Just the other day I was listening to a sermon preached by Ray Stedman back in 1985. What Ray brought to my attention was surely one of the most astounding promises in the Scriptures…

I have always read this passage, and thought that we ordinary humans are somehow so capable that we can actually do greater things than the Son of God Himself did, when He was here in the flesh, but what I learned was that Jesus was really saying here is that as the risen Lord, who dwells in us by means of the Spirit, He will do greater things through us than He did when He was here in the days of His flesh.

But what precisely are these “greater things”? Obviously these can’t be greater miracles. Can you think of anything greater than opening the eyes of those born blind or speaking a word and enabling a lame man to walk or raising the dead? Definitely not! Then what are these greater things?

The only answer that makes any sense at all is that they are greater in their significance and importance. They are spiritual accomplishments rather than physical. Anything done to the spirit of a person is far more significant than something done to the body.

If you read the account of Jesus’ ministry, the crowds followed Him when He did those amazing wonders, yet when you come to the end of His life, where are all the crowds? Where are the hundreds He healed? They are gone. Only a handful of people stood at the foot of the cross. His miracles did not change people -  they merely touched the surface of their lives!

Isn’t it distubing how the ones whom Jesus healed, would not stand with Him through the agony of the cross, but that when the disciples went out and preached in the power of the Spirit, on and after Pentacost, they won converts by the thousands? When the testing came, these men and women were willing to be devoured by wild animals, to be tortured, and to be burned alive rather than deny Jesus?

Those are “greater things”. Anything done to the spirit of a person is permanent; that which is done to the flesh is merely temporary. All those whom Jesus healed or raised from the dead died again. So what is done to the spirit of a person is far greater, and this is what Jesus means by “greater works.”

Here Paul is answering the question that every Christian asks at one time or another: “Can believers go on sinning?” Paul’s answer is an emphatic, “Absolutely not!”

We cannot go on sinning because we have died, have been buried, and have risen again with Jesus, and therefore we too may live a new life. If we are true Christians, there will be a noticeable change of our behavior, because of a radical change of government. Paul is saying that if we continue to go on living as we were before we became Christians, then our profession of Christianity is false!

There must be a change, and there will be, if there has been a change in the heart. In verses 5-10 Paul uses the metaphor of grafting to explain the deeper revelation of what has happened to us. “For if we have become one with Him by sharing a death like His, we shall also be [one with Him in sharing] His resurrection [by a new life lived for God].” [Amplified]

In other words Paul is telling us that we cannot pick and choose! We cannot die with Christ and not be raised with Him! If we have died with Him, you must be risen with Him as well!

Paul uses a gardening term here. The word “becoming one” means “to graft a branch into another.” Fruit farmers take a branch from a nectarine tree and graft it into a peach tree. The branch is tied together in such a way that the life from the trunk of the tree flows into the branch and they grow together until finally you can’t tell the difference between the graft and the natural branch. The life is fully shared. This is the figure Paul is using here to describe our tie with the Lord Jesus. His life becomes our life. We are no longer in Adam. The tie with the life of Adam is totally broken. We are now in Christ, and He is our life from now on.

There is a trap in traditional language. “No room in the inn” has taken on the meaning of “the inn had a number of rooms and all were occupied” in other words, the “no vacancy sign” was already “switched on” when Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem. But the Greek word does not refer to “a room in an inn” but rather to “space” (topos) as in “there is no room my desk for my new computer”. It is important to keep this correction in mind as we turn to the word we have told was an “inn”.

The Greek word in Luke 2:7, that is commonly translated “inn” is katalyma. This is not the ordinary word for a commercial inn. In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) the Samaritan takes the wounded man to an inn. The Greek word in that text is pandocheion, namely a commercial inn.

If Luke expected his readers to think Joseph was turned away from an “inn”, he would have used the word pandocheion, which meant a commercial inn, but in Luke 2:7 it is a katalyma that is crowded!

What then does this word mean?

Literally, katalyma is simply “a place to stay” and refers to many types of shelters. There are three choices: An inn (the English translation tradition), house (Arabic tradition of more than 1000 years,) and guest room (Luke’s choice)

Luke uses katalyma on one other occasion in his Gospel, in Luke 22, Jesus tells his disciples:

Here, the keyword, katalyma, is defined; it is “an upper room,” which is clearly a guest room in a private home. This precise meaning makes perfect sense when applied to the birth story. In Luke 2:7, Luke tells his readers that Jesus was placed in a manger (in the family room) because in that home the guest room was already full.

