Happy Little Trees - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/27/2025 •

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.   

“Happy Little Trees” 

On her birthday Meg’s husband told her he didn’t love her and wasn’t sure he ever had. Seven months after the divorce became final, he married his girlfriend. By a happy coincidence Meg was out of town visiting my family the day of her ex-husband’s wedding.  

How to spend that day? We discovered that the late Bob Ross, host and star of the TV show  The Joy of Painting, had established a teaching studio in nearby New Smyrna Beach, FL. His students still teach people how to paint “happy little trees.” The promise was that in a 3-hour session we could learn the basics, and each student would walk away with a personally completed work of art. We signed up for a class. 

Image: "Bob Ross FD3S" by zanthrax-dot-nl is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

It was amazingly fun. We happened to sit on the back row. We couldn’t help but notice the two teenage girls in front of us who didn’t fit the middle-class profile of most of the people in the room. They were accompanied by someone who carried herself like a softer version of SNL’s “church lady.” Nobody in the class was having more fun, or experiencing more delighted surprise, at what was showing up on canvas, than these girls.  

At the end of the class, we were all given the opportunity to pay a little extra to have our paintings framed – right there on the spot. Who wouldn’t want to do that after discovering they could actually paint something not just recognizable, but really kind of cool?!  

I failed to catch the wistfulness on the two girls’ faces as they watched classmates’ paintings being framed. But Meg noticed. Quietly, she asked the proprietor if she could pay for the girls’ frames. Stunned, he obliged. The girls were thrilled.  

My throat tightened. I knew that Meg’s divorce had strained her in every way, financially as well as emotionally. Yet as deep as the sorrow she carried within her was, her spiritual resources were deeper. On a day in which she could have nursed bitterness, she created joy for someone else.  

Meg’s act was horizontal worship. The Gospel changes us from self-centered to other-centered. Vertical worship teaches people that they are profoundly loved; the bread and wine that they take in makes them different people. As theologian Alexander Schmemann quips: “At this meal we become what we eat.” That day Meg did a lot more than paint “happy little trees.” She became bread and wine to two girls, a shop owner – and me.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Welcome to Transformation - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 2/26/2025 •

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.   

Undressed for Church 

Jesus tells a parable about a man who accepts a king’s invitation to a wedding banquet but who shows up without clothes appropriate to the occasion (Matthew 22:11-14). Noticed by the king, he is kicked out.  

Whenever I read the parable, I think of myself in the early and woefully immature days of my faith – and of how my first pastor, Mort Whitman, related to me. I think of the several times I sensed in Mort’s sad eyes the King’s expectation: “Do you understand Who invited you? And to what an amazing occasion it is that you have been invited?” There were both sadness and tenderness — both a rebuke and a further invitation — in Mort’s gaze.  

Room to Grow 

Every time I caught that look, I felt undressed, and was reduced (as was the fellow in the parable) to silence. Unlike the parable, though, strong arms didn’t grab me and throw me out. Happily, the King gave me time and space to move from a sullen to a teachable silence. Over time, the kindness with which Mort’s eyes answered my spiritual childishness melted my cold heart. 

Mort welcomed me past the entrance, and into the expansive living spaces of God’s Kingdom palace. He did so by reminding me of the worth of the faith that I had embraced – or that had embraced me (I’ve never fully sorted that out).   

Early Church 

Mort’s method was a lot like that of Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem (mid-4th century). In Cyril’s Jerusalem, becoming a Christian was the “deal.” The huge and elegant Church of the Holy Sepulchre had just been built over the site of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection (replacing a pagan temple to Venus).  

The city was awash with pilgrims and new residents. Many were flirting with the faith. Many sought baptism, the prerequisite for inclusion at the Christian Feast (Communion). Some sought baptism because they genuinely believed; some because they thought baptism might help them get a job; some because they thought baptism might help them find a mate; and some out of sheer curiosity.  

Cyril asked candidates for baptism a cautionary question: “Do you expect to see without being seen? Do you think that you can be curious about what is going on without God being curious about your heart?” (Procatechesis 2).*  

This is not just any occasion, so not any old clothes will do. The One in whose honor this feast is being held, after all, is “Bridegroom of souls.” Cyril reminds the candidates of the parable of the man who dressed wrongly for the king’s wedding feast: “If your soul is dressed in avarice, change your clothes before you come in…. Take off fornication and impurity, and put on the shining white garment of chastity.”  

Overdressed 

Cyril wasn’t asking people to clean themselves up so God would accept them. As they would eventually discover, no matter what they wore, on the day of their baptism they were going to have to strip – yes, literally (in the dark, men and women separately) — and undergo baptism without benefit of any clothing! As Christ hung naked in his crucifixion, Cyril explained, so we go naked into the baptismal waters where we share our co-crucifixion with Christ. As Adam and Eve were originally garbed in nothing but their innocence, so, in Christ, we rise as those to whom innocence has been restored! Cyril’s message was: don’t think you can take your greed and impurity with you into the baptismal waters; he loves you too much to let you hold on to that stuff! 

When the newly baptized emerged naked from the waters, they were wrapped with new, white robes. The message: in place of whatever clothes we start with, Christ offers “a shining garment,” “the garment of salvation,” and “the tunic of gladness.”** The newly baptized wore those robes during the next week, when they received daily teaching about the mysteries they had just experienced and about the baptized life that now lay before them.  

Welcome to Transformation 

The King has sent for everybody, “the evil and the good” (Matthew 22:10). But the One who invites insists on meddling. He refuses to rubber-stamp the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs we bring with us. Our “Bridegroom of souls” insists we surrender the right to define who we are – all of who we are: our occupational, our musical, our political, our sexual selves. Jesus, insists Cyril, calls us to welcome people all the way into baptismal waters, where grace transforms everything.  

