Ramblings

Trees

2011-07-15T20:27:00.002-05:00

Jesus once healed a blind man, but it took Him two tries to get this man to see properly. The first time the man said he saw men as trees, walking. The second time he saw clearly. Now, we know that Jesus didn’t make mistakes, so what exactly was that all about? There must have been a point to this man saying that he saw men as trees, walking (the other question, of course, is, how did he know what a tree looked like, but, unless he was sighted earlier on in life, I don’t even have a guess), or Jesus wouldn’t have allowed it to happen, and it wouldn’t be in the Bible.

Jesus Himself made a comparison to people as trees another time. He told His disciples to beware of false prophets, and went on to say that, just as you know what kind of fruit comes from what kind of tree, so, too, you can tell what kind of person you are dealing with by what kind of fruit comes from his or her life. I’m not saying that as soon as somebody messes up, then you know that they are an evil person; all that really tells you is that the individual in question is human—which, hopefully, was never really in doubt. As far as that goes, if somebody treats you badly seventy times seven times in one day, but apologizes, and asks your forgiveness, then you should forgive them. I understand that very few of us (if any) would find that easy to do, but that is the commandment. By the way, when Jesus told Peter to forgive seventy times seven times, He didn’t mean that the seven-hundred and ninety-first time that someone sins against you, then it’s okay to hold a grudge; I feel very confident that He felt that 790 was just an impossibly high number.

Now, there are lots of kinds of trees mentioned in the Bible. In Genesis 18:4, Abraham makes reference to a shade tree, which, apparently was a good place to rest. In Genesis 30:37, Jacob made rods from poplar, hazel, and chestnut trees. In Exodus 15:25, God showed Moses a tree that could make bitter water taste sweet. Shortly thereafter, in Exodus 15:27, Moses and the children of Israel came across some palm trees. In Leviticus 19:23, God told the children of Israel, as they were taking possession of the Promised Land, that they should plant all manner of fruit trees, but then He told them not to eat of those trees for at least three years (I won’t pretend to know what that’s about—maybe fruit trees need time to mature before they bear good fruit?). In Numbers 24:6, there is a reference to lign aloe trees and cedar trees. Deuteronomy 6:11 makes reference to olive trees being in the Promised Land. Psalms 137:2 talks about hanging harps on willow trees. In Isaiah 6:13, it talks about a teil tree and an oak tree. Isaiah 44:14 talks about a cypress, an oak, and an ash tree.

The bottom line is that there are lots of kinds of trees, and there are lots of kinds of people. Romans 12:4-8 talks about the body of Christ, of how we are all members, but we have different offices, and different gifts, among them prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, ruling, and even showing mercy. 1 Corinthians 12:4-31 goes into a lot more detail about the body of Christ, and how the members need each other. Sometimes we don’t see the value in what someone else brings to the table of Christ, and sometimes we don’t see our own value. It seems like everybody wants to be the mighty oak tree, and stand strong and resolute, but sometimes there is a need of a weeping willow. Ecclesiastes 3:4 tells us that there is a time to weep, and Romans 12:15 tells us to weep with those that weep. Notice, though, that the passage in Ecclesiastes says that there is a time to weep, and that Romans 12:15

also tells us to rejoice with them that do rejoice; we shouldn’t spend all of our time crying. We are people, though, and just as our Lord is not a high priest which cannot be touched the feelings of our infirmities, so, too, we should empathize with those around us, but we should never forget that our joy and our hope is in Jesus Christ the Lord, our Savior.

The Money Changers

2011-04-15T21:21:00.003-05:00

There are those who call themselves Christians who seem to be angry all the time. They fuss and fume about every little thing, whether they have any control over it or not. Some of them will protest certain things. I am not necessarily against protests, sometimes that seems to be the only way to get people’s attention, and let them know that you disagree, but sometimes people protest and it seems like they are looking for a way to vent their anger.

Christianity isn’t supposed to be a religion of anger or hatred, it should be about love. “For God so loved the world…” “He that loveth not, knoweth not God…” People sometimes remind me that Jesus got angry in the Temple, and drove out the money changers, and those that sold animals for sacrifice, and that’s true, He did. It occurs to me, though, that most people aren’t really aware of what their activities were.

By Jewish law, every male was supposed to pay an annual Temple tax of one-half shekel. Unfortunately, at the time of Jesus’ visit to the Temple, Israel was under Roman occupation. You may remember that, when asked about paying tribute, Jesus asked whose image was on a penny. Believe me, you wouldn’t have found Caesar’s image on any Jewish coins; but the Temple tax had to be paid in Jewish currency. So, when people came to pay their Temple tax, the money changers exchanged their Roman currency for Jewish currency. Sometimes they had to exchange currency from other countries, as well, because many Jews left Israel to avoid the Roman occupation, but still came to pay their tax and celebrate Passover. The irony here is that most of what the Temple priests needed, they required Roman currency in order to be able to make the purchase. So the money changers charged the people a fee to change their Roman or foreign money into half-shekels, but then also charged the priests a fee to change it back, so that the priests could buy from merchants in occupied Jerusalem.

Now, the livestock salesmen (who, I suspect, in many cases, were the same people anyway) were there to sell the necessary animals to people that had not brought their own animals for sacrifice. Accordingly to Mosaic Law, these animals were supposed to be without blemish. Sometimes, the animals that people brought for sacrifice didn’t really meet the standard, in which case, these sellers of doves would exchange animals, for a fee, of course. Sometimes these crafty salesmen would point out spots on an animal being brought in for sacrifice, just so that they could make a little money off of an exchange. That might not be so bad, except that, many times they would, for example, point out an area of discoloration on one animals hoof, trade it for one that had just as bad a blemish on an ear (while carefully directing the customer’s attention to the hooves of the new animal), and then turn around and trade the one with the ‘bad’ hoof for one with a mark on its neck. In other words, these guys had learned how to make a living off of their ability to notice flaws in other people’s sacrifices, while at the same time, directing attention away from the flaws of their own sacrifices. Let’s face it, none of us are perfect, and there are very few animals, appropriate for sacrifice, which appear to be perfect, either. God does want us to bring our best, however.

Realistically, there are a lot of people today that are good at pointing fingers and placing blame who aren’t really getting much done themselves. It’s easy to sit back and criticize others, when you aren’t making the effort yourself. There are also some that are making the effort, but still find time to disparage others anyway. Now the Bible says that if we see a brother “overtaken in a fault,” that we should approach him with meekness to try to restore him. Now, if he resists that treatment, somewhere down the road, anger may be called for. I don’t mean to suggest that if someone in the body of Christ continues to sin and refuses to repent, that you just let him do it, because “I have to be meek.” The first admonition should be done meekly, though. That’s talking about someone who has already made their commitment to follow the Lord, though. Someone outside the church doesn’t need to be harangued about their activities, they need to have the love of Christ shared with them. If they accept Christ, then they will start living right, but if they don’t want to live for God, then all the lectures in the world will be about as useful trying to teach a pig to sing: It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

As Christians, we are supposed to follow the leading of our example; notice that He got upset only very rarely, and usually at people that should have known better than to be doing what they were doing. He did occasionally point out faults, but, again, only those of people that really should have known better, the religious leaders of the day. So many people today want to call themselves Christians, but instead of acting like Jesus, they act like the people that Jesus was upset with in the Temple.

Why Jesus?

2011-03-29T23:58:00.001-05:00

The question for the week is, “Why Christianity? Why not some other religion, or even atheism?” That’s a good question, really, and I will try to give you a fair, honest, and even compelling answer.

It is not my purpose to criticize other religions, however, I do intend to give a cursory examination of the other main religions. For starters, the Hindu religion has a pantheon of different gods. Atheism has no god at all. There are three basic monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Now, again, not to knock anybody else’s belief system, but most ancient peoples believed in multiple gods: The Greeks had Zeus, Poseidon, Ares, etc.; the Romans had Jupiter, Neptune, Mars, etc.; the Norse had Odin, Thor, Loki, etc. It basically came down to them feeling it necessary to divide up the duties of the divine. Just as one man was good at hunting, another at fishing, and another at building things, so, too, they felt that there must be different gods with different abilities. The idea that God is not like man did not occur to them. Now the Hindus have a least gotten the idea that the gods are not like men (look at their statues and images), but they still have this idea of division of labor. They just underestimate God.

I’m not going to spend much time on atheism. Suffice to say that there have been a large number of very improbably coincidences in order for this world to exist and support intelligent life if God hadn’t at least directed the process.

Judaism had a good start, but many Jews are still looking for their Messiah. If they are right, then he is to come, however, if Christianity is right, then He has already come, and, for the most part, they have rejected Him.

Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet (sent by Allah), but that His teachings have been corrupted, so God had to appoint another prophet, Mohammed, with a fresh set of teachings to set things right. Interestingly enough, the Koran talks about the virgin birth (Sura 3.45-50). Doesn’t that at least suggest that Jesus (or Isa) was more than just a prophet?

Now Jesus claimed to be the way (John 14:6). I’m not surprised that so many people don’t believe Him; there were a lot of people in those days that didn’t believe Him. Still, the believers that actually knew Him, and spoke with Him, and heard His teachings never recanted. Some of them were tortured and threatened with death if they didn’t recant, but they didn’t. Now, granted, they may have had good reason to suspect that the promise of release if they said that Jesus wasn’t really what they had made Him out to be, but still. It seems to me that if I and my friends made up a story about some fantastic man who did all of these wonderful things, and then we were tortured, and threatened with death if we didn’t admit that we just made the whole thing up, I suspect that I would come clean.

So, we have this Bible, that at least appears to be an accurate account of the life of Jesus, and He certainly seems to have been a Savior, not just to the Jews, but to all mankind. So, the question becomes, should we really believe the Bible. I was just reading that a lot of Islamic scholars claim that the Koran reads the same in every part of the world, that there is only one Koran. They point to the many different versions of the Bible as proof that it should not be believed. I would like to point out that there are other Islamic scholars that admit that there are seven to ten different versions of the Koran, and there is at least one that claims that there are twenty. Now, certainly there are a lot more different versions of the Bible than twenty; there are hundreds. Part of the reason that the Koran has so many different versions is that Mohammed himself was illiterate—don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mean that as a criticism; literacy was not nearly as widespread then as it is now. In today’s society, if a man is found to be illiterate, the first assumption is that he is probably mentally deficient; that’s frequently a bad assumption, illiterate people have to be pretty smart to get through life without being able to read—they have to memorize an awful lot. My point is that Mohammed was almost undoubtedly of well over average intelligence, but he couldn’t write down the Koran (or anything else). The Koran was passed on by oral tradition for many years; people would memorize and recite the Koran. Eventually it was written down, but not until after Mohammed’s death. So, changes were unwittingly made. Also, the written language was less precise then, so when it did get written down, the written words could be interpreted differently by different people. At the same time, the differences between the different versions are relatively minor. So why do we have so many different versions of the Bible? Mostly because there are a lot of people who recognize what an important work it is, and want to make sure that it is translated correctly. Partially because we have an enemy who would like very much to eradicate any correct version(s) from the face of the earth. If he can influence people to make minor changes to Scripture, he can gradually water down the message until it no longer means anything. Of course, God protects His Word, so Satan cannot just make the Bible go away, but if he can publish “versions” that are more to his liking, he can lead many astray. So why is it that the Bible has so many different versions while other religious writings (the Koran, the writings of Buddha, the Sruti and Smriti, etc.) have only a few? Because of the relative importance. Satan is not interested in ‘corrupting’ a book that wasn’t truth when it was written, any more than an artist wouldn’t forge a painting by an unknown artist, or a counterfeiter would create duplicates of confederate currency.

Perhaps the most important thing is that Jesus came to be our sacrifice. No other religion teaches that their god or gods made a way for their adherents to be cleansed from their sins. Mohammed did not die for you, in fact, Islam teaches that Mohammed was received up into heaven without dying first. Buddha did not give his life for you. Hinduism does not have a savior. If you think about all the mistakes that you have made in your life, then understand that there is only one redeemer; His name is Jesus. Why go to anyone else?

Marriage

2011-03-22T21:00:00.000-05:00

The topic for this week is marriage. The first point that I would like to cover is what we, in this country, call bigamy. There are some, even in this country, who insist that there is nothing wrong, in God’s eyes, with a man having multiple wives. They point to numerous examples in the Old Testament of men who were considered to be men of God who had more than one wife, and also point out that nowhere in the New Testament is this practice even criticized. They are right that it was common practice in the Old Testament, and never specifically forbidden in the New Testament. At the same time, historically, well before Jesus’ birth, the rabbinical council decreed that marriage should be between one man and one woman. The fact that is that a lot of time passed between the Old Testament and the New; just because the events were not immortalized in Scripture, doesn’t mean that they didn’t affect what happened in the Gospels. Think about it: Nowhere in the Old Testament is there any mention of Pharisees, Sadducees, or Samaritans, and yet, in the Gospels they are written about as though they had been around for years; that only make sense when you understand that they had been around for years. My point is that Jesus (and the Apostles) never felt the need to teach that bigamy was wrong, it was already commonly accepted as being wrong.

Jesus did talk about divorce. He said that Moses made allowance for divorce, but that was only because of the hard-heartedness of the people, and that divorce was really not in keeping with God’s laws. Jesus made it very clear that if two people get divorced, they should either be reconciled to each other, or live their lives singly. Jesus actually used Adam and Eve as an example of what marriage should be. Of course, Adam and Eve had the perfect marriage—he was never able to tell her how much better his mother’s cooking was, and she was never able to tell him about the other men she could have married. They had another advantage, too: They had no other people interfering with their marriage; they only had to deal with their own family. If they had a fight, and Eve decided to leave Adam, where would she go?

I have been asked who performed the marriage ceremony for Adam and Eve. I don’t think that a ceremony is a necessary part of becoming husband and wife. In modern-day society, that’s the way it is generally done, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that it was always done that way, or that it should have been done that way. Modern law requires a marriage certificate, issued by the state, and some form of ceremony, even if it is just a justice of the peace making sure that both parties are amenable to the marriage. The Bible tells us to obey every ordinance of man, so, of course, we get married and perform marriages in a manner consistent with the law; but obviously Adam and Eve were not subject to that law (the legal term is ‘ex post facto’). So who married Adam and Eve? Well, God pronounced them man and wife; I don’t think you’re going to find a higher authority or a more able minister than that.

One of the problems that we run into in modern society is that a lot of young people become, well, seduced into a romantic notion that love conquers all, and if they truly love each other (and, of course, they do, just ask them) then their love will overcome all obstacles, and they will grow old together and they will always be happy. The truth of the matter is that marriage is a lot of work. No two people are ever going to agree one-hundred percent on everything all the time, and even if they did, they will eventually get tired of being around someone that never really adds anything to the conversation—sometimes arguing is preferable to lock-step thinking. The bottom line is, there is no perfect marriage. There will be misunderstandings, quibbles, arguments, and even fights (hopefully just verbal fights), but if two people are really willing to make their marriage work, they will find solutions to their disagreements.

The first major fight that I had with my wife, she announced that she was going home to mother. She called her mother to say what had happened. After she said her piece, my mother-in-law said hers. To make a long story short, my wife ended up hanging up the phone and apologizing to me. Her mother realized that what we were so upset about wasn’t that big of a deal. It sure seemed like it was to us, at the time. In retrospect, I don’t even remember what it was we were arguing about. We were indeed fortunate, and blessed, to have an objective third party to put things into perspective for us. Too many young couples today don’t confide their problems to a third party, and a great number of pastors are grateful that they don’t. I understand that pastors don’t really want to hear about conflicts in their congregations, but without a little perspective, many marriages end up in divorce unnecessarily. If you are having problems with your marriage, talk to your pastor (or mother-in-law, or some other third party), and if your pastor doesn’t want to provide counseling, then find a new pastor. Oh, and don’t get counseling from a friend—the wife’s girlfriends almost always side with the wife, the husband’s guy friends almost always side with the husband, and other people may have their own reasons for wanting to split the marriage up (for example, a guy that finds the wife attractive (or a woman attracted to the husband) may contrive to get the couple divorced just so that they can get what they want).

