Many commentaries focus on Paul's defense of his ministry. Paul's main purposes have little to do with defending his ministry. The most common themes are: 1) reconciliation--between us and God, between fellow believers within the church, and between Paul and the Corinthians; 2) exhortation to ministry--Paul has been steadfast and uses his example to spur the Corinthians to look beyond their petty squabbles and reach out to the world, no matter how difficult it will be, because we have God and the rest of the world needs to be in relationship with Him. Be bold, be brave, get out of the pew!
We forgive an individual of our in-group (“us”) for violating the group’s values but we harangue, harass, prosecute against a person of the out-group (“them”) for doing the same thing. In Christianity, we claim all sins are equal and similarly separate us from the presence of God. Yet, most Christian leaders, and their followers, are flagrantly opposed to homosexuality and other sexual sins (because those are committed by ‘them’—maybe ‘us’ in terms of pornography, etc.), but give a pass to greed, envy, quarreling, divisiveness which are also condemned in the scriptures but almost always included in our list of spiritual grievances if we’re being honest. Yet we remove pastors for adultery, homosexuality, even because of their stances on those situations if they’re not guilty of committing those sins. We do not remove pastors who demand higher salaries, or gripe about how big their rivals’ churches are or how much recognition their peers are getting relative to their own fame...or do nothing to contain conflicts within their congregations and seem to relish in the arguments because they retain a sense of power. But more so, the in-group versus out-group dynamic isn’t challenged because it threatens our sense of belonging. If we complain about people in our group, the rest of the group and the leaders of the group—especially if our complaint is about the leader—will oust us from the group because of disloyalty and doubts about your adherence to the group’s values (the main one seems to be ‘don’t say anything publicly about how bad we are’).
This code of conduct is true not only of religion, but also of cults and gangs. The latter groups attract individuals who need a place to belong. And belonging can overwhelm any sense of right/wrong or rationality about how the world works.
And thus, we have politicians publicly condoning malfeasance and maladministration by their group’s members whilst railing against their opponents. And when caught-out, they surrender to a defense of “What about...?”
This is not ‘loving your neighbor’ nor ‘loving your enemy’ as we are called to do. It is not holding ourselves and those we love to the highest standards, to the values we espouse. Otherwise, we are all hypocrites and we can and should all sing Eli’s “Hypocrite Song”
Too much of prayer is talking at God—that is, not really expecting a reaction or response from Him. Public prayer is sometimes worse when quite a bit of the prayer is talking to others in the group. So how should we talk to God and, even more so, how should we listen? How do we learn to listen?
Recently I had the opportunity to share my thoughts on this topic to a men’s group. Bottom line: most of our prayer should be asking God questions and then listening for His answers. The lie: God is an impotent, silent observer. The truth: His Word is living, active and sharper than a two-edged sword (Hebrews 4.12) and He is here now and His kingdom is here now. When you talk to someone, it’s rarely one-way communication. Yet most of the advice on how to talk to God focuses on what we say to Him. There are various acronyms that remind us of an outline to pray: PRAY, CPR, ACTS, THUMB, ARISE, SOAP, HEAR, TRUST... The first one listed is perhaps the closest wherein Y = Yield and some have suggested this means to listen (while others may suggest it means to consecrate oneself to however God will show up and guide you in the future).
Anyone who practices any prayer or hangs out with religious people will end up with a long, long, long, long list of prayer requests to honor. Thus, there’s a great temptation to just talk at God and not hang around for the answer. And then, if you’re like me, we end up babbling to God and trying to sound like the tele-preachers or some good friends who pray glibly and often times formally. Then we violate Christ’s guidelines about not babbling like the Gentiles (Matthew 6.5-13).
I encourage you instead to ask God open-ended questions: what, how, when, where? (Avoid ‘why’.) Such as, “First, Lord, how should I pray for my friend, Ralph, in his situation? What do You want to happen here? What might my role be? What does his family need?” Instead of telling the Lord of the Universe what He should do, ask Him what He plans to do so that your eyes will be open to what’s about to happen. And then honor what He has said by committing that you’ll do your part, and give Him greater glory and honor as you seem Him act in these situations.
If you need to organize your long, long, long list and maybe prioritize it, consider a template that inspired me recently. After praise, adoration and then consecration to act on what He reveals, I went through the roles that I have. I then asked God what attributes, character traits I needed to emphasize or gain in order to fulfill the role and what circumstances are my responsibility or under my influence or in my sphere of concern. For example, I can pray about my role as a disciple, husband, father, son, grandfather...various vocational roles, church member, board member, community member, citizen, friend, mentor, discipler...and so on. In each of these, since I believe God is more concerned with who I am, how I behave in those roles, I ask Him to show me where I need to grow, change, repent, etc. Under Circumstances, I’ll list the answers to ‘where’, ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘who’.
I tried praying through this for an hour...and didn’t finish. I think I need an 8-hour retreat or more to really dialogue with God about all this. Therefore, I think the list can be broken down and He and I can work on a category, or just one role, in each prayer session.
Simple choice: is God more interested in your character or your circumstances?
To answer that question, let’s look at a few simple examples...
If God was more interested in our circumstances, He would have:
Left Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
Not given free will to Abraham and Lot on where they lived (Lot chose the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah)
Let the Israelites cross into the Promised Land the first time they arrived at the Jordan River; instead He made them wander many more years till the ‘slave’ generation died out and the people’s character, courage and faith in God matured and they were ready to inherit the land
Not let Babylon, Egypt, Assyria overrun Judea and Israel and put many people in exile
Christ didn’t stop the storm when Peter steps out of the boat; in certain instances, He only stops the storm because the disciples are fainting with fear
“When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested...” God will change your situation so that your life is easy-peasy...not! “...your endurance has a chance to grow...you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” (James 1.2-4)
“He is so rich in kindness and grace that...” He purchased everything we’d ever need and showered us with all the gifts our hearts desire...not! “...He purchased our freedom with the blood of His Son and forgave our sins. He has showered His kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.” (Ephesians 1.7-8)
To paraphrase a business adage, Character eats Circumstances for breakfast!
Then the question is: when we disciple, coach, mentor others, what are we most interested in: their character or their success? When we raise our kids, how often do we try to ease their circumstances?
And then to bring it back to us: How are we praying for our circumstances? How often do we ask God to develop our character? (Remember the joke that you shouldn’t pray for patience because then all kinds of irritating people and frustrating circumstances will be afflicted upon you.) How often do you ask God questions to better understand His perspective on any situation, rather than tell Him what you think should happen?
I heard of a study trying to determine the value of ‘thoughts and prayers’ (a phrase often uttered after a mass shooting or natural disaster). It turns out no one is willing to pay for ‘thoughts’. However, Christians are willing, on average, to pay $4.30 of the $5 given them to receive prayers from a stranger. Atheists won’t pay anything. It seems they would want to be paid if you’re going to pray for them. One of the researchers admits $5 isn’t much and therefore it isn’t much of a sacrifice to pay for prayer at this amount. To me, the study begs an analysis of one of Christ’s parables...
In the parable, Christ describes the Kingdom of Heaven as like a field with buried treasure. A person stumbles across the treasure, buries it (or re-buries it) and then sells everything to get it. From previous blogs, it seems the Good News is that we have access to God the Father. We know this is through the Spirit, through prayer—a Good News that’s not dependent on your ethnicity or lineage, your deeds but more of your spirit’s alignment with His.
If you couldn’t have access now, if you didn’t know that God hears your prayers and loves you, what would you pay to gain the ability to pray and be heard by the One True God? Would you pay $4.30? Would you pay a day’s wages—median $211? Would you pay a month’s—$4000+? Would you pay a year’s wages? Would you give all of your net worth and more?