My take-away from Mort’s penetrating gaze and Cyril’s challenging words: worship worthy of the Feast is welcoming worship that helps us all understand that a change of clothes will be necessary.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

* References are from Edward Yarnold, S.J., Cyril of Jerusalem (Routledge, 2000), pp. 79,80,85,180-181. 

** (Procatechesis 16; Mystagogy 4.8; the latter two phrases, quoting Isaiah 61:10) 

The Peace of the Lord - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 2/25/2025 •

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.   

High-Touch Worship: “The Peace of the Lord” 

“Christian worship has always been a “high-touch” affair. “Greet one another with a holy kiss,” Paul told worshipers (2 Corinthians 13:12). Peter urged those gathered for the reading of his letter, “Greet one another with the kiss of love” (1 Peter 5:14). Accordingly, from the 2nd century on we find Christians exchanging signs of mutual affection and reconciliation before they go to the Table.  

I think that’s a good thing.   

There’s a genuine artistry to the way the classical liturgy makes the passing of the peace a part of worship. In the 4th century one of the great voices of the ancient church, Cyril of Jerusalem, explained why believers exchange a kiss of peace just before they approach the Lord’s Table.  

Next let us embrace one another and give the kiss of peace. Do not think this is the kiss which friends are accustomed to give one another when they meet in the marketplace. This is not such a kiss. This unites souls to one another and destroys all resentment. The kiss is a sign of the union of souls.  

That was Awkward.  

Recently, an advice columnist responded to a complaint about being forced to greet fellow attendees in church. The columnist countered that in a world as disjointed as ours, we should be grateful that the church tries to bring people together. I agree! But I also feel the sense of artificiality and of being put upon when there’s a “meet & greet” that is no different than what I might experience at the Chamber of Commerce.  

To me it’s a wonderful thing to be asked to look my neighbor full in the face and wish him or her Christ’s peace. That makes me (along with all my fellow believers) a priest who offers God’s healing touch. Respectfully, though, it’s a turn-off to be told to smile, turn to the person next to me and say, essentially, “How ya doin’?”  

The first act invites Christ into the moment and makes us family; the second makes two awkward strangers even more awkward about not knowing each other. At least the Chamber of Commerce encourages us to exchange business cards.  

Welcoming Peace 

When I coached Little League, a friend and “master coach” gave me some good advice: “Kids this age have too many challenges, and not enough encouragement. Every practice you should go to each player, put a hand on their shoulder, look them in the eyes, and say, ‘I’m glad you’re on this team. You make a big difference for us.’”  

When I come to worship I never know what sort of pain my neighbor is in, how much it can help him or her to be touched and to be reminded: whatever the deficit, whatever the enmity, whatever the trouble, whatever the funk, Christ speaks his peace into it.   

Healing Peace  

Benjamin Barber writes that we live in a world split between the centripetal force of McWorld (the forced unification of a global market) and the centrifugal force of Jihad (the fracturing of the human race around tribal loyalties). We all, I think, feel those wounds in one way or another.  

Followers of Christ believe that if there’s any hope for overcoming the evil twin forces of McWorld and Jihad, it’s living and telling the subversive story of God’s invasion of the planet through his Son. In Jesus, as the song goes, “Heaven’s peace and perfect justice kissed a guilty world in love.” When we pass the peace of Christ to one another, heaven’s peace becomes embodied once again. Then at the Table we taste how Jesus even now “unites souls to one another and destroys all resentment.” 

Possible applications: 

Some of us are in churches where it might be worth opening up the following conversation: ”Are we so respectful of people’s privacy, of their personal space, that we miss the opportunity to let them know that this is a place – no, the place — where the lonely, the estranged, the fearful, and the broken, can be touched and can hear that God has come near to them?” 

Others of us are in churches where it might be worth opening up a different conversation: “When’s the last time we asked people to think about what a holy and healing thing it is that they do when they offer the Lord’s peace?” 

The peace of the Lord be always with you, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Game-Saving Wisdom - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/24/2025 •

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.   

From Centerfield: Athanasius, the Psalms, and Making the Right Play 

I once attended a college baseball game in which the crowd cheered a spectacularly dumb throw from deep centerfield to home plate. The throw itself was quite a feat (though it had no chance of catching the runner). But it was dumb, because it gave the game away by allowing what would become the tying run to get to second base. What could have saved the game would have been a less impressive throw to second base, keeping that runner at first. 

Four Ecumenical Councils took place between A.D. 325 and 451. They exemplified game-saving wisdom, of the sort the college centerfielder should have shown. 

Those Councils made four statements in response to spectacularly dumb things that were being said about Christ. The Councils’ statements can be crisply put, and their implications are profound: first, Christ is fully divine, since only God can save. Second, Christ is fully human, since “only that which is assumed can be healed.” Third, Christ is one integral person, since a bi-polar Savior could not restore us to inner wholeness. Fourth, Christ’s divine nature does not eclipse his human nature, since he came to glorify our humanity and not diminish it. 

A small often overlooked letter on the psalms by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria and one of the inspirers of the Councils’ statements, sheds light on the origins of such spiritual and theological insight. 

A friend named Marcellinus wrote to Athanasius looking for guidance on how to get to know the psalms better. In his response, Epistle to Marcellinus, Athanasius sounds the very themes the Councils will later apply to Christ. 

