What happens when we eat, say, a piece of bread?
First, most foods are not bite-sized, so we have to cut it up, tear it apart, or bite off a chunk. Second, when we put it in our mouth, we chew it. That breaks it up even more. Third, we digest it in our stomach and intestines, breaking it up very thoroughly. From there, it enters the bloodstream and is carried to every cell in our body.
On the last evening of his earthly life, Jesus broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said, "Take. Eat. This is my body" (Matthew 26:26).Earlier, he had claimed to be the bread of life in a synagogue filled with adversaries and disciples who then abandoned him. His message was the same: people cannot live unless they eat his body.
So what happens to the bread we take at communion? In the natural, the same thing that happens with anything else we eat. Spiritually, it matters that Jesus himself broke the bread, for it is not only his body, but his body broken for the remission of sin.
The Lamb of God, to change metaphors, was slain before all worlds. He died for our sin before we were alive to sin. He broke the bread of life and gave it to us. In sin, we broke it further, down to the molecular level, so to speak. When we eat the bread of life in remembrance, it enters the spiritual "bloodstream" and is carried to every part of our spirit.
In the same way, Jesus took the cup, called it his blood, and commanded the disciples to drink it. He had earlier told the congregation in Capernaum that they had to drink his blood in order to live. Under the law, however, eating blood--especially the blood of a sacrificial animal--was strictly forbidden, even though in some kinds of sacrifices God not only allowed but commanded the priests and sometimes even the people to eat the meat.
What changed? The body of Christ has another meaning besides the bread at communion. The church as a whole is likewise the body of Christ. Apart from the incarnation and the risen Christ, there can be no body of Christ on earth. Under the law, Christ had not come, died, or risen. Within the body, blood cleanses. Outside the body it stains, ruins, and contaminates.
Paul warned people to examine themselves lest they eat and drink judgment to themselves. The judgment fell for not judging the body rightly. Surely in this context Paul does not warn against someone failing to judge his or her own body, but rather the body of Christ--understood both as the bread and the church.
Think of grape juice or wine. When we drink it, it goes through the digestive system into the bloodstream and provides nourishment. When we spill it, we have only a mess to clean up and possibly something ruined beyond all hope of getting clean. So meditate on the body and blood of Christ at communion time in order to drink the blood and not spill it.
What, therefore, does it mean for the church to be the body of Christ? You are one cell in that body. You are what you eat. You eat Christ's body, the bread of life, as an individual sinner and receive the nourishment as a member of the body of Christ, the church.
Everyone you see in the church is a cell in that body--unfortunately including anyone who has hurt you or offended you. Don't daydream and take communion absentmindedly. Don't look across the congregation and remember offenses without forgiving. You want the bread of life to nourish you, not make you sick. You want to drink the blood of Christ, not spill it. That way it will cleanse, not pollute you.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
All you need is love
The Beatles claimed, "All you need is love," but "Now That the Magic Is Gone" by Joe Cocker contains these words:
That's love in popular song. Everyone has heard lots of songs about the magic and rapture of love, and many others about the pain when it ends. Songs run the gamut of emotion from the supreme joy in love to cynicism and disgust when it doesn't seem to keep its promises.
Our songs reflect our society. People fall in love and marry, but half of all marriages end in divorce. Not all of the other half are happy. In many marriages, at least one partner has been divorced at least once. As Frank Sinatra sang, "Love is lovelier the second time around," although at least one wag suggested that some folks in Hollywood must have heard, "Love is lovelier the seventh time around." It's nothing new. More than 200 years ago, Samuel Johnson declared a second marriage "the triumph of hope over experience.
Some people seek to avoid the cycle of marriage and divorce simply by moving in together and establishing a household without getting married. When they break up, it is every bit as complicated and nasty as any divorce. Shacking up does not help love last. What does? A different kind of love, a kind untouched by notions of romance:
All of our popular songs celebrate, or denigrate, love as a feeling between two people. Feelings come and go. Scripture, on the other hand, does not limit love (as it does marriage) to a special relationship between one man and one woman. It commands that everyone love everyone. It speaks of love as a way of living, despite whatever feelings may or may not be present.
If I feel impatient, love is kind anyway. Love is not easily angered. If I get angry, whether easily or not, love is not rude. Love is hard work. It means putting up with people I don't like very much. It means seeking the best for everyone, even if it means someone else gets a prize that I don't. It means I can't feel glad when bad things happen to some enemy.
That's just not natural! Actually, it's supernatural. It's the way God regards each one of us, despite all we do to grieve him. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can love others with God's own love. That kind of love, and that kind alone, will never fail. John Lennon was right: all you need is love--just not necessarily the kind he and other song writers have in mind.
While I was hunting for the quotations I used in this post, I came across one I had never heard before, but it seems a very fitting conclusion:
You know love can be tender
Love can be cruel
It can smile like an angel
While it treats you just like a fool
It captures and haunts you
Until you give in
And it starts the dice against you
In a game you never can win
Just when I was thinking
Maybe luck was here with me
You're telling me it's over
Say it's time for breaking free
That's love in popular song. Everyone has heard lots of songs about the magic and rapture of love, and many others about the pain when it ends. Songs run the gamut of emotion from the supreme joy in love to cynicism and disgust when it doesn't seem to keep its promises.
