Words mean something. It’s very important that we use the right word in the right context. This is especially true when we are talking about things that are or aren’t in the Bible.
Specifically, here are the three terms that I think are vitally important:
Biblical. These are things the Bible specifically tells us that we must do.
Unbiblical. These are things the Bible specifically tells us that we must not do.
Non-biblical. These are things the Bible doesn’t specifically address.
For example, I tell a story in my book Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter about a friend of mine who wanted to discuss particular titles for people in the church. I simply explained that the titles of “senior pastor” or “lead pastor” aren’t in the Bible, so I didn’t have a strong opinion on which one should be used. This is a non-biblical issue.
However, we can create a big problem if we insist on making non-biblical issues seem like they are biblical issues. Jesus confronted the Pharisee and the teachers of the law on this issue. These religious leaders had non-biblical traditions, but they gave them biblical authority (Mark 7:1-13). As a result, they begin to behave in unbiblical ways.
The ceremonial washing of hands is a tradition that is non-biblical. But the way that they looked down on people who didn’t wash their hands this way, is an unbiblical attitude.
One biblical commandment is to honor parents, but Jesus called out the Pharisees for honoring another one of their non-biblical traditions that caused them to turn their backs on their parents. As a result they became guilty of the unbiblical practice of dishonoring their parents.
Before you begin adopting certain attitudes, practices, or beliefs, it’s a good idea to make sure that you have learned whether they are biblical, unbiblical, or non-biblical.
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This is part 4 in our series “Is that in the Bible?”
Statement #4—Name it and claim it. Is that in the Bible? No!
But in fairness, even the proponents of this belief don’t usually say it this way. Instead they quote words from Jesus like: “I will do whatever you ask in My name” (John 14:13) or “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you” (John 15:7).
They really want this to be true, I think, because in their minds happy, prosperous Christians make God look good. On the other hand, struggling Christians make God look bad. There is a whole branch of theology called theodicy which literally means: “a defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil.”
This is nothing new. Religious people have always tried to have pat answers. In the oldest book of the Bible, Job’s friends were convinced that suffering results from sin and blessing results from righteousness. And yet according to God, Job was a righteous man (Job 1:1, 8, 20-21).
At the advent of Jesus, the chief priests and scribes want the Messiah to be heroic so they modified a prophecy to make Bethlehem sound more impressive (compare Micah 5:2 with Matthew 2:6).
So it follows that this name-it-claim-it group wants God to look good because His people look good, dress well, drive nice cars, live in big homes, fly private jets, and never get sick.
But Jesus Himself told His followers to, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor” (Luke 12:33). And He said,“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me” (Matthew 5:11). And Jesus also said, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33).
This is not to say that God opposes wealth: He gave wealth to His leaders, Job was doubly-wealthy after his trial, and wealthy people funded the ministry of Jesus and the early church. But this isn’t the same as pursuing—or even demanding—wealth, or of making the erroneous connection that poor people are somehow out of favor with God.
How do we avoid these errors? Here are three thoughts:
The word “eisegesis” means to read something into the Word. But that is like creating your own beliefs and then going to the Bible to find phrases that support what you already believe. On the other hand “exegesis” is to read the Bible and have it speak to us by the Holy Spirit.
Two of the phrases from Jesus that the name-it-and-claim-it folks use (John 14:13 and John 15:7) turn out to mean something entirely different than, “God will give me all of the things I demand from Him” when they are read within the context of the things Jesus was teaching at that time (see John 14:9-14 and 15:1-8).
(3) Understand your terms.
If something is biblical, that is something the Bible says yes to. Unbiblical things the Bible says no to. But non-biblical are those the Bible doesn’t explicitly address. We have to be very careful of trying to make non-biblical things sound biblical or it may lead to some unbiblical attitudes and actions.
This is exactly what the Pharisees did by giving their non-biblical traditions the weight of biblical statements, and then looking down on others in a very unbiblical way.
God is sovereign. We do not tell Him what to do. We do not demand Him to respond to our needs. We trust Him and and we abide in Him. Then in the abiding, asking and understanding and fruitfulness are as natural as a flower sprouting from a branch that is attached to the vine. We don’t name things and claim things for our personal comfort, but we desire solely for God’s glory to be seen—whether in wealth or poverty, health or sickness, peaceful times or tribulation.