So, you may be asking the question, “So, should I get married?” Well, to be perfectly honest, maybe you shouldn’t. Apostle Paul wrote at some length in 1 Corinthians 7 about how someone whose main goal is to spread the Gospel is going to be much more effective at it if all of his (or her) attention is concentrated on spreading the Gospel. Someone who has a family to support or look after has, at best, divided attention. He also, though, says that, “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and every woman have her own husband.” (Did you notice that the terms were singular there, by the way—suggesting that he proposes that a marriage be one man and one woman?) The thing is, and recent events should make clear, some people can handle celibacy, as long as they have a clear purpose and are dedicated to doing the work that God has for them. Some people cannot. Frequently, people who, at one point in their lives, felt strongly that they should live out their lives as a single person, and take a vow to that effect, but later find out that they aren’t as strong as they thought they were. If they continue to try to live that vow, they suffer for it, and, perhaps more importantly, people around them suffer for it. The Bible tells us that it is better not to vow than to vow and not pay, but, sometimes it’s better just to accept the fact that the vow was too ambitious, and take the hit for breaking the vow, but only as a last resort. The bottom line is, you need to prayerfully make a decision, can you serve God as a single person, or do you need an helpmeet? God can help you find the answer to that question. If you legitimately need someone to help you fulfill your calling, then God will give you one; if you don’t, then you will be more effective without one. If you try to be something that you’re not, though, you are only frustrating the grace of God.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

2011-03-15T17:30:00.001-05:00

The topic of the week is homosexuality. I imagine that we are all aware that there are people from a “church” in Kansas that have been picketing funerals, spewing hate and discontent, claiming that the death of U.S. soldiers and Marines is the direct result of God’s wrath at the U.S. for its leniency towards homosexuality. They, of course, refer to Scriptures that describe homosexuality as an abomination. There are other Scriptures that refer to eating shellfish as abomination. Somehow, neither of these abominations made it into the top ten list of sins, however. Now, a case could be made that the dietary restrictions of the Old Testament were done away with in Acts 10, when God told Peter, “What I have cleansed, call not thou unclean.” To be honest, though, in context, it seems pretty clear that, although Peter’s vision involved food, it really wasn’t food that God was talking about. I certainly hope that we are not mistaken in thinking that we are no longer subject to the dietary restrictions of Old Testament Law, since we are not under the Law, but under Grace, because I really enjoy a good lobster tail.

I have never actually heard anyone say this, but some of these people act as though they believe that homosexuality is the worst sin of all. Jesus said that the first commandment of all was to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength. He said that the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. If I were the type of person to relegate sins to different levels, that passage would lead me to believe that the worst sin of all is to be an atheist. For whatever reason, though, we as a society tend to be considerably more tolerant of atheists than of homosexuals. I am sure that there are atheists that would disagree with me on that, but when was the last time you saw someone picketing a funeral with a sign that said, “God Hates Atheists?”

John 3:16 says that God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I don’t see anything there that discriminates based on sexual orientation. Unless I am reading that incorrectly, God loves everybody, and made a way for anybody to be saved, no matter what their sin. In point of fact, James makes a point of mentioning that, in God’s eyes, sin is sin. It doesn’t really matter what sin you have committed, you need it to be forgiven, and God has made a way for it to be forgiven.

I also feel that I need to talk a little bit, at least, about the difference between thoughts and actions. Jesus said that if a man looketh upon a woman to lust after her, he hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Of course, we can extrapolate that if a man looks after another man to lust after him, he has committed just as grievous a sin (particularly considering that, in God’s eyes, sin is sin). At the same time, there is a difference between having a thought, or even an urge, and having lust. There is a difference between finding someone attractive, and fantasizing about that person. By the same token, if you feel an urge to do something that you know is wrong, whether it involves a person of the same gender as yourself, or someone who is married to someone else, that urge is not sin. If you let it become more, then it can become sin, but the urge itself is not sin.

So, in conclusion, although there are some people that say that God hates gay people, that view is simply not supported by Scripture. It is true that homosexual acts are sin, but all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Those of us who are sinners saved by Grace have no business looking down our noses at people who are really just other sinners.

What About Church?

2011-03-08T23:05:00.002-06:00

The topic for this week is church attendance. Is it important? Should I go? If so, when should I go? How often should I go? What’s in it for me?

Well, let’s start with the obvious question, “Is it important?” After all, if it isn’t important, then the rest of those questions don’t really matter, anyway. Romans 10:14 asks the question, “How shall they hear without a preacher. So, evidently, having a preacher (or a pastor) is an important part of the Christian life. Jeremiah 3:15 tells us that God will give us pastors according to His heart. There are a number of references in the book of the Acts of the Apostles to the body of believers gathering together: Acts 2:46, Acts 5:42, Acts 6:1, and Acts 20:7. Also, Apostle Paul admonished us to not forsake “the assembling of ourselves together…” So, God gives us pastors, from whom we should hear the Word expounded, the early church gathered together often, and we are not supposed to forsake the assembly of ourselves together. That sounds like a pretty clear “yes” to the question of whether church is important, and whether you should go.

When should you go? Now, there are some that insist that Saturday is the Sabbath day (not Sunday), so you should attend service on Saturday. Now, the Bible says, “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” (Romans 14:5) If you want to attend service on Saturday, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you want to attend service on Sunday morning, there’s nothing wrong with that, either. There are some that make a lot of noise about it being wrong to worship God on Sunday—I personally have a hard time with the idea that there’s a ‘wrong’ time to worship God—but the only time that I’m aware of in Scripture that it specifies a particular day of the week that the early church worshipped was in Acts 20:7 where it says that they worshipped on the first day of the week (Sunday). Remember that the Sabbath day is an homage to the seventh day when God rested after creation; so, the Sabbath Day would be Saturday, and the first day of the week would be Sunday. Now, don’t misunderstand me; I feel certain that the early church held services on other days, also, I just wanted to point out that we know from Scripture that at least once they held service on a Sunday.

How often should you go? To some extent, that’s up to your pastor. To a lesser extent, it’s up to you. Health permitting, you should attend every service you can, unless you are a member of one of those churches that has outgrown its building, and the pastor is officiating multiple services a week in order to be able to minister to everyone in his flock. In those churches, if every church member tried to attend every service, they would have to turn people away, and it might end up being a lot of the same people each time. Imagine for a moment that Sister Mary shows up for service an hour early every service to make sure she gets in, but Brother Bob comes at the last possible minute each time and is consistently turned away. Well, you may say, Brother Bob should get up sooner, and not wait until the last possible minute, and there is some truth to that, but let’s not forget that Bob is evidently one of the weaker Christians and he needs all the help he can get (are we not commanded to bear one another’s burdens?)

What do you get out of it? That question seems a little mercenary, but, to be honest, it is a fair question. A lot of people seem to think that church service is your service to God, that it is a requirement that you must fulfill in order to get on with your life (some even think that going to church on Sunday gives them carte blanche to live the rest of the week however they please). Not so. In actuality, church service is for you. It strengthens you, spiritually, it encourages you, and sometimes it even equips you when the pastor teaches you something you didn’t know. It should be an opportunity for you to celebrate your faith. And, by the way, your service to God is how you live the rest of the week.

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

2011-02-28T23:14:00.002-06:00

The topic for this week is, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The easy answer is that we have an enemy who has, from the beginning of human existence, tried to trip us up and trick us into forsaking the good gifts that God has for us. Don’t believe me? Read Genesis 3. The more complicated answer is that, although God is good, and wants the best for us, we have (with a lot of help) managed to mess this world up pretty badly.

What it really comes down to is that we are free moral agents, and we are free to make our own choices. Sometimes we will make choices that are good for us, and sometimes we will not. I’m guessing that Adam made a lot of good choices in the Garden of Eden, but he is mostly remembered for the one bad decision he made. We don’t get into fixes because God puts us into a mess, although sometimes He doesn’t protect us from other people’s bad decisions, even when we think He should.

Another problem that we run into is that sometimes things happen that seem bad, but really aren’t. In some instances, good and bad are relative. Think about Jonah for a minute. When he was in the belly of the whale, he believed that he was being punished for his transgression, and that he was going to die in that whale (or great fish). In other words, he believed that God had devised a plan, intended to kill Jonah slowly, that would be worthy of a villain in a bad spy movie. The Scriptures make it clear that God prepared the ‘great fish’ for Jonah, not to kill him, but to keep him alive, because God wasn’t done with Jonah yet. In any case, I’m sure that Jonah didn’t think that he was in a good place, but consider that he placed himself in a position that the alternative was certain death by drowning outside of the will of God.

Elisha once found himself in a situation where Jezebel, Queen of Israel, threatened his life, and he took her very seriously. He went and hid himself in a cave. While he was in that cave, he must have felt that things just couldn’t get any worse; he probably felt that God had forsaken him. That’s speculation on my part, but, it seems to me that he knew that God was greater than Jezebel, and that Jezebel couldn’t kill him without God’s permission, so I have to believe that he was hiding from Jezebel specifically because he believed that God had forsaken him. Looking back at his situation, we can see that God hadn’t forsaken him, his basic needs were taken care of; in fact, he could have been sleeping safe and sound in his own home if he had simply believed God instead of Jezebel. Part of me is tempted to call Elisha a coward, but, from everything else I have read about Elisha, he was a much braver man than I am.

In the Gospel of John there is a story about a man that was born blind. In those days, people tended to be somewhat superstitious about such things and assumed that if someone was struck blind, it was because God (or, in the Gentiles’ case, the gods), were displeased with this person. Even Jesus’ disciples were confused: why was this man born blind? was it because of his sin (how could he sin before he was born?) or his parents (but then why didn’t God punish the parents directly?)? Jesus told them flat out that the blindness was not the result of sin, but an opportunity for God to be glorified. I can’t help but wonder how he felt, all those years being blind; I can’t believe that he thought his blindness was a good thing.

Sometimes God lets us get into situations just to show people how we will react. Remember Job? He did nothing wrong and yet God allowed him to be tested, not because God doubted Job’s integrity, but just to show off Job’s integrity. Of course, Job had no idea what was going on, he only knew that he was going through a lot of suffering and torment that he wasn’t accustomed to. His ‘friends’ assumed that Job’s situation was due to some malevolence on Job’s part, but they ended up getting schooled.

The bottom line is, if it seems like things are bad and getting worse, and everything that can possibly go wrong has gone wrong, the situation is dire and bleak and only getting darker, then you really just aren’t seeing the big picture. God has promised that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Remember the three Hebrew “children” (I’m not sure that they were children when this happened) who told King Nebuchadnezzar that they were not careful to answer him, that they knew that there God was able to save them, but that, even if He didn’t save them, they were still not going to bow down to the image that the king had made? They were willing to stand up and do what was right, even if got them killed, because they knew that God had a reward for them after their deaths, IF they remained faithful.

Walking On Water

2011-02-18T21:10:00.002-06:00

I had someone recently tell me that they wouldn’t want to be like Peter, because he didn’t have enough faith to be able to walk on the water without Jesus’ help. I can sort of see that point, but it occurs to me that I would like even less to be like the other eleven who didn’t have enough faith to get out of the boat. To be perfectly honest, most of the time I have more in common with the other eleven than I do with Peter. That shouldn’t come as a surprise: In Isaiah, we are told that our righteousness is as filthy rags. Any time we try to do anything on our own, we are going to come up short. The Bible even says that we are not sufficient of ourselves even to think as of ourselves.

Jesus once taught that a servant shouldn’t expect thanks for a job well done; after all, he (or she) is just doing his job. I suppose that it has become courtesy to thank an employee, or to give some recognition when a worker does well, but, realistically, as a worker, you do what you do in order to earn a paycheck. The words, “Thank you” may sound nice, but they don’t help pay the bills. Don’t misunderstand me, I understand that a little appreciation goes a long way towards building up morale, which, in turn, helps people to put more effort into their jobs. A good manager will thank his/her employees when they do a good job (whereas a poor manager will only criticize), but the worker should understand that the expression of gratitude that really matters is the paycheck. Jesus went on to say that, when we have done all that has been commanded of us, we should say, “We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do.” To be perfectly honest, there are very few days that I feel comfortable saying that I am an unprofitable servant. Most days I am just one striving to be closer to being unprofitable than to being a liability.

The Bible says to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. This is hard for human beings to hear, but when one considers the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, it is hard to escape the realization that He asks less from us that what He has done for us, and even now, He continues to make intercession for us because He knows and understands that, in this life, we will never be perfect. God understands our limits and our human frailties, and He has made a way for us to overcome. If we ever think that we have done this by our own strength or by our own righteousness, however, then we are essentially just exalting ourselves. Of course, God understands human ego, also, and will, if we allow Him, make away for us to get past ourselves.

To get back to the reference I started with, Peter may have needed Jesus’ help to walk on the water, but each of us needs Jesus’ help to do anything worthwhile. None of us are “man enough,” or holy enough, or righteous enough to achieve salvation on our own, much less impart salvation to someone else; we have enter through the door that Jesus provided. Peter walked on the water, even for the short time that he was able to do it, by keeping his eyes on Christ. When he took his eyes off of Christ and started looking at the physical things around him, then he lost his focus, and he began to sink. When he cried out to Jesus, Jesus reached out and saved him. Some would have you to believe that this represents the absolute worst of mankind; I am telling you that this represents the absolute best—we just don’t get any better than that. We do well when we focus on Jesus, when we “keep our eyes on the prize,” as they say, but, ultimately, we allow ourselves to become distracted; when we turn back to Jesus, He saves us from whatever trouble we’ve managed to get ourselves into. This is humanity at its best. Strive to do better, but, this is basically who we are.

Cafeteria Christians

2010-12-02T22:21:00.002-06:00

There are many occasions in life where you can pick and choose what you want. If you are following Weight-Watcher's, for example, you may choose to stick with the prescribed diet plan on some days and not on others; that's up to you, although your weight goals will probably be easier to reach the closer you stick to the plan. At Subway, you can choose what meats and vegetables you want on your sandwich, and even choose whether they toast the bread before loading on the ingredients. If you sign up for college courses, you get a certain amount of latitude on your elective courses, as long as you sign up for the courses that are required for your degree. Of course, in each of those situations, your choices may have consequences: As I said, if you don’t stick to the diet plan, you probably aren’t going to lose as much weight; if you order a turkey sub, but then opt to not have turkey put in the sandwich, you don’t really have a turkey sub; if you neglect to take the required courses at college, you will never get your degree (I am reminded of the classic John Belushi line, “Seven years of college, down the drain”).

I was going to say that you can’t do that with the Bible, but, of course, that wouldn’t be true. You can ignore the Bible completely, if you want to, but there are consequences. My point is that, “All scripture is given by the inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” You have every right to ignore it if you choose, but you do so at your own peril. I’m not going to waste your time telling you what the threat is; I suspect that you know that very well. It is not my intention to scare you with threats, anyway, I want you to see how right you can be, and help you to be rewarded in the next life.

One of the great strengths of the Bible is the lack of contradiction. The Bible was written over the course of many centuries, by many different writers, and yet it holds together very well. I know that there are some that will argue that the Bible does have contradictions. For example, in Habakkuk 2:3, we are told that the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Wait, if it tarries, wait for it, because it won’t tarry? I will admit that this verse is, in and of itself, a little confusing, but, Habakkuk is giving instruction to people who do not yet know what the appointed time is. Think about that for a minute. If they don’t know when the appointed time is, how can they possibly know if it is late? So, clearly, the first use of the word ‘tarry’ refers to when they grow impatient, and think that, “Surely, if the appointed time were coming, it would have been here by now,” even though they have no frame of reference. So, the second time the word ‘tarry’ is used, he is assuring them that, no matter how late it might seem, the time will come, but on God’s clock, not ours.

Some people may point out that there are variations in the Gospels. Each account gives a different list of names of the women who went to the tomb on Sunday morning, for example (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1, Luke 24:1-10, John 20:1). That, of course, isn’t necessarily a contradiction, since none of them claim to present a complete list of the women involved. If I told you that Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert held a Rally to Restore Sanity, you wouldn’t assume that they were the only two people there, would you? There are also minor differences in some of the other accounts, for example, Matthew 20 and Mark 10 are very similar, except that Matthew relates that James and John’s mother asked Him for special dispensation for her sons, while Mark says that it was James and John themselves, and Matthew says that after that, Jesus healed two blind men, but Mark says He only healed one. These are minor details, and really only show that there was no collusion between Matthew and Mark when they wrote their respective accounts; they have nothing to do with the overall ‘big picture’ of the Gospel message.

The thing that concerns me is that some people will disregard what Peter said, in order to believe what Paul wrote, or discount Paul and trust James. Paul chided the Church at Corinth for claiming loyalties to individuals other than the Lord: “For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” Clearly, our faith should not be in Paul, or Peter, or James, or Apollos, but in the God that directed them in their actions and in their writings.

The Name of God

2010-10-05T21:59:00.000-05:00

What, exactly, is the name of God? Some people seem to think that His name is ‘God.’ In some ways, that makes sense, after all we capitalize the word God when we are talking about Him, but, then again, we capitalize the pronouns He and Him in much the same way, and those are obviously not His name; the same term is used (without capitalization) for false gods. The capitalization just indicates that we are talking about the one true God.

When Moses asked God’s name, God told him, simply, “I am.” That can get a little awkward to deal with, as anyone can say, “I am.” The Jewish people got in the habit of referring to God by the term YHWH (which, by the way, they never actually say aloud. NOTE: Hebrew is also written right-to-left, so it would appear HWHY in Hebrew text), sometimes transliterated into English as Jehovah, but, basically, Hebrew for the phrase, “the existing one.” That’s a little easier to avoid in casual conversation than, “I am.” In any case, it didn’t really make too much difference what God told Moses His name was, anyway; no one else knew God’s name, either.

