of them need to receive a more thorough inspection and thus need to be replaced by new ones. She was not condemning our church, but, rather, she was given the task of evaluating our present situation so that we our building is kept safe so that it can be useful to us for ministry. We might chafe at the cost, but we know it is for our own good that our building is inspected, for we are well aware that we do what is inspected not what is expected.

So, who is given the responsibility of holding us accountable? It is all of us. All of us hold the rest of us accountable. Sometimes this task has been left to the pastor and elders and deacons, but they step in only as a last resort, after fellow believers have done all they can to urge their brother or sister to live by God’s Word. And we should all be willing to accept that others will hold us accountable. This is hard, especially when accountability is misconstrued to be judgementalism, but as followers of Jesus Christ, we can distinguish between the two. It is for our benefit that we hold each other accountable, and, ultimately, it is for the glory of God, for when we serve him well, God is indeed glorified.

In the book of Ruth, we are introduced to a family from Bethlehem. The father’s name was Elimelech which means, “My God is King.” His wife’s name was Noami, (pleasant) and they had two sons, Mahlon (weak, sickly) and Kilion (frail person). They had been living in Bethlehem (house of bread), but when famine came, Elimelech took his family to Moab purportedly to “save their lives.” While they were there Elimelech, Mahlon, and Kilion died, leaving only Naomi and her two daughters-in-law.

We are told, further, that this family lived during the time of the judges, who we can read about in the book of Judges. During that era, the people regularly turned away from the Lord, the Lord withdrew his hand of blessing and protection leaving the people in distress, they cried out to the Lord for help, and he saved them by sending judges or leaders to vanquish their enemies. As we know, the book of Judges shows us a whole series of judges/leaders who become increasingly sinful and disregarding of God’s ways until we reach the last listed Judge, Samson, who was a womanizer and violent murderer. The cycle of Judges (turning away from God, distress, crying out to God, salvation) should have taught the people that they could and should depend on their covenantal God for everything, yet they failed to do so.

As we read the opening verses of the book of Ruth, we should be somewhat disturbed. Elimelech, whose name professes that God is King, takes his family from Bethlehem, the place where God would provide food for his people, to go to Moab where the Lord was not known or worshipped. Elimelech made the decision to leave the Lord and put his trust in the Moabite god, Chemosh. We should be disturbed because Elimelech abandoned the God who had promised to provide for his people to put his trust in a different god. The NIV translates the Hebrew saying that he went there for a time, having us believe that he was only going to wait out the famine, but the Hebrew doesn’t need to indicate that. Rather, the Hebrew can be understood as saying that he went to Moab and was seen as an obvious foreigner, but he tried to overcome that by integrating his sons into the Moabite community by having them marry Moabite women. Years earlier, in the book of Numbers (Numbers 31), we see a similar integration and the purpose of that integration was to intentionally turn the Israelites away from the Lord to worship other gods. Elimelech’s intention to save his family from famine by bringing them to Moab resulted the removal of God’s covenant protection and in Elimelech’s death and the death of his sons, thus, in effect cutting his family off from history.

Added to all of this, because the Moabites years earlier had refused to provide for the Israelites as they travelled to the Promised Land but rather tried to bring a curse upon them through Balaam (the one of the talking donkey), any Israelite who had a Moabite ancestor in their previous 10 generations could not become fully integrated into the Israelite community (Deuteronomy 23:3-6). Elimelech, by finding Moabite wives for his sons, in effect, was preventing his grandchildren for the next 9 generations from being recognized as full Israelites and consequently, from being able to worship the Lord. The opening verses of the book of Ruth, thus, show us a faithless Israelite man who put his trust in foreign gods and bore in himself and his family the punishment for his unfaithfulness. Elimelech brought disaster on himself and his family because of his bad decision.

Meanwhile, back in Bethlehem, we see the people prospering. Further, we see the people there faithfully serving the Lord and thus experiencing his blessings. What is left of Elimelech’s family (his wife and two daughters-in-law) decide to return and perhaps be able to survive in Bethlehem and receive a small piece of the prosperity of that place. Naomi, when she returns, speaks of the bitterness of her life, and she seems to want to blame God for the disaster that befell her family. She says, “the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me” (Ruth 1:21). It sounds like she is blaming God, but we do not have to take it that way. In her words we can also see a recognition that leaving the Lord to trust the foreign false god, Chemosh, was a bad decision, one worthy of God’s anger and his withholding his blessings. It is unlikely that Naomi is accusing God but, more likely, is recognizing that God gave her family what covenant breakers deserve: a difficult and empty life.

