Models for Christian Living: Lessons from Surfing and St. Paul

What kind of person do I need to become to serve as a model of Christlike character for others?

A Lesson from Surfing
I took up surfing the year before I turned 40. I’d been watching surfers from the safety of the seashore for many years. I figured it was now or never. My daughters were elementary school age at the time and they eagerly took up the sport with me. My progress was hard won. It took well over a hundred attempts before I ever caught my first wave. My youngest daughter showed me up on her first attempt. She was seven years old. She was petite for her age. She was small enough that she didn’t even need a full sized surf board. I taught her using a four foot body board.
 
She caught her first wave just south of Port Canaveral, Florida. We were about thirty yards offshore. She was light enough that she balanced on the body board while I held it steady as we awaited the next set of waves. The perfect one approached. I pushed the board into the wave. My daughter kept her balance and glided down the face of the wave. At this moment, she did something extraordinary. She was so proud of her triumph that while she surfed the wave she began sharing her joy with everyone within shouting distance. She cried out, “Look at me! Everyone, look at me!”
 
I remember chuckling to myself at her lack of humility and thinking that she’d grow out of this. Yet, while reading Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Paul’s exhortation in 3:17 reminded me of my daughter’s words. Paul wrote, “Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.”
 
Paul’s Challenge to the Philippians
In Philippians, Paul calls believers to live as citizens worthy of the Gospel of Christ (1:27–30, 3:20). Paul writes to empower the Philippian Christ followers to serve as witnesses of the good news for their city. Of course the principal model for the Christian life is Jesus himself (2:1–18). Yet Paul offers Jesus as the first model of four that he includes from 2:1–3:16 as examples of what a citizen worthy of the Gospel looks like.
 
The issue in Philippians was the status of the believers within the Roman world. Many of the Christians in Philippi (like Paul himself) were Roman citizens. Roman citizenship offered substantial privileges within the Empire and was not common in the provinces. The city of Philippi was a Roman colony so Philippi enjoyed a standing within the Empire that other cities outside of Rome did not.

A fundamental insight in 1:27-4:1 is this: the status that one embraces sets the limits of one’s capacity to reach others with the Gospel. Roman citizenship is a set of privileges that one enjoys and is able to exploit for his or her own benefit. Gospel citizenship is a privileged relationship with God that unleashes one to lay aside personal benefits for the sake of God’s mission and for the good of others. 

Paul begins with Jesus. The hymn in 2:6–11 captures the core message of Gospel citizenship. Although (or perhaps because) Jesus shares equality with God, Jesus did not exploit this status for his personal gain (2:6). Instead, Jesus renounced the status of divinity and embraced the status of a slave (2:7). This was a profound subversion of the Roman social ladder. Slaves were at the bottom far below the gods (and well below the status of a Roman citizen). In fact, Jesus embraced his slave status to the extent that he was obedient to death on a cross (2:8). Don’t miss the significance of this statement. Jesus could have died in a variety of ways to atone for sin. He took up the cross in part because crucifixion was reserved only for those of no status such as slaves. Yet what happened to Jesus (2:9–11)? God highly exalted him and gave him the name above all names.

This is the first model for citizenship. The Philippians are to work out their salvation (2:12) in light of Jesus’ life and shine as stars within their generation (2:15). But it is easy to point to Jesus as the model because Jesus is no longer physically present. His story is aspirational, but Paul offers something profoundly incarnational. 

Paul moves to include three humans whom the Philippians know intimately as contemporary examples of Christ like character and action: Timothy (1:1, 2:19–24), Epaphroditus (2:25–30), and himself (1:1–26, 3:1–16). Timothy demonstrated a genuine other centered outlook in the way that he ministered among the Philippians. Epaphroditus was a member of the Philippian community. He faced death in order to serve in the mission of the Gospel when the Philippians sent him to help the imprisoned Paul. Paul himself suffered in prison (1:12–26) and modeled the reality that knowing Christ Jesus as Lord was a greater gain than any mere human accomplishment (3:1–16).

The Philippians knew these men. Paul couldn’t distort their character. Paul took this risk to teach us the importance of our personal lives in the advance of the Gospel. Paul could say with integrity, “If you want to see what the Christian life looks like, look at me as well as the lives of my co-workers Timothy and Epaphroditus.” 

Implications for Living
This text calls us to remember and give thanks for the women and men in our lives from whom we’ve learned how to live out the Gospel. Who are yours?

More importantly, it challenges us to recognize the necessity of nurturing personal holiness as an integral part of how God advances his mission in the world. Who is watching and learning from me?
 
As I think about Paul’s words to the Philippians, I see and hear my daughter surfing and crying out, “Look at me! Everyone, look at me!”
 

What kind of person do I need to become in order to serve as a model of Christlike character for others?