Divinity 

In the Incarnation, God has funneled his fullness to us through one Man; in the Psalter, God has concentrated for us the whole Bible in miniature. Each of the other books, says Athanasius, “is like a garden which grows one special kind of fruit; by contrast, the Psalter is a garden which, besides its special fruit, grows also some of those of all the rest.” In Genesis, for example, we read about the creation; in Psalms 19 & 24 we celebrate creation in song. Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy recount the exodus from Egypt; in Psalms 87, 105, 106, and 114 we “fitly sing it.” Impressively, Athanasius shows how virtually every theme of the Bible shows up somewhere in the Psalter. Through the psalms, God’s great cosmic story becomes our personal story as well. 

Humanity 

The psalms aren’t just a way into God’s story; they provide a mirror for our soul. In them, “you learn about yourself.” They describe us better than we can describe ourselves. Moreover, while other portions of Scripture tell us what to do, the Psalter shows us how. Elsewhere, for instance, Scripture tells us to repent, but the psalms “show you how to set about repenting and with what words your repentance may be expressed.” Elsewhere, Scripture tells us to bear up under persecution, but the psalms describe “how afflictions should be borne, and what the afflicted ought to say, both at the time and when his troubles cease.” 

Integrity 

Most of us can identify with the horrible split the apostle Paul experienced between his inner self and his outer self: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. … Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:19,24). Paul’s answer, of course, is Christ. The Councils affirmed, therefore, that Christ himself was unified, rather than split, in his Person. Otherwise, there’d be no hope for the splits within us. In the same vein, Athanasius encourages – no, urges – us not merely to read the psalms, but to sing them. When we sing, our inner being and our outer being work together: our “usual disharmony of mind and corresponding bodily confusion is resolved.” The result is that when we sing psalms, Christ heals our inner brokenness. 

Dignity 

Do you get the sense that some believers think that when Christ comes into their lives he replaces their souls? Do you know spiritual zombies you can’t even have a conversation with because all you get is Bible verses or spiritual clichés? 

Athanasius must have known people like that too. One of the most impressive things he does in his epistle is comment on almost every psalm, and invite Marcellinus to look – really look – at whatever life-situation he might find himself in and ask how that psalm could fortify him: “Has some Goliath risen up against the people and yourself? Fear not, but trust in God, as David did, and sing his words in Psalm 144.” 

The message: God wishes to meet you in your life, not give you some sort of escape button to get you out of your life. The psalms – like Christ himself – are here to enhance, not diminish, what it is to be fully human. 

Through practice and scrimmage and games and, well, simply breathing baseball, a centerfielder should know where to throw, without even having to think about it. Through worship and prayer and study and, well, simple immersion in the faith of the psalms, may we absorb their “game-saving wisdom.” 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

Radiant Presence - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/21/2025 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. 

Although this is the sixth week of Epiphany, we’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings this week. Instead, we’re thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts (sometimes lightly edited) from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  

They come from a season in my life when I was on a journey from more generic free-form worship to worship shaped by the classic liturgy. I hope these observations help you in your own quest to love God and your neighbor. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office next week. 

Rediscovering the Trinity and Spirit-led Worship, Part Three of Three 

The Holy Spirit and Worship 

There have sometimes been Sundays when a conversation at my house goes like this: 

“What’s the matter?” 

“I just want to quit.” 

“Why?” 

“Why? Easy. You were there. Didn’t you sense it?” 

“Sense what?” 

“The lack of worship. We were putting out all we had from up front, and nothing was coming back. Worship just wasn’t happening.” 

“How do you know? Because maybe people weren’t singing the way you thought they should be? You know the Spirit’s presence is about more than that. You can’t always see what God is doing. Sitting in my row I saw something you didn’t see: a woman who stopped singing because she had begun crying. I think the Spirit may be doing things His way, not yours.”  

Hmmm.  

What characterizes Spirit-led worship? Are there marks of the breath of the Spirit?  

Image: H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Stained glass window Holy Spirit in the nothern wall of the Iglesia de San Bartolomé de Tirajana, San Bartolomé de Tirajana, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain 

The Spirit Creates Life 

Jesus came back from the dead to breathe God’s very life into us. I’ve arrived at the place where I’m simply thankful to have been given eternal life in Christ, and to be allowed to share that life with others whom the Spirit has graciously made alive as well. I challenge myself to be more amazed at the presence of faith than depressed over possible signs of lack of faith. In other words, what I’m looking for as a prime marker of the Spirit’s presence in worship is this: by God’s grace, redeemed sinners show up seeking more grace.  

I believe that there is a radiantly alive presence in our midst when we worship. That presence is Jesus who has become “life-giving Spirit.” While bodily he is in heaven constantly advocating for us before the Father (Heb 7:25), he is simultaneously among us by the Spirit, breathing God’s presence into us, proclaiming the Father’s name, and orchestrating our praise (Heb 2:12).  

He’s there whether I feel him or not. He’s in charge and is working his good pleasure, whether I hit all my marks or not. He’s constantly compensating for all my weaknesses and mistakes, and perhaps more importantly, for all my strengths and the things I get “right.”  

I have to remind myself the “condensation on the sunglasses” is not necessarily about any of the things I do or don’t do. Chesterton suggests that the only way to explain the fact that the church hasn’t died over time as one cultural, political, or philosophical support after another has fallen away, is that there is a Presence in the church that won’t go away. If Arianism, Gnosticism, Pelagianism, imperial patronage, humanism, scientism, modernism, and postmodernism can’t make the Holy Spirit go away, I probably can’t either.  

The Spirit Makes One out of Many  

The worship of God now takes place not in a single, localized house of brick and mortar where the songs of Zion are sung in but one tongue. God’s house of worship — where “Spirit and Truth” reside — is worldwide! It consists of a near infinity of “living stones” who happen to sing in many tongues. Beginning with the likes of respectable Nicodemus and the fallen woman at the well, the Holy Spirit has been making a worldwide community of worship that is greater than the sum of its parts. Amazingly, under the baton of the Spirit of Christ, those many tongues make “one voice” (Rom 15:6).   

“Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace,” says Paul (Eph 4:3). The Spirit’s unity is most evident, I’ve come to believe, precisely where there is diversity rather than uniformity. Unity is not difficult to sustain when everyone shares the same preferences/musical tastes, an “age and stage” affinity, compatible theological nuance, congruent Myers-Briggs profiles. When there’s unity despite differing penchants, a unity that is born out of heroic forbearance and costly deference, it seems more likely that it is the Spirit who is at work.  

The Spirit Exalts Others  

Fourth century theologian Basil the Great’s defense of the deity of the Holy Spirit is skillful because it is indirect. Basil observes that Scripture has many direct statements about the divinity of God the Father, fewer about the divinity of God the Son, and precious few about the divinity of God the Holy Spirit. You can’t help but conclude, he insists, that the Holy Spirit is God in the same way that the Father and the Son are — otherwise, to baptize in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would be blasphemous. Nonetheless, it’s almost as though there is in Scripture a modesty about the Spirit’s identity.  

A fundamental characteristic of the Holy Spirit is that he does not call attention to himself: “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you,” said Jesus (John 14:16).  

Some people walk into a room and they make everybody else feel larger. Some walk in and make everybody else feel smaller. The first breathe life into the room because they make everybody else the center of their attention. The latter suck the life out of the room because they make themselves the center of attention. Here is a principal way of knowing when it’s the Spirit at work, and when it’s the flesh.  

That was Paul’s problem with the church at Corinth. He wanted those brothers and sisters to understand that worship is always about the exaltation of Jesus and the edification of others, not the exaltation of self and the display of personal giftedness (1 Corinthians 14). That’s why Paul encouraged them — and he would, I’m certain, encourage us likewise — to promote in worship the real way of the Spirit, the way of love (see 1 Corinthians 13).  

Breathe in. Breathe out.  

Of course, there’s so much more to say about the Spirit and worship — about the mission, about the gifts, about uniting old and new. But for now, this will have to suffice: not unlike that lifeless puppy I saw on the side of the road, we were dead to intimacy with our Maker, and dead to the way our relationships with one another were to mirror the eternal communion within the Trinity — until the Son came, died, rose, and breathed the breath of God into us. 

As a worship leader there’s probably nothing greater that I can contribute to worship than making sure that I keep breathing God’s breath myself. In the Word daily — breathe in. In prayer daily — breathe out. Confess “my stuff” — breathe in. Lift his name in praise and adoration — breathe out. Come to the Table — breathe in. Wish my neighbor Christ’s peace — breathe out. Ponder the wonder of his grace to me — breathe in. Find the lost, tell the story, feed the hungry — breathe out.   

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Spirit - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/20/2025 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. 

Although this is the sixth week of Epiphany, we’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings this week. Instead, we’re thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts (sometimes lightly edited) from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  

They come from a season in my life when I was on a journey from more generic free-form worship to worship shaped by the classic liturgy. I hope these observations help you in your own quest to love God and your neighbor. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office next week. 

Rediscovering the Trinity and Spirit-led Worship,” Part Two of Three 

The Spirit in John’s Gospel 

If we reflect on some of Jesus’s sayings and conversations in John’s gospel we get a glimpse into the vision that animated Jesus that day he cleansed the Temple.  

The Spirit must remake the innermost parts of us, he tells Israel’s preeminent (but clueless) teacher, Nicodemus (John 3). The Spirit will bring together in worship of the Father both a respectable, over-educated Jew like Nicodemus and a promiscuous, disreputable non-Jew like the woman at the well in Samaritan Sychar (John 3 and 4). The Spirit will create such worship through the One who is the Truth (4:24), but who also is the Way and the Life (14:6).  

Image: Guercino (1591-1666), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Besides the Passover, the one named festival in John’s gospel is the harvest-time Feast of Tabernacles, a celebration of God’s provision in the wilderness during the exodus. On the last day of the Feast, celebrants pour out water to remember the way God had taken care of his people’s thirst in the wilderness. While that is taking place on one such occasion, Jesus steps forward and declares that anybody who is really thirsty needs to come to him. Conjuring Ezekiel 47’s image of rivers flowing out from the threshold of the Temple, Jesus says that he himself will provide the Spirit for everyone who comes to drink from him (John 7:37-39).  

In his Final Discourse, Jesus outlines the transfer of life from himself, to the Spirit, to his followers, and then to the world (John 13-17).  

Jesus explains that his disciples will experience an absence that, incongruously, makes his presence nearer. They will do greater works (14:12). All the time that Jesus has been “alongside them” (14:25) the Holy Spirit has also been “alongside them” (14:17). The Spirit who came upon the Son “and remained on him” (1:32) at his baptism has been accomplishing the Father’s works through Jesus. Because Jesus goes away, that divine presence — the divine breath — will not be just alongside, but “inside them” (14:17). After Jesus’s bodily departure, the Holy Spirit coming inside them will be the means by which Jesus himself comes back “to them” (14:18) — with a presence that is better than his pre-death and pre-resurrection presence. A closeness emerges that some have called “coinherence,” a mutual indwelling: “I in my Father and you in me and I in you” (14:20).  

Spirit Representing Trinity 

What is so utterly characteristic of the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of Truth,” is that he does not come to represent himself, but the Son and the Father who have sent him (15:26; 16:12-15). In this, the Spirit reflects the Son, who has come not to serve his own ends, but his Father’s (see John 5:19,30; 14:28). As the Son has glorified the Father, the Spirit will glorify the Son (17:4; 16:14a). He will do so by explaining the things of the Son to us and by convicting the world of sin and righteousness and judgment (16:14b, 8).  