If at the end of Luke’s Gospel the word katalyma means guestroom attached to the private room (Luke 22:11), why would it not have the same meaning in the beginning of his gospel? It is a little doubtful whether the familiar translation “in the inn” is correct. It is possible that Joseph had relied upon the hospitality of some friend in Bethlehem, whose guestroom however was already full when he and Mary arrived.

Jesus through Middle-Eastern Eyes by Kenneth E. Bailey

In Chapters 4 and 5 of Ephesians, we see that the Apostle Paul comes to grips with our constant urge to lie, to steal, to gossip, to be hateful and bitter with one another. He deals at length, frankly and forthrightly, and every way, he brings Christian truth right down into life, and shows us how to live in a sick society,  dealing with such matters as climbing divorce rates, spreading teenage rebelion, the political squabbles within the government,  and all the pressing issues of our day. This passage brings us right to grips with these very conflicts.

What does Scripture have to say on these matters? Well, the amazing thing is, that what the inspired apostle has to say as to the solution of all conflicts between individuals can be put into one brief sentence. That is exactly what he does:

Here Paul is dealing with the basic remedy for all the conflicts in our day.

What approaches do we noramlly use to solve the social issues of our day? First, we must somehow gain the attention of the public to this problem. Then we must get an appropriation from some funding body, private or governmental. Then a committee must be appointed to go into the matter and to study it thoroughly. Then the committee must publish its report. After the report is out, and we have all studied it, then we proceed to organize pressure blocks and boycotts and pickets and other methods of bringing pressure on the right people to correct the abuses which exist.

But this is in direct contrast that with what Paul says in Ephesians: The solution is always addressed to individuals. Start where you are by doing one simple thing: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

When I am at odds with another person, no matter where it is – or who it is – to be aware that Christ is there too will make me aware of what He has shown me and what He has taught me.  It is only when I forget myself and devote myself to another’s fulfillment, that I will find my own heart running over with grace and glory and satisfaction.

This is exactly what Paul means: “Subject yourselves to one another, out of reverence for Christ.” The world is waiting to see a demonstration of this. They do not understand this kind of action, and they cannot grasp its importance until they see it in action among Christians.

Excerpts from “Christian Relationships” by Ray C. Stedman

• First, can you tell the difference between right and wrong, especially when right looks wrong, and wrong looks right? Have you learned how to use Scripture so as to tell the difference?
• Second, can you translate Scripture into right conduct? Have you learned how to apply what you read to your own life, so that it changes you and you end up doing the right instead of the wrong? Or do you constantly find yourself thinking you are doing the right thing and end up by looking back and finding that you have made a mistake again. That shows you do not know the Word of God.
• The third test is: Can you teach others? Are you able to help someone else? Or have you been a Christian all these years and you still do not know how to teach anyone else, but you need yourself to be taught the first principles of the Word of God.

(from “What to do while waiting” By Ray C. Stedman May 1969)

“Draaipunt – Pastoor Leon van Rensburg” Draaipunt – Pastoor Leon van Rensburg Aflaai .ZIP Lêer

Pastoor Leon is gevra deur Radio Tygerberg om sy getuienis te gee en dié opname was vandag uitgesaai, en dit sal jou vasgenaal hou, want Jesus bly die fokus van dié getuienis, en al die eer gaan aan God!

If you say, “I’ll meet you at the corner of this street at this time,” you have thereby committed a certain part of yourself to that person for a certain length of time. That is what a promise is. It is a sharing of self.

So, the great promises of the Bible are the efforts of God to share Himself with us. When we understand the promises, we will understand something more of the nature and the character of our God. Every promise is a commitment on God’s part to give of Himself. This is why an understanding of the promises of God is so important to us in reading the Bible, because it is here that we understand what God says He will do. How can you exercise faith if you don’t have a promise? So often people babbleon and on about faith and belief, and yet they never say anything about what to believe or what your faith should rest upon.

Faith is of absolutely no value if it does not rest upon a promise. A promise is the fact upon which faith lays hold, and it pulls feeling right along behind, and thus makes available to the heart all that God wants to give.

“Things surely to be believed” Ray C. Stedman ©1964