Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
- James 1:2-4
When I was growing up, I was blessed to have the opportunity to participate on a football team in school. I believe I was in my sophomore year of high school when the following happened.
It was a gloomy rainy day, all day, in October. Growing up in Minnesota, I assure you that it was also quite windy and cold, too. While the weather was not clearing up, many of my friends and I were discussing if maybe perhaps we’d have practice in the gymnasium because certainly our coaches would not put us in the windy, cold, and wet weather outside. Surely, they wouldn’t want to have the possibility of getting sick so we might possibly miss a game! After literally discussing this almost every hour during the school day, many of us had convinced ourselves that we most certainly were going to be inside for the evening practice.
Once in the locker room, many of us were just dilly dallying around, hoping to hear the news that we wouldn’t need to put on our football pants in favor of shorts to practice in the gym. Our coach walked into the locker room a little surprised that many of us weren’t dressed for practice, and he said, “Get your gear on! Practice is starting soon!” We all got our practice gear on and headed outside. Large puddles were everywhere on the practice field. It was cold, wet, and windy. One of our coaches said, “I recommend you just jump in the puddles and get used to it. Stretch out!”
On hearing that, many of the team jumped into the puddles and just decided to embrace the situation. Others on the team gingerly sat down on the cold, wet field, clearly not enjoying themselves. Some complained out loud and chose to sit down, at least for a while. It was one of the most miserable practices I’ve ever been through. Those who embraced it helped the entire team raise their spirit through the situation. Even though our hands became numb and we were soaked to the bone, going through that though helped me and many of my teammates realize we needed to go through that difficulty if we were going to be a team that could be good.
As we went through that and other hardships together, we started to galvanize as a team – not just during football but becoming very good friends. We not only started to trust one another, but we genuinely started to actually like one another. With that said, I am thankful for the coaches that pushed us to do better and to be better. They taught us to change our mindset.
I would not be the man I am today without their guidance and influence in my life. Friends, we need to grow and become mature and complete not lacking anything.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
- Romans 12:1-2
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At the end of chapter 9, the Teacher gave an example of how wisdom is better than strength or size. This leads perfectly into chapter 10, which is a set of proverbs as we saw in chapter 7.
The structure of proverbs, especially in the Hebrew, has interested me for many years. A while back, I spent over 4 years (slowly) reading through the book of Proverbs in both Hebrew and Greek with a group of language nerds friends, and we learned a lot about the structure of proverbs through that journey. Proverbs are typically divided into two phrases and they employ various kinds of parallelism. The two most common are synonymous parallelism (where both phrases say essentially the same thing in a different way) and antithetical parallelism (where the phrases say the opposite thing). Both of these prove the proverb’s points in a slightly different way. Watch for these as we go through the proverbs of Ecclesiastes 10:1-11.
“As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor” (verse 1). Perfume is supposed to be a good thing, as are wisdom and honor, but even a little foolishness makes wisdom and honor go bad just like dead flies would do to perfume. This reminds me of the saying that one bad apple spoils the whole bunch; just one very foolish act can ruin many wise and honorable ones.
“The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left” (verse 2). This could be an easy verse to misread with our lens of today’s political climate. It is not saying that Republicans are wise and Democrats are foolish; remember that the Teacher wrote this book likely in the 900s B.C., and today’s political parties in the U.S. definitely did not exist 3000 years ago. The words “right” and “left” are used metaphorically here to mean “good” and “bad,” respectively. So, this proverb is simply saying that wisdom is good and foolishness is bad.
“Even as fools walk along the road, they lack sense and show everyone how stupid they are” (verse 3). In everyday life, a foolish person will show how foolish they are. When a foolish person encounters someone with more wisdom, they will undoubtedly show their foolishness in some way.
“If a ruler’s anger rises against you, do not leave your post; calmness can lay great offenses to rest” (verse 4). When we encounter someone in authority over us, we need to submit to them (see this post for more on that). If we disagree with them, we should not get riled up but remain calm. When we take the time to examine the situation and not act rashly, we may find that what seemed to be a great offense is really just a minor thing.
“There is an evil I have seen under the sun, the sort of error that arises from a ruler: Fools are put in many high positions, while the rich occupy the low ones” (verses 5-6). Piggybacking on the previous proverb, we see that those who are in authority may not be there because of their wisdom. If a foolish person rises to a high place, they will likely fill the roles surrounding them with similarly foolish people. Those who may have been influential will be humiliated because they are not of the same mindset as the authority.
“I have seen slaves on horseback, while princes go on foot like slaves” (verse 7). This seems contradictory to how things should be; princes should be riding horses in honor and their slaves should be on foot. So how does this happen? Sometimes people are manipulative enough to rise to high positions even when they shouldn’t be there. This world is fallen, and we know that people don’t always get what they deserve, whether good or bad.
“Whoever digs a pit may fall into it; whoever breaks through a wall may be bitten by a snake” (verse 8). This proverb warns us to be careful with what we do. You may dig a pit with the intention of capturing someone else, but you yourself may fall into it if you’re not careful. If you break through a wall to try and get someone else’s property, that may backfire on you if a snake is on the other side. We may do things with the best of intentions, but they backfire on us if that’s not what we’re supposed to be doing.
“Whoever quarries stones may be injured by them; whoever splits logs may be endangered by them” (verse 9). Again, even actions done with the best of intentions may backfire on you. Quarrying stones and splitting logs are actions needed for building materials, but even essential activities can be dangerous.
“If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed, but skill will bring success” (verse 10). Anyone who has cut anything knows that it works better when your ax, scissors, knife, etc. is sharpened. This is a metaphor for wisdom, in that when we have wisdom, are actions are “sharper” and we’ll be able to accomplish our goals better. But even if we aren’t blessed with wisdom, working harder and acquiring more skills can still provide the same result of success.
“If a snake bites before it is charmed, the charmer receives no fee” (verse 11). I’m not all that informed on snake-charming, but the idea behind this proverb is engaging in life or death activities. The wisdom here is to just do it and not keep putting something off just because we’re afraid of it. If a snake charmer’s victim dies, there’s nothing more that they can do, so they should go ahead and charm the snake rather than putting it off out of fear.
While these proverbs are written from the worldview of life in the 900s B.C., you can see that the principles in them still apply to today. Some prove their point with two phrases saying the same thing (synonymous parallelism), while others give contrasts (antithetical parallelism) to make their point. The key point to remember is that wisdom is always better than foolishness, and we can obtain that wisdom from the wise words of others such as the Teacher of Ecclesiastes.
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by Steve Risner
This week in my musings, I thought I'd share some thoughts concerning the trustworthiness of God. I've known far too many people who trusted God when it was easy—when everything went as they had planned. But when times were tough or a situation didn't work out the way they'd wanted it to go, all of sudden God didn't know what He was doing. He somehow had become untrustworthy and didn't deserve their time, love, devotion, or respect. I'm sure we've all seen it, or even some of us have experienced it, too. I would like to suggest to you that regardless of how things are going, no matter the circumstance or outcomes, God is worthy of our praise and of our trust. I base this statement on the Word of God. Let's take a look.
