1 Timothy 6:15 – Jesus, the Ever-Potent
13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate…
There's a scene in the movie Ben Hur where Quintus Arius the Roman noble is conspiring with Ben Hur as his adopted son. Judah Ben Hur's purpose of rescuing his mother and sister from unjust and potentially deadly imprisonment has become the older man's to the extent that he tells the younger, "Events are very much to OUR purpose." He then goes on to explain that Pontius Pilate has been appointed governor of Palestine, probably thinking that a new governor might re-examine old cases.
I consider this shifting of political chess pieces, and the reading of the board for potential, if brief, windows of opportunity in light of Paul's referring to Jesus as Potentate in 1 Timothy 6:15. From a less inspired pen, this might be considered a demotion, or a distraction on the way up to more majestic and familiar titles like King of Kings and Lord of lords.
Yet, the Holy Spirit went to a lot of trouble to inspire and preserve this subordinate title of Jesus as potentate, or courtier, on par with the Ethiopian eunuch whom Acts reminds us God what eminence he had because he served Queen Candace. Why? Why do we care that He shines with the moon's reflected light when He also shines with the sun's overpowering radiance?
We care, I think, and Timothy cared, because we are so familiar with the shifting ground of favor and influence. Screwtape says the closest we come to consistency is undulation, and I often find myself confessing there. Even though our favor in Christ is everlasting, our sense of it is not. At least in our minds, we find fresh instances daily if not moment by moment which we believe Christ our Courtier must take afresh before His Father, as though some weakness in us or need of ours had just been discovered. Is His stock up, or is His stock down? Does he have His Father's attention just now, or is the great gaze of Heaven in another direction?
Here the lesser office of Potentate is also helpful. For, the enemy of our souls would cram as many of our wants, needs, and prayer requests as he can into the crevice between vital importance and those requests we believe too small to ask about. It would be overkill, we think, to ask Christ to shine His full glory into this corner of our lives which has grown a little musty.
Yet, as His righteousness is also distinct and healthful in what seem to be the intermediate cases, He is acting in his character to intervene for church influence, in office politics, or even that His glory might be stubbornly evident in political instances. He Who willingly took on the form of a servant delights to serve His Father, and us as His blood-bought brothers and sisters, as Bureaucrat as well.
What is too small, then, to ask of Him? What is too slow, too subtle, too mundane, too ordinary, too modern, too incremental, too wonkish to ask of Him? What, in retrospect, is too small an instance to recall the shimmer of His glory, especially as He seems to accumulate these to form a lasting picture in our stubborn hearts that He really does care to perfect that which concerns us. We ratchet up our praise, then, to Him as King of Kings and Lord of lords knowing He is equally invested in the atomic and otherwise insignificant.
There's a scene in the movie Ben Hur where Quintus Arius the Roman noble is conspiring with Ben Hur as his adopted son. Judah Ben Hur's purpose of rescuing his mother and sister from unjust and potentially deadly imprisonment has become the older man's to the extent that he tells the younger, "Events are very much to OUR purpose." He then goes on to explain that Pontius Pilate has been appointed governor of Palestine, probably thinking that a new governor might re-examine old cases.
I consider this shifting of political chess pieces, and the reading of the board for potential, if brief, windows of opportunity in light of Paul's referring to Jesus as Potentate in 1 Timothy 6:15. From a less inspired pen, this might be considered a demotion, or a distraction on the way up to more majestic and familiar titles like King of Kings and Lord of lords.
Yet, the Holy Spirit went to a lot of trouble to inspire and preserve this subordinate title of Jesus as potentate, or courtier, on par with the Ethiopian eunuch whom Acts reminds us God what eminence he had because he served Queen Candace. Why? Why do we care that He shines with the moon's reflected light when He also shines with the sun's overpowering radiance?
We care, I think, and Timothy cared, because we are so familiar with the shifting ground of favor and influence. Screwtape says the closest we come to consistency is undulation, and I often find myself confessing there. Even though our favor in Christ is everlasting, our sense of it is not. At least in our minds, we find fresh instances daily if not moment by moment which we believe Christ our Courtier must take afresh before His Father, as though some weakness in us or need of ours had just been discovered. Is His stock up, or is His stock down? Does he have His Father's attention just now, or is the great gaze of Heaven in another direction?
Here the lesser office of Potentate is also helpful. For, the enemy of our souls would cram as many of our wants, needs, and prayer requests as he can into the crevice between vital importance and those requests we believe too small to ask about. It would be overkill, we think, to ask Christ to shine His full glory into this corner of our lives which has grown a little musty.
Yet, as His righteousness is also distinct and healthful in what seem to be the intermediate cases, He is acting in his character to intervene for church influence, in office politics, or even that His glory might be stubbornly evident in political instances. He Who willingly took on the form of a servant delights to serve His Father, and us as His blood-bought brothers and sisters, as Bureaucrat as well.
What is too small, then, to ask of Him? What is too slow, too subtle, too mundane, too ordinary, too modern, too incremental, too wonkish to ask of Him? What, in retrospect, is too small an instance to recall the shimmer of His glory, especially as He seems to accumulate these to form a lasting picture in our stubborn hearts that He really does care to perfect that which concerns us. We ratchet up our praise, then, to Him as King of Kings and Lord of lords knowing He is equally invested in the atomic and otherwise insignificant.
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