God tested us humans right from the beginning to see if we’ll use the powers he’s given us to keep evil at bay. He tested Adam and Eve, he then tested Israel, and now he’s testing the church. 

But why, if evil is such a problem, did God allow evil in the first place? Paul’s answer in 2 Corinthians 2:9 was: “to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything.” And Jesus was put through that test too, because “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered” – the suffering coming from the staggering power of evil trying to outwit and kill him, Hebrews 5:7-8. 

But what that did was turn Jesus in desperation to his Father “to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (7). Jesus stood the test and obeyed his Father in everything. But the key to that was using the power he’d been given to keep evil at bay – the power being his immediate and total access to heaven. 

The constant test in his life, then, was: Would he use that access to heaven he had? Well, life as a human taught him how utterly dependent he was on heaven, because he discovered that evil was too powerful for him to keep it at bay on his own strength. But it was meant to be that way, because the test all through history for us humans, including the human Jesus, is recognizing our need for the power and authority that heaven has over the power of evil. So that for eternity evil will never be a problem for us. God wasn’t just thinking of this life – he was thinking what would keep evil at bay for all the members of his family – forever.  

Would we get the point, therefore, that testing our obedience beyond our limit now, and having to tap into the power of heaven as the only way to deal with it, is, in fact, God’s brilliant plan to make sure evil is never a problem when we’re eternal beings instead? 

And for centuries God illustrated this through the story of Israel in Canaan being up against evil they could not resist. God tested the Israelites again and again to see if they would obey him in everything. And they learnt through that process that they couldn’t. The lure of the Canaanite gods was too powerful for them. But when in their distress they turned to God, just as Jesus did in his distress, God always answered. 

And that’s good to know, because “The lure of the gods” is just as strong and irresistible today as well….(next blog)

In building his church, Jesus gave authority to the church to “bind and loose” with heaven’s backing (Matthew 16:19, 18:18). If someone in the church, for instance, had wronged someone else in the church but made it obvious that he didn’t care, Jesus said “treat him like a pagan” (18:17). Get him out of the church and have nothing to do with him.

The church, however, did not always do that. A case in point came up in 1 Corinthians 5, when a man in the church was having a sexual relationship with his father’s wife, something that even pagans at that time didn’t indulge in (1), but the church was “proud” of it (2). 

Paul turned several shades of purple when he found out, and you can almost hear him spluttering his incredulity when he writes, “Shouldn’t you have been overwhelmed with sorrow and shame, and by now have got the man who did this kicked out of the church?” (2). In other words, why didn’t you bind up the evil and get rid of it?

They hadn’t, so in verses 4 and 5 Paul does the “binding” part for them. “The next time you’re all assembled together,” he tells them, “hand this man over to Satan so he sees and feels the destructive force of evil in the hope that he wakes up to it in himself and is saved from it – and from God’s judgment.” Chuck him into the devil’s realm where for now this man belongs, for his sake and the church’s. 

And did the church do that? Apparently, yes they did. And it had the desired effect too. Tough though it must’ve been for the church to agree to such severe treatment for one of their own, the man got the message loud and clear, at which point Paul activated the “loosing” part too: loose the man from the obvious suffering and grief he’d been through and welcome him back to church with open arms (2 Corinthians 2:5-8).

Paul also admitted it was a “test” on the church to see if they’d obey (9), because it was highly important “that Satan might not outwit us” (11), or as Jesus put it, that the gates of hell may not prevail in his church. And that involves both binding and loosing. Bind up the evil, throw it out of the church, but when evil is admitted loosen up the punishment and provide a way back into the church too.

The incident in 1 Corinthians 5, therefore, illustrates the need to bind and loose to keep evil at bay. And it’s “The same test all through history“ too….(next blog) 

In Matthew 18:18 Jesus repeats what he said back in Matthew 16:19 about binding and loosing, as the key to the building of his church and the gates of hell not prevailing against it. 

And it’s in the context of this second time he says “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven,” that we get his message behind those words. And it’s simple and to the point: that in his church there is no compromise when it comes to good and evil. It’s bind the evil, let loose the good, because if his church takes that seriously it has the power (and authority) of heaven to do both.

Jesus illustrates his point with a practical example that will test the church on its understanding (and seriousness) about not compromising. It’s what those in his church do “If your brother sins against you,” Matthew 18:15. He’s sinned, and that’s wrong, so “go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.” In other words, don’t compromise with his sin, deal with it. 

But deal with it heaven’s way, not hell’s. Hell would ignore the sin or excuse it so it festers and spreads and destroys the relationship beyond repair, thus enabling the gates of hell to prevail. But the church seeks a solution heaven’s way so hell doesn’t get a look in.  