As a side note to the study, it turns out that if people pray for a charitable organization, they give less money, apparently believing the prayers are worth something.
Recently I was asked how to talk to an atheist. My suggestion: ask them how to explain how different groups of people, even within the same culture, operate and adhere more strictly to different ethics and so their behavior is more loving, more just than others. Explain how different societies have throughout history have persevered even under persecution, slavery, holocausts, etc without relinquishing their identity. Explain how family members behave differently with regard to those around them—loving their neighbors and their enemies. How do you explain some of this even though the genetics, the environment, the nourishment, the nurturing is similar if not equivalent?
It’s not natural. It seems to be supernatural. Even Niall Ferguson in his book Civilization: the West and the Rest hints at some religious, supernatural inner drive of certain cultures that had shared values—shared Spirit?—seemed to thrive more than others.
[John the Baptist’s disciples asked,] “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting...?” Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him...the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” (Matthew 11) If anyone questions that the saving belief is that it’s in Christ, His crucifixion and His resurrection—typically what we call the Gospel or Good News—you may have to look at when Christ said people were saved...and because of John 3.16 (and other passages like John 5.24)–‘everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life’—we can equate belief with salvation. Christ preached a Good News about the Kingdom of God (Luke 4.43; Matthew 4.23).
“...I would give you living water...” said to the Samaritan woman early in His ministry.
“...true worshipers will worship Him in spirit and truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship Him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth” also said to the Samaritan woman.
‘So He stayed for two days, long enough for many [in the Samaritan village] more to hear His message and believe’ (John 4)
‘Then the father [of a sick boy] realized that that was the very time Jesus had him, “Your son will live.” And he and his entire household believed in Jesus.’ (John 4)
“Those who have done good will rise to experience eternal life...” (John 5)
“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to Me!” (John 5)
“God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for Him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs...God blesses those whose hearts are pure for they will see God. God blesses those who work for peace for they will be called the children of God. God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.” (Matthew 5 Beatitudes, Sermon on the Mount)
“Unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 5)
“Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you...you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5; Luke 6)
“If you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive you” (Matthew 6)
“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate...” (Matthew 7) “I am the gate. Those who come in through Me will be saved.” (John 10)
“Not everyone who calls out to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of My Father in heaven will enter.” (Matthew 7; Cf Luke 6:46)
“...many Gentiles will come from all over the world...and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 8)
“For if the miracles I did for you [Korazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum] had been done in [Tyre, Sidon, Sodom] they would have repented...it would still be here today. I tell you [they] will be better off on judgment day than you.” (Matthew 11)
“Take My yoke [my teachings] upon you. Let Me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11)
And Jesus said to the woman [who had washed his feet with tears and put perfume on them], “Your sins are forgiven...Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7)
“The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.” (Matthew 12)
“Anyone who does God’s will is My brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3)
“You [disciples] are permitted to understand the secret [mystery] of the Kingdom of God...the seed [God’s word] that fell on good soil represents those who hear and accept God’s word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty or even a hundred times as much as had been planted.” (Mark 4)
So what picture of Christ’s Gospel is forming from His teachings?
I had set a challenge for myself to see if I could figure out what the Good News was that Christ preached. It couldn’t be: believe in Him, crucified and risen and inherit eternal life. People were believing without the event of the crucifixion having taken place. So what was the Gospel of God?
Let me start by saying what the Gospel of Man might be: work hard and you’ll succeed (the American Way) or be born into the right circumstances and you’ll succeed; you’ll know if you have God’s favor by evaluating your circumstances—if you’re poor, you and/or your forefathers were sinners... Life is a struggle and you’re lucky if you attain anything at the peak of Maslow’s Hierarchy
The Good News Christ preached seems to turn this on its head. John the Baptist challenges us to prove that we have repented by how we live—feed the hungry, clothe the naked/poor (in other words, serve and look beyond your own needs at the bottom of the pyramid). And then John promises a baptism of the Holy Spirit and water. Christ too tells Nicodemus that we need to be born of the Holy Spirit and that’s how we get spiritual life, eternal life. We can only do this coming near God’s Light in order to expose and expunge our sins. To the Samaritan woman, Christ tells her that God promises living water flowing within us, providing eternal life. And that nourishment (the bottom of the hierarchy) comes from doing the will of the Father. This is an echo of His rebuke of Satan in the wilderness that life comes from the word of God, and not from bread. And another echo is that we should worship and serve (top of the hierarchy) only God and not ourselves, our reputations (esteem). It’s this message that has the others in the Samaritan village acknowledging that this man from Nazareth is the Savior of the world.
In an early synagogue experience, Christ reads from the Isaiah scroll how the time of the Lord’s favor has come. For several chapters God outlines how Israel’s fortune will be reversed at the time of the Redeemer. The Light will break forth over the land. The time of separation from God, because of the people’s sins, has ended. All the people will be righteous. The land will be possessed forever.
So this is the start of the Gospel of God: the Holy Spirit has been released upon the people. Light is shining through the people of Israel. The kingdom of God is here. Miracles are happening—Christ’s disciples are performing miracles as well as others outside the circle of disciples (Mark 9.38-39). Blessed are the poor...Do not worry or be anxious because your Father in heaven loves you...only seek the kingdom...focus on love and service and all else will take care of itself.
These are preliminary thoughts but they are freeing, grace-filled, heart-warming thoughts that we can have access to the Father, not by what we do beforehand but by humbly, contritely approaching Him and asking for His grace and mercy.
The next thoughts are: how else did Christ describe the Good News? (He does tell Nicodemus that the Son of Man must be lifted up and belief in Him will bring eternal life.) What did the early church preach as the Good News—a transition between access to the Holy Spirit towards Christ and Him crucified (Paul in 1 Corinthians)? So I may be looking into the early sermons found in the Acts.
If you’ve read many of my blogs, you may have ascertained that I relish in the contrary view. Often in staff meetings, I might play the Devil’s Advocate against my own proposals to make sure they are robust. Likewise, views of scripture that challenge the Sunday-School, simplistic, milk-faith interpretations make me go deeper in who I believe God is. Recently reading about Abraham has done the same thing. Who God picks seems to be the ones who need God more: childless Abram and Hannah, second-sons Isaac and Jacob, and younger sons Joseph and David and Solomon, strangers without families like Moses in Pharoah’s court (later in Jethro’s Midian) and the Moabitess Ruth.
Isaac’s story of his binding by Abraham as a test of faith can be viewed in contrary ways. Similar to Abraham’s questioning of God before the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah. This incident is viewed most often as an argument with God to try and save the two cities; I enjoy the perspective, perhaps more likely, that it’s Abraham’s way of interviewing God on His perspective on sin and justice—“Would You destroy them even if there are fifty righteous men there?” Perhaps the binding of Isaac is not a test of Abraham’s faith but Abraham’s test of God. We tend to view it as God wondering about Abraham’s faith. Did he trust God enough to sacrifice the sign of the blessing that meant he would be the father of nations? Would he unquestioningly travel a far distance, as a very old man, climb a mountain and bind his son and then kill him without knowing for certain that God would provide another son? There are clues that Abraham’s faith allowed him to carry through with the command: “We will return” the servants are told when the two set off from the base of the mountain; “The Lord will provide a sheep” Abraham answers Isaac’s query about the missing element for a burnt offering.
