Cathy Deddo—Year C Transfiguration, Easter Prep 1–4

Welcome to the Gospel Reverb podcast. Gospel Reverb is an audio gathering for preachers, teachers, and Bible thrill seekers. Each month, our host, Anthony Mullins, will interview a new guest to gain insights and preaching nuggets mined from select passages of Scripture in that month’s Revised Common Lectionary.

The podcast’s passion is to proclaim and boast in Jesus Christ, the one who reveals the heart of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And now onto the episode.

Anthony: Hello, friends, and welcome to the latest episode of Gospel Reverb. Gospel Reverb is a podcast devoted to bringing you insights from Scripture, found in the Revised Common Lectionary, and sharing commentary from a Christ centered and Trinitarian view.

I’m your host Anthony Mullins, and it’s my delight to welcome our guest, Cathy Deddo. Cathy is a Bible teacher speaker and retreat leader. In the past, she has worked on campus staff at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship teaching students at Virginia University and Claremont Colleges in California. She is the author of The Letter of James, a Bible study commentary and guide, and she earned a master’s degree in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Cathy, thanks for being with us and welcome to the podcast. And since this is your first time on the pod, we’d like to get to know you a little bit, your story, your backstory, and how you’re participating with the Lord these days.

[00:01:31] Cathy: Okay. Well, you gave some good information about my life in the past. I guess the best thing to say is that my husband, Gary, and I have made a big change in our lives in the last two years.

We moved from Illinois, which was our home for 23 years, and came out here to Pennsylvania to live near two of our daughters and their families. And I was doing a lot of Bible studies. I was doing some online Bible studies for Grace Communion International and others.

But actually, I took a job at a school. it’s a collaborative school that meets two times a week, and then they have homeschool assignments for the other three. And I’ve been working there for the last two years and this year I am creating and teaching a survey of the Old Testament for the middle schoolers. So that’s a big shift for me to be now ministering primarily with children instead of adults.

The other big part of my life is being a grandmother. I have six grandkids here in the area and then we’re waiting for our seventh here, but our tenth overall to come in a couple of months. My youngest daughter is having her second child and that has just been the greatest joy of my life. So having a chance to pour into our grandkids is a great privilege.

[00:03:12] Anthony: Do you have a favorite grandchild? Nope.

[00:03:18] Cathy: No. They’re so unique. When you’re with the one you’re with, they’re your favorite. But then when you’re with the next one, they are. Because they’re all just incredibly unique and such a sign of God’s grace in this world that He keeps bringing new life into this broken world. It’s really amazing.

[00:03:42] Anthony: It is amazing, and I only have one grandchild. And so, she is my favorite. It’s easy to say that.

[00:03:50] Cathy: Yeah, that’s right, just don’t say it to her.

[00:03:54] Anthony: That’s right. Well, we have the challenge, Cathy, of trying to get through five this month. So, we’re going to get right into it. And I’m anxious to hear what the Lord has to say.

So here we go. Our first pericope of the month is 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2. I’ll be reading from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Transfiguration Sunday on March 2.

Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with complete frankness, ¹³ not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. ¹⁴ But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, the same veil is still there; it is not unveiled since in Christ it is set aside. ¹⁵ Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds, ¹⁶ but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. 4 Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. ² We have renounced the shameful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.

Cathy, Paul writes about having quote unquote, such a hope, which leads to complete frankness. Help us understand what Paul is saying here.

[00:05:55] Cathy: I will try. So basically, what is the hope we have that leads to being bold or frank? That is being open and confident in the gospel. This is really the approach I took here.

So, from what I can gather in studying the letters to the Corinthian Christians, some in the church, and maybe many, are struggling with suffering, which is tempting them to kind of shrink back, especially suffering that stems from being followers of Jesus. Corinth, as you probably know, is a very pagan and promiscuous city, very prosperous, at least for some. And a lot of people were offended by the gospel message, and they rejected it.

Many wanted to listen to messages involving meaningless speculations. Most wanted to have reaffirmed to them what they already believed and practiced.

There may have been a hope that being a follower of Jesus would also involve less trials, less difficulty in life in general. But those who became worshippers of the true Creator and Redeemer God found themselves actually outcasts of much of the Corinthian culture, society, business. And [they] were regularly treated unfairly, were being persecuted. Maybe today we’d say they were marginalized.

In addition, part of what Paul is dealing with is that there were false teachers creeping into the church, and they were offering a more attractive message, one that promised to make them more powerful, respectable, or maybe to suffer less. And these false teachers used underhanded or manipulative methods to gain a following, which he’s sort of alluding to at the end of the passage. They offered ideologies or easy practices that sounded like what people might want to hear.

So, all these problems tempted the Christians to be less confident or bold in living out of their relationship with Christ. And the fact that they were tempted in this way is telling Paul something. Their problem is they don’t fully understand or remember the wonderful, life transforming work of God’s love that Jesus accomplished for them. They don’t grasp the hope they have in Christ.

The easy, agreeable, and pleasing messages of the false teachers are tempting the believers to misplace their hope. Well, maybe you could say, to connect it to the passage some more, that puts a veil over their hearts. Because they’re placing it in formulas for success and security, pathways to respectability in society here and now, rather than the radical and all-encompassing eternal hope that God has for us in Jesus.

They were tempted to trade in their true hope for a new heaven and earth where all things will be finally made right and new. And I would say that this then was leading them to be distracted each day in their lives now from receiving and living in a share of the real life — God’s kind of life that he was offering them.

