Daily Manna · Day 219 · August 7
Boldness and Access
“In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.”
Picture somebody standing outside an office door with a hand half raised, going over the first line again. It has been so long since they last came that knocking now feels as if it needs an explanation.
That is the ordinary human feeling this verse speaks to. The Greek word for "boldness" is parrhesia. Before the church used it, it was a word from public life. It meant the right of a free citizen to stand up in the assembly and say everything on his mind, without fear of the room. It is a calm confidence that knows it has the right to speak. The word for "access" is prosagoge. It means being brought in and presented, the way a person was introduced at a royal court by an official who had the right to bring them in. You do not present yourself. Someone brings you.
The phrase carrying the weight is "by the faith of him." In the Greek that can mean your faith in Him or His own faithfulness. Either way your confidence rests on Christ, and your record this week does not decide it. That is exactly why yesterday cannot cancel it. Think about who first heard these words. Paul was writing as a prisoner to Gentile believers, people who were not Jewish. In the temple at Jerusalem they would have come up against a stone barrier, with a notice warning that any foreigner who went further in would be put to death. In the chapter just before, Paul has described Christ breaking down "the middle wall of partition."
So this is an invitation, and there is no line to wait in. Bring Him the thing you have been too ashamed to raise: the habit, the debt, or the thought that keeps coming back. Say it plainly, without clearing your throat first, and do not apologise for coming. You were brought in by Someone with the right to bring you. Then, if you want to, go and knock on that other door.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 219 is Ye Would Not (Luke 13:34).