1 Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker — 2 also to Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier —and to the church that meets in your home: 3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Thanksgiving and Prayer. Whit sends Nicholas Adamsworth on a journey to meet an escaped slave named Onesimus and an apostle named Paul. Theme: The Bible story of Onesimus, forgiveness Adventures in Odyssey® 080: A Prisoner for Christ Download by Adventures in Odyssey.
—We have no materials for filling up this brief outline of the thirty years that followed in the Baptist’s life. The usual Jewish education, the observance of the Nazarite vow, the death of his parents while he was comparatively young, an early retirement from the world to the deserts that surrounded the western shores of the Dead Sea, study and meditation given to the Law and the Prophets, the steadfast waiting for the consolation of Israel, possible intercourse with the Essenes who lived in that region, or with hermit-teachers, like Banus, the master of Josephus (Life, c. 1), whose form of life was after the same fashion as his own: this we may surmise as probable, but we cannot say more. Whatever may have been the surroundings of his life, he entered upon his work in a spirit which was intensely personal and original.LukeZACHARIAS’S HYMN
Luke 1:67 - Luke 1:80.
Zacharias was dumb when he disbelieved. His lips were opened when he believed. He is the last of the Old Testament prophets, [Footnote: In the strictest sense, John the Baptist was a prophet of the Old dispensation, even though he came to usher in the New. {See Matthew 11:9 - Matthew 11:11.} In the same sense, Zacharias was the last prophet of the Old dispensation, before the coming of his son to link the Old with the New.] and as standing nearest to the Messiah, his song takes up the echoes of all the past, and melts them into a new outpouring of exultant hope. The strain is more impassioned than Mary’s, and throbs with triumph over ‘our enemies,’ but rises above the mere patriotic glow into a more spiritual region. The complete subordination of the personal element is very remarkable, as shown by the slight and almost parenthetical reference to John. The father is forgotten in the devout Israelite. We may take the song as divided into three portions: the first {Luke 1:68 - Luke 1:75} celebrating the coming of Messiah, with special reference to its effect in freeing Israel from its foes; the second {Luke 1:76 - Luke 1:77}, the highly dramatic address to his unconscious ‘child’; the third {Luke 1:78 - Luke 1:79} returns to the absorbing thought of the Messiah, but now touches on higher aspects of His coming as the Light to all who sit in darkness.
I. If we remember that four hundred dreary years, for the most part of which Israel had been groaning under a foreign yoke, had passed since the last of the prophets, and that during all that time devout eyes had looked wearily for the promised Messiah, we shall be able to form some faint conception of the surprise and rapture which filled Zacharias’s spirit, and leaps in his hymn at the thought that now, at last, the hour had struck, and that the child would soon be born who was to fulfil the divine promises and satisfy fainting hopes. No wonder that its first words are a burst of blessing of ‘the God of Israel.’ The best expression of joy, when long-cherished desires are at last on the eve of accomplishment, is thanks to God. How short the time of waiting seems when it is past, and how needless the impatience which marred the waiting! Zacharias speaks of the fact as already realised. He must have known that the Incarnation was accomplished; for we can scarcely suppose that the emphatic tenses ‘hath visited, hath redeemed, hath raised’ are prophetic, and merely imply the certainty of a future event. He must have known, too, Mary’s royal descent; for he speaks of ‘the house of David.’
‘A horn’ of salvation is an emblem taken from animals, and implies strength. Here it recalls several prophecies, and as a designation of the Messiah, shadows forth His conquering might, all to be used for deliverance to His people. The vision before Zacharias is that of a victor king of Davidic race, long foretold by prophets, who will set Israel free from its foreign oppressors, whether Roman or Idumean, and in whom God Himself ‘visits and redeems His people.’ There are two kinds of divine visitations-one for mercy and one for judgment. What an unconscious witness it is of men’s evil consciences that the use of the phrase has almost exclusively settled down upon the latter meaning! In Luke 1:71 - Luke 1:75, the idea of the Messianic salvation is expanded and raised. The word ‘salvation’ is best construed, as in the Revised Version, as in apposition with and explanatory of ‘horn of salvation.’ This salvation has issues, which may also be regarded as God’s purposes in sending it. These are threefold: first, to show mercy to the dead fathers of the race. That is a striking idea, and pictures the departed as, in their solemn rest, sharing in the joy of Messiah’s coming, and perhaps in the blessings which He brings. We may not too closely press the phrase, but it is more than poetry or imagination. The next issue is God’s remembrance of His promises, or in other words, His fulfilment of these. The last is that the nation, being set free, should serve God. The external deliverance was in the eyes of devout men like Zacharias precious as a means to an end. Political freedom was needful for God’s service, and was valuable mainly as leading to that. The hymn rises far above the mere impatience of a foreign yoke. ‘Freedom to worship God,’ and God worshipped by a ransomed nation, are Zacharias’s ideal of the Messianic times.