What follows, however, in the book of Ruth is a complete reversal of fortune. As we know, Ruth, who commits herself to the Lord (in contrast to her late father-in-law), becomes the wife of a prominent Israelite and the eventual ancestor of one who would become king of Israel, David himself. What is particularly incredible is that God “forgets” his injunction that anyone who has Moabite blood less than 10 generations back not be included in the Israelite community and not be able to worship God and puts in place a descendant of Ruth the Moabitess who then becomes the king of God’s people and his son the builder of God’s temple.

What is more, Elimelech’s name is not forgotten. True, we remember him as a faithless one, an example which we should avoid following, but there is more. When Boaz marries Ruth, their children, in effect are Elimelech’s descendants to the effect that Elimelech’s name “does not disappear from among his family or from his hometown” (Ruth 4:10). Elimelech’s faithlessness does not result in his being excluded from among the people of God.

The story told in the book of Ruth, then, is not a story of one man’s failure or of one woman’s (Ruth’s) faithfulness. It is the story of God’s redemptive work in faithless man who did the best to erase his name from history by turning away from the Lord and who, by God’s grace, circuitously, is included in the story of Jesus’ ancestry. Elimelech sought to save his family and ended up doing just the opposite where as God worked through the failures and brought salvation not to Elimelech and his family but also to a member of the Moabite nation, something that we would never have believed could have happened. The story told in the book of Ruth, then, is a story of the power of God’s salvation in spite of the oft-times best efforts of humans to make the opposite true.

A number of decades ago I attended a youth service where the pastor spoke of his fight against cancer when he himself was a teenager. Sid (the pastor’s name) talked about his battle against cancer, about the treatments, and about the follow up visits. After some years, the oncologist, finding no trace of the cancer in his body, said to him, “Sid, your cancer is in complete remission.” What that meant is that there was no sign of the cancer and, as far as the doctor could tell, the cancer would never come back. Sid was pastoring his first church when he told that story, and today he is nearing retirement. The cancer has never returned.

As he told that story, he spoke also of communion. The older forms for communion used that word, “remission,” and the pastor would say, “Jesus died for us for the complete remission of all of our sins.” Sid told us that he fully understood what that meant. When we put our faith in Jesus, all of our sins are gone, and they will never come back to haunt us. God will never hold any of our sins against us.

I don’t think that there is anything quite like that in our world today. True, Sid was told that his cancer was in complete remission, but, as we well know, when someone has cancer, there is always the chance that there may be just a few cancer cells left in the body, and there is the possibility, however remote, that they might become active again, and the cancer returns. Perhaps the doctor overstated the case to Sid when he told Sid that his cancer was in complete remission.

When we forgive others who have harmed us, we might tell them we have forgiven them completely, that the harm they did to us will no longer affect our relationship with them. We might say it, but it won’t be entirely true. If the harm was great, we will always remember, even if it is a little bit, and the memory might affect our attitudes or actions toward that person. It is impossible for us to completely forgive someone. We cannot say to someone truthfully, “What you did to me, it’s as if I have completely forgotten it.” Our memories are far too good for that.

Social media does not allow complete remission either. When we publish something on Facebook or Instagram, they tell us that it remains there. Maybe there is a way to get rid of it completely, but I don’t think so. The picture or words we post could come back to haunt us. We all have heard of incidents where someone, especially a public figure, is reminded of past offenses because someone managed to dig up something from years ago. Complete remission, complete forgetfulness, complete forgiveness is unheard of these days. We find ourselves having to be careful about what we say or do because it may be forever on record.

But not so with God. When God forgives, he forgives completely and entirely, and he will never remind us of our sins. Once Jesus has taken them on himself, they are no longer ours. We are set free from the sin for eternity.

