Pumped about Plumpy Nut

I was asked to visit Summerdale Peanut Company this morning to pray with the workers for safety and a bountiful harvest. It was a bit of a last minute thing by the owner, who asked me in church yesterday as they are beginning their crazy push to process the peanut harvest over the next month or two. A big concern is safety, as there are a lot of moving parts and people work a lot of overtime (and get really tired) to make extra money.

The owner, Joe, went through our last new member's class in which we spend a session talking about our work as ministry. Ministry is not just what I do. We are to glorify and serve God and his world in all we do, including our work or "vocation." Tim Keller speaks of all work as a form of gardening - taking the raw material of creation and working with it for the sake of human flourishing. Joe remembered this and out of concern for his workers and as a sign of dependence on the Lord asked me to come out.

So I went to Summerdale Peanut Company and shared a little bit and prayed with fifteen or twenty people who chose to come to a short prayer service on the front porch of their office building. Joe sent me the following video regarding Plumpy Nut, as one beautiful way that peanut growing and processing does indeed serve the common good. It's encouraging, but only if the product gets to the children that need it. What can we do to make that happen??
(I'll post a synopsis of my words to the Peanut workers at "The Restoration Project")

the Messiah and the Temple

2 Samuel 7
13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.

There's an interesting connection between the Messiah and the Temple that seems to have been present among the Jews in Jesus' day. There are some standard passages from the Hebrew Scriptures that we know influenced common messianic expectation, such as Psalm 2. But one that I read about in studying Matthew 16 is this passage from 2 Samuel 7.

The story is of David's desire to build God a permanent house in Jerusalem. You may remember that through Nathan God said no, but your son will. And that word from God through the prophet included the promise of an eternal kingdom and the son/father relationship.

We probably have a reflection of this in Jesus' trial when the only accusation witnesses make against him is that he said he would rebuild the Temple in three days. In that very context, in the next verse we hear the high priest ask Jesus, "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the living God?" Jesus does not deny it, and then gives further messianic affirmation - "But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Matthew 26:59-64)

“If the Nathan prophecy is given an eschatalogical interpretation, the building of the house of God is a messianic duty. Conversely, anyone who sets up to be a builder of the temple is indirectly claiming to be the Messiah and the Son of God. It is now clear why the high priest, when an examination of the witnesses to Jesus’ statement about the temple is at a deadlock, puts the direct question as to messianic claim and forces Jesus’ confession.” (in Matthew 8-18, vol. 2, Davies and Alison)

So when Jesus (and Matthew who records the event) connects his being the Messiah, the Son of the living God, with being the builder of a new ekklesia, a new assembly of God's gathered, called-out people, he is being faithful to their tradition.

Further, this gives some clarity to Jesus' statement in John 2 which is the background for the false witnesses testimony with regard to him saying he would destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. When he said in John 2:19, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (which John tells us concerned the temple of his body), he was making a messianic claim. He was the son of David. God was his father. The throne of his kingdom would be established forever. And he would build for his father a house in which to dwell...

19 you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Eph. 2)

Thanks be to God.

God's temple

Friday, September 18, 2009


16 Do you not know that you (plural) are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.


Paul continues on with his "God's building" metaphor and takes it to its most important and impacting, and obvious to a Jew, end - they, the church in Corinth were God's "temple" and that the Spirit of God indwelt them.

When Jesus says he will build his church, Israel redeemed from Egypt is in the background. The word ekklesia / church was one of the words used to translate the word assembly or congregation of the people of Israel "called out" of Egypt by God to himself (cf. Exodus 19). "Build" being the same word that his accusers will use when they say he claimed he would rebuild the temple in three days.

Before getting to 2 Samuel 7 in the next few days, we will let this soak in. The temple is God's house, God's building, God's dwelling place. It is the place where he meets his people. Originally it was a movable tabernacle, by means of which God said he would dwell among his people. Now that place is a people. A called out people. A gathered people. A people in whom the Spirit dwells, among whom Jesus / Emmanuel is present, under and unto a Father who loves them with unending love.

"I will build"

We've been in Matthew 16:13-19 in our Tuesday night study, a hugely important passage in Matthew. It's the first time the word church (Greek is ekklesia = "called-out ones") is used in the New Testament; the only other place in the gospels it is used is in Matthew 18.

One of the things we've been discussing is Jesus saying "on this rock I will build my church."

Just thinking out loud... here, in today's epistle reading, Paul writes to the Corinthians about building, and that they are God's building.

1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.

10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

So what I'm thinking about is whether this passage should be put tightly with Matthew 16, and say that Jesus is building his church through the building work of Paul and the other apostles or that it is a slightly different picture or perspective Paul is presenting...

Paul writes that he laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it... and also says, there is no other foundation than that which is laid, Jesus Christ. Perhaps this means that for each city where the church is established a new foundation of the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ is laid, as opposed to saying that the foundation is already there (in the death and resurrection and reign of Jesus the Messiah).

Ultimately, for today, we ought to ask ourselves: am I being built by Jesus and/or building with Jesus faithfully, today? on a good foundation, with lasting materials, indwelt by worship & the Word & acceptable sacrifices...

Hopefully, I'll have more installments along this line. There's more in Matthew 16, and 1 Cor. 3, we need to consider (and 2 Samuel 7... - check it out).

Lily is 1!

Lily is 1 year old today!