Scripture Notes: Fight the Good Fight (1 Timothy 6)

“[A]im at righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life...” (1 Tim 6:11-12). St. Paul offers Timothy and us some practical yet deeply spiritual advice in these two verses. 

He begins with a goal. The verb translated here as “aim” carries overtones of haste, running, pressing on, moving rapidly and decisively, striving for, seeking after, and intense pursuit. And what do we pursue? First, righteousness, in Greek dikaiosunē, being right with God. We cannot attain to this righteousness on our own, though, so part of aiming toward righteousness involves opening ourselves to God’s grace, accepting it, and cooperating with it. 

We are also to pursue godliness, eusebia, piety, respect and devotion to God; in other words, we recognize that God is God and we are not and live accordingly. We press on to faith and love, too, seeking to grow in our trust and fidelity toward God and in our love of God and other people. The word for love here agapē, and it indicates a self-giving kind of love, a kind of love that pours itself out and, in doing so, enters into divine love. 

We must seek steadfastness, hupomenē, patience, endurance, perseverance, holding the course when everything seems to be falling apart. And then there is gentleness, praupathia, meekness, which is not weakness but rather strength under control. None of these come from within us. They are gifts from God, but we have to cooperate with them and strive to live them. Our choices and our efforts are important, are critical.

In fact, Paul continues, we have to fight the good fight of the faith. Both the verb “fight” and the noun “fight” come from a Greek root that gives us our English word “agony.” The Christian life is not a proverbial walk in the park; it’s a struggle, a fight, every day, against the fallen world, against temptations, against our own fallen natures. In the midst of it all, we have to reach out and take hold of eternal life. The verb here is epilambanomai, and it can mean to grasp or catch or take hold of something to make it one’s own or even to pounce on something. It is a vivid, active word that tells us that we cannot just sit back and wait for eternal life to come to us. Eternal life is a gift, but we have to strive for it, to grasp it, and to make it our own all with the help of God’s grace.

Scripture Notes: Count It All Joy (James 1)

“Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet with various trials” (James 1:2). Joy? In the midst of trials? In the midst of suffering? When things aren’t going well? When everything is falling apart? When we can’t see a way out? We’re supposed to count it all joy? 

James responds with a rousing “Yes!” These trials have a purpose, he explains. They test our faith, and it is only in this testing, this challenge, that faith grows and becomes strong and steadfast. When our faith is tested, we have to examine it more carefully. We have to reflect on what we believe and why we believe it. We have to turn to God and pray for an increase in faith. When we do this, our faith can grow in ways that it may not have but for the trials. 

Further, James continues, that testing produces steadfastness, patience, endurance, perseverance. We learn how to keep going even when we think we can’t. And that steadfastness, that holding on in the midst of trials, leads us to a sort of perfection. The Greek word is telios, and here it likely means a kind of maturity, a full development. We reach our proper end. We become complete, whole, intact. We grow into the people God wants us to be, lacking in nothing that He wants us to have.

All of this comes through trial, through testing, through suffering, for God brings great good out of things that seem to us to be not good at all. God is working in a way we can’t see. No wonder, then, that James invites us to joy even in the middle of of trials, testing, and suffering because we can trust that God will use them to our greatest and best effect to shape us into the people He wants us to be.

Scripture Notes: The Riches of His Grace (Ephesians 1)

In the opening paragraphs of his Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul praises God and proclaims the great blessings that He has showered upon us in Christ. God has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,” Paul marvels (Eph 1:3). He has chosen us and made us “holy and blameless before Him” (Eph 1:4). He has made us His own children in Jesus Christ, sons and daughters in the Son, heirs to a glorious inheritance of life and love. 

Indeed, Jesus has redeemed us by His own blood, giving His life on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. God has made known to us His will, His plan to unite all things in Christ, everything in Heaven and on earth, all together, all in Him.  