I don’t know what eternal life will be like, but I am looking forward to it. I do not live a perfect life, and we are all in the same boat. In fact, the longer I live, the more offense I cause to others. It’s a simple fact. Now, I know that time does tend to heal wounds, and time does make us forget some things, but the longer we live, the greater the number of negative actions or words that may be remembered by others. We can continue to live and enjoy life, and we can be blessed with good relationships, but we do have memories, and those memories do not allow us to do as God does and never allow something bad that happened to ever affect us again.

I don’t know what eternal life will be like. I hope that I will know the many people I have met and enjoyed friendships with over the years. If that does happen, and if we do know others from this world, then we can also be assured of something else: we won’t remember everything. All the offenses and all the problems and all the discord will be gone. There will be nothing that divides us from others. We will be like God, perhaps, not letting those bad things affect us. We will forget them.

Now, of course, God doesn’t forget our sins. God doesn’t forget things. But, unlike us, God can act as if he completely forgets. He doesn’t let the past affect our relationship with him, for when we are in Jesus Christ, all that stands between us and him is gone. It’s as if he forgets.

Experiencing the complete remission of all our sins, then, is freeing. If we stand forgiven in Jesus Christ, God will never hold our sins against us, not in the smallest way. Sid experienced complete remission from his cancer. He was able to live without the fear of its return hanging over him. In Jesus Christ we experience the complete remission of all our sins, and we do not need ever let the fear of our sins hang over our heads. They are gone, and, in God’s eyes, they will be gone forever. We are free from sin which, in mind, while being free of cancer is great, being free of sin is even greater.

Just over a year ago, news reports said that there is over 35,000,000 unspent dollars on gift cards in Canada. Often, when we don’t know what to give to a friend as a gift, we give them a gift card. Quite often that gift card is thrown into a drawer, and it is forgotten. Different companies have different rules for what happens to that unspent money. Some have enacted fees when the card becomes inactive, thus making it possible for the business to take the money from the consumer. Other companies don’t ever take the money as their own, but because the card has been forgotten or lost, the money is never claimed. To not spend the money given to us on gift cards is to not tap into a precious resource.

I am not always very good at spending the money given to me on a gift card. In fact, we have quite a few gift cards that have some money left on them, but, at the moment, I am not sure where they are. They are among our possessions somewhere, but they are inaccessible. Some of them we have had for several years. Why don’t we spend that money? Mostly it is because we are not deliberate enough about using the gifts given to us. It’s not that we are ungrateful; it’s just that we don’t make plans to use a gift card from a particular restaurant or we forget the gift card at home when we do go out. It can be said that we are not tapping into the resources that were given to us.

I think it would be fair to say that we don’t always use the gifts given to us. Many of us probably have gifts that we received at our weddings which we have never used. Others have received Christmas and birthday gifts that we rarely take out of the closet. If enough time passes, we might find ourselves dropping those gifts off at the thrift store with the hope that someone else may be able to use them. Sometimes, of course, the gifts that we receive might not be entirely useful to us, and we don’t use them because we don’t need them.

In the Bible, gift giving is mentioned many times. Sometimes gifts are given to earn favour with another. For example, one king might send gifts to another king so that the recipient will form an alliance with the giver. Other times, gifts are given as a way of expressing gratitude to the recipient for something that was done. But the most common kind of gift given in the Bible is the gift that a stronger person gives to someone who is weaker so that the recipient can be elevated from his weakness. This is the kind of gift that is most often associated with God’s treatment of us.

The Greek word that is used for gift in the New Testament finds its root in the word for “joy.” It also gives rise to the word that is translated as “grace.” Thus, grace is a gift given by a stronger party (God) to a weaker party (us) so that we can be elevated from our need and weakness, which results in joy and a sense of wellbeing. Our salvation in Jesus Christ, for example, is God’s gift to us which elevates us from our inability to save ourselves and which results in joy and assurance that we have nothing to fear now and for the future. Included in that gift of God is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This is God’s greatest gift for us in the present, for it is the Holy Spirit who enables us both to have faith and to live our faith.

