Josh Benner

Author: the Josh Benner Blog

  • A long-distance healing. Studying John 4:49-54

    A long-distance healing. Studying John 4:49-54

    In John 4, a Roman official – whose son is seriously ill – comes to Jesus to see what the Lord can do. In the passage, we build up to a miraculous healing that Jesus does. In this sign, Jesus will point back to the Prophet Elijah in the Old Testament. 

    A divine intervention 

    John 4:49 

    The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

    The man is undeterred by the rebuke that Jesus has given.He’s not arguing with the Lord. He’s simply pleading with Jesus to intervene. 

    Keep in mind, that this man is an official of the Roman government. He’s prestigious. We see the humility that he shows to Christ. 

    “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

    Verse 50:

     Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.”

    That’s a very interesting direction that Jesus has given to the man. He’s not saying “Ok, let’s go.”Instead, he tells the man to go home and that his son will live. 

    And the official listens. 

    Second part of verse 50:

    The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.

    A picture of faith

    He trusts in the promise of Christ. He has faith in the word that the Lord Jesus has told him. 

    We also don’t always get grand signs of what is to come. It is a matter of trusting the Lord is faithful to all that he has promised. That’s exactly what the Roman official does here. We need to take the Lord at his word. 

    Verse 51:

     As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering.

    John’s recording of the event is not hugely dramatic. What Jesus has said would happen happened. 

    Verse 52 into 53:

     So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.”

    We see the power in the promise and word of Christ. As he was telling the father this, 20 miles away, his son was being healed. 

    Continuing in verse 53:

    And he himself believed, and all his household. 

    The man believed. 

    Faith cannot be entirely rooted on the miraculous. But that’s not to say that God never uses a monumental moment to bring a person to himself. For this man, trusting in what Jesus had told him and then seeing the fulfillment of that promise led him to believe in Jesus. 

    Not only for the man, but him and his whole household believed. It was a transformative event in all of their lives to see what Jesus had done. 

    This story is reminiscent of another healing which occurred in the Old Testament, during the ministry of Elijah. 

    Elijah in 1 Kings 17  

    In 1 Kings 17, there’s another event when a child is very sick. The prophet Elijah takes the boy and pleads with the Lord to heal him. 

    Beginning in verse 21 into 22:

    O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” 22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah.

    In verse 23, after the boy had been revived, Elijah says to the mother “your son lives.” 

    A long-distance miracle

    In our passage in John, when the Roman officer comes to Jesus, Jesus says to him “your son will live.” Elijah has to be in physical contact with the child when he is healed. Jesus heals at a distance.

    Elijah asks God to heal the boy, Jesus doesn’t. In this sign, among other things, we see that Jesus is greater than Elijah and we again see that he provides something greater than the Old Testament. 

    We see the perfect knowledge of Jesus. He knew that the son would live. 

    We also see the sovereignty of Jesus. He could speak authoritatively to the man that his son would live. 

    The second sign of Jesus 

    The passage concludes by saying: 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee. 

    Jesus had done other miracles, but this was the second one he had done in Judea. In the first sign, Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding feast. In that event, John said that Jesus had revealed his glory through that sign. 

    In this sign, Jesus had healed a sick child near death many miles away. We see that the signs are very different from each other. The first sign is at a public event, the second sign is within a home. 

    The first sign is at a time of great joy, at a wedding feast. The second is in a very sad time, when someone is ill to the point of death. 

    In that too, his power and glory are revealed. In that event, it was so powerful in the lives of the people who witnessed it that they believed in Jesus. 

    In the second sign, Jesus heals a father’s son. But in that, we should be reminded of the gospel because the ultimate sign that Jesus did which points to his glory and power was when he had the Son was not saved. 

    Jesus was able to save this man’s son because Jesus was the Son who was not saved. 

    Looking for Jesus

    There are lots of reasons why people are drawn to religion, drawn to Christianity, drawn to Jesus. Some people think that it’ll help them through a tough time. 

    Some people are lonely or insecure and need to feel a sense of belonging. That’s not inherently wrong, by the way. But that isn’t faith. Some people are miserable, and they believe that religion might help them become happier. Others are battling an addiction and they think it’ll help them find victory. Some people are unhappy with who they’ve become, and want better examples. 