So one of the places that Paul is speaking about this greater amazing hope that begins this passage is just a few verses after this passage in 4:17. He speaks of the painful trials he has been going through as slight and momentary compared to the eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison that is being prepared for him and for us as well.

He spoke of these trials at the beginning of the letter. You’re familiar with the beginning of it. He said there that these trials were so severe that he and his companions were despairing of life itself. But here he proclaims that the living God will bring good out of his suffering and ours in such a way that we can look at our trials, no matter how big or small they are, as slight and momentary.

As Paul has spoken of his ministry and his sufferings so far in this letter up to this point, he does so to remind them of the absolute surpassing worth of the gospel that he had already preached to them, and they had received. And so now he says, Since then, we have such a hope, we act with complete frankness, or as this is translated in the ESV, we are very bold.

This word means confidence, not being ashamed. And later in the passage that you just read, in verse 1 of chapter 4, Paul says, because this is our ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. We do not become weary or saint. The life lived in Jesus is one of confidence and freedom in him and not becoming weary.

How can that be? Because it seems to me that we often do become weary, and we become tempted to hedge on proclaiming the whole gospel and forget its goodness and hope of glory that is ours in Christ. How do we live in this hope? Paul speaks here of living with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord.

We are to continually look away from ourselves to Jesus. We are to take real time to focus again and again on him, to hear from him and his Word, to pray as Paul speaks in other places, continually. And I think that when we shrink back or grow weary, it’s because, honestly, we’ve dropped our focus away from the living, present Jesus.

And we begin looking at ourselves, our lives, our ministries, our circumstances, which veils our vision, veils our heart. We cannot see them rightly, these various things we’re dealing with right now, except through him, as we anticipate his involvement, his oversight, his presence and purpose being worked out in them to his glory and to our good.

We can become tempted to evaluate Jesus’ presence and work in our lives through the lens of our feelings or circumstances. And I think this is part of what is going on for them. We can become tempted to add to the gospel other keys or principles or formulas that we can depend on out of fear rather than living in the growing and deepening relationship that he wants to give us because we wonder if that’s going to be sufficient for us in this broken world.

Yeah, we need Jesus. But we start thinking that we need Jesus plus, plus counting on something else that we start to regard as essential. But he’s basically saying, when we do this, we have trouble seeing Jesus for who he really is. When we are seeing him through our own lens of our issues and our situation, we kind of lose track of who Jesus is.

We need to turn it around and behold him. And then through looking at him, we can look at our lives. This is what can help us continue to be bold and confident in the whole gospel, in this hope. Paul is correcting that false and underlining view of the sufficiency of Christ. He’s indicating that what is central and essential in our lives is beholding Jesus.

Beholding is a continuing action here. It’s not something we do once. We turn again and again to Jesus, coming again under his good and life giving rule and reign, being arrested again by our vision and understanding of who he is, so that we can freely and joyfully, with frankness, live according to his will and ways, without compromise.

Our confidence is never in ourselves, our doctrines, our relationships, even our understanding. We cannot be self-sufficient or self-justifying. It makes us blind. The living God through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit is the source and measure of all life, all goodness, all truth, all beauty. This is true for all of us.

So, we live out of our trust of and hope in all of who this Jesus is. The same yesterday today and tomorrow. That’s their hope. That’s the hope that enables us to be bold. And here is the really wonderful point. I love this. God will transform us as we fix our eyes on Jesus, not on ourselves. As we see and know him, as he is made known in scripture, we are led to repent and turn to him again.

Every time he helps us to see our trust has drifted to other things rather than himself. I think we know that we can’t transform ourselves. I haven’t succeeded so far. Paul does not transform himself. Paul knows this, and he lives by that reality in Christ. And this is why, at the beginning of the letter, he can praise the God of comfort, even in his deepest sufferings.

This is why he can rejoice in that glory that awaits him, and all those who put their trust in him, and even the whole creation. This is why he speaks boldly. And this is why we can.

[00:15:46] Anthony: You know, even though 2 Corinthians 3 wasn’t written to us, it certainly, I think we can rightly say, was written for us.

If the people of Corinth were distracted, oh my, we are distracted people. We are deluged by information every day, more than we know what to do with. And so, it is so easy to become distracted. And this is one of the reasons why the repeated coming to Scripture is so important. Because when we come to Scripture, we once again get glimpses, revelation about the triune God.

And we do this by the Spirit. And so, I’m going to ask you and invite you, Cathy, to share with us, what does this passage tell us about the God revealed in Jesus Christ?

[00:16:33] Cathy: Well, I think the most amazing thing that it tells me is that he desires a face to face, deeply personal communion. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped being amazed by that.

He wants us, he wants relationship with us, and he has done everything necessary to woo us and to grow us up in him. And he is glorified, not when we try to do stuff for him all the time, but when we trust him to transform us and to enable us to share in his glory. I just can’t get over him being a God like that.

He does not shame us, but he seeks to lift us up to share in his own life. That is the heart of who he is.

[00:17:21] Anthony: Hallelujah. Praise God.

Well, we need to move on to our second passage of the month. It is Romans 10:8b-13. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the first Sunday of Easter Prep (Lent) on March 9. Cathy, would you read it for us, please?

[00:17:42] Cathy: Sure.

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim), ⁹ because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For one believes with the heart, leading to righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, leading to salvation. ¹¹ The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” ¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. ¹³ For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

[00:18:32] Anthony: Amen. If you were heralding this passage to a congregation, maybe your congregation of middle schoolers or your grandchildren, what would be the focus of the proclamation?