Genesis 22 starts with “...God tested Abraham’s faith”. His faith has already been tested: leaving Ur, Haran, trusting God to provide for a son even though he and Sarah are beyond middle-age. It seems if God is testing Abraham, Abraham is just as likely to test God’s promise. “Okay, Lord, you provided this son who seems to be THE sign of that the blessing/promise has arrived. You’re asking me to sacrifice him and I’ll call your bluff because I don’t think Sarah and I have it in us to have another child. I have rarely hesitated in other calls to action You’ve given, so I won’t now either.” The Lord made a covenant with Abraham and holds Himself to making it happen. Abraham is looking forward to seeing how He will do it.
In a recent leadership summit, the closing speaker polled the audience as to who thought ‘sinning was fun’. If anyone answered no, he postulated that the person either ‘did it’ incorrectly or was lying. I would say that anyone who thinks ‘sinning is fun’...never sinned to an extreme...was oblivious to the hurt they inflicted on others who were ‘in the way’ of the ‘fun’ and maybe the person was sociopathic...or really wasn’t committing a sin except in the eyes of church doctrine, not scripture.
Paul lists them out in Galatians 5.19-21:
...sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these.
I suppose you could say some of the lustful pleasures, the drunkenness and wild parties are fun. Who had fun the morning after if taken beyond moderation? The rest of the sins surely aren’t fun. When did anyone have ‘fun’ during outbursts of anger, hostility, quarreling, dissension and division?
Oh, woe for us! “There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when He judges you.” (James 2.13) Similar to Christ’s teaching on what to pray or how to pray—“...forgive us in same way, to the same extent we forgive others...”—this implies that if we’re not merciful, we will not receive any mercy. Or anyone else who doesn’t show mercy will not receive mercy. Only the merciful will receive mercy. “Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy,” according to Y’shua the Christ (Matthew 5.7).
How do you show mercy, that is not punishing someone who deserves punishment? [In case you’re confused about the difference between grace and mercy: grace is receiving a ‘reward’ or blessing you haven’t earned while mercy is not getting the punishment you deserve for a wrongdoing you’ve committed.] When someone else insults you, how often do you respond in thought or word with an insult? When someone else manipulates the system or the bosses so that they appear more promotable or worthy of a pay increase than you, how often are you seeking ways to sabotage them or ‘bring out the truth’ about their inability or political nature? How often do you gossip maliciously such that you’ve damaged someone else’s reputation in order to look better yourself—and you’re probably only gossiping about a perceived enemy?
You’ve have been given great mercy. Extend some to others.
One wit once said that 70 percent of public prayer (either it’s in a church or small group) is actually talking to the others in the space, and not actually talking to God. Another big percentage is talking ‘at’ God without really sharing anything heartfelt. Only a small percentage (my estimate of 1-3%) is talking with God.
I witnessed the worst case of not talking with God. A national ministry leader offered to pray for another leader on a webcast and here’s how it went: “Let’s pray...Bill, what a wonderful leader you are. You bless us with your skill and experience. Bill, we hope the surgery goes well...” and so on. I don’t think the ministry leader ever once addressed God.
Often in churches, pastors will pray to God for the first minute and then start talking to the congregation: “Lord, we know how great and awesome You are. You fill our lives with Your grace and mercy...and if any of you want to draw closer to God, and have decided to accept His wonderful grace, I invite you to repeat this prayer after me...”
What this shows me is that we’re not really paying attention to whom we’re talking. And then it’s obvious that the person who said 70% of praying isn’t praying is correct.
On a recent Jude 3 Project podcast, a panelist wondered if Christ was racist, perhaps even misogynist, for how He treated the woman from Tyre—a coastal Phoenician town well-known for trade. As recorded in Matthew 15, a woman from the coastal area begs Him to exorcise demons from her daughter. He ignores her. The disciples plead with Him to send her away because she’s annoying. He finally speaks to her but denying her request: “I’ve been sent to help the lost sheep—the people of Israel.” Mark’s gospel—though not recording the cold-shoulder treatment—has Christ comment that it’s not right to take food from the children’s plates and feed it to the dogs. And is this where He has debased her with a racist or misogynist comment? Has Christ sinned?
Artwork by Nicole Kutil (c) 2019
She replies that even dogs are allowed to eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table. With this expression of...Humility? Humiliation? Minimal expectations and hope? Christ acknowledges her great faith and relieves her daughter of the demonic torment.
Let’s try and evaluate the racist/misogynist charge with context. People from Tyre and Sidon were so astounded with Christ’s power that they traveled to Galilee to see Him—along with many others from other regions. It seems He did not shun them within His own home region. But when He travels to the Phoenician territory, He seems to operate with a different principle. Healing this woman’s daughter may be the only miracle recorded in along the coast. (A blind man may have been healed as recorded in Mark 7 depending on how you read the sequence of events in the verses 31-32: the miracle may have taken place in Sidon or back in Galilee or the Decapolis on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.) He clearly doesn’t have a problem healing Gentiles. He healed this blind man. He healed the Gentile possessed by the demon(s) known as Legion.
Tyre at the time of King David and King Solomon was an ally (“a loyal friend” in the form of King Hiram). The relationship may have soured a bit when Solomon gave Hiram control over 20 towns in Galilee that Hiram called worthless and the area became known as Cabul/Kabul (kebel sterile). In a Psalm written by a clan of Levitical (priestly) gatekeepers, Egypt and Babylon and Tyre/Sidon are considered citizens of Jerusalem (Ps. 87). The Phoenicians were considered brethren (Amos 1.9). Later in the rebuilding of Jerusalem—after a concurrent 70-year period of divine discipline? (Is. 23; Jer. 47)— merchants from the coastal cities violated a commandment but obeyed the rebuke from Nehemiah and stopped selling on the Sabbath. Destruction or loss of autonomy came because they broke the treaty of brotherhood, were unfriendly towards Jerusalem and allied closely with Philistia (Amos 1; Jer. 47; Ezek. 26-28). Yet the Lord promised restoration. In Christ’s time, could the Phoenicians also be considered lost sheep? A part of the people of Israel? Or, at worst, a mongrel dog allowed to wander into the household (oikos, koinania) and share the scraps? Because of the souring of attitude by Hiram, the later disregard and traitorous alliance with Philistia, Tyre and Sidon lost their family status. Christ was called to reach out to the Gentiles also; He charged His disciples with the same mission after His ascension.
My guess is that Christ’s initial reluctance to offer the Phoenician woman help was not because it didn’t fit His mission—He was traveling through the area—nor that she wasn’t worthy because of her race, ethnicity or sex. (Also remember He was very welcoming of the Samaritan woman, whose heritage was one of directly rejecting the some of the teachings of Moses.) His reluctance was a test of faith. Did she want to be part of the household of God’s people or remain in the alliance opposed to Him and only desired a tidbit of divine assistance without committing to anything further?
And that is the question for all of us today. Are we with Him or against Him?
First off, a big fan of Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics: How the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. But recently I had a conversation with a friend who claimed another friend was a staunch Republican and needed to find a follower of Christ who is a Democrat. I said, “I am.” His eyebrows shot up in amazement. Where I tend to congregate (not always in church, by the way) with other believers, those circles tend to be Republican. (And lately, the Republican party’s lack of an honor code or consistent values—law and order, sancrosanct family units, integrity, truth—have driven me further away.) But there’s hypocrisy on both sides so why do I tend to vote for Democratic candidates?
If there’s an issue on which Republicans and Democrats are most divided, it’s the immigration issue. I realize that’s broad, but a lot of political analysts can pretty much predict how you’re going to vote based on your stance on immigration. From a business perspective, I’m in favor. Increased population means a growing economy, a larger labor pool so that our businesses aren’t hindered by a shortage in the workforce. [Note: the economic growth of the US was aided by the Boomer generation entering the workforce and the decimation of the rest of the industrial world from WWII. By 1990, the Boomers had entered the workforce, followed by much smaller generations, and the rest of the first/second world nations had reindustrialized. Hence, we started to experience lower GDP growth; still a growing economy but at a slower rate.] Immigration is needed to fill all the job vacancy postings. In many, if not most of the US, we have more job openings than we have unemployed.