    Now, certainly any of those areas can be a person’s entry point to Christianity. And God can work through those circumstances to bring a person to himself. 

    But genuine faith needs to move past that. It can’t just be about having a certain feeling or about having a certain area of life now under control. 

    Faith needs to be rooted in the character of the Lord. Sinful people recognizing their need for redemption and trusting in Jesus and the salvation he promises. 

    If faith over the long term does not mature into a love for Christ, a recognition of sin, a love for the things of God, then what is it that you’re believing? 

    Because new problems will arise. New difficulties will arise. You’re still you, which is to say you’re still sinful. Your life will still face difficulties and hardships. We still live in a fallen and sinful world where there is betrayal, and pain, and suffering, and death. 

    “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”

    If faith is based on what we see, based on circumstances, that is flimsy. Our faith needs to be anchored in the good and sovereign Lord of creation. 

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  • Megachurch pastor takes leave of absence for inappropriate online relationship

    Influential megachurch pastor Matt Chandler announced yesterday that he was being placed on leave as a result of an online social media relationship.

    We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. And the more facts we get about this situation, the better. But I am a believer that when popular ministry figures acknowledge (as Chandler does) or are credibly accused of potentially disqualifying sins, that people should be investigated. We have created a culture where it is appealing to become an influential pastor. It brings money, fame, and power. The character of these individuals does matter. 

    Chandler’s story

    One of the peculiarities of the revelation of Chandler’s leave of absence is that he was allowed to announce it to the church. This also allowed him to get out ahead of the controversy and give his own narrative. 

    Chandler begins with his series of events, “Several months ago, a woman approached me outside here in the foyer. She had some concerns for how I was DM’ing on Instagram with a friend of hers. I didn’t think I had done anything wrong in that. My wife knew that, her husband knew that. And yet, there were a couple of things that she said that were disorienting to me.” 

    Chandler says he immediately contacted the church’s lead pastor, Josh Patterson as well as the chairman of their elder board. He said he went home and told his wife about the exchange and that the elder board looked into it. Chandler says “We cannot be a church where anyone is above the Scriptures and above the high heavenly call into Christ Jesus.” 

    He says that the elder board had some concerns but that the conversations were not romantic or sexual but that the conversations were “unguarded and unwise” and that the concerns were “really about frequency and familiarity” and language Chandler had used which was “coarse and foolish.” 

    Because of Chandler’s inability to see what he was in was probably revealing some “unhealth” in him, but that he agreed with the board’s decision to put him on a leave of absence. 

    Chandler again thanks the elders for holding him accountable saying “do you know how easy it would have been to make it nothing and just let me not address whatever this is?”  

    Commentary

    I think this is part of the problem with Chandler being able to speak in this situation. Even if I take his statement at face value. He starts off by talking about how his wife and the other lady’s husband knew about the conversations (minimizing the issue). He didn’t think they were doing anything inappropriate. 

    Plus the wording of his statement is vague. It was unguarded and unwise but it wasn’t romantic. It was coarse and foolish but it wasn’t sexual. 

    So what was it?! What did he say that was so bad that he got put on leave? The really striking phrase to me is “do you know how easy it would have been to make it nothing and just let me not address whatever this is?” I feel like that could almost have a double meaning, but perhaps that’s me being cynical.. 

    So you have Chandler speaking and saying he hadn’t thought it was a big deal but he is also totally respecting the decision of the board (to suspend him for something that is totally undefined and unclear). 

    It makes it look like the Village has the highest elder standards of any church in America! Their standards are so high that they would even suspend a rockstar pastor without it even being an overtly, obviously, disqualifying sin. 

    Do they have the highest standards? Time will tell. 

    The church’s story

    According to a statement from the church who had commissioned an investigation in to Chandler’s texting, emails, and social media, they said that the messages were not “romantic or sexual in nature” but that “the frequency and familiarity of the messages crossed a line. They revealed that Matt did not use language appropriate for a pastor” 

    The church’s statement agrees with Chandler that “the messages were not romantic or sexual in nature, the frequency and familiarity of the messages crossed a line.”

    The best possible light

    I think that the best possible light, and what I hope is the reality is that Chandler made some mistakes and that the church is holding him accountable. That’s how it’s being framed. The church has crafted a narrative of how they want things to appear. 