[00:18:43] Cathy: In looking at the whole chapter Paul is talking in this section, he’s been talking about this for the chapter, about righteousness. And what is righteousness? Well, righteousness fundamentally means right relationship. What does it mean to live in right relationship with the God who created all things?

And so, in right relationship with each other and with all of creation, what does it mean to live according to the grain of reality? To live in a way that fits with the truth about life. That’s what righteousness is all about. That’s what he’s been dealing with here.

So, at the beginning of the chapter, Paul talked about the error of believing that righteousness is attained by our own efforts to be righteous. In other words, trusting that if I work hard enough or in certain ways, I can, quote, make the grade, so to speak. I will have done enough to keep God happy or to gain a righteous reputation, whatever it is I’m looking for.

In this section that I’m at, the beginning of the chapter, he’s referring primarily to those who were seeking passionately to become righteous by following the law of Moses. But the truth is we can all be tempted at times to rely on our own efforts to show God or others how righteous we are. And this effort can come out in a variety of ways.

Paul is telling us here that Jesus is the one and only Lord of all. So, living in right relationship with God simply must be shaped by this reality — by who he really is. And who we really are in light of him. So, in verse 9, he says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. And believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” He reasons in the next verse that this is so because one believes with the heart leading to righteousness and one confesses with the mouth leading to salvation.

So, I would basically want [our] focus right here to be righteous. To live in right relationship with the God, who created us and redeemed us for himself, is to acknowledge that Jesus is our Lord and God. And to acknowledge it with our whole being. He is the one who rightly has total authority over us. And so, we can gladly trust him.

To confess is to say with or to agree with. So, when we confess, we are affirming with conviction the truth that Jesus alone is Lord of all. Paul goes on to say exactly that in verse 12 when he talks about how there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile because the same Lord is Lord of all. And this simple phrase, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” was the first creed of the church.

So, we take some time to unpack this point he’s making here. When we affirm that Jesus’ lordship is the actual reality of all things, then we are also turning away from any and all other lords. We are denying lordship to anyone or anything else, even our own efforts to be righteous. We recognize Jesus Christ only, exclusively as Lord and God.

Don’t we live in a world full of other things that cry out to be lord? Things that tell us that we need to put our trust in them to tell us who we really are and how to live. They promise to give us identity, security, meaning, purpose, hope, but all these other potential lords are idols. Again, including our own efforts to be righteous because they’re false.

All their promises are false and will betray us if we put our trust in them. There really is only one true Lord. Paul fills out, fills out the meaning of confessing with our mouths that “Jesus is Lord,” by saying that we’re also to trust with our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead in order to receive the salvation that God has wrought for us in Christ.

So, when Paul speaks of the heart, he’s really talking about, as I’m sure you know, our whole being, our whole selves. So, what he’s saying is, what I confess with my mouth, I want to trust with my whole being. And what we trust in with our whole being, we are outwardly confessing. We outwardly affirm to ourselves and to others who is truly Lord.

We say our amen to what is true about Jesus Christ. And in that way, we are whole or wholly surrendered to Jesus. St. Augustine said that our hearts are idol makers. We are often tempted to put something else in that place of lordship in our lives.

As I was thinking about this, I guess in some ways I would say that most of our idols, if not all, fall into two basic categories. The first one is the idol of our hopes for various things in this life, or our plans, agendas. These things can become lord, and they will lead us to put our trust in whatever we think will help us to realize those hopes.

And secondly, I think really even our fears can become our idols. They can reside in the center of our lives, so they prioritize, shape, and control our decisions, our actions, and our reactions. And as I said, the beginning of the chapter where he’s talking about trying to create your own righteousness, ultimately an idol, as we’ll see as we go on, Paul is saying that believing, receiving, acting on, and confirming the truth that Jesus is Lord means we turn away from all these other false lords.

When we seek to grow out of trust in who he is, what he has done, is doing, is continuing to do, will do, not only for us, but in the world as its Lord and Savior. And this involves a daily dying to ourselves and turning to the one who made us and knows us so much better than we know ourselves. It involves a living relationship with the one who’s Lord.

I know I’m kind of hammering on this, but I think sometimes we start thinking that really, we are trying to have our efforts in something else than continually trusting in him, turning away from other things.

Like one of the things I wanted to say, I’ve been praying for a lot of really heavy duty things recently, a lot of things happening in the world in our nation that I find very distressing. But what helps me to pray is I start each time by acknowledging this wonderful truth again that Jesus, the one who is present with me in my prayers is the Lord of all, including time and space.

So, this brings me back to Paul’s words at the beginning of the chapter on righteousness with God and others to attain by our own efforts. He says in verse 3 — this is such an interesting point to me — he says those who are seeking to establish their own righteousness did not submit to God’s righteousness. So, it’s interesting to realize that sometimes we can get so caught up in serving the Lord to make him pleased with us that we’re actually not submitting to the Lord and being led daily by him.

To trust wholeheartedly in the God of Jesus Christ is to daily seek to hear from him, to daily ask him to help us see where we’re tempted, to daily learn to love his sanctifying work in our lives. And the wonderful promise that he gives in verse 11 is that anyone who places this kind of trust in the Lord Jesus will not be put to shame.