Evaluating all biblical sounding statements by those three items—studying the whole counsel of God’s Word, understanding the context, and knowing our terms—will guide us from going astray.
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Isaiah 52–53 contain a description of Jesus as a servant leader. One phrase describes Him like this: “See, My Servant will act wisely” (Isaiah 52:13).
That phrase “act wisely” is translated in some other translations of the Bible as “deal prudently.” I like that word prudently. It’s not a word that we use very often today, but it’s one that sets God’s servant leaders apart from worldly leaders.
Prudent can be described as…
circumspect
intelligently speaking and acting
teaching skillfully
having increasing understanding and insight
helping others grow in understanding
behaving appropriately
living wisely
guiding oneself and others willingly
What happens to the leader who lives and leads this way? Listen to the entire verse that I only quoted a portion of earlier—
See, My Servant will act wisely; He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
Notice that this exalted person is described as a servant—not just anyone’s servant, but Jehovah’s servant. As a servant of God, Jesus becomes a servant of all. And as a servant of God, He is exalted and honored above all.
Jesus is every leader’s Ultimate Example of this. Jesus set aside every prerogative He had that would give Him the right to do things His way, in order to make Himself a servant of God and a servant of mankind (Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 10:45). Jesus gave all of His followers this example to emulate (John 13:15-17), so Paul tells us our “mindset should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
I need to ask myself a question—and I would invite you to ask yourself this too: As a leader, am I growing in Christlike prudence?
A mark of a godly leader is one who can see his growth in prudence.
Jesus, may You be pleased as I follow Your example of living and leading prudently. Holy Spirit, help me see the areas in my life where I need to submit to You. Father, may You be pleased to bless my leadership as it aligns with Your heart. I want to act wisely, lead prudently, and help others to follow this example of Jesus for themselves.
This is part 61 in my series on godly leadership. You can check out all of my posts in this series by clicking here.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I think we all know the cliche, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” But isn’t that too shallow? Are we really saying that beauty is only what we can see on the surface? Instead, I think we should say, “True beauty is in the heart of the beholder.”
Where does beauty begin? What is its source?
Jesus told us, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I can only love others to the level that I love myself, and that also means that I can only see beauty in others as I see it in myself. But if I try to achieve this by just loving myself or telling myself how beautiful I am, my pride comes in and crumbles the whole foundation.
So the first thing Jesus told us was to go to the Source—to Love Himself: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30-31). When we come to our Heavenly Father through our beautiful Savior we discover how beautiful we are in Him. We are clothed in the righteous robes of Jesus, which makes us as beautiful as He is. Then our Father sings His love to us (see Song of Songs 2:10, 4:7).
The dictionary defines beauty this way: “The quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind.” But the word beauty originated from a Latin word that meant good or virtuous. Sadly, our vain world has made beauty something that is only skin deep, and very rarely is someone’s goodness or virtue described as beautiful.
Let me say it again: “True beauty is in the heart of the beholder.” Peter and Jesus both make this same point, reminding us that something beautiful on the outside can actually be covering up something quite ugly on the inside, or to say it another way: true beauty is far deeper than merely what we see with our eyes (1 Peter 3:3-4; Matthew 23:27).
On the other hand, Isaiah prophesied about Jesus that, “there was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance, nothing to attract us to Him” (Isaiah 53:2 NLT). Outwardly, especially at His crucifixion, Jesus was grotesque, but this ugliness was our ugliness—our sin, and our disease, and our pride that Jesus took on Himself. He willingly took on our ugliness to allow us to exchange ashes for beauty, mourning for rejoicing, and sin for righteousness (Isaiah 53:2-5; 61:1-2, 9-10).
So in prayer, we go to the One who isn’t beautiful in the eyes of a vain world. Jesus made Himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, He came not to be served but to serve, He washed dirty feet, He hung out with sinners, He didn’t stay at the Ritz (He didn’t even have a home of His own), and He had only one set of clothes to wear. But He willingly took on all of our pain and sin so that He could take away our ugly robes and clothe us in His beautifully perfect robe of righteousness.
It’s only when I know how beautiful and loved I am in God’s sight that I can begin to love others and see the beauty in them.