For all his eloquence, Paul can hardly take it in. We, too, should be left breathless if we stop to think about what God has done for us, and all “according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us” (Eph 1:7). God is not bound to do anything for us. He created us, but we fell into sin and continue to fall into sin. Yet He has never stopped loving us, not even a little, and He constantly draws us back to Him through His grace, 

What is grace? The Catechism defines it as “favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to His call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life” (#1996). Grace, the Catechism continues, is actually “a participation in the life of God”(#1997). And God, Paul asserts, lavishes grace upon us. God wants us to share in His very life, so He gives us grace to do that (sanctifying grace), and He helps us with actual graces at every step of the way that we may know Him, love Him, and obey Him, that we may conform our lives and ourselves to Him. May we cooperate with every bit of God’s lavish grace and be truly thankful for these riches.

Scripture Notes: Qualified (2 Cor 3)

In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul sets forth the basis for his ministry to the Corinthian Church. He and his fellow workers can have confidence, he says, but not in themselves, rather “through Christ toward God” (2 Cor 3:4). The Greek word for “confidence” is πεποίθησις, and it refers to a state of certainty, a trust, a reliance, and an assurance about the outcome. In Christ, Paul can be certain that God’s will for him and for his ministry will be accomplished.  

But this is not Paul’s doing. He explains, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our sufficiency is from God, who has qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant” (2 Cor 3:5-6). The words translated as “sufficient,” “sufficiency,” and “has qualified” all come from words with the same Greek root. The adjective “sufficient” translates the Greek ἱκανός, which could also be glossed as “fit,” “appropriate,” “competent,” “qualified,” or “able.” Paul knows that, on his own, he is none of these things. None of us are. 

Rather, our sufficiency, our ἱκανότης, our state of being qualified for something, our “fitness” or “capability,” comes from God. He gives Paul and us the grace to do His will and to carry out the mission He has set for us. God is the One Who has qualified us for ministry. The verb here is ἱκανόω, to cause someone to be adequate and sufficient for something, to qualify someone for something, to make something doable for someone, perhaps even to empower or authorize someone to act. 

God has done this for Paul and his fellow missionaries, making them able to be ministers of a new covenant, a covenant that fulfills all the previous covenants God has made with His people, a covenant mediated by Jesus Christ, a covenant designed to expand God’s family to the whole world. We, too, have received our qualification from God for our own role in this ministry. Will we accept it and allow Him to act through us to bring His life to the world?

Scripture Notes: The Song of Moses, Part 5 (Deuteronomy 32)

God has allowed His unfaithful people to experience the consequences of sin, to feel the curses of the covenant they have broken. But He will not leave them in that state. When they have fallen all the way to the bottom, when their “power” is no more, when they have realized that they can do nothing for themselves, then “the Lord will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants” (Deut 32:36). He will ask them where those “gods” they wanted to serve have gone to, and He will make them see that He is God and He alone. There are no others.

At that point, God will punish the enemies of His people. He allowed them to triumph only for a time. He has used them as a tool to teach His people a critical lesson. But He will not let injustice stand. He will now act on behalf of His people to avenge them and restore them and show them His love. 

Moses ends his prophetic song with an invitation to the nations to look upon and even praise the people of God and to understand how God works with, through, and in them. After all, God’s covenant family has the special task of telling the rest of the world all about God.

Scripture Notes: The Song of Moses, Part 4 (Deuteronomy 32)

God is angry at His covenant people for their infidelity. In turning to other “gods,” they have essentially told Him that He is not good enough, that He is not doing what they want, so they will find someone else who will.  God’s anger becomes like a fire, but we must remember that God is not throwing a tantrum. He is not angry like we humans get angry. His anger is a recognition of and response to human sin and especially to what that sin does to His beloved children. It ruins them. It breaks their relationship with Him.

So God declares that He will give His people a reality check. They will see the consequences of sin in all their horror. He will allow them to experience the covenant curses that they have brought down upon their own heads when they broke the covenant. Hunger, heat, pestilence, beasts, venom, the sword, all of these will fall upon Israel because of their disobedience. They have made it clear that they do not want God and His care, so God will make it clear exactly what they are choosing instead. They will even be scattered in exile because they have spurned God’s gift of the Promised Land, in which they were to have a home fit for perfect worship of God alone. 