Second, the two commandments that Christ emphasized are based on love. Love is the directive He enjoins us with through most of the scriptures. I find the Democratic policy on immigration to be more consistent with ‘love your neighbor’ than the Republican policy. Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan—a disliked foreigner who ‘immigrated’ to Jerusalem—was told when He was asked, “Who is my neighbor?” The answer is, “All in your midst” and we are called to be the good neighbor to all we meet whether they are in our group or not, we like them or not, we are in our own ‘neighborhood’ or not. Leviticus 19 follow up the ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ command with a command to ‘love the foreigners among you as yourself’. Why? Because ‘we’ were immigrants once and He is our LORD God—our ever-present Commander of Commanders, King of Kings...
On other issues, the worldview that divides the two parties are whether the societal problems are caused by individuals only (Republicans) or systems/governmental-corporate structures (Democrats). Therefore, Republicans think we need to ‘fix’ individuals and government is not the solution to any problem—generally the market is. Democrats recognize the sinfulness of individuals and suggest that we ‘fix’ the systems, often through government regulation. Was the financial crisis caused by rogue people (Republicans) or loopholes that allowed investment banks and mortgage companies that allowed people to over-invest in real estate and overheat the housing market (Democrats)?
I believe all economic systems and polities would work if people were angels. Instead, we succumb to our devilish sides for economic and influential (aka power) gains and thus, no system or polity is perfect. Even though we “can’t legislate morality,” we need systems—government—to provide order as God seems to imply through scripture, even if the government is a corrupt Babylon or Assyria or Rome. When His people strayed, He ‘created’ a leader/prophet/judge to guide them.
...and any other politician you might disagree with, and competitors, and those neighbors you feel wronged by:
You may have heard that this past Sunday was declared Pray for the President Day, by Franklin Graham who has endorsed perhaps the most corrupt, misogynistic, racist, narcissistic, xenophobic President of the United States we’ve ever had. There are exhortations in scripture for us to pray for people in authority. President Trump, apparently to take advantage of this declaration, stopped in at a mega-church just outside of Washington DC, following a morning of recreation. He didn’t participate in this church’s services or any church’s services. He went up on stage to ask for the prayer.
In conversations, I find that praying for the President falls into a few categories:
1) bless the President to be successful on policies I agree with;
2) neutrally bless the President with divine wisdom to govern well;
3) change the President’s heart and mind;
4) perhaps all of the above.
We have a few examples of suggestions for how we should pray for those who oppose us or we simply disagree: Christ on the cross; disciples in the Samaritan village. There may be others we could include, but let’s start with these.
Christ asked that God forgive those who crucified Him. “They don’t know what they’re doing.” Just forgiveness for they were blind and deaf to the coming of His kingdom. Christ was asking that God forgive those who were hurting, persecuting Him. He was not asking for forgiveness for the persecution of others.
In an earlier incident, Christ and His disciples were traveling to Jerusalem passing through Samaria. A village didn’t show hospitality to them and the disciples wanted to call down heavenly fire on the village. Christ rebuked them. There was no call to pray for the Samaritans to change in heart or mind.
Christ also exhorts us to pray for and bless our enemies. So we might be left with option 2, as Paul seems to suggest in his epistles.
In my opinion, it was unacceptable to pray for the President on the stage because it implies an endorsement of his values, policies and behaviors. I don’t know if it happened in this case but I would have asked him, “Mr. President, what would you like prayer for?” This is much like the situation with Christ and the blind man by the side of the road; Christ asked him to state his request even though it was obvious the man was blind. Perhaps it’s important for God to know if we want to change, change our circumstances, change our hearts and minds so we might ‘do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.’ If the President expresses a desire to decide and act in a way that intends to bring glory and honor to God, I could pray for that. If he just wanted to be blessed so that he would be successful...”Mr. President, I will pray for you but not publicly nor that your success is the expectation that God will grant. May God grant you the courage to do the right thing so that all people living in the United States could live in peace, in justice, in love and in joy.”
Sometimes knowing the end of the story is helpful. And then there are times when other people hate it that you reveal the end of the story. I think the book of Job almost needs to be read backwards.
I presume you know the basics of the story: Job suffers, his friends challenge him with regard to what caused God to punish him, God shows up and responds to Job’s request for a hearing, God restores Job’s fortunes including a new family.
Knowing the end of the story is important, I believe, to how you should read the beginning and middle of the story.
After the LORD had finished speaking to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has. (42.7)
This can change how you read chapters 38-41 when God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind. It’s also to understand Job’s humble responses to God in these chapters. Especially when Job knows he will find justice from God—“Would He use His great power to argue with me? No, He would give me a fair hearing” (23.6)—God’s words at the end are in response to a request for a fair hearing. But here’s the main point for this lesson: if you want to selectively read the book of Job, focus on Job’s words and what he says about God. Here are a few of such points:
God surrounds some people with difficulties (3.23)
God sees you; God looks for you (7.8)
God performs countless miracles, not just the awesome works of creation (9.5-13)
He encourages and thwarts judges, counselors, kings (12.13-25)
God ‘hates me and angrily tears me apart’ as if to show that I’ve sinned (16.7-14)
We need a mediator, as between two friends, for us and God (16.21)
These are just a few, and there’s a lot more—some were skipped between chapters 3 and 16. Some of them are not easy to read depending on how you would describe God’s character. I think they’re worth wrestling with. You may decide, like a pastor-friend of mine, that Job is the least favorite book because of how God’s character is perceived.
To call me pedantic is received with honor...most of the time. I acknowledge that often in conversations—especially with my wife—the need for accuracy is distracting and overlooks the gist of the conversation. In case you don’t know what a pedant is, it can be explained with this example: someone might yell, “A 3-horned rhino is charging down the street, goring people!” And the pedant will say, “You mean a 2-horned rhino...”
In almost all of my blogs, I’ve refused to use the name Jesus, as a bastardization of the Latin J-E-S-V-S, which is IESUS in English. In Latin, it might have been pronounced similar to today’s Spanish Jesus (hay-sues). The Latin form comes the translation of the Greek Iesous for the Hebrew or Aramaic Y’shua or Isa. It’s the latter forms that I prefer to use. It’s what His mother, siblings, neighbors, disciples, fans/admirers...and enemies would have called Him. The modern-day “Jesus” is like a nickname...sort of like calling Mikhail Misha, or Edward Teddy or Scott Scooter. If the person is okay with the nickname, then by all means call him/her by that name.
I don’t go by a nickname myself. I view it as disrespectful unless that person is in a close relationship, like my wife calling me ‘honey’ or ‘hus-butt’.
When you use Christ’s nickname, are you indicating intimacy or just following the crowd?
One of the main ways we have in the past 400 years to understand the heart and mind of God is reading scripture. Too often we might project our own heart and mind onto His words. In our daily life, when we’re asked to consider how someone else might feel, we project onto them our own feelings. If we see someone speeding, the first speculation as to the reason tells us more about why we would exceed the speed limit than why that other driver is speeding. There can be 18 different reasons why that person is speeding.
