Unconditional Love

I was at work the other day and I saw this picture on IHasAHotdog.com. It occurred to me that when things get rough, it is comforting to have the unconditional love of some other individual. A lot of times it doesn’t even matter if that one can help the situation or not, the love makes things feel better. I will leave it to others to debate whether animals are truly capable of love. I know that often animals will act as if they love someone, but I also know that there are some who say that isn’t really love, that we just tend to ascribe emotions to other things as though they were people (not just animals, but inanimate objects as well). It has been suggested that if you really want a measure of the love that those closest to you feel, try locking your dog and your wife in the trunk of your car for a couple of hours, and then see which one is happy to see you when you release them (I don’t recommend actually trying that).

On my way home, I heard an old Twila Paris song called Every Heart That Is Breaking. In this song, she lays out all manner of grievous circumstances, and then in the chorus, tells the unfortunate victims that she has a message for them. That message is, quite simply, He loves you. That is an unconditional love that cannot be matched by any pet.

The Ancient Greek word for unconditional love is agape. In the King James Version, the word agape is sometimes translated as ‘charity.’ Unfortunately, charity has come to mean an organization devoted to helping other people. Some of the more modern translations use the term love for agape, to avoid confusion. Unfortunately, they don’t do anything to distinguish between agape-love and phileo -love (phileo being the Ancient Greek word for—well, I don’t want to say conditional love, but love that isn’t necessarily unconditional). Of course, when I say that, I am aware that most of the time that the word ‘love’ appears in the New Testament, it is translated from agape, rather than phileo.

Scripture makes it clear that our God understands everything that may befall us. When He took the form of man, He was tempted in all the same ways that we are. Scripture also tells us that there is no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. Taken together, it becomes clear that none of us has ever been subjected to anything that Jesus didn’t endure Himself. Whatever you are going through, He has been through the same, if not worse. Whatever it is, He understands.

In Romans, we are told that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nobody can take that love away from us. No matter how little we may deserve His love, He still loves us. Don’t misunderstand me, that doesn’t mean that you can just disregard Him, there are still consequences for our actions (or inaction). It does mean that He will always love us, even when He is severely disappointed in us. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son… Of course, He gave the world Noah, too, but of all the people in the world in Noah’s day, only eight souls were saved. I worry that the ratio may not be too much better in our day…

We Are Strangers

Some years ago, Petra did a song with lyrics that said, “We are aliens.” My son was kind of young at the time and he objected strenuously to the lyrics; he thought they meant that we were little green men from some other solar system. Of course, that isn’t what they were saying, they were simply pointing out that biblically, this world is not our home. We are strangers in a strange land. Jesus said that if we were of this world, then the world would love us, but, because we have our minds set on a better home, the world will not accept us, and we cannot be of the world.

The irony of it is that our Father created this world, and yet, we are the ones who don’t belong here. Of course, if we weren’t here, then we wouldn’t be able to help along those who have not come to know the saving power of Christ.

Those who don’t know Christ look at life just a little bit differently than those of us that do. They generally consider their physical wants and needs first. In the book of Luke, Jesus talked about a man who had such a large farm, that he ran out of places to store grain. He decided to tear down his barns and build greater barns, and then just take it easy. He was ready to coast through the rest of his life. That night, though, his life came to an end, and he had to face the fact that all of his labors no longer counted for anything; everything he had worked for was left behind as he passed on to the next life. In the same passage, Jesus goes on to talk about the lilies of the field, how they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet, Solomon himself, in all his glory was not arrayed as one of them.

Jesus asked the question, “What profit is it, if a man gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” In the parable of the sower, (Matthew 13:22 and Mark 4:19) Jesus taught that the seed that fell on thorny ground represented people who receive the Word, but then get caught up in the cares of this life. Even for those of us who have a hope of a life beyond this one, it’s easy to get caught up in those types of worries. In this economic climate, it’s hard not to worry about whether one will still have a job next week, or whether the current job will still be paying well enough to pay the mortgage (or the rent)—and will there be room at the homeless shelter if it comes to that. These things are all temporary, though; rough patches happen in this life. Keep in mind, though, that this is the short life. Apostle Paul once wrote that if he had hope in this life only, he would be, of all men, most miserable. Jesus said that if you love your life, you’ll lose it. I think most of us have heard the expression, “It doesn’t matter in the long run.” Sometimes there is more truth to that than most of us would like to admit; but it is particularly true regarding this life compared to eternity. Except for the things that we do, or don’t do, that determine where we spend eternity, most of the things of this life just don’t matter in the long run (and eternity is a very long run).

Miracles

Sometimes I hear people talk about something in the Bible that is normally believed to be a miracle, and then they try to explain it away, as if it didn’t really happen, or it wasn’t really a miracle. Usually it’s something along the lines of: “That couldn’t possibly have happened!” That would be why it’s called a miracle.

