Chapter 2 in the book of Ezra overflows with names. We often skim it or may face the temptation to skip it altogether. Buried among this dizzying array of names is a sidenote that’s easy to miss, but it carries an important lesson.
Many of the Israelite exiles prepare to return to God’s promised land. Among them is a group of people, but they can’t prove their heritage. They search for their family records but do not find them.
As a result, they can’t serve as priests because their inability to prove their lineage to Aaron makes them unclean for service.
Someone did not keep good records, and the price for their sloppiness is exclusion from the priesthood. They didn’t value their heritage and that makes them ineligible to serve.
The Good List
Although Santa Claus has a good list and a naughty list based on behavior, God does not—even though many people believe differently.
True, the Old Testament values genealogies and lineages to determine who is in and who was out, but Jesus did away with that.
Instead, he saves us by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). It’s open to everyone. God’s grace and our faith puts us on God’s list. Our family tree doesn’t matter to God.
The Lamb’s Book of Life
The only list God has is the book of life. David talks about it (Psalm 69:28), and so does Paul (Philippians 4:3).
But most of the references to the book of life occur in Revelation, which is fitting because Revelation concludes with us going to meet Jesus in a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1).
Usually, John calls this the book of life, but twice he refers to it as the Lamb’s book of life. That is, Jesus’s book of life.
It’s the only book we need to be in, the only list that matters. We don’t need to keep our own records to prove we’re on this list because God maintains it. He enters our names when we follow Jesus, and never crosses them off.
Thank you, Jesus for saving us and entering our names in the Lamb’s book of life.
Read more in Peter’s devotional Bible study, A New Heaven and a New Earth: 40 Practical Insights from John’s Book of Revelation.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Discover the Key to Be Saved and Inherit Eternal Life
In the Bible, when people seek Jesus to be saved and have eternal life, he gives them different instructions. This is perplexing. Let’s dig into it. The most common direction he gives them is to “follow me” (Luke 5:27). That is, we must follow Jesus.
Other times Jesus adds the precursor to repent. To repent is to make a U-turn with our life. We make a U-turn to follow Jesus.
When we make a U-turn in our life, we stop moving in one direction and change course to head in a different direction. This is a good illustration of what it means to repent. When it comes to eternal life, we change directions to follow Jesus. It’s that simple.
But what about those times when Jesus tells people to do other things as a prerequisite to following him? For some he said to give away their money. To others he said to change their ways or persevere or obey God. Then there’s the command to take up their cross and follow him.
Do we need to do all these things to receive eternal life through Jesus? It’s an exhausting list if we heap all these requirements together.
Yet each of these instructions was to a particular person or group. It’s specifically how Jesus instructed them to make a U-turn in their lives. The direction they were going was taking them away from him—not toward him.
He needed them to change course so they could follow him. They needed to make a U-turn to follow Jesus.
To continue our understanding of repenting as making a U-turn with our life, know that it’s not about reaching a destination. Instead, it’s that initial act of heading in a different direction. That’s what it means to repent.
We repent and follow Jesus to be saved and inherit eternal life. This means we don’t need to do anything else; we can’t do anything else to earn our salvation.
We don’t need to follow a bunch of rules or check off things on a lengthy to-do list. All other religions carry the expectations of a performance-based solution.
Christianity does not—even though too many Christians wrongly pursue their faith as a performance-based religion. In Christianity, however, we are saved by grace, through faith and it’s not something we must work for to earn (Ephesians 2:8-9).
All we need to do is to make a U-turn to follow Jesus. Everything else is secondary.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
It’s sad when it happens, but we don’t need to wait long before another prominent Christian leader falls from his pedestal. Yes, it is usually men. While their moral failings are the reason, we, too, are to blame.
With ungodly fervor, we elevate our cherished leaders, hoisting them to lofty expectations that no one can maintain. Our unbridled admiration only increases their risk of failure and our profound disappointment when they stumble.
This is not just a modern occurrence, however. Two thousand years ago, the Christians living in the city of Corinth also suffer from this unwarranted celebration of its leaders.
The people there exalt the missionaries who stop by: Paul, Apollos, and Cephas, following them with great zeal (1 Corinthians 3:4-5).