Our songs reflect our society. People fall in love and marry, but half of all marriages end in divorce. Not all of the other half are happy. In many marriages, at least one partner has been divorced at least once. As Frank Sinatra sang, "Love is lovelier the second time around," although at least one wag suggested that some folks in Hollywood must have heard, "Love is lovelier the seventh time around." It's nothing new. More than 200 years ago, Samuel Johnson declared a second marriage "the triumph of hope over experience.
Some people seek to avoid the cycle of marriage and divorce simply by moving in together and establishing a household without getting married. When they break up, it is every bit as complicated and nasty as any divorce. Shacking up does not help love last. What does? A different kind of love, a kind untouched by notions of romance:
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails. -- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
All of our popular songs celebrate, or denigrate, love as a feeling between two people. Feelings come and go. Scripture, on the other hand, does not limit love (as it does marriage) to a special relationship between one man and one woman. It commands that everyone love everyone. It speaks of love as a way of living, despite whatever feelings may or may not be present.
If I feel impatient, love is kind anyway. Love is not easily angered. If I get angry, whether easily or not, love is not rude. Love is hard work. It means putting up with people I don't like very much. It means seeking the best for everyone, even if it means someone else gets a prize that I don't. It means I can't feel glad when bad things happen to some enemy.
That's just not natural! Actually, it's supernatural. It's the way God regards each one of us, despite all we do to grieve him. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can love others with God's own love. That kind of love, and that kind alone, will never fail. John Lennon was right: all you need is love--just not necessarily the kind he and other song writers have in mind.
While I was hunting for the quotations I used in this post, I came across one I had never heard before, but it seems a very fitting conclusion:
A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides; they are not keeping anything back; there's no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it's an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin. -- Henrik Ibsen
Friday, July 23, 2010
Light, darkness, and the return of Christ
Living by faith requires living not only in the light of the resurrection, but also in the hope of the return of Christ. Jesus himself said that he, in his earthly body, did not know when he would come back. He told his disciples that they should always be ready, because a thief cannot surprise a homeowner who is watching.
There are times in my life when a promise of God seems so vivid that I’m sure it will happen in the next fifteen minutes. Then the waiting starts. I know I'm not alone. The whole church has been waiting impatiently for the return of Christ for about two thousand years.
We see that impatience in one of Paul's earliest writings. The Lord will come like a thief in the night. No one has any forewarning about when either Jesus or a thief will show up. In fact, thieves look to see who is unprepared before they choose which house to strike.
Paul used two different words for time when he said we need to know the times and seasons. One of them (chronos)is the time we can measure by the clock or by the calendar. That is the kind of time that tells us that about 2000 years has passed since the events described in the New Testament.
The other word means a kind of indefinite and immeasurable time. Where NIV has “dates,” translations in the King James tradition have "seasons." It could be better translated “appropriate time.” A flower blooms when it is good and ready, certainly not on any kind of schedule that we can control.
If clock time is man’s time, then this other kind of time is God’s time. We have all wished at one time or another that he worked on our time, but he doesn’t. I heard once about a woman who tried to schedule everything a whole week in advance. One day her schedule read something like this: remind John to take the day off work; take the cat to mother’s; go to the hospital; have baby. . .
What are the chances everything ran smoothly according to her schedule on that day? What are the chances the baby came earlier in the week? Don’t we have God and the baby making their own decision without consulting mama’s schedule?
That is precisely why students of “Bible prophecy” are almost bound to be wrong if they say Christ will be back in a particular year, or even that a particular historical event marks the beginning of some kind of timetable. And Jesus warns us to watch for signs of his return.
The return of Christ emphasizes hope for those who accept him as Lord and Savior, but judgment and punishment for those who oppose him. You can stop worrying about anyone else's salvation but your own. We can’t look on another person’s heart any more than we can understand God’s relationship to time.
So again, Jesus will come like a thief in the night. Like a thief’s victims, he will surprise the complacent. Whoever goes about his business in the world without recognizing that Jesus will return, or without considering his return important enough to take into account, will suffer some kind of sudden destruction. That does not necessarily mean going to hell, but It does mean some kind of loss that people who are prepared for return of Christ will not suffer.
The way to avoid loss is to live in the light instead of in darkness. Remember, we have to think God’s time here, not clock time. In God’s time, someone might be in the dark while someone else right next to him physically is in the light. We can go to sleep on clock time and still be alert on God’s time.
In that sense, people of the darkness live in unbelief, unawareness, and willful ignorance of the things of God. People of the darkness might profess Christ with their mouths and attend church regularly, but not go on to believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead. Paul says people of the darkness fall asleep and get drunk. Jesus added in one of his parables that they cheat God and oppress each other.
People of the light, on the other hand, live alertly, deliberately aware that Jesus will return. People of the light know that the Spirit of Christ is available to them even as they wait for it.
Does that mean that no one who has not heard the gospel and professed Christ with their lips can live in the light? Not necessarily. Only God can look on the heart and see its condition. Let’s stop worrying about things that are none of our business.