© 2017 Brian D. Russell

How to Experience Joy and Peace in All Circumstances (Dear Kittens #44)

(I write my daughters aka "kittens" a short letter each week under the pseudonym "TOC"="The Old Cat". We've always had cats so this rubric works for us. My daughters are both in high school. I try to distill the wisdom gained from my 48 years that I wish I'd have learned when I was a teen.)
 
Dear Kittens,
 
One of the keys to experiencing joy is to learn to understand the difference between the things that we can control and the things that we can’t control. In Discourses and Selected Writings (Penguin Classics), Epictetus taught, “It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgments concerning them.” In other words, how we feel or think about an event in our lives depends less on the event itself and more on the meaning that we give to it. Jack Canfield, author of The Success Principles(TM) - 10th Anniversary Edition: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be offers a formula to help us understand the way of thinking advocated by Epictetus. Canfield suggests that we view life this way: Event (whatever happens) + Our Response = Outcome. If we reflect on this principle, we can recognize the part of each outcome that we can control. Of course, this means our response to the events that happen to us rather than the events themselves.
 
Once we gain this wisdom we can experience a deep joy that does not depend on our circumstances. We can find joy in the good times and the challenging ones. The apostle Paul adds a critical teaching that reminds us of God’s role in our response to events.
 
One of my favorite passages from Paul is Philippians 4:4–7: Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
 
In these verses, Paul teaches us how to respond to events in a way that leads to joy and peace. Paul begins with joy and ends with peace. These are related. We can find joy in all circumstances by experiencing the inner peace and calmness that God can give to us. Paul wrote these words while awaiting trial under house arrest in Rome. His life was on the line and he faced possible execution. Yet, he can write about joy and peace in all circumstances. Kittens, I hope that your ears just perked up.
 
Here is what Paul says about how to respond to any event. I’ve put Paul’s teaching from Philippians 4:4–7 into a formula: Remember God’s provisions (“the Lord is near”) + release of anxiety in prayer + practicing gratitude in all circumstances = peace that passes all understanding. When faced with wonderful events or challenging events, we must remember that Jesus who experienced both death on a cross and Resurrection is present with us. Moreover Jesus has all futures under his control. Once we recognize this when we face an event that triggers our anxiety we must release our anxiety and fears to God in prayer. If you struggle releasing anxiety and find your mind racing, add a list of things for which you are grateful into the prayer. Gratitude is critical for grounding us in the present and pushing aside our anxiety about what an event means for our future. When we take these steps, we can experience God’s peace.
 
Then our gentleness can be evident to all. Paul is not advocating wimpiness or weakness. Gentleness is patient resilience. It is a cool confidence in the abundance of the future regardless of what happens. A response from a God-shaped gentleness rooted in joy and peace creates a much better outcome for us.
 
Kittens, life has highs and lows in it. This is unavoidable. The good news is that God provides a way to experience joy and peace for our journey. Jesus once said this to a raging storm: “Peace, be still.” 
This is a calmness we can experience too.
 
With much love,
TOC aka "The Old Cat"

If you would like to be added to the Dear Kittens email list to receive future notes from TOC, send me an email: brian.russell9113 at gmail.com

Skills for Reading Scripture: Context(s)

Skills for Reading Scripture

There is no substitute for learning to read the text carefully and closely. Each of us can gain competence in this practice. Reading the Bible may be compared to a trip to the ocean. Like the ocean, the Scriptures have various levels and depths of meaning. The reader must decide whether to be satisfied merely with observing the ocean from a chair on the beach, dipping one’s toes into the shallows, or heading out far from shore. If one only enjoys the ocean from one particular spot, much will be missed. It is vital for us as readers to venture as deeply as possible into the biblical passages we are studying and to learn to view them from a variety of perspectives in order to experience them in all of their richness. Just as the ocean runs from the shallows along the shore to the unfathomable depths of the Mariana Trench so the Scriptures offer us as much depth as we desire. How deeply do we want to explore the Scripture?

Reading in Context

The key to understanding any passage in the Bible is learning to read it in its literary context. Reading Scripture is a dance between the reader, the text, and its wider context. Like a dancer who must maintain awareness of both the music and her partner, the wise reader must keep in view both the discrete details of the passage of Scripture being studied and the wider movements of the passages surrounding it. In biblical interpretation, context is everything. By literary context, we mean several interlocking levels.

First, the primary source of evidence for understanding the meaning of a passage is its immediate context. In most cases this will be the text that we are studying and the paragraphs immediate before and after it. For example, if we are studying the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-13) it is important to observe that it occurs within a block of teaching that focuses on prayer (6:6-15). The verses immediately before the Lord’s Prayer contrast it with prayers that emphasize many words and religious formulas and the verses after it focus on the necessity of forgiveness. Our reading of the Lord’s Prayer must be informed by and account for these elements.