The book of Job, considered by most to be the first book of the Bible that was fully written and put together, has a huge amount of application and study. The gist of the story is this: Job was a righteous man. God was happy with him, so the devil asked to tempt Job into being angry with God. Satan believed Job only blessed God because God blessed him. God approved of Satan's plans to attack Job as long as he did nothing to Job physically. All at once, all of Job's possessions and his children were taken from him. But he never cursed God. He praised God anyway. So, Satan was granted permission to strike Job physically. As this happened, Job's wife said, “Are you still clinging to your integrity? Curse God and die.” Job's response was still to acknowledge that God is sovereign, and His ways are better. He says in Job 2:10, “Shall we accept only good from God and not trouble?” Keep in mind that after Job had lost all his worldly possessions (he was very rich), lost all of his children when a house collapsed on them, and he was very sick and suffering, he still chose to respect God and believe that God's ways were better—that He was high above all of us.
Think about that for a moment: Job suffered far more than just about any of us ever will and his question to his wife was, “Will we only accept good things from God and not bad things?” The deal is really found in Jeremiah 29:11. God says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Here is God Almighty, sovereign Lord of the universe, telling us He has plans for us—and they're awesome! But He says His plans include not harming us. What's the deal? Well, I do believe that sometimes things happen to us because of us—we earn something bad that's happened to us. Sometimes not. So how does that work?
I believe that it's true that bad things can happen to us that are part of God's plan for us. Again, sometimes not, but it's definitely possible. The big picture is what God has in mind for us—His plans include eternity and, often times, impacting others for their good. The bottom line with Job, I think, is that God knew that in the end, none of the stuff that happened to Job on this earth truly mattered. His eternal destination was the big deal.
Now, I'm not suggesting that nothing that happens here is important. What I am saying is that it can be easier to deal with earthly trials and tribulations if we understand that heaven is at stake. God's plans are taking everything into account. His plans for us include spending eternity with Him in His awesome glory. Job, in all his sufferings—losing literally what would be equivalent to millions of dollars and losing his children and living in agony for a very long time—never abandoned his Lord. He looked to God for answers and didn't understand what was going on, but he never questioned God's goodness or His integrity.
Sometimes God's plans for us means we'll be healed. Sometimes it means we won't. Sometimes it means we'll have way more than enough. Other times it means we're in need. Sometimes God's plans for us include joy and peace and being on top of the mountain. Other times it could mean we're struggling in the valley, fighting for every breath and living in turmoil or adversity with others. But God knows what's going on and He's got great things in store for us.
Solomon, called the wisest man to ever live, repeatedly stated in the book of Ecclesiastes that this life is meaningless. What he's saying is this earthly life and all it involves—work, happiness, sadness, sickness, and so on—doesn't mean anything in light of eternity. (Check out Katie Erickson’s current blog post series for more on that.) Would you throw away everlasting life in eternal peace and glory with Jesus because you failed to grasp the importance of eternity (and the gravity of the alternative) and turned your back on God because you decided He didn't get something right? I would hope not.
We join this idea with James as he says in James 4:14, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Our time on earth is so very short; what really counts is eternity. Let's keep it in perspective. If we live 100 years on this earth, that's nothing—it's not even a fraction of a drop in the bucket compared to eternity.
God's plans for us, if we are to believe Him, are awesome and for our benefit. We can choose to go along for the ride with Him, accepting that His plans are better than ours, or we can choose to reject Him and His plans and go it on our own. However, there are some things to consider if this is actually what we want to do.
1) We have to take responsibility for the outcomes. If we go it on our own, it's ours. When it crashes and burns (and it most likely will), we must own it. We also forfeit any reward we might have had from the Lord for sacrificing our will to His. In other words, if we choose to take responsibility for everything, we immediately give up any hopes of spending eternity in heaven with Christ because we can't possibly pay our way in. More on that in a moment.
2) God's plans for us are far better than our plans could ever be. He knows more, loves more, and is much wiser than we could ever hope. So in effect, we're sacrificing awesome plans for our selfish and often foolish plans. How does this make sense?
It's like this analogy: God is offering us a huge sum of money—say $1 billion. He's offering it to us if we want to take it. We just need to accept it. Or we can go it on our own—we can fight and scrape and sweat and bleed for whatever we can earn. The bad news is, at best, we can earn about $0.25. The ticket to ride to heaven for all eternity is $1 billion, so if we choose to go it ourselves, we lose and in a big way. If we accept the free gift of God and choose to trust Him with our future, we win and in so many ways. Most importantly, we win for all eternity.
God is worthy of our trust—our unconditional trust in His goodness, His love, and His wisdom. Keep in mind that trials, tribulations, sufferings, hurts, and loss are all part of living. We lose people we love. We can lose jobs or money. We can lose our health. But none of this is what we take with us to eternity. We take our soul to heaven and nothing else. This life is a vapor—it's like smoke that comes up from a flame. It's visible for a second and then disappears.
In the end, God restored everything Job had many times over. He blessed the man in this life for being faithful to Him when it was hard. That might happen for you and me as well, but it may not. God may allow us to walk through the fire so we are pure as the purest gold when we pass into eternity. Stay the course! God's plans for you are so much better than our plans for ourselves. He doesn't owe us a thing. He's already given us far more than we ever deserved. Trust Him!
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As I continue on in my “The Foundation Matters” series, I’d like to take some time to look at why this topic matters so much in today’s world. I would like to show you a real-life example of how this way of thinking and getting back to the foundational beliefs of this nation and biblical thinking is not old fashioned or “stuffy.” It is very much needed in our world.
This clip is from the popular game show called Let’s Make a Deal. It has been making its rounds on social media with people posting things like, “This is so sad,” and “I feel bad for this guy.” This is good to hear. However, how many people these days keep deciding to take this wide path in their life? They take a chance on having a relationship with someone who seems to only have their own interests in mind. Many seem to be hoping to forego the natural consequences of hurt and heartache from their actions in this whole process.
It is pretty clear that they guy in the relationship thinks they are a serious couple and she is struggling with this idea even though they have admitted in public to sharing a bed together. Now, to be fair, all the awkwardness and hurt of this situation is not on the young lady, and it is not all on the young man either.
By getting back to our Biblical foundations and not only knowing what to do but actually following these words with our actions and lives, we can then start living with much less hurt and heartache.
Proverbs 5:1-10 says:
My son, pay attention to my wisdom, turn your ear to my words of insight,
that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.
For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil;
but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.
She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.
Now then, my sons, listen to me; do not turn aside from what I say.
Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house,
lest you lose your honor to others and your dignity to one who is cruel,
lest strangers feast on your wealth and your toil enrich the house of another.
What men need to understand is that we need to be the ones who take responsibility. We need to be the ones to stop wanting to just get pleasure for pleasure’s sake, and we need to lead by example. Live out self-control and patience. We need to start treating women with love and respect. As Scripture warns, we should keep a path far from those women who want to lead men down a path where men will lose their honor and dignity. As it states, “do not go near the door of her house.”
If you’d like to read up more on this please take time to read the rest of Proverbs 5 and all of Proverbs 7.
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Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible with 176 verses, so if you were expecting that I would cover the whole thing in one blog post, that’s just not going to happen! Today I’ll give an overview and some interesting facts for this psalm, and next week we’ll dig into the content a bit more.
When a psalm is this long, it needs to have some more organization than just by verses. So, it’s collected into 22 stanzas of 8 verses each. This psalm is an alphabet acrostic in the original Hebrew, which is something we sort of see but sort of miss in our English translations. If you look in your Bible, you’ll at least see non-English words above each stanza - those are the names of the Hebrew consonants, which is how the author named each stanza. Sometimes Bibles will print the Hebrew letter next to its name as well.