There are many references in the Old Testament to the name of God, or the name of the Lord, but all of those “names” seem to be manufactured titles, rather than proper names. A tone point, Isaiah quotes God as saying that His name is “the Lord.” El Shaddai, for example, means, “Most Powerful,” and is translated as “Almighty” throughout the Bible. There are some passages that indicate that, at some future date, God is going to reveal His name.

Jesus claimed to have manifested God’s name throughout Israel, and yet, nowhere does He mention a name of God. In the Book of Acts, Peter talks about the name of Jesus, and says that there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved. Paul tells us that Jesus is the One for whom the whole family in Heaven and earth is named (or, perhaps he means that the Father is the One for whom the whole family is named, but, if that’s the case, then Jesus, the Son, was named for Jesus, the Father). Jesus does tell us, in Matthew 28:19, to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Now, the term he uses, name, is singular; He’s only referring to one name. Now, if the whole family in Heaven and earth is named Jesus, then that makes sense.

It also makes sense that Jesus talked about using that name to baptize people. Paul tells us in Romans 6 that baptism allows us to put on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You can’t exactly be baptized in the likeness of the Father’s death, burial and resurrection, or the Holy Ghost’s; neither went through what the Son went through. So why did Jesus say to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, then? To make sure that His disciples knew and understood exactly who He was, and what His relationship was.

If you look through the Book of Acts, at no time do any of the apostles ever mention the Father or the Holy Ghost in the baptismal rites (Acts 2:38, Acts 8:16, Acts 10:48, Acts 19:5, and Acts 22:16). Some have said that the words recorded in scripture were not their exact words (and they’re probably right), but that the apostles were simply mentioning by whose authority they were performing baptisms. That seems like a bit of a stretch to me. They were performing Christian baptisms; the authority for that is pretty obvious. Going back to what Paul said in Romans, though, they were baptizing people into the saving power of Christ, so they used Jesus’ name.

Now I don’t claim to know if Jesus is the only name God has. In fact, the name Jesus means, “Jehovah is Salvation.” If it were not for the fact that this actually was the name that He used when He walked the earth, I’m not sure that I would consider it a proper name. Even at that, though, we are left with what Peter told us, as led by the Holy Spirit, in the Book of Acts: There is none other name, given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

The Power of Life and Death

2010-09-21T21:53:00.002-05:00

In Genesis it says that Abraham was instructed to offer up his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to God. In Hebrews, we are told that Abraham was willing to do this because he knew that God had promised that in Isaac would Abraham’s seed be called, and that Abraham had faith that, if he killed Isaac, that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead.

In John 11, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, after he had been in the grave for four days. In Luke 8, Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead. In Luke 7, Jesus raised a man from the dead who was the only son of a poor widow woman. Later on in that same chapter, two of John the Baptist’s disciples came to Him, and asked if He were the one. Jesus told them to go back to John and tell John what they had seen, and He included raising the dead among the things that they should tell John that they had seen.

In Job, Satan comes before the Lord and asks permission to torment Job. The Lord, willing to show off Job’s integrity, grants that permission, but orders Satan to save Job’s life. Think about that for a minute: Satan had to get permission before he could touch Job, and even then, God wouldn’t allow Job’s death.

There are some churches that teach something called, “baptism for the dead.” Now, I am by no means an expert in this doctrine, but, from what I understand, it basically comes down to this: If a close friend of yours, or a relative expressed a desire to be baptized, but died before they were able to, then you can get baptized by proxy for them. This idea comes from 1 Corinthians 15:29, which asks, “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?” Reading the chapter in context, though, we see that the subject at hand was the resurrection of the dead. Some of the Corinthians had a faulty understanding of the resurrection, and Paul was trying to make a point. If there is no resurrection, the Christ is not raised. If Christ is dead, then all that are ‘asleep’ in Christ have perished. What is the point of being a Christian, if in this life only we have hope? What would be the point of being baptized in the likeness of His death, burial, and resurrection if—not wait, scratch that, His death and burial if there is no resurrection.

I, personally, don’t believe in baptism for the dead; I don’t believe that it would ever be necessary. I think it’s safe to say that I am in the majority with this opinion (which could be a problem, since many are called, but few are chosen), but there are different reasons for believing that this is not necessary. Many people do not believe that baptism is necessary, so who cares if a friend or relative wanted to get baptized, but couldn’t? Others believe that baptism is necessary, but that if one has a sincere desire to do the will of God, that God, having the power of life and death, will not allow that person to die until they have fulfilled God’s will. Remember Jonah? God had something for him to do, and he tried to go the other way, but God prepared a ‘great fish’ to swallow him and keep him alive until he was ready to what God told him to do. I will grant you, God doesn’t usually do that for people who are just being stubborn, but, if He did that for Jonah, wouldn’t He take care of someone who sincerely wishes to serve God?

The Catch-22 here is that people who don’t believe baptism is essential don’t believe that God will protect someone who wants to get baptized simply because they don’t believe that baptism is essential. Taking that logic one step further, obviously, baptism isn’t essential, because there is always the possibility that someone could die waiting to get baptized. It’s circular logic, and, quite frankly, it expresses a lack of faith; who do you think is killing people behind God’s back? I have not heard of anyone in modern times dying while waiting to get baptized, even in churches that don’t do a baptismal ceremony until they have a sufficiently impressive number of people that want to get baptized (which makes no sense to me; if there is joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, shouldn’t there be joy in the church over one new Christian that wants to gets baptized?). I did know a man who by all rights should have died before his baptism, but didn’t. We had a young man in our church that was hospitalized because of problems with his blood pressure. He was placed in a semi-private room with an older gentleman with terminal cancer. Between this young man sharing his faith with his roommate, and people from the church coming to visit him, the dying man and his wife both decided they wanted to get baptized. The doctors forbad it, though, on the grounds that the physical trauma would likely be fatal. When asked how long he would live without baptism, they answered in days, rather than weeks or months; which raises the question, why not allow the baptism, then? In any case, we were at an impasse. He couldn’t leave the hospital without being released by the medical staff, which they, understandably, wouldn’t do with his health being so precarious. They also would not allow us to bring in a portable baptismal tank and baptize him in his room. After some prayer, the cancer disappeared. Personally, I would have been happy if it had simply gone into remission, although I suppose the doctors could have still refused to release him from the hospital. He did not go into remission, though, he experienced a complete healing, and the doctors had no choice but to release him. He came out to church and got baptized, and has since died.

My basic point is this: God loves you, and He wants you to do what is right. God also has the final say as far as who lives and who dies, and when. I’m not saying that you should tempt God by going out and doing stupid things because you ‘know’ that He’ll protect you, but don’t think that God is going to let you die when you’re in the process of performing His will.

The Parable of the Talents

2010-09-20T22:47:00.002-05:00

Jesus taught a parable which has become known as the parable of the talents. I want to make it clear, at the outset, that a talent was a certain weight of precious metal. In other words, the lord left two stewards with something to safeguard and invest while he was gone. Jesus says that the lord gave to them according to their several ability, not that those were their abilities. In any case, one of the stewards was given five talents, another two, and the third only one.

Some time ago, I was told that the one talent represented faith. I suppose that makes sense, after all, faith is the one thing that all Christians have. I am something of a skeptic by nature, though, and I wanted to see proof. People were able to give all kinds of logical explanations and arguments, but I was stubborn, and nothing that anyone told me qualified in my mind as proof.

A week ago, though, I heard a sermon in Sunday morning service that I think, although it may still not really be ‘proof,’ it certainly comes much closer, and I now feel much more confident that the one talent was, indeed, faith. This in spite of the fact that the sermon was not about the parable of the talents; in fact, the parable wasn’t even mentioned.

In 2 Peter, Peter tells us to add to our faith. He tells us to “add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.“ Now, clearly, Peter isn’t going to tell us to add to something that some of might not have. Further, what Peter says goes right along with what Jesus said in the parable: The one who had five, gained another five, the one that had two, gained another two, and they were both recognized as good and faithful servants. The one that was only given one didn’t do anything with it, and was rebuked for being wicked and slothful. Peter tells us that the man who doesn’t have virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Peter goes on to admonish us to give diligence to make our calling and election sure, and that, if we do these things, we shall never fall. Now, everybody slips occasionally; nobody’s perfect; we all make mistakes. Clearly, Peter is not suggesting that if we have faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, etc. that we will never mess up. He’s talking about a much more important and permanent fall here, just as Jesus said of the slothful servant in the parable that he was cast into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

In some ways, it doesn’t really seem fair; the third servant didn’t lose his faith, he just never did anything with it. Mark Twain once said, “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.” What good is literacy if you do not put it to use? By the same token, what good is faith if you don’t use it? James told us repeatedly in James 2 that faith without works is dead. He even makes the point that the devils have faith; what they don’t have is obedience.

Don’t misunderstand me: Faith is the determining factor in salvation, but only if it the kind of faith that drives you to want to try to please God. Someone who really believes the Gospel message will find themselves wanting to learn more about God, and His plan, and will want to tell everyone about His love. We could never earn salvation, it is much too precious a gift. We can, however prove ourselves to be completely unworthy of it. And, again, don’t misunderstand me; we are unworthy of it, yet God offers it to us anyway. But there will always be those that will take the gift for granted, and, in truth, treat it as something despised instead of something that is precious and must be protected at all costs and those people have no place with us.

After the parable of the talents, Jesus teaches us that on Judgment Day, the sheep (the obedient ones) will be on His right hand, and the goats (the ones that but all the time) will be on His left. The sheep will be rewarded for what they did in this life, but the goats will go to eternal punishment for what they didn’t do.

Naaman the Leper

2010-09-08T23:13:00.000-05:00

In 2 Kings 5, there is a story about a Syrian named Naaman, who also happened to have leprosy. Apparently, leper or not, he was an important man in the kingdom of Syria, and a very kind man. I say this because he had a Hebrew slave girl in his household who lamented that they were not in Israel, that the prophet could recover Naaman from his leprosy, and Naaman went to the king to ask leave to go see the prophet.

A few things strike me here: First off, the slave girl could have kept her mouth shut, or offered a solution in return for her own freedom. She chose to do the right thing, though, and advise her master that a healing could be had. Second, he believed her. What kind of testimony had she established in his house, that she could say something like that and be believed? I can’t believe that, with leprosy being what it was in those days, Naaman hadn’t already tried every treatment available, and yet, this girl says that there is a man in her native country that can heal him. Doesn’t that just sound national pride? Third, the scriptures don’t tell us who the girl was.

So, the king encourages Naaman to go; and Naaman loads up with all kinds of silver, gold, and garments for the prophet, in hopes that he can, in fact, recover Naaman from his leprosy. So Naaman goes directly to the king of Israel, seeking his healing. The king becomes distraught; in his mind, this is nothing but a provocation. The king of Syria has sent this leper to Israel for a healing, not because he believes that it will happen, but so that, when it doesn’t happen, he has an excuse to wage war with Israel.

Well, the prophet, Elisha, became aware of what was happening, and sent a message to the king that if he sent Naaman to Elisha, then Naaman and the king of Syria would know that there was a God in Israel. The king, anxious to get rid of Naaman without starting a war, complied.

So Naaman goes to Elisha. Perhaps at this point he’s feeling a little jerked around. The girl certainly didn’t make it sound like it was going to be this complicated. Elisha doesn’t even talk to Naaman directly, but Naaman was probably used to that, being a leper. Elisha tells him to go wash in the River Jordan seven times, and he will be healed of his leprosy.

Naaman decides he has had enough. There are rivers in Syria, much better rivers than the Jordan, in fact, why in the world do I have to come all this way, and you end up telling me to do something stupid like take a bath… But Naaman’s servants manage to get his ear, and to calm him down a little bit, and remind him that, if the prophet has asked him to perform some heroic deed, or perform some great sacrifice, then he would have done it. Are you angry because this seems too simple?

Naaman stops, and he thinks. The servants are, of course, entirely correct. Naaman was prepared to turn over a considerable worth of merchandise, in fact, he would have done almost anything imaginable if it meant that he could be made clean, so why not dip himself in the River Jordan? If it doesn’t work, then he’s got a reason to be angry, but if he doesn’t try, after coming all this way, then he will never know.

So, he dips himself seven times into the River Jordan, and after that, his flesh is returned to him, completely whole and free from leprosy. Naaman went back to Elisha, and thanked him, and tried to give the man of God those things that he had brought, but Elisha wouldn’t have any of it. We know that you can’t buy a gift of God, but Naaman could be forgiven for not knowing.

My main point is this: Naaman believed, before he left Syria, or he wouldn’t have come. He tried to buy his healing, but God wasn’t interested in his money, only his obedience. The water of the River Jordan didn’t heal him; taking a bath does not cure leprosy. What healed Naaman was his faith in operation. Now, you may tell me that Naaman was in the Old Testament, things are different now, and you’d be right. We’re not under the law, we’re under grace. At the same time, God hasn’t changed, only His covenant with us has. Also, Apostle Paul told us that the law was a schoolmaster that helped to bring us unto Christ. James has taught us that, although it is our faith that saves us, that faith is dead if it is not accompanied by works. The story of Naaman wasn’t included in the Bible to show us how different things were then, it was to give us an example of faith in operation because God knew then that we would still need that principle today.

The Gift

2010-08-30T19:27:00.002-05:00

There is a story that has gone around for a while: A fifteen year old boy talked to his father about getting a car for his sixteenth birthday. His father said that he would give him a car for his birthday, but with three conditions. First, he had to improve his grades, second, he had to get a job after school, and third, he had to get his haircut. Some time passed, and, the day before his birthday, this young man talked to his father, and bragged about his grades, which had improved, and about his job, and told his father that he was looking forward to his new car. His father reminded him that he was also supposed to get a haircut. “Dad, I was thinking about that, and I noticed that Jesus had long hair.” His father replied, “I was thinking about that, too, and did you notice that Jesus walked everywhere He went?”

Most of us are accustomed to our parents giving us things with conditions. Sometimes it’s necessary. Before parents give children something that has the potential to cause damage or destruction, they want to be sure that they have the maturity and responsibility that at least there is a reasonable chance that those things won’t happen. It’s understandable, also, that parents, after giving something to one of their children, will not hesitate to confiscate that gift if it becomes clear that the child is not ready to use that gift responsibly. Now, granted, sometimes parents do such things simply as a way to control their children. Flesh-and-blood parents are sometimes controlling and/or overprotective; nobody’s perfect, except for the Lord. In general, though, parents set conditions on such things out of a legitimate concern for the safety and well-being of their off-spring.

If we accept the fact that our natural parents sometimes give us things with conditions, is it really surprising that our Heavenly Father would do the same? Some would have you to believe that the free gift that Apostle Paul talks about in Romans 5 has no conditions; that it wouldn’t be a free gift if there were strings attached. Well, Jesus listed a number of things that He said one had to do in order to be saved. Unless Paul was talking about some other gift other than salvation, then that gift does come with some conditions (or maybe you don’t believe Jesus’ words). In Matthew 10:22 and 24:13, Jesus said that one had to endure to the end to be saved. Endure what? Well, he was talking about persecution, and the temptation to leave the faith. There are some that would have you believe that you can’t leave the faith, but that would make Jesus’ words pretty foolish—why would He warn us against a situation that could never really happen? In Mark 8:35 and Luke 9:24, Jesus said that if you saved your own life, then you would lose it, but if you lost your life for His sake (Mark 8:35 also says the Gospel’s), then you would save it. I think that makes it clear that we should at least be prepared to surrender our lives for Jesus; I would like to think that most of us will never actually have to do that, but we should have our minds made up that we will, if the need arises. In Luke 13:23-24, Jesus said that, to be saved, you must enter in at the strait gate (strait meaning narrow). There are several places prior to the crucifixion that Jesus told people that their faith had saved them (Luke 7:50, Luke 18:42) but, after the crucifixion, He said that one had to believe and be baptized to be saved (Mark 16:16).

In Mark 10, Jesus was approached by a man that is commonly referred to as The Rich Young Ruler, who asked what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus reminded him of the commandments (He didn’t mention having only one God, I assume that was understood), which he affirmed he had kept from his youth. Then Jesus told him that he lacked one thing: that he should sell all he had and give to the poor, and follow Jesus. Now, I want to make it clear that Jesus never told anyone else to sell everything; I don’t believe that every Christian has to do that. This man, however, was of a state of mind that Jesus knew that he wouldn’t be able to maintain his possessions and his walk with God. After this man walked away, sorrowful, Jesus went on to tell his disciples that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. Now, if all a rich man has to do is to believe in his heart and confess with his mouth, then why is that so difficult? Of course, if anyone truly believes in their heart to the point of making a sincere confession with their mouth, then that person will seek to do the things which Jesus requires. If you truly believe that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, then you are going to follow His commandments, because faith without works is dead.

If you stop to think about it, if the gift of salvation had no conditions, then what would be the point of even making a profession of faith? If there are no conditions, then everyone is going to Heaven, whether they believe or not. After all, Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, didn’t he? It’s not God’s will that any should perish, right? And yet, Jesus tells us that many are called, but few are chosen. In other words, God would like to save everyone in the whole world, but most people are going to be too stubborn to accept His conditions. I would also like to point out that the passage in Romans that I mentioned earlier ends by saying, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” Of course, none of us could ever be righteous enough by our own strength or ability, but Jesus has given us a formula to obtain righteousness in Matthew 3.

