“When Israel came out of Egypt, Jacob from a people of foreign tongue, Judah became God’s sanctuary, Israel his dominion.
Psalm 114 is one of the 6 psalms (113-118) that are called the Egyptian Hallel psalms. Hallel is the Hebrew verb for praise, and it’s where we get our word “hallelujah” from. (Adding the “-jah” at the end makes it more emphatic in Hebrew.) Additionally, Psalms 120-136 are called the Great Hallel, and Psalms 146-150 are called the Concluding Hallel psalms. The Egyptian Hallel psalms are called such because they feature prominently in the Passover celebration. Traditionally, Psalms 113-114 were read before the meal and 115-118 were read after it. So, these psalms praise God for His leading Israel out of Egypt.
Psalm 114 starts out retelling the event of the exodus from Egypt in verses 1-2. The idea that they were delivered from a “foreign tongue” implies that they were in slavery in that land. They lived as foreigners, not as people who were accepted as citizens. God chose Israel to be His “sanctuary” and “dominion.” Even though the nation was later divided into two kingdoms (Judah in the south and Israel in the north), they were all still God’s chosen nation. God made a covenant promise to dwell among the whole people, all twelve tribes, and he brought all of them out of slavery in Egypt.
Verses 3-6 are interesting because they tell us of nature’s reaction to Israel as God’s chosen people. “The sea looked and fled” is clearly a reference to God parting the waters of the Red Sea so that the people of Israel could cross it on dry land (Exodus 14). Similarly, “the Jordan turned back” refers to Israel crossing the Jordan River on dry land (Joshua 3). The references to mountains and hills likely refer to God giving His commandments to the people on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19-20).
The questions we see in verses 5-6 seem to indicate that the psalmist is calling on nature to bear witness to the mighty power of God. The Red Sea, the Jordan River, and Mt Sinai were all witness to spectacular events of God in our world. The answer to all of these “why” questions is, of course, because God has power and dominion over all His creation.
This answer is echoed in verse 7, where the earth is called to tremble in God’s presence. The phrase “at the presence of” is repeated, which shows that this is the climax of the psalm: everything else builds up to the mighty power of God! The Lord is the mighty God over all creation, and He identifies Himself as the God of Jacob, the God of His people of Israel.
The psalmist concludes in verse 8 with one more example of God using nature to fulfill His purposes and show His power: getting water from the rock (Exodus 17:1-7). This may also reference the prophecy in Isaiah 41:18.
So what does all this mean for us today? It’s great that God led Israel out of Egypt, but how does that affect us living in the modern world of 2019? Well, God is the same God today as He was back at the time of Exodus. God never changes. Since God did miracles like that for the people of Israel, how much more will He continue to pour out blessings and miracles for us today! He is the same God, and now His chosen people are everyone who has faith in the sacrificial death and resurrection of His Son Jesus. All of us who follow Jesus are God’s chosen people, regardless of nationality. Nature still bears witness to the power of God today. Are you watching for God’s almighty power in your life?
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Why was it, sea, that you fled? Why, Jordan, did you turn back? Why, mountains, did you leap like rams, you hills, like lambs?
Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool, the hard rock into springs of water.” (Psalm 114)
Today, I wrap up the first quarter of my first full year of teaching at my high school. I teach both regular level physics and AP level physics. When I was a substitute, I saw the same issues I see now in physics. Students in general do not know how to do basic math skills. They can plug in equations and solve for a single variable, even if the equation is already re-arranged for them. But to manipulate an equation for a needed variable is nearly impossible to get them to do, including 3-variable equations. And unless students master this, teaching physics is a very difficult job.
At the AP level, the mathematical knowledge needed does not exceed Algebra 2 skills, however, said skills have to be utterly mastered. There is another teacher doing AP Physics as well and he has never taught it before (please note, this is my first full year teaching in my own right). I explained to him one of the problems students may have to solve would include determining how fast a car can go in taking a sloped curve without skidding, using virtually only the angle of the slope of the ramp, the radius of the curve, and the coefficient of friction. The thinking ability to solve these problems requires mastery of the basic concepts that went before them.