And heaven’s way is the ‘dreaded confrontation’ with the person in the wrong. Tense it might be, but what if “he listens to you” (15)? What if the kingdom of heaven breaks through in his brain, and it dawns on him that he’s been opening up the gates of hell in the church instead? Good, because that means “you’ve won your brother over,” Jesus says (15) – won him over “from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18). 

On the other hand, “if he refuses to listen,” Matthew 18:17, “treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector” – and Jesus’ disciples knew exactly what Jesus meant by that, because Jewish tax collectors were totally cut off from the Jewish community; they couldn’t even enter a synagogue. So anyone in the church not interested in solving conflicts heaven’s way, out the door they go. A tough decision, yes, but it has heaven’s backing (19) – and heaven’s purpose behind it too, not only in keeping hell out of the church, but also a way back into the church for someone who’s accepted he was wrong. No compromise, then, means “Out, but a way back in too”….(next blog)

When Jesus told his disciples he’d give them “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” in Matthew 16:19, he included in those keys the statement that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 

It was said in the context of Jesus building his church (18), which he based on his disciples’ rock solid belief in him being the Christ (16, 18). To add visual impact to the seriousness of that belief, Jesus stood with his disciples at the Gates of Hell, the cave entrance in that massive rock cliff at Caesarea Philippi that the Gentile pagans believed was the gateway to the gods of the underworld. 

It was a watershed moment, because the Israelites of old had never shaken off the influence of the Gentile pagan gods, resulting in this entire region of their land in Jesus’ day being dedicated to the worship of the weird perverted sex god, Pan, whose centre of worship was this cave called – very aptly – the “Gate of Hades,” or the “Gates of Hell.”

It was a watershed moment all right, because Jesus was now saying – and right at this very spot too – that the gates of hell would not overpower his people again (18). The time had come at last when God’s people could resist and reject the enticing, weird gods of the world, neutralizing their power – because they now had the antidote to the virus, the power of “the Son of the living God” (16) – and to Jesus’ delight Peter understood that (17). 

And that meant his church would now have the power to bind and loose, which in context (and location) had everything to do with his church having the power to resist the enticement of the “gates of hell” gods in future, and be the light to the world that Jesus himself had come to be. Which fits right in with the purpose of his church in verse 19, to open up the gates of the kingdom of heaven in contrast to the gates of hell, so that people could see what his kingdom was like in his church. 

And the key to that was his church “binding” evil and neutralizing it, and letting “loose” the goodness of God in its place, both of which Jesus promised he’d give his church the backing and power of heaven to do (19), Because – as we see in Jesus repeating the binding and loosing scripture in Matthew 18:18 – there is “No compromise” for his church when it comes to good and evil….(next blog)

The backdrop Jesus chose for announcing the building of his church was a cave called the “Gate of Hades (or Hell)” carved deep into a cliff in the Roman administrative centre of Caesarea Philippi. It was a totally Gentile area, dominated by a great white marble temple built by Herod the Great to the godhead of Caesar. A Jew, therefore, would feel defiled just being there, but this is where Jesus took his disciples to ask them the question: “Who do you say I am?”

He’d saved the question until the closing days of his ministry, by which time God had made it clear to Peter that Jesus truly was “the Christ,” Matthew 16:16, the promised Messiah and “Son of the living God” sent by God to set up his kingdom on the earth – that for centuries his chosen people Israel had never been able to do, having endlessly succumbed to pagan gods and their vile religious practices, including child sacrifice. 

How fitting then, that at this gateway to the hellish practices of the demonic world, Jesus could now give his disciples, his budding church, “the keys to the kingdom of heaven” (19), that would open up the gates of heaven. 

What a moment that must’ve been for Jesus, therefore, when Peter blurted out, “I know who you are, you’re the Christ,” because that was the crucial key his disciples needed. “No one comes to the Father except through me,” Jesus made clear in John 14:6. It was on that “rock” of belief in him, therefore – pictured by that solid rocky cliff looming above them – that Jesus then said in Matthew 16:18: “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

And Jesus said it with the “Gates of Hades” cave just a stone’s throw away, to get the point across to his disciples that the church he was about to build, starting with them, would become a real power on the planet, unlocking the gates of heaven to “open people’s eyes and turn people from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18). His church, therefore, would have the power to dismantle the darkness pictured by that cave. And no matter what evil did in its attempt to destroy the church, Jesus’ church would prove to be stronger.

But what did Jesus mean in Matthew 16:19, when he also talked about his disciples “Binding and loosing”?….(next blog)

The Israelites did not take God seriously when he told them to eradicate the religious practices of the Canaanites – even when those practices included offering infant children as burnt sacrifices to the god Molech (Leviticus 18:21, 20:1-5, Deuteronomy 12:31, 18:9-10). 