What the Spirit does is create among us a communion of love that externalizes in time and space the eternal communion of love that has existed from before time and space. What the Spirit creates among us is a life of mutual deference — a life Jesus models at the beginning of the Final Discourse in the foot washing (John 13) and prays for at the Discourse’s close: “… that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (17:21).  

With literary artistry, John describes Jesus’ arrest, suffering, death, and resurrection, but then announces Jesus’ ascension without ever describing it (20:17). Instead, John provides a number of vignettes illustrating the way Jesus prepared his followers for life without his physical presence. The vignettes are lessons in how to worship now under this new regime of “in Spirit and Truth” (4:24).  

The promise of a new order of worship that Jesus had announced at the Temple cleansing receives fulfillment when Jesus first appears in his risen body — the very body that he said would be the beginning of the building of a new house for worship. Pointedly, Jesus tells his gathered disciples: “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you” (20:21). Dramatically, he breathes on them, and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” By his breath, mere disciples become apostles, equipped to build God’s house and to lead worship “in Spirit and Truth.” 

The Book of Acts has its own way of telling the same story, first, with the transfer of Jesus’ ministry here on earth (the Gospel According to Luke) to his ministry at the right hand of God by means of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:29-36), and second, with Pentecost’s amazing manifestations of the new life rippling from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.  

The apostle Paul, too, tells the same story through his developed theology of how the “Last Adam” became “Life-Giving Spirit” (1 Cor 15:45) in order to make dead people come to life (Eph 2:1-10) and to unite once estranged people into a dwelling for God (Eph 2:11-22).  

But John’s gospel has taken us to the heart of what the Spirit of God effects in our worship.  

Tomorrow, the third installment of thoughts on the ministry of the Holy Spirit in worship… 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Spirit-Led Worship - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 2/19/2025 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. 

Although this is the sixth week of Epiphany, we’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings this week. Instead, we’re thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts (sometimes lightly edited) from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  

They come from a season in my life when I was on a journey from more generic free-form worship to worship shaped by the classic liturgy. I hope these observations help you in your own quest to love God and your neighbor. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office next week. 

Rediscovering the Trinity and Spirit-led Worship, Part One of Three 

One minute the puppy was playing on the side of the street. The next, he darted into traffic. That was it. I saw him spin off a passing car’s wheel and collapse in a lump at the side of the road. A police officer happened by and stopped to see if he could help. I expected him to feel for a heartbeat. Instead, he took off his sunglasses and held them to the puppy’s nose.  

Image: Millenium Singh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

“No breath,” he said to me, “he’s gone. Poor guy.”  

Worship Leaders and the Spirit 

Worship leaders are always on the lookout for condensation on the sunglasses. We develop an acute sense for when we think the Lord is in the house and when he’s not. When he’s there, there’s life — maybe loud life, maybe quiet life, maybe joyful life, maybe sorrowful life. When it feels dead, it seems like he’s not there.  

The thing worship leaders fear the most? The absence of God’s breath. It’s the thing we work hardest not to allow: if we’re liturgical, by making sure we’ve got every prescribed element in the right place; if we’re Reformed, by making sure we’re not doing anything Scripture doesn’t require; if we’re “praise and worship,” by following the worship funnel’s progression from loud to soft; if we’re “emergent,” by giving everybody unlimited, unprogrammed, authentic options. All along, though, if we have any sense at all, we’re aware that Jesus says, “The wind (the Spirit) blows where it will” (John 3:8).  

Worship Leaders and the Trinity 

Because the theology of the trinity seems to be more implicit than explicit, we Christians have struggled mightily to explain the triune God we know. Writer G. K. Chesterton observes that at the bottom of everything is a “holy family.” Instead of Judaism’s or Islam’s single god-entity, we find an eternal communion of love. Instead of polytheism’s riot of competitive god-egos, we find a harmony of mutual deference. 

Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann describes the godhead this way: there is an “eternal Lover” (the Father), an “eternally Beloved” (the Son), and “eternal Love itself” (the Holy Spirit). As Love itself, the Holy Spirit’s role is to make that eternal communion between Lover and Beloved present to us. It’s no accident that the biggest clue Scripture provides for the identity of the Holy Spirit is the metaphor of “breath.” Hebrew uses the same word for “breath” and for “spirit.” Greek does the same. The Holy Spirit’s job is to breathe into us that great Loving that exists between Lover and Beloved, drawing us into something early church fathers described as a dance.  

Leading worship is the privilege it is because it amounts to cooperating with the Holy Spirit in inviting people back into the dance.  

The One Worship Leader and the Spirit 

One of the most gripping moments in all of Scripture takes place when Jesus declares a new pattern of worship from the Temple in Jerusalem in the second chapter of John’s gospel. This is the day the one genuine Worship Leader comes to church and applies the sunglasses test. Here stands the One who bears the title “Liturgist of the Holy Things and of the True Tent (Gk, skēnē)” (Heb 8:1). Here is God’s presence “tenting” among us — that’s literally what John 1:14 says: “the Word became flesh and dwelt (Gk., skēnoun) among us.” The eternally Beloved has come to the eternal Lover’s house to see if there’s a hint of Love’s breath in the place, and he does not find what he’s looking for.  

Jesus stands there in the Jerusalem Temple. It is, significantly, the Passover (John 2:13). Where now is the Presence that had rescued the children of Israel from Egypt and then walked beside them in the figure of cloud and fire, escorting them to the land of promise (Exodus 13:12)? Where is the Presence that had taken up residence in the original Tabernacle-tent, the “mobile field unit” God had commissioned for himself while his people were on the move (Exodus 40:34-38)? Where is the Shekinah Glory that at its dedication so filled this building’s predecessor — the Temple Solomon had built to give God a more permanent residence — that the priests had had to run for cover?  

