Ben Zornes

Teaching What to Ask

May 30, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Children are question asking-machines. Why? What’s that? What’re you eating mama? But why? How do birds fly? It is a good thing to be inquisitive, love to learn, wonder about the way God made the world, and be wisely curious about how watermelon seeds turn into watermelons.

But parents are not only called to answer their children’s questions, they should ask their children questions as well. Who made you? Why did God make you? Does Jesus live in your heart? How does He live there?

When parents dialogue with their children in this way, it teaches the children to learn to ask questions which lead them to God and His ways (Jos. 4:21, Ex. 12:26). After all questions are meant for answers, and all our wonderings find their true conclusion in Jesus, the Answer Himself. So children, learn to be guided to not only the right answers, but the right questions as well.

A Glitch Riddled World

May 29, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

I used to play a video game on my Apple iiC, and whenever I’d get to the final level there was a glitch. I tried to troubleshoot, but my gaming career always ended in frustration, and failure, rather than in triumphant joy.

The world isn’t what it ought to be. There’s a glitch in the whole thing. Sin and sickness, shame and sorrow are the operating system. We look inside of us and around us and find as the Apostle Paul said, “For I know that in me dwelleth no good thing (Rom. 7:18).” Reach for worldly pleasures and just as you close your grasp upon them, they fade to ether. Try every which way to satisfy that longing for joy, but still it won’t come and it won’t stay put.

So, you wreck everything and everyone that gets in the way of your pursuit of happiness, but still joy eludes you. You’re the glitch in the system. We’ve broken the whole thing, ruined all the joys, soiled all the glories, and made a hash out of ourselves and this world God gave us.

Jesus famously told Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again (Jn. 3:7).” Our old way of doing things was broken, and we needed to be made new. But Jesus didn’t come to make new men in a dead world. To borrow a bit from CS Lewis, He came into this glitch-riddled world, plunged down into the depths of our misery and woe by His incarnation, death, and burial; then He came rushing up, towing in hand this whole world.

We celebrate in the Lord’s Supper both our individual salvation, and the salvation of the world. Those in Christ partake of His new life, represented here by this bread and wine. Christ is reigning over this world until His new life pervades every corner of our planet. In part, we remember here that Jesus made new men for the new world which He is making.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus…

1 John 1:3 – Invitation to Fellowship

May 28, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

That which we have seen and heard, report we to you, in order that you too might have fellowship with us and moreover, our fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
1 John 1:3

This verse introduces one of the major themes of John’s epistle. That theme is that the manifested Word which John was a witness of (i.e. had seen and heard, vs. 1-2) is being reported to them in order that they might have fellowship with both the witnesses of the Word made Flesh, and with the Father and His Christ.

Note how John has gradually linked the Word (logos) with eternal life (zoe) and now makes explicit what has been implicit. The Word of Life made manifest is none other than Jesus Christ. But another claim is made here, that of Christ’s sonship. We also see how for John, theology and philosophy are servants to fellowship, not vice versa.

John’s readers were confronted with a perceived problem regarding Jesus’ relationship to God. John gets right to the point: Jesus was the Christ and was the Son of the Father, and was the Word, and was the Life, and was there from the beginning. And none of that is contradictory. Very simply, he leaves no wiggle room to heretical notions of Christ’s humanity or divinity.

But notice too the vital tone of familial relation (i.e. Father to Son). John will revisit multiple times in this epistle the importance of fellowship with God (through Christ), and the resulting fellowship we enjoy with our brother. The letter’s purpose statement in this verse (and the next) is presented as an invitation to the readers to enjoy union (fellowship) with the Father and His Son. This is both a safeguard against the heresies which the early church was tempted by, and a boon of encouragement in the persecution and distresses they faced.

The Loudness of Baptism

May 27, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Baptism is loud. It isn’t a quiet thing. It doesn’t use its indoor voice; in fact, it doesn’t have an indoor voice. And what does baptism say? What is the substance of the holy ruckus it makes? It proclaims that Christ lived, and died, and rose again; and your baptism into Him means that you did too.

It doesn’t whisper sweet-nothings about how good of a person you are, or how lucky God is that you chose him, or that you’ve done anything spectacular. It doesn’t speak coddling words to puff up your self-esteem. It doesn’t get all mushy with sentimental sayings.

It shouts that you are dead. The Old Man is crucified––with all his twisted desires, all his selfish rage, all his pride, all his shame, all his guilt. Your baptism tells you, and the whole world, that when Christ died, you died in Him. And with the volume turned to full blast, it blares out like a megaphone that when Christ rose, you rose with Him to new life, and You are now seated with Him in His reign of peace. This is the promise that is declared by this sign of baptism, and this is the gift that you receive by faith.