The Baptist and the Thief

2010-08-27T21:22:00.003-05:00

I have a couple of things on my mind today, one of which is John the Baptist. John was prophesied about in the Old Testament; In Isaiah he was referred to as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, and in Malachi 3:1, it says, “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.” He was sent by God; his mission was to lay the foundation for the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, what John himself is known for is that he baptized people. He apparently baptized lots of people. The Bible tells us that he picked a spot on the Jordan River where there was a lot of water. Now, it would seem to me that, if Jordan is a river, then there should be a sizable amount of water at any given place along its banks, but they tell me that in many places it is very shallow, so John must have been avoiding those places. In any case, John had been sent to make sure that people were prepared for the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and to do that, he baptized people. That raises the question, how did water baptism prepare the way for Jesus?

Of course, we know that Jesus didn’t baptize anyone Himself, but His disciples baptized many people. Should we assume that baptism was simply a habit that they picked up from John the Baptist, and that Jesus never took the time to correct them? He was right there—if what they were doing was wrong, surely He would have explained it to them. We know that Jesus taught baptism, even though He didn’t perform the rite Himself. Some have said that Jesus wasn’t talking about water baptism, and, indeed, John the Baptist told the crowd that Jesus would baptize them with Holy Ghost. Of course, Jesus can do that, the rest of us really can’t. Interestingly enough, in Acts 10, Peter was preaching to a group of Romans , and the Holy Ghost fell on them, and they were spiritually baptized. Peter then asked the question, “Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?” If spiritual baptism were enough, then why did Peter ask for water, and why did he command that they be baptized (again)? The easy answer, of course, is that Peter was simply confused, but I have a hard time believing that. Remember that Peter was hand-picked by Jesus, in fact, Jesus gave him the ‘keys to the kingdom.’ Certainly, Peter made mistakes, but God was aware, and God took care of those mistakes. In Acts 10 in particular, we know that Peter had been praying hard, so I would expect him to be particularly receptive to the leading of the Holy Ghost.

Some have also pointed out that Paul didn’t baptize, at least, not very often. I’m not convinced of that; in 1 Corinthians 1, he wrote about divisions in the church, and he commented that he was glad that he hadn’t personally baptized in Corinth, because some might make a big deal about being baptized by Paul. He corrects himself, though, and admits that he did baptize Crispus and Gaius and the household of Stephanas. He does go on to say that he was not sent to baptize, but to preach the Gospel. Of course, if he preached the Gospel the way that Philip did, then people were getting baptized, even if Paul himself wasn’t performing the baptisms.

The other thing on my mind is the thief on the cross. I have had a number of people want to talk to me about the thief. They want to remind me that he was not baptized. I am well aware that he was not baptized; quite frankly, it wouldn’t really make much difference whether he was or not; Jesus didn’t command baptism until after His death, burial, and resurrection. Furthermore, Apostle Paul tells us in Romans (the Book of Romans has been called, “the book of salvation” by some) that the point of baptism is to spiritually take on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Clearly the thief couldn’t do that, since Jesus died only shortly before the thief, but, instead, he was actually crucified with Jesus—something that most of us would never be able to do. Besides that, Jesus had power on earth to forgive sins, so He was able to erase the thief’s past in recognition of the sincerity of his heart without forcing him to wait until after the resurrection…

Born Again

2010-08-26T22:22:00.002-05:00

In John 3, Jesus talked to Nicodemus about being born again. The idea confused Nicodemus, as is understandable. To be honest, a lot of people today seem to be confused by the idea, and we have been given a much more conducive environment, since these words were spoken almost two thousand years ago. In my younger days, there were a lot of people talking about being ‘born again’ and a lot of older people (even church people) that made fun of them. I thought that was pretty odd then, I mean, if it’s Scripture, if it’s something Jesus said to do, then shouldn’t we do it? People kept telling me that things were different then. Well, they were, but the changes (at least, the changes in our religious perspectives) that have taken place since then have largely been because of what Jesus taught.

What exactly was Jesus talking about? Nicodemus tried to pin Jesus down. He asked him how a man could be born when he is old; further, can a man get back into his mother’s womb and be born again? Jesus answered, “Unless a man be born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” He went on to talk about flesh being born of flesh, and spirit being born of spirit. Now, some have said that when Jesus talked about water, He was talking about the amniotic fluid which nourishes and protects the fetus, and is allowed to flow out at birth. Others have suggested that would imply that Jesus thought Nicodemus was stupid, and that He had to explain natural birth to him before he could explain spiritual birth. To be honest, I can see both sides of that argument. Nicodemus had just asked about being born again in terms of a natural birth; perhaps Jesus’ answer was intended to contrast the natural birth with the spiritual birth. On the other hand, water is something that God has used over and over again as a purifying or separating agent. In my last post, I mentioned Noah and the ark; God used water to separate Noah and his family from the people that refused to heed God. Also, when the Children of Israel left Egypt, God used the water of the Red Sea to separate the Israelites from the Egyptians (and ensure that the Egyptians wouldn’t chase after the Israelites any more after that). God even used water to signify the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

Apostle Paul wrote extensively in Romans 6. He wrote that we are buried with Christ by baptism unto death, and that, having risen from that watery grave, we should walk in newness of life. Wouldn’t a new life be the result of being born again? It seems to me that it would be, but that raises the question, if Jesus meant that you had to be baptized in order to be born again, why didn’t he just tell Nicodemus that he needed to get baptized? I can only suggest that Jesus didn’t tell Nicodemus to get baptized because being baptized by John the Baptist wouldn’t have been enough, and that, the baptism for remission of sins, being our way of taking on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, couldn’t exist until Jesus died on the cross, was buried, and was resurrected.

Notice also, that, in the Book of Acts (the history of the actions of the early church), when they shared the Gospel with someone, then they baptized that person (or those people). In Acts 2, after Peter preached his first sermon, they baptized three thousand people. In Acts 8, Philip the evangelist shared with a number of people who had been deceived by a sorcerer named Simon, but they believed Philip, and he baptized them. Then God led Philip out into the desert, where he shared with a eunuch, and baptized him. In Acts 9, God sent Ananias to pray with and to share with Saul the Pharisee (who was called Paul the Christian after that), and Ananias also baptized Saul (Paul). In Acts 10, a Roman named Cornelius was seeking God, and told to send for Peter; Peter went and preached the Gospel to Cornelius and his family, and then baptized them. In Acts 16, Paul shared with a woman named Lydia, and then baptized her. Also, later on in the same chapter, Paul and Silas told the jailer that if he believed in the Lord Jesus, then he would be saved; this jailer took them from the prison to his own house, in the middle of the night, and Paul and Silas shared with his family, and then baptized them.

I will admit that there are some instances that it doesn’t specifically say that the person or people being shared with got baptized. For example, in Acts 18, we are told that Paul shared with a man named Aquila, and his wife Priscilla, and then, later on, they shared with a man named Apollos. This chapter doesn’t say anything about any of those three getting baptized, however, in 1 Corinthians 1, Paul indicates that a fairly large number of the Corinthians were baptized by Apollos. That wouldn’t make sense unless Apollos were baptized first. The question than would be, who baptized Apollos? Aquila and Priscilla were the ones that shared with him, so they must have been baptized in order to baptize him. That, of course, means that Paul must have baptized them.

In conclusion, I think that it is clear that water baptism is, at the very least, an important part of becoming a Christian. Otherwise, there would not have been nearly so much emphasis put on it in the Scriptures. It is through baptism that we take on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; it is how we get born again.

The Great Commission

2010-08-25T23:01:00.002-05:00

I suspect that most of us are at least aware of the Great Commission. For those of you that aren’t, these were the last words of Jesus prior to His ascension (after His death, burial and resurrection). What many people don’t seem to realize is that there are three accounts of the great Commission, and each one is different.

In Matthew 28, Jesus commanded the apostles to go, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. In Mark 16, He told them to go unto all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature, and then He said that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. He went on to talk about the signs that would follow them that believe: They shall speak with new tongues, take up serpents, not be harmed by drinking deadly things, and they would heal the sick. In Luke 24, He told the Apostles to tarry at Jerusalem until they be endued with power from on high, but also said that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name. It seems pretty clear that He wanted them to go, either to all nations, or unto all the world, and teach (or preach) the Gospel. Interesting that two of these three accounts all mention baptism, although in a different sense each time.

Now, in Luke 24, He specifically told them to tarry at Jerusalem until they received power. Luke continued his account of the Great Commission in the first chapter of Acts, and tells us that Jesus told them not to depart from Jerusalem, and also that the apostles would receive power after that the Holy Ghost came upon them. In Acts chapter 2, the apostles are still in Jerusalem, and the Holy Ghost fell on all those that believed. Now, there were present men from every nation. So, they haven’t even left Jerusalem yet, but they are witnessing to every nation. Further on, after Peter had preached his first sermon, these men asked, “What shall we do?” Peter replied that they should repent, and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. So, in Luke 24, when Jesus talked about repentance and remission of sins, He was talking about baptism then, too.

Now, some have looked at Mark 16:16 and said, well, Jesus didn’t say that if you weren’t baptized that you were damned… and that’s true. I don’t want to say that one is more important than the other, but if you don’t believe, then it really doesn’t matter if you are baptized or not. Furthermore, if Jesus didn’t mean that baptism was essential to salvation, then why did He even bring it up? If all He was really talking about was faith, then He could have simply said, “He that believeth shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.” I have to believe that He talked about believing and being baptized to be saved because He meant that one has to believe and be baptized to be saved.

On a slightly different subject, some have looked at 1 Peter 3:21, and said that it refers to baptism as a figure, or a picture. They go on to say that baptism is an outward sign of an inward change, but it isn’t necessary to perform the outward sign in order to have the inward change. Once you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, then you certainly may get baptized if you want to; it’s a good thing to do, but you don’t have to. If we look at that with a little bit of context, though, we see that just before that passage, Peter was talking about Noah and the flood. He actually says something that may strike you as odd: He says that in the days of Noah, eight souls were saved by water. Didn’t the ark save Noah and his family from the water? What did the water save them from? Looking at verse 21 again, though, it says, “…not the putting away of the filth of the flesh…” So, Noah, being a righteous man, but surrounded be people that grieved God, was, in his ark, buoyed up by the water that destroyed the people that vexed his soul. By the same token, baptism separates us from the sins of our past lives. In other words, the figure, or picture, that Peter was talking about was not an outward sign of an inward change, but simply a comparison between the water of baptism and the water of Noah’s flood. If that picture is accurate, though, that makes the water pretty necessary; Noah and his family holed up in an ark waiting for a flood that never came would have been pretty silly. Peter’s comparison of baptism to the flood underscores the importance of water baptism.

Harmless as Doves

2010-08-09T22:26:00.002-05:00

I normally make it a point not to attack anyone, or anyone’s views, or any given religion. Lately, though, I have become more and more frustrated with people that call themselves Christians who seem to go out of their way to promote a negative view of Christianity. As an example, there is a “church” in Topeka, Kansas that has made quite a name for itself by picketing funerals. Another example would be so-called “Christians” that want to tell everybody else how to live, but then when it is pointed out to them that they do the things that tell others not to do, they defend themselves by saying that their sins are covered by the blood of Jesus. In other words, they believe that once you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, then it doesn’t matter what you do, because it’s all covered by the blood. They don’t seem to understand that, if that were true, then the obverse would also be true: If you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior, then it really doesn’t matter what you do, because you could never be good enough to make it to Heaven without the blood of Christ applied to your life. But, they say that the law is made for the lawless …

I guess I understand why it is that of all the people that Jesus dealt with when He walked the earth, the ones that He had the hardest time dealing with were the Pharisees. For those of you that don’t know who the Pharisees were, they were the religious leaders of the time. Did you ever notice that Jesus didn’t generally hang out with religious people? Oh, granted, Nicodemus came to Him by night, and there was a Pharisee that invited Jesus to dinner once, but, generally, they bad-mouthed Jesus for being “a friend to publicans and sinners.” Publicans were tax collectors, and, I may be mistaken about this, but it’s my understanding that publicans didn’t have a lot of oversight. If Joseph the carpenter owed ten shekels in tax, but the publican could persuade (and by persuade I mean browbeat him or threaten him into acquiescence) good old Joe into paying twelve shekels, then the publican could pocket the extra two shekels and no one would be the wiser. As far as the supervisor was concerned, Joe owed ten, the publican collected ten, ten is what went into the treasury. From Joe’s perspective, the publican said he owed twelve, so he paid twelve, and, as far as he knew, twelve went into the treasury. Of course, most people knew about the practice, but nobody knew for sure if they were actually victims. Clearly, not all publicans defrauded the citizenry: When Jesus met with Zacchaeus, Zack protested that he never did those things, and that on every occasion that he found that he had accidently overcharged someone on their tax, that he made full restitution according to Mosaic Law. If Zacchaeus had lied, Jesus would have known, just as He knew the thoughts of the scribes in Matthew 9.

The bottom line is, John 3:16 says that God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. The Bible also says that we love Him because He first loved us. It even says that, while we were yet in sin, He gave Himself for us. I don’t see anywhere where it says to attack people outside the faith. It isn’t a question of what they are doing wrong (or even what they are doing right, but it never hurts to comment favorably on such to encourage them), because, as long as they are on the outside, it just doesn’t matter. I don’t see anywhere in the Gospels where Jesus (our perfect example) ever criticized someone outside the faith for living as though they were outside the faith. I do see where He criticized the religious people for hypocrisy, and occasionally even His own disciples for their lack of faith. So, there is a standard of living for those of us that claim to be righteous (although most of us never come nearly close enough), but those that do not should simply be encouraged to learn about the love that He has for us, and then encouraged to make a decision to call on His name. Telling them how wrong they are only serves to push them away, particularly if it is done in a hateful manner. Telling them how right they can be may just get them interested. The most important thing is that they know that Jesus loves them, even as they are, but that He wants so much better for them.

Peter and Paul

2010-07-30T22:01:00.000-05:00

Two of the most prominent leaders of the early church were Apostle Peter and Apostle Paul. Both of them were strong leaders, and yet, they were very different men. Paul was a Pharisee prior to his conversion; Peter was a fisherman. Paul was, by the nature of his position, a very educated man; Peter, being a fisherman, most likely had minimal learning. On the other hand, Peter spent three years learning directly from the Master, while Paul spent most of his life, up until his conversion, learning from ‘masters’ that couldn’t recognize the fulfillment of prophecy when it unfolded right in front of them.

Peter and Paul each had at least one life-changing experience with God after the Ascension. Peter, who had been given the keys to the kingdom by Jesus, had a vision that extended salvation to the Gentiles. Paul, on the road to Damascus, was knocked to the ground, struck blind, and told directly by God that he was not following the right path. So, Peter did not have a complete understanding about who he should be sharing the Gospel with, but Paul had a major misunderstanding about what the Gospel was.

Now, it would make sense to me that Peter, having unlocked the door of salvation for those of us who were not born Jewish, would be heavily involved in ministering to the Gentiles from that point on. Paul, on the other hand, with all of his knowledge of Old Testament Scriptures and Prophecy, was uniquely qualified to counter any arguments that any of the Pharisees could use to come against the Church. That is not the way that God chose to use them, though. In fact, at one point Paul criticized Peter for his dealings with Jews and Gentiles. Later, Paul pronounced judgment against the Jews, and announced that he would concentrate on the Gentiles.

You may have heard it said that whom God calls, He qualifies. It is also true that, frequently, God will use people that would seem to be poorly qualified to do whatever it is that He has called them to do. That way, when people try to find fault, they have to at least consider that this person is doing something that they shouldn’t be able to do. Some people don’t let that bother them. When Moses, under God’s direction, pronounced judgment against Korah, the earth opened up and swallowed up Korah and his family. That was a new thing; nothing like that had ever happened before. The very next day, though, there were people accusing Moses of murder, as if Moses could orchestrate an earthquake by himself. Some people will attribute miracles to any supernatural power they can imagine, rather than acknowledge God.

The point of all of this is that God will frequently do things that don’t make sense to the natural mind, even the minds of people that are very smart, but He does it so that He will be glorified. He doesn’t want us to get all egotistical about what we can do, as if we could actually accomplish something on our own. That’s why Jesus told us to let our light so shine, that others would see our good works and glorify the Father in Heaven. People that are paying attention will know that we just aren’t good enough to do the things that we do. We should be grateful for this because, if people thought that we could actually do those things that only God can do, then they will look to us for answers and solutions that they should be looking to God for; believe me, you don’t want that kind of responsibility.

A Little History

2010-07-14T19:49:00.000-05:00

Occasionally, you may hear a reference to the nation of Palestine. This country, as you may well know, was almost directly between Middle-Earth and Narnia, deep in the area commonly referred to as the Twilight Zone. There has never been a nation called Palestine on this planet. There was an ancient kingdom of Philistines, but not Palestine. There was once a British colony called Palestine, which was created in 1922, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, for the express purpose of creating a homeland for Jews. There was actually a written mandate from the League of Nations, directing England to do exactly that. Under British rule, the area was home to both Jews, Arabs, and Europeans.