We are encouraged by Paul to live by the Spirit, but I do wonder if we do that as much as we could. Do we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us to his full power? I suspect not. It would seem that in many cases, the Holy Spirit is kept on the shelf, and we do not seek his power nearly as much as is possible. I suspect that there could be at least two reasons for this: first, we live in a time and place where we are taught to be self-sufficient, and to some extent we believe we can. Of course, just as we are unable to save ourselves, so we are unable to live to our full capacity as followers of Jesus Christ unless we rely on the Holy Spirit. So, because we live in a culture where self-sufficiency is the highest good, we do not rely on the Spirit to work in and through us.

The second reason we may not receive God’s gift of the Spirit fully is that we are not deliberate in seeking the Spirit’s help. To put it in other terms, we leave the gift card at home. The Holy Spirit rarely crosses our minds as we go about our daily lives so that when we find ourselves feeling incapable, we do not rely on his presence. To use gift cards, we have to be deliberate, planning to eat in the restaurant or shopping at the store where we can use them. In the same way, when we begin our day, perhaps it would be helpful for us to consider what is on the schedule and ask the question, “How can the Holy Spirit, God’s gift to me, help me with whatever it is that I am doing?” Not only will this question teach us to receive God’s gift, but it will also choose us to be deliberate about what we are doing. If we find ourselves doing something where the Spirit cannot work in us, there is a good chance we should not be doing it.

Or there may be a third reason: perhaps we are afraid that if we rely on the Spirit too much, he may lead us in directions we would not normally go, and that can be a little intimidating. Yet, if the Spirit leads, we must not forget, he will also equip, and when he equips, those things that we face may not be quite so intimidating, for the Spirit is powerful.

There may be thirty five million dollars that is left unused on gift cards in Canada, and there are billions more around the world, and it may well be that while the Holy Spirit has made himself available to us, we do not rely on him as we should. God’s gifts are meant to elevate us in our weakness and, as they do, give us joy and wellbeing. God is gracious to us, and all we need do is receive that grace.

In Genesis 1, we have the account of a six-day creation. There is a lot of debate about the nature of a day. Some would hold that the day is a literal 24-hour period while others would say that a day is more like an era. In all that debate, something fundamental is overlooked, something that should help us better understand why the creation narrative was written in the way that it was.

Genesis 1:1 tells us that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This is often understood to be a summary statement for what follows. The next statement tells us that the earth was formless and empty and that the Spirit hovered over the face of the deep. God was there, but there was nothing to sustain life. It is then that God begins his work of creation. Again, we need to return to the statement that the earth was formless and empty to fully understand the significance of what happened on the six days of creation. In the first three days of creation, God gives that which is formless form and that which was empty fullness. The following chart helps clarify what the text is telling us.

As we look at this chart, we cannot help but see the pattern that has developed. Day 4 fills Day 1, Day 5 fills Day 2, and Day 6 fills Day 3. Again, the first three days are about forming, and the last three days are about filling as God forms and fills that which was formless and empty. What we have at the end of the sixth day is a world which provides a place for life and which is designed to sustain that life. When the earth begins to revert back to formlessness (floods, desertification, etc.), life can no longer be sustained. The life that is most affected by any reversions of creation is that which was created on the sixth day, animals, but most specifically human beings. We also learn from Scripture that human beings have the remarkable ability to cause formlessness and emptiness. Sin leads both to flooding (Noah and the ark) and the disappearance of sustainable farmland (the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were at one time fertile but are now a wasteland). We also notice that when God restores his people, he also does so in conjunction with the restoration of creation.

The forming and filling of creation is an often overlooked aspect of the creation narrative, but it is an important one. What is even more important is the seventh day of creation, the rest that God provides. By making one day holy (an important attribute of God), God transmitted to creation the opportunity to experience his presence and blessing. It is rest that is the goal and purpose of creation, for resting is the end for which creation was designed.

The sin of Adam and Eve (and all of humanity with them) results in the final form and fullness of creation to be destroyed. God, because of his holiness, is no longer able to be present in creation, and that empties creation of its fullness and robs it of its form. All of creation is meant to experience God, and sin reverses that experience.