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Note his use of the word for priestly ‘service.’ He, a priest, has not forgotten that by original constitution all Israel was a nation of priests; and he looks forward to the fulfilment at last of the ideal which so soon became impracticable, and possibly to the abrogation of his own order in the universal priesthood. He knew not what deep truths he sang. The end of Christ’s coming, and of the deliverance which He works for us from the hand of our enemies, cannot be better stated than in these words. We are redeemed that we may be priests unto God. Our priestly service must be rendered in ‘holiness and righteousness,’ in consecration to God and discharge of all obligations; and it is to be no interrupted or occasional service, like Zacharias’s, which occupied but two short weeks in the year, and might never again lead him within the sanctuary, but is to fill with reverent activity and thankful sacrifice all our days. However this hymn may have begun with the mere external conception of Messianic deliverance, it rises high above that here, and will still further soar beyond it. We may learn from this priest-prophet, who anticipated the wise men and brought his offerings to the unborn Christ, what Christian salvation is, and for what it is given us.II.
There is something very vivid and striking in the abrupt address to the infant, who lay, all unknowing, in his mother’s arms. The contrast between him as he was then and the work which waited him, the paternal wonder and joy which yet can scarcely pause on the child, and hurries on to fancy him in the years to come, going herald-like before the face of the Lord, the profound prophetic insight into John’s work, are all noteworthy. The Baptist did ‘prepare the way’ by teaching that the true ‘salvation’ was not to be found in mere deliverance from the Roman yoke, but in ‘remission of sin.’ He thus not only gave ‘knowledge of salvation,’ in the sense that he announced the fact that it would be given, but also in the sense that he clearly taught in what it consisted. John was no preacher of revolt, as the turbulent and impure patriots of the day would have liked him to be, but of repentance. His work was to awake the consciousness of sin, and so to kindle desires for a salvation which was deliverance from sin, the only yoke which really enslaves. Zacharias the ‘blameless’ saw what the true bondage of the nation was, and what the work both of the Deliverer and of His herald must be. We need to be perpetually reminded of the truth that the only salvation and deliverance which can do us any good consist in getting rid, by pardon and by holiness, of the cords of our sins.III. The thoughts of the Forerunner and his office melt into that of the Messianic blessings from which the singer cannot long turn away. In these closing words, we have the source, the essential nature, and the blessed results of the gift of Christ set forth in a noble figure, and freed from the national limitations of the earlier part of the hymn. All comes from the ‘bowels of mercy of our God,’ as Zacharias, in accordance with Old Testament metaphor, speaks, allocating the seat of the emotions which we attribute to the heart. Conventional notions of delicacy think the Hebrew idea coarse, but the one allocation is just as delicate as the other. We can get no deeper down or farther back into the secret springs of things than this-that the root cause of all, and most especially of the mission of Christ, is the pitying love of God’s heart. If we hold fast by that, the pain of the riddle of the world is past, and the riddle itself more than half solved. Jesus Christ is the greatest gift of that love, in which all its tenderness and all its power are gathered up for our blessing.
The modern civilised world owes most of its activity to the quickening influence of Christianity. The dayspring visits us that it may shine on us, and it shines that it may guide us into ‘the way of peace.’ There can be no wider and more accurate description of the end of Christ’s mission than this-that all His visitation and enlightenment are meant to lead us into the path where we shall find peace with God, and therefore with ourselves and with all mankind. The word ‘peace,’ in the Old Testament, is used to include the sum of all that men require for their conscious well-being. We are at rest only when all our relations with God and the outer world are right, and when our inner being is harmonised with itself, and supplied with appropriate objects. To know God for our friend, to have our being fixed on and satisfied in Him, and so to be reconciled to all circumstances, and a friend of all men-this is peace; and the path to such a blessed condition is shown us only by that Sun of Righteousness whom the loving heart of God has sent into the darkness and torpor of the benighted wanderers in the desert. The national reference has faded from the song, and though it still speaks of ‘us’ and ‘our,’ we cannot doubt that Zacharias both saw more deeply into the salvation which Christ would bring than to limit it to breaking an earthly yoke, and deemed more worthily and widely of its sweep, than to confine it within narrower bounds than the whole extent of the dreary darkness which it came to banish from all the world.
