Skepticism or Cynicism?

I got a mailer form The Skeptical Inquirer recently, wanting me to subscribe to their magazine. To be honest, I was thinking at first, that I would do it, but as I read their material, they talked me out of it.
There is a difference between skepticism and cynicism. Skepticism is when one is introduced to a new idea or a new concept, and one says, “I don’t think I believe that, but let me investigate it and see if it is true.” Cynicism is when one runs across something new, and immediately begins listing reasons why it can’t be true. Skepticism is very healthy; cynicism is not. Skeptics sometimes find themselves convinced by things that they would not have expected; cynics often paint themselves into a philosophical corner trying to explain away very real things that they don’t want to believe.
I have applauded efforts of skeptics in the past that have investigated, and debunked ridiculous ideas that appeared to have credence at first. As I read the material from the Skeptical Inquirer, though, it seemed to me that many of their selling points were cynical in nature, rather than skeptical. One statement that I found particularly distressing, they mention an article that they published showing the vested interest that science has in making sure that they get things right, as opposed to religion which, according to them, has no such interest.
I suppose a case could be made for the idea that, since the score for the final exam doesn’t come during this lifetime for religion, religious leaders don’t have to worry so much about making sure that they put out the right material. It seems to me, though, that religious leaders are going to be judged in much the same way that the rest of us are, so, yes, they do have a vested interest in getting things right, if anything, they have more interest because they have more responsibility. At the same time, though, since they haven’t completed the course, either, they may be unintentionally be putting out bad information. It is even possible, that, although they teach the accepted values of their religion, they don’t actually believe that, and subscribe to the philosophy of, “The one who dies with the most toys wins.” As opposed to the more common sense philosophy of, “He who dies with the most toys still dies, and then has to give account.” The thing to keep in mind though, is that this life doesn’t even compare with the life to come. Most of us will live to be less than 100. A few will live to be 120. Compared to eternity, that’s not even a grain of sand compared to all of the beaches in the world. We have an absolute vested interest in being right.
The bottom line is that each of us is responsible for ourselves. We can try to help others around us, with the understanding that there will be others who will try to bring them down, or we can selfishly worry about our own soul’s salvation (which is self-defeating).
A friend of mine, many years ago, gave me this analogy: Suppose that you want to go on safari, and you want to be prepared, so before you go, you read a book on lions. In this book, it says that if you look a lion straight in the eyes, then it hypnotizes the lion, so that he (or she) cannot attack you. So you keep that in mind as you go on Safari, hoping that you won’t ever need that information. As it happens though, the day comes when you find yourself face to face with a lion, and you look him straight in the eyes, and then realize that this lion hasn’t read that book.
We have the book written by the Lion. He has given us instruction and direction, and has made it pretty clear what we should do. When we get to judgment, God is not going to accept the excuse that, “My pastor said…” or “The televangelist said…” His Word is available to all of us. One would hope that pastors and TV preachers would help us to understand God’s Word, but it is your immortal soul that hangs in the balance. Check your pastor, and the leaders at your church. If it doesn’t match up, then make your way out.

Polygamy

The practice of polygamy has been in the news some, lately, and, even though it is a controversial subject, I thought that I would weigh in on it. It has been pointed out that it was generally accepted in the Old Testament, and never specifically forbidden in the New Testament. Let me first point out that just because something isn’t specifically forbidden, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is okay.
Let me also say that it may not have been as common as you may think, even in the Old Testament. Granted, David had multiple wives, and so did Solomon, but they were both kings, they were not commoners. Abraham had a wife, Sarah, and a concubine, Hagar. He did marry another wife, but not until after the death of Sarah(?) It’s an interesting discussion, because Keturah had six sons by Abraham, and he was already old when Sarah died, so perhaps Keturah was a concubine (in fact, 1 Chronicles 1:32 refers to her as such), that had sons while Sarah was still alive—possibly even while Abraham was still young. I have to question that, though, because if Abraham had sons when God promised to make a great nation from Abraham’s seed, then wouldn’t Abraham and Sarah have assumed that God meant from his existing sons? There would have been no point in enlisting Hagar as a concubine, if Abraham already had a concubine that had already given him children. Isaac only had one wife, Rebekah. Jacob had four wives, or two wives and two concubines, depending on who you listen to. Gideon also had multiple wives. Very rarely is there any mention of anyone else having multiple wives. (Some have said that Moses had two wives, but the Bible only names one: Zipporah. Zipporah’s father has two names, though, and is sometimes called Reuel, and sometimes called Jethro).
The question arises, though, what is the difference between a wife and a concubine? Easton’s Bible Dictionary says that a concubine was a wife of secondary rank (it says more than that, but I only have so much space, and I don’t want to get sued for plagiarism). Smith’s Bible Dictionary points out that a wife could be divorced, whereas a concubine could not. Smith’s goes on to catalog four types of concubines: A Hebrew girl bought from her father, a gentile captive taken in war, a foreign slave bought, or a Canaanitish woman. The first two had rights under the Law of Moses, the third did not, and the fourth was actually prohibited by the Law (not to suggest that it didn’t happen, though). I should point out that, although Zilpah and Bilhah are mentioned as being Jacob’s wives, they were only with Jacob because they were Leah and Rachel’s slaves, and, in fact, Bilhah is mentioned as being Jacob’s concubine in Genesis 35:22. Apparently there wasn’t considered to be much difference between a wife and a concubine at that time.
By the way, from what I understand, a supporter of Biblical polygamy once challenged Mark twain to find any place in the Bible where polygamy was forbidden. Twain responded with Matthew 6:24. Quite frankly, though, even though one of the parables that Jesus told seems to support the idea of polygamy, Jesus also made it clear that when God created marriage, he created Eve to be Adam’s wife. He did not create a harem for Adam, he created a wife. The parable was intended to convey the idea that although many people can be saved, only those that are ready when He comes will be. Keep in mind that Jesus used parables to relate spiritual things to physical things that people could understand, but not necessarily physical things that he approved of; remember the unjust judge?

Sheep

I had someone ask me the question, “Why does the Bible compare people to sheep? Sheep are so stupid.” I told him that’s one reason. Seriously, though, we have more similarities to sheep than we might want to admit.
One of the common characteristics of sheep is that they have a herding instinct. That’s actually good for sheep, because predators (like wolves) are less likely to attack a flock, being wary of large numbers. Predators generally would rather catch a sheep by itself and then attack that one. That’s hard to do, because they stick together so much. If a flock is left alone, a lot of times one sheep will grow curious about something off in the distance, and wander off to investigate. Almost never do they go alone, though, because other sheep will follow it. “Where’s he going?” “I don’t know. Let’s follow him.” “Okay.” Shepherds really can’t leave their sheep alone, because, almost inevitably, one sheep will wander off, and the rest of the flock will follow. Sometimes that ends up not being a good idea, but at least they are all together. Of course, that is part of the reason that the expression "wolf in sheep's clothing" came about; can you imagine what sort of havoc a wolf could cause with a flock if he could convince the sheep that he was one of them ("It's okay to follow me, little lamb, I'm a sheep!"). A lot of people tend to go with the crowd, too. Whatever the crowd is doing, whatever the popular thing is, that’s what they want to do. Some of us can even remember when the popular thing was to rebel against conformity, and all of the nonconformists dressed alike, shouted the same slogans, etc.Sheep are generally very loyal to their shepherd. As long as he (or she) remains in sight, they will follow. If the shepherd is not around, the sheep generally won’t follow someone else. They know whom they are supposed to follow, but if he isn’t around, they may very well wander off on their own. It's no accident that Jesus’ lineage includes David, the shepherd boy who was also a giant-killer (and became king). David had a lot of the qualities that foreshadowed the Messiah: He was a shepherd, he was brave, he withstood a giant, he became king, he had a heart for people, but most importantly, he had a heart for God. Jesus was all of these things and more. The Bible also refers to the leaders of Ancient Israel as shepherds (or pastors). In Jeremiah, God speaks against the leaders of Israel (the pastors) for not feeding the flock, for letting the sheep of Israel go astray. Then God promises that he will set up shepherds that will actually care for the flock, and do whatever they can to protect the sheep. Ezekiel 34 has a very similar passage, God condemning the pastors that fed themselves, and let the sheep go hungry, but this time he promises that he himself will become the shepherd of the sheep; I guess you could say that he promised to become the Good Shepherd. Of course, Jesus told us the parable of the lost sheep, comparing us to sheep, and comparing God to the shepherd of the sheep, and taught us that each one of us is important to God. The shepherd will leave the 99, to search for the one that is lost—not to say that the 99 aren’t important, but the 99 are safe, at least for the moment, but the one that is out there by himself is in great danger. It’s important for us not to be out in the world alone, that’s one of the reasons that fellowship is commanded. In Matthew 25, Jesus talked about the judgment day in terms of separating the sheep from the goats. The sheep being the ones that followed, and the goats being the ones that always wanted to butt (“But, God, I don’t want to…”). Jesus said that His sheep know His voice, and a stranger they will not follow. At the same time, though, it’s not that unusual for some human or another to stand up and try to lead us in some direction. And at least some of us will, because he's one of us. Sometimes that turns out to be good, sometimes it’s bad. There are all kinds of people trying to lead us in all kinds of directions, but we need to be sure to follow Jesus. He's the one that loves us and cares for us.

