Neal Pollard
When I was a student at Faulkner University, Schick Corporation sponsored a three-on-three intramural basketball competition known as Super Hoops. The school’s student activity director organized the tournament, and the winning team won a paid trip to the national tournament to compete for the national title. My senior year, four of us decided to form a team and compete for this coveted prize. We had a guy, Patrick Hunter, who was a slick ball handler and had been a point guard in High School. We had another guy, Bart Carter, who had actually played baseball at Mississippi State before transferring to Faulkner to become a Bible Major. There was me, more of an outside shooting threat if anything. But it was our fourth man, Mike Whisenant, who truly tipped the scales in our favor. He was a High School basketball star and was our big man. He also had a great shot, but we could depend on him to score inside consistently. Every team could have four players and you could rotate in and out to keep players fresh. But the guy who had to stay in, our workhorse, was Mike. It was certainly a team effort, but it was Mike who carried us to victory at Faulkner and punched our ticket to Atlanta. We got to stay at a very nice Hyatt hotel for free. We got meal vouchers, cool T-shirts, and I didn’t buy a razor for a couple of years. Although our glory was short-lived on the “national stage,” getting beat by Morehouse and then Valdosta State in a double-elimination format, we got to compete—thanks mostly to Mike’s skillset and abilities.
Perhaps that’s a crude way to illustrate a term used by Paul in Colossians 1:12, but follow me for a moment. Paul is in the middle of his prayer for the Colossians, telling them he wanted them (and by extension he wants us) to please God in all respects. The four ways to do that follow that imperative: bearing fruit, increasing in knowledge, being strengthened, and giving thanks. Paul says to give thanks to the Father, “who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” The word translated “qualified” here is only found one other time, in 2 Corinthians 3:6, where Paul says “our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant.” The same idea is conveyed in both passages.
Though I could not find the Greeks using this verb in an athletic sense, it literally means “to cause someone or something to be adequate for something” (Louw-Nida 678). The adverb form of the word appears many times in the New Testament, and means “sufficient in degree, sufficient, adequate, large enough” (Arndt, Danker, et al 472). Our word means to “render competent or worthy” (Zodhiates np). God is the cause of adequacy, the One who makes us competent and worthy to receive the inheritance. We have a part to play. We must be obedient, fruitful, knowledgeable, strong, and thankful. Without this proper response to God’s grace, we do not qualify for the prize. But, who is most responsible? Who do we most depend upon? It’s not us. It’s Him!
My illustration is feeble, but it helps give me a faint glimpse of what Paul is talking about. In an infinitely greater way, I owe my eventual, eternal prize to God’s ability and identity. But, because I want to please Him in all respects, I am going to work hard and with gratitude for the One who makes it all possible.
The Preacher Pollard Blog 