What does this have to do with basic Christian doctrines? Quite a bit, because we have a lot of people in churches today that barely understand even the core doctrines, let alone getting into the much deeper riches of Christ. I want to make something very clear before I go forward. By no means will I ever claim to have found these deeper riches. There are areas where I still struggle in desiring just the basic levels of Christianity. And even if I could claim to have found deeper riches, there are exceedingly deeper riches still to be found. Another key thing here is that I make no judgment on the level of where anyone stands in their faith. Every one of you reading this was once a baby. But even in reading this, you have grown up and moved on to bigger, deeper, and richer things than from where you started. Some of you are not at my level of faith; some of you are well beyond me. It doesn’t matter where you are now. However, my rebuke is to the notion of wanting to stay at the level of where we are because we have gotten comfortable there and are unwilling to go where Christ calls to us to go.
The author of Hebrews (some say it’s Paul, but it is not definitive) lists six things which are core basic doctrines of Christianity: repentance, faith, baptism, authority, resurrection, and judgment. Last week, I wrote about Christ being the foundation of our lives and of our faith. I intend to use that to bridge into these core teachings, however, I realized just as I started this series that Hebrews says to move on from these teachings. In the same way that you move on from solving single-variable equations in math to solving AP level physics, you move on from these core teachings to the much deeper realities of Christ. You never stop covering or using these core teachings, but you stop learning the basics and start using them. Hebrews describes it as moving on from drinking milk as a baby to eating meat as an adult.
The first of these core doctrines Hebrews addresses is repentance. I could do an entire series on repentance, what it is, how it looks, and what it’s not; however, here I simply want to lay down what it is. There are two types of repentance described in the Bible. The first is not actually repentance, but merely an “I feel sorry I am getting caught.” If the person was not caught, there would be no hint of remorse anywhere. This is “worldly sorrow,” not “Godly sorrow”. Godly sorrow leads to repentance.
But repentance is something much more than “I’m sorry I did wrong.” It is a turn-around. It is more than merely “I will stop doing that thing.” Repentance includes those two things, but it also involves a third thing: it replaces that which you should not do with that which you should do. You replace telling lies with telling the truth. You replace dishonesty with integrity. You replace stealing with giving away. You replace sexual immorality with a true intimacy. You replace malicious thinking with Godly thinking. You replace YOU from the throne of your life with Christ as King over your life. The degrees of repentance are as infinite as the grace of God. There is no person who ever succeeded in completely repenting of their sin in their earthly lives. It is not a one-time decision, but a lifestyle.
However, many people need to hear just the basics of repentance because most preachers aren’t teaching it. Paul Washer was the first to draw my attention to the inadequacy of the “Sinner’s Prayer” in producing actual born-again believers. One of the issues is that we tell people an extremely watered-down version of what repentance is and expect them to say a prayer, agree to a few doctrines, and boom they are saved. That is not repentance. That is seeking a one-time freebie with no cost to you. Repentance requires a major cost: the cost of self.
We have this false impression that God offers us eternal life freely. Yes, it is free in that we cannot earn nor pay for it. However, to receive it, there is a response we must make. That response is surrender of our self-will so that we might be able to receive His life. We have a cup that has a limited capacity. It is typically filled with self, what we want, and what we desire. For God to be able to fill our cup with His life, we must empty our cup, let God wash it, and then He can fill it.
There is a valuable saying that we need to take more seriously: “If Jesus isn’t Lord of all, He isn’t Lord at all.” If we don’t put Jesus as our #1, He really isn’t our #2 or #3 either. Repentance leads to “all out for Jesus.” I, by no means, have given up everything for Jesus to control yet, but God is going to pursue me until I have. But the longer I take to yield, the more I miss out on what He has in store for me.
Let us learn the basics of repentance and put them into practice. When we start putting them into practice, let us start going deeper and deeper and to seek the truths of Christ that can only be found with a foundation of repentance. Let us stop reviewing addition and multiplication and move on to algebra, to calculus, to physics, and to AP level physics. These don’t ignore or reject addition and multiplication, but they move deeper and deeper into them. Next week, I’ll look at faith in God as another basic teaching of Christianity.
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by Steve Risner
Last week was part 5 of a series we've been doing on the literary style of Genesis and how it was intended to be taken. You can read the other parts at these links: here, here, here, and here. We began to talk about the idea that Genesis might be a polemic work against neighboring pagan religious peoples. We introduced the idea last week and touched on some of the major issues with this approach which I'll outline quickly here:
1) If the creation account is a polemic (a work against neighboring beliefs), it would only satisfactorily render neighboring religious myths false if it were true and not just a rival myth.