Scarcely Saved

The Bible says that if the righteous scarcely be saved, than where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? Now, of course, the question is, why are the righteous scarcely saved? In Isaiah we are told that our righteousness is as filthy rags. The very best that we can do is nowhere near good enough for God. Fortunately, He has made a way. What people don’t seem to understand is that His sacrifice, by which we have obtained mercy and grace, is not a blank check to go and do whatever we want. Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. Run that you may obtain the prize, but keep in mind that not everyone who runs in a race wins a prize. Even in marathons, where they have lots of people sign up to run, and they award a medal to everyone who crosses the finish line gets a medal, they generally don’t order enough medals for everyone who pays the fee to run the marathon. Some people end up not showing up, and some people drop out during the race. Why would you enter a race and not finish? I’m sure that there are many reasons, but it really comes down to the basic idea that sometime during the race, something else became more important; something else took precedence. Maybe one just becomes discouraged; the medal at the end doesn’t seem worth the pain in the side and the burning lungs along the way. That’s at least somewhat legitimate, but keep in mind that in the race that we are running the prize that we are striving for is not a trifle. We are not striving for a few dollars worth of metal fashioned into a fancy design as a symbol of accomplishment (and by saying that, I don’t mean to downgrade the accomplishment of completing a marathon. That is an accomplishment, and I have a lot of respect for those people that have done that, but it’s kind of like getting an A+ on an important test in high school compared to graduating Magna Cum Laude from Harvard medical school). We are striving for an eternal reward, a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Jesus told us to strive. I think sometimes we get confused as to what exactly that means. To strive means to work hard at something, to really put your back into it, to struggle with it. So often we treat salvation as something that we can simply say a few words to obtain, and live how we want to. So many people make a profession of faith, and then go right back to the way we were living, just like a sow that was washed goes back to her wallowing in the mire.
You've probably seen the T-shirt with a picture of guy wearing jeans with the knees completely worn out, and a caption that says, "Pray Hard." So often, we send God a cursory prayer simply saying I want... And sometimes that's all the prayer we need right at the moment; after all, the Spirit intercedes for us, when we can’t find the words, right? Don’t use that as an excuse, though, prayer should be an expression of gratitude, of praise, and, yes, occasionally, of request. If you don't ask, you won't receive. Of course, if you don't thank God for what He's given you already, or if you don’t praise God (show an appreciation just for who He is), He's going to be considerably less inclined to give you more. Sometimes, though, prayer needs to have more intensity than we really want to commit to it. I think about Jesus praying in the garden, and it says that his sweat was as great drops of blood. There has been some discussion as to just exactly what that means, but the bottom line is, it means He was praying really hard. In some ways, it seems a little strange, He knew ahead of time what was going to happen; His impending crucifixion was not a surprise. Yet, here He was praying in the garden with a kind of intensity that most of us never reach. I have to believe that He prayed the way He did as an example to us. I don't mean that every time you pray, you should pray until sweat just rolls off of you, but that there should be an intensity to your prayers, and if you ever get into a situation that is as serious as the one He was in, then, yes, pray as hard as He did.

I was reminded yesterday of an experience that I had as a teenager. I had some people trying to share the gospel with me, and they spent a lot of time talking about how bad Hell is going to be, and that I should be very much afraid of going there. Also, they tried to impress upon me that I didn’t have to go there, that all I had to do (they said) was believe. They even went so far as to say that if the Gospel message was true, then I could follow it, and go to Heaven, but if I followed the Gospel message and it wasn’t true, then eventually my body would just decay in the ground. The biggest thing that impressed me about their well-meaning attempts was that it seemed that they were trying to blackmail me into believing in the crucifixion. I don’t respond well to blackmail. Fortunately, later on, I found myself drawn in by God’s love for me.I know that a lot of people feel that, to share the Gospel effectively, you have to scare people. I don’t know, I suppose that works sometimes, but it would seem to me that it’s the exception, rather than the rule. I will admit that sometimes the carrot and the stick approach seems effective (do what I want, and I’ll give you a carrot, otherwise, I’ll hit you with the stick), but it occurs to me that the stick should be more of last resort. Sometimes you have to scare people to get their attention (but once that gets your attention, you should very carefully examine the Gospel for its merits), but if someone obeys the Gospel purely out of a desire to avoid eternal damnation, they are wasting their time. They may as well enjoy this life, because the next one will be considerably less pleasant. Your relationship with God should be based on love (Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t fear God, we should, but, in general, that should be less of a motivation than love for God). Sometimes we are motivated by desire, and sometimes we are motivated by the fire.
I think that Apostle Paul was frightened into really examining the Gospel. Of course, part of the scare was incontestable evidence that what he had believed his entire life was completely wrong, but once God scared him into looking at Christianity objectively, he became a fierce proponent of the Early Church. Again, though, this is the exception; I think most of us would have just run as fast and as far as we could in the other direction, blind or not.
The point has also been made that God so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son… and we killed Him. Some would say, “Oh, but we didn’t kill Him, it was those Jews!” That is just anti-Semitic semantics. The point is, He created us, He came amongst us, as one of us, and we human beings killed Him. Don’t point fingers, don’t try to blame someone else, we did it. Keep in mind, though, that was His plan all along. Jesus took the form of man in order to become the perfect sacrifice in order to absorb the wrath that we already deserved before He even came. He had to die, so that we could be saved. It’s not important who killed Him; it’s important that He sacrificed Himself to save us. The High Priest that twisted Jesus’ words in order to obtain a conviction, Pontius Pilate, who ordered the crucifixion (no matter how much he tried to wash his hands of it), even the soldier who put his spear in Jesus’ side at the cross; those people are all just as entitled to salvation as any of the rest of us (don’t misunderstand me, I don’t think those people actually were saved, but they had the same opportunity to be saved as any of the rest of us, and the same right to claim Jesus as Lord that any of the rest of us have). The crucifixion is not an example of why God should be angry with us, so much as it is an example of how much God loves us, that He would be willing to accept the punishment that we deserved so that we wouldn’t have to. Of course, I certainly wouldn’t want to be one of the ones who reject God’s love after He made such a sacrifice for us…