It is God who makes the first move to restore what was lost, but his move must be careful and measured. Thus, when the holy God makes himself present first in the tabernacle and later in the temple, he must carefully guard himself against all that is sinful. Thus, these two buildings have curtains and walls which are designed to keep him from being tainted with sin. These two buildings restored to creation something which was lost when sin entered the world, but not fully. In Jesus Christ, God comes to us again, and he comes in power, for although he was God among us (and we are sinful), he is not tainted by sin; rather, he pushes back against sin and its impact, bringing healing and restoration. In the church, which consists of people who have been made holy, the Holy Spirit dwells, and God continues to be present in this world.

But none of these manifestations of God in the Bible are the final reversal of sin. It is only in Revelation when sin is cast into the lake of fire and all things are made new that God comes to dwell among his people, being present once again in creation and establishing the rest that was lost because of sin.

All of this is to say that the real purpose of the creation narrative is not to give a scientific explanation of the beginnings of this world but, rather, to give us an understanding of what was meant to be, no longer is, but will one day be restored. Often we talk about a 6-day creation, but that is inappropriate. Humanists believe that the goal of all things is the wellbeing of humanity, and a Christian humanist believes that humans are the epitome of creation and that creation was made to serve us. The Genesis account says something different, for while the world was ultimately created to sustain life for humanity, the goal of creation is not to serve humanity but, rather, to give humanity the opportunity to serve God (and to cause the rest of creation to serve him as well). God’s intention is that we live in a creation that is properly formed (he is with us) and is properly filled (he is present among us). Thus, our efforts are not so much to maintain the place where we live so that we can survive but to seek God who makes himself known to us. Having God among us is the first step in restoring the emptiness and formlessness caused by sin. The Genesis narrative was not given to us, first and foremost, to describe how the world was made but, rather, to reveal to us what God intended for creation: that we all experience his presence, something that is lost in sin but is made possible again through Jesus Christ.

My mother planted a huge garden each year, producing almost enough potatoes, vegetables, and fruit for a large family to last the entire year. I grew up tending that garden (often unwillingly), pulling weeds, picking potato bugs, digging potatoes, picking beans and pulling more weeds. If I were to plant a garden today, I probably could grow a pretty decent crop of vegetables and potatoes. I do a tiny bit of gardening from time to time, but I have never asked my children to spend much time weeding and picking beans. Understandably, they know far less about gardening than I do.

A few days ago I talked with a farmer about his hired hand. He is a good fellow, the farmer told me, but he doesn’t know anything about farming. He must be taught everything, from driving the tractor to feeding the animals to watching for problems in the barn and feedlot. It will take time for him to be an independent and productive employee, this farmer said. We can understand why. Someone who grows up on the farm learns from the time they are just a couple of years old. They watch how things are done, and they don’t really have to be taught. They seem to have a natural inclination to know how to farm. I grew up on a farm but because I didn’t farm, my children don’t have the same inherent knowledge that I have.

It is easy, very easy, for us to lose information and ability in just one or two generations. Once that information is lost, it takes a lot of effort to reteach it. My grandchildren might become good gardeners, but they will have to learn everything from scratch. We can be thankful for the Internet which is quite helpful as a teaching tool. Of course, everyone thinks they are a professional after watching a couple of YouTube videos, but when they put their hand to it, whatever it is that they think they can do turns out to be a lot harder than it seems when we watch a video. If we do not pass on how to do things to the next generation, they will have to learn the hard way.

In my university years, one of my professors addressed these kinds of scenarios by distinguishing between what is taught and what is caught. If a child grows up on a farm, what they learn is caught. If, however, they did not have the opportunity, they must be taught.

This is the same with being a Christian. I had the privilege of growing up in a home where Jesus Christ was central to all of life and where my parents sought to live godly lives. I observed them, and I caught what it was to be a follower of Jesus Christ. I still had to learn, but living as a Christian seems to be almost natural to me. I grew up in an environment where Jesus Christ was honoured.

How long would it take for that inherent knowledge to be lost? Only one generation. If my wife and I had decided that we were not going to live for the Lord, our children would know nothing about what following Jesus means. That would put them at a distinct disadvantage, for instead of “catching” what it means to follow Jesus, they would have to learn by someone teaching them. This is not impossible, of course, but it is more work, a lot more work. It is sad when parents, though making the claim to be Christians themselves, do not model what it is to follow Jesus Christ to their children. Like my children who will have to learn how to garden by watching YouTube and reading books, children of parents who do not daily follow Jesus Christ will have to learn the hard way what it means to have a Christian lifestyle.

