Grace and Judgment

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The church: the household of God

Posted on March 10, 2011 by dmguion

“. . . if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15, NIV).

Probably the first thing that comes to mind when we think of the church as “God’s household” is that Christians are God’s family. After all, household means the people who live in a house, and in our society, that’s usually a family. Indeed, God has adopted all believers into his family. But to gain a deeper understanding of Paul’s meaning, I would like to propose a different way of looking at it, not to replace the notion of the household of God as God’s family, but to enrich it.

Biltmore Estate, build for George Vanderbilt, is one of North Carolina’s best-known tourist destinations. The tour of that house eventually takes visitors down to the servants’ quarters. Vanderbilt’s household, then, included not only his family, but also his servants. Even today, some households include both family members and resident servants. It is the continuation of centuries of rulers and landed gentry maintaining a staff of servants.

In the days before constitutional monarchies, kings, dukes, and other nobles not only commanded chamber maids, gardeners, and so on. Their households also included their chief counselors and officials. King Louis XIV of France neutralized any possibility of his nobles conspiring against him by requiring them all to live at Versailles. Therefore, his household included every French duke and their families as well as his own and all their servants!

Church leaders (bishops, archbishops, Cardinals, and the Pope) maintained households just like the secular rulers did. In fact, I would be shocked if recent Popes haven’t had the support of an extensive household just as their predecessors had for centuries.

Surely the Caesars had their own household, as did all of the lesser kings, like the Herods, who ruled parts of the empire under them. Think of how many times Jesus mentioned servants in his parables. Look at glimpses of how Nebuchadnezzar organized his household in the book of Daniel. The early church might have thought of the household of God in terms of God’s servants before they thought of it in terms of his family. They would have surely recognized all church leaders as servants.

God is king of kings. Christians are his servants first, his family only by adoption. God’s household comprises all of his angels and the entire church. It includes church leaders from the very top right down to lay people who serve their congregations in various capacities. In fact, the household of God includes believers who attend church without any additional participation, and even those who for various reasons hardly show up in church at all.

We are God’s family, to be sure, but let us not be like boisterous children without restraint. Let us not carry on family feuds. We are also his household servants. Church leaders (and that ought to include all of us) should not assume that their position makes them the boss so they can lord it over others. Let none of us shirk responsibilities unless someone else is watching. People of the household of God, let’s remember who we work for!

Daniel’s vision of a blessed future

Posted on February 26, 2011 by dmguion

The book of Daniel contains some of the most obscure visions in Scripture. Weird looking beasts represent empires in Daniel’s future, but mostly our past. We can identify many rulers by name and understand references to what each of them did. The evil doings of Syrian King Antiochus IV appear at greater length, except there always seem to some details that don’t fit. They point to a coming Antichrist. I have recently touched on one of the visions in Thoughts on Bible prophecy: reading the future in Scripture. Daniel’s final vision relates the ultimate destruction of Antichrist and promises bodily resurrection for everyone afterward.

“Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars for ever and ever” (Daniel 12:2-3, NIV).

Like many passages in the New Testament, Daniel envisions physical death as sleep.
He describes a literal, bodily resurrection. According to Revelation, the resurrection of the unjust follows the resurrection of the just by a thousand years.
The fate of both the just and unjust is everlasting. There will be no more grace to allow the unjust another chance to repent.
The just will shine like the stars—a way of saying God will grant them not only a place in heaven, but glory.

We can only go by what our senses tell us. God can see more deeply into every person’s heart than we can understand even our own. Sooner or later we all die. Sooner or later, we will all rise again, and only God will know how each of us responded to his grace.

Even some Christians recoil at the thought that anyone will go to hell. A loving God, they say, would never send anyone to hell. Actually, no, he won’t. He knows who has accepted his offer of grace and chosen to love him. He will raise them up to glory. He will also remove living people who love him from the earth in order to let evil grow without the restraint of their prayers.

Daniel 11:36-12:1 seems to describe Antiochus IV, the king of the North, for the umpteenth time—except that in 11:40 the king of the North becomes adversary to, well, Antichrist. Daniel therefore describes the end of the world as we know it. After a thousand years (and don’t believe anyone who claims to understand anything about that time), God will raise all those who didn’t accept his offer of grace and chose to hate him.

Why would any of them want to go to heaven and be with God? They hate him. They want to be wherever he is not. In sadness, not in anger, he will tell them, “Have it your way, since you won’t have it mine.” Where else can they go but outer darkness? Where else can they go except the place reserved for the devil and demons? Can they repent once they get there? God will show mercy if possible, but he has revealed nothing about it.