The Salt of the Earth

Some years ago I heard a song that I believe was named “The Hands of an Angry God,” and it seems to me that it was a Scott Wesley Brown song, but I haven’t been able to find any mention of such a song by him, anywhere, but I did find a reference to a song that was, at least, very similar by Steve Camp, but I can’t find it in his discography, either. I personally really liked the song, even though I found it somewhat convicting. I suspect that the song was not as popular as I think it should have been because a lot of other people were convicted by it as well. The verses talk a lot about why God is angry at mankind in general (and the listener, specifically), but then the chorus talks about the sacrifice that God made on the cross. “The hands of an angry God are pierced and bleeding…” We, as a people, have done much to make God angry. We, as a people, deserve to have the wrath of God poured out on us. We, as a people, should be extremely grateful that God has chosen to make a way for us to escape. In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, before God sent His angels to destroy the two cities, He told Abraham about His plan. Abraham, understandably, became very concerned, because, although he knew the type of people that lived in those cities, he also knew that his nephew Lot lived there. Abraham attempted to bargain with God. “Wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked?” That was a gamble, in and of itself, because he hadn’t seen Lot in some time, and couldn’t be completely sure that Lot hadn’t adopted the lifestyle of the Sodomites, but he thought Lot was still a righteous man. Abraham probably wondered to himself why a righteous man would live in Sodom, but he had faith in his nephew. But, in keeping with his assertion that God would not destroy the righteous with the wicked, he asked God if he would destroy the city if He found fifty righteous there. God assured Abraham that He would not. Abraham talked God down to ten (which, of course, was easy for God, since He already knew there weren’t ten moral people living in the entire city of Sodom). Think about that for a moment, though. How many people lived in Sodom? We don’t know, but probably several thousand, maybe tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands. How big of a percentage is ten out of the population of an entire city? I think we can safely say less than one percent. Statisticians sometimes use the term, ‘statistically significant.’ To be statistically significant, a result must be unlikely to have occurred by chance. It is entirely possible for a result to be statistically significant, and still not be actually significant. The point is that there was a very small number of righteous people living in Sodom when the angels arrived and met with Lot. The experts would probably say that the number of moral people was not statistically significant. I would have to agree, if only because God destroyed the city anyway; at the same time, though, He offered them an escape so those people were clearly actually significant.Jesus said that we are the salt of the earth. Salt can be used for a lot of different things, but these days we mostly use it just to add flavor to foods that we eat. Not too many years ago, though, sailors used salt as a preservative. Meat that was salt-cured could be eaten many days after, without refrigeration, and with no ill effects. Think about that for a minute: If Lot had a bigger family, Sodom might not have been destroyed, they might have been able to preserve the city. We are the salt (the preservative) of the earth. We have a tremendous responsibility to remain righteous, because salt that has lost its savor is good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under feet of men; if we stop being righteous (if we lose our savor-the quality that makes us salt), then we are no longer serving as a preservative, and all we are is dirt (fit to be walked on); just as we were before God gave us life (we become spiritually dead-even if our bodies are still walking around).

Believing

I heard an interesting statement on the radio awhile back. A radio announcer said that strong faith in a weak bridge may get you wet, but weak faith in a strong bridge may get you across the river. I’ve heard people say that it doesn’t matter what you believe, what matters is that you believe. I have to disagree. If I believe that I can run my car on water, with no modifications to the engine (and believe me, with the price of gas being what it is, I would like very much to believe that), there is a good chance that I will ruin my vehicle, and a 0% chance that I will get it to run like that, no matter how much I believe it. I think too that some people are confused about what it means to believe. Jesus said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.” In Romans 10:16, though, it says “But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?” putting obedience and belief on equal footing. The idea here is that, if you believe the Bible, truly believe, then you will obey the gospel. If you don’t believe, then you won’t. You can say that you believe all you want, but as James said, “…shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” In the same chapter, James said that faith without works is dead. Do you think that dead faith will get you anywhere?Many people point out that in Ephesians, we are told that we are saved by grace through faith, not of works lest any man should boast. That is absolutely true, because not one of us could ever do enough good things to earn our way into Heaven. I promise you, though, you will never get into Heaven without doing any good things. Of course, in the very next verse, we are told that we were created unto good works. Do you think God put us here to just do our own thing until He’s ready to call us home and give us a mansion? I have pointed out before, also that we can do nothing of ourselves. Any good that we do, we do only as God moves through us. We may not even be aware of His moving at the time, but if you ever try to do something good without God, you will find yourself in one big mess. It just doesn’t work. We just can’t, no matter how much we would like to, or we think that we should be able to. That’s why Jesus said that we have to abide in the vine. Even the strongest Oak tree cannot bear a single grape of its own strength. I also want to make it clear that there is more to belief than acknowledgement. A lot of people believe that Jesus existed who do not even claim to be Christians. There are also some people who claim to be Christians who don’t seem to have gotten any of their beliefs from the Bible. James said that the devils believe, and tremble. Why do the devils tremble? Because they know that they haven’t obeyed. Some people are willing to acknowledge Christ and don’t even have sense enough to tremble. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. Jesus said, “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Do you think that you can fool Him into believing that you have accepted Him as Lord of your life, if you can’t do what He asks of us? I realize that some people don’t understand that the term Lord refers to one who has the rule over you. If you confess Jesus as Lord of your life, what you are saying is that he has the right to tell you what to do, and you are willing to do it. So many people claim Jesus as Lord of their life and have no intention of doing anything He asks. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.

This or That?

One of the things that Jesus' critics did during the time that He walked the earth was to try to ask questions that had two possible answers, but both answers could be used as grounds for an accusation. One of their favorite scenarios stems from the fact that Israel was under Roman rule at the time. Roman law didn't necessarily match up with the Law of Moses, so by asking him about a situation where the two sets of laws contradicted each other, they hoped to draw Jesus into making a statement that would either qualify as heresy, because it went against the Law of Moses, or insurrection, because it went against the law of the Roman Empire.
For example, they brought to Him a woman taken "in the very act" of adultery. I have mentioned this before, but, I still don't understand how you catch one person committing adultery. The point was, though, that under Moses' Law, she should be taken outside the city and stoned to death. That must be a terrible way to die. Under Roman law, though, her punishment would be, well, nothing, (unless she were a married woman and then her husband had the right to exact vengeance, but I don't think that was the situation here). In any case, death by stoning was not an option under Roman law, and one would have to go through the Roman Courts in order to get her sentenced at all. If they just took her out and stoned her, the Romans would consider that murder. So they asked Jesus what they should do. Not that they cared what was actually the right thing to do, they just wanted to either hear Him tell them to obey the Law of Moses (which would be insurrection against the Romans), or to obey the Roman law (which would be heresy against Mosaic Law). Personally, I can't help but wonder how these righteous men, leaders of the temple, pillars of the community, once they got it into their heads that this was a good way to trap Jesus, how did they know where to find a woman sleeping with another woman's husband? In any case, what Jesus so famously said was, "Let the one among you who is without sin, cast the first stone." He wrote something on the ground; we are not told what it was, but it seems to me that He must have written something to indicate that He knew exactly what sins each of those men were guilty of. A little reminder, in case any of them wanted to try to pretend that they were sinless. Something to put them on notice that He knew (of course, that would indicate that these men were so callous that even when they found out that Jesus knew every thing they’d ever done, they still refused to accept the idea that He was God manifest in the flesh). I don't know that for sure, it's supposition, but I think it must have been something like that.
They tried to get Him with tribute money, too. Should we pay taxes to Caesar, or no? Well, aren’t you using Roman money? Aren’t you already legitimizing the Roman government in so doing? “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Or, obey the laws of the government over you, but don’t forget to obey God’s law, too.
Sometimes we find ourselves facing a decision. Do I do this, or do I do that? Sometimes the right answer isn't either one of the two obvious choices; but it takes a lot of prayer to find God's will for our lives. Don't get trapped with the wrong choice because it seems like the lesser of two evils (well, except maybe in the voting booth, because God uses imperfect politicians, too).