When Jesus began his ministry, he called 12 men to follow him, and these men became known as his disciples. A disciple is one who learns, but most of their learning is not from a textbook or lecture. Jesus, as their rabbi/teacher, modelled what it meant to live faithfully. The disciples spent weeks and even months with him, watching him interact with others, listening to his conversations, observing him at mealtimes and in the marketplace. Yes, rabbis in those days did spend time teaching, but often that teaching rose out of the events of the day. Over time, a disciple/learner would begin to pattern his life after his rabbi/teacher so that the life of faithfulness would seem to be an inherent quality that he had always possessed.

In our Reformed theology, we teach that God creates covenant communities in which we grow together to become more adept at living for Jesus. While education is important, what is more important is that the covenant community, the church family, models what it is to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Children, new Christians, but also those who have lived in a Christian community all their lives, learn the lifestyle that is expected of a Christian, provided, of course that the community of believers is living according to the ways of Christ. Just as growing up on a farm gives an aspiring farmer makes farming seem like an inherent ability and just as having a mother who forces her children to weed the garden makes it seem like the ability to grow vegetables is something someone is born with, so belonging to the covenant community makes it seem like being a faithful follower of Jesus Christ is something that people know how to do without much learning.

There is a trend today where we see quite a number of people saying that they can be Christians without belonging to a church or without maintaining some of the basic Christian practices in the home. It is possible to be a farmer without having grown up on a farm. It is possible to grow vegetables without learning it firsthand. It is possible, but it is a lot harder. It is possible to be a Christian without having others who will model for us what it is to follow Christ, but it is a lot harder. Let’s continue to create environments where we and our children can grow together in the practice of our faith, and let’s make the most of the communities God has provided.

The Dead Sea in Israel is the lowest point on earth, with its surface being 427 metres below sea level. There are several streams that feed the Dead Sea, the Jordan River being one of them, but because the elevation is so low, no water flows out of the Dead Sea. Rather, the sun evaporates any water that enters the sea, leaving behind any minerals that might be present in the water. Over the millennia, the salinity of the Dead Sea has increased so that it is 10 times saltier than the ocean so that if you would boil a liter of Dead Sea water dry, you would be left with 250 grams of salt. The high salinity of the Dead Sea enables even the poorest swimmer to stay afloat, making it virtually impossible to drown in that body of water. But, because of the high salt and mineral content, the Dead Sea has absolutely no life in it. Not a single fish or plant can tolerate the water of the dead sea.

While the surface of the Dead Sea is well below sea level, the city of Jerusalem is well above it, standing at an average elevation of more than 700 metres above sea level. (Nobleford is 985 m above sea level.) Jerusalem is only 35 km from the Dead Sea, and in that short distance, the road drops almost 1.5 kilometres. That being said, in spite of the elevation drop, no water flows from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, for there are no rivers in Jerusalem, and the small streams that furnish the city with water flow in other directions.

So, we have two things that are true: the Dead Sea does not support life, and no water flows from the city of Jerusalem. In Ezekiel 47, however, we see something quite different. Ezekiel lived at a time when the city of Jerusalem was being destroyed by the armies of a nation which sought to make itself a world empire. God had removed his presence from the temple, Ezekiel tells us, leaving the temple and city of Jerusalem vulnerable to attack. In 586 BC, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the city was ransacked, and the people were hooked together in long lines and forced to walk 100s of kilometres to be resettled in other places. All this was because of the continued and constant sin of God’s people. The first part of Ezekiel’s prophecy focuses on destruction, but the second part focuses on the restoration that God promised.

Ezekiel 47 comes at the end of a fairly lengthy description of restoration: a design for a new temple is giving, there is a description of God returning to the temple, the priesthood is restored, the altar is restored, and the nation of Israel is restored as well. It is then that Ezekiel gives a description of a river flowing from the temple in a southeast direction, growing as it flows the 35 km to the Dead Sea. When it reaches the Dead Sea, it is so plentiful that the Dead Sea’s salinity is so reduced that it becomes a freshwater lake, and it begins to support aquatic life; the sea, for the first time in recorded history, is seen to be teeming with fish. Ezekiel shows us two impossibilities: water flowing from Jerusalem and life flourishing in the waters of the Dead Sea.