It is not a pretty picture, and we might wonder why God would bring such terrors upon His people. Quite simply, God knows that this is the only way to wake them up. “For they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no understanding in them” (Deut 32:28). They cannot and will not see what is right in front of them. They refuse to discern the truth and live by it. So they will suffer the consequences. 

Scripture Notes: The Song of Moses, Part 3 (Deuteronomy 32)

Moses’ reminiscences continue as he sings of the people’s response to God’s loving care. God has given His covenant family everything they need. He has shielded them and supported them and blessed them. But what do they do in return? They get fat and thick and sleek, and they start to kick, actually turning away from God and His will. They even scoff at “the Rock” of their salvation (Deut 32:15). 

In fact, the people of Israel did do all of this. God gave them manna in the desert, for instance. At first, they were grateful and marveled at this new food, but later they called this delicious bread of angels (which actually conformed to each person’s taste) wretched food and claimed they were thoroughly sick of it. They wanted to go back to Egypt where they had plenty of fish and vegetables. They were tired of wandering in the desert, even though they were led by God at every step, and they were ready to go right back into slavery.

What is more, the people began to worship other “gods,” Moses says. Perhaps they thought they could get a better deal. Maybe they wanted to hedge their bets; if God would not give them what they wanted, maybe someone else would. They worshiped the golden calf. They “sacrificed to demons which were no gods” (Deut 32:17). They started worshiping anything but God, forgetting their Creator to bow down to a creature. 

Needless to say, God was not pleased. Moses offers a vivid depiction of His reaction to His people’s infidelity (using, of course, human concepts as an analogy, for God allows us to grasp at understanding His infinity in this way). God, Moses says, spurned the people and hid His face from this “perverse generation” (Deut 32:20). He was jealous for them and provoked by their idols. God’s jealous is not the same as human jealousy. God wants only what is best for His people, and when they turn their backs on that “best” and choose something else, He is roused to zeal (again analogously) because of His great love. God also had a plan to bring His people back to the right path. 

Scripture Notes: The Song of Moses, Part 2 (Deuteronomy 32)

In the midst of his song, Moses contrasts God’s fidelity and perfection with the people’s corruption and faithlessness. Then he asks, “Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is He not your father, Who created you, Who made you and established you?” (Deut 32:6). With these questions, Moses is urging the people (and us) to think deeply. How do we repay the Lord? With love and obedience and trust? Or with sin and doubt and selfishness? 

Actually, we can never repay the Lord for what He has done for us. He brought us into being from nothing. He has given us all that we have and all that we are. He holds us in being at every moment. He  showers us in His grace. He holds out His mercy and forgiveness. He welcomes us back when we stray. He rescues us from our captivity and misery. And He does it all with the greatest love. We cannot ever satisfy that debt.

But we can remember, and we can off our meager attempts at love and faith and obedience. We can repent when we fall and open our hearts and hold out our hands to receive God’s mercy. In fact, Moses urges the people to remember and to ask their elders to tell them the stories of what God has done for them, how He chose them as His own and cared for them in the wilderness. God has protected His people and kept them safe, lifting them up like an eagle carries its nestlings on its wings. He has given them everything they need, and they will have even more when they enter the Promised Land. God is setting them up for success and prosperity but not merely for the sake of worldly riches but so that they can worship Him faithfully with grateful hearts.

Scripture Notes: The Song of Moses, Part 1 (Deuteronomy 32)

The Book of Deuteronomy is, in essence, Moses’ last will and testament, his final message to the stubborn people that he has led out of Egypt and through the wilderness, or rather, that God has led through Moses. Moses is now speaking to the second generation of Israelites who are getting ready to enter into the Promised Land, but Moses will not be going with them. Because of his own disobedience, he will die right on the border. He will see the land, but he will not take possession of it. Therefore, Moses has a special message for the people of Israel, and he delivers it in the form of a song that they can memorize and sing even after he is gone.