Daniel did not understand the vision or the answer the “man in linen” gave to an angel’s question about it. He asked (12:8) what the outcome would be. We’re still asking. The only answer we’ll ever get is God’s plea to accept his grace now so that in the end of days, we will rise to glory.

Why do bad things happen? Suffering and the righteous

Posted on February 15, 2011 by dmguion

Why do bad things happen? Some people seem to think it’s God’s job to make everyone happy all the time. Some people even point to the suffering in the world as justification for not believing in God at all. No one seems to mind if “bad” people suffer; they have it coming to them. But good people? Righteous people?God allows them to suffer, too. Why? Why?

There is an answer that no one likes much: “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10, quoting Psalm 14:3 and Psalm 53:3, NKJV), “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Sin is not something some of us do on occasion; it is something we all are all the time. God has a plan of redemption. In fact, Romans 3:23 is a parenthetical expression within a sentence about a new kind of righteousness, which comes not from being good enough according to a list of rules, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

Speaking of Jesus, the Bible insists that he never sinned, but he suffered greatly–and not only on the cross. Why did God allow his suffering? That’s how the new kind of righteousness became available. The same can’t be said for anyone else, so why do Christians suffer? In the Old Testament, why do bad things happen to the heroes of the faith?

Joseph Sold by His Brothers

Well, how did any of them become heroes of the faith except by growing into it from what they suffered? Psalm 105 describes God’s faithfulness to his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but that promise entailed centuries of bondage in Egypt. Before Jacob ever went to Egypt, the psalmist notes,

17 He [God] sent a man before them—
Joseph—who was sold as a slave.
18 They hurt his feet with fetters,
He was laid in irons.
19 Until the time that his word came to pass,
The word of the LORD tested him.

Who can point to any time when Joseph sinned? He was certainly oblivious to the hatred his brothers had for him and how dangerous they could be, but the psalm says that God sent Joseph to Egypt ahead of his brothers. It gives no credit to them at all.

Joseph Recognized by His Brothers

By the time they next saw Joseph, his ability to remain righteous even in his suffering had won him enough maturity and humility that he could tell them, “But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5), and “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? 20 But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Genesis 50:19-20).

So why do bad things happen ? First because we all deserve it more than we’re willing to admit. Second, it’s for our good and the good of others as well. By suffering patiently and with endurance, we can grow up into maturity and live much more successful and useful lives than we ever could otherwise.

When bad things happen, we can give into the temptation to wallow in them, become embittered, shrivel up, and essentially die a little long before our bodies do. Or we can rise above suffering and embrace the righteous new life that we receive only through patient endurance.

Moses and the Burning Bush: The Presence of the Living God

Posted on February 3, 2011 by dmguion

The story of Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3) is one of the most familiar stories in the Bible. Pharaoh had ordered all Hebrew baby boys killed. Instead, Moses’ mother put him on a raft so Pharaoh’s daughter would find it, and then joined her household. Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s court with all of its privileges, but also with full understanding of his heritage. In his zeal for justice, he murdered an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, then fled. God met him in the burning bush forty years later. Sometimes the story’s very familiarity keeps us from understanding its meaning. I want to point out three valuable lessons about God’s call and presence.

1. If we don’t understand God’s acts, it’s because we don’t know what he knows

Exodus 2:23-25 says that the people of Israel cried out because of their bondage, and God heard them. He met Moses at the burning bush to commission Moses as his agent of freedom. They had been in bondage for 400 years.

He didn’t forget them and then suddenly remember. He foretold the 400-year bondage to Abraham in Genesis 15:13-16, saying the sin of the Amorites wasn’t complete yet. God’s greatest heroes have become strong through overcoming adversity. God cares about human suffering and takes oppression personally. Are you suffering innocently? Have you prayed for a long time without relief? God knows. God cares. And he has reasons for his timing that you can’t know.

2. God deals with us as one person to another

Moses saw a bush that was on fire, but still lush and green. God didn’t randomly call the first person to wander past it. When Moses approached, God called him by name. What’s more, he introduced himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For 400 years, the Hebrews had preserved stories of these men and the God they worshiped. God made sure Moses knew that he was that same God.

God is holy in a way that humans can’t be in this life. God’s holiness commands respect, but as we come to understand him more, we see in Scripture his hunger for a relationship with us. He didn’t just want Moses to be his servant, but also his friend. God calls us, too, into his presence not as the impersonal and unapproachable boss in the corner office, but from love, seeking a personal relationship with us.