During Hitler’s rule of the Third Reich, he engaged Mufti Mohammad Amin al-Husayni (or Al-Husayni engaged Hitler), who was strongly anti-Semitic, to broadcast radio messages into the Middle East, propaganda in support of Nazi Germany, and calling for their aid in exterminating the Jews. Now, Al-Husayni was a resident of the British colony of Palestine, and he did not like the idea of Palestine becoming the Jewish homeland. Quite frankly, judging by the way the British dragged their feet in carrying out their mandate, they weren’t overly thrilled with it, either. But here we have a mufti broadcasting anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda into the Middle East. Traditionally, Jews and Muslims had gotten along reasonably well, but by taking certain verses of the Koran out of context to support Hitler’s agenda (or, perhaps simply his own desire to make Palestine an Arab country), Al-Husayni was able to turn a lot of Muslims against the Jews.

After World War II, the Allies decided that they should move quickly to establish the Jewish homeland. If there had been a Jewish homeland prior to Hitler’s regime, perhaps there would not have been as many Jews in Nazi-controlled territories. It’s difficult to say. I think that it’s safe to say that Hitler was well aware that there was a fair amount of anti-Semitism in Germany when he became chancellor, and German Jews controlled a disproportionate amount of the wealth in Germany, so it was easy for him to portray them as greedy outsiders who were cheating good honest Germans out of their hard-earned money… You get the idea. Perhaps if there had been fewer Jews controlling a smaller portion of the German economy, the Nazis would not have felt the need to try to exterminate them. Also, if there had been a Jewish homeland ready to defend the rights and well-being of Jews living in Germany, perhaps the Nazis would have been more reluctant to take such drastic measures to rid themselves of these ‘undesirables.’

So, the Holocaust triggered a ramping up of the long overdue creation of a Jewish homeland. Unfortunately, a large number of Arab people were living in the land that had been set aside for this new nation (I have no way of knowing how many ‘Palestinians’ were previously Ottomans, and how many were Arabs that emigrated from other parts of the Mideast after the fall of the empire). Many of them were perfectly willing to move somewhere else (a fair percentage of the people currently living in Jordan identify themselves as Palestinians, in spite of the fact that considerably more time has passed since the colony of Palestine ceased to exist than the amount of time that passed while Palestine existed). In any case, Israel came into existence, and found themselves in a situation very similar to what King David wrote many years before, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.”

Divorce?

2010-06-07T21:51:00.000-05:00

I was recently placed in the rather uncomfortable position of having to defend some of the policies of the Roman Catholic Church. I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job of it. I am not, and never have been, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, but I have some understanding of their doctrine; sometimes I think I understand the doctrine better than most Romans I know. There are many things in their doctrine that I don’t agree with; don’t misunderstand me, I know that there are many good people in the Roman Catholic Church, but I have doctrinal issues with that denomination.

One of my co-workers was griping that a Roman Catholic priest advised her to get a divorce. Don’t misunderstand, she wanted the divorce; she just felt that the advice was contrary to the doctrine that this priest was supposed to be upholding. I asked her if she was Catholic; she is. I asked if her husband was Catholic; he was not. Well, now I understand the priest’s position. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I understand. I tried to explain that little “loophole,” and, in retrospect, I realize that I shouldn’t have used the term loophole. I should have just asked her if she would have taken offense if the priest had advised her to “stop living in sin.” I feel reasonably certain that her response would have been something to the effect that she wasn’t living in sin, and I would have agreed with her on that point. I was able to successfully point out to her that “The Church” did not recognize her marriage, since her husband did not share her faith.

I can understand religions teaching that inter-faith relationships are wrong, or at the very least, a very bad idea. If nothing else, think of the children; the offspring from a Catholic-Baptist coupling are going to have a hard time finding acceptance in either church (the fact that the children should not be blamed for their parents’ decision notwithstanding); children from a Jewish-Hindu marriage even more so. It can also lead to a great deal of confusion and emotional turmoil in the children’s upbringing; what is a child to do when daddy’s church teaches that mommy’s church is wrong, and mommy’s church teaches that anyone who attends daddy’s church is a vile sinner (and don’t try to tell me that it doesn’t happen)?

So, the upshot of all of this is, that, since the Catholic Church did not recognize her marriage, as far as that priest was concerned, her marriage was, in effect, “living in sin.” So her “divorce” was nothing of the kind; it was an act of penance. In the eyes of our government, she was married, and she got divorced. In the eyes of her church, she was living in sin, but she repented, and went through the necessary formalities so that the state would no longer recognize the marriage that “The Church” never acknowledged.

Now, to my mind, the proper religious viewpoint should have been to attempt to proselytize the unbelieving husband, which may have been impossible, but, failing that, to continue the relationship, unless the husband decided that he wanted to end it, or he became abusive or unfaithful to her. In 1 Corinthians 7, Apostle Paul talks at some length about the faithful wife (or husband) sanctifying the unbelieving spouse, and also that if the unbelieving spouse chooses to end the relationship, the believer is not bound to that person. I understand thatthere are sometimes circumstances that require a separation. I don’t think Paul was advocating that a wife stay in a relationship where her physical well-being was being threatened, whether by violence or by sexually-transmitted diseases that her husband could potentially be bringing home, but, for the most part, if you find yourself in a marriage with someone who doesn’t share your faith, you should expend every effort to try to make that marriage work.

Excuses

2010-06-04T22:15:00.002-05:00

There are a lot of adages about excuses; my favorite would have to be: “Excuses are like armpits. Most people have them, and they generally stink.” Scripturally, excuses seem to go back almost as long as sin does. When God confronted Adam about eating the forbidden fruit, Adam’s response was, “The woman that you gave me …” and Eve said, “The serpent …” A guy that I used to work for would chant, whenever he sensed an excuse coming, “My wife she; my dog he; my car it…” because most of the excuses he heard started with one of those three phrases. Adam’s excuse isn’t much different; for that matter, neither is Eve’s. This may also be the original example of ‘Chutzpah,’ Adam trying to tell God that his sin was because of the woman that God had given him (isn’t Adam basically saying that the sin was God’s fault?).

When Abraham got caught telling a lie (well, okay, it was a half-truth, but let’s face it, a half truth is still a lie), his response was, “Because I thought …” Notice he did not say, “Because God directed me to…” or, “I was commanded to…” He just decided in and of himself that this was the proper course of action, and went with it. As if that were not enough, years earlier he had gotten caught telling the same lie! If it didn’t fly the first time, what made him think it would work the second time?

When God told Moses to go lead Israel out of Egypt, Moses was full of excuses. He couldn’t speak well; he didn’t know how to tell the Israelites who had sent him… For somebody who was supposed to be meek, he sure did talk back to God a lot. Of course, I understand that he felt more comfortable talking to God than he did to Pharaoh. He understood his relationship with God, but he wasn’t sure that Pharaoh wouldn’t kill him on sight, and a meek man like Moses really didn’t want to go to Pharaoh with something that he had a pretty good idea would be received as bad news.

When Saul was made king over all Israel, he made a lot of mistakes, and he made a lot of excuses. At one point he even tried to blame “the people.” As king, ultimately, he was responsible for the people anyway; if they weren’t following his orders, he should be making sure that they were dealt with accordingly. The king doesn’t just have power and authority over the people; he also has responsibility for the people.

When David became king, he showed himself to be one of the rare individuals who didn’t make excuses. When David made mistakes, he owned up to them, he took responsibility. When Nathan confronted David about Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah the Hittite, David immediately confessed. I’m sure that there were many excuses he could have come up with, and maybe several that he had used to justify himself in his own mind, but once that he knew without a doubt that he was caught, he let those excuses go. Later on, David numbered Israel, against Joab’s counsel; then, he confessed his sin. To be honest, it may very well be that, this time, he simply had no excuse: Joab had already asked why the king would even care how many men were in Israel; God could defend Israel with only a few, provided that those few (and their king) were faithful.

God didn’t expect David to be perfect; He doesn’t expect any of us to be perfect. He made us; He knows what we are capable of. It occurs to me, though, that these men were four of the most prominent leaders of God’s chosen people in ancient times. I don’t mean to denigrate the other three, but it’s pretty clear to me why David is the one said to be a man after God’s own heart. To be honest, I would be kidding myself to even try to compare myself to any of those four men (well, maybe Saul), but I think that, if I could be like one of them, I would most like to be like David.

A Church or a Business?

2010-05-18T22:04:00.000-05:00

My apologies for the length of time since my last post, and, in fair warning, it may be some time before my next one.

I was asked today if I am active in my church. Of course I am; did you even need to ask? The person who asked me responded that they were no longer active in their church. That concerned me; I asked them why that was. They told me they had gotten frustrated with church leaders running the organization more like a business than as a church.

This is an easy trap for church leaders to fall into, particularly in economic times such as these. I have managed (so far) to avoid working in the accounting office of my church, but I understand a few things about finance. I know that in times of economic downturn, charitable donations tend to be one of the first casualties. It shouldn’t be; most of us know that when we are suffering financially, the institutions that we normally support are suffering as well, but it’s easy to think that somebody else will pick up our slack. So, when church leaders are trying to make financial decisions, and bills are coming in, but offerings are not, at least, not the way they used to, the question is inevitable, “What can we do to make ends meet?”

The obvious answer is to make the congregation aware of the needs of the church, and ask that they would collectively dig deep into their pockets to support the ministry. Unfortunately, whenever church leaders do that, people become suspicious. It’s not difficult to start thinking that this person or that person is pilfering from the offerings of the church. Having said that, let me caution you that may be exactly what is happening. There have certainly been a number of instances in the past where various churches have suffered embezzlement at the hands of the very people that were supposed to be the trustees of God’s money. On the other hand, as I said earlier, everyone’s expenses have gone up of late, even, dare I say, God’s. When the price of gas goes up, it costs more to run the church bus, and it costs more for the pastor to do visitation. When the price of food goes up, feeding the hungry or running a soup kitchen becomes more expensive. Should we then abandon the work of God, because it just plain costs so much?

Another route that some church leaders follow is to start alternate fundraising efforts. Those sometimes work, and sometimes don’t. I have heard of churches starting day-care facilities with the idea that they could get volunteers to do some or all of the work, and bring in some much-needed capital, and at the same time give a break to some of the working mothers in the church. Maybe even bring in some children from families outside the church, and possibly give those families a little exposure to the gospel that they might not have had otherwise. It sounds like win-win, except that you don’t always get as many volunteers as you thought you would, and the government has a funny way of finding little problems with your facilities that require expensive corrections, and any for-profit business, even if it is on church grounds, still has to pay taxes. Sometimes such attempts to increase cash flow end up causing a bigger hole in the existing finances.

The real answer is for everyone involved to pray, and to trust God. The church leaders should understand that if they are doing the work of God, then He is not going to let their efforts come to naught. The members of the congregation need to understand that when times are tough, they need to trust God and make supporting the church their first priority. Let me rephrase that: The Bible says, seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness…” so, supporting the church should always be your first financial priority, but, if anything, in tough times, you need to be even more careful to maintain that standard of giving.

In 1st Samuel, King Saul found himself in a situation where he wasn’t sure what was going to happen next; he and the army of Israel were out in the field, preparing to attack (or be attacked). He was supposed to wait for Samuel the prophet to come, but he started worrying about what might happen if the Philistines attacked before they made a sacrifice to God, so he, “forced himself” to sacrifice an animal to appease God. Samuel arrived, and asked what that was all about, and Saul explained his thinking. Samuel told Saul that he should have simply waited on God. The bottom line is, Saul was in trouble because he didn’t trust God. Now, we know that God expects us to support his work. If you aren’t sure that the church that you are attending is actually doing God’s work, then that is something that you should prayerfully consider before forking over any more money (maybe you should be praying for direction in choosing a new place of worship), but, if it is, then you are only hurting yourself by not doing your part. Queen Esther once found herself in a situation where she wasn’t sure that she could trust God, but she was told that if she didn’t do her part, God was still going to do His part, she just wouldn’t be a recipient of God’s blessing. You see, you may think that God doesn’t need your offering, and you’d be right, but He desires to use you and to bless you, but you have to do your part.

Disclosure: If you click on the link to the upper left and make a purchase, I do receive compensation. For what it's worth, I think that is a very fine Bible, or I wouldn't be advertising it. And, you know, times are tough. Thanks for understanding.

Questions of Divinity

2010-03-30T22:46:00.002-05:00

The question came up recently, “If Jesus is God, then who was Jesus praying to in the Garden?” I can answer that one of two ways, and I’m not sure myself which is the better answer. Let me start by saying that Jesus was our perfect example, and so, as silly as it may seem for Jesus to be praying to Himself, if He hadn’t gone on record at least once as having prayed, there would be some people who would use that as an excuse not to pray. This prayer also served as a reminder that God is not like a genie in a bottle; sometimes you don’t get what you want, and we should pray that His will be done, not ours. Secondly, let me remind you that at the time that He was praying in the garden, Jesus was in the flesh. Granted, in Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, but He was a flesh and blood being. Scripture also teaches us that unto Thee (God) shall all flesh come. His Spirit, being the Spirit of God, may not have needed to pray, but His flesh did.

Another question raised recently was, “Doesn’t the Holy Ghost coming down in the form of a dove, and the Father’s voice from Heaven at Jesus’ baptism prove that there are three separate Gods?” God is God; He is infinite, almighty, all-knowing… If He chooses to appear in two different forms, and speak from a third location all at the same time, that isn’t hard for Him to do. Let me take a moment here for a side bar. I had heard that before, and when I first started writing this, I looked for the appropriate passage, and came up with tow others that are somewhat ambiguous. Matthew 3:16 says, “And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him.” Now, that last “he,” is that referring to Jesus? If you read that verse by itself, it certainly seems like it is, because Jesus is the only “he” in the verse. If you read it in context, of course, John the Baptist was there, too. Now, whatever position you believe Jesus held, it doesn’t really make sense for God to show Him a sign of His calling; Jesus knew who He was. John the Baptist had already proclaimed Jesus the Lamb of God, but, being somewhat more human, may have needed a little more encouragement. Mark 10:10 is similar, “And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him:” Luke 3:22 says, “And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a voice from heaven, which said, Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee am I well pleased.” Now, in John 1:32, it says, “And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him.” That makes it clear, at least, that John was the one who saw the dove. It seems to me that if the entire crowd had seen the dove, and heard the voice, then it would have been very hard to keep talk of that event from spreading far and wide before Jesus even started His ministry. If you’re going to ask questions about this event, perhaps the question you should be asking is, “How did John know it was the Holy Ghost, and not just a dove?” The answer to that is that it was divinely revelated to Him.

Another question that comes up occasionally is, “Why did John the Baptist doubt that Jesus was the Christ?” It seems pretty silly, considering the powerful confirmation that John got at Jesus’ baptism, but John was only human. Everyone has doubts. Still, I can’t help but notice that the Bible doesn’t ever actually say that John had doubts; only that he sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus if He was the One. Many people interpret that as an expression of John’s doubt, but I’m not convinced. It’s easy for me to imagine John getting frustrated as he was trying to scale down his own operation, and direct people to his cousin, only to have his followers question the wisdom of such a shift. “Look, you’ve followed me this long; I’m telling you that you’re supposed to follow Him now. You don’t believe that He’s the One? But I’ve told you that He is. If you won’t believe me, then go ask Him yourselves!” John probably did have his doubts, but I have a hard time believing that he would express those doubts to the people that were following him, and that he believed should be following Jesus.

The Council of Nicea (Part II)

2010-03-09T22:10:00.000-06:00

I blogged last week about the Council of Nicaea, and I pointed out that one of the big discussions centered around the divinity of Christ, what I didn’t say was that the two sides were: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost were the three persons of the Godhead, or that God the Father and God the Holy Ghost were the two persons of the Godhead, and that Christ could not be considered co-eternal (and therefore not co-equal) with them.

It occurs to me to wonder why it is that, in discussing a religion that bills itself as monotheistic, the argument was not so much about the nature of our one God, but, it seems, more along the lines of, does our God have two persons or three? I am reminded that some years back, a good friend of mine asked the question, “Are you created in God’s image?” Upon receiving an affirmative response, he went on, “Are you three persons? Wouldn’t that make you schizophrenic?” It’s an amusing set of questions, but it does bring up an interesting point. Many of us are both fathers and sons and have spirits in us, but we don’t consider ourselves to be three people. Sigmund Freud developed the idea that we each have an id, an ego, and a super-ego. Do these three components of our psyche correspond to the three persons of the Trinity? I would venture to say no, for the following reasons: The id, as defined by Freud, was concerned with basic human needs, it is an urge-driven, primal, instinctual part of the brain. The super-ego is the result of outside influences, such as environment, upbringing, and social values. The ego bridges the gap between the gap between the id and the super-ego. Now, other than the fact that the sacrifice of Christ bridges the gap between what we should do and what we actually end up doing (provided that we live faithful lives), I see only one similarity between Freud’s three components of human psychology and the three persons of the Trinity: the number three.