Here’s what is our business: faith, hope, and love. Probably everyone knows the end of 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul says these three will never pass away. But here they are (v. 8), together for at least the second time in 1 Thessalonians. You will frequently find them mentioned together throughout the New Testament.
These three virtues characterize and motivate the people of the light. Paul compares them to the armor of a Roman soldier. A soldier in armor stands ready for anything he encounters. He is awake, sober, vigilant, and prepared for anything that’s likely to happen.
People of the night, being asleep, drunk, and complacent, are destined for trouble. Since Paul uses the imagery of night to describe people living in unbelief, unawareness, and willful ignorance, we can say that night-people are destined to face God’s wrath.
Day people, who have already made peace with God, are destined to receive salvation. That does not mean that they can acquire it by their own goodness and effort. It means that they have already acquired it through God’s grace.
Finally, Paul said that Christ died for us, so that whether we are asleep or awake, we can live with him. In a sense, that garbles the distinction between light and darkness that he just made. If Christians can be asleep, then Christians can be people of darkness.
I find two ways of making sense of that. First, even though the church at Thessalonica was only a month or so old, some of its members had died—possibly as a result of the persecution that drove Paul out of town and continued after he left. The end of the fourth chapter, which is not part of any of your lessons, addresses that problem more directly. “Asleep” is a euphemism for “dead,” and dead Christians are still saved.
Second, wrath and judgment are never God’s last word on any subject. We have probably all experienced both in some measure at some time or another. Throughout the Bible, once God has pronounced judgment and released his wrath, he always offers grace.
Until such time as someone definitively rejects Christ, he can always turn to him and receive salvation. So taking into account all that Paul said about the people of night and darkness, if any of them accept the chance to repent, they will enjoy the same salvation upon the return of Christ as anyone else.
As for me, I want to be a person of light sooner rather than later. If I ever slip back into darkness and start to nod off, the sooner I wake up and rejoin the light, the better. I know Jesus is with me now. I know that he will come back to get me.
I know that I will either rise from the earth or from the grave to meet him. I can’t know that about anyone else, but each of you can know it for yourselves. That is the basis for Christian hope in the return of Christ.
There are times in my life when a promise of God seems so vivid that I’m sure it will happen in the next fifteen minutes. Then the waiting starts. I know I'm not alone. The whole church has been waiting impatiently for the return of Christ for about two thousand years.
We see that impatience in one of Paul's earliest writings. The Lord will come like a thief in the night. No one has any forewarning about when either Jesus or a thief will show up. In fact, thieves look to see who is unprepared before they choose which house to strike.
Paul used two different words for time when he said we need to know the times and seasons. One of them (chronos)is the time we can measure by the clock or by the calendar. That is the kind of time that tells us that about 2000 years has passed since the events described in the New Testament.
The other word means a kind of indefinite and immeasurable time. Where NIV has “dates,” translations in the King James tradition have "seasons." It could be better translated “appropriate time.” A flower blooms when it is good and ready, certainly not on any kind of schedule that we can control.
If clock time is man’s time, then this other kind of time is God’s time. We have all wished at one time or another that he worked on our time, but he doesn’t. I heard once about a woman who tried to schedule everything a whole week in advance. One day her schedule read something like this: remind John to take the day off work; take the cat to mother’s; go to the hospital; have baby. . .
What are the chances everything ran smoothly according to her schedule on that day? What are the chances the baby came earlier in the week? Don’t we have God and the baby making their own decision without consulting mama’s schedule?
That is precisely why students of “Bible prophecy” are almost bound to be wrong if they say Christ will be back in a particular year, or even that a particular historical event marks the beginning of some kind of timetable. And Jesus warns us to watch for signs of his return.
The return of Christ emphasizes hope for those who accept him as Lord and Savior, but judgment and punishment for those who oppose him. You can stop worrying about anyone else's salvation but your own. We can’t look on another person’s heart any more than we can understand God’s relationship to time.
So again, Jesus will come like a thief in the night. Like a thief’s victims, he will surprise the complacent. Whoever goes about his business in the world without recognizing that Jesus will return, or without considering his return important enough to take into account, will suffer some kind of sudden destruction. That does not necessarily mean going to hell, but It does mean some kind of loss that people who are prepared for return of Christ will not suffer.
The way to avoid loss is to live in the light instead of in darkness. Remember, we have to think God’s time here, not clock time. In God’s time, someone might be in the dark while someone else right next to him physically is in the light. We can go to sleep on clock time and still be alert on God’s time.
In that sense, people of the darkness live in unbelief, unawareness, and willful ignorance of the things of God. People of the darkness might profess Christ with their mouths and attend church regularly, but not go on to believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead. Paul says people of the darkness fall asleep and get drunk. Jesus added in one of his parables that they cheat God and oppress each other.
People of the light, on the other hand, live alertly, deliberately aware that Jesus will return. People of the light know that the Spirit of Christ is available to them even as they wait for it.
Does that mean that no one who has not heard the gospel and professed Christ with their lips can live in the light? Not necessarily. Only God can look on the heart and see its condition. Let’s stop worrying about things that are none of our business.