The Answer Is in Your Hands

There is an story about a wise old man in a village that always seemed to have the right answer to every situation, and to every question. One day, a young man decided to challenge the old man, and prove that the wise man was not so wise. He held a songbird behind his back, and asked the old man to say whether the bird was alive or dead. The plan was, that if the old man answered dead, then he could produce the live bird, and prove the old man wrong; but if the old man answered alive, then he could wring the bird's neck, and produce a dead bird, again proving the old man wrong. The old man looked the young man in the eye, and said, "The answer is in your hands."
Many times we fret about what we don't have, and don't pay nearly enough attention to what we do have. In 2 Kings 4, there is a story about a widow woman, the survivor of a man that was faithful, who has two sons, and a great deal of debt. She asks Elijah to help her, and he asks her what she has. She tells him that all she has is a pot of oil. He tells her to go and borrow vessels from her neighbors, as many as she can get, and pour the oil into the vessels. She filled all of these vessels, and still had oil in her pot. She sold the oil, paid the debt, and then returned the borrowed vessels. God has a way of making the things that we have stretch to meet the need.
In 1 Kings 17, there is a similar story with Elijah the prophet and a widow woman who had a little bit of meal in the bottom of barrel and a small portion of oil in a cruse. Because she was faithful, and prepared food for the man of God before feeding her son or herself, God blessed the barrel and the cruse, and they didn't give out until after the draught ended.
Let me add a cautionary note. I know that there are "ministries" out there that will implore you to trust God, and give to their cause more than you can really afford. I would implore you to trust God, and follow His leading. If He leads you to overextend yourself to support a ministry that you believe in, that's one thing; if a ministry pressures you to overextend yourself to support them, that's a very different thing. If you follow God, you can't go wrong, but there are an awful lot of people that claim to represent God, and are trusting that they will never have to give an account for what they have asked of you. Not only are they putting their trust in the wrong things, they are asking you to, as well. If the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch, but you don't have to be blind. The book of James says that if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not. If it comes down to a choice between paying your light bill or giving to a ministry, well, if it's of God, then God will find a way to pay your light bill, but if it's not of God, then you're going to be sitting in the dark, wondering how God could let this happen to you (but if you had sought God about it, He would have warned you not to give that money to those people). Don't sign your light bill money over to some preacher unless you know with absolute certainty that it's what God wants you to do (It’s okay to fleece the Lord, Gideon did it).
God can do a lot with a little, and sometimes we feel that we just don't have enough. If we let God have His way, though, a little can be plenty. Just as Jesus said that if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can move mountains, so can you do a great deal with just a little time, or a little effort, or a little bit of money. Remember the widow with the two mites? It didn’t seem like much to the disciples, but God saw how much it was to her—it was all she had. Pray for God's direction, and the leading of His Holy Ghost, and He can make a lot out of whatever little you have, too, provided that you are willing to use it for His glory.

Joseph and His Brothers

Most of us know the story: Joseph was the favored son of Jacob. Jacob's love, his wife Rachel, only had two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, although he had twelve sons altogether, and Benjamin was still pretty young. So, already the older brothers are jealous, because Jacob's favoritism is obvious, but then Joseph starts spouting off about dreams that he has had (the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to me). The dreams were actually prophesies about the family showing obeisance to Joseph because he made it possible for them to survive the upcoming famine, but, at the time, they just seemed to be boastings of a boy who thought way too much of himself.
One day, the brothers found themselves alone with Joseph, and their father was way out of sight, and some of the brothers started scheming to kill Joseph. Reuben intervened, not because he was less jealous of Joseph than the others, but because he had some idea of what it would do to their father if something happened to Joseph (the beloved son). He talked them into putting Joseph into a pit, while he tried to think of a way to rescue Joseph. In the meantime, some merchants came by, and some of the other brothers decided to sell Joseph as a slave; that way, they got rid of him, and picked up a little extra cash, too. They took his coat, smeared blood on it, and showed it to Jacob. Jacob believed that his most beloved son had been killed by a wild animal, and mourned his loss. I think that the brothers had second thoughts, then, as Ruben had expected, but it was too late. They didn't even know where their brother was.
Years later, after going through a lot of stuff, Joseph is called in to interpret a dream for Pharaoh. The dream is, of course, prophecy about the famine. Joseph tells Pharaoh that he needs to pick a man of wisdom to collect a portion of the crop yield for the next seven years, so that it can be stored and used during the seven years of famine. Pharaoh figures that Joseph was the only man wise enough to interpret the dream, so he's the perfect choice to oversee the collection and distribution of food for the next fourteen years. The famine turns out to be considerably more widespread than just Egypt, but Jacob and his sons hear that there is food in Egypt. The ten oldest sons go down to Egypt with money to buy food. Joseph gives them food, but he toys with them a little. I think part of him wants to punish them for what they did to him, but, mostly, I think he wants to know if they have developed some moral fiber in the years since he last saw them.
One thing that is very clear, as you read the story: Even after all he has been through, Joseph still loves his brothers. He isn't sure how they feel about him, but they seem to have written him off as dead. Of course, they've been pretending that he is dead with their father for years, so maybe this is just force of habit. Possibly they are afraid that word will get back to their father; perhaps Reuben doesn't know what really happened to Joseph, even now. As Joseph pushes and prods his brothers, trying to find out what kind of men they really are, now, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to keep up the pretense. He has to walk away, weep, wash his face, and come back. He sets Benjamin up, the only other son of Joseph's late mother, and waits to see what the other brothers will do. The brothers could easily have walked away; Oh well, Dad's second favorite son is gone, too. They stayed, and they pleaded for Benjamin. This time, Reuben wasn't the only one who thought about what the loss would mean to their father. Eventually, Joseph broke down and revealed himself to his brothers, and told them to go get Jacob, and return, and live in Egypt, and he will take care of them.
Interestingly enough, Joseph’s mother had already died by the time all this happened, and there is no mention of Leah dying, or migrating to Egypt. The prophecy was that Joseph’s parents and brothers should show him obeisance, so, in the absence of his mother, I am assuming that his father’s other wife was represented by the moon in Joseph’s dream. Apparently Leah did make the trip, even though it isn’t specifically mentioned.
In any case, family is important. We won’t always agree with, or even understand, some of the things that our relatives do, but they are still family. We should love and respect our families, even when we have to disagree with them. Jesus made it clear that we shouldn’t let even our closest relatives keep us from living the life of a Christian, but we should still care for them.

UPDATE: It was pointed out to me that I inadvertantly wrote Joseph twice where I should have written Jacob. That has been corrected. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