I can’t help but wonder if Emperor Constantine presiding over the Council may not have had an effect on the discussion. He had been raised a polytheist, and might have had a difficult time accepting a single God. Then again, he was exploring new possibilities, and he may very well have been completely dissuaded from the religion(s) of his upbringing; we have no way of knowing. It’s possible that he was more ready to accept such a thing than any of the bishops present were willing to believe. It’s difficult to say how many of those present actually bought into the idea of God in three persons and how many just felt that, after so many years of state-sponsored persecution, they could finally catch a break, if only they could make their beliefs palatable to the emperor. Obviously, I don’t know one way or the other, but it does seem that the Trinity was a convenient compromise between monotheism and polytheism.

In any case, Christianity is a monotheistic religion. Scripture teaches us, time and time again, that God is One. In Isaiah 29:23, God is referred to as the Holy One of Jacob; Isaiah refers to God as the Holy One of Israel several times (Isaiah 1:4, Isaiah 10:20, Isaiah 12:6, Isaiah 17:7, Isaiah 30:15, Isaiah 43:3, Isaiah 48:17, Isaiah 54:5, Isaiah 55:5, and Isaiah 60:9); God is also referred to as the Holy One in 2 Kings 19:22, Job 6:10, Psalms 16:10, Psalms 71:22, Psalms 78:41, Psalms 89:18, Isaiah 10:17, Isaiah 40:25, Mark 1:24, Luke 4:34, Acts 3:14 (although that passage specifically refers to Jesus), and 1 John 2:20; God is referred to as One Lord in Deuteronomy 6:4, Zechariah 14:9, and Ephesians 4:5 (also, in Mark 12:29, Jesus quotes Deut. 6:4). There are many other passages that refer to God as being One, besides those I have mentioned here.

The Council of Nicea (Part I)

2010-03-04T20:57:00.001-06:00

In A.D. 325, Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine called a council of bishops to determine, once and for all, what exactly was the core belief of Christianity. Whether he had any business calling such a council could be questionable, but, he may have been the only interested party with the resources to do so. He offered to cover travel expenses for all the bishops that attended, along with a limited number of staff. He had some experiences with Christianity; in A. D. 312, he is said to have had a vision of a cross and the words, “In hoc signo vinces” (under this standard {or ‘in this sign’}, thou shall be victorious {or ‘thou shall conquer’}). Constantine had crosses painted onto the shields and breastplates of his troops, and they were, indeed, victorious. His mother, Helena, is said to have been a very devout and generous Christian. Some believe that she, during a pilgrimage, discovered the cross with the sign still on it saying, “King of the Jews.” There is, however, no indication that she herself ever made such a claim.

Anyway, Constantine invited over three thousand bishops of the church to attend this council. It’s hard to say how many of them showed up. One of the attendees, Athanasius, wrote a letter in which he asserts that there were 318. Some other estimates are less. The point is, only about ten percent of the known church bothered to attend. I can imagine that there were probably many that prayed about it, and felt that God was leading them not to go. I can imagine that there were many who simply thought about it, and, realizing that the Roman Empire was, traditionally, not a friend to the church, could not see any wisdom in going. In point of fact, Constantine had only outlawed persecution against Christianity two years earlier. Now, why does an Emperor, marching troops under the standard of the cross, allow the church to be persecuted? Hard to say, but one can certainly understand the trepidation of the church leaders, and their reluctance to put themselves in Constantine’s hands. Having said that, many of those bishops who attended the council had personally suffered persecution, but they came anyway.

One of the big points of discussion was the deity of Christ. One of the bishops, Arius, contended that, since Jesus was begotten of the Father, he had a definite beginning, and therefore could not be considered co-eternal with the Father, and, furthermore, should not be deified. Arius was very much in the minority. In the initial vote, four other bishops voted with Arius; after some discussion, only two continued with Arius. It should be noted that Arius had been anathematized (excommunicated) by a vote of approximately 100 Egyptian bishops about four years earlier. The Council eventually settled on verbiage that said that Jesus was homoousios, or consubstantial, with the Father, that is, that Jesus and the Father were of one substance, because Colossians 2:9 says that in Him (in Jesus) dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

If you stop and think about it, though, the confusion seems to come from the idea that before Mary became pregnant, Jesus didn’t exist. That’s easy to think that way, since we don’t really know at what point a person’s life begins. Some people say that a life doesn’t begin until the baby draws its first breath, others say life begins at conception, while others say that there are a number of lives waiting for conception so that they can obtain a physical body to go with their essence. The last group, understandably, preaches that contraception is therefore a sin, because one is preventing a living soul from obtaining a flesh-and-blood body. I don’t know that I would go that far, at least, not for most of us, but there are a number of Scriptural passages that indicate that Jesus existed long before Mary did.

John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:14 goes on to say, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” In his first epistle, John writes to the church, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. “ Let me first point out that John 1:14 refers to Jesus as the only begotten of the Father, but it also says that He was made flesh, which suggests that He was something else before. Of course, John 1:1 says that Jesus (or the Word) was in the beginning. So, in verse fourteen, John isn’t so much suggesting, as alluding to his earlier point. Now, in 1 John 5:7, he again refers to Jesus as the Word, rather than the Son, because at that time, Jesus had returned to His earlier state. He was no longer the flesh-and-blood Son, He was again the Word.

To be continued…

Pharisees and Publicans

2010-02-24T20:24:00.001-06:00

It is interesting that when Jesus walked the earth, He is said to have come to save the world, and yet, in His dealings with the Pharisees, He was impatient at best, and seems to have already written them off as being beyond saving, even before He began His ministry. A lot of that, of course, comes from the fact that Jesus knew the hearts of the people He dealt with, publicans and Pharisees alike.

In Luke 18, Jesus tells a parable about a Pharisee and a publican who went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee essentially spent his prayer time bragging to God about what a good man he was, while the publican begged for mercy. Jesus said that the publican went home justified, but the Pharisee didn’t. This gives us some insight into Jesus’ attitude towards Pharisees, although I don’t think Jesus was implying that all Pharisees were like the one in the parable, but that the attitude portrayed was not what the people of the time would have expected from the Pharisees. The Pharisees were religious leaders, and they were expected to be pious and holy, examples of all the best things of their religion. Jesus, of course, realized that, although some of them may have been exactly that, many were not.

In Luke 7, it tells that one of the Pharisees, a man named Simon, invited Jesus to dinner. A woman came in and kissed Jesus’ feet, and anointed them with ointment. Simon “spake within himself” that if Jesus were a prophet, He wouldn’t let this woman touch Him. Now, it seems fairly obvious to me that the phrase indicates that Simon didn’t say this aloud, and yet, Jesus knew what he was thinking. Furthermore, it seems fairly clear that He also knew what the woman was thinking, although she said nothing. Granted, her actions showed a willingness to serve, and an acknowledgement of His position. Jesus went on to lecture Simon about how her sins, which were many, were forgiven her, and that she could be trusted to love Him much—in fact, He said that her sins were forgiven because she loved much.

In John 9, a blind man is healed by Jesus, and the Pharisees attempt to dissuade him from giving Jesus credit for his healing. This man wasn’t about to deny his healing, though. He told them flat-out, “If this man were not of God, He could do nothing.” Their response was, “Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?” as if they had not been born pretty much the same way the formerly-blind man had.been. It’s remarkable that the reaction of the Pharisees to such a notable miracle was to try to deny it, disprove it, and then, failing that, make accusations against the One who preformed it. I can understand skepticism, and I would imagine that God can, too, but these guys were so determined not to believe. No wonder Jesus generally didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

The Pharisees were also critical of the fact that Jesus spent so much time with “sinners.” Of course, if you understand that Jesus came to bring salvation, it makes sense that He would start with those who were most in need of it, even before you consider how much more willing they were to accept what He was offering. The Pharisees simply assumed that these people were easily misled, since they didn’t know the law. Jesus, correctly, pointed out that if the Pharisees would search the Scriptures, they would learn of Him, but they were so secure in the own righteousness that they would only consider those passages that seemed to contradict Jesus’ claims (for example, there is a Messianic prophecy in Micah that says that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem, but the nativity story was not well known and the conventional wisdom was that Jesus had been born in Nazareth).

In Luke 19, Jesus invited himself to the house of a publican named Zacchaeus, and many murmured against Jesus, because they believed that Zacchaeus was a sinner. Jesus, again, knew his heart, and knew that, although Zacchaeus’ occupation (publicans were tax collectors) was despised, it was not inherently dishonest. Zacchaeus may well have been the exception to the rule, but Jesus judged him by his heart, not by his reputation.

In Matthew 9, Jesus explained to the Pharisees that the sick need a physician, and that He had come to call sinners to repentance. The Pharisees should have been flattered by the fact that He didn’t suggest that they needed to repent, although clearly they did, but they had a hard time with the idea that one who claims to be righteous can spend so much time with undesirable people. It’s not as though it rubs off. Granted, one can be unduly influenced if one surrounds oneself with the wrong kind of people, but Jesus wasn’t worried about them changing His mind; He wanted to change theirs.

The point is, Jesus didn’t spend much time with religious people, because He knew that their hypocrisy ran deep. He made Himself a friend to those who were not religious, and who were willing to accept the Truth without trying to square it with what they thought they knew. We, of course, need to get fellowship with other people that believe what we believe, but we also need to show ourselves friendly to those who have not yet come to know what we know. We do need to be careful to not let them drag us down, but we should be trying to help them up. Jesus is our example, after all.

After Death

2010-02-16T21:23:00.002-06:00

Sometimes people get very concerned about what happens to their body after death. Some of that concern I can understand; I mean, does one’s spirit leave the flesh right away, or do they stay tied together until judgment? I think that the real reason people get concerned about that is, if the two are joined until some indefinite time in the future (indefinite to us, of course, God knows when that will be), then what happens when bodies are cremated? If it is not yet time for judgment, but the body has been destroyed, is the spirit then condemned to walk the earth until the appointed time?

The Bible tells us that when Christ returns, the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we that are alive and remain shall rise to meet them in the clouds. That would suggest that spirit and flesh are tied together; that the spirit sleeps in the grave waiting to be freed from the body. This is supported by the fact that all through the Old Testament, and even in the Gospels, people were buried in physical graves. Abraham bought a field to bury Sarah in, Jacob placed Rachel’s body in a grave, and asked to be buried in the Promised Land, Elisha was buried, Lazarus had a grave, and so did Jesus.

At the same time, Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians about giving his body to be burned. In that context, it’s doubtful that he was actually giving instructions for the treatment of his remains after his death, but he does talk about it in a positive light. There is a definite implication that he feels that it is a good thing to do, whether that would be his choice for his own body or not. Also, we know that there were occasionally people who died in fires through no fault of their own. At least a few of those bodies must have been left as nothing more than a small pile of ashes; would God punish those people because of their cause of death?

I have to admit, I don’t really know what happens in between death and judgment. I know that the Bible talks about sleeping also 1 Corinthians 15:6, and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15), and normally when we think of sleeping, we think of the body being asleep. It seems to me that, in this case, what we’re really talking about is that the spirit is not conscious, it is completely unaware of what is happening. The soul, once the body is dead, really doesn’t know whether the flesh is buried, cremated, or, for that matter, fish-food. Is there an attachment? I’m guessing not, but I think that the soul, being unconscious, simply stays with the body, if the body is intact, or stays wherever the body was at the time of death. Of course, part of the confusion comes from trying to tie an immortal soul to a physical place. The soul is not a physical thing, it does not take up any physical space, and trying to establish it’s physical location is a lot like trying to nail water to the wall. Body and soul are one as long as the body continues to draw breath, but once it becomes a corpse, there is really no reason why the spirit should remain chained to it.

This one thing I do know: I don’t care what happens to my body once I am dead. If my friends and family chose to bury me, cremate me, toss me in the ocean; I don’t think I really care. I’m convinced that I won’t be aware of what they do to “me,” anyway, so why should I care? Someone wise once said that they didn’t want flowers at their funeral, and indicated that if you felt that they deserved flowers, you should have the flowers delivered while the recipient was still alive to appreciate them. I’m not really big on flowers, but I appreciate the sentiment. If there’s something that you want to do for me, you should do it while I’m alive. Once I’m dead, there is no changing anything.

Left Behind?

2010-02-10T20:10:00.001-06:00

I have noticed, just in the last few years, that a lot of people have become very interested in what is going to happen after the rapture of the body of Christ. You may be familiar with the “Left Behind” series of books, some of which have been turned into movies. From what I understand, Tim LaHaye spent ten years researching the Book of Revelation, and then got Jerry B. Jenkins to fictionalize the timeline that he had developed. While I will admit that the series is, apparently (I haven’t actually read any of them, although I did watch one of the movies), entertaining, and certainly not any worse than most fiction, I just can’t help but think that there are better ways that we could be spending our time.

Let me ask you a question: If you were an astronaut, training for the first manned mission to Mars, would you spend your free time reading books about Venus? Or, to put it another way, if you were a volunteer on your way to Haiti, would you be studying Canada? Or, if you were about to go on a missions trip to a remote island in the South Pacific, would you try to learn all you could about Zimbabwe before you left? Perhaps more importantly, would you be reading books about Canada or Zimbabwe written by someone who had never actually been there?

I don’t mean to sound impassive or unsympathetic, but it’s hard for me to get all worked up over what happens here on earth after the rapture: I don’t plan on being here! There has been a lot of discussion back and forth over whether it’s possible to miss the rapture and still go to Heaven—after all, God is the God of second chances—but, honestly, do you think that it will be easier to get right with God after the church goes home? Besides that, what happens if something should happen to you before the rapture? You could get hit by a drunk driver tonight. Accidents happen all the time.

I saw a bumper sticker once that said, “People who plan on getting saved at the eleventh hour often die at ten thirty.” This is a reference to a parable that Jesus told about workers in the field, and the lord of that property paid each of them the same amount, even those that started work at the eleventh hour. The point of the parable is that it doesn’t matter at what stage of your life you give your heart to Jesus, as long as you remain faithful once you make that commitment, but the point of the bumper sticker is that you have no promise of tomorrow.

My point is that we don’t know when the rapture will be. I believe that it will happen in my lifetime, but so did John Newton. I have attended the funerals of many people who believed that they would live to see the rapture. On the other hand, there are some who have studied Revelation and have concluded that the rapture is still a long way off, as evidenced by the many prophesies that remain, as yet, unfulfilled. I personally that God is a great God and that He could fulfill many prophesies in a matter of hours (to be honest, I suspect that there will be more than a few people at judgment who will say, “But God, you said this would happen before the rapture,” only to have it explained to them exactly how they misinterpreted the prophecy).

The bottom line is, we should be doing all that we can to make sure that we are ready now, rather than worry about what might happen if we are not ready at the appointed time, or even worry about the signs pointing to the appointed time. As long as you are ready, it doesn’t really matter when the rapture will come, or what will happen afterwards.

What Is Your Weakness?

2010-01-27T21:35:00.002-06:00

There is an old story about a water bearer who had two pots, one of which was cracked. I’m not going to recount the story here, but I will provide a link if you are not familiar with the story and would like to read it. The point of the story is that we each have our own strengths and weaknesses, and we shouldn’t feel superior or inferior to others because of a given strength or weakness. Your weakness is, of course, none of my business. The Bible does say to confess your faults one to another, but, quite frankly, I have enough weaknesses of my own to deal with. I’d rather not deal with yours.

Apostle Paul wrote once about the different members of the body. He asked the question, “If the foot shall say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?” His point was that different members of the body have different purposes. We need our eyes to see, ears to hear, hands to hold things, feet to walk, etc. By the same token, the Body of Christ has many members, and God has given each of us different abilities. We can easily see the importance of a good pastor, but how many of consider the importance of the one who comes in and cleans the church after service? Would you want to attend a church where the bathrooms never got cleaned? How long would it take before the entire building smelled? There are also people in the church to whom God has given a caring spirit. Many times you don’t pay much attention to these people, but when things are not going well for you, they have an encouraging word that helps get your heart right. They don’t have a position or a title in the organization, but the pastor wouldn’t be able to maintain the flock without them.

Casting Crowns did a song awhile back called, “Stained-Glass Masquerade” in which they posited that we have a bad (very bad) tendency to try to act perfect. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that, because I am a Christian, I should not have any faults. If that were the case, however, then James 5:16 wouldn’t make any sense. Sometimes God covers our faults, but sometimes He shows our faults off to others so that they can see what marvelous works can be wrought by Him through even such miserable wretches as we are. Matthew 5:16 says to let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in Heaven. At first glance, that doesn’t seem very fair: If I’m doing the work, then why does He get the credit? Keep in mind, though, that if you are doing your work properly, then God will allow you to do things that you simply aren’t capable of doing on your own. Not necessarily what we would normally term ‘miracles,’ you understand, just things that you personally just aren’t good enough to do. Do you remember the story of Gideon? God kept telling Gideon that he had too many soldiers; if God allowed Israel to defeat an army that only outnumbered them by three-to-one or so, then the Israelites might start thinking that they could fight wars on their own. Even so, we have been given weaknesses by God so that we (and those around us) recognize it when God is working through us—God’s strength is made perfect in weakness.