The Comfort of a Conqueror

May 26, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

In ancient times, when a conqueror would return from the conquest of his enemies, he’d give gifts to his loyal subjects. In modern days this might look like when a CEO makes a huge profit on some deal and shouts to the whole office, “Drinks are on me.”

The root of our Christian confession is that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phi. 2:11). Or as the Nicene Creed frames it, “[Christ] ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father.” Our faith is founded on the irrefutable reality that Jesus rules the world. Our faith is in Him who died, but is now risen and reigning over all the affairs of heaven and earth. Christ ascended on high as a conqueror who not only had all authority over all matters in all corners of the cosmos, but who had the power to execute and carry out the full extent of His will.

When Christ ascended to His throne of majesty, which was His by right and by blood, we’re told “He gave gifts to men (Eph. 4:8).” He ascended to the Father. The Father gave Him the world. In turn, Jesus gave a gift to the world. The Spirit–poured out on Pentecost–was Christ’s gift.

Jesus called the Spirit our Comforter, but this Comforter would come to reprove the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement (Jn. 16:8). In other words, the Holy Spirit–Who proceeds from the Father and the Son–comforts us with the knowledge that Christ reigns and is putting all evil underneath His and our feet. Our Comforter gives us courage that we will conquer all our enemies, all because–and only because–Jesus is Lord.

1 John 1:2 – Life Manifested

May 21, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

And the Life was manifested and we have seen it and we bear witness and show unto you that eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us.
1 John 1:2

Continuing his assertion, John insists on the manifestation of the Life. More than a solitary witness, he includes a group of witnesses (presumably referring to the entire apostolic witness). Because they had seen the Life manifested, they were now compelled to bear witness and proclaim these glad tidings. The term “bear witness” (μαρτυρέω martyreo) will recur throughout this epistle, and we should remember how this theme of bearing witness crops up throughout John’s Gospel and his Apocalyptic vision (Jn 1:8, 5:31, 18:37, Rev. 1:2, 22:20). John has ascended the witness stand to testify to events which he had been a spectator of.

The next verb (ἀπαγγέλλομεν apaggellō) is a striking one in that it is related to the word angel/messenger. It means to bring tidings. We should think of the angels bringing glad tidings of the Savior of the World born in the stable. John, a man, is now taking on the task that in the Old Testament had generally been reserved for angels. He is proclaiming, heralding, bringing tidings of the manifestation of the eternal Life. Man is being brought into the Life of God by the manifestation of the Life which was with the Father. Here we also have the basis for later formulations of Trinitarian doctrine. The Word of Life was separate from the Father, but was with the Father. John is putting Jesus’ own words––“I and the Father are One”––in the philosophical terms of the first century.

Weary Parents & Banshee Kids

May 16, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.
Proverbs 3:11-12

Sometimes moms and dads get tired of disciplining their children. Parents who fail grow weary of disciplining their children are not only being lazy, they are being unloving. Failing to discipline their children ensures that rather than their parenting resulting in wise and godly adults, they are fine with raising wild banshees.

But kids can also come to despise the chastening which the Lord has given them. They might think they have outgrown correction, and get tired of being corrected. Children should remember that just like a father corrects the son he loves, God corrects the one he loves. So receive the correction God gives you in His Word, through your parents and teachers and pastors, as One of the ways God loves you. Correction is not something that should weary you, but something that proves to you that God loves you.

1 John 1:1 – A Cosmic Epistle

May 14, 2020 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life.
1 John 1:1

The construction of the introductory phrase is unmistakably linked to Genesis, as well as John’s Gospel account. This anchors the current events (which John will address later) to cosmic events. In other words, protology and eschatology and everything between revolves around this Word of Life. The Greek has a definite article before beginning, which carries an important theological implication. John is not talking about “a” beginning, but about the cosmic beginning.

But though he is speaking in big cosmological/philosophical terms (i.e. arche, logos, zoe), he is standing up as a witness (more on that in later verses) to having heard, seen, beheld, and touched this Word of Life. He states that the “we” (he and the other apostles/witnesses) had indeed heard and seen the Word of Life.

The tense and mood here are helpful in that John is emphatic that this has taken place, not that it is something that might take place, or that he is opining for. While the “hearing” and “seeing” are in the perfect tense, the “looking upon” and the “handling” are in the aorist tense. This implies that while the hearing and seeing are completed actions, the beholding and handling are not limited to a one time event. The relationship is ongoing, in other words. The tense also keeps these verbs from being so broad as to remain in the realm of theoretical pipe dreams. John is standing up as a witness to cosmological events which were experienced by tangible––and indeed ongoing––interaction with a person: this Word of Life.