Here’s what is our business: faith, hope, and love. Probably everyone knows the end of 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul says these three will never pass away. But here they are (v. 8), together for at least the second time in 1 Thessalonians. You will frequently find them mentioned together throughout the New Testament.
These three virtues characterize and motivate the people of the light. Paul compares them to the armor of a Roman soldier. A soldier in armor stands ready for anything he encounters. He is awake, sober, vigilant, and prepared for anything that’s likely to happen.
People of the night, being asleep, drunk, and complacent, are destined for trouble. Since Paul uses the imagery of night to describe people living in unbelief, unawareness, and willful ignorance, we can say that night-people are destined to face God’s wrath.
Day people, who have already made peace with God, are destined to receive salvation. That does not mean that they can acquire it by their own goodness and effort. It means that they have already acquired it through God’s grace.
Finally, Paul said that Christ died for us, so that whether we are asleep or awake, we can live with him. In a sense, that garbles the distinction between light and darkness that he just made. If Christians can be asleep, then Christians can be people of darkness.
I find two ways of making sense of that. First, even though the church at Thessalonica was only a month or so old, some of its members had died—possibly as a result of the persecution that drove Paul out of town and continued after he left. The end of the fourth chapter, which is not part of any of your lessons, addresses that problem more directly. “Asleep” is a euphemism for “dead,” and dead Christians are still saved.
Second, wrath and judgment are never God’s last word on any subject. We have probably all experienced both in some measure at some time or another. Throughout the Bible, once God has pronounced judgment and released his wrath, he always offers grace.
Until such time as someone definitively rejects Christ, he can always turn to him and receive salvation. So taking into account all that Paul said about the people of night and darkness, if any of them accept the chance to repent, they will enjoy the same salvation upon the return of Christ as anyone else.
As for me, I want to be a person of light sooner rather than later. If I ever slip back into darkness and start to nod off, the sooner I wake up and rejoin the light, the better. I know Jesus is with me now. I know that he will come back to get me.
I know that I will either rise from the earth or from the grave to meet him. I can’t know that about anyone else, but each of you can know it for yourselves. That is the basis for Christian hope in the return of Christ.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Love your enemy: a dangerous prayer rewarded
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,' but I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you."--Matthew 5:43-44 (NASB)
The Bible, Jesus in particular, has a way of commanding whatever is most counterintuitive. We are such creatures of the world that, even as believers in Christ, the ways of the world seem more normal than what Jesus asks. Here he tells us to love and pray for enemies.
I have prayed salvation for Osama bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and other enemies of America and Christ. I hope all my readers have, too. Of course, I have done it only in either the privacy of my own solitude or in the safe and friendly environment of a worship service. I can pray for enemies without testing my love for them.
In the ninth chapter of Acts, we meet a man named Ananias. Jesus appeared to him in a vision and told him to pray for Saul of Tarsus, a dedicated and violent persecutor of the church. Not only that, he told Ananias Saul's address and told him to go lay hands on Saul.
That's more serious. It was not enough to add Saul to his prayer list and mention him every day. It was not enough to go to a prayer meeting and offer a prayer for Saul. It was not enough to do any of the things I suppose most of us do when we pray for enemies. Those things may be enough much of the time, but not for Ananias and not necessarily always enough for any of us.
Let's suppose I learn that a gang from some kind of rival group is coming to Greensboro to arrest me and my closest friends and drag me off somewhere else to face some kind of gang justice. Then Jesus tells me where the leader of the gang is holing up and wants me to go there and lay hands on him.
Or let's imagine Jesus telling a Hatfield to make a social call on a McCoy or a Capulet to go knock on a Montague's door. It kind of puts loving and praying for enemies in a much more personal perspective.
Ananias was afraid. Like many other Biblical characters--and probably like many if not all of us--he told Jesus that it was not a good idea. Before long, though, he got up and obeyed the call. One key to why he swallowed his fear and went to the house on Straight Street: when Jesus called, "Ananias," Ananias answered, "Here I am." How many times has Jesus called me and I wasn't there?
We know the result, of course. In love, Ananias addressed his enemy as "Brother Saul." By the laying on of Ananias' hands, Saul accepted Christ and received the Holy Spirit. Years later, known as Paul, he went all over the known world proclaiming the gospel and wrote more New Testament Scripture than anyone else.
We owe so much of the Bible and nearly all of our basic theological understanding to Paul. Before Saul the persecutor could become Paul the apostle, someone had to pay him a dangerous call. Jesus chose Ananias for the task. Of course, the assignment was not as dangerous as it seemed. Jesus had already blinded Saul and prepared his heart to receive Ananias. I suppose more often than not, what Jesus asks is not as dangerous as it seems.
The Bible, Jesus in particular, has a way of commanding whatever is most counterintuitive. We are such creatures of the world that, even as believers in Christ, the ways of the world seem more normal than what Jesus asks. Here he tells us to love and pray for enemies.
I have prayed salvation for Osama bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and other enemies of America and Christ. I hope all my readers have, too. Of course, I have done it only in either the privacy of my own solitude or in the safe and friendly environment of a worship service. I can pray for enemies without testing my love for them.