Of course, Scripture also teaches us that we are not sufficient of ourselves even to think as of ourselves. Many of us have higher beings working through us without us even being aware of it. Unfortunately, many of those times, it isn’t God or His angels that are propelling us. It requires a great deal of time spent praying and seeking God to be sure which Spirit one is being led by.

Also remember that Scripture teaches us that we have all fallen short. If you start thinking that you can’t make a mistake, then you need to remember that you are still just a cracked pot. If you start thinking that you are just the worst person in the world, then you need to remember that the rest of us are cracked pots, too. The only reason that we have value is because God has granted us value. You are somebody because God loves you, not because of anything you can do.

The Women In Christ's Lineage

2010-01-13T20:23:00.001-06:00

I want to make a couple of points before I really get into the topic at hand. First, for those of you not familiar with the term, ‘transliteration,’ it refers to trying to find a collection of letters in the alphabet used by one group of people, that will roughly correspond to the name of a person or place in another language used by a different group of people—particularly if the two groups of people use different alphabets. You may have noticed a number of different spellings for the name of the leader of Libya: Muammar Khadafy. His last name sometimes starts with a ‘Q’ or a ‘G’. The reason for this is that the national language of Libya is Arabic, and Arabic does not use the same alphabet that English does. In fact, Arabic uses many sounds that are not adequately represented by our alphabet (as does Hebrew). You may have also noticed that many names are spelled differently in the Old Testament, as opposed to the New Testament. This is because the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but the New Testament was written in Greek. Of course, many of the people in the New Testament were Hebrews, so their names were written using the Greek alphabet when pen met paper (papyrus?) for the New Testament. To be honest, transliterating names almost always involves some distortion, although a conscientious transliterator will strive to minimize the distortion. It is inevitable that some names converted from Hebrew into English, and the same names converted from Hebrew into Greek, and then into English, are going to have differences.

Secondly, in ancient times, women were often considered to be more or less second-class citizens; they were frequently left out of historical narratives. Even the Bible makes several references to women without bothering to mention their names. Think about it: What was the name of the woman at the well? How about the woman that was healed of an issue of blood? The woman with the pot of oil that never failed? I’m sure you can think of other examples as well. It was unusual that a man was mentioned in Scripture without being named, unless he had a very minor role in what was going on, but women were treated differently.

Matthew chapter 1 lists the genealogy of Christ from Joseph’s side of the family. Joseph wasn’t really His father, but, this lineage establishes that Jesus came from a line of kings (adopted sons of kings have been known to inherit the throne, but no one except Joseph and Mary knew that Jesus was Joseph’s adopted son, anyway). David, King of Israel, is mentioned, along with David’s son and successor, Solomon. After Solomon, Jesus’ lineage traces through the kings of Judah rather than Israel, but it is clear that Jesus was of Royal blood, and, had Israel (and Judah) not been under Roman occupation at the time of His birth, He would have had a physical throne here on Earth. Having said that, though, there are five women listed in Jesus’ lineage (four of them listed by name). These women were great women of faith.

The first woman mentioned in Jesus’ lineage is Thamar—spelled Tamar in the Old Testament. Tamar was the wife of Judah’s oldest son, Er, who died childless. As a result, the middle son, Onan, was required to marry her in order to raise up an heir for his late brother. Onan got greedy and tried to take advantage of his sister-in-law/wife while taking pains to ensure that no heir was produced (meaning that, when Judah died, whatever he had would be split three ways between the son of Onan and Tamar, Onan, and Shelah. These splits were generally not done evenly—the eldest got a bigger share. This means that the son of Onan and Tamar would end up with more of Judah’s stuff than Onan would); God took him. So, Judah’s youngest son, Shelah, was supposed to marry Tamar, but Judah, having already lost two sons, for reasons that were not entirely clear to him, after they married this woman, was understandably concerned at the idea of his youngest (and now only) son marrying Tamar. Judah delayed the wedding. But time passed, and the marriage still wasn’t happening, and Tamar wasn’t getting any younger, so she tricked Judah into himself doing the act that resulted in producing heirs to replace Er and Onan (those heirs being Pharez and Zarah). This, apparently, was very important in God’s plan; as I said, Tamar is one of very few women mentioned in Christ’s lineage. And, by the way, since Judah was only one generation removed from Israel (who only had one daughter, Dinah), I think that it’s safe to say that Tamar was not born of Israel.

The second woman mentioned is Rachab—spelled Rahab in the Old Testament. Rahab hid the spies that Joshua sent in to case the city of Jericho before the attack. She indicated to the authorities that had left the city through one of the gates shortly before, and urged them to hurry out after them. When the searchers returned from their fruitless search, she then helped the two spies escape the city. In return, they promised that she, and her family, would not be harmed when the city fell.

The third woman mentioned is Ruth. Ruth was born a Moabitess, but she converted to Judaism. She, like Tamar, became a young, childless widow, and ended up having to marry a near-relative of her late husband (he had no surviving brothers), but not until after she had plainly and confidently stated to her mother-in-law Naomi that where Naomi went, Ruth would go, and that Naomi’s God would be Ruth’s God. Ruth continued to take care of her mother-in-law, and did not abandon her.

The fourth woman mentioned is Bathsheba, and she isn’t mentioned by name. She is referred to as “her that had been the wife of Urias”—wouldn’t it have been easier for the writer to spell out her name? Bathsheba’s first husband, Uriah, was a Hittite. The Hittites were among the peoples that Israel was supposed to kill or drive out of the Promised Land when they came up out of Egypt, but did not. Now Uriah was fiercely loyal to Israel, even if he was not an Israelite by birth. It occurred to me to wonder if Bathsheba were a Hittite, too, but, the name Bathsheba comes from two Hebrew words, and her father, Eliam, has a Hebrew name, also, so it would seem that she was the first woman mentioned in Christ’s lineage that was actually an Israelite.

The fifth woman is, of course, Mary. I don’t think I need to say anything about her, except maybe that her name has been distorted by the transliteration from Hebrew to Greek to English. Whenever her name is transliterated directly from Hebrew to English, it is written as Miriam. She was named for Moses’ sister, the prophetess.

Consider, for a moment, that of these five women, three of them were not Israelites by birth. All of them shared in the belief system of the Israelites, but three were converts. Of course, with the understanding that, among other things, Jesus was a Light unto the Gentiles, it makes sense that His lineage was not purely that of chosen people.

Why Did God Create Evil?

2009-11-17T21:39:00.001-06:00

Some time ago I posted something on the subject of why did God create Satan. At the time, I pointed out that God created Lucifer as an angel, but that Lucifer became evil later. Someone else pointed out to me that the Bible actually says that God created evil. So, it gets more complicated. Why did God create evil? It occurs to me that perhaps the best illustration comes from an old children’s movie.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (the 1971 film, not Charlie & the Chocolate Factory from 2005 based on the same book) was an interesting film, to say the least. A lot of the special effects don’t look nearly so good today as they did almost forty years ago, but the film still holds up pretty well. TBH, I thought Deep Roy in CatCF made a better Oompa Loompa than the guys they had in the original. Jonny Depp made a passable Willy Wonka, but Gene Wilder was better. Also, it seemed to me that Tim Burton (who directed CatCF) missed the point of the movie (although I could be mistaken—I understand that Roald Dahl, who wrote the book, hated WWatCF).

In any case, in both films, Willy Wonka has been reclusive for many years, but for whatever reason, he decides to include golden tickets in five candy bars manufactured at his chocolate factory. Each child who collects a golden ticket is invited for a special tour of the factory. Also included is a sample of a new candy called an everlasting gobstopper. Each of the five winners is approached by a creepy, mysterious man named Arthur Slugworth, who tells them that he is the head of a rival candy factory, and that the everlasting gobstopper threatens to put him out of business, unless they sell him their sample, and his people can reverse engineer it before Wonka puts it out on the market. During the tour, each of the five children, in turn, breaks one of Willy Wonka’s rules, and is eliminated from the tour (WARNING: Spoiler Alert! Don’t read the rest of this until you have seen the movie unless you have already made up your mind that you aren’t going to watch it). Charlie’s grandfather gets angry at Willy Wonka, and tells Charlie that he should sell his gobstopper to Slugworth. Their family is not well off, and the money that Slugworth has offered would make a tremendous difference. Even watching the movie (the first time) I couldn’t help but wonder, does Willy Wonka expect these children to be perfect? Charlie considers, but, decides that Willy Wonka is right, he did break the rules, and he can’t expect any special treatment. In order to eliminate temptation to change his mind later, he makes his way to Willy Wonka’s office, where Willy Wonka looks absolutely crushed, as though he can’t believe that none of the five children could follow a few simple rules. Charlie apologizes, and returns the everlasting gobstopper. Willy Wonka’s whole demeanor changes instantly, and gets very excited that one of the children actually did the right thing. It turns out the Wonka had a pretty good idea that none of the five children would be able to follow all of the rules for the entire length of the tour, but he wanted to see if any of them would take responsibility for their own actions. He names Charlie as his heir, Charlie will inherit the Chocolate factory, and introduces Charlie to his assistant, Arthur Slugworth, who shows Charlie the other four gobstoppers. At this point, we realize that Slugworth was part of the test (and, of course, prevented the gobstoppers from falling into competitors hands to be reverse engineered). I hope that the Biblical parallels are obvious…

The point is, if there were no evil, how would we know to choose the good? If we only do good because we have no other options, what have we really accomplished? If there were no Satan tempting us, then we would have no battles, and we would have no victory. Of course, Satan is not God’s assistant, but he does God a service by providing us with choices. If we want to be the heir, though, we will fight Satan’s choices, and stick to God’s.

Being Judgmental

2009-11-03T20:12:00.001-06:00

Last week I mentioned that we Christians sometimes come off as judgmental, and that we put too much emphasis on what a person outside the faith is doing or not doing other than coming to Christ. I neglected to mention that when a person (whether they are of the Body or not of the Body) commits sin, and we just stand by, as condoning that sin, then we become partakers of that sin. We have been commissioned to warn people about the wrath to come.

When the adulterous woman was taken before Jesus, He did not (directly) prevent her stoning, although he was certainly more compassionate towards her than her accusers; He did tell her to go and sin no more, which made it clear that her earlier behavior was not acceptable (although one would hope that her narrow escape from a death by stoning would have made that point abundantly obvious). At the same time, He didn’t browbeat her about her past sins, in fact, He said, “Neither do I condemn thee.”

When he was at the Pharisee Simon’s house for dinner, and the woman (was it the same woman? I suspect that it was, but the Scriptures don’t say) anointed His feet, Simon found fault with Jesus, supposing that Christ didn’t know what sort of woman was touching Him. Of course, Jesus did know what she had been, but, unlike Simon, He was aware that her repentance was genuine; she was no longer what the Pharisee thought she was. Unfortunately, even those of us that call ourselves Christians often have more in common with Simon than with Christ. We are very limited in what we can see and sense. Many of us have been fooled more than once by people who have offered repentance as a pretense in order to gain, and then betray, our trust. I can forgive such a betrayal, but it is very hard for me to ever again extend trust to such an individual. We look at people with our human eyes, and we see their human faults, and, well, let’s be honest about it, we pass judgment, even though we know we aren’t supposed to. What we are supposed to do is meet people where they are, and help them to see what they could be.

I have talked before about Rahab the Harlot; out of all the people living in Jericho, she was the one who showed some measure of righteousness, if only because she feared God. When the two spies went into Jericho, they didn’t pass judgment on her for her profession, they understood that she was in the same predicament as the rest of the people of Jericho; if they didn’t repent, they would all die in their sins. Of course, Rahab showed by her actions that she feared God, and she was ready to change her entire life.

I’m trying to show that there are ways to convey that certain behaviors are not acceptable (most people have a pretty good understanding of what those behaviors are anyway) without being judgmental. People outside of Christ don’t need judgment from us, they will face righteous judgment in the next life anyway; what they need is mercy (hasn’t God showed each of us more mercy than we deserve?). They do need to be warned, but that should be done as compassionately as possible. Having said that, let me also point out that some people are going to need their cages rattled before they will be ready to accept a warning. Sometimes the most compassionate thing to do is to let compassion go by the wayside and let the sinner have it with both barrels, but, that’s the exception rather than the rule. We seriously need to pray that God would allow us, and help us, to see people the way that He sees them.

Nobody's Perfect

2009-10-27T21:06:00.002-05:00

I think we’ve all heard the expression, “Nobody’s perfect.” That’s true; God doesn’t create perfect people. Even the best of us have our faults and foibles. A lot of us are painfully aware of our own, although there are many that seem to be blissfully aware of theirs. To be honest, that kind of makes me wonder if I don’t have traits that I am unaware of, that other people are all-too aware of…

Part of the problem with that is that people outside the church will often judge the church by the people in it. If that person is a Christian, shouldn’t they act better? To be honest, all of us should be acting better than we are. Unfortunately, our human selves get the best of us, sometimes. All of us know, on some level, what we should be doing (or not doing), but find ourselves doing the wrong thing instead. I mentioned Paul’s writing recently, where he talks about doing things that he doesn’t want to do. Paul is talking about wanting to do the right thing, but then not doing it, or doing something he doesn’t want to do. He goes on to say that “it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”

Does that mean that we shouldn’t worry about how we treat people outside the church? Should we assume that if God really wants them to be saved, that He will blind their eyes to ours faults? Let me first point out that there is no “if”—God wants them to be saved (“For God so loved the world…). Let me also point out that Apostle Paul started out as one of those nitpickers; he found fault with everything the early church did, until God opened his eyes. Let me also remind you that Jesus taught us about taking care not to offend. Okay, if you look at the accounts in Matthew and Mark, it’s clear that Jesus was talking about new Christians, but someone who has yet to be won to Christ isn’t going to become a new Christian if they become offended before they get the chance. So, we need to do the best we can with unbelievers (although not to neglect the believers) and then pray that God would cover our shortcomings.

Now, to those outside the church who are considering taking the plunge, but are having a hard time dealing with the apparent hypocrisy inside the church, I say: I understand that much of what we do seems hypocritical. We say, “Judge not,” and then we tell people how to live their lives. We say, “Love one another,” but we have lists of the type of people that we won’t associate with (as though sin were contagious). We say, “Look not on the outward appearance,” and yet look down our noses at a woman whose skirt is perhaps a little too short, or a man whose pants sag too much. Many times we worry way too much about the actions of those that don’t even claim to be Christian. If a person has no interest in Christ, and is a drunkard, does it matter that he drinks? He isn’t going to Hell because he drinks, he’s going to Hell because isn’t saved. Now, it might be much easier to get him to church if he were sober, and we certainly shouldn’t let him think that it’s okay with God if he spends his life in a drunken stupor, but the important thing is that he know what he needs to do to get right with God. Even then, if he honestly isn’t interested, then telling him about Jesus is essentially casting pearls before swine. I think that sometimes we get too involved in making sure people understand what it means to live right, when they aren’t interested in living right to start with. Often we avoid those who don’t live the life that we lead; we strengthen each other by sticking together. The point here is, we’re doing the best that we can, but we aren’t perfect, just forgiven. If you had a job to do, and you didn’t do it, and then when the boss asked you why you didn’t get your work done, all you could do is point at other people, you probably wouldn’t be collecting a paycheck for very long, at least, not if your boss was wise and fair. God is very wise and fair, and if, on judgment day, all you can say in your defense is that I wasn’t persuasive enough; that, in your mind, my mistakes outweighed the righteousness that I have tried to show you, He will remind you that your life is your responsibility. I will regret, and I will feel bad that I was unable to convince you (at least until God removes you from my memory), but, ultimately, your choice is your own, and I can only do what I can do. If my problems are really that much of a barrier to you finding your way to Christ, then I would ask that you pray for me. What good are the prayers of an unbeliever? I don’t know for sure, but I know that God listens to sincere prayer, and I know that He wants you to be saved, so if you pray for me to be a better Christian so that you can become one also, perhaps He will grant that request. Please don’t let me get in your way.

Dealing With Urges (Part II)

2009-10-20T22:33:00.001-05:00

The last time a posted a blog, I discussed the difference between urges and sin. It occurs to me that I may not have made one point in that discussion as clearly as I could have, so I will try to rectify that now.

Jesus said that if a man looks after a woman to lust after her, he has committed adultery with her already in his heart. John said that a man who hates his brother is guilty of murder. I think that it’s a pretty safe assumption that that same train of thought applies to other things, as well. If you plan out a bank robbery, and the only thing that keeps you from carrying out that plan is the fear of getting caught, well, in God’s eyes, you’ve already been caught. Now, if you walk past a bank, and it occurs to you that it would be nice to have the money in that bank, and keep walking, and don’t think about it any more, that’s completely different. Of course, if you keep walking by that bank, thinking about how much you could use that money, then, eventually, you’re going to start thinking about robbing the bank. By the same token, if you notice a person that you find attractive walking down the sidewalk as you are driving down the street, that really just shows that your eyes and brain still work. On the other hand, if you circle the block to get another look, then you’re in trouble with God.

