Magician vs. Apostle of the King

Listen, My Son ...

(Acts 13:5-12, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, May 27, 2012)

[5] When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them.

One of the truisms that I have come to embrace in life is that God has His people everywhere. This phrase has a special meaning when applied to the missionary journeys of men like Paul and Barnabas, Jews that had come to believe in Jesus of Nazareth as the Suffering Servant Messiah. As they went out from Antioch into the Mediterranean, they encountered Jews everywhere. When they came to eastern region of Cypus called Salamis, there were many synagogues of the Jews. It was the practice of these two missionaries to go first to the Jews, and to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah in the synagogues.

When God sent Moses to Pharaoh, he gave him these words: “Thus says the Lord, Israel is My firstborn son.” In all the centuries that followed of disobedience and discipline of the northern tribes and of Judah, God had never fully abandoned His Son Israel. Even today, the Jewish Messiah calls His ancient people home through the preaching of the Word. “Israel is My Son.”

In Proverbs, the Lord addresses His people as if talking to the young prince of a very godly king. He says in Proverbs 3, “Listen my son.” The preaching of the gospel to Jews has this plaintive cry attached to it from the Lord of the Jews. The message that we preach is about a Son of God who died for the nation of Israel, and not only for the Jews, but also for the scattered people of God all over the earth. Paul and Barnabas and their assistant John Mark were on a divine errand that continues down to the present moment. God calls out to His beloved children for whom He died. He says, “Listen, My son.” And Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Father says to all the scattered and estranged children of God, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

[6] When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. [7] He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. [8] But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

Salamis is on the far east of Cyprus and Paphos is on the western shore. These men traveled the whole island and they eventually came upon the key man who would assist them in their mission. He was not a friend, but an estranged son of God, a Jewish false prophet and magician who was highly placed in the confidence of the Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus.

Many enemies of the gospel have inadvertently been powerfully used over the course of the centuries of proclaiming Christ to the world. They set up a contest that we may not have asked for. But we need to remember who is in charge of everyone, even in charge of a man like this magician. What men may mean for evil, God is working for good.

This magician, this Bar-Jesus, opposes Barnabas and Paul, seeking to turn away Sergius Paulus from the faith. Since we are told that Elymas was attempting to “turn away” the proconsul from the faith, that must mean that Sergius Paulus had already begun to respond positively to the message of the Jewish Messiah. He had sought to hear the Word of God. But there was the enemy right within the courts of power. There was a confidante to the proconsul, even a son of Israel. But He was not a friend of God. Yet God could use this encounter between two Jews, Paul and Elymas, as the best thing that happened during this mission to Cyprus.

[9] But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him [10] and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?

The Lord was calling not only Jews to come to His Son on this island. He was speaking through His servants to Gentiles like Sergius Paulus. He cried out to this man, “Listen, my son!” Listen to the Word of the King and receive the message gladly. But that message became very confusing when a powerful adversary, a fellow Jew, tried to convince his powerful Gentile friend that these two itinerant preachers were not worthy of his ear. Yet this Sergius was an intelligent man, and he was able to see something in the contest between Paul and Elymas.

Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, confronted his adversary very directly and plainly. There comes a point when the message moves from the urgent plea of “Listen, my son,” to these frank words. “You son of the devil.” That may sound like too much to say, but it was true. The kind of magic that Elymas was practicing cut him off from the Jewish people according to the laws of the Jews. He was in league with spiritual powers that were deeply rebellious against the Lord of Hosts and against the message of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the King of Righteousness. Elymas was the enemy of all righteousness. No amount of Jewishness would make these two men brothers in common purpose. Which one was telling lies? Which one was the villain? Which one was making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? This contest was not only between Paul and Elymas. It was between Jesus and the devil. Paul is honest enough to say this by the power of the Spirit.

[11] And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand.

He did one thing more. He pronounced him temporarily blind. Interesting. That is what God did to Saul of Tarsus in a very different setting several years before. This is the last we hear of Elymas. The power of the words of Paul showed who was the one who was representing the true King of the Jews, Jesus.

[12] Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

The meaning of this power encounter was not lost on the Roman proconsul. The Jewish magician lost, and the Jewish proclaimer of resurrection life through Jesus the Messiah won. This event was an astounding display of the teaching of the Lord.