This psalm is an alphabetic acrostic too. Not only is each stanza labeled with a Hebrew consonant, but every verse in that stanza begins with that same letter! The first 8 verses begin with the letter aleph, the next 8 verses begin with the letter beth, etc. all the way through the last 8 verses beginning with the letter tav. All the verses are fairly short as well, so all this makes it visually look pretty cool in the original Hebrew.
These facts alone make this psalm a pretty amazing literary work, but the meaning is also very coherent and centered around the theme of God’s law. The message of this psalm is not just devotion to God’s law and doing the right thing, but also devotion to God Himself. It is typically considered to be a wisdom psalm, but it also has elements of lament and thanksgiving.
With the central theme of this psalm being God’s law, it’s interesting to note that there are 8 different Hebrew words that refer to God’s law used in it. They are:
1. Torah: You may have heard the first 5 books of the Bible referred to as the Torah because they do provide the background for God giving the law to His people as well as the Law itself. While Torah often means the specific law given by God, it can also mean any kind of Godly instruction.
2. Dabar: While this word literally means “word,” we know that all words spoken by God are meaningful. Dabar is often used for any kind of divine revelation that God gives us.
3. Mishpatim: The word mishpat means judgment, and this is the plural form of that. These forms of laws are more like the courtroom judgment type of laws, as God Himself is the ultimate Judge over all things.
4. Edut: This word technically means “statutes,” but it’s actually derived from the word that means “witness” or “testify.” It is also used to refer to God’s covenant with His people, so obeying God’s statutes also refers to being loyal to the promise God has made with us.
5. Mishvat: The word mishvat means commandment, as in the Ten Commandments. Generally, when God gives us a law or tells us to do something, it’s in the form of a command.
6. Huqqim: While it literally means “decrees,” this word is from the root that means to engrave or inscribe. God engraves His law and His decrees on our hearts, and He establishes His authority as God by doing this.
7. Piqqudim: This word is usually translated as “precepts” and is often found throughout the psalms. It comes from the root word meaning “visit” or “appoint,” as God’s precepts are the things that He has appointed for us to follow if we are following Him.
8. Imrah: This word is from the root meaning “he says,” and it means a promise. Our word should be good in that anything we can should be considered a promise, just as God’s Word is.
Is it coincidence that each stanza of this psalm is 8 verses long, and there are 8 different Hebrew words used to describe God’s law? I’d say that nothing in this amazingly crafted psalm is a coincidence, and all of these literary features simply point to the amazing God that we serve. The Hebrew language is truly amazing, and even after 11 years of studying it, I continue to be amazed at new insights into the heart of God simply by looking at the language and structure He used through the human authors He appointed.
While all this is interesting, what does it have to do with us living our lives today and not speaking Hebrew? In the Old Testament, the focus was on keeping God’s law - doing what God commanded His people to do, and not doing what He commanded them not to do. God had not yet sent His Son as the Savior when the psalms were written, so the focus was more on obedience than on faith. Today, we are living in the time after Jesus came to earth, and we have the opportunity to know and believe in His sacrifice for us. We know that we can never fully keep God’s laws, no matter what word we use to describe them. We know that we are in need of the Savior and that Jesus is the only one who truly is that savior for our sinful lives.
But as Paul says in Romans 6, because we have Jesus as our savior, does that mean that we can live however we want and keep on sinning, even when we know God’s law? By no means! Because we love God and appreciate the amazing sacrifice that Jesus made for us, we should strive to obey God’s law all the more. We have the opportunity to be enslaved to righteousness, which means that through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, we should strive to live better lives to honor the God who saved us.
Being able to live in God’s grace makes His law all the more important. God’s law tells us how to live our lives to honor Him and the sacrifice that He made for us.
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Jehovah Gmulah: The God of Recompense
I recently saw a meme on FB that if God exists, and He knows and sees everything, then He knows about every child molestation and rape that has ever happened. The meme is a strike against God that He is powerless to do anything and thus unworthy to be worshipped. It is an extremely foolish statement to make, because there is a side of God that wicked man despises. God is a God of recompense, a God of vengeance, and a God of justice.
Those who cite these memes and think they have won an argument against God are also those who will whine and complain about how and when God DOES carry out judgment. When nations made it their religious practices to burn living babies alive to death to appease the god Molech, He sent Israel to wipe them out. These scoffers then whine against God committing genocide. It’s not as well known, but one of the reasons for that conquest was not because Israel was so special, but because those nations were actually committing the sexual sins listed in Leviticus 18 (see verses 24-30 in particular).
God will execute judgment against the wicked. All those innocent child molestation victims are crying out to God for justice and they will receive it. Why doesn’t God carry it out immediately? The answer is simple: He longs for those criminals to repent. He does not want anyone to perish, but rather seeks they all repent and be saved. If God were to carry out judgment immediately, there would be no opportunity for Him to showcase His mercy.
“But, but, that’s letting criminals off the hook!” Yes, that is an argument I’ve heard, even recently. I had a scoffer tell me that the cross is nothing more than a “get you off the hook” excuse to do whatever you want. That is not true at all. I told that person that he really doesn’t understand the cross at all, let alone what is coming on Judgment Day. But there is another aspect I bring up. If God were to immediately punish every child molester, every thief, and every murderer, then He would also have to immediately punish every idolater, every mocker, every doubter, and anything and everything that scoffer did himself. If God were to prevent every crime the scoffer sees as evil, God would also have to prevent that scoffer from even being able to scoff, let alone question God. They are all the same ultimately: sin. That’s the big picture. In the same way speeding and murder are still violations of the civil law, every sin is violation of God’s laws. Not every sin yields the same punishment, but every sin does prevent man from entering paradise with God.
God is going to avenge His people. He will avenge the weak, the innocent, the downtrodden, and the poor. He cherishes those people, so when the nations or even us as individuals look down upon them, God is going to make a case for them. He still allows us to make our choices and lets our choices ripple down to affect others. The scoffers who whine about “rich churches” in America while the starving in Africa are perishing don’t realize many things. They put the blame on God for that, when they should be putting it on corrupt governments preventing that aid from getting there. What is more is that they don’t see WHO is actually giving them the most aid: the Christians.
God is going to avenge those who have been stolen from. He is going to give justice to those governments who refuse to take care of their own people. He is going to take revenge against those who have harmed His precious ones. Jesus did not mince words when He warned about causing a little one to sin. He said it would be better to have a millstone tied around your neck and cast into the depts of the sea than to cause one of His own to sin. That’s why I take what I teach and write so seriously. I refuse to allow false teachings to enter in, and often I am not always the “nicest person” to be around when I see it. Why am I so strong against them? Because I am a watchman (as every Christian is), and anything that gets past me is my responsibility. If I allow false teachings into my circles, it basically means I have endorsed them. I gave their approval to come in (or simply was asleep on the watch, which in most militaries is a treasonous action deserving the penalty of death). Either way, if I let them in, even if they come with a fellow believer, I am held responsible for letting them in. That said, I also must let in anything that is truly from God. It is a HARD job to do, which is why it is critical I check with the Holy Spirit on what is approved and what is not. I don’t want to know what is worse than that millstone, yet so many take that position so frivolously.