The Canaanites had thrown open the gates of hell, and century after century the Israelites blindly (or knowingly) walked through those gates into the domain of demons. By the time Jesus arrived on the scene, demonic forces were taking up residence in people and controlling them like puppets – like the man “possessed by an evil spirit” in Mark 1:23.

The “good news” that Jesus brought, then, was “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind and release for the oppressed,” Luke 4:18, all of which tied in with Jesus freeing people from the grip of these demonic forces. 

And the means by which Jesus would make that possible would be the building of his church, “against which,” he told his disciples in Matthew 16:18, “the gates of hell” would not prevail. And to make that real to his disciples Jesus staged a teaching moment for them in Caesarea Philippi (13) where the “Gates of Hell” was an actual place. 

It was a deep cave cut into a massive cliff, long held by Gentile pagans to be a gate into the underworld through which their gods travelled. And it was rightly named the “Gates of Hell,” because it was the religious centre for the worship of the sexually perverted Greek fertility god, Pan, and (to quote one source) “when people came to worship Pan, they would bring with them an infant child to be offered as a sacrifice. The child was thrown into the water that flowed from the rock on the side of the cliff. If the child went under the water and disappeared, that meant Pan had accepted their sacrifice. If instead, the child was dashed apart under water and its blood flowed into the river below, Pan had rejected their sacrifice. Either way, the child’s life was over.”

So here at the Gates of Hell the same demonic practice of sacrificing infants was being done. Nothing had changed since the time of the Israelites sacrificing infants to Molech. So why on earth would Jesus deliberately take his disciples to such an awful place? It was to ask a question: “Who do you say I am?”….(next blog) 

God gave strict orders to the Israelites, that when they entered Canaan they should “break down the altars” of the Canaanite gods, “smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire,” Deuteronomy 7:5. But instead the Israelites “prostituted themselves to other gods and worshipped them,” Judges 2:17. 

So what was the appeal of these other gods? 

Well, imagine being an Israelite and all you’d ever known was God taking care of your needs, which he’d faithfully done too. But in Canaan the people had other gods taking care of their needs. They had Ba’al, the ‘lord’ god who had mastery over the weather, and his female consort Asherah, the goddess of motherhood and fertility. So here were gods providing physical security in an uncertain world, dealing with crop-destroying storms, providing rain in season, and enabling couples to have children.

It was a totally new experience for the Israelites, which might excuse them being curious, but what led them to “prostituting themselves to these gods and worshipping them” as well? 

In a word, it was sex. And God knew that because he’d spent much of Leviticus 18 and half of Leviticus 20 warning the Israelites about the sexual practices of the Canaanites that they should strictly avoid. But sex was a strong draw, especially when it was associated with releasing the power of these gods. Asherah, for instance, was the goddess of fertility so to release her power temple prostitutes were provided to have sex with. Imagine, then, having gods that condoned sex with prostitutes to guarantee fertility. It was very easy, therefore, for women to attract Israelite men into sacrificing to their gods (Numbers 25:1-3).

The Israelites understandably had deep concerns about their livelihoods and families, about survival, security and their hope for health, wealth and happiness in the future – and the Canaanites had gods offering the exact powers to take care of those needs, which was a draw in itself. But add in sex with no boundaries – and condoned as worship too – and it’s no wonder that God told the Israelites to get rid of the Canaanite religion totally. 

And especially because there was a sinister and highly destructive side to these gods too, which we see in Jesus talking about “The gates of hell”….(next blog)

It’s quite something witnessing the impact of the kingdom of God on someone who clearly hasn’t been hit by it yet. 

A case in point was an interview with a Doctor by a seasoned TV presenter who despairs at what’s happening in our world of late, evidenced by the Doctor herself and what had happened to her.

As a highly qualified Doctor she began to see holes in the prevailing narrative of the pandemic – not intentionally because she’d gone along with it too. But in voicing her concerns to her colleagues she was met with outright hostility, and none of them expressed any interest or curiosity in what concerned her, which to her was totally contrary to true science and scientific enquiry, and deeply disrespectful toward the foundational ethics of medicine. 

Massively censored and her career in tatters, she found herself, just like the Naphtalians in Galilee in Jesus’ day, “walking in darkness,” sunk deep in what she called a “spiritually heavy, dark feeling” she could not shake, just like the “gloom” predicted for Naphtali in Isaiah 9:1. And being an ardent atheist she also found there was nothing that could ease her distress or combat her fear of dying. It was her “darkest period.”  