Moses begins with a prayer that his teaching will be fruitful, will be as drops of rain that water the earth, that get right into people’s minds and hearts and bring forth life. Then he lays out the primary purpose of his song: “For I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Ascribe greatness to our God!” (Deut 32:3). This will be a song of praise, first and foremost. Moses wants the people to know Who God is, how truly awesome He is, because, as we shall see, they desperately need the reminder.

Moses continues with further praise. God is the Rock, the One Who does not move, Who is constant, reliable, to Whom we can cling for protection and stability. God’s “work is perfect, for all His ways are justice” (Deut 32:4). Whatever He does is right. There is nothing missing, nothing lacking, nothing in error. His decisions are exactly what they should be, even when we do not understand them, for He knows us better than we know ourselves. God is faithful and perfect. We can trust Him fully, for He keeps His promises. 

So what has gone wrong? Moses explains without hesitation. The people have become corrupt. They have sinned. They have broken the covenant. “They are a perverse and crocked generation” (Deut 32:5). They are “foolish and senseless,” repaying God’s great love and mercy with iniquity and stupidity (Deut 32:6). They have turned their backs on God, and their minds and hearts are far from Him. They have forgotten all the wonderful things He has done for them. Moses is about to prod them into remembering.

Scripture Notes: The Perfect King (Psalm 72)

Psalm 72 focuses on Solomon, the son of David, probably early in his kingship, perhaps even as he assumes the kingship from his father. I like to think that perhaps this psalm is David’s prayer and blessing over his son as he hands over both authority and responsibility. 

The psalm lays out the image of the perfect king. He is the righteous judge and defender of his people, the one who fosters prosperity, the one who makes his kingdom flourishing and fertile, the one who conquers all enemies, the one who reaches out to other nations and draws them into his bountiful influence. This king is the one to whom his people can turn for help. He supports the poor and has compassion on the needy. He saves them from their troubles, from violence and oppression and want. They are precious to him.

The psalmist prays that this king may live long and make the land fruitful and be blessed by all nations even as he blesses them with his gracious care. But the psalmist ends with another declaration: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be His glorious name for ever; may His glory fill the whole earth! Amen and Amen!” (Psalm 72:18-19).  So it is not the king who does all the wondrous things the psalmist has described. It is God working through the king, who is His chosen instrument.

So did Solomon live up to this psalm? He started out well, but as time went on, he fell into sin. His focus turned from God’s care for the people to the accumulation of power, wealth, and pleasure. He was not the perfect king.

But there is One Who is. There is One Who fulfills this psalm perfectly. Jesus Christ, our King, our Lord, our God. He is the perfect King Who cares for all people with a deep and abiding love, for He is God doing wondrous things. Blessed be the Lord!

Scripture Notes: A Living Sacrifice (Romans 12)

“I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1). A living sacrifice…  Jewish worship at the time of Jesus was centered on sacrifice. Thousands of animals were offered to God in the Temple daily, weekly, and annually to mark various cycles in the people’s relationship with God. Every sacrifice symbolized the offerer’s own person, own self, lifted up to God in adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and repentance.  

Jesus fulfilled every one of those sacrifices when He died on the cross, offering Himself for us. He is the one sacrifice, the one of which every other sacrifice was only a shadow. His sacrifice now stands outside of time, in eternity, before the Father, still for us, still to reconcile us with God.

We participate in that sacrifice every time we receive the Eucharist. We enter into it as Jesus enters into us, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. We offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, along with our minds and hearts and souls and spirits, everything we have and everything we are. We join ourselves to Jesus’ sacrifice, and this is our spiritual worship, the worship the comes from the deepest parts of ourselves and connects us with God, Who makes us holy and acceptable by His grace, the grace merited for us through the living sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 

Scripture Notes: Attitude (Luke 18)

Jesus was and is very concerned about our attitudes toward ourselves, toward other people, and toward God. One of His parables zooms in on this issue, and Luke tells us that He speaks to those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous” and therefore “despised others” (Luke 18:9). Two men, Jesus says, go up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

Pharisees were some of the leading Jews of Jesus’ day. As strict followers of the Law, they insisted that the Jewish people maintain their separation from Gentiles by adhering firmly to practices set down by God but also to traditions developed by human beings over the centuries. Tax collectors, on the other hand, received the wrath of the Jewish people. Although they were Jews themselves, these men collaborated with the Romans, enforcing tax laws and receiving tax payments, more often than not with a little (or a lot) extra for themselves. They were thoroughly despised.