We will not find that we were foolish to place our lives, our hearts, our minds, and all of our relationships, hopes, and fears into his hands. He is faithful, and he is true. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He is more committed to our good than we are. We can count on him, absolutely. I was thinking that this is a great passage for the beginning of Lent, because it’s a time where we really can take a look more deliberately at the different ways we are tending to trust in other things instead of Jesus, handing them over to him gladly again and placing our lives under his care.

[00:27:41] Anthony: Amen. And amen. No one who believes in him will be put to shame. Absolutely. Oh, that’s such assurance in that statement that you won’t be left standing at the altar, that he is devoted to us more than we’re devoted to ourselves. He knows us the best and loves us the most. Hallelujah. Praise God.

We’ll transition to our next pericope of the month. It’s Philippians 3:17-4:1. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the Second Sunday of Easter Prep, Lent on March 16.

Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. ¹⁸ For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. ¹⁹ Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹ He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. 4 ¹ Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. So the apostle gives his readers a warning about living as enemies of the cross of Christ.

What a trepidatious warning. In what ways should we modern readers be on guard about living as if we are enemies to Christ’s cross?

[00:29:32] Cathy: Okay. Well, Paul begins this section encouraging the Philippians to imitate him, right? That’s where this passage begins, and to pay attention to, or to focus on those who are walking or living according to the pattern of Paul’s own following after Christ himself.

The reason that he gives this is because there are so many who are living or walking as enemies of the Cross of Christ who could influence them. So, Paul is basically, at the beginning of the passage, pointing out two opposite ways of living or, in the Greek, walking in our lives. And as Christians, basically, who are we to pattern our lives after?

Well, Paul is saying on the positive side: those who are following after Christ. But he’s also taking the time in this passage to help them recognize the patterns of those who live opposed to the grace of God that has been given to us in Jesus and why doing that will never lead to light.

First point I want to make is that he is saying in this world there are competing voices, competing ways to live. It’s kind of obvious, but I don’t know if we always realize this. We do not live in a neutral space in this world. And we need to be wise by who we’re influenced by. We actually live in a world that is hostile to the grace of God. Paul says there are many who walk as enemies of the cross, who are actually opposed to God’s grace, who reject it and promote its rejection.

Here he repeats this fact with tears. He’s clearly grieved by their rejection of God. And concerned about the undermining effect these people have already had on the Philippian Christians. So, his warning is basically indicating, he says this at the end, to stand firm in Christ. And this isn’t a passive activity for Christians in the fallen world.

We live in a world where, as we’ve already talked about, there’s all kinds of voices and pressures around us that are happy to tempt us to distrust God and his good purposes for us and for all of his creation. I think this, in and of itself, is helpful for us to remember. I think that’s the first point.

Paul is using really strong and sobering language here, since he knows the danger they’re in. And it is kind of shocking, isn’t it? How can it be that some, even many, would oppose the wonderful grace of God that is offered to us in Christ? But Paul is indicating here, although it makes no sense, that there’s no good reason to regard Jesus as an enemy, yet there are those who do. And we shouldn’t be naive about this.

The result of that situation is there are many ways that we can be tempted to live contrary to the grace of God, and these temptations might come from some people that we deeply care about. In some sense, they always come from those we care about to some degree, and I think we often find ourselves sharing in Paul’s tears and the tears of Jesus over Jerusalem.

Now, it’s interesting to me that Paul says these people live as enemies of the Cross of Christ. I thought a lot about this. Isn’t the Cross of Christ where we see the very center and heart of God’s grace? It’s right there where we see what it costs to extend his grace to us, to come down and rescue us, to free us from the grasp of evil and death and our rebellion against them.

It really is the measure of our deep need. I think it is humbling and hard to look at how costly our rescue is to God. I think sometimes we really don’t know if we want grace to be so costly to him. Surely we’re not that bad, that deceived, that lost, that God himself would have to come and be rejected, and spat upon, and lied about, and mocked, and stripped, humiliated, killed in the most shameful way possible, to save us, to rescue us, to lead us to life.

How humiliating. The grace of God poured out at the Cross offends our pride. The Cross of Christ fully challenges any attempt to justify ourselves, to give ourselves life, identity, meaning, or significance. And this is why some live rejecting it as enemies of the Cross. We can be tempted at times to be ashamed of what Christ has had to do for us.

But Jesus himself rejected the shame that was aimed at him to give us eternal life. And he is not ashamed of us. That’s why turning to Christ involves true repentance. Turning away from pride, arrogance, self-sufficiency, self-centeredness to receive life from the Lord himself.

And when we are dealing with people who live as enemies of the Cross, that’s what they don’t want to do. We don’t want to have to stop justifying ourselves. They don’t want to find themselves not sufficient. In order to help these Christians who have already died to their pride and receive the extravagant grace of God, Paul expands on what walking as an enemy of the Christ looks like in verse 19, “their end is destruction, their God is the belly, and their glory is their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.” I’m just going to look at two of the phrases here. (That’s too much, obviously.) First, he says their God is the belly. The people whom Paul is warning about worship comfort and pleasure here and now. They want to go their own way; they want to avoid suffering and discipline and live in the moment.

They want to give themselves whatever pleasures they create. That is the way of those ashamed. By contrast, Paul and the Philippian Christians were suffering for their faith in Christ, as Paul has already made clear earlier in the letter. And we know there are many Christians today in the world who suffer for living under the good and reign of Christ. Some even dying for their faith.

Jesus, we recall, told his disciples that in this world we would have tribulations. And I think it’s when we’re suffering that this temptation to listen to those who are living as enemies of the Cross can be strong.

