(remember, these are unedited/draft show notes, not a transcript — listening is always better…and if you listen AND follow along below, you’ll see why)
Focus Question:
Why the “received/delivered”language?
Intro:
Imagine that right now you notice that a book has suddenly appeared in your world…on the car seat next to you or maybe even floating in front of your face. The title? Knowledge of the Holy, by AW Tozer.
If you grabbed it (versus being freaked out) and opened it up, you’d not read very far before you read a couple things like this:
“The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us. A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error in our religious thinking.”
And that’s his argument of the whole book starting in chapter 1 — Why We Must Think Rightly About God.
Interestingly, that’s consistent with a lot of NT writers, too, and particularly John, and particularly the new letter that we start today, 1 John. Can I just share where my heart’s going to be for the next few days?
1 John is more a sermon than a letter, responding to a situation where people with a false view of Jesus are disrupting the church, then they leave the church, and John’s writing both to teach and to reassure. Interestingly he uses the word “know” a lot.
Knowing God is a big topic, but for the next few days our little extras will be focused on some aspect of that…and today it’s our focus question, Why the“received/delivered” language? And we’ll get to that after our reading.
New Testament segment:
Passage: 1 John 1-2:2
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 12
Words: ~285
Old Testament segment:
Yesterday we heard how Ezekiel performed, at God’s behest, actions that were symbolic of the coming judgement on Israel and Judah. Today it’s judgments against the mountains and the land.
Passage: Ezekiel 5-6
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 41
Words: ~1198
We don’t have time to say more about it today, but remember that if we think back to Genesis 3, after the Fall God cursed Satan and the land, but not Adam and Eve. So even though it might sound weird to hear about judging the land, it’s both an image of the completeness of God’s judgment and the promise that a new heaven and earth will renew everything.
And our confidence in Him and His promises is a good reason to celebrate like this…
Wisdom segment:
Passage: Psalm 135
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 21
Words: ~345
The bottom line:
Sometimes in the Bible it’s easy to miss linguistic devices that the writers of that culture use, but one of those you’ll find in a number of places is when the describe ‘receiving’ and ‘delivering.’ And I’m with you…I never noticed it until I learned about it even though I’ve read the Bible through many times. Let me share a few representative examples, and then I’ll share a little takeaway of why this is important to us today.
Jesus himself used this…
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Ac 1:8.
And so did Peter during his famous sermon…
Therefore, since he has been exalted to the right hand of God and has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, he has poured out what you both see and hear. Ac 2:33–38.
And one more from Acts where Luke recounts Stephen’s speech that itself recounts Israel’s history…
He is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. He received living oracles to give to us. Ac 7:38–45.
And Paul more than once to the Corinthians
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread… 1 Co 11:23–15:1.
For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 1 Co 15:3–2 Co 1:4.
So today we heard John, right at the outset of his sermon-letter, say “what we have seen and heard we also declare to you” (v3). And back to our focus question…why this received/delivered language? What is communicated?
“This isn’t me and my stuff, it came from God…and now I’m a steward of what I’ve been entrusted with, and that includes accurately passing it on to you.” Paul even uses the word “steward” of himself in Colossians.
For you and me, we often hear people who object, implicitly and sometimes explicitly, that the Bible is just a bunch of humans writing stuff. And true enough, God used humans and their voices. But everyone here, including Jesus himself, articulated with reverence and care that ‘this isn’t about me.’ In a way, then, if you have an issue with something said here, your issue isn’t with me…it’s with your Creator.”
And hence, I hope you see how this received/delivered language is connected to the idea — and importance — of knowing God.
I love you. Amen? Amen.
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources:
(1) “The Lexham Figurative Language of the New Testament Dataset,” in Lexham Figurative Language of the Bible Glossary, ed. Joshua R. Westbury et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).