The revitalization of the Dead Sea must be considered a kind of creation event. We recall from the Genesis 1 account that God filled the seas with all sorts of aquatic life. Fullness is the result of God’s creative work. We also know from a careful reading of Scripture that human sin can reverse the God’s work of creation. The Bible (especially the prophetic books) gives multiple examples of fertile areas becoming deserts when the people fall into sin (reversal of the third day of creation). Similarly, the flood, a result of human sin, shows us the reversal of the second and third days of creation as the waters flood into areas where they do not belong. Conversely, when flood waters recede or when deserts become fertile, this is a sign of God’s restorative work. Usually, this restorative work occurs at the same time that God is restoring his people as he forgives them of their sin and renews his covenant with them. Thus, when Ezekiel sees God creating a river which flows from the temple, God’s dwelling place on this earth, and the water flows from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, replenishing it so that it become fertile, we must understand that this is God overcoming the destructive power of sin so completely that even the Dead Sea, which never has had any life in it, now becomes an incredibly beautiful ecological system teeming with life.

Ezekiel’s vision is picked up by John in the book of Revelation. There in Revelation 22 we see the New Jerusalem, and in that city is the throne of God. Flowing from beneath his throne is a river that flows down the street, and on each side of that river are fruit trees, yielding fruit every month, and its leaves, we are told, are for the healing of the nations. This is a nearly exact duplication of the picture we see in Ezekiel 47, for in that chapter the river also enables trees to grow, and they too produce fruit which God’s people may enjoy, and the leaves of that tree are useful for healing. The main difference between Ezekiel and Revelation is that while in Ezekiel the river flows from the temple, in Revelation there is no temple, and the river flows from the throne of God. This is not a contradiction, for, as we well know, the temple of the Old Testament, contained the throne of God, and the walls of the temple kept God apart from the people because the people were sinful and God was holy. In the New Jerusalem, God will reign, but he will not need to protect his holiness from the sin of the people for there will be no more sin and thus no need for a temple. Still the throne of God remains.

We cannot read Revelation 22 without Ezekiel 47, and when we read both chapters, we will see God’s restorative, recreative work, and we see that only God can bring this level of restoration/recreation to this world. Two impossible things are pictured: Jerusalem produces a river (no human engineering can make this happen) and the Dead Sea sustains abundant life (also an impossibility, humanly speaking). The Dead Sea can only be made alive by huge quantities of water diluting the salinity of the water, and only a river will suffice to make that happen. God does not use the existing rivers to bring the Dead Sea to life but, rather, he creates a new one, one that has never been seen before, and the source of that river is himself. Simply put, salvation comes from God, it is complete, and it is beyond restorative, for it brings fullness of life where there has never been life. Between Ezekiel’s vision and John’s vision in Revelation, stands Jesus Christ who made real God’s work of restoration and recreation, something that no human being can do.

The Greek word, chronos, gives rise to a number of English words. We use the word, chronic, to speak of an illness that lasts a long time. A chronicler is someone who writes history as it occurs over a period of time. And there are three English words which take a prefix, and when they do, they take very different meanings.

Synchronic (from which we get the word synchronize) is used when things happen at the same time. For example, a number of years ago, my wife and I experienced a synchronic failure of vehicles’ braking systems. On the same day we both had to get hundreds of dollars of work done to repair very similar problems. Although the brake failures were synchronic, the two had absolutely no relationship to each other; the vehicles happened to break down at the same time. We have to be careful with synchronic events, for we might well suspect that they had a similar cause or source, but just because several things happen synchronically does not mean that they are related to each other.

Diachronic is entirely different. When we explain something diachronically, we tell why things have become as they are. A diachronic study of an event will take into account the factors that led up to the event itself. Returning to the example of the automobile, a mechanic might explain to the owner that his brakes failed because he had his foot on the brake pedal all the time, even when he is accelerating. In fact, this same owner might have two cars whose brakes failed at the same time, and the mechanic might attribute that the owner is mistreating his vehicles. A diachronic explanation asks, “How did we get here?”