2) The Jews who were captive in Egypt for 400 years would likely have little to no knowledge of other people groups' religious beliefs except for the Egyptians.
3) If the work is a polemic work against neighboring pagan societies, this in no way impacts the historicity of the narrative.
One of the claims made by people who support the idea that Genesis (specifically the creation account) is poetry and, therefore, nothing more than allegory or myth like a polemic against other religious ideas, is the use of parallelism. This is defined as the use of successive verbal constructions in poetry or prose which correspond in grammatical structure, sound, meter, meaning, etc. Notice it is not restricted to poetry. An example would be Psalm 19:1: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.” The days of creation are said to be 2 unique triads that use parallelism that represent something theological/spiritual rather than something physical or temporal. If we look at the days of creation, they say, you can see days 1 and 4, 2 and 5, and 3 and 6 describe the same “stuff.”
Let's see what a person who accepts this idea as the truth says. She posted this on the Worldview Warriors Facebook page (under The Genesis Myth: Part 3):
“When we notice this and think of the Hebrew tendency to create parallel structures, we might begin to wonder if the author doesn’t intend days 3 and 6 to be related to each other in some way. If we follow up on this line of thought then we will look at days 1-2 as possibly related to days 4-5.”
As with the entire idea of Genesis being poetry, does it impact the historicity of the narrative if this grouping is actually legitimate? The answer is obviously (I hope to everyone), “no.” This doesn't impact the factual nature at all if (a big if) the text actually is grouped this way. It would simply indicate that God Almighty chose to create in an orderly fashion. He may have done this because He is a God of order and not chaos, or He may have chosen to do this to teach us something. Was it a response to Ancient Near Eastern people groups and their false religions? This is highly unlikely since He created all that there is long before these people groups existed. And since this writing, that of Genesis, has traditionally been predominately recognized by scholars for a very long time to be written by Moses about 1400 years before Christ walked the earth, most of these people groups would have been unknown especially to any real depths by the Hebrews. They had just spent 400 years in Egypt predominately as slaves.
Let's look at the alleged pairings to see if they, in fact, fit nicely together as these people suggest. You may be surprised. According to Tim Chaffey (Th.M., M.Div.) and Dr. Bob McCabe (Th.D., Th.M., professor of Old Testament at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary):
The Two Triads of “Days” argument is a premise that all Framework advocates agree with. Framework supporters claim that the two triads of “days” is a topical parallelism where the topics of days 1–3 are parallel with those of days 4–6. About the parallel nature of days 1 & 4, Mark Futato states, “Days 1 and 4 are two different perspectives on the same creative work.” Returning to the overall topical arrangement the entire creation account, Kline writes, “The successive members of the first triad of days [days 1–3] correspond to the successive days of the second [days 4–6].” In other words, days 1 and 4 are simply two different ways of stating the same event, as are days 2 and 5, and days 3 and 6.
They go on to say:
At first glance, it may seem as if these writers are on to something. However, a closer look reveals some problems with this argument. First, this supposed semi-poetic construction is inconsistent with the fact that Genesis 1 is a historical narrative. Hebrew scholar Steven Boyd has clearly shown that Genesis 1 is written as historical narrative rather than poetry. Hebrew poetry commonly utilizes a high percentage of imperfect and perfect verbs. By contrast, Hebrew narrative is marked by a high frequency of waw-consecutive preterite verbs that indicate a sequence of events in past tense material. Comparing Judges 4 and 5 shows a good example of these differences. In Judges 4, the account of Deborah and Barak defeating the forces of Sisera is explained in historical narrative. The following chapter is a poetical song describing the same event. The difference in language is readily apparent even in English translations. The same is true with the historical narrative of Genesis 1 and poetic descriptions of creation activities such as those found in Psalm 104. After studying and cataloging 522 texts, Boyd concluded that Genesis 1 can be classified as narrative with a probability of virtually one.
In other words, the text is conclusively a narrative, containing little if any similarities with Hebrew poetic writings. I have asked those who accept this passage as poetry to show me other Hebrew poetry like it. I've not seen anything yet. Yet, we will still hear how this text (just Genesis 1 or perhaps the first few chapters; I'm not sure where the break is since there is no known change in writing) is the “basic example” of Hebrew poetry. This cannot be further from the truth. Also, the alleged similarities between the days seems, on the surface, to be in great harmony, but at a closer look we find they are not very similar at all.