And so when we are faced with troublesome passages like the end of Job—“who is this that questions My wisdom...?—or a short passage in which Christ questions His disciples—“do you still not understand?”—several times, we will project how we’d feel in that situation. I’d feel frustrated, impatient, annoyed, flummoxed, befuddled, doubtful in my selection of disciples, etc. Almost all of us would read the passage of Matthew 16.5-12 similar to this, if even more strident in tone:
Yet we are taught that Christ is full of the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Those character traits will govern our tone of voice differently. Also, we’re taught that God is love, Christ is God and “love is patient and kind...[not] rude...is not irritable, and keeps no record of being wronged...never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful...” So now the challenge is this: knowing Christ’s character, read those words in His voice of patience, kindness, hopefulness...
I’m not a good enough actor to pull it off, and I would seriously have to remove a lot of myself to only let love, patience and hope shine through the questions. But Christ said those words in that way...and that’s how we need to hear them.
If you can recite that passage with Christ’s tone of voice, record a short video and send it to me.
I grew up on Air Force Bases, moving every few years. I went to lots of schools. Sometimes changing schools mid-year because we moved from off-base to on-base. I learned to make friends quickly, but I also learned to leave friends behind. One of the benefits of moving often is that if you somehow got a bad reputation—cheat, liar, wimp, whatever—in a few years you’d have a chance to start over. I contrast that with an employee in my company in a small-ish city. Other employees warned me about him because of things that happened in his younger days. He was no-good; he’d never be good at anything. In this town, the adage was true: people never change. It seemed to be true in his current position. After learning more about him—from him—we found a position that seemed better suited...and he thrived...and his reputation started to change.
Likewise, I recently watched a mini-documentary called Godspeed. It reminded me of this employee because one of the points of the documentary is that in a village, everyone knows everyone: the exceptional, the good, the bad, the ugly. It was true of Christ that everyone would know Him—not just of Him, but directly know Him—His mother, father, siblings, grandfather, grandmother, great-grandfather, etc. with all their virtues and warts. They would know that ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ and that the sins of the father carry on for generations. If His reputation was blown, He would never recover. And this is the significance of “He grew in wisdom and stature in the eyes of God and men” in the single brief passage related to those years between His birth and His ministry.
Revisit the story of Job and focus on the three friends that are trying to get Job to confess to a great sin that would have caused God to punish him. First, they’re operating from the worldview that bad things are a result of God’s disfavor and a sign of punishment; this worldview also states that good things are a sign of God’s favor—as was true for most of the ancient world, and still true of our worldview today in many ways. Since they know Job’s virtues and warts, this punishment seems untoward, unusual, not deserved...therefore, there must be some great secret sin that warrants God’s great punishment. “Confess, Job,” they say, “and live.”
His reply: “I have nothing to confess. And yet you accuse me without any fear of the Almighty.” This last sentiment is an interesting one in that we are taught through Moses, as one of the great commandments, not to bear false witness—not to accuse— against another. His friends know him and yet wonder if he’s hiding a secret sin still. Somehow Job has grown up in this village with a different worldview of God. In this community, he has developed a different theology, contrary to his childhood and generational pressures.
And then we have God’s response. He’s angry with the friends and affirms that Job has spoken correctly about Him. Job’s worldview is accurate; his friends that he’s known his whole life and have a different worldview are not right.
And so this is an amazing aspect of Job’s story. He was a maverick in his village. He found a straight path that veered from the others. And in a village where there are no secrets, his friends assumed there must be when they look at the ‘evidence’ of Job’s circumstances. Today, we can have secrets because most of us live, work and worship in three different communities. Know one person really knows us. Job’s wife doesn’t accuse him. She doesn’t hint at a secret sin. In her own grief, she encourages him to just surrender to the inevitable as quickly as possible. How much do we hide from our spouses and other close family as well? How much do we reveal? For me to share a bit of feeling—fear, doubt—feels like a floodgate. And so I would struggle living in a village. You might too if you’re not willing to be vulnerable in your faith community.
One of the common refrains in ancient times is determining how great your god is by the prosperity of its theocracy (ruling by god). It was the cause of many fights between Israelites and Philistines, Moabites, Amalekites, etc. It was a reason for wars, conflicts, revolutions in that a god favored the leader to restore order, justice, peace, influence and power to a people. And success in that endeavor meant you were right that this god was on your side. Conversely, failure meant the other gods were mightier.
Even a cursory review of history puts the God of Abraham, Israel and Jacob in poor light. If the Israelites had any territory, it was small...though important in terms of eastern Mediterranean trade routes. But never on the scale of the Greeks, Macedonians, Babylonians, Egyptians...and later the Romans.
The Romans had 400 years of building an empire before Christ appeared. The Israelites had 400 years of silence. The Romans had internal conflicts; the Israelites’ territory was overrun by one nation and another, almost constantly except for the brief reigns of David and Solomon. They were the Poland of ancient times, sandwiched between two massive imperial powers for centuries.
Why then would you say the God of Abraham was powerful? Sure His people were perhaps a million, a million-and-a-half strong at the time of crossing Jordan into the Promised Land, the promised territory, and their unusual victories struck fear in some of those inhabiting that territory. But within a few hundred years, the nation’s influence had died until David, and then it was gone again in a few generations. Many of the people were sent into exile to those more powerful nations.
N.T. Wright argues that Christ’s appearance is the climax of the history of God’s people. It is how God’s people would have global influence through the sharing of the Good News: that God’s favor is not shown in prosperity but in justice, love. Christ’s Good News was put to the test daily as He walked, as some say, at the Godspeed of 3 miles an hour. Matt Canlis learned while living in a small towns in Scotland that villagers know everything about you, the good, the bad and the ugly. They know such things about your parents, your siblings, your sweetheart, your kids. There’s no hiding, no lying. If you start spouting off that you believe the Kingdom of God is coming, your reputation is put to the test. If you start saying, “I and the Father are one” you’d better run to the caves if you can’t back it up.
Why would anyone listen when Roman soldiers and conscripts are standing nearby or on the next block or patrolling less than a 10 minute stroll away? How can you maintain belief that your god is Jehovah-Jireh, the God who provides, El Shaddai, the God who provides bounty and/or victory, when you yourself have no power nor influence and subject to the capriciousness of the ruling militia and the ruling classes? Centuries later, when leaders of Rome adopted this Christianity in the 4th century, it put a stamp on the fact that Rome was already losing ground for the last 200 years, and perhaps was desperate.
And yet, belief in this God has prevailed.
The subject question is not asked with regard to the persistence of faith, but on what do we claim God’s favor. Are we in God’s favor when circumstances are going well for us? It seems America in the last 200 years is more like Rome than Israel. Pax Americana for the last 70 years mimics the height of Pax Romana (peace of Rome), a goal supposedly given to Rome by the gods to restore justice and peace to the world...by conquering it. So is the god of America, the God of Israel (the underdog) or the god of Rome (the superpower)? You want it to be the latter. But what’s the evidence in God’s story?
Recently, I saw a perspective that evinced the response, “Of course!” And the fact made me wonder if God had implemented the wrong strategy...or maybe the wrong strategy was implemented by humans. The fact: most people spend 40+ hours at work. A small portion spend 1+ hours at church. Why is the church the main focus for discipleship and outreach? At some point, the modern church—and here I mean the institution past the 5th century AD—is a periodic advertisement for following Christ. At best, it’s a school to ‘equip the saints’. Most of the time, for the events that happen in a church service or mass, it’s an advertisement for God.
If the church is an advertisement, what should be the focus? What should happen on Sunday mornings, Wednesday evenings, and the occasional retreats?
The main marketing—outreach—thrust for Christ are the ‘service’ users and providers. And it’s mostly them that turn the others off. How do we ‘equip the saints for ministry’ the other 167 hours of the week—or 112 hrs if you allow people to sleep?
If God wants to reach the world—and He does—why do we think He’s using the church as the main thrust? My guess: He’s working through other means and we, who are invested in churches, haven’t caught on yet.