“… then the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God” (2 Chron 5:13b-14).  

For the Temple leadership of Jesus’ day, it’s time to run for cover again. And, ironically, for the same reason. The Presence is back. The house that was still standing — the jewel of Herod the Great’s extensive building program throughout Israel — is about to lose its franchise. It is time for a new house for a new form of the presence of God.  

Holy Emotion 

It’s hard to know what synapses were firing for Jesus the day he cleansed the temple — you feel almost blasphemous trying to imagine it. But the Gospel According to John does unfold a certain logic for us.  

Out of a bubbling, broiling passion for his Father’s house — an emotion the Psalmist originally and now John chastely calls “zeal” — Jesus weaves himself a whip (John 2:15-17). Shocking, given the traditional portrait of the cow-eyed, “gentle Galilean.” With the whip he brings a temporary halt to the financial exchanges that enable the daily sacrifices — and in this season, the Passover sacrifices — to proceed. Implicitly, he declares that, beginning with the whips that would be wielded against his own back, a singular Passover Sacrifice is in the making that will end all other sacrifices.  

But more, he announces it is time for a new building project: “Tear down this building (not the physical Temple, but Jesus’ own body) and I will raise it up again” (John 2:19). Different materials would comprise this building: “He spoke of the temple of his body” (John 2:21). Peter, who was no doubt there that day, would later explain the architecture in terms of the risen Jesus becoming “the head of the corner” (or “keystone,” as the Jerusalem Bible so nicely puts it) and of regenerate believers becoming “living stones” in a Spiritual house (1 Pet 2:4-7). Condensation will return to the sunglasses — the new, living house will be filled with the very breath of God, his Holy Spirit.  

More about the Holy Spirit, and about Jesus’s house-building project tomorrow…  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

One Offering - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 2/18/2025 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. 

Although this is the sixth week of Epiphany, we’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings this week. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts (sometimes lightly edited) from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  

They come from a season in my life when I was on a journey from more generic free-form worship to worship shaped by the classic liturgy. I hope these observations help you in your own quest to love God and your neighbor. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office next week. 

“One Offering” 

The offertory has always seemed an odd thing to me. When I was a kid, the offering followed the sermon, and for all intents and purposes concluded the service. I thought this was where you paid the pastor for the sermon. I remember thinking, “That’s a lot of pressure for a preacher.” 

In recent months, the pressure preachers seem to feel is to how to convince people to give generously during hard times.    

The question of generosity became an especially pressing one for me in 2008, when the world’s economy tanked. Like other families, mine, too, was affected.   

Nevertheless, it proved to be a ruinous blessing. It was a time to rediscover the generosity of God, and to give thanks. Our refrigerator was, after all, still full. And it was  a time to remember that ours is the God of the “refrigerator-less.”  

The liturgical church I’ve become a part of takes up an offering as part of its weekly communion, following the Book of Common Prayer: 

Representatives of the congregation bring the people’s offerings of bread and wine, and money or other gifts, to the deacon or celebrant. 

The pattern is ancient, and embodies profound truth. The offering begins the ministry of the Table, which follows the Ministry of the Word. Ushers pass plates, and then, on behalf of the whole congregation, bring forward a dual offering: the elements for the Table and the monetary donations for the church. (In other times and places, the donations might include livestock or produce or handiwork.)  

A prayer of “Great Thanksgiving” follows, celebrating God’s attributes along with his creative and redemptive acts. Then the prayer asks the Lord to bless the gifts — explicitly the bread and wine, implicitly the monetary donations.    

For whatever reasons, in many churches (like the church of my upbringing) the offertory is no longer linked to communion, and I wonder if that’s created a disconnect between our offerings and the whole story of redemption.  

The Table reminds me of God’s extravagant generosity. He was generous not just in word, but in deed. Jesus came, and he made the one Offering that counts. “Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2). The only true worship is Jesus, Offering and Offerer. Staggering gift and overwhelming love, on lavish display especially at the Table.   

When the “stuff” of his redemption (the communion elements) is wedded to the “stuff” of my life (my gifts), my story gets folded into the Bible’s story line. As the bread and wine embody Jesus’s totally giving himself for me, so my gifts bespeak my surrender to his total claim on me. “You are not your own,” Paul reminds me, “you were bought with a price” (1 Cor. 9:19b-20a). Not only me, but all my stuff, everything that’s in my wallet — it’s all his.   

More, our offerings imitate Jesus’s Offering, and are made holy by that One Offering. The bread and wine establish no merit — the merit is all of his death and life. The money is not a payment for the sermon. It’s a means of saying, “Thank you for rescue. Thank you for freedom from the Egypt of sin. Now, who around me lives in a kind of Egypt, and how may I — on your behalf — participate in their rescue?”  

Moses had required: “… you shall love the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19) — in effect, have an eye to the “refrigerator-less” among you. Now Jesus commands: “A new commandment I give you: that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). The generosity of the Exodus with its “mighty hand and an outstretched arm” yields to the generosity of the Incarnation with its arms stretched out on a cruel cross. I give, in part, to participate in God’s care for those still in need of redemption.  

Some truths are better perceived than conceived, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan. One such truth is the dynamic of divine generosity, displayed most extravagantly at his Table. God’s generosity comes to us in his Son, then calls forth from us an answering generosity, expressed first in the offering of ourselves back to him in thanks, and second in the offering of ourselves and our gifts to one another and to a needy world. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

One Voice - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/17/2025 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. 

Although this is the sixth week of Epiphany, we’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings this week. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts (sometimes lightly edited) from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  

They come from a season in my life when I was on a journey from more generic free-form worship to worship shaped by the classic liturgy. I hope these observations help you in your own quest to love God and your neighbor. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office next week. 