In the ninth chapter of Acts, we meet a man named Ananias. Jesus appeared to him in a vision and told him to pray for Saul of Tarsus, a dedicated and violent persecutor of the church. Not only that, he told Ananias Saul's address and told him to go lay hands on Saul.
That's more serious. It was not enough to add Saul to his prayer list and mention him every day. It was not enough to go to a prayer meeting and offer a prayer for Saul. It was not enough to do any of the things I suppose most of us do when we pray for enemies. Those things may be enough much of the time, but not for Ananias and not necessarily always enough for any of us.
Let's suppose I learn that a gang from some kind of rival group is coming to Greensboro to arrest me and my closest friends and drag me off somewhere else to face some kind of gang justice. Then Jesus tells me where the leader of the gang is holing up and wants me to go there and lay hands on him.
Or let's imagine Jesus telling a Hatfield to make a social call on a McCoy or a Capulet to go knock on a Montague's door. It kind of puts loving and praying for enemies in a much more personal perspective.
Ananias was afraid. Like many other Biblical characters--and probably like many if not all of us--he told Jesus that it was not a good idea. Before long, though, he got up and obeyed the call. One key to why he swallowed his fear and went to the house on Straight Street: when Jesus called, "Ananias," Ananias answered, "Here I am." How many times has Jesus called me and I wasn't there?
We know the result, of course. In love, Ananias addressed his enemy as "Brother Saul." By the laying on of Ananias' hands, Saul accepted Christ and received the Holy Spirit. Years later, known as Paul, he went all over the known world proclaiming the gospel and wrote more New Testament Scripture than anyone else.
We owe so much of the Bible and nearly all of our basic theological understanding to Paul. Before Saul the persecutor could become Paul the apostle, someone had to pay him a dangerous call. Jesus chose Ananias for the task. Of course, the assignment was not as dangerous as it seemed. Jesus had already blinded Saul and prepared his heart to receive Ananias. I suppose more often than not, what Jesus asks is not as dangerous as it seems.
Friday, July 16, 2010
How to become wise
The book of Proverbs often personifies wisdom as a female character, sent by God to accomplish God's purposes. It often presents wisdom as advice from parents to children. Wisdom consists of both moral instruction on how to live a righteous life and practical advice that covers a wide variety of situations. Wisdom requires some knowledge, but think of wisdom, in part, as knowing what to do about knowledge.
Read the scripture emphasizing the "if" written or implied before every verb. All these actions are necessary in order to obtain the promise.
Now, pure silver does not exist in nature. In order to obtain it, miners must first discover where the ore is. They can't find it just anywhere, and there is no sense in looking for a vein of silver in places that are not suitable for finding it.
Once they find a vein of silver, they have to dig it out of the rock formations. When they finish their work, they have nothing but a pile of rocks that have a little bit of silver in them and a lot of stuff they don't want. So the next step is to refine those rocks, to extract the desirable silver and get rid of all the undesirable other stuff.
That long list of conditions explains why so many people learn wisdom imperfectly or not at all. If I do not have wisdom and someone tells me about wisdom, I will not get wisdom if I don't pay attention, or if I reject the advice and go on in my unwise ways.
If someone tells me about wisdom and it seems really good, and I really want to be like that, but then go about my business and forget what I heard, I will not get wisdom. If I meet wise people and don't let them know that I value their wisdom, chances are they will not talk to me about it, and I will not get wisdom.
And if I form the closest possible relationship with a wise person and learn everything I can, I still have to realize that their wisdom is not pure. All have sinned, that is missed the mark, and fallen short of the glory of God.
Abraham was a wise man. He knew God more intimately than anyone else of his time. And he spent hours and hours making sure that Isaac knew God, too. But he had at least one foolish habit. Every time he went into a new community, he told everyone that Sarah was his sister, not his wife.
It got him into trouble at least twice before Isaac was born. Apparently he got away with it often enough that he still thought it was clever. So Isaac learned that, too. He tried it on one of the same people that Abraham had tried it on. That man wasn't amused, and Isaac finally decided it wasn't a clever enough tactic to pass on to his sons.
So if we are going to become wise, we not only need to understand the wisdom of the people we know, but also understand the limitations of their wisdom. To get our own wisdom, we have to refine it like silver. And what does the passage say we will get in return for our work? Not that we will be wise. We will understand the fear of God and find the knowledge of God.
Now, if we're supposed to seek God and follow after God and love God and believe that God loves us, why, after working so hard to refine some nugget of wisdom, do we find the fear of God?
The answer has at least two parts. For one thing, we're redeemed, but our sin is not. We are each a walking civil war, with a redeemed nature remade in the image of Christ and an unregenerate flesh that loves nothing better than sin. That part of us will always feel uncomfortable in the presence of God. That feeling, that kind of fear is part of what the word awe means. In love, our reborn spirit wants to draw near to God, even as our flesh wants to draw away; so awe is a sign of our love for God.