Okay, the title is a over-used phrase...but the sentiment is real. If we really believe _____, then we will do __________. If we’re not doing ____________, perhaps we really don’t believe _________.
One of those root beliefs allows us trust God in all of its layers: do I believe He is dependable (i.e. He’ll show up when He says He will)? Do I believe He’s competent (i.e. He can do what He says He’ll do)? He’s approachable and will listen to me without derision and so we can be vulnerable with Him? He lives out His values and is not capricious—which admittedly can be a tricky belief if you watch what He does in scriptures?
Also, this cuts to our idolatry. We too often look for other things/ideas to give us peace: our bank accounts, our human relationships, our reputation, our influence—our socioeconomic status in short. What happens if it’s threatened? How much do we trust? How much do we think that status reflects our relationship with God? We might evaluate our circumstances for indications that we’re in God’s favor, God’s will...If a 1st-century career counselor met with the apostle Paul, the church-planter might be advised to stick with tent-making. “Paul, you’re being stoned, jailed, shipwrecked, run out of town...maybe you should consider a different career. Things aren’t going well for you. I think God has something else in mind for you to do. Just be a businessman and do evangelism with your customers and other one-on-one situations. Don’t be going into marketplaces and preaching to crowds...” When in business, our efforts aren’t showing financial success, we will think that God isn’t interested in this. If we really believed that it’s His money, His assets, and we are just stewards, we wouldn’t panic if He chooses to move the money to other places as investments in new areas...as long as we’re doing all we can, working as if He’s the Boss, and praying for guidance.
The same is true for social justice issues. Why wouldn’t we act as His hands, His eyes, His heart? If we really believed all people are created in His image, and He loves them unconditionally, how can we not love, respect and bless everyone...even the jerks and scary types?
There’s a problem with success. We assume that success assumes the process was a good one, nay a great one, that got us the success. For example, we might think assume that steady business growth of 15%—which means the business doubles every five years—means that our marketing strategy, our product/service development strategy, our franchising, our financial controls, our talent recruitment strategy are all working together and working well...because we’re getting the results we want. We assume the strategies are working well because the results are as expected. This is called Outcome Bias. The outcome validates the process and causes us not to question if we’re missing something or have just been lucky.
We build our future forecasts on the past success.
We believe our strategies are great because the results are great. And then...our revenue shrinks one year even though we haven’t changed any of the strategies nor any of the related processes.
Assume you were to asked, “How do you know so-and-so is operating in God’s will?” You probably would answer based on their circumstances: financial, emotional/relational (e.g. they’re still married), level of power or influence, etc. You might ask a similar question regarding nations and have similar criteria in order to formulate the answer.
But it is this thinking that gets the church in trouble. God’s favor is never determined by their status. Christ said, “The Son of Man does not have a place to lay His head.” Paul, as a missionary, repeatedly suffered. And, in chapter 10, the prophet Isaiah shares God’s view that Assyria would say its god was more powerful than all the other kingdoms’ gods, including Israel, Judah and Samaria’s YHWH, because it had decimated any other nation it came up against. No one living in the ancient times would have said that YHWH, who selected Israel to be His ambassadors, was anything but a backwater god. He didn’t have many followers and His followers weren’t influential nor powerful nor rich. They were constantly getting beaten up by Babylonians, Egyptians and, just before Christ’s arrival, the Romans. And they were still getting beaten up for centuries after Christ’s arrival.
But what do we do in churches? We promote the wealthy and successful. We promote them into greater pastoral responsibilities from small churches to larger ones. We promote large company business leaders into being elders/deacons on our churches’ governing boards. We promote the writings of those writers/leaders with large followings. We promote mimicking successful people’s leadership styles—even though we can’t say that they’re behaving, deciding, prioritizing and morally viewing situations with God’s eyes and heart.
So the next time you choose who to follow, listen to, promote, christen as a good, true ambassador of YHWH’s, ask yourself, “What is my criteria for knowing if he/she is just such a person favored by God?”
If you’ve ever spent time in another culture, you’ve experienced culture shock. Your living conditions, language, mores and other expected behaviors are different than the culture you’re used to, grew up in. Often times the culture shock is exhibited in two extreme ways: complete rejection of the different, including denigration of the culture into which you’re immersed; complete adoption of the different, including denigration of your home culture. When you’re a minority, you are often faced with these choices. Most of us only face being the minority when we’re on vacation in a new place here or abroad (yes, there are subcultures in the US and with their own ‘languages’—terminology, nuances, accents, acceptable behaviors and clothing, etc.) or a short-term mission trip or an extended assignment for work or mission. (We even experience this when we visit a place with another religious tradition—imagine a Baptist trying to figure out Catholic Mass, or vice versa when the Catholic is wondering when one genuflects during the service.)
Let’s assume you’re now a refugee in your adopted country. Or it’s a similar situation, if you’re a missionary. Or even if you’re born in this country and you’re non-white...
Or you’re an Israelite and there’s an occupying, foreign force and political authority—Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Rome. Or Korea before WWII, occupied by Japan. Or any of the other colonized territories by European powers.
Or you’re a Hebrew in Egypt, flourishing until forced into slavery. What you really want is the freedom to be yourself, to practice your culture without limitations or loss of security and stability.
You have two major choices like the extreme choices with culture shock: adoption or rejection. And then you have subordinate choices within those. Within adoption, you can practice imitation—which risks a massive loss of self-respect and identity—as some commentators have suggested was King Herod’s plan and the Sadducees practice to retain power and influence. Hellenistic Jews are another example, living as Gentiles though ethnically they were Jews. Imitation reduces the risk of ostracization by the ruling authorities and the potential for violent acts against you.
The middle ground response is to avoid contact with the majority or ruling authority. The Essenes and even John the Baptizer chose this by withdrawing to the wilderness. All of us choose this to some extent when we live, work and worship only with people like us—whether they’re like us in appearance, socioeconomic status, religious or political affiliations. There may not be active adoption or rejection, but there is contempt for the prevailing culture and fear of the consequences of the other choices.
There is active rejection of the dominant culture: fighting back to change that opposing culture. Colonizers did this. American migration into unsettled territories forced First Nations’ assimilation into American-British customs. Western missionaries often did this until 50 or so years ago, when they recognized that becoming a follower of Christ did not mean becoming part of Western culture. And this is often the mistake, we make when interacting with Muslims. We assume that adoption of belief in Christ means adoption of American or European lifestyle; some have even been advised to change their given names to ones of an Anglo heritage. We saw a similar thing with celebrities who adopted Islam changing their Anglo names to Arabic ones as a form of rejection of the dominant culture: Cat Stevens to Yusuf Islam; Lew Alcindor to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, for examples. We know of violent opposition to colonialism. In biblical times, there were uprisings (Maccabees, e.g.) nearly every decade. And subversive actions taken by Zealots.
The second middle ground is making contact and it’s neither adoption nor rejection. It’s humility in the sense of honoring who you are and seeing the good in the other. It’s interesting that in a discourse about the people’s response to mourning over the state of Israel and hope for coming heavenly kingdom, Christ admonishes the rejection of His and John’s behavior. And in speaking to the present situation, He invites those who are confused by an appropriate response to the oppression and spiritual drought of God’s favor.
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
The Good News is that God’s favor is not shown in the circumstances. It’s felt in our head and heart as a child of God and knowing this allows us to resist any epithets (N*** word, drunkard, glutton, sympathizer, demon-possessed). Others cannot control us with their tongues by forcing a response—either subjugation or violent reaction. We are, in the words of Stephen Covey, response-able. We can choose how to respond in our security that our identity is secure. Our adverse circumstances—maybe even our ‘verse’ circumstances—are a temptation to abdicate our status and our cultural heritage, our faith in our ‘Ezer’ (Help). And by our example of loving even our enemies, praying for them (yes, for the authorities as Paul advises in Romans) and blessing them as Christ says, we might redeem them and invite them into His kingdom and out of the earthly kingdom.