More directly to the “triad of days” and their similarities, that idea is simply inconsistent with the text of Genesis 1:1-2:3. Water was not created on the second day. It was created on day 1 (according to Genesis 1:2). This happened BEFORE light was even created on the same day. So maybe we're seeing that days 1 and 5 are more similar than 2 and 5? Further, the sun, moon and stars created on day 4 were put in the heavens which were created on the second day. So, then, perhaps days 1 and 5 are parallels and days 2 and 4 are parallels, but this topples the idea of the nice and neat pairings of the polemic idea (really the Framework Hypothesis). There are other details that just don't jive with the nicely packaged paired days we often hear about concerning this new idea. The order of events here is critical for this idea if we're to believe they were theological ONLY and had nothing to do with reality or time-and-space. If we rearrange the order, the entire series of events becomes absurd.
Not to beat it to death, but another summary by Dr. Wayne Grudem summarizes:
“First, the proposed correspondence between the days of creation is not nearly as exact as its advocates have supposed. The sun, moon, and stars created on the fourth day as ‘lights in the firmament of the heavens’ are placed not in any space created on Day 1 but in the ‘firmament’… that was created on the second day. In fact, the correspondence in language is quite explicit: this ‘firmament’ is not mentioned at all on Day 1 but five times on day 2 and three times on Day 4... Day 4 also has correspondences with Day 1, but if we say that the second three days show the creation of things to fill the forms or spaces created on the first three days, then Day 4 overlaps at least as much with Day 2 as it does with Day 1.
Moreover, the parallel between Days 2 and 5 is not exact, because in some ways the preparation of a space for the fish and birds of Day 5 does not come in Day 2 but in Day 3. It is not until Day 3 that God gathers the waters together and calls them ‘seas,’ and on Day 5 the fish are commanded to ‘fill the waters in the seas.’ Again in verses 26 and 28 the fish are called ‘fish of the sea,’ giving repeated emphasis to the fact that the sphere the fish inhabit was specifically formed on Day 3. Thus, the fish formed on Day 5 seem to belong much more to the place prepared for them on Day 3 than to the widely dispersed waters below the firmament on Day 2. Establishing a parallel between Day 2 and Day 5 faces further difficulties in that nothing is created on Day 5 to inhabit the ‘waters above the firmament,’ and the flying things created on this day not only fly in the sky created on Day 2, but also live and multiply on the ‘earth’ or ‘dry land’ created on Day 3. (Note God’s command on Day 5: ‘Let birds multiply on the earth.’)
Finally, the parallel between Days 3 and 6 is not precise, for nothing is created on Day 6 to fill the seas that were gathered together on Day 3. With all of these points of imprecise correspondence and overlapping between places and things created to fill them, the supposed literary ‘framework,’ while having an initial appearance of neatness, turns out to be less and less convincing upon closer reading of the text.”
This should put the entire idea to rest, really, but I know those who hold to such strange, new ideas (this was first introduced by Arie Noordtzij in 1924) are so dug in they will not be moved by any evidence to the contrary. It appears to me that they need to hold onto their claim of “science” telling us things it can't possibly tell us (like the age of the earth or the universe or origin of life) but want desperately to hold onto their faith in Christ as their Savior. They (like many unbelievers as well) have turned a great deal of “science” into a religious belief and care little for the facts of the matter.
We will continue to show the absurdity of the polemic idea and also that of the poetic idea in future writings. I hope you'll stick with us. Thank you for your interest.
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When doing some research on this week’s psalm, Psalm 109, I read in a Biblical commentary and it is an “imprecatory” psalm. I honestly didn’t know what imprecatory meant, so I looked it up. Dictionary.com defines it as, “to invoke or call down (evil or curses), as upon a person.” That sure doesn’t sound like a typical praise psalm! Reading further in my commentary, it says that this psalm a balance of "faithful covenantal speech" and "free, unrestrained speech of rage seeking vengeance.” So, it’s like praising God but also being mad about evil in the world, all at the same time. Let’s take a look.
Verse 1 starts out with a bit of praise to God: “My God, whom I praise, do not remain silent.” Even if we’re mad at God for whatever reason, He is still the God of the universe and still deserves our praise.