But “During that time,” she said, “I was being introduced to Christians” and when asked if she was a Christian and she said, “No,” something very different happened. No hostility or disinterest, but a little peek into the kingdom of God, because the answer she kept getting was, “I’m praying for you.” Like Mark 2:12, she’d “never seen anything like this!”

It was “really strange,” she said, because “while the world was becoming more ridiculous than ever and I was under more attack than ever, I started to feel completely at peace in a way I hadn’t since being a child.” 

But Jesus did say in John 14:27 – “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” And she’s not. She was, but not any longer, because that’s what Jesus came to create for people when he said, “The time has come; the kingdom of God is near,” and its impact, therefore, would be felt – because that’s what’s meant to happen. So what distracts us from that? It’s “Our problem with gods”….(next blog)

Jacob gave his son Naphtali a most unusual blessing: “You’re a doe set free that bears beautiful fawns,” Genesis 49:21. And that was it, no more said, leaving us scratching our heads wondering what Jacob meant. 

But tie it in with Jesus’ ministry, much of which was done in the land of Naphtali, and a picture emerges from Jacob’s prediction that describes Jesus’ ministry perfectly. Jesus truly was “a doe set free,” springing into action right after “John was put in prison” to “proclaim the good news of God” in Galilee, the land of Naphtali, in Mark 1:14. 

This would tie in with the “bears beautiful fawns” in Jacob’s prediction too, because in Hebrew it can also mean “gives words of beauty,” which is exactly what Jesus began doing in verse 15, when he came roaring out of the shadows like a deer leaping out of the forest crying out, “The time has come; the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.”

So instead of just putting up with “walking in darkness” and being pushed this way and that by the prevailing winds of the culture – and never knowing or expecting anything better either – it was time for people to “repent” of all that and listen to what he had to say, because if they did they’d get the chance to enter a new world, the evidence of which he immediately made clear by the most extraordinary things he was teaching and doing. 

It worked too, because “News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee” (28). People “came to him from everywhere” (45), because they’d never heard such teaching, or seen such healing power in a human before (1:27, 2:12). So when he returned to Capernaum “a few days later and the people heard he’d come home” (2:1), they were desperate to hear more, so “he preached the word to them” (2). 

There was something in what he taught, therefore, that turned the lights on to the possibility of another world in operation, that was so much more lovely than the only world these people had known. It was a world where “Repent” meant “Clue in to the good news, folks, and see what it does for you,” which Jesus made clear when he told a paralytic he’d just healed, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (2:5). That was different, and extremely good to know. But that was the kingdom of God, because “the words of beauty” Jacob promised Naphtali, were “Meant to have an impact”….(next blog)

Right from the start Naphtali was associated with struggling. He was born to Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant, but it was Rachel who named him “My struggle,” because – she explained in Genesis 30:8 – “I have had a great struggle with my sister (Leah), and I have won.” 

So Naphtali got stuck with that name, and all because Rachel was jealous of her sister having so many children (1), and thinking she’d scored a victory over Leah by having two children of her own. But there was also a prophetic side to Naphtali having such a name, because Jesus would later set up his home base in Capernaum, in the land that Naphtali’s descendants inherited, and the struggle he would then go through.

He willingly brought that struggle on himself too, because he left his hometown of “Nazareth and lived in Capernaum” instead, Matthew 4:13, which Isaiah had described as a pitifully lost land where “the people were living in darkness, and in the shadow of death” (15-16). And the evidence of that soon became apparent in Mark 1:21-24, when Jesus began teaching in Capernaum and was immediately confronted by a man “possessed by an evil spirit” that accused Jesus of “coming to destroy us” – “us” meaning there were many more demons in people in that area too, which Jesus “also drove out” (34, 39). 

And that’s how Jesus’ struggle in the lost land of Naphtali began. For us it would be like starting from scratch with a person who’s had a horrible life, terrible childhood, having had all kinds of nutty ideas pumped into his head by people who either knew nothing about God or had some really weird religious ideas about him. Where on earth do you start?

It’s encouraging to know, then, that even when people are “living in darkness” it’s possible for them to “see a great light,” and in their minds “a light dawns,” Matthew 4:16, because that’s what happened when Jesus began to teach in that area. And it’s amazing how quickly thousands of people responded. They were Galileans too, viewed as “Gentile” rejects (Matthew 4:15), the lowest of the low. 

But these were the people Jesus spent most of his time with, because to him the struggle was worth it. He came to teach (Mark 1:38), because his teaching had the power to “remove the gloom for those who were in distress” (Isaiah 9:1). Which brings to mind the blessing that Jacob gave his son Naphtali in Genesis 49:21, that predicted “The lovely ministry of Jesus”….(next blog)