Now, I never had any children, but I have observed some, and I used to be one. Children are constantly presented with opportunities to do things that they know their parents don't want them to do. Suppose one child thinks of the punishment that will come when the parents find out and another child thinks of how sad and hurt the parents will be. The first might do a cost/benefit analysis and decide that the possible punishment is worth it. The second probably will not.
The first case involves fear of the parents' anger. The second involves fear of their grief. The Bible makes it clear that fear of God's wrath does not deter sin. Fear of his grief means that we love God enough to care what he thinks. That kind of fear is part of what we mean by respect. So working to become wise leads us to awe and respect for God, and these kinds of fear go hand in hand with loving him.
God drove Adam out of Eden so he would not find the tree of life and live forever in his sinful state. We can't go back to Eden. We can't on our own, recover the innocence of Eden, the close relationship with God that Adam once had there, or the chance to live forever. But God still wants all of that for us. If we can't get there on our own, we can get there by following the wisdom that God has sent to guide us there.
If we choose another path besides wisdom, we might very well get more money, more influence over people, more fame, more of all kinds of things. But we will miss out on life. And that's not wise.
Read the scripture emphasizing the "if" written or implied before every verb. All these actions are necessary in order to obtain the promise.
- if you accept
- if you store
- if you turn
- if you apply
- if you call
- if you cry
- if you look
- if you search
Now, pure silver does not exist in nature. In order to obtain it, miners must first discover where the ore is. They can't find it just anywhere, and there is no sense in looking for a vein of silver in places that are not suitable for finding it.
Once they find a vein of silver, they have to dig it out of the rock formations. When they finish their work, they have nothing but a pile of rocks that have a little bit of silver in them and a lot of stuff they don't want. So the next step is to refine those rocks, to extract the desirable silver and get rid of all the undesirable other stuff.
That long list of conditions explains why so many people learn wisdom imperfectly or not at all. If I do not have wisdom and someone tells me about wisdom, I will not get wisdom if I don't pay attention, or if I reject the advice and go on in my unwise ways.
If someone tells me about wisdom and it seems really good, and I really want to be like that, but then go about my business and forget what I heard, I will not get wisdom. If I meet wise people and don't let them know that I value their wisdom, chances are they will not talk to me about it, and I will not get wisdom.
And if I form the closest possible relationship with a wise person and learn everything I can, I still have to realize that their wisdom is not pure. All have sinned, that is missed the mark, and fallen short of the glory of God.
Abraham was a wise man. He knew God more intimately than anyone else of his time. And he spent hours and hours making sure that Isaac knew God, too. But he had at least one foolish habit. Every time he went into a new community, he told everyone that Sarah was his sister, not his wife.
It got him into trouble at least twice before Isaac was born. Apparently he got away with it often enough that he still thought it was clever. So Isaac learned that, too. He tried it on one of the same people that Abraham had tried it on. That man wasn't amused, and Isaac finally decided it wasn't a clever enough tactic to pass on to his sons.
So if we are going to become wise, we not only need to understand the wisdom of the people we know, but also understand the limitations of their wisdom. To get our own wisdom, we have to refine it like silver. And what does the passage say we will get in return for our work? Not that we will be wise. We will understand the fear of God and find the knowledge of God.
Now, if we're supposed to seek God and follow after God and love God and believe that God loves us, why, after working so hard to refine some nugget of wisdom, do we find the fear of God?
The answer has at least two parts. For one thing, we're redeemed, but our sin is not. We are each a walking civil war, with a redeemed nature remade in the image of Christ and an unregenerate flesh that loves nothing better than sin. That part of us will always feel uncomfortable in the presence of God. That feeling, that kind of fear is part of what the word awe means. In love, our reborn spirit wants to draw near to God, even as our flesh wants to draw away; so awe is a sign of our love for God.
Now, I never had any children, but I have observed some, and I used to be one. Children are constantly presented with opportunities to do things that they know their parents don't want them to do. Suppose one child thinks of the punishment that will come when the parents find out and another child thinks of how sad and hurt the parents will be. The first might do a cost/benefit analysis and decide that the possible punishment is worth it. The second probably will not.
The first case involves fear of the parents' anger. The second involves fear of their grief. The Bible makes it clear that fear of God's wrath does not deter sin. Fear of his grief means that we love God enough to care what he thinks. That kind of fear is part of what we mean by respect. So working to become wise leads us to awe and respect for God, and these kinds of fear go hand in hand with loving him.
God drove Adam out of Eden so he would not find the tree of life and live forever in his sinful state. We can't go back to Eden. We can't on our own, recover the innocence of Eden, the close relationship with God that Adam once had there, or the chance to live forever. But God still wants all of that for us. If we can't get there on our own, we can get there by following the wisdom that God has sent to guide us there.
If we choose another path besides wisdom, we might very well get more money, more influence over people, more fame, more of all kinds of things. But we will miss out on life. And that's not wise.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Church unity in little choices
Methodist churches get their ministers by appointment from a bishop. After every annual conference, lots of congregations get a new minister. For all you Methodist readers who still have the same staff you had before, if your senior pastor has been appointed to his or her seventh year, chances are better than even that you will have a new one this time next year. Not everyone will be happy with the new minister. Some folks will wind up leaving that congregation.