By the way, if you think doesn’t apply to followers of Christ in the US, consider this: God’s people have almost always been in the minority, the oppressed, the disinherited, the marginalized...found in and finding the least, the last and the lost. If you’re not, whose footsteps are you following?
What is the Good News that Christ preached? He couldn’t go around saying that if you believe in Him, His death and resurrection that you would be saved and have eternal life. 2 of those conditions hadn’t happened yet. He didn’t even reveal to His disciples that He was going to suffer until near the end of His earthly ministry.
But the Good News was so powerful, and the Christ so compelling, that the evil empire threw everything at Him to stop Him: wilderness temptations, storms on the sea, legions of demons rushing out of the tombs towards Him, political intrigue, angry crowds, religious condemnation, mockery from His siblings, an oppressive regime/an occupying military force, betrayal from one of His own, hand-picked disciples, and a snubbing by one of the inner circle. There was not a safe ‘corner’ for the Lord to hide: physical, emotional/relational, political, economic, intellectual and spiritual torment was everywhere. Then at His trials, the crowd who, of anything they would want was freedom from Rome, i.e. freedom to be autonomous and feel the favor of God again, succumbed to using the power of Rome against their Messiah. At the crucifixion, one of the other sufferers mocked Him as well, disregarding his own lowly status as a thief and trying a last-ditch effort to elevate his bruised self-esteem and family’s reputation. When we are part of the disenfranchised, the disinherited, we are tempted to do what we can to make ourselves feel better and elevate our status by any means.
Christ said there’s a better way. Our circumstances don’t define our heavenly status. “Blessed are the poor...Blessed are those who mourn...” In many ways, an apt description of Job’s situation after Satan set about tempting this righteous man. And in time of Christ’s ministry, imagine living a life where everything is controlled by someone else: the ruling class, the government, the wealthy...and there’s very little opportunity to advance your status and take care of your loved ones. Christ lived in a time when it was “All for the Best” (Godspell):
When you feel sad, or under a curse Your life is bad, your prospects are worse Your wife is sighing, crying, And your olive tree is dying, Temples are graying, and teeth are decaying And creditors weighing your purse... Your mood and your robe Are both a deep blue You'd bet that Job Had nothing on you... Don't forget that when you get to Heaven you'll be blessed.. Yes, it's all for the best...
Some men are born to live at ease, doing what they please, Richer than the bees are in honey Never growing old, never feeling cold Pulling pots of gold from thin air The best in every town, best at shaking down Best at making mountains of money They can't take it with them, but what do they care? They get the center of the meat, cushions on the seat Houses on the street where it's sunny.. Summers at the sea, winters warm and free All of this and we get the rest... But who is the land for? the sun and the sand for? You guessed! It's all for the best...
We, simplistically, say that He died for our sins—and there are scriptures with this exact phrasing. However, the Hebrew Scriptures had opportunities for forgiveness: the various offerings, including scapegoats, and confession (Ps. 32). We were given plenty of options for removing our guilt. We were not given anything to reduce our shame, our ‘sinful nature,’ anything to tame our spirit that would want to ease the pain we live with. Greed, envy, pride live inside us; once we gained the knowledge of good and evil, we’d want to use all of this knowledge to help ourselves.
Christ knew that more rules, more attempts at living under the Law written by Moses, wouldn’t help us. Not only did He have to teach that there was a better way, He had to show it. So He suffered through all that was thrown at Him. And then when Satan thought he had won, that he had beaten the curse of the woman’s offspring crushing his head, Christ showed that even when evil throws everything we can still win. His resurrection proves it. Hallelujah!
NT Wright calls Romans 8.18-27 the climax of Paul’s letter to Romans, and yet it’s probably the least quoted passage. Most readers jump past those verses to the more popular (most popular?) ones regarding how nothing can separate us from the love of God. Wright suggests that if you start in these verses and then work out, you’ll see the bigger picture of what Paul and the Holy Spirit are trying to express to us. “The Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words” because we don’t know what to pray for. Mostly because we are not understanding our role in bringing about the new creation.
Christ came to show us how we are to love: love God, love our neighbor and fulfill a role as steward of God’s creation. We know what we’re supposed to do and yet we don’t do it (Romans 7) despite having the law. We need practical advice on how to live with each other (Romans 12, 13, 14, 15). We shouldn’t ignore how the created earth, its fauna and flora, point us back to God and do our part to ease its groaning (Romans 1) and we’ve neglected our role (“fallen short of the glory” Romans 3).
In this brief passage in Romans, we have the world groaning in hope for a return to the state of Eden. We have our bodies groaning in hope for a return to Eden as well when we’re free of death and disease and able to walk humbly with our Lord. And so we have the Holy Spirit groaning to help our spirits find that connection with God and find our God-given role in bringing our neighbors, our world back into the grace and bring forth its glory. We don’t know what to pray, because we don’t understand how we fit into this bigger picture, and the Holy Spirit helps us. Despite being mired in prayers about parking spots and comfortable circumstances, the Holy Spirit with groans reaches to the throne room on our behalf to open our eyes to how we help redeem God’s creation.
At a ‘dismantling racism’ seminar recently, the speaker had us focus on our shared values, our shared belief systems and then from that we could break down barriers. People familiar with debate (the legitimate form of it) realize that you can’t win by attacking the others; you win by finding common ground and then finding the nugget that shifts the perspective. In business, we know we can solve a lot of performance issues if we don’t focus on the people, but on the problem, i.e. the poor results of the performance and its root causes (very rarely is it a people-problem).
Our problem though is that we too often think in terms of zero-sum. If ‘they’ get a win, make some progress, get an advantage or something else that ‘we’ want, it means we lose, slip back, own a disadvantage or we have to settle for what we can get instead of what we want. Often, it’s power. We humans have a hard time relinquishing power...especially if we worked hard to get it. We have a hard time relinquishing attention or recognition.
The better among us can. In a book Those People, the author recounts many stories of courage, stamina and faith among the homeless and poor. Often they can look beyond their circumstances to caring for others—e.g. a person with stage 4 cancer more concerned for the grandchildren. Those of us in less vulnerable circumstances have a hard time giving away a few precious minutes to help someone. Remember the Good Samaritan story. Apparently it’s been duplicated on a seminary campus. The more hurried, the least likely a seminarian was likely to help—even though the values were not in question. And presumably not the person’s ethics or character. What is most striking about the parable that Christ teaches is not that a merchant helped a person who had been beaten to the brink of death, robbed and left naked. Or that the religious types didn’t help. What is striking is that it’s one of ‘those people’ who did help at the risk of his own safety—the Samaritan didn’t know if the muggers weren’t around. The Samaritan in Christ’s time was like a Muslim in America today—kind of sharing a similar religion but his religion was ‘wrong’. Even though the Samaritan/Muslim helped the victim, he would have no idea if this person was a fellow Samaritan/Muslim (a member of the out-group like himself) or a Jew (part of the in-group); the victim was naked and unconscious so his clothing nor his speech would help identify which tribe he was a member of. But the Samaritan/Muslim not only extended immediate care but promised the innkeeper that he would fulfill any financial obligations in a month’s time.
We often look down on those in a different socioeconomic class, job position, neighborhood, religion, etc. and forget that we are supposed to be their neighbor. Even if we think they’re an enemy, Christ calls us to love them, pray for them and bless them. Can you love, pray for and bless your ‘enemies’?