A Loveless Marriage

It seems to me that two of the most common excuses people use these days is, "I married the wrong person" or, "I'm stuck in a loveless marriage." Don't misunderstand me, those are both bad situations, but they get used as excuses much too often.
Jacob fell in love with a young woman named Rachel. He agreed to work for Rachel's father, Laban, for seven years in exchange for Rachel's hand in marriage. The problem was that Rachel had an older sister, named Leah. The Bible doesn't really say much about what Leah looked like, although it does tell us that Rachel was beautiful and well favored (I suspect that if Leah were attractive, that would have been written down). Anyway, when the seven years were completed, Jacob went through the wedding ceremony, and started in on his honeymoon. When he woke up the next morning, though, he found that he had married Leah. The Bible doesn't really say, but I'm thinking there were large quantities of alcohol involved. Laban explained to Jacob that it was against custom to marry off the younger daughter before the older. I can only imagine that Jacob probably said something along the lines of, "You couldn't tell me this before the wedding?" Jacob might have been able to facilitate a husband for Leah, or at least have held off a little longer to get married...
Anyway, bigamy was not a crime, so Laban suggested that Jacob work another seven years, and, there were no other older sisters, so then he could marry Rachel. It seems to me that Jacob probably could have convinced Laban that seven years was too long, he had already worked seven years for Rachel, it wasn't his fault that he got stuck with Leah, but he didn't. He went along with the agreement. Was he afraid of devaluing Rachel by appearing to bargain for her? Rachel might have questioned his feelings for her, if he had said that he was only willing to serve, say, five years for her. Maybe he just wanted to stay on good terms with his father-in-law (that's generally good practice, if it's at all possible).
In any case, for seven years, he was married to Leah, and still very much in love with Rachel. I wonder how that made Leah feel? I suppose, in that day and age, she might have considered herself lucky to have a husband at all. I would hope not; no woman should ever have to feel lucky to have a husband that is clearly in love with another woman. At the same time, it's pretty clear that Jacob was good to her. There's a good chance that he treated her well only because he was afraid of how it would affect his relationship with Rachel if he didn't.
There is also an instance, after Jacob married Rachel, that Reuben, one of Leah's sons, found some mandrakes (I assume that they were alive when he found them, but he killed them and brought them home for dinner), and Rachel wanted mandrake for dinner. Leah told her sister that she could only have mandrake if Leah could have Jacob for the night. Rachel agreed, and when Jacob came home that night, Leah told him where he would be sleeping that night and why. Personally, I think I would have slept on the couch just out of principle. I can't believe that Jacob was happy about his wives negotiating over him; but he understood that, even as adults, there was a certain amount of sibling rivalry between the sisters. Usually, when we grow up, we get out from under the same roof, that rivalry goes away (it certainly worked for Jacob and Esau), but these two sisters lived under the same roof even as adults. Leah tried to be the better wife by having more children, which led Rachel to compete in that arena, too--as if she needed to compete for Jacob's affection. God tried to help Leah out; she ended up having a lot of kids.
And then Rachel died in childbirth, giving life to Benjamin (or Ben-oni), but Leah lived on for a number of years after that. I'm not sure that Jacob ever actually loved Leah, but somewhere along the line, they at least grew comfortable with each other.
I feel for Jacob and Leah; they pretty much had to settle for each other. I particularly feel for Leah; for her entire married life, she knew that her husband was in love with someone else. Some of that time, she had to compete with her sister's ghost. That can't possibly be easy. I think it's significant though that she and Jacob never gave up on their marriage. Part of that probably stems from the culture of the time, but I think it also has to do with their innate good nature. They wanted to do right by each other, even if neither one of them was particularly happy about the arrangement.

Does God Know the Future?

Let us suppose that I have a friend who is convinced that if he can get an anvil into the air, he can levitate it using his mental powers. He has gone to a lot of trouble to build a gallows-type arrangement, and set an anvil on the trap door. He has asked me to come witness his grand performance. I, having a great deal less confidence in his levitation abilities, predict that, when he opens the trap door, the anvil will come crashing to earth. He calls me a skeptic, and proceeds with his performance. He concentrates on the anvil just as hard as he can, and when he feels that he is ready, he releases the trap door, and the anvil falls to the ground. Thud. He then becomes extremely angry at me; obviously, the problem isn't that he can't levitate the anvil; the problem is that I am using my mental abilities to counter his, just so that my prediction will come true. I am, at this point, starting to suspect that it isn't a question of who has what ability; it's a question of which of us is mental (and I'm as confident in my assessment of that as I was of the anvil not floating in midair). There is a clear confusion of cause and effect. Just because I knew what would happen, doesn't mean that I caused it to happen. There is a big difference between knowing something will happen, and causing it to happen.
It has come to my attention that some people object to the idea that God knew the end from the beginning, on the grounds that we have freedom of choice. If we truly have freedom of choice, then, the logic goes, God couldn't possibly know the outcome of the culmination of all those choices. It seems to me that this idea is essentially rooted on the assumption that God can only know what will happen if God causes it to happen. I think that I have shown, in the first paragraph, that we have a limited ability to know what will happen (in certain circumstances) without being the cause. God is much smarter than we are, and he has an unlimited ability to know what will happen without causing those things to happen.
Open Theists like to use examples like, in Genesis 2:19, God brought the animals before Adam to see what Adam would call them. Now, is this an example of Adam having free will, and God waiting on Adam to decide? Shouldn't God have already known what Adam would call the animals? It seems to me that this is an example of empowerment. God is saying, "Adam, I have given you dominion over all the earth, so I want you to start by naming the animals." Now God could have introduced Adam to all the animals, "Adam, this is a horse. If I had let you name this animal, you would have named it a horse, but to save time, I'm going to tell you that it's a horse, so that you don't have to waste time thinking about it." God was willing to give Adam a say in the process, even though God already knew what Adam would say. This was for Adam's benefit, not God's.
In Job 1:11-12, Satan is willing to wager with God over how Job will react. Okay, but nobody ever said that Satan knew the end from the beginning. It was pretty foolish for him to bet against somebody who did, though. If Satan truly understood the end, he would have surrendered a long time ago; but Satan has been betting for ages that God doesn't accurately know the future.
In Genesis 18:23-33, Abraham negotiates with God over the fate of Sodom. This, again, is an example of empowerment. God allowed Abraham to think that he had some say in the process, but, in the end, God did exactly what he told Abraham He was going to do to start with.
In Deuteronomy 1:8, God promised the Israelites that they would enter into the Promised Land, but they didn't. No, actually, the Israelites were ordered to go into the Promised Land, and they refused.
In Exodus 32:7-10, God tells Moses that He will destroy Israel, and create a great nation from Moses, but Moses talks God out of it. Again, God is empowering Moses, and, at the same time, making sure that Moses understands the seriousness of the situation. God already knew what Moses would say, but He’s giving Moses a chance to say it.
The bottom line is, even though God always knows what's going to happen, sometimes He wants us to feel that we have some input. I know that more than once I have gotten myself into a situation, and I prayed about it, and as the situation developed, it became clear that God had answered my prayer before I prayed it. Would He have answered my prayer if I hadn't prayed? I don’t think so, that doesn’t make sense to me. Yet, there it is; He put things in motion before I even asked. It occurs to me, too, that some people think that time is a barrier to God, as it is for us. It isn’t. God created time, and it does not limit Him.

Character

I was reading about Coach Mike Pressler this past weekend. For those of you that don't recognize the name, he used to be the coach of the Duke Lacrosse team, before the scandal. Interesting that he was forced to resign amidst the controversy, even though, ultimately, his players were exonerated (and, even if they hadn't been, how could he have been held responsible for what his players were accused of?). Maybe exonerated isn’t the right word. There is a chance that three of the players may still face serious charges, but less serious than what we were led to believe at the outset. Coach Pressler made an interesting comment, though, he said that sometimes adversity doesn't build character as much as reveal character.
There have been a number of books written about why bad things happen to good people. To be honest, I haven't read them, but it's my understanding that they generally talk more about building character than revealing it.
I have blogged before about Abraham and Isaac, that God led Abraham to take his son up to the mountain to sacrifice him as a test; not that God had any doubt what Abraham would do, but so that Abraham would know what he would do. Sometimes God tests us in very much the same way, to reveal our character. Sometimes we need to know what kind of character we have, and sometimes other people need to know. For people outside the faith to see how we deal with adversity can tell them a lot about our character, and give them a better idea of whether we, as individuals, are really the type of people that they want listen to. Of course, really, they shouldn't be putting their trust in us, but in the One that we serve.
My pastor, before he went full time into ministry, used to work for a company that sold and serviced restaurant equipment. There was one night that he was working on some plumbing in a restaurant kitchen, and he thought he was alone in the building. He was attempting to loosen a pipe under a sink, and the pipe was stuck. He pushed against the pipe wrench as hard as he could, and suddenly the joint came free, and he banged his hand against something else. He got out from under, and started washing his hand (in a different sink, of course), and was looking around for something to bandage his hand with, and the restaurant janitor rushed in. The janitor looked at his hand, and his eyes kind of bugged out, and he said, "Are you a Christian?" "Well, yes, but why do you ask?" Well, I heard the thud, out in the dining area, and I see how badly your hand is hurt, but all I heard you say was, 'Ouch!'"
This is what is known as testimony. This is what James called showing out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. Character isn’t what you do when you know everyone is watching; character is what you do when you think no one else knows. God always knows, though, so you should always act as though you are being watched. At the same time, you should do what you do because it’s what you want to do, not because you’re afraid of what will happen to you if you don’t.
Some time ago, I was at work, and I found myself wondering whether I was really making a difference; whether anybody even noticed what kind of person I was. It bothered me enough that I stopped and prayed about it. Just then, I heard my name mentioned around the corner. Two people were talking, and one of them was trying to explain something that I had explained to him earlier, but his language was considerably spicier than mine was. The other person said, "Well, now I know you're lying, because he don't talk like that." That at least told me that some people had noticed my character, and that gave me a good feeling.