Because God is the God of Recompense, we do not have to stand up for our own rights and our own privileges. We don’t have to make a stand for ourselves when we are mocked and ridiculed. It’s tough. The Apostles were frequently insulted and jeered by the ruling authorities, let alone the mobs, yet they rarely made any stance for themselves. Paul did a couple times, but there were others where he took a beating when it was illegal for it to happen (due to him being a Roman citizen) and did not complain. This is a tough one for me because of what I just described above. I can’t stand false teachings being presented, so it often becomes a battle of “who is right” instead of “what is truth.” But if I am working under the Holy Spirit and am partaking in a move of God, I don’t need to defend God. He does a fine enough job without me. All those mockers and scoffers will get what they desired: that justice be done. But they will also get it upon themselves unless they repent.
When God summoned Jehu to wipe out the line of Ahab, two of Jezebel’s servants went to meet him, and Jehu ordered them to stand with him or perish in the cleansing. This is a small picture of what God calls for us: to stand with Him when He comes to wipe out evil or perish with it. It is a frightful thing to fall into the hands of a Holy God. He is Jehovah Gmulah, the God of Recompense. He will see justice done for all the evil done against us, but also for all the evil we have done too. Let that make us turn to the cross and plead for His mercy because we need it more than all those we think need to repent.
This post concludes my series on the Names of God. There are others I could have addressed, but I sense this is where this series needs to end at this point. I pray this series has helped you get to know who God is better and to pursue Him with all you have.
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“It’s my choice what I do. It only affects me.”
This is one of the most common excuses made to defend sin and likely one of the most oblivious statements to reality that one could make. There is absolutely nothing you can do which does not somehow affect someone else down the road, if not immediately. This has been a deadly trap by the enemy, and for many it has worked well.
One of the clearest Biblical examples of someone who very likely thought what he did would have no effect on anyone else would be Achan. The entire story is found in Joshua 6-7, but to give the context, Israel was preparing to face their first battle after crossing the Jordan River. Jericho was not the only fortified city of the area, but it was perhaps the biggest and most powerful. Walls were so thick that chariots could race on top. God gave Israel a most unique strategy to conquer the city: march around the city, then after marching the prescribed times, shout, then the walls would fall.
However, there was one special command: Take absolutely no spoils from the city. They all were to belong to God. No women, no children, no animals, no money, nor clothing, no goods, nothing. Everything was to be utterly destroyed. One man did not obey: Achan. He saw some clothes, some silver, and some gold and he took them. He very likely thought, “No one is going to see it and no one is going to be bothered with it.” He hid the goods in his tent and went about his business.
Then the consequences came. Joshua sent out a small raid force to take out the tiny town of Ai and they got wiped out, losing 36 men and the other nations gained some courage. Joshua wept and pleaded before the Lord wondering why, and God told him there was sin in the camp and to deal with it. God began to reveal who did the deed by narrowing it down from tribe, to clan, to family, and then finally to Achan. The nation lost a battle because of one man’s sin. But that wasn’t it. Achan thought he might get a slap on the wrist with confessing the sin, but instead he and his entire family were stoned to death, and all he had was burned. One man who thought it only would affect him cost 36 men, a loss in battle, and an entire family their possessions and their lives.
Some will say that is an extreme example, but it is a clear example of how devastating such thoughts can be. The number one sin that people use this excuse for today is pornography. They think that watching other people perform sex acts, or even merely looking at naked or scantily clad women or men is something that only affects them. That is hogwash.
There are two major side effects of pornography. It affects those around you, and it directly affects those in the industry. Many articles have been written about the effects of porn on a person’s mind and how people truly are addicted to it like drugs. It poisons the mind and the person hooked on porn begins viewing others not as people but as meat. Wives, as they age, cannot compete with the digital women on a screen. Men who get their ‘arousing’ through digital viewing soon are unable to get aroused by the physical flesh. It destroys marriages, devalues women (or men or children, depending on what is watched), and like any drug, it always has to escalate in order to get the same high. It leads to darker and darker sex, BDSM, violence, and that’s without getting into doing the physical acts. It never satisfies, and like a starving beast, it never stops consuming.
The other danger is to those on the other side of the screen. While many adult porn sites have disclaimers that the participants are willing adults, that is not always true. Because there is such a high demand for the product, there is high demand to produce it. And because such acts are so devastating to the body, each person can only do it for so long before it literally kills them. So there is a high demand for newer and younger bodies. Sex trafficking is perhaps the biggest illegal businesses in the world. More money is made from this than drugs. Child pornography is also rampant. I read one article a while back which indicated that a large percent of child porn is produced by the victims themselves due to social media pressures. They take pictures of themselves and give it to a “private friend,” and said person shares said pictures to the dark web. This barely scratches the surface of what this evil entails, but it by no means affects just the viewer.
But pornography is not the only area I see this sin in: I also see it in many professing Christians who have no problems embracing false doctrines. When corrected they will often say, “It doesn’t affect my salvation.” It’s actually the same argument and the same line of reasoning. I don’t understand how anyone is fine with being a Christian and not living as God desires nor believing what He says. As a Christian, I hate being wrong about something regarding Him or in how my life doesn’t line up. I have a long way to go, but at the very least, I want to keep pointing towards that perfect standard, even if the only thing I can do is face towards it and fall flat on my face.
When a false teaching goes out, it affects how you relate to everyone, and it affects any you teach it to. Few are affected more than the next generation. Any time someone opens the door for false teachings even ever so slightly, the next generation following that teaching will take it and open it wider. Here is one example of how a false teaching can have devastating effects and it comes from the “Prosperity Gospel” or the ”Word of Faith” movement. My pastor told the story of how a couple in his church lost a child. A well-meaning couple who believed that false teaching came up to them and said, “If you had more faith, your child would not have died.” That false teaching devastated that grieving couple. Many people have been disillusioned or rejected the faith because someone embraced a false teaching, thinking it would not affect them, but then it destroys those around them.
No sin affects just you. Nothing you do merely affects you. Every decision you make, for good or ill, is going to affect someone else. Let me turn this post around as I wrap it up. While every sin you do or every false teaching you embrace affects someone else, so does every righteous deed. While every sin may have lasting effects to three or four generations, the righteous acts can have lasting effects for thousands. Is there an area of sin in our life have excused away? Let us deal with it and end the curse which will affect our children and all around us. Let us instead sow righteousness and then see how God will spread it around beyond our dreams.
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The motto of the medieval Christian world was, “Some to fight, some to work, some to pray.” What this created was a system of the world that was group oriented. One was born into a place and position and expected to perform one’s duty. A serf had a duty, as did the king. The priest had a duty, as did a noble lord. Each was expected to know his or her responsibility and perform it until the day of death.
Persons were less individuals and more a cog in the system—a replaceable part of the whole. Responsibility was paramount. Duty was the ethical anchor of the entire social order, without an abundance of concern for common individuality. A peasant was expected to live a life of service to his or her lord, expected to fold under all individual personality in service of another. This was all perceived as duty.
Plainly, the development of the concept of individualism was welcome in such a rigidly stratified society. Springing from the Imago Dei was the concept that human beings are created equal, that there is no intrinsic difference in quality between the noble and the serf. They are human beings; they are persons, not cogs in a system of the world. The “Rights of Man” was a notable development, but it did not spring from John Locke originally, but from the flow of Christian thought throughout the medieval period.