3. With or without God, our strengths and weaknesses don’t matter. With him is better

God’s commission scared Moses. He tried every excuse he could think of to get out of it. He asked, “Who am I?” In fact, for all of his unique advantages, he was nothing. His weaknesses disqualified him. But God, who hasn’t had anyone qualified working for him yet, didn’t answer Moses’ question. He simply responded, “I will be with you.”

Some people, like Moses at the burning, feel like they amount to nothing and can’t do anything for God. Others, like Moses of forty years earlier, feel they can accomplish great things on their own, and fail. Whether we look with pride on our abilities or shame at our weaknesses, we look in the wrong place. We leave God out of the picture. Either way, we can do nothing. When we turn our attention to him and trust in his presence, we can do everything he asks. God’s presence turned weak and insecure Moses into a great leader. He desires to transform everyone else, too.

Trusting Jesus when it makes no sense: healing the blind man of Bethsaida

Posted on January 26, 2011 by dmguion


Christ Healing the Blind Man of Bethsaida (14th. c.)

Mark’s gospel records a very odd healing. Some people in Bethsaida brought a blind man to Jesus and begged him to touch him. Usually in Scripture we see Jesus instantly
moved to compassion, but these people had to beg him. Then, instead of laying his hands on the man, he led him out of town, where the story becomes odder still. Implicitly Jesus had challenging questions for the blind man, his disciples, and all of us: Do you believe me? Is trusting me still an option for you?

In Luke 10:13, Jesus pronounced woe to Bethsaida fir its unbelief at the miracles performed there. It makes sense that Jesus would take the blind man out of town so that the townspeople would not witness yet another miracle without trusting him. It makes sense to take him away from that unbelief. Could the blind man have possibly understood? As Jesus made his friends beg before taking any action and then led him by the hand out of town, the man had to make a deliberate choice to believe Jesus for healing.

In another healing, Jesus spit on the ground, made clay, put it on a man’s eyes, and told him to go wash it off in a certain pool. There’s a bit of a yuck factor there. Here, Jesus spit directly on the man’s eyes before laying hands on him. Double yuck! That challenged the blind man with yet another question: Do you mind if I heal you my way? After all, he could have gotten offended, and that would have stopped the healing entirely.

How many of us have gotten offended at Jesus because he didn’t seem to be answering our prayers, but subjecting us to more unpleasantness? But taking offense mixes unbelief with what ought to be whole hearted trusting. James reminds us that the double minded receive nothing. We’d all rather Jesus did it our way, but if he doesn’t, we must confess, “I will continue to believe you.”

So Jesus asked the man if he saw anything. In every similar story in Scripture, the person sees well immediately. This man saw people, but they looked like trees walking. That raised still more challenges to the blind man’s faith: Do you still believe me even if what I have done for you doesn’t look quite right? Will you continue trusting me to complete my work?

Although this healing is unique in Scripture, being progressive rather than instantaneous, it is certainly the way in God ordinarily acts. Instant miracles happen, of course, but more often answers to prayer occur over time, often with setbacks and disappointments. When we are most tempted to let go is precisely the time that trusting Jesus becomes so crucial. Like the blind man, we must believe Jesus even when it makes no sense and keep trusting him to be faithful to complete what he started.

Jesus laid hands on the man a second time. This time, he could see everything clearly. He had passed all the tests and continued to believe that Jesus would restore his sight. He had passed up every opportunity to become offended. He kept trusting. Jesus sent him home with orders not to go into the village. After a difficult struggle that had tested and proved his faith, the last thing he needed was the company of people whose unbelief could undermine it. And so with us. Building faith to the point where it changes things is always a difficult struggle. Let’s be careful of the company we keep; avoid scoffers, complainers, and others who would drag us back to where we started.

Thoughts on Bible prophecy: reading the future in Scripture

Posted on January 18, 2011 by dmguion

I just led a Sunday School class on the eighth chapter of Daniel. It got me thinking about Bible prophecy and what it means when prophecies are fulfilled. Just what are we supposed to learn from goats and rams with weird-looking horns that turn out to mean something that even Daniel could make no sense of? This chapter seems to have been entirely fulfilled by the reign of Syrian king Antiochus IV in the second century B.C. Or was it? Does it also refer to the final Antichrist? Can we find clues of what is still ahead for the world?