Child-like Faith

Jesus said that except one receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he cannot enter in... That has to do with the innocence of childhood, but it also has to do with the faith of a child. It's funny how, as we grow older, we become more experienced, and more disillusioned. Sometimes we start to think that this world is just an ugly place.
When Goliath challenged Israel, he said that he would face any one champion of the Israeli army, and, if the Israeli were able to defeat Goliath, then the Philistine army would surrender to Israel. Of course, if Israel's champion lost, then the Israeli army would be expected to surrender to the Philistines. In some ways, it was a good deal; Goliath's offer meant that only one person would die, and everyone else could go home. The problem, of course, was that Goliath was a giant. The Bible says that he was 6 cubits and a span tall. Unfortunately, those are somewhat inexact measurements, so we don't know how big that actually made Goliath. A cubit was the measure from a man's elbow to the tips of his outstretched fingers; a span was the width of the palm of his hand. Generally, a cubit is about 18 inches, and a span about 4, so 6 cubits and a span would be about 9 feet 4 inches. Nobody in Israel's army wanted to fight him, especially not with the fate of all of Israel hanging in the balance. To be honest, there is a certain wisdom in that. Goliath wasn't just huge, he had been trained in the art of war from the time he was young. The odds of any of Israel’s champions, by his own skill, beating Goliath was extremely small. So along comes this little kid, David, who says that he'll fight the giant. The Bible doesn't actually tell us how old David was, but it does tell us that he was the youngest of eight brothers, and that the three oldest brothers were in the army. That would suggest that he had three older brothers that were not yet old enough to enlist. In other words, he was pretty young. Why would King Saul send such a young person into battle, with the fate of the entire country resting on the outcome? possibly because he really had no choice. David was the only person Saul knew of that was confident that he could beat the giant--of course, even then, David didn't think he could kill Goliath with his own strength, but he believed that God could work through him. Of course, we know the story, David did kill Goliath, and the Philistines tried to renege on their agreement, and it ended up being war, anyway, but the Israeli army was considerably less defeatist, having just seen a little boy destroy the Philistines greatest champion. David had a calling on his life, and he had faith as a child, and he just stepped out and did what God wanted him to do. That energized everyone around him.
So, when Jesus tells us that we need to be ‘as children,’ we have David as our example.

My Sis

When I was growing up, in a lot of ways my older sister was my mentor. Don't misunderstand me, she picked on me sometimes, and did other things that I didn't agree with, but she helped me to understand some things that would not otherwise have been evident to my young mind.
Some of it I don't really think was intentional. When I was a preschooler, she challenged me with mathematics. Of course, this was done more in the attitude of, "I learned this in school, and since you haven't started school yet, you don't know how to do it. Nyaah, nyaah,” but the end result was that I learned basic mathematics before I started school.
Some things she clearly did out of a sense of watching out for me. I remember walking through a cemetery one time and making a stupid comment. I don't remember exactly what I said, but something along the lines of, "I'm just a kid. I don’t have to worry about dying. I won't die until I'm old." She challenged me to look around at the tombstones and see if I could find any markers of people younger than me. I found several, and it didn't take long, either. Granted, a lot of those were infants that had probably been born with health problems and hadn't lived to their first birthday, but some were kids that had just died for one reason or another. That was a real eye-opener; I started taking my own mortality much more seriously after that.
Another time she became concerned that, when asked to bless the food at dinner, I recited a rote prayer as quickly as I could. She asked me if I could explain the prayer to her. I had never really thought about the meaning of the words before. In retrospect, I'm a little surprised that she was able to keep from laughing at my attempts to explain this little prayer that I had memorized (apparently phonetically). When I tried to break it down, the words that I was trying to explain were, "Goddess great, goddess good, lettuce sankim for our food. Amen." For some reason, it had never registered with me, until she asked me, that I was praying to a goddess instead of to God. I knew I wasn't supposed to be praying to any goddess...
Another time she noticed that, when we went to church, during the time that some of the congregants came into the sanctuary early to pray for the service, I mostly just goofed around. That may have been distracting to some of the people that were doing what they were supposed to be doing; that may even be the real reason why she did what she did. She tried to impress upon me the importance of prayer, but I didn't see the need. Praying for service didn't make sense to me, because service was going to happen whether I prayed for it or not. The idea that I might get more out of it if I prayed for it didn't make sense to me, partially because I wasn't aware that I was getting anything out of service (although perhaps if I had prayed about it, I would have received something from service). I didn't feel like I needed anything from God (boy, I wish I could get that feeling back in my life, but I guess that's really just the bliss that comes from ignorance—I’m still ignorant, just not as ignorant as I was). This was during the cold war, so finally she tried to at least get me to pray for that. Even then, I did not, at first, see the need. The USA and the USSR had been at a standoff for years, with neither one seeming particularly inclined to attack the other, even though people on both sides kept worrying that the other side would. Finally she told me something outrageous: She told me that the Soviets had come over the North Pole, and had captured Detroit. That got my attention. I'll tell you something else, too, that got me praying, and I prayed hard. I was afraid to even look at the news for the next several days, because I knew that most of the coverage would be about the Soviets occupying Detroit. Eventually, though, I looked, if only to find out if my prayers were being answered. Much to my surprise, I found out that the Soviets were no longer in Detroit, and, what's more, nobody else seemed to remember Detroit even being invaded. That taught me an important lesson about the power of prayer.
In retrospect, it also teaches an important lesson about “childlike faith.”

Jesus was Tempted in the Wilderness

Before Jesus really started His ministry, the Bible tells us that He went out into the wilderness for forty days, and at the end of those days, He was tempted by Satan. Now he had been fasting all that time in the wilderness, so, physically, He was probably weaker than at any other time in His life (by the way, I don't recommend fasting for forty days. Surviving such a fast is a miracle in and of itself). Spiritually, though, He was very strong, because of the fast. The devil tempted Him with food first. Well, really not so much food, but the idea that, You don't need to fast, You're hungry, You could use your divine power to turn these stones into bread... Satan would have been happy just to get Jesus to do anything selfish. Obviously, in the flesh, Jesus would have liked to have had something to eat. It wouldn't make sense to tempt Him with something He didn't want...
Satan also tempted Him with Scripture, he took Him to the pinnacle of the temple, and tried to talk Jesus into throwing Himself down. Scripture says that His angels will protect you. Jesus' response was that one should not tempt God. I've noticed some people seem to think that Jesus was telling Satan to leave Him alone. Jesus always had the power to tell Satan to bug off, but if that had been the intent of His statement, the conversation would have been over. All Jesus was saying was that He wasn't going to do something stupid, just for the sake of proving that God would protect Him. God has promised to protect us from all kinds of outside forces. This doesn’t mean that once one becomes a Christian, then they will never suffer a physical injury. Flesh is just temporal; it is your immortal soul that God will not allow to come to harm, as long as you remain committed to God. To intentionally place yourself in mortal danger to try to prove God (unless you have been specifically led by God), is tempting God to just write you off as an idiot ("I thought that one would do great things, but apparently they're just stupid. No great loss." Okay, granted, I don't really think God takes that simplistic of an approach to things, but sometimes He must be, well, tempted to...).
Finally Satan took Jesus to a high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and said that he would give Him all of it, if Jesus would just bow down to Satan. There are several points of interest here. First off, some have made the criticism that there is no mountain anywhere on earth high enough that one can see the whole world. That is absolutely true; it is humanly impossible for a person to stand on a mountain and see the whole world. Of course, we are not talking about ordinary human beings, here, are we? Let's face it, Satan could have taken Him to the bottom of the Marianas Trench and showed Him the whole world. Neither one of them would have had a problem with that. Second, Satan didn't really have possession of the world, and Jesus knew that, and Satan knew that He knew, so why would he try to tempt Jesus with something that they both knew he couldn't deliver? I think he must have been offering something that he could deliver, and that he knew Jesus would want. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world..." That's not talking about this ball of rock that we live on. God could destroy it in an instant, and make another one just like it, and it wouldn't even hurt His feelings. The world that John is referring to is the people in the world; most of which, Satan had absolute power over. It seems to me that Satan is offering to stop trying to be god to these people, if Jesus will only allow Satan to be His god. Basically, he was offering to take away our options, so that we would have no choice to serve God (but, since God would then be serving Satan, we would, ultimately be under his control, anyway). Jesus also didn't want us to serve God only by default; He wants us to have choices. Jesus, of course, knew better than negotiate with a terrorist, even one holding millions of hostages. Thirdly, this is the point where Jesus finally told Satan that He was through talking to him (or he was through talking to Him--either way). This is what so many people think that He was saying after the second temptation.
In summary, a temptation will always be something you want. Granted, sometimes the devil will try to convince you that you want something that you don't really want, but desire is always going to be part of the temptation equation. It might be food, it might be to seek reassurance that God loves you (if that's the case, just consider what He did for you, take John 3:16 personally, that promise is to each of us, individually--repeat after me, "For God so loved me, that He gave His only begotten Son, that I could believe in Him, and I should not perish, but have everlasting life."), or it might even be something that seems like an awesome opportunity to win souls to Christ (of course, if that's being offered by Satan, figure the odds of it affecting anyone's salvation other than your own). Whatever it is, though, what you gain from it will never be worth what you gave up to get it. What shall if profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Mark 8:36) Satan plays for keeps.