The concept of individualism produces rights. Rights cannot be violated by anyone, including those with so-called noble blood. The libertarian maxim enshrined in the principle of absolute non-aggression is an example of universal rights of mankind. Another is the Christian theological conclusion to “do no harm.” For the scope of this blog post, I do not have space to explain the difference between positive and negative rights, thought it is a vital discussion. Learn about it here instead.
Although we do possess inalienable rights simply because we are made in the image of God, God Himself has ordained social structures to which we as individuals remain responsible. Not that others are entitled to my duties and service, but because God is entitled to my duty, service, and love. This is often underemphasized in modern libertarian circles, forgotten in political circles by both left and right, and entirely distorted by social pundits.
The Bible says that we are to “let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another” (Romans 13:8). We did not incur this debt because our fellow man has loved us so well that we now owe him or her something. Quite to the contrary, we owe this debt to God, not only because He made us, but also because we as Christians have been redeemed by God.
Jesus explained this debt in His sermon of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21-35). In this parable, a servant hopelessly indebted with an unpayable sum is generously forgiven—no strings attached. But then he seizes his neighbor and demands payment of the very small amount owed to him. The end of the parable describes this unmerciful servant being turned over to tormentors.
When I focus solely on my rights, I have trouble understanding this parable. After all, the first servant was forgiven the debt, why would that create a duty to forgive the debts of others? He didn’t have the right to be forgiven, yet he was. This would not reduce the legal claim that he had upon his fellow servant to be repaid the small amount that was owed him. He still has the right to the money. In a purely legal world, he should still be able to collect. Jesus contends that I should show my obligation to God by forgiving the petty sums owed to me by my fellow human beings.
Jesus’ point was that being forgiven the unpayable sum created a moral obligation—a debt—to the master who forgave. The implication is clear. Based on the dual reality for the Christian that God has both made me and redeemed my unpayable debt, I owe Him forever. I belong to Him. I incurred obligation to Him that I now must show to my fellow human beings; failure in this area blinds me to my responsibility.
This is why I adamantly deny that an individual owes the poor something directly. The poor have no positive right that I have a duty to supply. Nevertheless, due to my indebtedness to Christ, I have a moral obligation to supply whatever it is He commands. If Jesus wants me to make payments to the poor or to whomever, that is His right and my obligation.
Rights are always balanced by responsibilities and responsibilities by rights. God is the all-important link in this chain. If God is missing, we end up with Marxist claims that we are in debt to all other humans; we become slaves to society because we owe them directly whatever we can produce or that they can demand. History shows this to be exactly what happens in any socialist state. The government becomes the guarantor of the people and the individual becomes a cog in the machine once again.
The other side of the coin is equally damning. If God is not there, I cannot truly be responsible to others or society in any way. Marxists may make claims on me, but they are illegitimate claims and I know it. The result is a headlong plunge into absolute individualism which cannot actually produce a stable society. Anarchy is arguably not a suitable basis for society (the libertarian minimum is not anarchy), but it certainly is not a Christian basis for society. This is true because anarchy is totally focused on individual rights to the complete exclusion of responsibilities. The result is chaos.
Take one look at any college campus today and you will notice that hyper-individualism is on full display in the gender wars. A person who is born a woman and feels like a woman, but who sometimes feels like a man who likes to feel like a woman and wears women’s clothing even though she was already wearing women’s clothing before the feeling arose that made her identify as a man wearing women’s clothes (audibly gasps for air)—this all requires a very complex set of pronouns. DNA has been mapped, but it seems less complex than some of the new genders which are being . . . um, discovered? . . . everyday.
Radical hyper-individuality produces chaos and anarchy, period. Rights must be balanced by responsibilities. All humanity owes a debt to God by the virtue that God made them, and whatever one makes one also owns. God has ordained three spheres of authority in life and we as individuals must make our peace with them: Family, State, and Church. Read more about that here.
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Adam and Eve suffered from it. Moses suffered from it too. King David for a time also suffered from it. The Sheriff of Nottingham suffered from it too. What is it? The God Complex.
The God Complex is wanting others to do things your way and trying to force them to go your way, even when they don’t want to go your way. Adam and Eve thought they were smarter than God and tried to force Him to do things their way because they believed they were right in their own eyes. Out of anger, Moses chose to disobey God and bring water from a rock without giving credit where credit was due. King David wanted something that wasn’t his, even to the point of murdering the husband of the woman that he wanted as his own, forcing his will not only on Uriah but also on Bathsheba because of his selfishness. In the story of Robin Hood, the Sheriff of Nottingham stole what was not his and forced others to give him their hard earned wages to do what he thought was in his best interest through unlawful taxes, while Robin Hood attempted to give some back to the people that which was rightfully theirs.
It seems many of us suffer from the God Complex. But it’s so much easier to point fingers at others instead of looking at ourselves to take responsibility and realize that we need to deal with It too. Let me give you two examples of the God Complex going on today. Part of it is the struggle of wanting to do the right thing, but in the process forcing others to do what you know or believe that is good and right and true. We all seemingly “know” that we are to help the poor among us, and this is good. It’s when we force others though to help the poor where we get the God Complex because we have bought into a lie from the world.
Example #1: Should we help others, especially children, who are hurting? Well, of course we should, but once we decide to support the taking of someone else’s fruit from their labor in order for us to help others, we need to realize that we are no better than the Sheriff of Nottingham or King David when he imposed his will on Uriah and Bathsheba. Imposing our will on others is wrong and really is nothing short of trying to play God with that person. This is the God Complex.
Example #2: Here’s another way we see The God Complex going on in full display in our society and not taking responsibility for ones actions and forcing others to do actions a person desires. It‘s when we see or hear someone pointing fingers and tries to blame Hollywood or the music industry for their problems. Things like a person saying, “MTV needs to make better programming. Instead of making ‘16 and Pregnant’ they need to make something like ‘18 and Graduating’ or ‘I Graduated And Got A Job.’” How about instead of pointing fingers and playing the blame game, you stop watching programming that’s against God, and stop supporting programming that supports a sinful lifestyle? Sure, if people are talking about this abhorrent programming you can let people know you watch something else, but don’t guilt trip them into submitting to what you want them to watch. Tell people the truth, but let them make their own decisions.
Let the God-instituted natural law of consequences and benefits take its rightful place. If people desire to fill their minds with evil, they’ll soon figure out that this path leads to death and destruction. Lovingly allow people to choose their own way, have the opportunity to grow and mature, and to become complete in Christ if they so choose. If they don’t, well, that will be on their own head too. The struggle is when the person choosing death and destruction wants to drag you down that path too and force you to go their way. Then what? Well, that’s a whole other discussion.
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It is common today to hear Supreme Court opinions referred to as “settled law,” but is that really what they are? Of course, most of those reading this would say that the Supreme Court does not have the power to make law, but does the Court have the power to determine which interpretation of the law everyone must follow? This interpretation of the law by the Supreme Court is what is often meant when people use the term “settled law,” but that term is a complete misnomer.
The term “settled law” is actually a carryover from British courts at the time of the Revolution, and it was used primarily as a reference to those portions of the common law which had been adjudicated in the courts. This usage can be seen in the 1874 edition of the Albany Law Journal which contains this statement:
“Though the common law of England at the time of the revolution was adopted by us, none but the plainest principles were considered to be settled law until passed upon by the courts.”