Yet here Jesus turns His audience’s expectations upside down. The Pharisee who goes up to pray, He explains, actually prays to himself. He talks to God, or at least seems to, but all he does is tell God how good he is. He is not like other people who do all kinds of horrible things. He fasts and gives tithes. He follows all the rules. He is a good guy and, therefore, should merit God’s favor. 

The tax collector, though, stands at the very back. He knows full well that he is not worthy to approach God. He keeps his eyes down and beats his breast as a sign of repentance. “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” he prays (Luke 18:13). This man is a realist. He has a firm grasp of his sin. He knows exactly who he is before God, and it is not pretty. 

Jesus sets these two distinct attitudes in sharp relief, and He makes no secret about which of the two men go home justified before God. The tax collector, for all his corruption, has made a clean breast of it before his Lord. The Pharisee, in his pride, has merely puffed himself up, meriting not God’s approval but rather His displeasure. Jesus concludes with a pithy little precept that serves as explanation, warning, and invitation: “for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).

Scripture Notes: The Prodigal, Part 5 (Luke 15)

Imagine the scene, the merriment as a joyful father shines his joy upon the son he has back safe and sound, as a still-bewildered son basks in his father’s joy, as music rings out and food and drink flow freely. But one person is missing from the festivities. We have not heard of him since the very beginning of the story. There is another son, an older son, one who has not left his father’s house. In fact, he has been out working in the fields, and now he comes in and wonders what in the world is going on.

When the older son finds out that the party is for his good-for-nothing younger brother, that stupid kid who shirked his responsibilities and robbed the family and wasted all their hard-earned property on prostitutes, he is furious, and he will not even go inside. His grumbles probably run the gamut from what he would do to his brother (“Lowest rank among the servants...no wages until he pays back everything he took…”) to anger at their father (“How? How could he have let that, that, that prodigal come back? And throw a feast for him at that! It’s not fair!”). But there’s a good bit of self-pity going on at the same time (“Father never threw a party for me. He never gave me so much as a goat so I could have fun with my friends. All I do is work, work, work!”).

The older son says as much, right out loud, when his father comes out to plead with him. The father does not become angry. More than anything, he is rather sad, for his eldest son has misunderstood him and their relationship. “Son,” he says, “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke 15:31). The son does not realize this. He thinks himself a servant, but he is not. He is a son, fully and completely, a member of the family, an heir but also a sharer in the wealth right now. All he would have to do is open his mouth and ask and then reach out his hand to receive the gifts his father is waiting to give him. His father wants him to flourish, to thrive, to have all the very best. The older son has limited himself. 

The father ends with an explanation that is also an invitation. It is right to celebrate the return of his younger son, he says, for “your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32). This is a cause for great joy. The past is left to the past. A person has returned, safe, repentant, whole, and ready to re-enter the family. He has learned from his sins. He has come to new insights. He has experienced the worst and rediscovered the best. Will the older brother join in the celebration?  We do not know, for Jesus ends His parable right there. Why? Because we have to make a decision, too. Will we accept our Father’s invitation to family life and family love? 

Scripture Notes: The Prodigal, Part 4 (Luke 15)

The young man in Jesus’ parable has lost everything, including his illusions about the world and wealth and high living. Everything has crashed down around his ears, and he is stuck tending pigs and starving to death. Finally, though, he wakes up and realizes that he really is not stuck at all. He can go home. He knows he does not deserve to be treated as a son, but he has hope that his father (who is now tremendously kind and generous in his son’s eyes) will at least take him in as a servant. So he makes his plan. Then the son does something that many people fail to do. He gets up and carries out his plan. He sets out on his journey home. He does not merely think; he acts. 