Secondly, Paul says their minds are set on earthly things. And this is already obviously connected to the worship of immediate pleasures. They’re caught up in wanting all they can have from this earthly life: security, control, lack of suffering, power, fame. Well, they are lovers of the world and what they believe it can offer them. So how do Christians stand firm in Christ when encountering these influences?

Well, Paul reminds them and us that our ultimate citizenship is in heaven. We actually don’t belong to this fallen world. We are not its possessions, and we are not its slaves. Which, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go ahead and answer your second question, because this is connected, which is to talk a little bit about having our citizenship in heaven.

Paul indicates, again, that this is not our home. We are here as ambassadors, as resident aliens, as foreigners, because we belong heart, soul, and body to the living triune God. We’re united to him, and that means that all we’re dealing with here good, evil will not be the last word about who we are, what the meaning of our lives will be, what our purpose and the final end will amount to.

Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, will have the last word about us. And hopefully that helps us to be able to take this world lightly. And going back to the looking at your sufferings as slight and momentary because we know where we really belong. We live anticipating the glorious and sure future coming of Christ.

And I love this. [Paul] says, [Jesus] will return and transform our body of humiliation to conform it to the body of his glory, which is what he kind of goes through, right? He had a body of humiliation, but it was resurrected glorious. And he shares that with us. He will do this with the same power that enables him as Lord to place all things under his feet.

We see his power in his own suffering and death and vindicating resurrection. And once again, we will not be ashamed. We will be completely vindicated in our faith and our hope in Jesus Christ, belonging to him, to walk in the pattern of the gospel, to stand firm in an often hostile world. It means to live in light of this sure and certain future, knowing that what is coming is infinitely better than any life we can try to create for ourselves here.

We can work diligently in Christ to know him and to make him known, but at the same time, we can take ourselves and our efforts lightly. Our trust is in his presence, his working, not in ourselves, not in any earthly power. He alone can make everything new, put everything right. Yes, it’s hidden right now, but it will be gloriously manifested one day.

We are not alone. We can turn again each day to fill our vision with Jesus, fill up our hope in him. We can weep over those who are rejecting his grace at this point and intercede for them. But we don’t have to be tempted to walk in their ways, which only leads to hopelessness and destruction.

[00:40:17] Anthony: And in light of what Cathy just said, we can reread chapter 4, verse 1. “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown. Stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. “Amen. Amen.

Let’s pivot to our next pericope of the Month. It’s 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the Third Sunday of Easter Prep and Lent which is March 23. Cathy, read it for us please.

[00:40:54] Cathy:

I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, ² and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, ³ and all ate the same spiritual food, ⁴ and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. ⁵ Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness. ⁶ Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. ⁷ Do not become idolaters as some of them did, as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.” ⁸ We must not engage in sexual immorality, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. ⁹ We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. ¹⁰ And do not complain, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. ¹¹ These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. ¹² So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. ¹³ No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

[00:42:21] Anthony: Well, this month, we have two warning passages. Lucky you, Cathy, you get to deal with the warnings. So, what should we make of the warning given in this passage to the church in Corinth about the ancestors of spiritual Israel?

[00:42:38] Cathy: Take a breath. All right. So again, I think it kind of helps to consider the letter as a whole to understand this passage. What were the Corinthians dealing with and what were Paul’s concerns with them?

So we’ve talked a little bit about already Corinth, because we’ve had other passages. Let me just say again, the city was characterized as a self-sufficient and self-congratulatory culture, obsessed with peer group prestige and success and competition. One of the funny things about them is they prized a good rhetoric, which they actually defined as being able to be persuasive more than being truthful — kind of reminds me of today.

The church itself was quite diverse and included Jews and Greeks, wealthy and poor, masters and slaves. The tendency to boast in one’s status, wealth, pervasive powers, plagued the young church coming in from the society as a whole. And this is obvious when you read the whole letter.

Overall, they were a gifted congregation, but the temptation to trust in their own wisdom and strength of character was a strong one for some of them. So, from Paul’s words over the whole letter, it would seem that some of them at least were tempted to trust in their knowledge about Christ rather than in Christ himself.

This led to a misunderstanding and misuse of their freedom in Christ. They thought that their knowledge about Jesus and his work in their lives led to a freedom to accommodate the culture in ways that didn’t conform to life in Christ. For instance, some boasted in their supposed liberty to eat foods offered to idols as sacrifices at the pagan festivals.

So, you could say they had their doctrine down, but they would then turn and live as they saw fit. Because they were proud of having their doctrine down, Paul had taught at length in the preceding passages that to live in the freedom of Christ is to live in the ongoing relationship with the living Lord, trusting only and only in him, receiving always from him. And then only on that basis, helping others do the same.

He warns against misusing and abusing their freedom since that route would only lead them back into the slavery of sinful ways of thinking and acting. So, then looking at the passage itself, Paul is holding up as an example or a type for the Corinthians and for us, what happened to the generation of Israelites who did not get to enter the promised land but died in the wilderness.

He is warning here that they, as the Church, were not to desire evil as the Israelites did or be idolaters as they were or to grumble as they did. They were not to put Jesus to the test as those Israelites had put God to the test.

Okay, well, what does all that mean? That’s what we’re asking. Well, before these four admonitions, Paul talks in the first five verses about the Israelites all sharing in the reality of God’s presence and working in their lives. They had all passed through the same cloud and the same sea. They had all partaken of the same spiritual bread and drink that sustained them through their wilderness experience. And he further explains that the ultimate source of their sustenance was Christ himself.