Looking at True Beauty is the only way I can see myself correctly. Looking at True Beauty I can see the intrinsic worth and beauty in others.
Prayer takes me to the beautiful Savior. Prayer reveals Christ’s beauty in me. Prayer brings His beauty to a vain world.
“Without prayer the Christian life, robbed of its sweetness and its beauty, becomes cold and formal and dead; but rooted in the secret place where God meets and walks and talks with His own, it grows into such a testimony of divine power that all men will feel its influence and be touched by the warmth of its love.” —E.M. Bounds
I pray that we will know this truth—that true beauty is in the heart of the beholder—and that we will truly know that Real Beauty is only found when we gaze at our beautiful Savior.
But let’s look at this from another angle: Before there was an Old Testament and a New Testament, what did those who lived in the days of Jesus call what we now refer to as “the Old Testament”? They called it Scripture.
Here’s a clip from a recent sermon where I discuss more in-depth why our New Testament is really the best commentary we have on the Old Testament:
I invite you to check out a couple of other resources:
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Previously I shared with you that according to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, nearly 1-of-5 adults in the United States age 18 and older battle some form of anxiety disorder. That means there’s a good chance that either you or someone close to you will be in this battle sometime during their life.
We also learned from David that being anxious or afraid is not a sin. He said, “When[not ‘if’] I am afraid, I put my trust in You” (Psalm 56:3). But we can grieve God’s heart if we don’t train ourselves to turn to Him as our trustworthy First Source of help.
We also saw in Mark 4:35-39 how the disciples of Jesus were caught in a raging storm, trying everything in their own power to rescue themselves, and yet Jesus was right there with them. He arose and said, “Quiet. Be still,” and “THEN the wind died down and it was completely calm.” From this we learned that only His peace can X-out the noise of the storm and bring us to a place of quiet rest.
We see another aspect of anxiety here: “Anxiety weighs down the heart” (Proverbs 12:25). That word for “anxiety” means carefulness, but not in the idea of being cautious. It literally means someone who is full of cares. This state leads to a heaviness of heart, as the KJV of that same verse says, “Heaviness in the heart of a man maketh it stoop.”
I don’t think anyone wakes up one day and says, “I’m going to take all of the cares of the world on my shoulders today.” Instead, we pick up just one thing. “This is just a small thing,” we tell ourselves. Then we wake up the next morning with just that one little thing, and we pick up one more little thing. And then we do it again the next day, and the next day, and the next day. Until before we know it we are bowed down because we are full of cares. This heaviness makes us stoop, makes us unsteady on our feet, and magnifies even the smallest of concerns into a huge crisis.
We are clinging to our load of cares—our care-fullness—but our loving Heavenly Father desires us to cling to something else. He wants us to cling to Him!
Moses told the Israelites: Serve only the Lord your God and fear Him alone. Obey His commands, listen to His voice, and cling to Him. (Deuteronomy 13:4 NLT)
David declared: I cling to You; Your right hand upholds me. (Psalm 63:8)
We see a beautiful example of Paul clinging to the promises of God during his multiple trials in and around Jerusalem and then during his journey to Rome to stand trial yet again. While he was still in prison in Jerusalem, Jesus appeared to him and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about Me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome” (Acts 23:11).
Paul knew he was going to arrive in Rome. But during the horrendous storm at sea on his way there, Paul received an added assurance. He told his shipmates—
“But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. Last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’ So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as He told me.” (Acts 27:22-25)
Jesus tells all of us to cling to Him and His secure promises (Matthew 11:28-30). When we cling to Him, we no longer cling to the cares of this world. We move from from full-of-cares to care-less. We go from insecurity over our future to the security that only Jesus can give us!
Paul clung to those promises of Jesus: I will rescue you … You must testify about Me in Rome … I have given you all who sail with you. Likewise, we need to arm ourselves with the promises of God and tenaciously cling to them. I’ve shared just a few promises in the comments below, but feel free to reach out to me if I can help you find a promise in the Bible that you can cling to through your stormy times.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
“Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year.” —Anxiety & Depression Association of America
A multitude of factors go into someone’s anxiety: genetics, temperament, brain chemistry, life experiences. In addition to those factors, we have to keep in mind that humans are a three-part being—with a body, mind, and spirit—and a disease in one area does affect the other two areas.