Now the scene shifts to the father, who has apparently been keeping watch for his son. Something in him has hoped for a long time that the young man would return. He understands, after all, that a youth going out into the great, wide world will meet with unexpected difficulties and suffering and not be able to cope too well. So he has watched and waited, and now, finally, he sees his son coming down the road. The father does not hesitate for a moment. He gets up and runs to meet his boy, who is home at last. He does not care one bit what he looks like or who sees (for men of his status and age do not run). He just goes.

The son must be shocked at the expression of compassion on his father’s face as he sees the older man running toward him. The father embraces the young man (literally throws himself on his neck...an ancient expression for what is probably a massive bear hug) and kisses him. This is not at all what the son is expecting. He starts reciting his carefully prepared confession, but his father does not even seem to hear, nor does the son have a chance to finish. The father is already busy ordering a bewildered servant to bring out the best clothes and sandals and ornaments for his son (a bath is likely in order, too) and to prepare a feast. “Let us eat and make merry,” the father proclaims, “for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:23-24).

Forgiveness is instant on the father’s part. He seems to see right into his son’s heart. Words drift off into air in the midst of his embrace and his excitement at having his son back in his arms. What happened in the past is left there; it is time to rejoice in the present and restore the lost one to new life. This is exactly what God does for us repentant sinners.

Scripture Notes: The Prodigal, Part 3 (Luke 15)

Now that he has squandered all he had, the younger son in Jesus’ parable finds himself in a very sticky situation. Famine has spread across the far country in which he has chosen to live, and he finds himself lacking the basic necessities of life. He gets a “job” with one of the locals, who sends him out into the field to tend the swine. 

This is about as low as a Jewish person can go. Swine are unclean animals, never kept by the Jews, but here is this young man in closest contact with them. He has to feed them and care for them and keep them together. He lives among them. He undoubtedly smells like them. What is more, even though this is supposed to be a “job,” the young man apparently is not getting paid nor fed. He has nothing to eat and longs to fill himself up with the pigs’ food. No one gives him anything. No one pays any attention to him. No one sees him. No one cares. He has left his father to be his own person with his own life, but now he is nothing at all.

Notice what the young man does do and does not do in this situation. First, he does not eat the pigs’ food. Even in his dire need, he refuses to take something that does not belong to him. Something in his father’s training must have stuck because, even in his current depravity, the son knows right from wrong. What he does do is come to himself. He wakes up. He experiences an insight into reality. 

The young man looks back and catches a glimpse of just how good he had it at home. Even the hired servants had more than enough to eat! And here he is dying of hunger. Yes, at this point, the young man is motivated by his horrible situation. He has reached rock bottom, and he probably does not care all that much about the intricacies of family relations or the connection between mercy and justice. He is starving, and his father’s house is filled with food. He wants to go back. He will arise and go home to his father. No, his motives are not pure and perfect, but they are enough to get him started along the road.

The son does, however, recognize and admit his own sinfulness. Even, perhaps especially, in his hunger, he see what he has done. He makes a plan to confess to his father, saying that he has sinned “against heaven and before you” (Luke 15:18). He has offended God, acting against God’s moral order, and he has done so in the presence of his father, the person to whom he owes the deepest respect and love. His sin is serious and deep, and he knows it. So he humbles himself. Here he is among the swine, the lowest of the low, so he will tell his father that he no longer deserves to be called (or to be) his son. He will gratefully settle for being treated as a hired servant. The one so intent on striking out on his own and being his own man will now return, content to be a dependent, a servant, no longer a member of the family he spurned.

Scripture Notes: The Prodigal, Part 2 (Luke 15)

The younger son in Jesus’ parable has decided that he wants to be his own man and that he needs the material resources to do it. He has greatly insulted his father, who actually responds with great love and generosity, knowing all the while exactly what is going to happen to his son. His son will have to experience the consequences of his bad choices; that is the only way he will learn exactly how bad they are. God does the same with us; He allows us to immerse ourselves in our sin so that we realize just how horrible it is.