“One Voice” 

Sometimes it takes just one voice. 

Image: "Shandi-lee {pieces II}" by Shandi-lee is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

“You know, some of us in the congregation are visual learners. We’d be helped if you put some art behind the lyrics you project.”  

That one voice put me on a quest to craft worship that “shows and tells.” 

“I love the contemporary songs we do in worship. But when you include the hymns I grew up with, something special happens for me. The faith I’m figuring out for myself and the faith my folks tried to instill in me stop competing with each other.”  

That one voice made me more conscious about trans-generational worship. 

There’s another kind of voice, too. I teach. At the end of every course, students have a chance to tell me (and my administration) what they think about my teaching. Nearly every semester, one student hates a course I’ve taught. That one voice makes me reflect on how to do better.  

My friend Joel Hunter is one of the most perceptive people I know. One of the wisest things he ever said was, “The way to handle criticism is to listen hard for the One Voice that’s always embedded there. Sometimes you have to completely ignore specific criticisms. Sometimes they are right on target. Always, though, Jesus has something for you.”  

Always there is One Voice.   

While introducing the concept of “mere Christianity” to his readers, C. S. Lewis acknowledged that the specific forms Christianity takes are myriad, confusing, and seemingly contradictory. Nonetheless, he maintained, at the center of the church’s life “each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in doctrine.”  

And this suggests that at the centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice. 

I think I know what he means. I’ve been hearing that “same voice” recently.  

On Sunday mornings I worship at an Episcopal/Anglican cathedral, with full formal liturgy (largely chanted), incense, lectionary readings, a less-than-20-minute homily, weekly Eucharist, gorgeous old school architecture, stained glass windows and classical music.   

On Sunday evenings I worship at a trans-denominational mega-church, with infinitely variable “content-driven” worship, a 30-minute story-laced sermon, a state of the art worship center with stunning electronic visuals and polished rock-n-roll music.  

One Sunday, both services happened to pivot around the same gospel reading. In the cathedral, the passage simply came up in the normal sequence of the Christian liturgical calendar and its telling of the story of Jesus. Readings in the weeks before led up to this passage, and the OT and the epistle readings of the day illuminated it. The service created the quietly satisfying sense that we were on a journey together, and this week was an expected and encouraging stop along the way. 

Later that day in the mega-church, the identical passage seemed at first to come out of nowhere. But it was powerfully accentuated by lights and music, and in the end vividly underscored a point from the sermon. Few eyes were dry, and few people could have missed how Jesus had come to meet them.  

On reflection, I concluded that Jesus had made a point about who he is in both services. Through one church Jesus voiced the settled resolve with which he came among us. Through the other he voiced the immediacy of his presence with us. In both, as Lewis might have put it, he spoke with the same voice.  

In Christ, every voice matters. Yours. Mine. Those who have been. Those who will be. Big steeples. Little steeples. No steeples. Visual learners. Auditory learners. Kinesthetic learners. Psalm singers. Praise song singers. Hymn singers. Above them all there is One Voice who has spoken in Scripture, who has blessed many distinct voices in the history of his church, and who is now raising up new voices for ministry in a future we know to be his.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Scriptures Are the Breath of God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/14/2025 •
Week of 5 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Isaiah 61:1–9; 2 Timothy 3:1–17; Mark 10:32–45 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday of the fifth week of the Epiphany of Christ.   

“You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come” (2 Timothy 3:1). Maybe it’s a bit counter-intuitive, but one of the things that can give Timothy courage to stand up against foolishness in the church is the realization that the persistence of evil is to be expected, even in his age. And it’s clear that for Paul, those days are upon us. They are an odd accompaniment of the victorious work of Christ.  

Isaiah had predicted “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Isaiah 61:2), and Jesus had declared he was inaugurating that new age (Luke 4:19,21). You’d think Jesus’s faithful followers would know nothing but good times. Life would be all “oil of gladness” and “mantle of praise,” all “enjoying the wealth of the nations” and “everlasting joy” (Isaiah 61:3,6,7). Paul himself says earlier in this letter that Christ has “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).  

And yet, Jesus warned his followers they would carry their own crosses, even in the wake of his victory. Throughout Paul’s campaign of proclaiming the good news of Christ’s saving work, he endured sufferings. When Timothy first became acquainted with Paul, Timothy saw some of those sufferings in his own hometown of Lystra (2 Timothy 3:11). And now, as he writes this letter, Paul sits in a Roman prison awaiting his probable martyrdom at the hands of Nero.  

Part of the sufferings that “the last days” would bring upon Christ’s church, Paul says, will be the assault of foolishness from within the church itself. God is surprised by none of this, by the way. And we shouldn’t be, either.  

Image: Eagle Lectern, Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, FL 

Thus, the need for faithful—and courageous—teachers and shepherds.  

Here’s the situation Paul is addressing, and why it’s important for us. False teachers in Ephesus (Paul calls them goētes, “magicians,” by which he means charlatans or imposters—2 Timothy 3:13) have woven a spell of an “over-realized eschatology” (the mistaken notion that the resurrection is “already,” and there is no “not yet”). They agree that the new life is our born-again life. But they depart into a non-Christian direction by teaching that “now” is all there is. In other words, it’s in this life that you need to maximize your possibilities, your potential, your prestige, and your pleasure. What it led to in Timothy’s church is what it has led to throughout the history of the church: rank narcissism. To deny the need for resurrection is to deny that sin still besets us and that it must die one last death at Jesus’ return. Ironically, this false teaching opens the floodgates to an unbridled religion of self.  