This demonstrates that the concept of settled law is a part of the branch of law known as common law, but what does that tell us about the use of this term in the context of the Supreme Court in America?
Quite simply, it tells us that Supreme Court opinions do not establish settled law. Why not? Only the states can determine what is and what is not part of the common law. The federal government does not have a common law; it only has statutory law. This was expressly stated by the Supreme Court itself in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins where the Court declared unequivocally:
“There is no federal general common law. Congress has no power to declare substantive rules of common law applicable in a State, whether they be local in their nature or ‘general,’ be they commercial law or a part of the law of torts. And no clause in the Constitution purports to confer such a power upon the federal courts.”
The concept of settled law has no application to federal laws because the federal government does not have any common law to be settled by the courts. Only the states can have settled law within their various common law jurisdictions. To speak of settled law on a federal level is literally nonsense.
But if Supreme Court opinions do not establish settled laws, what exactly do they do?
Again, the answer is very simple. Supreme Court opinions tell the parties to a particular case (the plaintiffs and the defendants) how the law applies to their particular situation. That’s it. The Court has no power to give its rulings any greater influence than that. Each individual determination by the Court applies only to the particular situation and to the particular parties that were before the Court at the time that they gave their opinion.
In support of this conclusion, the Supreme Court itself declared in Martin v. Wilks that:
“A judgment or decree among parties to a lawsuit resolves issues as among them, but it does not conclude the rights of strangers to those proceedings.”
And in Hansberry v. Lee, the Court said:
“It is a principle of general application in Anglo-American jurisprudence that one is not bound by a judgment in personam in a litigation in which he is not designated as a party or to which he has not been made a party by service of process. A judgment rendered in such circumstances is not entitled to the full faith and credit which the Constitution and statute of the United States prescribe; and judicial action enforcing it against the person or property of the absent party is not that due process which the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments require.”
And in Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, the Court proclaimed that:
“It is a violation of due process for a judgment to be binding on a litigant who was not a party or a privy and therefore has never had an opportunity to be heard.”
There are many additional cases which could be cited as well. Over and over and over again, our Supreme Court has recognized that the lack of a federal common law prevents the Court from establishing settled law and that no opinion from the Court is binding on anyone other than those who were given an opportunity to defend themselves before the Court. Though many people still refer to Court opinions as “settled law,” the simple fact remains that the Supreme Court has no lawmaking power because we have no common law on the federal level of our government.
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“My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” -John 5:17
Socialism kills. Socialism equals starvation. Europeans have forgotten that painful lesson which they seem destined to relearn. South America has been suffering from the socialism disease and Marxist theology for decades—it is a sickness unto death unless they wake up to Biblical theology. America has been flirting with socialism since FDR, but her immune system has been compromised by crony capitalism for so long she has almost no resistance to the socialist plague.
It seems appropriate to directly confront socialism in this introduction to the element of work in social ethics, because private property is directly essential to any theology of work. The Marxist revolution in Europe preaches that the fruit of all labor belongs to everyone (and usually superintended by the state). However, when people cannot keep the fruit of their own labor, they tend not to work as hard. Lack of productivity is a perennial pestilence. The United Soviet Socialist Republic attempted to solve this problem through forced labor. It was a disgraceful way to treat their fellow human beings.
This is not the American legacy. Socialism was first tried in America in 1607 in the Jamestown colony. The bulk of the persons who settled the area were considered indentured servants and their labors were considered public property. People seem to always want to live on the labor of other men. However, the settlers did not work very hard since they were not allowed to eat the fruit of their own labor. The colonists forgot the Biblical admonition, “Do not muzzle the ox while he treads out the grain, and the worker deserves his wages” (1 Timothy 5:18).
The result was starvation. Even though the land was incredibly fertile and fruit and game abounded, they were starving. David Boaz chronicles the “starving time” and the fact that the institution of private property changed all of that in his blog for the Cato Institute here.
The point is that the reward of labor belongs to the laborer. This countermands slavery, obviously, but it also countermands socialism. Also, if a person chooses to sell his labor for whatever price he can get, that is between himself and whomever agrees to buy the labor. If the buyer of labor (employer) profits exceedingly from the labor he purchased, that is perfectly acceptable. Perhaps the one selling his own labor will realize the true value of his labor and only agree to sell more of it at a higher price. That is also perfectly acceptable. Underneath either of these voluntary agreements is the foundational notion that I own my own labor.
The fruit of work consists in three states: past, present, and future. Past labor has achieved my current position, whether good or bad. Past laziness results in present lack; past diligence in present abundance. To swoop in and lay claim to my property (money, land, goods) is to steal my past. To enslave me and force me to work or lay claim to my current labor in any way is to steal my present, that is to steal my liberty. To steal my life is obviously to steal my future. Life, liberty, and property are inseparable. For a further development of this idea please read this.
Work and reward are inseparable. That is why I have so often said that socialism cannot be Christian, because it assumes that society has the ultimate rights of property, not the individual who actually does the work. I would hasten to add that if you sell your labor, you agree to work for a wage. If you provide labor to build, say, a dam, you don’t own the dam—you own the money that was traded for your labor. Makes sense, right?
“If you don’t work, you don’t eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). The results of your work or lack thereof are your own. If you fail to sow, you shall also fail to reap. The nobility of Europe developed the idea that work was an aspect of the Fall. But work was not a part of the Fall, nor was it the result of the curse. Toil was part of the curse, but not work. Adam worked before the fall (Genesis 2:15). He named all the animals if you recall (Genesis 2:19).
Work is an essential part of what it means to be fully human. God gave us the mandate to tend the earth. Profitable, rewarding work is part of our DNA as human beings. When God remakes the heavens and the earth, He will remove the toil from our work, but he will not remove work from our lives—thank goodness. Can you imagine an eternity of sitting on clouds playing a harp? I want to explore the universe and terraform planets. How about you? What will you want to do for all eternity? What will be your work?
This is a brief introduction to the category of work in a comprehensive social ethic. If you are familiar with Catholic Social Teaching, you will realize that I inverted the order of work and care for the poor because our ability to care for the poor arises out of our work ethic and we feed others from the fruit of our own labor. We don’t steal the productivity of others to give to the poor. We give to them from our own productivity as we feel led. We don’t feed the lazy—but we care for the unfortunate. Till next week—fair well. Do good work. Eat, drink, and be merry.
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King David was the greatest king of Israel, but he was not without flaws. In his one major blunder, he chose not to go to war when he was supposed to and stayed home in Jerusalem. While at home, he saw a woman bathe on her rooftop. He went after her, had an affair with her and ultimately killed her husband, who was one of his Mighty Men, to cover up the pregnancy. This is all recorded in 2 Samuel 11. In the next chapter, Nathan the prophet, came to David told him a parable, and it broke him. David repented of his sin, then Nathan said this: “You have given the enemy cause to blaspheme God.”
How many times have we been guilty of this? In Ken Ham’s study of why youth are leaving the church in Already Gone, one of the top ten reasons cited was hypocrisy. The Christian leaders were speaking these “great truths” and yet their lives revealed nothing of the sort. I have frequently wrestled with this reality. I do a great job at speaking the truth with full conviction, but do I live it? Is it part of my reality in my life? Sometimes yes; sometimes no. I am not talking about perfection here at all. These teens want genuineness, not perfection.