Then starting in verses 2-5, the psalmist David launches right into what the ungodly people around him are doing. They’re wicked, they’re deceitful, they’ve lied about him, they attack him without cause, they accuse him, and they repay his goodness with evil.
After that rant, David begins to look at what should be done to these evil people around him in verses 6-8. While the initial verses indicate multiple evil people, as he continues the psalm he personifies all of the evil people into one. He wants evil to be punished by evil. He hopes that the justice system will work how it’s supposed to work, and those who are guilty of crimes will be found guilty. He also hopes that evil people will have short lives, so they don’t have as much time to work their evil on this planet.
Not only that, but David goes on in verses 9-10 to wish harm on the evildoer’s family as well. Since he wants the evildoer to live a short live, he wants his children to lose their father and his wife to lose her husband. Because of that, their home would be ruined.
David’s cursing of this evil person continues to his possessions in verse 11: “May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.” While earthly possessions aren’t everything, they are very helpful to get along in society and make a living for oneself, so David is wishing all that be taken away from the evildoers.
The cursing returns to the evildoer’s family in verses 12-13. If the evildoer is no longer living, then the household has no head and no one to make money to provide for the family. As if that isn’t bad enough, David wishes that no one would help them in their destitute state! Because of the father’s sin, the children may not live very long and not produce offspring, thus cutting off the family’s bloodline.
After all those harsh words, the final straw comes in verses 14-15 where David asks God to see this evildoer and his family as guilty in God’s sight. Verse 15 sums it up: “May their sins always remain before the Lord, that he may blot out their name from the earth.”
In case God needs a reminder of what this evil person did, David provides Him with the list of sins in verses 16-20. He wasn’t kind, he cursed others, and he did not bless others in any way. David again asks for the Lord to judge this person harshly.
After all that ranting about these evil people, David turns his attention to himself. Verse 21 says, “But you, Sovereign Lord, help me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.” It’s like he complains and complains about all these other evil people, wishing all these curses on them, then has the nerve to ask God to deliver himself! But really, David is now focusing on God and how different His nature is from that of the wicked people on earth.
David then reminds God of his own needs in verses 22-24. He is poor and needy, he’s dealing with grief, and he has physical ailments from the torment by his enemies. In verses 25-29, David reminds God again of how his enemies have tormented him. He asks God to save him and judge his enemies, according to God’s unfailing love.
After all that, David still concludes with praise to God in verses 30-31. He knows that God will deliver His children from their adversaries. God is his protector and provider, whether He pronounces the harsh judgment on David’s enemies or not.
It’s so easy for us as humans to complain about all the bad we see in others. We don’t like the way some people treat us, so we wish curses on them like David did to the evildoers around him. Are those people around us really that evil, or are we simply being selfish in how we perceive their actions? Don’t we deserve God’s curses just as much as they do?
We all disobey God’s commandments and harm our fellow people, whether physically or with our words. We all deserve the judgment and cursing that David requested for those doing evil to him. But while David still praised God in spite of that, knowing that God may or may not actually judge them how he requested, we need to praise God in all circumstances too. God is a just and right God, and He will judge people (including us!) how He wants to. We can whine and complain all we want, but God is still God and we are not. We still need to thank and praise Him for the gift of Jesus and His sacrificial death on the cross and resurrection, which through faith makes our guilt turn into innocence.
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“For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” ~1 Corinthians 3:11
Paul declares that no one can lay down a foundation for how they will live their lives, nor can there be any hope or salvation other than Jesus Christ. The Apostle Peter echoed this sentiment in Acts 4:12 when he proclaimed to the Sanhedrin that, “There is no other name by which men might be saved other than Jesus Christ.”
I frequently speak and write about the importance of having a Biblical worldview, to see things as God sees them, using the Bible as our “lens” to view reality. But one thing that is easy to miss when talking about the Bible is to see what the Bible points to. As I write this, I was recently reminding myself of the importance of putting Jesus Christ as the center of your vision and the foundation of everything you say, do, think, and live. I often talk about Creation as a critical part to understanding Christianity, however the point of believing in Creation is not to believe in Creation but to believe in Christ. Christ must always be our end game, but He also must be our starting point and our foundation. He must be both.