This adoration approaches the level of hero worship, just as often happens today when people gush with praise for well-known Christian teachers. The risk is that the fame of these superstars threatens to supersede Jesus.
While the Bible celebrates our faith’s heroes, such as in Hebrews 11, it does so posthumously. Their record has been set; they can no longer disappoint us by their human failings. We know their strengths and their weaknesses.
We esteem them accordingly, celebrating what is good and guarding against what is not.
Christian celebrity is dangerous, both for them and us. May we not fall victim to it; may we keep our focus on Jesus. We need to follow Jesus and no one else.
Read more in Peter’s book, Love is Patient(book 7 in the Dear Theophilus series).
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
These occurrences—especially the initial ones—are in reference to being a member through birth, such as being borne into a family, clan, or nation (20 times).
In other instances it’s a choice to join a religious faction or political movement (9 times).
A Member of Jesus’s One Body
The final use is being a member of the body, such as the body, one body, or Christ’s body (eight times in seven passages).
These verses about being members of one body—Jesus’s body—all refer to the universal, global church.
Biblical Membership
How do we become members of the one body of Christ?
Just as people in the Bible were a member of a family, clan, or Jewish community (nation) through birth when they were born, we become members of Jesus’s family when we become born-again.
Our rebirth through Jesus automatically joins us as members of one body with him.
Though many churches carry the idea of membership, either directly or indirectly, the Bible doesn’t tell us to become a member of a local church or denomination.
Instead, we become a member of Jesus’s church as soon as we follow him.
Read more about this in Peter’s thought-provoking book, Jesus’s Broken Church, available in e-book, audiobook, paperback, and hardcover.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
The Number of First-Time Church Attendees Says Much about Your Congregation
Consider the people who go to your church. They fall into three categories. The first group are those who came to your church from another church. The second constituency consists of people who’ve gone there their entire life. The final type are first-time church attendees.
The second and third categories are small at many churches, with most of the people who go there coming from other churches. Most every church I been part of or have visited fits this pattern.
The result is that churches are largely—sometimes exclusively—comprised of people who came from other churches.
Church Shuffling
The result of this isn’t overall church growth but a migration of believers. It’s church shuffling. Yes, some churches grow because of shuffling people, while others shrink for the same reason. Yet the net result is overall zero church growth.
As a result, most churches gain attendance and members at the expense of other churches, which means that those churches lose attendees and members. This isn’t growing the kingdom of God but merely reshuffling it.
This shuffling of church members doesn’t accomplish anything to grow the kingdom of God or honor him in the process. These churches aren’t growing because of conversions; they’re not attracting first-time attenders.
Growth through First-Time Church Attendees
God-honoring growth comes not at the expense of other congregations, but when someone who doesn’t go to church starts attending.
Though some may have had a pre-existing relationship with Jesus but weren’t part of a faith community, most of these people have either just begun to follow Jesus or are checking him out.
They represent true church growth. And it’s absent at most gatherings. These churches have few converts. Instead, they have a different purpose in mind for church.
Meeting Needs
Churches that experience growth at the expense of other churches may justify this with the argument that “we’re just meeting people’s needs” or “we’re simply providing them what they want—and their old church didn’t.”
There is a bit of truth to this, but it’s a marketing mentality. This approach targets people using a consumer mindset and not a kingdom perspective.
Do you want to build a church dependent on marketing strategies or one that specializes on making Jesus-following disciples?
Don’t pursue church growth by shuffling members. Instead seek to grow with first-time church attendees and truly expand the kingdom of God.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
God Doesn’t Want Us to Study Him; He Wants Us to Know Him
When people first learn that I have a PhD and where I did my postgrad work, they assume I’m into theology. Imagine their disappointment to find out I don’t care about the concept or want to pursue a right theology, that I can’t engage in a meaningful discussion about the topic—at least not as they perceive it.
At its most basic level, theology is the study of God. I like that. But as nuances of finding a right theology layer on top of this basic understanding, the subject gets murky.
The result is too many long, multi-syllable words that few people can pronounce and even fewer can comprehend. Turning God into an academic pursuit of the right theology pushes him away and keeps us from truly knowing him.