The teaching of Jesus as the powerful Lord of heaven and earth has faced opposition since the days when Judas joined forces with leaders of the Jews against the Man that they saw as a great troubler of Israel. They viewed themselves as the true sons of the kingdom, and they rejected the Son of God who came to save us.

Today is the day for the sons of God to hear the voice of their Messiah and live. God will not plead with us forever. Eventually there will be a firm and permanent divide between those that have rejected the merciful pleas of the Almighty, exposing themselves to be sons of the devil, and those who have come to see Jesus as their only hope. Those who rest in Christ will be owned by Him. They are more than His sheep and more than His servants. They are sons of God. They hear the voice of their Savior, and they follow Him. He gives them eternal life.

1. Why did Barnabas and Saul proclaim the Word in synagogues?

2. How are we to understand this contest between Saul and Elymas?

3. Why was the reaction of the proconsul to the events that had occurred?

4. What opposition does the teaching of the Lord face today? How are we to confront that opposition, if at all?

OT Passage: Proverbs 3

The Jim Elliot Kind of Foolishness

Ministerial Drink Offering

(2 Timothy 4:6-7)

6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering,

Jesus of Nazareth poured out His life as the fulfillment of the Old Testament drink offering. He shed His blood in what must have seemed to many to be a wasted life and a pointless death. But His life and death were entirely offered up to the Father, and were acceptable in the sight of God.

As His followers, our desire is to give ourselves fully to Him. Just as those who are not filled with the Holy Spirit will not love the Word of God as the gold that it surely is, they will not see our lives as well spent. If we die for our faith, many will say, “What a waste of a life.” But we pour out our lives before God as a drink offering, and through Christ, this service is acceptable to the Father.

and the time of my departure has come.

I do not know the day of my departure, but there have been those who have known that their time left on this earth was brief. The apostle Paul was one of them, and so was the God/Man that he followed. When we leave here, it is not the end of our existence, but it is the completion of one very important phase of our lives. We will depart, and we will be with the Lord. All who have died in Christ up to the present day have had to face this moment.

Are you prepared for the time of your departure? Jesus was. You either find your preparation in Him, or you remain unprepared for the road ahead of you beyond this life.

7 I have fought the good fight,

But there is a way of living your life in Him, through Him, and with Him. This is the way to approach death with true peace. Your life on earth is a fight. You need to have the grace of God in you. Take in the Word, and let that Word be expressed through you. You need to fight the good fight.

I have finished the race,

There is a race to be running, and the finish line is swiftly approaching. Some are disqualified. They do not finish the race well. They become captive to other strange gods.

I have kept the faith.

What a blessing to be able to say with the apostle, “I have kept the faith.” Every life is a very high stakes proposition. None was more important than the life of our Savior. You want to come to your last supper with the confidence that comes from His Last Supper. You can offer up your body and blood to the Father with confidence because of the one who said, “This is my body,” and “This is the cup of the New Covenant in my blood.”

He kept the faith. He finished the race. He fought the good fight. Pour out the holy water of your life on the ground before the Lord in honor of His righteousness and blood. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” - Jim Elliot

Give of your sons to bear the message glorious...

Antioch: A Sending Church

(Acts 12:25-13:4, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, May 13, 2012)

[12:25] And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.

These verses present us with an account of the end of one ministry for Barnabas and Saul and the beginning of a second one.

These two men completed the first installment of an undertaking of service that was very near and dear to the heart of God: they brought some of the wealth of the nations into Jerusalem. Antioch was a mixed church with Jewish and Gentile believers worshiping together under the banner of Jesus Christ. Love for the Lord and an appreciation of His gift of Himself had pressed this church forward in service based on a Word from a prophet named Agabus about a future famine. That famine would have had an impact on both Jerusalem and on Antioch. But the church in Antioch wanted to bless the poor Christian Jews in Jerusalem. They had been blessed by the Word of Christ that God had sent forth from Jerusalem. They wanted to express their gratitude by giving back to the church in Jerusalem. God had prophesied in the Old Testament that these days would come. Now the wealth of non-Jews was freely being sent to the support of Jews who needed that help.

Barnabas and Saul came back to Antioch with a young man named Mark, a man who would be the author of the gospel that bears his name who would for a time be a companion of Paul and then of Peter. This time in Antioch would be John Mark's internship. There was much to learn from the church in Antioch.