So the younger son gathers up everything his father has given him and goes off to adventure in a far country. He leaves his father’s house, turns his back on his family, and proceeds to enjoy himself. But he has no sense of future needs, no sense of truly providing for himself. He gives in to the desires of the moment, again and again and again. He squanders all he has, letting it slip through his fingers. 

This is why he is called the prodigal son. We do not always have a good grasp of the meaning of “prodigal.” Usually we associate the word somewhat vaguely with wickedness, but really, it refers to an  extravagance, a lavishness, even and perhaps especially, to the point of wastefulness. This young man is so lavish in his living that his property disappears quickly, leaving him with nothing and in the midst of a famine at that. The country that has seemed so fine and fruitful is now barren, empty. 

Remember that when the father gave his son the property (as a gift really, for the son had no right to it), he also symbolically gave him his own life. The son has not valued that life, not cared for it or conserved it or treasured it. He has let it go, squandered it, actually driven it away, for the word “prodigal” derives from an ancient word meaning “drive forth.” We must ask ourselves, then, how we squander, how we drive out, God’s gifts and indeed God’s own life that He has shared with us. How have we been prodigal?

Scripture Notes: The Prodigal, Part 1 (Luke 15)

The parable of the prodigal son, as we often think of it, is one of Jesus’ most famous stories. It is a familiar tale, perhaps too familiar, for we tend to glide over the top of it rather than plumbing its depths and drawing out the rich meanings waiting for us.

Jesus begins by telling us, “There was a man who had two sons” (Luke 15:11). This is a family, a group of people bound by blood ties, by spiritual ties, who are supposed to work together for their own good and the good of those around them. But this family has a problem.

The younger son apparently wants to explore the big, wide world. Perhaps he is tired of being under his father’s thumb (for in that culture, the father is head of the family, and sons obey him no matter how old they are), and he wants his independence. In any case, he does something that is almost unthinkable: he demands his share of his family’s property. Essentially, he is telling his father that he wishes the old man were dead, but since he is not, he wants what is coming to him, right now.

This is probably the most offensive thing a son could say and do. It reveals a deep selfishness, a lack of compassion for his father and brother, a complete disregard for the life and unity of his family. The younger son is thinking only of himself and his desires.  

We might expect the father to say something like, “Tough luck, kid. I don’t have to give you anything.” But he does not. Instead, he gives his younger son exactly what he asks for. He lets him have his inheritance early. Why? Because sometimes selfish, stupid people have to learn the hard way. The father here represents God, and God never forces us to choose Him. And when we choose something other than Him, He often lets us have it. He lets us experience the consequences of our bad choices because that is often the only way we learn exactly how bad they are. 

Interestingly, there are two Greek words used to describe the property requested by the younger son. The first is ousia, here translated as property or wealth or goods. It derives from a word that means substance or being or existence. The son is asking for material stuff, but deeper down, it seems that he wants to be in charge of his own existence. He wants to be on his own. The other word is bios. We learn that the father divided the bios between them. Bios actually means life, but here we can take it as the resources of living, the stuff needed for life. Yet there is something deeper; when the younger son leaves, he takes a piece of his father’s very life with him. The father sends it along because he knows that his son will one day need that life. 

Scripture Notes: My Child (1 Timothy)

As Paul continues the introductory verses of his first letter to Timothy, he identifies his initial audience: “To Timothy, my true child in the faith” (1 Tim 1:2). Paul is the one who brought Timothy to the Christian faith. He taught Timothy about Jesus. He trained him in the Scriptures and in the sacraments. Maybe he stood beside Timothy as he was baptized. Perhaps he even ordained him priest and bishop. Timothy was indeed Paul’s son in a very real, deeply spiritual way, and their love must have been strong.

In fact, Paul’s love for Timothy stands behind his next words: “Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord” (1 Tim 1:2). What a beautiful prayer and blessing this is! Paul wishes God to pour out His grace onto his spiritual son, His gift of love and help and support and protection, His gift of life. Paul wishes Timothy to experience God’s mercy, His forgiveness, His saving help. Paul wishes Timothy the great comfort of peace, of having everything in the right order, God’s order. 