For a supposedly “Christian” nation where frequent polls indicate 60-70% of the nation claim to be Christian, how exactly are we doing in following what we claim to believe? Thousands are killed on a daily basis by abortion. Sexual deviancy is all but completely loosed from its chains running around like a wild, crazy, rabid dog. The drug craze in this nation is #1 in the world by a long shot. False teachers are easier to find in public than sound preachers. All of this is what the world sees in a “Christian” nation. This is the image they get when they hear of a “Christian.” And they laugh and mock not just us, but the God we claim to worship.
That’s on a national level. What about in a church level? Gossip runs rampant in prayer groups under the guise of concerned prayer. There is far more interest in sports and politics in the church foyers than talk about God (not exactly innocent of that myself). Cliques in the churches tend to not look outward to needs, and visitors tend to be shown the “new kid on the block” response. Church youth groups look more like teen hangout centers just without drugs or alcohol and very little actual discipleship and teaching on true Christian living. Now there are many good churches out there, but they are getting harder to find.
On a family or personal level, are we being genuine behind our faith? Will someone hear what we say, observe our lives, and be able to conclude we practice or seek to practice what we preach? We claim to love God and be Christians, but does God have anything to do with our lives? Or is he just there when we need him to answer our call and desire?
David’s sin would haunt him the rest of his life. Yes, he was forgiven and yes, God restored his relationship with him, yet all the nations around him knew what he did and they had reason to mock God because of it. This is the same reason that Moses pleaded with God several times to not destroy Israel in the wilderness because of their sin: it was so Egypt and the other nations would not have reason to blaspheme him. Sure God and Moses would know the truth of what actually happened, but why give the enemy any legitimate grounds to speak what they speak?
Nehemiah recognized this tactic when Shemiah, a man of prayer, was hired to try to get Nehemiah to go hide in the temple to save his life from an assassination attempt. He refused to go in and cower in fear. He knew if he did, then Sanballot, Tobiah, and Geshem would have grounds to accuse him of not trusting God and eventually could bring him down.
We have to realize the entire world is watching us. Yes, our reputation with them is not important. If they think we are blundering idiots, let them think that, but let us not give them any reason to make such accusations true. Jesus said to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Daniel had the entire Persian government hierarchy turn against him because he was so much better than everyone else. The king, Darius, loved Daniel because of how good he was. Yet the officials could not find a single thing to charge Daniel with other than believing in his God. So they created an offense to charge him and got him thrown into the lions’ den. That’s how the enemy works. If he can’t get real dirt on you, he’ll make it up. But Daniel did not fear them nor the lions, and the rest is history.
The enemy is seeking any cause he can to force us to be silent and subdued, and if he cannot find legitimate evidence, he will make it up. My challenge here is that we have to do everything we can to make sure any such charges he brings cannot be founded. Paul got into a lot of trouble when preaching the Gospel in public and the only thing the authorities could say about it was that it was nothing but a religious disagreement. The time is coming when real formal political persecution is going to hit us here in the U.S. We will be arrested and imprisoned and who knows what else what they will do to us. Let it be found that the only legitimate charge they can bring up us is that we are Christian. Let us not give the enemy any cause to charge us with any other crime. Let not the enemy be able to accuse us of gossip or slander, or being contentious, lying, hateful, rebellious. Let him only be able to accuse us of being a Christian.
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The Bible is rather interesting in that in many of the stories there are the stories of two children. Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Eliab and David, Absalom and Solomon. The list goes on. In each of these stories the first one is not treated kindly by Scripture and the second one is the one God chooses. While the Bible often emphasizes the rights of the firstborn, why is it that in many cases the firstborn never seems to pan out?
Eric Ludy is the one who caught my attention on the issue of the ‘twos,’ though he is not the one who inspired this particular post. He takes the tale of twos even further. It’s not just brothers which showcases the issues here; so did King Saul and King David. In each case there is a pattern of behavior. The first one tends to be about self and man’s efforts and the work of sin and the flesh. The second one tends to be about the Spirit and God’s work.
Cain gave an offering of his work, but it wasn’t his best. Abel brought the best of his flock. Ishmael was produced out of the impatience of Sarah and Abraham and his line has been a thorn in the Jews’ side ever since. Isaac was the child of promise. Esau was a hunter who despised his birthright. Jacob, while being a deceiver and supplanter, sought God with everything he had, even by not so great means. Eliab, the first son of Jesse, looked the part of a king: young, handsome, and yet God rejected him because David was the one who sought after God’s own heart. Absalom had serious problems. He murdered his brother due to the rape of his sister (not a good response to a bad deed), and then nearly pulled off a coup of David’s throne (2 Samuel 13-18). Solomon walked and followed in the ways of David until his wives pulled him away. As king, Saul started good but demonstrated how life lived in the flesh and without God often turns out. David, despite his flaws, became the greatest of Israel’s kings because of his longing for God.
There is another pair in Scripture worth noting: Adam and Jesus. Jesus is known as the Last Adam. Jesus came to do what Adam failed to do. Adam disobeyed God instead of believing him, while Jesus was perfectly obedient, even to the point of death on a criminal’s cross. All these stories of siblings and kings are pictures and snapshots of the ultimate comparison between Adam and Jesus. Much can be said about this comparison, but this is just the set up for my main point: Which child are we? Are we of the firstborn who walk in the ways of the flesh, or are we of the second-born who walk in the ways of Christ?
When Jesus confronted the Jews in John 8, he was straight up and accused them of being children of the devil. How could he say that? Simple. He saw they were talking and living according to their sinful flesh and not after the ways of God. They wanted God’s miracles and his provision and his protection, but they didn’t want HIM. In fact, Jesus revealed they were seeking to trap and kill him. Jesus said that our father is the one we listen to. Do we listen to God or do we listen to the devil? How can we tell?
A few weeks ago I wrote about nine different tests offered in 1 John with how we can examine ourselves to see if we are indeed in the faith (Part 1 and Part 2). I want to offer two more tests which are not in 1 John but help us see where we stand.
The first test is: What do you like? A child who loves his father will generally love what the father loves and hate what the father hates because he wants to be like his father. If you claim to be a child of God, do you love what God loves? I am not merely talking about morality here. God loves the downtrodden and the lowly. Do you? Do you hate what he hates? God hates sin and particularly six forms of it including pride and lying.
Does obeying give you the joy of being with the Father, or do his commandments give you the dread of a slaver? The firstborn finds the commands of God to be a loathsome reproach. The second-born loves them because they know they protect him. The firstborn sees God’s commands as though they come from a totalitarian dictator who cares nothing for them and just wants to damper their fun. The second-born see the commands as preparing them for matrimonial unity with Christ and spending eternity with him.
The second test is this: Does God discipline you? He will not discipline someone else’s children like a father. He punishes them as a criminal. Each one of us has done things we should not have done. Let’s say I broke a window by throwing rocks at it as a child (I never actually did this). If the window was in my house, my father would deal with this in house, likely spank me, and I would have to do something to rectify the situation. However, if the house was not mine, the father of that home would have every right to bring me to civil court and to press charges.