Relationship Is Key
For many people, their spouse is their most important relationship.
Imagine if I went to my wife and said, “I’m going to devote the rest of my life to studying you.
“I’ll watch you and make notes. I’ll catalog who you are and categorize what you do. Next, I’ll read books to help me better understand you. I’ll also talk with others to gain their insights about who you are. Then I’ll tell others what I’ve learned.”
How would she react? Not well. My singular commitment to focus on her would not win me her appreciation. Instead it would stir up her ire. She would rightfully complain, “Why can’t we hang out instead? I just want you to spend time with me.”
So it is with God. He doesn’t want us to study him. He wants a relationship (Hosea 6:6). Theology keeps God at a distance when what he really wants is for us to know him.
Knowledge Puffs Up
As people pursue theology, they amass a great deal of information. Much of this forms a theoretical construct, turning God into an abstract spiritual entity.
In doing so they gather much knowledge but risk pushing God further away. This knowledge of who God is generates pride. It puffs up. Instead of knowledge, we should pursue love, which builds up (1 Corinthians 8:1).
Education Distracts
The pursuit of higher learning is a noble task, but it’s not the goal. Chasing after a theology of God isn’t the end. It’s the means to the end: to know who God is in an intimate, personal way.
Jesus routinely criticized the Pharisees and Sadducees—who we could equate to ancient theologians. Instead he embraced a simple message when he said “follow me” (John 10:27).
Pursing a Right Theology
Though pursuing a right theology and even having a Bible study aren’t necessarily bad, they can distract us from what’s most important: to follow Jesus and be in relationship with him.
Read more about this in Peter’s thought-provoking book, Jesus’s Broken Church, available in e-book, audiobook, paperback, and hardcover.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
The word fruit appears nearly two hundred times throughout Scripture. Coupling the word fruit with the word bear, as in bear fruit, bears fruit, and bearing fruit occurs twenty-nine times, split between the Old and New Testaments. Jesus often talks about the fruit that people bear, with the third of the Bible’s teaching on the subject coming from him.
Bear Fruit
Though people can’t produce physical, edible fruit, like a tree would, we do produce fruit in a figurative sense. It’s the output of our life, the results of what we do and don’t do.
In a spiritual sense we bear fruit when we tell others about Jesus, and they decide to follow him too.
In Jesus’s Parable of the Sower, he talks about a farmer scattering seed. The results vary depending on the conditions of where the seed falls, but the good seed produces a substantial yield of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times what the farmer planted (Matthew 13:23). But this isn’t a story about farm output. It’s how we bear fruit. It’s a metaphor about growing God’s kingdom through saved lives—or not.
In this way, the fruit we produce through our daily actions and words reflect who we are as a person and the priorities of our lives. As we do this, we also impact those around us. This can be for good, or it can be for bad.
Bear Good Fruit
Though there may be rare exceptions, people want to produce good fruit. We desire to benefit others by the things we do and through the things we say. When we live a life that produces what is good, we draw people to ourselves and can point them to Jesus. They want to be around us because of the positive ripples our life produces. This is how we bear fruit, desirable fruit.
We do this by treating the people we meet with respect and kindness. These traits are lacking in today’s polarized, adversarial world. Society has lost sight of civility.
We can change this by being intentional in our interactions with others. This includes family, friends, and those we meet throughout our daily life.
We can also make a positive difference by the things we do. This includes helping others, especially when we don’t have to. It means going out of our way to demonstrate kindness, offer compassion, and assist those in need.
Bear Bad Fruit
Just as we can produce good through our lives, we can also produce bad. Jesus talks about this too. He urges us to produce good fruit and not bad. He adds that we’re known by the fruit we produce, that people don’t gather figs from thorns or grapes from briers (Luke 6:24).
Bear Holy Spirit Fruit
As followers of Jesus, we want to produce good fruit, spiritual fruit. Paul talks about the fruit we bear in our lives through the Holy Spirit. With God’s Spirit indwelling in us we will produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). This may be the best way for us to bear fruit.
May we bear good fruit and have the fruit of the Spirit overflow from our lives. In doing so we will worship God and serve as a powerful witness to the world.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.” Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.