Colossians 1:15-17 defines Christ as the Creator and for whom and by whom all things consist. Everything that exists was made by Christ and for Christ’s glory. Every single person, every single animal, every single plant, and every single atom exist because Christ made them, and they exist to tell His story. That means no matter what any of us think, say, or do otherwise, what we think, say, or do is going to bring glory to Christ. We can be obedient to Him and we can share in His glory, or we can be defiant in our sin, and our judgment from the fires of Hell will give Him glory. We don’t get to choose whether we will glorify Christ or not. We only get the choice of how we glorify Him. The world may shake its fist against Christ, but it too shall bend its knee to Christ one day because He is the King of Kings and He is returning to crush His enemies and will rule with a rod of iron. This rod will crush any who are His foes but will protect any who are His.
We must build our lives upon Christ as the only true foundation, or everything we do and build will be destroyed. Paul warns against building with wood, hay, and stubble: the temporary things of this world which come relatively cheap and in large quantity and are convenient. He instead recommends building with gold, silver, and precious stones. Here is the difference between these two sets of items. Wood, hay, and stubble can be readily used and easily replaced, however, when fire comes, they are completely consumed and reduced to useless ashes. Gold, silver, and precious stones have already been through the fire and refined. They will last. Gold and silver can melt, but fire never changes its composition. You never lose gold or silver to a fire, whereas wood, hay, and stubble are forever lost. Paul is making the claim that on Judgment Day, everything we’ve used to build our lives is going to be tested against the fire of God and only that which remains is going to last. This is also when there will be much weeping as all the works of men will be wasted. Only those which God did through us will remain.
Jesus gave a parable of a wise and foolish builder. One built upon a rock by listening to and heeding the words of Christ, making his house according to the shape, size, and strength of the rock it stood upon. The other built with sand, molding and shaping the foundation to fit what he desired. Yet that which is moldable by man is easily washed away. When we build upon Christ, everything He supports will last because He is the Solid Rock, and as the Solid Rock He will not give way. But if we build upon sand, all it takes is one bad disaster or a series of small ones to undermine the house and everything we built collapses. This is why some investors commit suicide after they lose their entire portfolio, because they poured everything they had into something that could not last. It’s also why so many people face depression and despair (that is not a blanket statement), because they poured so much into something that never satisfied nor lasted. They built their life upon sand and when a storm came, it didn’t make it.
We must build upon Christ. Paul put aside everything he knew to know Christ and Christ crucified only. He was the scholar among all scholars and yet he treated all his education as worthless dung when compared to the knowledge of Christ. That doesn’t mean he forgot everything, but that he understood the purpose of everything. Knowledge that glorifies God is valuable, yet knowledge that glorifies man is pride and is not worthy of retaining.
There are a lot of false teachings out there, yet with practice it is easy to tell a true teaching from a false one. Here is a big clue: look at the foundation. Is it built upon Christ, or is it built upon men? False teachings may include Christ, but if you listen carefully, He is used as little more than cosmetic covering for their own ideas. True teachings will start with Christ, build with Christ, point to Christ, and yield His fruit as a result.
Yet there are also many people who say we just need Christ and who needs truth about anything else like Creation, baptism, obedience, authority, etc. They just want Christ’s name for salvation and to leave the rest for themselves. According to Hebrews 6:1-2, there are seven foundational doctrines to the Christian life. I will liken these teachings to seven pillars which support our structure we call “Christianity.” The first is Christ which I have been explaining in this post. Christ is not only the foundation; He is also the central pillar of which everything else flows in and out of. Over the next few weeks, I will look at the other six. But in each topic, Christ is still going to be the center. He will be the foundation for the doctrine, the structure for the doctrine, and the end goal of the doctrine. But a caution: the author of Hebrews also says these are the elementary teachings, stating that we as Christians need to be moving onto deeper and better things. You can’t do that without a proper foundation laid down, and moving on to deeper and better things does not negate these core teachings by any means. I grow tired of drinking milk. I want meat, but our system cannot handle meat until we have drunk enough milk to build our system to handle it. So over the next few weeks, I’m going to go over the “milk” of Christianity so that we can move forward and eat some meat.
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“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” (Psalm 107:1)
If that verse sounds familiar, it could be because it’s also the first verse of Psalm 106 that I wrote about last week. But after that verse, this psalm differs somewhat from the previous one.
Psalm 107 begins the fifth and final book within the book of Psalms. These “books” are just groups of psalms to divide up the book. Some scholars believe that this was to mimic the 5 books of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). This psalm is known as a thanksgiving-wisdom psalm because it starts out urging its reader to give thanks and it ends with encouraging its reader to have wisdom.