Children do not respond to disciple or correction from those they do not acknowledge as having authority over them. I remember being with a missions team years ago and a kid on the team got in trouble, a man on the team got in the kid’s face, and I could see the kid’s almost defiant face because the man was not his father. Children will respond to parents they respect, to coaches and teachers they respect, or to whatever they give honor to. Who do you respect enough to let them tell you what to do? Is it the proper authorities, or is it those who tell you that you can do whatever you want, especially in defiance of God’s established order?
I understand many people have a great difficulty seeing God as a Father because the relationship with their own father was sour to say the least. If that is you, please hear that God wants to play the role of father that you never had, and he always does it right.
How does God discipline us? So few have articulated it as well as Eric Ludy does in this sermon in distinguishing the difference between the saint and sinner. His main point is there are two types of sin: “Sin” (big S) and “sin” (small s). With Sin, it is outright rebellion and defiance and that is what is to be addressed first and foremost. With sin, it is not rebellion but rather childish foolishness. God is patient with sin and will work with us to correct it and cleanse it out. However, when it comes to Sin, that is when he needs to take us behind the woodshed and give us a spanking. Many fathers do know how to play this role with their children, yet they are getting harder to find today mostly due to the destruction of the family structure in society. How does God discipline you? Or does he at all? Can you sin and get away with it without feeling the guilt of offending God?
We are a child of God or we are a child of the devil. We are of the firstborn living after self and with no regard to God, or we are of the second-born longing and striving after God. Which one are you?
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Conflict: it happens to all of us, but none of us like it. Conflict exists because of sin in this world, so we’ll have to deal with it our whole lives in various forms and with various people. So what does the Bible say about conflict?
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God” (James 4:1-2). That passage pretty much sums up why we have conflict; we look to others to fulfill our needs rather than looking to God, and we get frustrated when those needs are not fulfilled.
If we were all able to live perfect, sinless lives, conflict would not exist. “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:31-32). “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3-4). “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” (James 1:19-20).
But, since we all mess up at that, we know we will have trouble and conflict in this world (John 16:33). So what can we do to resolve these conflicts?
One of the most common methods for dealing with conflict is described in detail in Matthew 18:15-17: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
The other key method for conflict resolution is forgiveness. “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them” (Luke 17:3-4).
Sometimes, it is best to simply overlook the wrong that someone has done to you. Proverbs 19:11 says, “A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.” But, we have to be careful that that overlooking doesn’t take root and turn into bitterness that we will later have to overcome.
Sometimes we can avoid conflict simply by following these words of Jesus in Matthew 5:38-42: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”
Resolving conflict is so important that Jesus tells His followers to not even bring an offering to Him if we have unresolved conflict. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).
How are you doing with conflict in your life? Are you causing it, avoiding it, or resolving it? As you go about your days, I encourage you to remember these words of the apostle Paul in Colossians 3:12-13: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
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by Aaron Felty
I recently read a magazine produced by the denomination in which I serve. Our current president is retiring and is focused on what is important for the future of the denomination. One of his last statements is so profound that I was inspired to write this article. I count it as a Christmas present for you to consider as you dream about what “may be” next year. Essentially, the current president of our denomination said that “vision” inspires but “burden” brings resolve to our best kingdom efforts.
Wow.
I immediately think of several verses of Scripture, new year’s resolutions, and why we fail to apply the Scriptures consistently and keep those pesky resolutions. In short, I believe it is because we are not burdened as Christ was.
“Therefore, If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come…” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
“When He (Jesus) saw the crowds, He had compassion on them…” (Matthew 9:36)
“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10)
“Let your yes be yes and your no be no…” (Matthew 5:37)
It seems to me that any person can have a vision for how they would like to see the future. Often times vision is the thing that moves people to action. Vision excites people and creates a level of enthusiasm that would not exist without it. However, vision often is not enough to actually make a difference in the Kingdom, or even here on Earth. The Bible says, in the Old King James version, “Where there is no vision the people perish…” (Proverbs 29:18). The word “perish” in the Hebrew can mean to run wild or wander aimlessly. I think that is a great definition for what happens without vision.
Some of you reading this blog post are essentially wandering aimlessly through life, with no known purpose and no direction, just putting one foot in front of the other day after day. If that is you, you need to catch what the disciples caught from Jesus!
Vision is what allowed those early disciples to leave their day jobs and follow Christ. They saw in Jesus the return of King David. Initially, I believe they were simply inspired by Jesus, not actually burdened with a resolve to usher in God’s Kingdom on earth. They were not burdened with what burdened Jesus; they were simply hoping Jesus would destroy the Romans and restore the Old Testament temple. It wasn’t until after Jesus ascended to Heaven, and more precisely at Pentecost (Acts 2), that their uncertainty was removed, their vision was clear, and a heavenly burden was downloaded into their hearts and minds.
The compassion Jesus showed the larger crowds of people, prostitutes, tax collectors, thieves, those who were demon possessed, the sick, widows, and children became the disciples’ burden when the Holy Spirit rested upon them. It was at that point they went from having Godly vision to having a Godly burden. Jesus’ burden to give sight to the blind, heal the sick, make the lame walk again, open mute mouths, and set the captives free became their burden. In some form or fashion, the disciples lived and died having operated at full speed for that purpose (Luke 7:22).
What have you resolved? What burdens you? What causes you to live at full speed for the Kingdom of God?
Jesus left us with a promise and an outline in John 14:12-14. He said that if we are in a relationship with Him, we will do the things that He did and even greater things (not more magnificent, but more in terms of quantity). The outline is to look at what He did. He had a burden for people who were lost in a variety of ways; they were the least in society, hurt, sick and marginalized. Jesus was filled with compassion and only did what He saw the Father do (John 5:19). So when we see Jesus do something, it is what the Father would do; if the Father had a burden for the least, then we too should have that same burden. How do we get that burden? Do we each have a different burden? How does our uniqueness fit into all of this?
If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation; the old has gone the new has come. Being “in” Christ means that we have surrendered control of our lives and submitted to His authority. He is the driver! If we have said yes to Jesus, we ought to be burdened with what burdened Him. That is what our “yes” means! If we are not moved to compassion by the marginalized in our world, we probably need to test our faith to evaluate if we are in it! HOW we express compassion will come in many forms, but THAT we express compassion should be evident. We should be burdened by the needs in our midst and do all that we can with the help of the Holy Spirit to meet those needs, just and Jesus did while He was walking here on earth.
Developing a burden that inspires our best Kingdom effort begins in prayer. We ought to be asking God what is burdening Him in our sphere of influence. Once that becomes clear, ask Him for that same burden and what you ought to do about it.
In my context, I am burdened by people who are lost, lonely, and needy. For us, “lost” means any person who does not know Jesus or is uncertain of why they were created. “Lonely” means those like moms who are raising kids on their own or immigrants and people living in a culture not familiar to them. “Needy” includes all of us honest enough to share items too big for an individual but not too big for the body of Christ (Matthew 25:31-46). So, our little church seeks to build relationships in the community to find those who fit these three criteria, and then we do all we can to meet their needs and help them do likewise. Occasionally, at the end of our church service, I will ask what needs we have in the congregation. Often, someone will say they have need for transportation or childcare. I then ask who can meet that need and someone always steps up to do so. We want to be a place and a people compassionately burdened for those Christ was also burdened!
This Christmas and New Year’s, will you commit to compassionately doing what Jesus did? After all, that is why we were created (Romans 8:29): to be conformed into the image of Christ Jesus. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