There’s also a difference between being angry with someone, and hating them (thank goodness). Even the best of friends have arguments occasionally. If you stop and think about it, if you and your best friend always agree on everything, then what is either of you getting out of the relationship? Oh, sure, you can have some good times, and you would probably enjoy each others company tremendously, but neither one of you is growng. The Bible says that iron sharpeneth iron. I don’t imagine that would feel too good to the iron (if iron could feel), but it’s important that your knife or sword be sharp; a dull blade doesn’t cut well. An occasional disagreement can help you to see a different perspective, to expand your horizons, as it were. Sometimes we take those unpleasant discussions too personally; a friend who points out what he or she thinks is a mistake on your part is really only trying to help you. If the mistake is actually theirs, in thinking that you have erred, well, be patient with them and explain yourself the best you can. On the other hand, if they are right that you are not acting in your own best interest, then it’s better that you listen to them. Either way, you gain valuable experience.

By the way, one other thing, when we think of lust, we generally associate that with physical attraction. I suppose that’s the most common form of sexual lust, although that doesn’t necessarily follow. For one thing, lust isn’t necessarily sexual; one can lust for money or power as well. If you desire someone because they have money, that is just as much lust as if your interest in them was purely physical. On the other hand (by now you’re probably thinking that I have too many hands), if you desire someone even though they don’t have money and you don’t find that person particularly attractive, that may or may not be lust. The real test is what do you hope to accomplish by being with them. Do you want to get married, and raise children, or maybe just grow old with them; or, do you just want what you want, with no regard for the long term? One of the problems here is that we often confuse our own motives. Amnon, the son of David, had a half-sister named Tamar that he wanted badly. If he had asked his father the king for her hand in marriage, David probably would have let them wed. I’m not sure why he didn’t ask; maybe he was afraid that David would refuse, and take steps to keep those two apart, or maybe he was afraid that he would actually wind up married to her. In any case, he got what he wanted by subtlety, and his guilt turned into hatred towards her. I feel pretty confident that he wouldn’t have done what he did if he had realized that it would cause him to hate her; I also feel confident that if he had really loved her, he would have simply married her. In any case, he wanted what he wanted, and he spent way too much time trying to figure out how to get what he wanted by trickery without thinking through the consequences of his actions. If he had just walked away from the urge…

Dealing with Urges

2009-10-15T19:36:00.001-05:00

I recently heard from someone who has written a great many Christian songs, with powerful lyrics, and, if I understand him correctly, has chosen to give up the fight. His logic comes down to, God made me what I am, but what I am doesn’t conform to Scripture, therefore, the Scripture must be wrong. Surely God created me as He wanted me to be.

That’s a strong argument, and, to be honest, one that I have fallen for myself, in the past. I will admit that I get urges that don’t conform to the dictates of scripture. It would be nice if, once one has dedicated one’s life to Christ, all the negative influences just went away. Some of the thoughts that pop into my head are just incomprehensible, yet they keep coming. As I spend more time studying Scripture, and praying, they come less frequently, and less powerfully, but they still come. Scripture tells us that the creation has no right to ask the creator, “Why hast thou made me thus?” Yet, we, as human beings, can’t seem to help but wonder why it is that God created us as we are. I think that it is significant that we are not just slaves to our DNA, but we are affected by environment, as well.

Still, Apostle Paul once wrote that he was aware that in his flesh was no good thing. David wrote that he was conceived in sin, even though his parents were married at the time. None of us are strangers to temptation. Even Jesus was tempted, but He withstood the temptation, and set an example for the rest of us. It is important that we be prepared to fight ourselves. It is not by accident that scripture says that the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent taketh it by force. It isn’t Heaven that we are fighting, though, it is ourselves, our sins, our transgressions, and our temptations.

We have been commanded to walk in the Spirit, so that we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. It is important that we strive. The Bible also says that the righteous are scarcely saved. It is important to remember the difference between being “good” and being “righteous.” There are a lot of good people; there are not so many righteous. We have to remember that we are not worthy of the gift of salvation, but we shouldn’t use that as an excuse to sit back and do nothing. We have a duty and a responsibility to do what is right, even when we don’t feel like it, and when it isn’t convenient. God didn’t call us to watch. It’s easy to say that if it’s truly God’s will, it will come to pass, but it’s much more convicting to say that if it is to be, it’s truly up to me.

Jonah ran from God, and God had to persuade him to do God’s will. I’m not sure of Jonah’s motivation; it’s been suggested that Jonah didn’t like the Ninevites, and was afraid that if he preached to them, they would repent, and God wouldn’t destroy them. He seemed to understand that God wanted to save them. We can’t count on God holding off on judgment until we get ready to preach, though. The Bible talks about people being in the valley of decision; what if there is someone ready to receive while I am busy with my own concerns, but it is their last chance? That person may not make it, because I wasn’t focused on following the leading of the Holy Ghost. What can I say to that person?

The bottom line is, there will always be distractions, urges, temptations; anything to keep us from doing what God has called us to do. We need to remain focused, allow ourselves to be led of God, and do whatever it is that needs to be done. How do we grow closer to God so that we can hear His voice more clearly? I would recommend prayer and fasting.

Tithing

2009-10-07T20:53:00.001-05:00

It occurs to me that there seems to be some confusion concerning tithing in the New Testament.

Really, not a lot is said about tithing in the New Testament. Jesus once got onto the Pharisees about paying tithes of mint, cumin, and anise. He didn’t say that they were wrong for tithing, but he did tell them that they had neglected the weightier (or more important) parts of the law. I had someone tell me once that the Pharisees were so legalistic that they were counting the leaves on the plants in their gardens and cutting off one-tenth of the new leaves to give to the temple. I have two problems with that: One, Jesus didn’t even suggest that they were wrong for doing what they did, in fact, he said, “These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” Two, these plants are not known for their blossoms. All three are known for their aroma; they are sometimes used in perfumes, and in cooking. Even today, in many countries where rainfall is scarce, spices such as these are used to mask the unpleasant smells that result from infrequent bathing. It may occur to you that Ancient Israel didn’t get a lot of rain. My point is that the Pharisees were probably not growing these plants as a hobby, they were probably making a living by selling these spices. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Pharisees didn’t start out growing these plants specifically to be used in the Temple, but then were allowed to sell the excess to pay their living expenses. If that were the case, though, wouldn’t they be expected to tithe of the money they received by selling the excess, rather than to simply tithe of what they were ostensibly growing for the Temple? I don’t know for sure, that’s really just supposition on my part.

In any case, a lot of people seem to think that tithing was part of the law, and, since we are not under the law, but under Grace, then tithing is no longer required. I would have to argue that. Very little is actually said about tithing in the New Testament. There is the passage mentioned above, and a similar passage in Luke (although this one mentions rue—also known for being very aromatic—and “other herbs” rather than cumin and anise); there is also a passage in Luke where Jesus compared a proud Pharisee to a humble sinner who were praying in the Temple at the same time; and then there is a passage in Hebrews where Apostle Paul reminds us of the Priest Melchisedec, to whom Abraham paid tithes after the slaughter of the kings. Now Abraham lived long before Moses the Lawgiver, so clearly he did not do what he did because of any requirement of the Law. We, of course, claim to be led of the Spirit. Are we not led by the same Spirit that led Abraham to pay tithes to Melchisedec? If the spirit that’s leading you isn’t directing you to pay tithes, then I would strongly suggest that you carefully examine yourself, and see what spirit it is that you are following.

Another argument that has been made is that, “God doesn’t need my money.” You’re right, He doesn’t. He didn’t need Esther to approach King Ahasuerus, either, but it was His will that she do that. By giving you an opportunity to pay tithes, God is offering you the chance to reap a blessing. I would advice caution, though; there are a lot of people out there that claim to be ministers of the Gospel that are no different than the money-changers in the Temple… Before you pay a tithe to a man, an organization, or even a church, spend some time in prayer asking God’s direction that you can pay your tithes in such a way that your offering will be used for the glory of God. I’m sure that there are more than a few theologians out there that will rush to tell me that an offering is not the same thing as a tithe; technically that’s true: a tithe is one-tenth of one’s income, and an offering is anything above that. Still, if one’s tithe is not offered freely, then there is no reward from God for that. In other words, if you pay a tithe only because you feel you have to, then you may as well keep your money. How’s that for a conundrum? But, if the tithe is offered freely, then, to my mind, it is an offering. Besides, grammarians will no doubt understand why I chose not to use the word tithe twice in one sentence (although they will object to my starting a sentence with a conjunction. Sigh. You can’t please everybody, but if you can please God…).

Forgiveness

2009-09-15T15:05:00.002-05:00

This past weekend I watched the movie In My Country (also known as The Country of My Skull) starring Samuel L. Jackson (A Time to Kill as well as many other movies) and Juliette Binoche (The English Patient and Chocolat). In this movie, she plays an Afrikaner writer, and he, a writer for the Washington Post. Both have been asked to cover the Reconciliation talks after the collapse of Apartheid. Obviously, they go into it with very different attitudes. She feels that it is important to find out exactly what abuses occurred under Apartheid, but he feels that it is important to bring the Afrikaners to justice, and feels that every Afrikaner has a share of the blame for what happened. She, and some other locals, try to explain to him the concept of Ubuntu. I thought Ubuntu was a Linux operating system, but I digress (okay, I knew the word Ubuntu meant something before anybody ever named an OS after it, but I wasn’t clear on the meaning). Eventually he came to understand that we are all connected, and, if you do something that hurts me, it also hurts those around me, and, eventually will hurt you, too, even if you do what you do because of something I did to you. That, in a nutshell, is Ubuntu.

It occurred to me that the people who practiced Ubuntu are better at forgiveness than I am. By the way, I could be mistaken, but I got the feeling that the two main characters in the movie were either fictional or composite characters; at the beginning of the movie, though, they showed a disclaimer that basically said that the Reconciliation talks were faithfully recreated, that the script-writers did not write any of that dialog. In many cases, those who testified wanted only to have the bodies (or body parts) of loved ones returned to them for proper burial. It’s hard for me to imagine what those people must have been feeling, but clearly they had accepted the fact that killing or imprisoning those who had abused their power would not bring back their loved ones; it would only make the healing of their country more difficult.

We are, of course, commanded to forgive. In fact, we have been told to pray for those that despitefully use us. I have to admit, I haven’t had to deal with too much “despiteful use” myself. Perhaps if I lived in another part of the world I would get a chance to really test my faith (not planning on doing that any time soon, though). I have certainly been lied about, but then, I guess all of us have had to deal with that at one time or another.

I just got an E-mail from a good friend who just found out that her family has been embezzled from. They don’t know how much was taken, but it could be a considerable amount. The embezzler is someone who has been very close to the family for quite some time, and was never even suspected. She understands that she has to forgive this person; she wants to feel love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance, but right now, it’s hard. She is in prayer, and she has asked me for prayer, and I am asking for prayer on her behalf, as well.

Perhaps the best known Scriptural reference is the Lord’s Prayer, in Matthew 6:9-15. You notice that, in the prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray for forgiveness, but also for God to help us to forgive others. At the end of the prayer, He points out that our forgiveness from God is dependent upon our ability to forgive others. Has anyone ever wronged us as much as we have wronged Him? Remember also that Peter once asked Christ how many times was he required to forgive, and Jesus surprised him with how much forgiveness Peter was responsible for. That applies to us, too.

The Transfiguration

2009-09-10T21:11:00.002-05:00

This week I’ve been posting from Mark chapter 9. Up until now, I’ve been going off of the middle part of the chapter (a man brought his son to Jesus’ disciples, and they were unable to help, but Jesus healed the son). The first part of the chapter talks about the Transfiguration.

Jesus took three of His closest disciples, Peter, James and John, up to the mountaintop. While they were there, Jesus was transfigured, and Moses and Elijah appeared. Now, the disciples didn’t quite know what to make of this. Peter suggested building three tabernacles, one for each of the three, but Jesus thought differently. If those three men hadn’t already known that they were in the presence of greatness, they definitely knew it then. You would almost think that they had seen so much by then that nothing could surprise them, but this particular incident not only surprised them, I would say it stunned them.

In any case, I think that we should spend a little time discussing the significance of the Transfiguration. I don’t think that there is any real controversy over the idea that Moses appeared because he was the Lawgiver, and Jesus had come to fulfill the Law (and yet instill Grace). Some have said that Elijah was the greatest prophet of the Old Testament, so it makes sense that he would appear with the greatest prophet of the New Testament (not to suggest that Jesus was only a prophet, as some have said, He was much more than that). I have to question, though, whether Elijah was the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. Certainly, one of the greatest, but, I don’t think he has clear claim to the title of greatest prophet. I would be willing to entertain the notion that perhaps Elijah was there because he had ascended into Heaven, therefore foreshadowing the end of Jesus’ ministry, except that Enoch did that first.

The day that Elijah was taken up, his protégé Elisha made a point of staying with him all the way up until Elijah was taken from him. Several times Elijah told Elisha to wait for him at one place or another, and each time, Elisha insisted on going with his master. At one point, Elijah broached the subject that neither one of them wanted to talk about, and he asked Elisha what he wanted after his mentor was gone. Elisha responded that he wanted a double portion of the spirit that he knew rested on Elijah. Elijah said that he had asked a hard thing, but, if he saw Elijah after he was taken up, then he would get it. If you read up, Elisha did some amazing things after that (see also here, and here, and here). I would think that Elisha should be considered a greater prophet than Elijah.

To be honest, I think this may be the point that Jesus was trying to make. Elijah was the master, and Elisha followed him. Even after Elijah was taken, Elisha never departed from the ways that Elijah had taught him. It was clear that the same spirit was on him that was on Elijah. At another point, Jesus said that if His disciples remained faithful than they would do greater works than He Himself had done (not that any of them would ever be greater than Him, but that they would do greater works). This promise extends also to us, if we allow the spirit that was in Jesus to flow through us. Of course, that would require us to walk in the Spirit, and allow God’s spirit to guide us, and direct us, and to remember that it isn’t us that’s actually doing the work, it’s God.

All In the Family

2009-09-09T20:52:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I posted about the man in Mark 9 whose son was demon-possessed. Today I would like to look at another aspect of that incident. At one point, the man asked Jesus to “have compassion on us.” He could have asked Jesus to have compassion on the young man who was possessed, but he made a point of asking for compassion for both of them. I think that it’s important to note that when a family member isn’t right, then it affects the entire family.

King David had a son named Absalom that he loved very much. Absalom was very self-willed, and at one point, tried to overthrow the kingdom, and make himself king of Israel. David sent his men out with orders to defeat Absalom, but not to kill him. The general over David’s army, Joab, had opportunity to take Absalom alive, but chose not to, in direct conflict with the king’s wishes. There is a certain wisdom in Joab’s actions, although I would not condone killing a man unnecessarily, I can understand that if Absalom had lived, he would have only continued to cause problems. Joab rebuked David (imagine that, being in position to disobey the king, kill one of the royal family, and then rebuke the king!) and reminded him that Absalom would have been only too happy to kill the king and every Israelite that was loyal to David. Joab, in effect, asked the king what he would have had Joab do, let Absalom run roughshod over everything else that the king held dear, just as long as Absalom lived?

In 1 Samuel, the priest Eli had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, that he was supposed to bringing up to take over his job when he got too old to do it (or died), but they were rebellious and used their positions in the Temple to fill their own bellies. Granted, they were supposed to eat of the offerings that people brought, but they got tired of eating boiled meat, and started demanding meat that hadn’t been prepared in accordance with Temple Law. Eli knew what was going on, and he made some attempt to correct his sons, but they did what they wanted to do anyway. Eli took in Samuel, and raised him better than he had raised his own sons, and at one point, God told Samuel that He was displeased with Eli because of his sons. Eventually, God took Hophni and Phinehas, and, when Eli heard about it, he fell down, and broke his neck.

At the same time, in the gospels, we are told that when Jesus called Simon, Andrew, James, and John, that they left their fathers with the fishing boats and just walked away and followed Jesus. I would imagine that they at least said good-bye, although the Bible doesn’t say that they did. These were men that knew the call of God, and were not about to let their families interfere with what they had to do (later on, we find out that Simon Peter was even married—presumably had kids; what do you suppose his wife thought about her husband wandering all around the country with Jesus for three years?). I’m sure it wasn’t easy for these men to live the lives that they did, and I suppose that their families understood; even the non-believers recognized that Jesus was very influential.

We are more fortunate. Most of us will never have to abandon our families for the Gospel, but all of us need to remember that family must always take second to God. Jesus said that he who loves father or mother or son or daughter more than Jesus, is not worthy (which is not to suggest that any of us is truly worthy anyway), and it is clear that He takes precedence over all else. If it helps, understand that He wants the absolute best for every one of us, so, by putting Him first, you are making things better for your family, as well.