[13:1] Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.

Barnabas, Saul, Mark... There were also a number of other servants of the Word, prophets and teachers, in the church at Antioch. In chapter 11 we had heard about prophets coming from Jerusalem and bringing a Word from God about a future event. In reading the writings of the Old Testament prophets, you discover that they do much more than predict the future. They comment on the past, and they help us to make sense of the present. They sometimes use earlier messages from God that have been recorded in writing for us that we call the “Scriptures.”

One of the functions of this growing body of written revelation over the centuries was to be a solid Word by which every prophet or teacher of religious truth could be judged. Not every spiritual messenger brings the truth. How are the Lord's people supposed to tell the difference between a false prophet and a true prophet? They judge according to the accepted written Word of God, and they rely on the discernment of other true prophets and teachers.

So, in Antioch there were several prophets and teachers. Someone like Paul was probably primarily a teacher, helping people to see from the Hebrew Scriptures the truth about the Messiah, the necessity of His sufferings, the meaning of His resurrection, and the way of holiness unto heavenly blessing. During Paul's entire ministry of teaching, new Scripture was being written. In fact, Paul himself was the author of no less than thirteen letters that the church eventually recognized as inspired writings from God. Peter wrote about Paul's writings:

… Our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters.... There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. (2 Peter 3:15-16)

So Peter acknowledged that Paul's letters were the Scriptures, right alongside the Torah and the Hebrew prophets. We recognize that we live in a time that is different than the days of Paul's ministry described here. We have a completed written Word, by which all controversies of faith can be judged. But God still calls people to bring the Word, and He uses people like those that are listed here from Antioch, to speak His message to the congregation that He loves.

[2] While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” [3] Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.Men like Barnabas and Paul were gifts of God to the church in Antioch, just as their scarce wealth in a time of impending economic crisis was a gift of God. They did not hoard their money, and they did not hoard their people. They cast their bread upon the waters, as it says in Ecclesiastes 11:1, in the certainty that they would “find it after many days.”

It was not just their own idea that they would be generous. It was in accord with the living Word, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself to us, and it was in accord with the Holy Spirit that Jesus sends forth upon the church. When you read in the Bible about the Holy Spirit doing or saying something, you should remember that this divine Spirit works in complete accord with the Father and the Son.

The church in Antioch was generous because the Holy Spirit led in that direction and they followed. They were eager for God's direction, so they worshiped Him and had a time of fasting, seeking His will. Then an explicit message of God came to them, probably through one of the gifted prophets in the congregation, but affirmed by the rest of the prophets and teachers to be in accord with the will of God and the writings of the Scriptures. “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So they did. They had more prayer and fasting. They blessed them again with the laying on of hands as a public testimony to their affirmation of the Lord's call to them as representatives of His church, and as a gift of God to others who might not yet know His Name.

We give our money, and we give something more precious to us than money. We send people we love with our prayers and our blessing. We entrust them to the Lord's care. We help to provide for their needs, and we trust that God will use them. Antioch was a sending church, because God is a sending God. Think of what the Father sent. It was more than money could buy. His Son. “He left his Father's throne above (so free, so infinite his grace!), humbled himself (so great his love!), and bled for all his chosen race. 'Tis mercy all, immense and free; for, O my God, it found out me. Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?”

[4] So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

Not only did the Holy Spirit identify the mission, and send out the missionaries through the hands of men, He, the Holy Spirit, was with them as they went. This is our confidence, that when we seek the will of God and find it through the body of Christ, that Jesus will be with us in that will as we set out to serve Him. Do we have all the answers? Absolutely not. We don't even know what question to ask all the time. But the Rock of our salvation is with us. He leads us forward. Anything less than this is religious teaching that is devoid of the Spirit of the Lord.

1. What was the mission that brought Barnabas and Saul to Jerusalem?

2. What was the distinction in Antioch, if any, between “prophets” and “teachers?”

3. How did it happen that Antioch became a sending church?

4. What role did the Holy Spirit play in this new phase of ministry in Antioch?

OT Passage: Psalm 145

The itsy-bitsy spider is getting into too many itchy ears.