This Is a Sensitive Subject

There’s something that I want to talk about, and, yet, I don’t want to talk about. It’s kind of a sensitive subject, and some people aren’t comfortable with it (including me), but it is something that should be addressed, so I will try to address it as discreetly (if somewhat indirectly) as I can. The expression is, everybody does it, but nobody ever talks about it. Well, some people do talk about it. Most of the people that do talk about it, probably shouldn’t be talking about it. Most of what I’ve heard about it ultimately turned out to be wrong. Some people get it right, but that seems to be the exception, rather than the rule. When Christians talk about it, and get it wrong, they usually refer to Onan and Tamar in Genesis 38. Basically, what happened was this: Tamar was an attractive young woman, and she married Er, who was the firstborn son of Judah, but Er was a wicked man, and God slew him (the Bible doesn’t tell us what Er did that was so terrible, it isn’t important to this discussion, anyway). Judah’s second son was Onan, and, apparently Onan wasn’t a particularly righteous individual, either. Tradition had it that if a widow is left childless, her late husband’s nearest male relative was supposed to ensure that she had children, to be the heirs of her late husband. Now Onan was in an interesting position. He had been one of three sons, but now he was one of two sons. As it stood, if his father died, Onan only had to split the inheritance with one other brother (Shelah, Judah’s youngest son). If Tamar had a son, then her son was entitled to an equal share, half of which would come from Onan’s inheritance, and the other half from Shelah’s. I would assume that Onan could have simply refused to have anything to do with her, but he didn’t (that might have gotten him into trouble, too, but I don’t think nearly as much trouble). Quite frankly, if you read the Scriptures, what Onan did was pretty underhanded. He took his pleasure with Tamar, but did it in such a way as to be as sure as he could that she wouldn’t have children. God killed Onan, too. Suddenly, Shelah was an only child, which created an awkward situation for Judah, but that’s a whole different story. Now, some have said that what Onan did was, basically, that thing that everybody does, but nobody ever talks about (my apologies for the obtuse reference, but, as I said, I don’t want to talk about it). Onan went through the motions of what he was supposed to do, but in such a way as to defeat the purpose for which he was allowed to do it in the first place. It would be like if I loaned you my car to drive to work, and you decided, since you had my car, to call in sick, and drive my car to the mall, instead. There’s nothing wrong with going to the mall, but if you told me you needed to borrow my car to get to work, and then didn’t go to work, you have no right to drive my car. Does that make sense? Some have even used Onan and Tamar as an example to try to prove that birth control is wrong. I don’t see that in the Scriptures. Quite frankly, if God wants you to have children, he can find a way around whatever form of birth control you happen to be using. Onan’s problem was the conscious decision to do what he wanted to do, while trying to make sure that what was supposed to be the intended result didn’t happen. He got greedy; he wanted to have Tamar and keep his inheritance, too. It was an act of open rebellion; that’s what got Onan killed. Incidentally, Tamar ended up being a little sneaky, too, but, again, that’s another story, but King David’s lineage (and Jesus’) is traced through Tamar’s son, Pharez, which, if nothing else, should tell us that she was never the problem. By the way, if you have read all of this, and are still wondering what in the heck this is about; don’t worry about it, I suspect that you really don’t need to know.

The Chapters in the Bible

When the Bible was first written, it wasn't divided up into chapters and verses. That happened later, in order to make it easier to refer to a particular passage. It wasn't convenient to refer to, say, the 3,427th sentence in Isaiah. Archbishop Stephen Langton undertook the original division into chapters in the 1200’s. Some of the books of the Bible were considered too small; it wasn't worth the trouble to divide them up into chapters, for example, the book of Jude. Jude has only 27 verses. The 23rd verse of Jude is usually referred to as Jude 1:23, just for the sake of consistency, but it is equally correct to refer to it as Jude :23. There are 66 books in the Bible. Do you know how many were divided up into chapters in the 1200’s? Actually, that's a trick question. There are 5 books (Obadiah, Philemon, 2nd John, 3rd John, and Jude) that were considered to be too small to divide into chapters, but the Book of Psalms has no chapters, either. The Book of Psalms is a collection of 150 different psalms (or songs), so that book already had clear divisions before the idea of chapters and verse came about, so, each Psalm was divided into verses, but there was no need to divide it into chapters (a lot of people refer to different psalms in the book as chapters—that is, the 23rd chapter of the Book of Psalms rather than the 23rd Psalm--of course, we all know what that means, so it shouldn't a big problem even if it is not technically correct). So, there are only 60 books that have chapters. Sometimes the division of chapters is a little frustrating. I don't understand some of the divisions. For example, in Genesis, most of the initial creation story is in Genesis Chapter 1, then, for some reason, Chapter 2 starts with God resting on the eighth day. Then, the narrative backtracks to day six, and gives us more details on the creation of man and woman. It seems to me that it would have made more sense to break the chapters in between the first, overall creation story, and then start chapter 2 with the detailed generational description. As it is, it seems to confuse some people, but, I suspect, mostly people who aren't really trying to understand. Robert Estienne did the division into verses in the 1500’s. Some of the verse divisions don’t seem to make a lot of sense, but, one of the guiding principles was that each verse should be consistent in whatever language it was read in (English, Ancient Greek, or Ancient Hebrew). That’s an important consideration, because the grammatical rules for the different languages vary, and cause words that would be together in one language to be separated in another (that is, in English we normally progress from subject to predicate to object, but most languages don't use the same grammatical structure that we do, which causes terms that we think should go together to become separated). Knowing what the criteria were makes it easier to deal with. I think it’s important to note that sometimes we make the mistake of looking at a single verse as being a single thought, and sometimes it is, but often it is not. Sometimes a verse must be read in context to get its full meaning. Many people know that the shortest verse in the Bible is John 8:38, “Jesus wept.” Not nearly so many people know why Jesus wept; you have to read the rest of the chapter to learn that, and some still don’t get it. Jesus wept because He was there to glorify God by raising Lazarus from the dead, and the people around Him didn’t have the faith to believe that. John even tells us that many of those present thought that Jesus wept because Lazarus was such a close friend, and that Lazarus was dead. That doesn’t make sense when you realize that all Jesus had to do to see Lazarus again was to call his name. The point is, the chapter and verse divisions are strictly a convenience item, so that, for example, if I want to tell you what I’m reading, I can tell you that I’m looking at the last six verses of Matthew Chapter 27. Now you know exactly what I’m talking about. It gets pretty cumbersome to try to describe a particular passage of Scripture without the chapter and verse numbers. Generally, the chapter and verse divisions should not be considered to be the beginning or ending of a logical thought, as you would expect in a book where the chapters are determined by the author.