Verses 1-3 say, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south.” Notice the focus on “the redeemed of the Lord” in these verses. It’s a common misconception that those who follow God live lives that are free of trouble; on the contrary, here we see that God has redeemed His people from adversity. God continues to redeem His people from whatever adversity we face, though not always in the way we might want.
While the reference to God gathering His people may have been a bit unusual for the nation of Israel since they were generally all living in the same place, this is especially relevant today in the context of following Jesus. Today, followers of Jesus are found all around the world, and God gathers all of us to Him as a part of His family.
Now, before we move on in this psalm, I want you to take a moment and start thinking of reasons that you have to be thankful in your life. You can probably come up with quite a long list, right? Well, verses 4-32 of this psalm are Israel’s list of reasons to be thankful! I encourage you to read it, but I’ll give you the highlights here.
Verses 4-9 speak of them being wanderers in the desert. While that doesn’t sound like a reason to be thankful, it is because God delivered them when they needed Him to. They were hungry and they were thirsty, and God gave them food and drink. They had no place to call their home, but God led them to a city where they could settle.
Verses 10-16 speak of them being prisoners, in chains and subjected to forced hard labor. Again while that doesn’t sound like something that would make people thankful, again God saved them from that. He broke away their chains and freed them from their captivity.
Verses 17-22 speak of them being a sick people. They were so sick they nearly died - a perfect time to be thankful for your life, right? But again, when they cried out to God, He healed them and delivered them from their physical illnesses.
Verses 23-32 speak of them being sailors on the sea. That doesn’t sound so bad, but the sea was a very dangerous place where one storm could end the lives of many. But God calmed the stormy seas and delivered them safely back to land.
When you started making your list of thing you were thankful for, did you include all the seemingly bad things that have happened in your life? Are you thankful for a loved one with cancer? Are you thankful for natural disasters? I’m guessing you’re generally not thankful for those things.
But here’s the thing. If you read that whole passage, you may have noticed that each one of these sections has a verse that says, “Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind.” Each and every time that God’s people went through difficult times, when they called out to God He delivered them. In spite of all that seemed so negative, they were called to give thanks to God for that! No matter what’s happening in life, God’s love will never fail and He will continue to do wonderful deeds for mankind, even if it doesn’t seem like it from our perspective.
The psalm continues in verses 33-42, giving reasons to praise God. Even though the people went through all this bad stuff, God was still working good for them. God has the authority to make bad things good, to make water flow in the desert, and to provide food for the hungry, just to name a few. He is always worthy of our praise, even if we don’t feel like He’s doing what we want Him to. Fortunately, He is God and we are not! We don’t know what’s best for us as humankind, but God does. He is always worthy of our praise for continuing to love and guide us through whatever happens in life.
The psalm closes in verse 43 with this: “Let the one who is wise heed these things and ponder the loving deeds of the Lord.” If we are unwise, then we’ll just get angry or depressed when bad things happen to us. But if we’re wise, we’ll take to heart the things listed in this psalm. Even when it feels like we’re going through the worst time of our lives, God still loves us! His love will never fail. When we call out to Him, He will deliver us! It may not be the way we want or expect Him to, but we can always count on His unfailing love. We can always give thanks to God because His love truly will endure forever.
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There are two major trains of thought and thinking in this world: Western thinking and Eastern thinking. Western thinking is very factually based. It is about logic, reasoning, explanation, and science. Eastern thinking is about purpose, the spiritual, honor, respect, and family. In a way, I am a Western thinking person because I am so fact-oriented and I really don’t think emotionally very often (though challenge me with a false teaching and you’ll see how strong I hold to truth). But that said, I am also a born-again Christian so I see the spiritual side of things too.
I frequently get “called out” by treating the Bible with my “Western Greco-Roman-Platonic thinking” when I declare what the Bible actually says about Genesis. I believe Genesis records the only accurate account of the origins of the earth, the universe, man, and the nations. But I also sense a Marxist tactic in that claim: to take what you are doing wrong and pin it on an opponent so they get defensive and so you can call them out for being divisive. It’s actually not me using the Western thinking to interpret the Bible, which was not written in a Western culture. It’s them. I can prove it too.