So, however we understand exactly what he’s referring to here, I’m not going to go into that. The point Paul is making is that they were all led by the same reality. They all passed through a kind of baptism to live to the God who faithfully and fully provided for them. But despite God’s faithfulness in various ways, they chose not to live in ways that counted on and corresponded to the living reality of God’s provision and guidance that he was providing for them.

In other words, they decided to live as if God really wasn’t who he said he was, and as if he really wasn’t providing for them the way that he was. And this is the temptation that Paul is warning the Corinthians again. They have Christ, but some are tempted not to live fully on the basis of his real living presence and work each day.

Some were not submitting to his guidance, continually turning to hear his word to them and act on his faithfulness. Instead, they were tempted to trust in their doctrines of Christ or their wisdom about spiritual things rather than Christ himself. Their competence was in their sophisticated knowledge or their ideas about Christ.

And sometimes I think they were really regarding him more as a principle or an abstract power or an impersonal and universal force they could tap into. And thinking about him this way justified their continuing to be more concerned about their reputations, their success, or their status in their culture.

When they were tempted to trust in their wisdom about Christ or their principles, they were in danger of actually moving away from Christ of becoming like the Israelites, having idols, grumbling, putting God to the test. What they were really starting to do is trust in themselves. Christ himself, his active will and way, is the reality they were to conform to in a daily living worship relationship of prayer and trusting obedience to his word.

Paul is saying this is the only way to true freedom and joy that he offers us. So, it seems that what Paul has been saying is that one is only free when they are fully compelled to live in Christ, under Christ, and in trusting, fellowship, and communion with him. By trusting in something else other than the present living out of Christ every day, they were in danger of being enslaved by their own desires for good reputation They need to make good impressions on others to be influential and successful in the eyes of others. That’s the strange thing — trusting in things about Christ leads us away from Christ We are to have all our strings attached to Jesus.

We are under him alone. And in all ways, we are not living in real freedom when we live apart from him, but only when we are living in and under him, when we are free from all these idols, including ourselves. No other authority will lead to real freedom.

[00:49:27] Anthony: Well, Cathy, I want to read verse 13 again, because I’m going to ask for your exegetical commentary on it. And it says, “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength. But with the testing, he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

It seems to me there’s assurance there; there’s hope there. There’s a chance to exhale because a lot of people are going through heavy things. What say you?

[00:50:02] Cathy: Yeah, this is actually a very interesting verse, and it would take a lot longer than we have to unpack it totally, but I certainly like to give a stab at it. So, we live in a world where we encounter constant temptations, right?

We’ve been talking about this all the way through, to stop counting on Christ’s real presence and work in our lives and in our fallen world. We may be having issues from external circumstances, like you were just mentioning, like sickness, accident, persecution, and we usually refer to these things kind of more as trials.

But we can also be having issues more internally, as desires to commit sinful thoughts or actions, and we usually call these temptations. Paul is really talking, I would say here, about both avenues. But it’s best to translate this probably temptations, because he is most concerned about the common danger of both, of all of this, which is to distrust God and instead start placing our trust in other forces, powers, or even trusting in ourselves, because life is hurting right now.

Well, this was the same for the Corinthian Christians. The temptation to secure their reputations or to be secure and safe, as I said, suffer less, would be coming at them from their surrounding society, from the people they were dealing with every day, maybe even from family members. But such temptations can play on our own strong internal desires and fears both, right?

We have what’s going on outside, kind of how we’re responding to it. It was these kinds of temptations that played on the Corinthians confidence in themselves so that some of them were putting themselves in compromising situations, such as participating in pagan festivals, that’s the immediate context.

And paradoxically, it would seem that there were some in the church. Who also wanted to justify their succumbing to substance abuse temptations by claiming it was such an unusually strong temptation and no one else had ever faced anything like this before. How do we deal with this? Paul’s addressing basically, I would say kind of three things.

One is we will encounter temptations and trials in life, and they will oftentimes tempt us to stop trusting God. One of those temptations is to so trust in ourselves that we pridefully place ourselves in compromising situations. And then three, the temptation to attempt to justify why we couldn’t resist a sin and fall into the temptation.

So, what is Paul’s answer to these three facts that the Corinthians and we and all persons face? Well, Paul’s first point here is to disabuse ourselves of the belief that we are alone in any of the temptations we face. We all struggle at times to trust God in the middle of whatever we’re dealing with. I think that is the crux of the Christian life in this fallen world.

But he’s saying, God is faithful. And he is available and with us, even as we face trials and temptations. All the temptations out there are common to humanity. They’re not unique to us. We are not having greater temptations than people did years ago. Our particular time is not different, and none of it is a surprise to God.

God is never calm, certainly at their root. All the temptations, as I’ve said, is to not trust that God is here. That he loves us, and he is working this out for our good.

[00:54:02] Anthony: Hallelujah. Praise God.

[00:54:04] Cathy: He will be faithful to redeem it, and to deliver us. I’m sorry.

[00:54:09] Anthony: Nothing to apologize for.

[00:54:11] Cathy: And isn’t that what he says?

God is faithful. There is never a time where God will not act according to his character and purposes. It’s just not going to happen. He reassures them that God will not allow the temptation or trial to be so strong that they cannot escape because he will provide a way out. That doesn’t mean they have to find it — they’re not in an escape room.