The Things Religious Leaders Focus on May Not Matter to God at All
Modern church priorities look at attendance, offerings, and facility size. Perhaps this is because the world measures success by the number of people, amount of money, and size of buildings. We’re more like the world than we care to admit.
More people showing up for church each week is good. A larger campus impresses. Bigger offerings allow for more of the same. After all, churches with a sizeable attendance garner attention. They receive media coverage. Books celebrate them and elevate their leaders to lofty pedestals.
This is how the Western world defines success. And the church buys into it without hesitation. These measures of success become the focus. But this focus is off, even looking in the wrong direction.
The triple aim of most churches—attendance, offerings, and facility size—doesn’t matter nearly as much as most people think.
Said more bluntly, most church leaders focus on the three B’s: butts, bucks, and buildings. These become their church priorities.
Butts
The greater the attendance, the more popular the church and, most assuredly, the more God has blessed it. Really?
Look at Jesus. After performing a miracle to feed over five thousand people, the multitude want to make him their king, by force if needed (John 6:10-15). Jesus could let them, but he doesn’t.
Instead of playing to the masses to further his ministry and advance an agenda, he launches into a hard teaching that offends them, and most turn away (John 6:60-66). It seems Jesus is more concerned with the quality of his followers then the quantity. Maybe we should follow his example.
Bucks
The church institution needs money to operate. Ministers need their paycheck. Mortgage payments have monthly due dates. If the offering sags, the church leadership panics. Boards instruct their teaching pastor to preach more about money. Yes, it happens. I’ve seen it.
Yet Jesus says not to worry about the future (Matthew 6:34). This includes money. Although Jesus had people who financially supported him, he never took an offering. He never gave a plea for money. He trusted his Father to provide. So should we.
Buildings
Churches need a lot of people to give a lot of money to pay for staff, which is well over half of most churches budgets. Next up is their buildings, which is their second greatest expense.
Together, salaries and facilities account for 80 to 90 percent of most church expenses, sometimes up to 100 percent. Imagine using all that money instead to help people and address both their spiritual and physical needs.
When Jesus said, “I will build my church (Matthew 16:18), he wasn’t talking about a building but a following.
Jesus never said, “Go build me a grand building for worship, a multimillion dollar monument.” But he did say, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel” (Mark 16:15). That’s hard to do if we’re stuck inside a church building.
The Right Church Priorities
Instead of an unhealthy, unbiblical focus on the three B’s, what if we and our churches instead looked to the three C’s of changed lives, community, and commitment?
Jesus wants changed lives. He says, “Repent and follow me,” so that he can reorder our priorities. In fact, most all he says is about changing our perspectives of how we live.
Jesus expects our commitment. He desires people who are all in. He wants us to follow him, to serve him, and to be with him (John 12:26). That’s commitment, and that’s what Jesus wants.
If Jesus focuses on changed lives, community, and commitment, so should we. These should be our church priorities. Let’s push aside butts, bucks, and buildings, because these things just get in the way of what Jesus wants for his followers.
Read more about this in Peter’s thought-provoking book, Jesus’s Broken Church, available in e-book, audiobook, paperback, and hardcover.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
In Peter’s darkest moment, he denies that he even knows who Jesus is. I don’t criticize Peter for this, however. Despite a desire to respond differently, I suspect that if facing death, I could easily do the same thing.
Later, after returning to life, Jesus restores Peter to right relationship with him. Three times Jesus asks, “Do you love me?”
Three times—each one corresponding to one of Peter’s three betrayals—Peter confirms that he does indeed love Jesus.
Then, for Peter to show his love for his master, each time Jesus asks Peter to take care of Jesus’s flock, that is the Christian church.
Peter doesn’t realize the importance of repeating this exchange three times, that he must affirm his love for Jesus in equal number to his three betrayals.
Then, when his pledges of support offset his prior denials, Jesus can complete Peter’s restoration. Jesus concludes with the simple instruction, “Follow me.”