All of this means that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for anxiety. But there is one Healer:
He may supernaturally heal your body, mind, or spirit
He may direct you to a medical doctor, a mental health professional, or a spiritual counselor
But always, He will walk through the challenges with you, strengthening you, and preparing you to minister to others going through a similar struggle (Psalm 23:1-6; 2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
David wrote, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in You” (Psalm 56:3). Notice that he said “when” not “if.” David knows what you probably know too: we can be easily consumed by our anxiety, doubts, and fears. But David also knows (and I hope you do too) that at those moments, we can go to God as our trustworthy First Source.
One of the dictionary definitions of anxiety is a feeling of disquiet. All of the conflicting thoughts make it hard to concentrate, the abundance of noise makes it difficult to talk to yourself, let alone talk to God.
I’d like you to consider another psalmist’s words. Look at the first half of Psalm 94:19—
When anxiety was great within me… (NIV)
In the multitude of my anxious thoughts… (AMP)
When doubts filled my mind… (NLT)
The setting of this psalm is one of lots of disquieting voices: a desire to see the wrongdoers punished, listening to arrogant words, getting fed up with boasting words, seeing good people being trampled, hearing foolish words uttered about God (vv. 1-8).
Experiencing anxiety is not sinful, but I do think that we grieve God’s heart when we immediately run to other sources for relief instead of going to our loving Heavenly Father first. After dealing with the disquiet in the opening verses of Psalm 94, the psalmist says, “My anxiety level was sky high!” But then notice how that verse concludes—
…Your consolation brought me joy (NIV)
…Your comforts cheer and and delight my soul (AMP)
…Your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer (NLT)
Jesus told us about our Comforter who would always be with us (John 14:1, 16-17). A little further on in these same remarks Jesus also said, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 NKJV).
I like that phrase, “Be of good cheer.” That phrase is just one word in Greek, and sometimes it’s translated “be of good courage.” In every single instance, it’s only used by Jesus and it’s only used when He comes close to anxious people (Matthew 9:2, 9:22, 14:27; Mark 6:50, 10:49; Luke 8:48; John 16:33; Acts 23:11).
A furious squall battered the boat, almost swamping it. The disciples were—to say the least—disquieted! In their anxious state they notice Jesus peacefully sleeping. They wake Him up with, “Don’t You care that we’re drowning?!” Jesus stands up and says to the storm, “Quiet. Be still.”
Recall that one of the descriptions of anxiety was being disquieted. That prefix dis- means to be separated: our anxiety would seek to distance us from God’s presence, to make us feel like His help is too far away. But when we go to Jesus, He alone can say, “Quiet” to our disquieting thoughts. He can remove the “dis-” and bring us close to Him. Only His peace can X-out the noise of the storm and bring you to a place of quiet rest.
After Jesus said, “Quiet. Be still,” notice this: “…THEN the wind died down and it was completely calm” (Mark 4:39). And the great thing is this: Even if another storm begins disquieting us just a few minutes after the calm, we can go to Him again. There is no limit: We can continually go to the Eternal Source of peace, to the only One who can speak, “Quiet” to our anxious thoughts.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I had a great time on the Ailbe Podcast with Rusty Rabon.
Rusty noted that I used Jesus as the ultimate example of a Shepherd Leader, but then he wondered why I also used a man named Joseph Barnabas. Actually, I used Barnabas as a phenomenal example twice in my book—once in a chapter called “Secure to Serve” and again in a chapter about the importance of having other strong shepherds around us in the chapter “Going Farther.”
Please check out the Scriptures I mention in this snippet by clicking here.
I’ll be sharing more clips from this interview soon, so please stay tuned. Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter is now available in print or ebook, and in audiobook through either Audible or Apple.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Zechariah pronounces more messianic prophecies than any other biblical writer, with the exception of Isaiah (and he wrote 66 chapters!). These prophecies are fulfilled in Christ’s First Advent, and promised for His Second Advent. Check these out for yourself…
(All of the biblical references for the above chart can be viewed by clicking here.)
(All of the biblical references for the above chart can be viewed by clicking here.)