Luke 1:80. And the child grew, &c. — The years of John’s infancy expiring, he grew daily in wisdom and stature; and was in the deserts, &c. — During the whole course of his private life, he continued in the deserts, or hill- country of Judea, Luke 1:39, till his ministry commenced, about the thirtieth year of his age. It is probable that the deserts here mentioned were those of Ziph and Maon, where Saul pursued David. Though there were several country towns and villages in these deserts, yet, as they were but thinly inhabited, they were in the Jewish idiom called deserts. Now it was wisely ordered, to prevent a personal acquaintance between Jesus and John, that the latter should continue in one of these deserts, at the distance of probably one hundred miles from Nazareth, till the time of his entering upon his ministry. There, in a state of solitude and retirement from the world, he lived an austere and mortified life, that his character might be suited to his office — the preaching of repentance, self-denial, and deadness to the world and sin.
1:67-80 Zacharias uttered a prophecy concerning the kingdom and salvation of the Messiah. The gospel brings light with it; in it the day dawns. In John the Baptist it began to break, and increased apace to the perfect day. The gospel is discovering; it shows that about which we were utterly in the dark; it is to give light to those that sit in darkness, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is reviving; it brings light to those that sit in the shadow of death, as condemned prisoners in the dungeon. It is directing; it is to guide our feet in the way of peace, into that way which will bring us to peace at last, Ro 3:17. John gave proofs of strong faith, vigorous and holy affections, and of being above the fear and love of the world. Thus he ripened for usefulness; but he lived a retired life, till he came forward openly as the forerunner of the Messiah. Let us follow peace with all men, as well as seek peace with God and our own consciences. And if it be the will of God that we live unknown to the world, still let us diligently seek to grow strong in the grace of Jesus Christ.Waxed strong in spirit - That is, in courage, understanding, and purposes of good, fitting him for his future work. The word 'wax' means to 'increase, to grow,' from an old Saxon word.
In the deserts - In Hebron, and in the hill country where his father resided. He dwelt in obscurity, and was not known publicly by the people.
Until the day of his showing - Until he entered on his public ministry, as recorded in Matthew 3 - that is, probably, until he was about 30 years of age. See Luke 3.
80. And the child, &c.—'a concluding paragraph, indicating, in strokes full of grandeur, the bodily and mental development of the Baptist; and bringing his life up to the period of his public appearance' [Olshausen].in the deserts—probably 'the wilderness of Judea' (Mt 3:1), whither he had retired early in life, in the Nazarite spirit, and where, free from rabbinical influences and alone with God, his spirit would be educated, like Moses in the desert, for his future high vocation.
his showing unto Israel—the presentation of himself before his nation, as Messiah's forerunner.
The evangelist having done with Zacharias’s prophetical song, now cometh to tell us what became of John. He saith, the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit. He did not only grow in his bodily dimensions, but in the endowments of his mind.And was in the deserts, that is, in places very thinly inhabited, (some will have this to have been the deserts of Ziph and Maon),
till the day of his showing unto Israel;
Paul A Prisoner For Christ
that is, in all probability, till he was about thirty years of age, when he came forth as a public preacher to those parts of Israel where he spent the small remaining part of his life, of which we shall hear more hereafter.And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit,.... That is, John, the son of Zacharias and Elisabeth, grew in stature of body, and increased in wisdom and knowledge, and fortitude in his soul:
and was in the deserts; or 'desert', as the Syriac, Persic, and Ethiopic versions read; not in the wilderness of Judea, where he came preaching, but either of Ziph or Maon, which were near to Hebron; see 1 Samuel 23:14 he was not brought up in the schools of the prophets, nor in the academies of the Jews, or at the feet of any of their Rabbins and doctors; that it might appear he was not taught and sent of men, but of God: nor did he dwell in any of the cities, or larger towns, but in deserts; partly that he might be fitted for that gravity and austerity of life, he was to appear in; and that it might be clear he had no knowledge of, nor correspondence with Jesus, whose forerunner he was, and of whom he was to bear testimony, till such time he did it; and in this solitude he remained,
till the day of his showing unto Israel; either till the time came that he was to appear before, and be examined by the sanhedrim, that judged of persons fitness and qualifications for the priesthood, in order to be admitted to it; which should have been when he was thirty years of age, but that he was designed for other service; or rather therefore till he appeared in his prophetic office, and showed himself to the people of Israel; to whom he came preaching the doctrine of repentance and remission of sins, administering the ordinance of baptism, giving notice of the near approach of the Messiah, and pointing him out unto the people.