Bad Ear Problems

(2 Timothy 4:3-4)

1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

3 For the time is coming

In one of the latest books of the Bible, Paul writes here to Timothy about a future time that will come that will have some special challenges. We might light to think that the New Testament era would be a time of unending progress. That is not the case in individual lives, nor in particular churches, or in the church at large. Beyond the ups and downs of life with people in any place and time, Paul is referring to a future period of extreme apostasy as he wrote earlier to the church in Thessalonica. (2 Thes. 2:1-4)

when people will not endure sound (healthy) teaching,

In that future day, people will not put up with healthy teaching. There is teaching that is spiritually healthy for eager souls, but not everyone is eager for it. There remains a witness to the teaching of the whole counsel of God held in orbit by the those doctrines that are of first importance that the Christian church has unanimously confessed now for many centuries. Some people will not endure that kind of healthy word. They want something else.


but having itching ears

If you have itching ears, you may have an itsy bitsy spider in there. If your heart is itching for a different message than that which has been life to the church since the resurrection of Christ, you are asking for a world of hurt. What are people so eager to hear about? Some other method of victory in this life that would be different than the way of the cross. Something more interesting and clever than the presentation of the glory of the only God through the Scriptures. Too bad. There can be all kinds of different styles of faithfully preaching the word, but do we have to put so much honey on the lip of the bitter cup of salvation? (Quoted from memory from Hughes Oliphant Old in Worship)

they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

There will be teachers ready to accommodate this beast. The people want to satisfy their lusts with some religious teachings. Churches will ordain people who will do the job for them, and the message of Christ, the cross, and the resurrection will seem too stale or old for today's success-seeking Christians.

4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

So they will readily leave a place where the Word is being preached faithfully, and go someplace else where their passions for this world can be more readily satisfied. They will turn away from truth. What will they get instead? Myths. Not a good trade. That will not be a healthy diet for the soul that was built by God to feed on the Bread of Life. It breaks my heart, but what can anyone do about it. Just be faithful. Preach it and hear it.

Roman puppet king vs. Ascended Lord of the Universe... I wonder who will win?

The Voice of God and Your Liberty in Christ

(Acts 12:1-24, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, May 6, 2012)

[12:1] About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. [2] He killed James the brother of John with the sword, [3] and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. [4] And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. [5] So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.

Herod Agrippa was a grandson of Herod the Great, the man who was troubled by the visit of wise men from the east in connection with the birth of the king of the Jews, Jesus Christ. Here in Acts 12 we have another chapter in the ongoing saga of the battle between rulers who seem to be somebody, and those who seem to be nobody who speak for the Lord God Almighty. Herod Agrippa thought that he could kill James, the brother of John, and arrest Peter; all to enhance his own stature among his subjects or to achieve some other goal of which he was the master.

Meanwhile, the church was praying earnestly to God. The contest was on.

[6] Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. [7] And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his hands. [8] And the angel said to him, “Dress yourself and put on your sandals.” And he did so. And he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” [9] And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. [10] When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him. [11] When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”

On the very night before Herod sent for his prize, Peter, God sent for him first, through an angel. God was able to make a precision rescue of this leading apostle. He was chained to two sentries when his chains fell off, leaving the soldiers sleeping. Through this miraculous rescue, Peter did not even know that this was anything but a dream. By the time that the angel left him, he was a free man. His conclusion? That God had won a contest against Herod and the Jewish people that hated the message that Peter represented. He had been rescued from prison by God. He was free.

[12] When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. [13] And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. [14] Recognizing Peter's voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. [15] They said to her, “You are out of your mind.” But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, “It is his angel!” [16] But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. [17] But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, “Tell these things to James and to the brothers.” Then he departed and went to another place.Whenever you know that you have been rescued by God, when you find that you have been delivered from bondage and that you are suddenly free, I highly recommend that you go to church and tell people about it. The people there should know about what it is to be freed from something that you absolutely could not find the way out of by yourself. That is our life story. We were stuck in what Augustine called the prison house of sin. Christ has come to us as the messenger of the Lord. He woke us up, perhaps with a sharp blow to the side if necessary. He ordered the chains off of our hands and he led us out of danger when we were only half awake.