Western thought also separates each of our areas of life: job, family, career, science, history, religion, etc. What goes on in the church should stay in the church and not be brought into the career field. Your problems at work should stay at work. And when it comes to the Bible and Christianity, religion is a separate issue from your job and your education and your extra activities. What started with the Enlightenment in the 17th-18th centuries became very popular into the 19th century with Lyell, Darwin, Huxley, and others who pursued “naturalism” as the explanation for the origins of life, the universe, and everything. They promoted a “deistic” god that is only vague and general, and most certainly not the God of the Bible (the Athenians had a similar issue when they worshipped a God they did not know). Since those ideas exploded like stage 8 cancer (I know there isn’t such a thing, it’s hyperbole), where there are so few healthy cells left, Christianity has been pushed into smaller and smaller circles of influence. Now, if we dare take our faith out of the church or the home, expect a backlash.
Eastern thought is different however. Eastern thought focused more on the spirit of the matter: honor, respect, doing your job perfectly, being with family, doing the spiritual thing, prayer, etc. I heard of a Chinese missionary who came to America and said this: “When I see a Buddhist monk do his prayers and meditations, I think ‘holy man.’ When I see an American preacher, I think ‘business man.’” And that can very easily showcase the difference between Western and Eastern thinking.
Eastern thought is also sweeping through our country through New Age beliefs, the occult (Wicca is among the fastest growing religions in the country over the last 20 years), and other forms of mysticism. And there are Christians and Christian leaders I have met and read who promote this kind of stuff. That there is this “energy” in and around us (like the Force of Star Wars), and as long as we tap into that energy which is part of us, speak out our wishes, and visualize it, we can create what we want into reality. If you are thinking that is crazy, you are right, but some of the biggest names in American Christianity today are preaching this.
However, ancient Israel and Biblical Christianity do not fit either bill. Geographically, they were literally smack in between both major cultures, not to mention the cultures of Africa, which have not been addressed here. In their way of thinking, they were actually both. Those who deny the historicity of Genesis try to get us to emphasize on the “spiritual” or “theological” lessons of Genesis. Problem: the “lessons” they are trying to “get us to see” are not Biblical at all.
The Bible is unique from all these ways of thinking in that it doesn’t separate any area of life. Your spiritual life and your job are one and the same in Christianity. How you treat your family is a reflection of what you think about God spiritually. How you do science is to be a religious pursuit of God’s thoughts. How you study history is to be intertwined with what choices you make. In Christianity, our religion determines how we lead and how we operate in every area of our life. How and why? It ultimately is because we submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives. Unless God is center-stage and our end goal, all of our studies in science are null and in vain. Unless we seek God’s wisdom and submit to his leadership in our life, how can we govern others correctly? Why did we choose our current job? Because of the money or the prestige? Or is it because we sought the Lord on where he wants us planted?
Biblical thinking does not esteem correct thinking; it determines what is correct thinking. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. How can we do that? First, we must discard the thinking of our world and our culture. One of the key themes of the Bible is holiness, that is separation from this world, from the ordinary, and from the very mindset of this world. It does not suggest going into isolation lest we be corrupted, but rather to go into the darkness to rescue people from it.
Christianity does not think like the rest of the world. It does not operate by worldly thinking. God frequently does things so opposite of how anyone else would do it that it baffles most of us. It is often to confound the self-proclaimed wise and to prove that only He can do it. He shrunk an army of 32,000 to 300 to defeat an army of about 125,000. He created plants before the sun. He uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. When Paul preached the Gospel, namely about the Resurrection, to the world’s top scholars in Athens, they all thought he was out of his mind, calling him a “babbler,” because a crucified Savior made no sense, let alone a risen one.
If we are going to think Biblically, it will not make sense to the carnal, natural mind. I’ve had people tell me that the 6-day creation is impossible because you can’t have plants before the sun because the nuclear fusion in stars are the only way to produce heavy metals. It appears to me that these people truly don’t understand physics, because even by their own time frames, we should not exist because there hasn’t been enough time for the stars to even produce carbon, let alone anything up to iron. They also refuse to consider that God operates supernaturally and is not limited by natural process. He spoke the universe into existence and He chose to take 6 days, to model for us how our bodies should operate. Think Biblically and you will find the True Christ. Do not think according to this world. It never will reveal the truth. Choose Christ. It will be worth it in the end.
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.