And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel.Christians anxious about threats to religious liberty in America can draw inspiration and strength from stories shared by Iranian Believers persecuted in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Marina Nemat, a former political prisoner and author of the bestselling memoir Prisoner of Tehran, encouraged this lesson during a lecture at the Acton Institute on November 19. She shared, “There’s never been a revolution in the history of mankind where people get on the street and say, ‘we want a horrible dictator!’ No. People want freedom and democracy. But that’s not necessarily what they get.”
Raised in a Catholic family in secular Iran under the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Nemat recounted her happy childhood. She watched the Osmonds on television and listened to the Bee Gees on her Boombox. Encouraged by her parents and teachers, she aspired to become a medical doctor. “So I made my plans. I was going to go to med school, marry Donny Osmand, and live happily ever after,” she joked. “It didn’t work out.”
During the summer of 1978, resistance to the Shah bubbled to the surface. Nemat’s friends attended protest rallies. Instead of Bee Gees and the Osmonds, new terms like “dictator” and “social justice” began to saturate her teenage conversations. But despite the people’s expectations of religious and political freedoms, Nemat’s Christian family became nervous over the Islamic drive behind the revolution.
“All religious minorities were kind of worried about what they were hearing because, I mean, it had accepted the name of an Islamic revolution. And rightly so, it worried us,” she explained. “People trusted the Ayatollah. People trusted the promises that he made. But of course, he had no intention of keeping those promises. We didn’t know that.”
In the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution, it became evident too that freedom and democracy were not delivered. Protests erupted among the young people, who now demanded basic equal rights such as the equality of men and women. This time Nemat joined in the protests. That was, until a wave of arrests of teenagers swept her community.
“My generation – 80% of my school mates – we were on the streets protesting the Islamic regime,” she noted. “Every day another desk would be empty. Every day another went missing. But we shrugged it off. How bad could it get? Well, really bad.”
Nemat was arrested on January 15, 1982. She became a 16 year-old political prisoner. She weighed 90 pounds, and her wrists were so small that they slid out of the cuffs. So the officers had to place both of her wrists into the same cuff. Her wrists were cracked to fit the one cuff. “The torture had not even begun,” she noted.
For over two years Nemat endured interrogation, torture, rape, starvation, solitary confinement, forced marriage, and forced conversation to Islam. Prayer was a comfort Nemat held to in her dire situation. “During solitary confinement, I would have conversations with God. It made sense, right? Who else?”
During one of her out-loud conversations with God, Nemat realized exactly how her situation mirrored the situation of her Savior. “So I had nothing to complain about,” she said.
“If God was something sitting on his throne in heaven, I had every right to be mad at Him. Every right. It’s so easy to be mad at God,” she confessed. “But then I realized, wait a minute. I’m a Christian. Jesus walked here. He was wrongfully arrested. He was wrongfully tortured. And guess what? He was wrongfully executed.”
Nemat trusted that her persecution would not be in vain. She kept hold of hope because, as she explained, “Christ was in that cell with me. I testify to that.” Nemat was released two years after her arrest thanks to the Muslim family of her “torturer husband.”
Although Nemat admits that it would be easy to dwell in thoughts of hatred and revenge, she commits to love others according to Jesus’ example. She now lives in Canada and advocates on behalf of religious freedom and refugees “because of the cross.”
“This cross that I hang here is not something pretty. It is a tool of torture,” Nemat explained. “This cross around my neck reminds me of [a] simple answer. Why did He die? Because he loved. Not because he hated. That has been my beacon in any situation.”
80: A Prisoner For Christ Crucified
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