    If it’s all true, then yes, the Village could be looked at as a model of pastoral standards, ministerial integrity, and Biblically restorative discipline. Again, I hope that’s the case. But for now, all we have is their side of the story. 

    The worst possible light 

    There are no shortage of skeptics out there who want to assume the worst, to assume that there’s much more under the surface, that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Sadly, that is something we’ve seen before with ministry scandals. 

    If it’s the worst case scenario, it would be another fall from grace from another popular pastor. And it would be a sad day for me, someone who’s always really appreciated Chandler’s ministry. In my early 20s, Chandler’s sermons were a major influence on my faith. I had never heard anyone preach like him before. He was engaging and matter of fact. He was funny. I found his sermons smart without being pretentious. I felt like he wasn’t afraid to address the gritty and difficult parts of life, while painting a beautiful picture of what living life for Jesus could be like. For all of those reasons, I again say with sincerity, that I hope that everything he and his church have said is true. If it’s true, I hope they also have a healthy process for restoration and that he can eventually be restored to ministry and to continue to do the work he’s done for nearly two decades at the Village which has blessed so many across the world. 

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  • Galatians in Acts II – Acts 14:1-28

    Paul continues his missionary activities through Galatia. By the end of this chapter, on Paul’s missionary journey, we had seen him travel to multiple cities with people coming to faith and others opposing the gospel. We see Paul minister to people of different faiths. We even see a mob try to stone Paul to death. In the end, Paul’s focus is on the Lord who had opened the door for his message to reach people.

    Sermon transcript

  • The height of the reign of Saul. Studying 1 Samuel 11:8-15

    The height of the reign of Saul. Studying 1 Samuel 11:8-15

    Israel defeats the Ammonites

    In 1 Samuel 11, the Israelites face their first major military test under their new king, Saul. He has found out that the Ammonites have besieged the city of Jabesh-Gilead and so Saul assembles an Israelite force. 

    Verse 8: 

     8 When he mustered them at Bezek, the people of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand.

    Numbers can always be a little bit difficult in the Bible. Especially in the Old Testament. In English, our word for thousand always refers to a numerical value. The Hebrew word translated thousand can mean more than one thing. So it’s possible that it’s 300 thousand. It’s also possible it’s 300 military units, but not necessarily 300 thousand men. 

    It’s a large group in any event. 

    It’s also noteworthy that you have a split between Israel and Judah – north and south – just two generations later and even here, it’s listing the military numbers for these primary regions of the kingdom separately. The news of this army is shared with the besieged city of Jabesh-Gilead. 

    Verse 9: 

     9 And they said to the messengers who had come, “Thus shall you say to the men of Jabesh-gilead: ‘Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you shall have salvation.’ ” When the messengers came and told the men of Jabesh, they were glad.

    And so they give their response to the Ammonite king: 

     10 Therefore the men of Jabesh said, “Tomorrow we will give ourselves up to you, and you may do to us whatever seems good to you.”

    In the Hebrew, their wording is actually a little bit cryptic. 

    The ESV translates it as we will give ourselves up to you. 

    The ESV commentary on 1 Samuel says that more literally, what they’re saying is we will come out to you.

    Which has a double meaning where the Ammonites could think they were coming out to surrender, but in reality they would be coming out to do battle. 

    In verse 11, the battle is recorded. 

     11 And the next day Saul put the people in three companies. And they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch and struck down the Ammonites until the heat of the day. And those who survived were scattered, so that no two of them were left together. 

    Again, it’s a passage where a battle happens but it’s not really a passage about the battle itself. It gets summarized in one verse. Saul divided his men and they surrounded the Ammonites and so we see some skill in planning on the part of Saul. 

    The Israelites have a decisive victory. No two of them were left together. 

    The Ammonites are decimated. More attention is actually given to the aftermath of the victory than to the battle itself. 

    To explain the end of this chapter, we need to understand the end of chapter 10.

    Team of rivals

    In chapter 10, after Saul becomes king, he returns to his home and chapter 10 ends by mentioning that there were some who were enthusiastic about the new king, and there were some who were not. 