Tell the church about it, but don't be too surprised if they tell you that you are out of your mind. That is what Mark and some others told Rhoda when she claimed that Peter was at the door, a free man. This Mark would later be Peter's companion and secretary. He was the author of the gospel that bears his name, and he found freedom from bondage hard to believe. They all thought that it was an angel that was a representative of Peter, who must now be in heaven. It was not. The angel that came to Peter freed him from his chains. The man in front of them was the real Peter.

[18] Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. [19] And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the sentries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there.This extremely successful rescue mission was not good news to everyone. For instance, the sentries who somehow lost track of a man that Agrippa wanted to kill would now be killed themselves by the order of the king.

[20] Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they came to him with one accord, and having persuaded Blastus, the king's chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their country depended on the king's country for food. [21] On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. [22] And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” [23] Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.Sometime later he would face the wrath of the King of kings. He accepted the worship of his subjects. Remember when Cornelius fell at Peter's feet in Acts 10:26? “Stand up; I too am a man.” But what did Agrippa do when the crowds told him that he had the voice of a god, and not of a man? Nothing. He took it all in and enjoyed the moment. He did not give glory to God, and his life was taken from him.

[24] But the word of God increased and multiplied.

Meanwhile, the Word of God increased and multiplied. God wins. Pretenders to divine status lose. All the time. Isn't this the story of the church throughout the centuries. We follow the true King of the Ages who died on a cross for our sins. But He is still winning surprising victories through us, and evil imposters have their brief time here below and then go to meet their Maker.

Through it all, millions are experiencing true freedom through the Word of the Messiah who died for them. His resurrection life is proclaimed and lived out by nobodies. Even we don't seem to have a true clue about the extent of the victory He won for us. His grace is surprising. Keep your eye out for more victories of freedom and bigger conquests from the King of kings. He will surely win all for whom He shed His blood.

1. What was Herod's plan in attacking the leaders of the church?

2. How did the Lord God foil King Herod's plan?

3. What were the various results of this amazing miracle?

4. How will the Word of God bring the best liberty into your life?

OT Passage: Psalm 141

How did I ever get a job this difficult and this good?

The Man of God's Readiness to Serve the Word

(2 Timothy 4:2)

1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

be ready

The man of God, the New Testament preacher of Christ, the cross, and the resurrection, must be ready to preach the Word. The best way to be ready is to be preaching the Word regularly. Preach through the whole Bible. You will not do that if your preaching is limited to once per week.

When I started in Exeter, I asked our prayer supporters to pray that the Lord would give me hundreds of opportunities to preach. God has answered that prayer far beyond what I would have expected. Anyone else may have his own way to be ready. Mine is to work out of a Spirit of devotion to the Lord on a daily basis. Always be in the Word, hearing what the Lord is pressing upon you, with a readiness to bring that Word to others. Do whatever is necessary to have a good conscience about your readiness, but don't forget to actually preach. When you can't find anyone to listen to your preaching, post or publish what you have to say, so that you are maintaining your time in the Word. But keep looking for opportunities to preach face to face, no matter how few people may be there.

in season and out of season;

Be ready at an opportune moment and at an inopportune moment. Every man of God should ask for and cultivate the gift of speaking from any text in the Bible at any time. To do that, you have to be in the Bible, and you have to have a good sense of each book and how it fits into the whole of the Lord's revelation to us in the Scriptures. Also, we must take the Word we preach to heart for our own lives or it will be stale both for us and for others. This is a spiritual exercise, and we will miss the mark if we do not ask for and receive the help of the Spirit of the Lord.

reprove, rebuke, and exhort,

God uses the personality and history of each man he raises up to this task, but preaching is not all about me and my pet doctrines or my well-worn way of approaching others. Some people hate to correct others. Others find it hard to be positive at all in an evil age. The man of God must let the text lead, and do the deconstructive work of reproof and rebuke without neglecting the good work of reconstruction in the Resurrection Man. That second part means coming alongside the hearer with the true sympathy of an exhortation that points to Jesus and His heaven, and shows people how you take the next step in the right direction along the King's highway here below.

with complete patience and teaching.

Why should anyone expect this to be easy work? We serve a King who won a great victory by dying on a cross, bodily inhabiting a borrowed tomb for a brief time, and then rising again to resurrection life. We need courage and perseverance. And we need to give the whole counsel of God, all the teaching of the Scriptures. This is the only way that people will have theirs minds and their lives shaped into the fullness of the stature of Jesus Christ.