A third word, used less frequently, is anachronic. Anachronic literally means “against time.” It often refers to something that is very out of place. For example, someone might be driving a car out of the 1950s, one that has an old-fashioned carburetor and massive fins on its back fenders. This anachronic car doesn’t fit in because it is from a different era. Anachronic things don’t fit into the time period in which they are found. Pioneer museums would be considered anachronic places.

Churches can fit into one of these three categories. Some churches tend to be more synchronic in that they try to synchronize themselves to the world around them. As one example, churches often adopt music styles that are similar to the music produced by the world. They argue that being synchronic makes the relevant. We could argue that being synchronic in the area of music style is not terribly critical, for music styles have changed over the centuries with very little impact on the believers. But being synchronic in other areas might be a lot more troublesome. A church might avoid talking about hell because no one in our culture wants to believe that it exists. A church might compromise on its view of human sexuality because the world around it has done so. Synchronizing churches are in danger of following the way of the world. Not all synchronic decisions are bad, of course, for sometimes the church should adapt to the culture. Although switching worship services to English from the Dutch was a big deal for many, in reality this kind of synchronicity was a blessing.

Opposite of the synchronic churches are the anachronic churches. They tend to keep old practices just because that is the way things used to be. Anachronic churches rarely spend much time considering what they are doing, but they keep doing them because “that is the way it was done.” Anachronic churches argue that this is the way things should be because that is the way things were. For some reason, they have come to the conclusion that the way things were is the best way although they do not have any strong grounds to support their view. Anachronic churches tend to appeal only to those who are already part of them, for their practices are strange to the outsider and since no explanation is given, the outsider cannot understand why things are done as they are. Anachronic churches tend to look at other churches who are not anachronic and accuse them of being synchronic.

The third kind of church is the diachronic church. Again, a diachronic explanation is one that studies the past to understand why things have become as they are. For example, a church may avoid the rather common order of worship found in many evangelical churches (songs, announcements, prayer, message, song) for the one that we are more familiar with (call to worship, greeting, confession, God’s Word, response, benediction, all interspersed with songs) because they understand where this order of worship came from and why it is important. In other words, a diachronic church can explain why they do things as they do. They may hold onto older practices, and they may adopt newer ones, but they always can say why they did what they did. A diachronic church is one that knows why they are doing what they are doing.

A few days ago I had a discussion with a young man who was struggling with a change in his church. The change involved communion, and his church had just changed from having all participants gathering in groups around a table at the front of the church to having small cups distributed in the pews (as we are accustomed to). He was bothered by the change, and he explained why. The elders of the church said that it took too long to have communion when the people had to go to the front to participate. Serving people in the pews was more efficient. This young man was troubled by this, for he felt that his elders were becoming too synchronic, making the worship service more palatable by doing things for non-spiritual reasons. But, as I continued my conversation with him, I discovered that he was not anachronic. He didn’t want to go back to the common cup at the front of the church because that was the way it was always done. He believed firmly that Scripture gave us the pattern of participating in communion by gathering around a table, and that is what we should do. He knew that I disagreed with him on this point, but he impressed me, for he showed a deep desire to follow God’s Word, and the elders of his church, in his opinion, didn’t seem to care.

He illustrates what a diachronic church (and that does seem to be the best of the three) should be. We can explain all of our traditions and practices in some way or another, but what we need to do is always return to Scripture. A diachronic explanation must go back all the way to the Bible, or it is a fallacious argument. In fact, everything that the church does should be rooted in Scripture, and, if it is not, it can be abandoned without a second thought. If a biblical basis cannot be given, the church may be in danger of becoming anachronic (we do things because that is the way they were done) or synchronic (we want to make ourselves relevant to the world). A diachronic explanation must always return us to Scripture, for if the explanation for what we do does not, the explanation is not good enough.

It is always beneficial for us to ask ourselves what kind of church we are. Are we a anachronic church, doing things because that is the way they have been done, with no explanation as to why we do things in this way? Are we a synchronic church, adopting principles and practices of those around us without asking if they conform to Scripture? Or are we a diachronic church, seeking explanation for what we do, rooting our principles and practices firmly in Scripture?