It is not accidental that Paul’s list of vices opens with lovers of themselves and closes with lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Everything in between is about building up oneself and destroying others. Religion stressing only the “already” with no room for the “not yet” cannot help but produce a self-serving and abusive lifestyle. Whatever appearance of godliness such teaching maintains, it has nothing of the Spirit of God about it. The only power it knows is Satan’s, not God’s.  

Chief among Paul’s antidotes for Timothy (and for us) is the Scriptures (by which Paul means our Old Testament, but for us includes the New Testament). The Scriptures are entirely trustworthy. They are the very breath of God, and they find their coherence (make you wise for salvation through faith) in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:15,16).  

When he writes, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work,” Paul characterizes the Old Testament’s benefit using four terms that have been much discussed. It is probably best to understand them as a Jewish Christian’s use of the traditional categories of Scripture.  

First, teaching: the Law told the story of God’s redemption of his people and spelled out implications for life in covenant with him.  

Second, reproof: the Prophets had brought God’s covenantal lawsuit against his rebellious people; the Prophets wrote in such a way as to convict an erring people of their waywardness, pointing them to One in whose sufferings and glory their hope lay.  

Third, correction: in the so-called Writings (the Psalms and the wisdom literature), God had provided songs and sayings designed to realign his people’s hearts with his own heart, teaching them to lament and rejoice and live in accordance with his wisdom.  

Finally, there is training in righteousness: an all-encompassing term for education and spiritual formation in Paul’s world. With this last phrase, Paul indicates that the world’s highest aspirations for wisdom are more than met in the account of redemption in Christ, long anticipated and embedded in Israel’s Scriptures.  

Collect for Proper 28. Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Our Blessings Come From the Gracious Giver - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/13/2025 •
Week of 5 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 83; Psalm 146; Psalm 147; Isaiah 60:1–17; 2 Timothy 2:14–26; Mark 10:17–31 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Thursday of the fifth week of Epiphany, the “manifestation” of God’s glory in Jesus Christ.   

One of the most important lessons a course in Driver’s Education teaches is not to over-compensate if the car starts to swerve out of control. Over-compensating is the fastest way to spin completely out of control.  

A master-teacher of pastoral theology, Paul teaches Timothy a similar lesson. Paul has told his young protégé that he needs to see himself as a soldier in Christ’s army (2 Timothy 2:2–3). But when his authority is challenged and he needs to “fight,” Timothy needs to do so without falling into the youthful trap of overcompensating and becoming quarrelsome and pugnacious. “Shun youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness” (2 Timothy 2:22–25).  

The situation is this: Timothy’s opponents have wrongly concluded that Christ’s resurrection in the past is the only resurrection that’s going to happen. False teachers, Paul says, “have swerved from the truth by claiming that the resurrection has already taken place. They are upsetting the faith of some” (2 Timothy 2:18). They have probably inferred that our new birth or regeneration in this life (see John 5:24; Ephesians 2:4–7) is all the resurrection we are going to receive. The consequence is a theology that says: “This life is all you have, so go for the gold now. Demand your best life right now!” That approach had had devastating consequences in Corinth, where believers were suing each other and allowing the Lord’s Supper to become a showcase for the display between the “haves” (God’s “somebodies”) and the “have nots” (God’s “nobodies”— see 1 Corinthians 1:26–29; 6:1–8; 11:27–34).  

Image: The Rich Young Ruler, stained glass, Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, FL 

To mount a measured resistance against foolish teaching like this, Paul reminds Timothy of several things. 

First, it’s important not to get mired down in trivial arguments about meaningless words. Paul wants Timothy (and us too!) to prioritize, and to pick his (and our!) battles. Not everything is worth fighting over. The resurrection is, but many other things are not.  

Second, all ideas that seem to be progressive aren’t necessarily so. The opponents are claiming a kind of advancement over a seemingly boring and staid orthodoxy that calls for waiting for a future resurrection. Their heresy will cause something to grow, and it will be an advancement of something; but it is the growth of disease, not health, the advancement of decay, not well-being. Paul likens the effect of their teaching to gangrene, which is the progressive dying of body tissue due to lack of blood. The false teachers’ your-best-life-now mindset will promote greed, not generosity; selfishness, not servanthood; viciousness, not love. And so, Timothy must stay at his post, and be “an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness” (2 Timothy 2:24–25).   

Third, the reason that Timothy can be both resolute and gentle is that he can rest in the confidence that the Lord is sovereign and in control. “But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this inscription: ‘The Lord knows those who are his’” (2 Timothy 2:19). Timothy stands in the line of Isaiah who had cried out to a people suffering in exile: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1). In that day, God was going to bring about a new exodus, a return from exile, that his people could never have engineered for themselves. Timothy’s God is that very same God, the One who builds “the City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 60:14).  

Timothy’s God is also the God in whom Jesus had invited the rich man in Mark to trust, the God of generous provision. Jesus invites the man to step into a whole new level of trust in God: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’” Jesus’s loving desire was that the man realize the blessings in his life did not come from his riches, but from the gracious giver of all good gifts. In addition to his love for the man, Jesus has confidence in the sovereign goodness of his God and Father. Even though he does so sadly, Jesus can step back and allow the man to walk away, because (I think) he knows the man’s story is not over, and is in the best hands it could possibly be in.  

Finally, the reason that Timothy can be straightforward in defending the truth but not be defensive in doing so, is that he will be giving God room to grant repentance. Here, I think, is the sense of the last portion of today’s epistle: “Correct opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him [the devil] to do His will [i.e., ironically, God’s will]” (2 Timothy 2:25b–26). Timothy can lead with what Paul calls elsewhere “the meekness and gentleness of Christ” (2 Cor 10:1), and leave the convicting to God himself.  

A good lesson in “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) for all of us! 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+