That’s the essential requirement of Jesus, the simplicity of faith: To love Jesus, and follow him. It’s that simple.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
A recurring theme in Jesus’s biographies is people asking him what they must do. What’s frustrating is Jesus doesn’t always give the same answer. Jesus tells different people to do different things. (For this discussion, we’ll understand “kingdom of God, “kingdom of heaven,” “eternal life,” “salvation,” and “saved” as synonymous.)
Learn What Jesus Said about Salvation
Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell everything and give the proceeds to poor people (Matthew 19:21, Mark 10:21, and Luke 18:22).
For Zacchaeus, giving away half was enough (Luke 19:8-9). Jesus doesn’t tell him to do anything else but deems that what Zacchaeus had already done was enough. He welcomed Jesus gladly, stopped doing wrong things (repented), made restitution, and gave away half his wealth.
Jesus told Nicodemus he must be born again, that is born of water and the Spirit, a spiritual birth (John 3:3-7), and then to believe in him (John 3:15 and John 3:36).
Jesus asked the Jews to listen to him and believe in God the Father (John 5:24 and John 12:44).
Another time Jesus promised all who have done good will rise to live (John 5:29). Still later, he instructed them to believe he is the Son of God (John 3:16-18 and John 9:35-37; the “Son of Man” is a euphemism for the “Son of God” and mean the same thing).
Jesus advised the Greeks to serve him, follow him (John 12:26), and trust him (John 12:36).
Later Jesus prayed that people would know God the Father—the only true God—and his Son, who he sent (John 17:3).
Jesus told the people along the road to work hard to enter the narrow door before it is too late (Luke 13:24).
Jesus taught a large crowd to put him before everything else, including their family and themselves (Luke 14:26 and Matthew 19:29), and to give up everything (Luke 14:33)—even their own life (Mark 8:34-35 and John 12:25)—to be his disciples.
Once Jesus implored another crowd to change their ways (Luke 13:3 and 5). A more common word is “repent,” which means to change your path and alter your behavior, to do a U-turn with your life.
Jesus affirmed what a teacher of the law said: to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and to love others too (Luke 10:25-28).
Jesus told those in the temple to persevere to the end (Mark 13:13).
And he instructed a crowd gathered on the mountainside to obey his Father in heaven (Matthew 7:21).
Jesus reminded the remaining eleven disciples to believe and then be baptized (Mark 16:16). Though Jesus also mentions baptism, the focus is on belief; baptism is an expression of that belief.
Jesus also taught his disciples to accept him with childlike simplicity (Luke 18:17 and Matthew 18:3).
Jesus commended the woman who cleaned his feet with her tears and hair, “Your faith has saved you” (Luke 7:50, multiple versions). The woman did not confess anything or request anything but merely worshipped Jesus the best she could.
Jesus assured the criminal next to him on the cross. It was enough for the man to simply affirm God and admit his guilt (Luke 23:40-43).
Jesus instructed the crowd to tell others about him, that is, to publicly acknowledge him (Luke 12:8)—so that they will follow him too.
Jesus told Peter to leave everything and follow him (Luke 18:28-30).
But much of the time, Jesus simply said, “follow me” (Matthew 4:19, 8:22, and 9:9; Mark 1:17 and 2:14; Luke 5:27 and 9:59; John 1:43, 21:19, and 21:22). It’s up to each of us to do this in our own way, to the best of our ability, as the Holy Spirit leads us.
Learn What Jesus Didn’t Say about Salvation
Jesus didn’t tell people to:
pray a prayer,
be confirmed,
go to church,
come forward,
do good things,
raise their hand,
fill out a pledge card,
ask Jesus into their heart, or
jump through any of the hoops his well-meaning followers insist upon.
Most of these unbiblical actions, though well-intended, seem to have originated with revivalist preachers and evangelists over the past couple centuries. Their conclusions, however, seem to be quite a stretch from what Scripture says.
Jesus’s most basic instruction for salvation was “follow me.”
To follow Jesus carries two implications. First, we wouldn’t follow him if we didn’t believe in him. Second, to follow him means to make a change in direction, to make a U-turn with our lives, that is, to repent.
So this means that to follow Jesus includes to believe and repent.
If you’re not following Jesus—even if you’ve done some of these other (unbiblical) steps—why not start today?
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