Many other Protestant denominations call their own pastors. Changes of pastorates occur at less predictable intervals. They can be very messy if a bare majority of the church wants to dismiss a pastor. I belonged to one congregation where the pastor was caught both in an adulterous affair and embezzling money from the mission fund. Undercurrents of resentment over another failed pastorate seventeen years earlier interfered greatly with the process of calling another leader.
The New Testament insists on church unity over a number of issues. In Paul's epistles, most frequently he insists that it unite around the teaching of the apostles and reject various false teachings. In Corinth, however, he found a doctrinally pure church squabbling over other things, including whom they should acknowledge as leader.
Paul planted the church in Corinth and stayed there longer than he had ever stayed in any one place before. He loved that congregation, and many of them loved him. Then he left and someone named Apollos took over. Now Paul learned to be a Jewish Pharisee, and he had a very Jewish style. Apollos got his education at a major center of Greek philosophy and had a style that was more appealing to the Greek mind.
The people who liked Apollos pointed out that he was a good Greek and more philosophical than Paul ever tried to be. Paul might have gotten us off to a good start, they said, but we're in better hands now. Paul's friends pointed out that he knew the other apostles personally, and that Apollos may be a good speaker, but he still didn't have as much authority as Paul.
Some people in Corinth didn't want to take sides like that. They said that neither Paul nor Apollos were really world-wide leaders. Ultimately, they had to take their lead from the men who actually knew Jesus. Peter was the leader of that group, so whether Paul or Apollos or anyone else was in Corinth, Peter was the real authority in the church.
To all of which some others piously replied that they were just going to follow Christ and not pay attention to anyone else. The result? Two pastors, four arguing factions not speaking to each other except to shout.
Paul goes on to mention other problems and quarrels in that church. We know more about the inner workings of the church in Corinth than any other New Testament church. It isn't pretty.
If we're honest, we have to admit that our church and every church we have ever been a part of is too much like the one in Corinth. We spend too much time squabbling with each other over stuff that doesn't matter and not enough time building ourselves and each other up in faith.
A big part of the problem is that both the church in Corinth and the church in America adapt the gospel to our cultural expectations rather than allowing the gospel to renew our minds after the image of Christ.
There is an old saying that is helpful for us to remember: In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity. We have to know what is essential to the gospel and be in agreement about that. There can be no unity between the gospel and any kind of false teaching. But if something isn't essential to the gospel, everyone can think or do anything they want.
Christians can be Methodist, or not. Believe it or not, Christians can be Democrats or Republicans or neither. Christians can like different kinds of church music or worship styles. Christians can drink beer or not. Christians can eat meat or be vegetarian or even vegan. In North Carolina, where college basketball appears to be everyone's real religion, some Christians root for North Carolina and others for Duke.
We all have our own cultural preferences. And when someone else makes a different choice, we have to accept and love each other and concentrate our full attention on what we have in common in Christ.
Many other Protestant denominations call their own pastors. Changes of pastorates occur at less predictable intervals. They can be very messy if a bare majority of the church wants to dismiss a pastor. I belonged to one congregation where the pastor was caught both in an adulterous affair and embezzling money from the mission fund. Undercurrents of resentment over another failed pastorate seventeen years earlier interfered greatly with the process of calling another leader.
The New Testament insists on church unity over a number of issues. In Paul's epistles, most frequently he insists that it unite around the teaching of the apostles and reject various false teachings. In Corinth, however, he found a doctrinally pure church squabbling over other things, including whom they should acknowledge as leader.
Paul planted the church in Corinth and stayed there longer than he had ever stayed in any one place before. He loved that congregation, and many of them loved him. Then he left and someone named Apollos took over. Now Paul learned to be a Jewish Pharisee, and he had a very Jewish style. Apollos got his education at a major center of Greek philosophy and had a style that was more appealing to the Greek mind.
The people who liked Apollos pointed out that he was a good Greek and more philosophical than Paul ever tried to be. Paul might have gotten us off to a good start, they said, but we're in better hands now. Paul's friends pointed out that he knew the other apostles personally, and that Apollos may be a good speaker, but he still didn't have as much authority as Paul.
Some people in Corinth didn't want to take sides like that. They said that neither Paul nor Apollos were really world-wide leaders. Ultimately, they had to take their lead from the men who actually knew Jesus. Peter was the leader of that group, so whether Paul or Apollos or anyone else was in Corinth, Peter was the real authority in the church.
To all of which some others piously replied that they were just going to follow Christ and not pay attention to anyone else. The result? Two pastors, four arguing factions not speaking to each other except to shout.
Paul goes on to mention other problems and quarrels in that church. We know more about the inner workings of the church in Corinth than any other New Testament church. It isn't pretty.
If we're honest, we have to admit that our church and every church we have ever been a part of is too much like the one in Corinth. We spend too much time squabbling with each other over stuff that doesn't matter and not enough time building ourselves and each other up in faith.
A big part of the problem is that both the church in Corinth and the church in America adapt the gospel to our cultural expectations rather than allowing the gospel to renew our minds after the image of Christ.