    Chapter 10, verses 26-27: 

    26 Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched. 27 But some worthless fellows said, “How can this man save us?” And they despised him and brought him no present. But he held his peace. 

    After the victory, people wanted to round up those detractors who had been less enthusiastic about Saul and see them executed. 

    Back in chapter 11, verse 12: 

    12 Then the people said to Samuel, “Who is it that said, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ Bring the men, that we may put them to death.” 

    The high point of a doomed kingdom

    Verse 13:

    13 But Saul said, “Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the Lord has worked salvation in Israel.”

    As I said in the beginning of our time, this is the high point of the reign of Saul. 

    For a brief moment, Israel has the king they wanted. 

    Saul could have been vengeful to his detractors but chose grace instead. He could have hogged the glory but he gives the credit where it’s due when he says that it was the Lord who has worked salvation in Israel. 

    All is well in Israel. 

    There is a celebration. 

    It’s like when a team brings in a new coach or a new general manager and it takes them a few years to built up and then it culminates in a championship. The Cubs winning the World Series in 2016 comes to mind. All that time without winning a World Series and then they get the right people on staff and on the roster and they get there. 

    14 Then Samuel said to the people, “Come, let us go to Gilgal and there renew the kingdom.” 15 So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they sacrificed peace offerings before the Lord, and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly. 

    So we’ve had this great victory. The Israelites are carrying Saul around on their shoulders. The Prophet Samuel suggests that they go to Gilgal to renew the kingdom. 

    Why would they need to renew the kingdom when they literally just installed a new king? 

    I think that John L Mackay argues convincingly that the renewal of the kingdom in light of this great victory is not about Saul. That Samuel is seeking to renew the covenant to the kingdom that they have with the Lord who gave them this victory. 

    Gilgal was mentioned in chapter 10. It’s the place where Saul became king. It was also the place where Joshua built the first altar to the Lord within the Promised Land after they had crossed the Jordan River. In renewing the kingdom at Gilgal, it is also tying the future of Israel to God’s past faithfulness.

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  • The greatest danger to the Church

    The greatest danger to the Church

    There are 300,000 churches in America.

    There are many wonderful churches that boldly proclaim the gospel and faithfully teach the Bible every week. There is no perfect church in the world, because every church is full of members who are imperfect people.

    I think that the biggest issue the American church faces today is related to truth and love.

    Love that undermines truth and truth that doesn’t practice love. I’ll briefly explain what that means.

    Love that undermines truth 

    Love is important. The greatest command in scripture is to love God and to love people. God is love.

    But some churches can emphasize love to the point where it undermines truth.

    For instance, there is a temptation in some Christian circles to consider the love of God and reason that: “since God is love, his love extends to all people, whether or not they believe in God and whether or not they want or accept his love.”

    God is love. But that is just taking a slice of the character of God and acting as if that’s the whole pie. God is love. But he is also just, and righteous, and holy. He judges, he has wrath towards sin. God has all of those qualities at all times.

    God is love. But the idea of love is not only exclusive to what our culture defines love as.

    We tend to value acceptance and tolerance as what it is to love. And it’s true that God meets us where we are, but Jesus doesn’t save us to keep us the same. God is a perfecting God. We sin. We sin so much that we needed a savior, and the gospel is not a message that teaches us that we’re ok and we should just keep doing what we’re doing. We need to live for God and pursue him.

    Making love purely about acceptance and tolerance is not the full Biblical scope of what love is. And so it undermines the truth of scripture. And it runs the danger of undermining the inerrancy of scripture (taking the Bible as practical wisdom rather than the infallible word of God). And this view runs the risk of undermining the gospel itself.

    Assuming that love and  demand for justice are mutually exclusive.

    I observe this being the great risk in more liberal denominations.

    Truth that doesn’t practice love

    I think this is more of a danger in conservative and evangelical circles. We place a high value on the scripture and theology. And well we should because both of those are hugely important.

    But we can get so preoccupied with having the right answer that we lose sight of actually living out what we know. This is very similar to the failure of the Pharisees in the gospels. They were very well studied and trained in theology, but they missed the heart of the message.

    It can be easy to know the right answer but it’s difficult to live it out in practice.

    Truth and love. It comes down to belief and practice. We need both.

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    Originally published May 9, 2018