In other words, when you’re being tempted, where is God? The answer is right here. Right here. He never left. You are not on your own with God watching from a distance to see how you will do. He is acting. He is available by his word and Holy Spirit. So, as we face whatever temptations and trials we’re in, we can take his living presence seriously.

We can look away from the temptation to God, trust he has a way out, look to see what he is providing because he’s sufficient. I didn’t think I’d get through this whole thing without crying, but there we go. Yeah.

[00:55:14] Anthony: I as you were talking and thinking through this, my mind went to 1 John where we’re assured that God is love. Not that he has love, like this is one of his tools in the toolbox. His very essence, nature, and substances is love. He is love and God can only do who he is. He cannot act out of character else he would be a liar, and he is not a liar.

[00:55:44] Cathy: No, he’s not a liar. We’ve been going through our own trials, and I’ve been realizing again and again, no trial is visited on us except by the God who loves us.

We are his love. He is making us more able to receive it. We can trust him no matter what it is we’re going through. Doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s kind of a wrestling, but that’s what it is.

[00:56:11] Anthony: And it’s interesting to me because as we transition into the homestretch and our final passage of the month. I was going to ask you to make the text personal, but you’ve already done that for us.

I’ll still ask you to do it again. But that’s, I think, a word for all of us. That’s when there’s congruency with what the text is telling us, with what’s going on in our lives. And we keep coming back, as you said repeatedly through this podcast, that if we just continue to trust, to trust in the one who is looking at us, who is with us, it makes all the difference. He is not only making a way, but he is the way, he’s the way out, the rescuer and deliver.

Our final passage of the month is 2 Corinthians 5:16-21. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the Fourth Sunday of Easter Prep / Lent on March 30.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. ¹⁷ So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. ²⁰ So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. ²¹ For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This passage … wow!

[00:58:26] Cathy: Yeah!

[00:58:28] Anthony: It is something! I wish we could have spent the entire hour here, but it’s all been good. It’s all gospel but tell us about the gospel contained within. Well, tell us about this ministry of reconciliation.

[00:58:39] Cathy: I will confess that this passage was the one I ended up spending the most time on and rewriting and rethinking about really more than the others. Yes, there’s too much here to have time for.

Let’s just start by going over what exactly this reconciliation is in order to talk about ministry of reconciliation. So, Paul says in this passage that God in Christ has reconciled us to himself. Well, what does that mean? Well, reconciliation very simply assumes that there is a damaged or broken relationship that needs to be fixed.

And in our relationship with God, the brokenness is on our side, and it goes deep in the fall. Humanity became, as Paul says elsewhere, lost, dead, and without hope in the world. The truth is we cannot know God on our own, who he really is, and we cannot know who we really are and who we were created to be.

We are bent towards running away from God, wanting our own way, feeding our desires, resentments, ambitions, et cetera. And we have utterly lost our capacity to know and trust God, to receive from him, and to live in the overflowing love he has for us. For us to have real relationship, real communion with God would require a work in us, not just a work for us.

We would need to be rescued from evil and death, made able to see and know the triune God, to receive his love and thereby know the reality of everything. We would have to have our darkened minds not only flooded with light, but our eyes able to see it. God would have to do something from his side that would reach to ours as well.

All this twistedness, mess, and suffering would have to be undone all the way down to its root. He had to undo the root cause or issue of the alienation, distrust, and rebellion. It couldn’t be superficial. It’s not fairy dust. It’s not a mental flip in his head or a psychological trick. God would somehow have to do a work in us that would put us on a new foundation, a new footing, that would enable us to live in good and right relationship with him.

And it would be a costly suffering and atoning act. And in Christ, God has done this work. That’s what Paul is proclaiming. God has, in Christ, reconciled himself to us in the life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. The Son of God entered into our sinful humanity and has taken on our sin, our fallen nature, our diseases, our sufferings, and our death.

In order, ultimately, to separate us from our sin and heal us from the inside out. At his own cost, God has cleared the way for all who have rebelled against him in unbelief and distrust to come back to him. He holds nothing against us but instead offers forgiveness and even the power to receive forgiveness, so that we might live out a reconciled relationship with our Creator and Redeemer God.

God in Christ is undoing, redeeming all the evil, sin, damage, and brokenness of all of his creation. In verse 19, Paul says in Christ God was reconciling the world or cosmos to himself. So, for those of us who have received Christ, who have put our lives under his wonderful reign, and are now participating in this wonderful ongoing work, we are now, as he is saying, his ambassadors. We are participating in this wonderful work. We participate in it, first of all, by simply living in this new life of right relationship that he gives us. We bear witness of his goodness and reality as we grow up in the reconciliation that he has done for us, as we receive his sanctifying work in our lives.

And we participate in this ongoing work when we proclaim to others this wonderful news. God makes his appeal for all to receive the gift of reconciliation he has accomplished through those who have already received it. So having opened the way, God is doing the ongoing work of drawing others to himself, the outworking of his atoning reconciliation isn’t finished. Thank God.

He’s continuing his work to get the world to receive the free gift of his having reconciled the world to himself. And we are a part of this outworking, we participate, as I said, as his ambassador.

And I think one of the main ways we participate is simply by living in him, by growing in him, by trusting in a right relationship with him ourselves. God in Christ has made us his own. He’s made me his own. He’s given himself to me. He’s committed to transforming and growing me into this new life with him and in him. So today, again, I get to say amen to him and do his work in me. I get to come to love his sanctifying work in me, as arduous as it sometimes is, to let his Holy Spirit lead me to repentance and trust in him again and not in myself.