There is an old saying that is helpful for us to remember: In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity. We have to know what is essential to the gospel and be in agreement about that. There can be no unity between the gospel and any kind of false teaching. But if something isn't essential to the gospel, everyone can think or do anything they want.
Christians can be Methodist, or not. Believe it or not, Christians can be Democrats or Republicans or neither. Christians can like different kinds of church music or worship styles. Christians can drink beer or not. Christians can eat meat or be vegetarian or even vegan. In North Carolina, where college basketball appears to be everyone's real religion, some Christians root for North Carolina and others for Duke.
We all have our own cultural preferences. And when someone else makes a different choice, we have to accept and love each other and concentrate our full attention on what we have in common in Christ.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Learning what Satan is like--the hard way
I suppose not many readers spend much time with 1 or 2 Kings or 1 or 2 Chronicles. That's too bad, because the stories in the Old Testament often provide clear pictures off New Testament truths. Amaziah, a king of Judah who served God half-heartedly, illustrates what happens to the double-minded man mentioned in James 1:6-8.
This post will comment on the time when he was afraid that his army wasn't strong enough for a war he wanted to make against Edom. He hired mercenaries from Israel, but then a prophet said if he let them fight, he would lose.
Amaziah fussed a bit about the money he had already paid for the Israelite soldiers, but before he went to war, he dismissed them. Their behavior proved the folly of ever trusting them. It provides a great picture of what Satan is like.
They eagerly came when called. After all, as soldiers in a society that glorified war, they loved to fight, and Amaziah offered to pay them well. When he dismissed them and told them they couldn't fight his war, after all, they got offended. Satan, too, comes eagerly. He loves to kill and to betray.
They left unwillingly. Having received the call to arms with eagerness, they responded to their dismissal with anger. They had their money. They could have, indeed should have, gone back home to enjoy it. Perhaps they were angry having been excluded from the chance to fight and kill.
They picked on the defenseless. The Israelites could have changed sides, taken Amaziah's money to Edom, and offered to repel Amaziah's army, and gotten more money from the King of Edom in the process. Even though Amaziah thought little of his army, it was still a powerful force. His offended allies chose not to challenge it. Instead, they plundered and pillaged Judah's towns and cities, like cowards.
Satan, too, loves to pick on the defenseless. As leader of his own cause rather than a mercenary for someone else's, he cannot avoid attacking strong prayer warriors. Anyone who does great works for the Lord can testify of Satan's savagery. But he also loves to prey on people of weak faith and make them believe that God does not love them or cannot protect them. He, too, is a coward.
I have written at greater length elsewhere of how Amaziah responded to the Israelites' outrageous behavior. Having spent his life doing what was right but not wholeheartedly, he crumbled.
Satan played him like a drum. Militarily, Amaziah leared what Israel had done, but Israel only played the role of a type of Satan. Spiritually, he never knew what hit him.
James tells us the double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, cannot expect to receive anything from the Lord. What does double-minded mean? The same thing as half-hearted. Doubt, unbelief, fear, and reluctance to seek a strong, personal relationship with God undermine faith and obedience until they fail completely.
This post will comment on the time when he was afraid that his army wasn't strong enough for a war he wanted to make against Edom. He hired mercenaries from Israel, but then a prophet said if he let them fight, he would lose.
Amaziah fussed a bit about the money he had already paid for the Israelite soldiers, but before he went to war, he dismissed them. Their behavior proved the folly of ever trusting them. It provides a great picture of what Satan is like.
They eagerly came when called. After all, as soldiers in a society that glorified war, they loved to fight, and Amaziah offered to pay them well. When he dismissed them and told them they couldn't fight his war, after all, they got offended. Satan, too, comes eagerly. He loves to kill and to betray.
They left unwillingly. Having received the call to arms with eagerness, they responded to their dismissal with anger. They had their money. They could have, indeed should have, gone back home to enjoy it. Perhaps they were angry having been excluded from the chance to fight and kill.
They picked on the defenseless. The Israelites could have changed sides, taken Amaziah's money to Edom, and offered to repel Amaziah's army, and gotten more money from the King of Edom in the process. Even though Amaziah thought little of his army, it was still a powerful force. His offended allies chose not to challenge it. Instead, they plundered and pillaged Judah's towns and cities, like cowards.
Satan, too, loves to pick on the defenseless. As leader of his own cause rather than a mercenary for someone else's, he cannot avoid attacking strong prayer warriors. Anyone who does great works for the Lord can testify of Satan's savagery. But he also loves to prey on people of weak faith and make them believe that God does not love them or cannot protect them. He, too, is a coward.
I have written at greater length elsewhere of how Amaziah responded to the Israelites' outrageous behavior. Having spent his life doing what was right but not wholeheartedly, he crumbled.
Satan played him like a drum. Militarily, Amaziah leared what Israel had done, but Israel only played the role of a type of Satan. Spiritually, he never knew what hit him.
James tells us the double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, cannot expect to receive anything from the Lord. What does double-minded mean? The same thing as half-hearted. Doubt, unbelief, fear, and reluctance to seek a strong, personal relationship with God undermine faith and obedience until they fail completely.
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