Women are the protectors (ezer), the warrior-princesses, if you will allow a usurpation of the phrase. In the Garden of Eden, Eve could be the one who steps in front of Adam when they meet the serpent...
With this warrior-princess view, it can change how you view some of the lessons from scripture. Looking back, often we think the systems, policies, reactions to circumstances that created new practices are infallible...especially if we believe those systems, policies and practices are working for us. This is superbly true if they're beneficial for our 'in-group'. Today, we concentrate our view of women's role on Genesis 3 ("he will rule over you") Greek scripture passages like Ephesians 5.21 and 1 Peter 3.7 that suggest women submit to husbands and are weaker (without strength). What if God views women differently as warrior-princesses--not literally in the military sense but figuratively as a protector and guide?
In Genesis 3, the serpent talks to Eve initially. Adam is there, mutely standing by. It's as if the couple were walking through paradise and met the serpent who was 'more crafty than of the wild animals.' The conversation continues between the two and we all know how it ends. Adam follows her example and eats the forbidden fruit. Later, Adam finds his voice and answers God's query of "Where are you?" As their transgression is revealed, Adam shamelessly shifts the blame to Eve...and to God ("...the woman You gave me..."). Despite his complaint, he escapes cursing; the serpent, the woman and the ground are cursed...and his immortality is removed. Men will rule over women, perhaps similar to US government structure of civilian Commander-in-Chief (the president) ruling over the military. Eve failed to protect Adam and their blessed status of unhindered communion with God. There are consequences to the abdication.
And when people get power, it's really hard for them to relinquish or share any authority. We see this in business and politics all the time. Rules are established to maintain our status.
When the 'sons of God' in Genesis 6 conceived children with the beautiful daughters/warrior-princesses, the offspring 'became the heroes and famous warriors of ancient times' (Gen. 6.4). [Aside: notice that the ground's curse seems to be removed after Noah's ark experience--Gen. 8.21.] This is also one of the first references to male warriors following one of Cain's sons boasting.
I wonder also if things continued to go awry when Abram/Abraham tried to protect the 'protector,' Sarai/Sarah, when he lied about being brother-sister instead of husband-wife (Gen. 12 to the Pharaoh of Egypt and Gen. 20 to the King of Gerar). Later in the Exodus account, Moses' sister, not initially identified as Miriam who is also Aaron's sister (Numbers 26.59 and elsewhere), watches protectively over baby Moses as he's rescued from the river by the Pharoah's daughter and suggests their mother as a nurse-maid. Still later, Zipporah, Moses' wife, protects him from killed by God by taking action to circumcise her son. Miriam is a prophet: the first of many female prophets (Exod. 15.20). But when Aaron is coerced into making the golden calf as an idol, Miriam is silent. After sometime in the wilderness, Aaron and Miriam let their jealousy of Moses' position cause complaining (Num. 12): Moses is not following the commandments--he has married a non-Jewish woman. They assert that God has also spoken through them, not just through Moses. And since they haven't broken that particular marriage rule, they should have equal status. God convenes a meeting with Moses, Aaron and Miriam and expresses His anger over their complaints about their status. When He leaves, Miriam is struck with leprosy; Aaron is not. She is only saved from imminent death because Aaron repents and pleads on her behalf and Moses prays. Seven days later, she is healed. Why was Miriam punished and not Aaron? Did God hold her, the ezer-protector, to a higher standard? As with Eve, perhaps there are harsh consequences for those who abdicate their responsibilities.
There may be more examples, and do let me know of countervailing examples, as you read the scriptures.
I’ve heard others say there’s something magical about becoming a grandparent. “Your heart just opens up in a whole new way,” they say. I’ve experienced the magic in the past 18 months. I think for several reasons: I’ve had the privilege of caring for my grandson for several hours each week; I experience moments that I never experienced with my daughters because I was too busy working and traveling; I’m also at a point in my career where the problems of work plague my subconcious less and so my fuller attention is on my grandson when I’m with him; I’m also confident in his parents that he will be taught and will embrace great values so my role is to model them that shows him the legacy of character. A child’s heart is precious thing.
I also think it’s why Christ enjoyed spending time with them. He rebuked the disciples when they tried to hinder kids from clambering around Him (Mt. 19.13). He thanked God the Father for revealing truths to ‘little children’ (Mt. 11.25) and told us we had to become like ‘little children’ to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt. 18.3). Welcoming a child is like welcoming Christ Himself (Mk 9.37) just as He said doing good for the least, last and lost was serving the King (Mt. 25). He warned anyone who caused a child to sin would be better off tying a giant wheat-grinding wheel around his neck and falling off a cliff into the sea (Mk. 9.42). Most of us can remember stories from Sunday School or Wednesday night kids programs and that’s probably why He taught us with lots of stories.
Rudyard Kipling may have said it best: “He who can reach a child’s heart can reach the world’s heart.”
We praise and honor—though not often economically—those who take care of the little children. We disdain, detest those who intentionally harm kids. Pedophiles and other child abusers—physical or otherwise—are on the bottom of the rung in the prison hierarchy.
However, we unintentionally harm them when we look to our own needs and ignore theirs by what we do...and more importantly what we say. At times, when it’s more important for me to be right...to be in control...to fix a mistake...to change something from what I don’t like to something I want...I can say things that hurt the child’s heart—even hurt an adult’s heart—even more importantly other people’s children’s heart...when I talk about ‘those people’s kids’. Those people’s kids are “precious in His sight” also.
God, help me that I focus on loving my grandson more than myself.
Terminology is important. What you call something colors your perspective. I learned this a long time ago with a Joel Barker video citing a bike seat and how its traditional title of “saddle” has influenced its design for the last 100+ years. So I was stunned when I first learned that we’ve been calling women by the wrong name. And it puts a whole new light on God’s desire for male-female relationships, especially in marriage. (This is not about marriage—a wholly different topic and its past-200 year mutation beyond economic purposes.)
Growing up, I’d heard the Genesis story and how Eve (Chavah ‘life’) was subservient to Adam (‘mankind’) because she was ‘just’ a “helper” (ezer). Some translations have “help meet,” “helpmate”; others say “companion.” Most of these imply a person of lower status. You might have grown up with the nomenclature of “the help” for servants, volunteers...and slaves if you grew up in 17th-19th century US.
If you’re familiar with church names, you may recognize that ezer is part of Ebenezer (ha-azer ‘stone of help for thus far the LORD has helped us’).
Ezer is also used in Psalm 89:19 where the Lord says, “I have granted help to one who is mighty” or “I have raised up a warrior” or “I have bestowed strength on the mighty”. Here the Lord is not subservient to the mighty; He’s not carrying the warrior’s armor, weapons or satchels of food. The mighty couldn’t be successful without the Lord’s ezer.
Exodus 18.4 has “...the God of my father is my ezer...”
Deuteronomy 33.7 “ oh, [Lord,] be his ezer against his foes!”
Psalm 33.20 “He is our ezer and our shield”
Psalm 121.1-2 “From where shall my ezer come? My ezer comes from the Lord!”
...and like a chant, in Psalm 115.8-10, three times “He is their ezer and shield”
Because God knew the Eden experience wouldn’t last, He wanted an ezer suitable for Adam while he journeyed on this earth. From the verses above, you almost have the image of Havah appearing like Xena the Warrior Princess or Diana Prince-Wonder Woman.
My wife doesn’t don battle armor to fight my foes. One way my wife protects me is with her inspired wisdom. And I’m grateful to the Lord for her. She is my ezer and it’s my duty to love her sacrificially and unconditionally, without causing her to stumble, to support her always...as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5.23)