Sometimes it’s along the lines of, “Well, that isn’t a miracle; there’s a scientific explanation for that.” For example, Joshua led the Children of Israel into battle against the city of Jericho; Jericho had great walls, and it was considered to be impenetrable. Joshua had the Israelites march around the city once a day for six days, and then, on the seventh day, they marched around it seven times, and the priests blew a loud blast on their trumpets (called shofars), and then the walls collapsed, and the Israelites were able to invade the city and vanquish its inhabitants. There’s nothing quite like a surprise attack after spending a week within sight of your opponent. Now, the walls would have had some resonant frequency. It is entirely possible that the frequency of the shofars was close to the resonant frequency of the walls. It is even conceivable that the marching around the city set up subterranean vibrations which caused the walls to settle imperceptibly such that their resonant frequency matched the shofar frequency exactly, so that, when the priests blew their trumpets, it set up a vibration in the walls, essentially causing them to self-destruct. All of this is feasible if Joshua had an advanced degree in civil engineering from MIT, and, even then, I suspect it would have been easier to modify the shofars to sound a different note, than to calculate how many times the Israelites would have to march around the city to change the resonant frequency of the walls (particularly when you consider too much settling would have changed the resonant frequency too much, and there would have been no way to undo that). When you also consider that Joshua had no tools for gauging the resonant frequency of the walls, or even the frequency of the shofars, it suddenly becomes clear that only one of the people involved could have possible made it work, and that’s God. My point being, if God chose to knock the walls down by His own power at the moment that the priests blew the trumpets, or whether He set up the situation so that the sounds of the shofars knocked down the walls, it is still a miracle.

Another one that I hear sometimes is the story of David and Goliath. The medical condition known as gigantism includes among its symptoms a resistance of the skull bones to join together, leaving “soft spots” in the head, even as an adult. Commonly, one of these spots is right in the middle of the forehead. That might suggest that David killing Goliath wasn’t really a miracle, he just happened to put a stone in Goliath’s “soft spot.” Let me ask you a question, though, if it were common knowledge that Goliath (or giants in general, for that matter) had a soft spot in such an easily accessible part of his face, wouldn’t he have had a helmet made that covered up his vulnerability? If it weren’t common knowledge, how did David know where to aim? Are we to believe that David killing Goliath was just dumb luck, or that the God that created man in the first place knew about Goliath’s weakness, and guided the rock from David’s sling to exactly the right place to do the most damage? Of course, the other thing to keep in mind is that, since, clearly the symptoms of gigantism were not common knowledge, the person who put pen to paper did not simply make up the story. They may not have had a full understanding of what really happened, but the fact that the account fits with medical knowledge that has been acquired since, shows that this miracle clearly really did happen.

The Shunammites

In 1 Kings 1, King David had become very old, and apparently developed circulatory problems. That is speculation, of course, but I think that it’s a fair guess, based on what the Scriptures say. He had trouble staying warm. They tried putting more clothes on him, but he just stayed cold. It doesn’t specifically say, but I suspect that they also tried putting his bed closer to the fire, and having one or more of his many wives get into bed with him (although they were getting along in years, too, and may have had a hard time generating any real body heat of their own). Eventually they hit upon the plan of finding an attractive young woman, and putting her in the King’s bed.

The woman that they picked was Abishag the Shunammite. It says that she lay with him, and ministered to him, but he knew her not. The first time that I read that, I was a little young to be reading such things, and I was under the impression that he was so far gone that he was completely unaware that she was in the bed with him. Having a better understanding now of what the term “knew” meant in the Bible, reinforces my belief that David had circulatory problems. In any case, it solved the problem. I guess you could say that the king warmed up to her.

Interestingly enough, the term Shunammite was not used in the Bible prior to the reference to Abishag. The only other person referred to as a Shunammite was a woman who ministered to Elisha in 2 Kings 4. She was nice to Elisha, and eventually told him that she desired a son. Elisha interceded with God for her, and she had a son. Later, the son died, and she went back to Elisha, and he revived the son. 2 Kings 4 also says that she lived in the city of Shunem. I’m not sure why a resident of the city of Shunem would be referred to as a Shunammite, rather than a Shunemmite, but, stranger things have happened. Shunem is also mentioned as being one of the borders of the land allocated to Issachar in Joshua 19:18. Apparently Abishag, and the unnamed woman in 2 Kings, were both of the tribe of Issachar. I’m not sure what the term would be for a descendent of Issachar, but I suspect that Shunammite is easier to pronounce.

After David’s death, King Solomon’s half-brother, Adonijah went to Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba, and asked her to intercede with Solomon for him, that Solomon would allow him to have Abishag. Adonijah had already tried to do an end-run around David’s wishes and have himself made king instead of Solomon, but Solomon had decided to let that go. Solomon apparently felt that he was king, and Adonijah was not in a good position to depose him, so, as long as Adonijah behaved himself, the King could afford to let Adonijah live in peace. When Bathsheba approached Solomon about Abishag, though, Solomon knew exactly what was going on, and was incensed that Adonijah not only would covet his father’s concubine, but that he didn’t even have the intestinal fortitude to come to Solomon directly with his desire; he had to involve Solomon’s mother. Solomon had Adonijah put to death. That may seem a little harsh, but the reality is that Solomon had every right to have Adonijah put to death, as an usurper to the throne. Solomon was mericful, and would have allowed his half-brother to live, but Adonijah just had to push just a little bit, to see what else he could get away with. I guess you could say that Adonijah lost his head over a woman (of course, his situation was hardly unique).

In any case, I think that it’s interesting that we have exactly two Shunammites in Scripture, both of them were women, and both of them had something to do with intercession. The one woman asked Elisha, the man of God, to intercede with God for her, and got what she asked for, and the other woman, Abishag, was the woman that Adonijah asked Bathsheba to intercede with the king for, and he wound up dead. I think that shows that you need to choose your intercessors wisely.