Freedom

Many years ago, Janis Joplin made the claim that "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." I suppose that's one form of freedom, perhaps even the purest form, but it isn't the best form.
Our nation's founders stated that they believed that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Obviously, there are some curtails on our liberty; the government can't allow my right to liberty to infringe on your right to life, no matter how much I might want that. By the same token, your right to pursue happiness should not be allowed to infringe on my right to liberty. I would hope that any of us who celebrated the Fourth of July were reminded of that (Do they have the Fourth of July in other countries? Of course they do, they just don’t celebrate it).
Jesus said that we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free. We have a freedom in Christ that is like no other. Even then, there are consequences to our freedoms. Apostle Paul said that all things are lawful unto me, but not all things are expedient. There are some things that I have the freedom to do, but that would eventually hurt me, or hurt those around me. I have been commanded to love others as I would love myself, so I have to mindful of how my actions impact other people. I could, of course, learn to love myself very little, and then not have to worry about others, but, no, I don't think that’s how it’s supposed to work. God loves me, and He thinks I'm worth loving, even though sometimes I don't understand why. He expects me to love myself, too.
At the same time, we are told to present our bodies a living sacrifice to God. Wait, what about my freedom? I still have my freedom, but there are consequences for exercising my choices, if they are not wise choices. God doesn't expect us to be robots, blindly obeying His every command; He wants us to obey His commands out of love, respect, and trust. If God knows what’s best for us, doesn't that mean that what He commands is going to be better for us than what we think of by ourselves? Keep in mind, He can see the big picture; we can't. He knows exactly what we are capable of, and how much help He is going to have to give us in order for us to perform that which He asks of us. We, so often, get caught up in thinking that we can't; it’s too big, and we forget that what ever got wants us to do, He's going to help us with. Nothing's too big for God. There is a lot of freedom in that, believe me.

Running From Your Calling

When Moses was in Egypt, he ran away to the land of Midian to avoid being charged with murder in Pharaoh’s court. He had a calling on his life to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, but he went the other way. Moses spent forty years in the land of Midian, when his calling was in Egypt. God had to put the exodus on hold, while He waited for Moses to be ready to fulfill his calling.
When God told Jonah to go warn Ninevah, Jonah caught a ship headed to Tarshish. Tarshish was about as far from Ninevah as there was in the known world at the time. God arranged for a whale to swallow Jonah, to bring Jonah to the understanding that he needed to fulfill his calling, and, eventually, Jonah went to Ninevah. God waited until after Jonah had preached to Ninevah before pronouncing His final judgment. In fact, God spared Ninevah because the people repented at Jonah’s preaching.
There is a story, I don’t know for sure if it is true, but the story is that a Christian man was in a restaurant, and felt it laid upon his heart to share about a hope in Christ with the waiter. He understandably (I say understandably—some of you may not understand, and that’s actually a good thing if you don’t. I won’t pretend that I don’t understand) felt awkward about doing it, so each time the waiter came by his table, he made an excuse to himself. Each time, God dealt with him a little stronger. Finally he couldn’t stand it any more, and he promised God that the next time the waiter came by, he would talk to him. The waiter didn’t come by for a very long time. The man finished his meal, and was waiting for the check. And waiting, and waiting. Finally the manager came by, asked if he enjoyed his meal, asked if he wanted anything else, and gave him his check. “Wait,” he asked, “what happened to the waiter?” The manager gave him an awkward look, and then, lowering his voice, said, “I don’t quite now how to tell you this, but, about fifteen minutes ago, he went out into the alley and, well, he took his own life.”
Moses ran from his calling, but God didn’t take his calling from him, He just delayed it for a time. Jonah ran from his calling, but God gave him another chance. Sometimes I think God gets tired of people running away, though. Just because God chose to use Moses and Jonah in spite of themselves, doesn’t mean that He promises to be so patient with any of us. Did you know that you can run from your calling without taking a single step? You can hide from your calling in your routine, or in your attitude. Your calling isn’t necessarily to go be missionary in some dark jungle somewhere; it’s more likely to be just to share with people that you work with or go to school with that don’t know Jesus. It may very well be that the biggest difference between what you’re doing now and what you should be doing is just the words that come out of your mouth. The Bible says that from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. If you truly love God, that’s going to be in your conversation, not just your words, but the way that you live your life. People should be able to see in you a heart for ministry, even before you open your mouth, but when you open your mouth, it should confirm what they already observed. Not fulfilling your calling, though, can have dire consequences, not just for you, but for those around you, also.

It Rains on the Just and the Unjust

I read something the other day; a blogger was postulating that the rain and flooding in the Midwest was proof that God supports gay marriage. His logic was something like this: When Katrina hit New Orleans, a whole lot of evangelical preachers started talking about how God was pronouncing judgment against the sinners that lived there. So, when the courts in California legalized gay marriage, one would expect a similar outpouring of the Almighty’s wrath in California; instead, we had these major disasters in the Midwest, where the people aren’t even thinking about legalizing gay marriage. Clearly, God is warning the Midwesterners that they are the sinners, and California represents the righteous. If I didn’t think he was being facetious, I would point out the fires that they are having in California now. He makes a good point though, why is it that every time some natural disaster hits, people look for someone or something to blame? There was that one nut that said Heath Ledger died because of that one movie that he did (if so, why are the cast of Will and Grace still alive and kicking?). The fact of the matter is, sometimes things just happen. If you’re having a bad day, it isn’t necessarily your fault (or God's fault). Job had a few bad days, that wasn’t his fault. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that the sun rises on the evil and the good, and it rains on the just and the unjust. Further, in Luke 13, the disciples were talking about some men in Galilee that met a tragic faith, and Jesus asked them if they thought those men were sinners above all the Galilaeans, and that was why they suffered such things, but Jesus said no, they weren’t, and went on to say that if the rest of us don’t repent, we will all likewise perish. He went on to talk about 18 people that died when the tower of Siloam fell on them, were they sinners above all those in Jerusalem? No, they weren’t. So many times, too, people take it personally when something bad happens; for example, if they lose a loved one. I understand that can be a hard thing to deal with. When God calls someone home, though, that’s really between Him and that individual. We all lose loved ones. If you stop and think, though, what is it you really want in those situations? Do you want your wife (or husband) to survive and mourn your passing? Would you really want them to feel that? Death is part of the life cycle; there is just no getting around that. Don’t take it personally, as though God took someone that you cared about just to punish you. He doesn’t usually work like that (I have to add the 'usually' caveat because of David and Bathsheba’s first son. God took him specifically to punish David and Bathsheba--mostly David).God is in control, but a lot of times He stays out of the details. He allows us to make our own choices. Sometimes those choices are good, and sometimes they are bad. Sometimes we suffer because we made a bad choice, other times because someone else made a bad choice. Sometimes others suffer for our bad decisions. That’s not God’s fault. If one dies, but one is ready, then that person’s suffering is over. Of course, if one dies when one is not ready, then that person’s suffering is just beginning. Does God use disasters to remind people to be ready? Certainly, but the people who are hurt or killed during the disaster aren’t necessarily the ones He was trying to remind. And he didn’t necessarily cause the disaster in order to use it as a reminder. Sometimes He just let’s things happen, and deals with people after the fact. “See what happened there? That could have been you. Don’t you have some getting ready to do?”

UPDATE:  Apparently the site I was linking to has changed their format; I have fixed the links.  My apologies...