I have never found it easy or automatic, but I do rejoice in where he has brought me already and I look forward to seeing him complete the work. I have found in my life that the more I know his grace and kindness towards me, the more I want to press on to know him, the more I want to be like him, and so the person he created me to be.

I want to live suspended in his grace every day, and this participation in his work in me is a witness to myself and to others of his good, holy, and living reality. God makes his appeal through me, as he once again leads me to act out of complete devotion and trust in his faithfulness in his work in me and in the world. God makes his appeal through me when he enables me to repent of my resentment, unforgiveness, my pride, instead of acting on them.

He makes his appeal through me when he reminds me in his word of his good character and purposes and helps me once again to hand my fears over to him so that I can receive and attend to his good grace in the actual moment I’m in. And he has made his appeal through me often, I have found in my life, when he has taken me through wrenching situations and then actually use them in my caring for others.

He is making his appeal through me when he leads me to cry out with tears in prayer for our world and for the people I know are suffering. And recently, he’s been making his appeal through me as he puts me into places where I keep having to admit that I’m not in control, that I’m not adequate to the task, and that I need to depend fully on him, which is something he longs for me to do, and something I resist.

What I’m trying to say is that I am often surprised at how God works in me and makes his appeal through me. I’m often surprised to find out what this ongoing ministry looks like for me. I’m always discovering anew the ways that God is at work in and through my life to make his appeal. I believe it can be tempting to think that this wrestling, sanctifying work that he’s doing in us is something apart from his making his appeal. That simply isn’t true.

You can’t separate the work he is doing in you from the work he is doing through you. And that’s very humbling. My job is to follow God’s work in my life and trust that he will make his appeal through all the various twists and turns. And, of course, as I follow him, he gives me opportunities to proclaim to others the new footing on which God has placed his creation and every creature. We can proclaim to those who don’t yet know him, that contrary to all the lies about God, this God is not against us, but he is for us. And he has blazed a path for us to return to him. The door is open to God. It’s truly amazing.

[01:07:45] Anthony: It’s humbling, is it not, Cathy? He doesn’t need me to make his appeal.

[01:07:50] Cathy: No, he doesn’t.

[01:07:51] Anthony: He wants me.

[01:07:53] Cathy: Yeah.

[01:07:54] Anthony: Out of his goodness, he created out of love. And it’s this joyful participation in that appeal, but he doesn’t need me to do it, but he wants relationship, real relationship with me for that appeal to be made. And so, my final question to kind of wrap up our podcast together relates to that.

I’m just curious, how has this passage of scripture renewed your thinking about God, which you’ve already alluded to, but also your fellow human beings? How has it reshaped your thinking about the people you encounter?

[01:08:31] Cathy: Well, I’d say that for me this passage, but also just a lot of what I’ve been going through. We have a lot of people, as you were saying, who are suffering in their lives. Some know Christ, some don’t.

I’ve thought a lot about something Paul talks about, of sharing in the sufferings of Christ. That for me, living in this ongoing ministry of reconciliation to others, yes, it’s a joyous, but for me, a lot of times it’s been a suffering because I feel so sad about what people are going through.

And I’ve come to realize victoriously, but also just amazing that praying for them, praying with them, coming alongside of them is oftentimes what God is calling me to do as he makes his appeal to them. I hope this makes sense,

[01:09:36] Anthony: It does.

[01:09:37] Cathy: But I guess I would just say that I have been amazed, and this was part of what I was trying to say is he is making his appeal through this mess that’s me and that he’s working through.

I don’t have to get my act together over here so that I can have him making his appeal over there when I look good. That the wonderful, amazing thing is nothing is wasted. Nothing’s wasted. He uses it all for his glory. And sometimes I think what he’s doing is he’s making his appeal to others through me in my weakest points, in the places I don’t want him to be, because I want to look more together than I do.

[01:10:29] Anthony: You’re not alone, sister.

[01:10:31] Cathy: And that is mind blowing to me. It’s just so good and so amazing. And that’s basically what I would say that this whole thing has been for me.

[01:10:41] Anthony: Well friends, as we wrap up, I wanted to share an encouragement with you and a thought for us to really contend with from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He said, “May God in his mercy lead us through these times, but above all, may he lead us to himself.”

[01:10:59] Cathy: Yes. Amen.

[01:11:00] Anthony: Amen. And amen.

Friends, this podcast is not a one man show. Thankfully … it wouldn’t be very good. It’s a team of people, and I’m so blessed to work with Elizabeth Mullins and Reuel Enerio and Michelle Hartman who put this together for you. I hope it’s a blessing.

Cathy, I want to thank you for your time, your energy, just the capacity to teach scripture — a gift God has given you. So thankful for your words of encouragement here today. And for a final word of encouragement, we’re going to ask you to pray and bless us on our way.

[01:11:32] Cathy: Sure.

Heavenly Father, we are so grateful that you love us more than you love just being yourself, the triune God, but you’ve come down and you have made us your own. And I am so grateful for your relentless love for us. I’m so grateful for all the people who will hear this, not because I got a chance to be a part of it, but because you want to speak to them.

You love them. You love them so much. So much more, I’m sure, than they realize a lot of times. And I trust that you will use your words of Scripture and anything, anything that was helpful here to your glory and to their good. We praise you and we thank you, in the good and glorious name of Jesus, Amen.

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