Why is it so vital that Jesus fulfilled these prophecies?
(1) The historicity of these fulfilled prophecies gives us a confidence for the future.
These fulfilled prophecies assure us that God is sovereign over all history. There are no accidents, and God needs no help from anyone else in fulfilling what He has promised. As a result, no world event—no matter how big it may seem—should be able to rattle us!
(2) The authenticity of what God has done gives us boldness for today.
When God does the miraculous, He authenticates His Word. This authenticity has always made God’s people stand out (see Genesis 41:39). It’s also why people recognized Jesus as the divine Son of God (John 3:2; 9:30-33). So we can live with the boldness to know that what God says He will do, He will do!
(3) The exclusivity of God’s promises and fulfillment of those promises gives us joy for our testimony.
Only Jesus could have done all of this (Luke 24:26-27, 44), so only Jesus can fulfill what is still remaining to be fulfilled! We can have supreme joy in knowing that only Jesus is our hope of salvation (John 14:6; Acts 4:12).
It’s vital that we know this is true so that we can live confident, bold, and joyful!Our confident boldness and our bold joy both glorify God and attract seekers to Him.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Have you ever heard this truism: The person with an experience is never at the mercy of the person with an argument?
There are, sadly, many who deny the reality of God’s divine healing for today. They may say God healed in the past, but that age has passed, or they may simply deny all supernatural activity. I have the best reply to these skeptics or deniers—and you may have this same reply: God does heal today; I know this is true because He has healed me!
Our truth statement about this says: “Divine healing is an integral part of the gospel. Deliverance from sickness is provided for in the atonement, and is the privilege of all believers.” Let me break this down into three parts.
(1) “Divine healing is an integral part of the gospel.” After that word “integral” I’d like to insert the word “indisputable.” When God does the miraculous, it is an undeniable proof of His love and power. A great story to prove this point is when Jesus healed a paralytic after He forgave him of his sins (Luke 5:17-26).
Notice how the people responded: Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. This glory to God has always been the reason God performs miracles (see Mark 6:7-13; Acts 2:43; Acts 3:9-12).
(2) “Deliverance from sickness is provided for in the atonement.” I like to remember that the word atonement means “at-onement” and stands opposed to disease which I like to say as “dis-ease.” Sin is our ultimate dis-ease—the ultimate separator—so Jesus took care of both our spiritual dis-ease and our physical dis-ease when He died on the Cross for us, just as Isaiah prophesied. That’s why the New Testament also shows us salvation and healing frequently being linked together (Acts 10:38; 8:4-8).
(3) “And is the privilege of all believers.”ALL believers, not just a select few and not just those who lived at the time of the first apostles.
Divine healing has been—and always will be—an integral and indisputable part of the gospel precisely because it exalts God as THE Healer.
Many people today still believe what the disciples of Jesus believed: Disease is a consequence of personal sin. In addressing this misunderstanding, Jesus said that disease was “so that the work of God might be displayed” in the life of the one about to be healed. He said something similar while at the graveside of Lazarus, before he raised that dead man back to life (John 9:1-38; 11:4-45).
Sometimes God heals us now, but ALWAYS He heals us in our glorified bodies (2 Corinthians 12:9-10; 5:1-9; Revelation 21:4). Our patience and hope in our future, ultimate healing glorifies God in the present.
By faith in Jesus we can claim that “by His stripes we have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). The verb tense Peter uses means we have been healed, we are being healed now, and we will be ultimately healed in Christ’s eternal presence. Whether we are healed here or not, we can live knowing that His healing power always brings Him glory and always draws people to Him, so don’t hesitate to keep on asking Him for His healing touch on your body and soul.
Words mean something. It’s very important that we use the right word in the right context. This is especially true when we are talking about things that are or aren’t in the Bible. 
Craig T. Owens 
The Best Commentary On The Old Testament
December 8, 2021 — Craig T. OwensListen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
But let’s look at this from another angle: Before there was an Old Testament and a New Testament, what did those who lived in the days of Jesus call what we now refer to as “the Old Testament”? They called it Scripture.
Here’s a clip from a recent sermon where I discuss more in-depth why our New Testament is really the best commentary we have on the Old Testament:
I invite you to check out a couple of other resources:
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