Second, each passage has a wider context in the book in which it occurs. To get a sense of the book context take a few minutes to read the introductory notes in the Common English Study Bible to the book you are studying and observe the outline of the whole. This will help you to gain an understanding of the role that the smaller passage with which you are working plays in the overall message of a book. Again looking at the Lord’s Prayer, we may observe that it falls within a larger segment (6:1-18) that serves to warn against public acts of piety (almsgiving, prayer, and fasting) as a means to gaining rewards from God. Widening our lens a little more, we may observe that this text falls within a larger block of teaching materials known traditionally as the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:1–7:29). In this material Jesus is training his disciples for the ministry of announcing the good news of the kingdom of heaven (Matt 4:17–11:1).

Reading in context is vital as a guard against misreading the meaning of a passage. A truism about reading in context is this: “A text without a context is a pretext.” Apart from reading a passage of Scripture in context we may easily make a text say what we desire for it to mean rather than to hear the message that the text itself wants us to hear. The wise reader must remember this: Read an individual text in light of its literary context. This practice alone will keep us from many errors.

There are other contexts that the wise reader will also be attentive to as time permits. First, information on the historical context or background can help us to gain a richer appreciation of a passage of Scripture. The study notes in this Bible will draw the reader’s attention to important historical details. In addition, readers may find it helpful to use a bible dictionary or a full-length commentary. For example, in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Paul mentions opponents who are harassing the Philippian Christ followers (e.g., 1:28, 3:2, 3:18). Who are these opponents? Is there one group or are there several different opponents? What is the nature of their opposition? Answering these questions would provide helpful historical background for understanding Paul’s words to the Philippians.

Second, readers need to be aware of related texts that the passage we are studying alludes to and/or other passages that may allude to our text. Psalm 8 is a text that models both of these situations. Psalm 8 is a hymn of praise to the Lord. It reflects on the status and mission of humanity in light of the majestic nature of God. Psalm 8:6-8 focuses on the stewardship role played by women and men over creation. The psalmist clearly has in mind the creation story in Genesis 1:1–2:3. If we are going to fully comprehend the message of Psalm 8, we will need to study how the psalmist interprets uses the material from Genesis. The savvy reader will also want to know that Hebrews 2:6-8 quotes Psalm 8:4-6. If we are going to understand the full biblical meaning of Psalm 8, we will need to be aware of how the author of the book of Hebrews deploys Psalm 8 in his letter.

Reading with the Big Picture in Mind

Reading the Bible as Christian Scripture also involves understanding each individual passage and book within the overall context of the Bible as a whole. The Christian canon of sixty-six books links the Old and New Testament and proclaims an overarching narrative when viewed as a whole. We may observe the following framework that holds the discrete elements of the Bible together: Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus the Messiah, Church, New Creation. The Bible begins with the story of the Creation of the world (Gen 1–2) and ends with the description of a future New Creation (Revelation 20–21). The biblical story opens with a very good world and ends with the recreation of very goodness. In between these bookends, we find the biblical story of the salvation of the people and all creation. The need for salvation is first described in Genesis 3–11. This section of Scripture describes the fundament problem in the world: human alienation and sin. This problem has fractured the very good creation described in Gen 1–2. God responds to this problem by calling a people for himself through whom he will bless all nations (Gen 12–Malachi). This people is named Israel. God calls Israel’s ancestors in Gen 12–50. He rescues them from slavery in Egypt and establishes a covenant relationship with them as a means of preparing them to serve as a people of blessing to the world, and leads them through the wilderness to the promised land of Canaan (Exodus–Deuteronomy). Joshua­–Esther narrate Israel’s life in Canaan, its times of obedience/disobedience, exile, and return. The wisdom books (Job–Song of Songs) include the prayers of God’s people and their reflections on the good life within God’s creation. The Old Testament ends with the Prophetic books. The Prophets (Isaiah–Malachi) serve to call God’s people back to their roots as the holy redeemed people through whom God will bless the nations and they also envision a radical future act of salvation. The New Testament opens with the four Gospels, which tell the story of the Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Jesus announces the inbreaking of God’s future and fulfills the hopes and expectations of Israel’s Scriptures. Jesus’ death and resurrection marks the climax of God’s saving work and serves to announce the final victory of God. Acts–Rev 19 tells the story of the Church under the power of the Holy Spirit witnessing to all nations about the good news of Jesus. Revelation 20-21 brings the story full circle by envisioning the full consummation of God’s victory in a New Creation.

The wise reader keeps in mind this broader story as a means of understanding much smaller portions of the Bible. Again a balance must be maintained. To focus only on this broad summary risks missing the many nuances that individual biblical books and passages within them offer. If we only focus on the big picture we may flatten out the Bible by forcing its individual pieces to conform to our assumptions about the big picture. But to focus only on the specific details of smaller passages runs the risk of missing the overall message of the Bible. It is like having all of our clothing piled randomly in a closet without any discernible organizing principle. The big picture serves as hangers and dividers to make sense of our wardrobe. The wise reader will be aware simultaneously of the broader narratives and themes of the Bible while also hearing the witness of the individual passage under current consideration.