Paul knows that he cannot give these great gifts to his spiritual son, so he asks God to grant them, realizing that they come from the Father and the Son (and although Paul does not say it here, from the Holy Spirit as well). Paul understands that God’s love for Timothy is even greater than his own, and he longs for that divine love to flow over and into Timothy, his true child in the faith.

Scripture Notes: Theological Treasure (1 Timothy)

St. Paul packs a trove of theological treasure into the first verse of his first letter to Timothy. We often tend to jump right over these words of greeting, thinking perhaps that they are just an introduction. Indeed they are: an introduction ripe for reflection.

Paul begins by calling himself an apostle of Christ Jesus. An apostle is someone who is sent, someone commissioned for a particular task. Paul has not sent himself; God has sent him (and he knows it very well due to his experience on the road to Damascus; see Acts 9). Paul makes this clear when he tells Timothy (and us) that his apostleship is by the command (or authority) of “God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope” (1 Tim 1:1). Paul is no longer his own; his mission is not his own; he works under the command and authority of Another.

God our Savior. A savior is one who rescues, delivers, preserves, protects. In this modern world, many people do not recognize their need for a savior. They think they are perfectly fine, even doing well. But none of us are. We need to be rescued, delivered, preserved, protected, saved. From what? From sin and death and the devil and, all too often, our own fallen selves. God saves us from all of these.

How? Through Christ Jesus our hope. Jesus died for us, to deliver us from sin and death, to restore us to true life and communion with God. This we believe. In this we hope. And hope in a Christian sense is not some vague idea that someday everything will be okay. Rather, it is a confidence that Jesus makes things right for us, right now and forever. We have to cooperate with Him, respond to His love with our own love, repent and confess our sins, and do our best to embrace His will. All of this arises out of our hope, our faith, our love, and especially out of His grace, for everything good that we have comes from Him.

Scripture Notes: Contend for the Faith (Jude 3-4)

St. Jude is very clear about why he writes his letter. First, he is “eager,” he says, to write of “our common salvation” (Jude 3). He is driven along by a certain desire to speak the truth, Christian to Christian, to remind his audience about their shared salvation, a salvation brought about by faith and hope and love and especially by the grace of God through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit. But the faith, Jude warns, must not be taken for granted. Rather, he appeals to his readers “to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). 

In other words, this faith, and perhaps salvation itself, is at risk. Christians must not sit back and relax, thinking that they have no more to do. No, according to Jude, they must strive for their faith, exert an intense effort for it (as the Greek verb translated here as “contend” suggests). Indeed, they have a fight on their hands, a struggle in which they must invest great exertion and perhaps even great suffering. 

Why is this struggle so imminent? Jude proceeds to explain that “ungodly persons” have secretly gained admission into the Church (Jude 4). They may seem innocent. They may appear as good Christians. But they are not because “they pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). What exactly does this mean? We are not entirely certain. Perhaps some people were advocating a form of “once saved always saved” and telling Jude’s readers that no matter what they did, God would save them anyway. This is merely presumption, however, and turning one’s back on one’s moral responsibility. It is a form of laziness that rejects the gift of true human freedom that God designed to work in cooperation with Him.

Also, these sneaky folks are somehow denying Jesus. Perhaps they are practicing an early form of heresy that rejected Jesus’ divinity or humanity. Maybe they are saying a firm no to Jesus’ moral teachings and in doing so rejecting Jesus as their Master and Lord, refusing to give themselves over to Him. Both options may be in play. In any case, the Christians Jude is writing to must be very careful. They must contend for their faith against these pervasive influences, making sure that they hold tightly to the truths they have learned and not swerve an inch, even in the face of temptations and trials. 

We, too, are among the Christians Jude writes to. We, too, must contend for our faith just as much as Jude’s original audience. We, too, face temptations and are hounded by lies told by people who seem to be in our community but are really trying to lead us astray. So we must be on our guard and hold fast, learning our faith well and being just as eager to defend and share the truth as Jude is and to lead others into our common salvation in Jesus Christ.