Twenty-five years ago, when I watched a lot of Christian television, I caught two consecutive shows on Bible prophecy. Each host commented on a lot of scriptures and pointed out current events. On that basis he conclusively proved the origin of the Antichrist. Trouble is, one proved he would be a European and the other proved he would be an Arab. How can both be fulfilled? What confidence can anyone have that either teacher comes even close to the truth?

From these, other programs, and things I have read over the years, I conclude that reading with the Bible in one hand, the newspaper in the other, and trying to predict the future is not rightly handling the word of truth. Teachers who do so have no credibility and give prophecy a bad name.

On the other hand, I do believe in predictive prophecy. Over and over, the Bible validates God’s right to expect worship and obedience with a statement that through his prophets he can proclaim the future. Their words will be fulfilled. Those of false prophets and those who follow other gods will not.

Daniel and other prophets wrote in symbols that are hard to grasp at least partly because God does not intend for anyone to figure out in advance what he’s up to. People will know that a prophecy is in the Bible. They must have faith that it will be fulfilled somehow. Only in hindsight will all the details fall into place.

Daniel had the vision in chapter 8 at the tail end of the Babylonian empire. At the time, Jerusalem and its temple were still in ruins. Twelve years later, the Persians overran Babylon and quickly decreed that all captive nations (including Judah) be repatriated. That decree fulfilled any number of previous prophecies.

But while the temple was still an abandoned hulk, Daniel’s vision looked forward to the desecration of another temple at the hands of a Greek-speaking king, and this ruin, unlike the first, would be unrelated to the peoples’ sins. The vision even specifies the time at which that as yet unbuilt temple would be reconsecrated.

Looking back, we can see that Antiochus IV sought to impose Greek culture on Palestine, which his father had wrested from Egyptian control. At the height of his persecution, he built a statue of Zeus in the temple and sacrifices swine to it. That sparked a guerilla campaign that resulted in defeat for Antiochus’ henchmen.

After winning the victory, Judas Maccabeus destroyed the offensive statue and reconsecrated the temple. Coincidentally, Antiochus died of an illness in another part of his kingdom, which fulfilled another part of Daniel’s prophecy.

Daniel 8:14 says that the horror would last for 2,300 evenings and mornings. There are two different ways of interpreting that. An evening and a morning make a day, so 2,300 days is approximately six years. On the other hand, sacrifices were offered every evening and morning–two sacrifices a day. If that’s the meaning, 2,300 evenings and mornings make 1,150 days, or about three years. Which is correct?

It doesn’t matter! From the time Antiochus began his persecution until his death and Judas’ victory was about six years. From the time he desecrated the temple by sacrificing swine until the reconsecration of the temple was about three years. God fulfilled Daniel’s prophecy right on schedule regardless of how one interprets the 2,300 evenings and mornings.

The Bible speaks of a coming time of terror such as the world has never seen before. It will be led by a demonic man known as the Antichrist. Jesus spoke about this time. The books of Daniel and Revelation tell how long it will last and how it will end. Will this Antichrist be European? Arab? Someone else entirely? When the tribulation begins, will it look anything like any of the descriptions in paintings, poems, novels, TV shows, movies, or any other form of communication over the past couple of millennia?

What does it matter? God is in control. He has warned humanity long in advance that his strength will be perfected in weakness. Many a prophecy in the Bible indicates that the Antichrist will trample on God’s people for a limited amount of time. That time will be short. God will rout and destroy the devil and his whole gang. Afterward comes God’s glorious and unlimited grace. Somehow, every prophecy will be fulfilled. Be content with faith and don’t worry about figuring out the details in advance.

The unchanging sign: it’s not in the zodiac

Posted on January 15, 2011 by dmguion

Here in the US, anyway, society is abuzz with the news about everyone’s zodiac sign. The position of the earth has changed relative to that of the stars over the past 3,000 years. According to relationship of the sun and twelve constellations in the original astrological charts , everyone’s astrological sign is off by a month. Apparently Geminis are now Tauruses or something like that. It appears to be a matter of hot debate whether anyone’s signs have really changed.

Why does anyone care about zodiac signs? Simply because according to astrology the relationship among the earth, sun, moon, stars, and other planets at someone’s birth determines that person’s character and fate. Newspaper horoscopes, short and general as they are, have little but entertainment value. People serious about astrology have personal horoscopes made and consult them in order to determine what they should or should not do on a particular day. If the stars indeed determine fate, consulting with them helps people make good decisions. Consulting with the stars according to the wrong astrological sign would have serious consequences indeed.

I hope that in this brief description I have described astrology accurately and fairly, but as a Christian, I do not believe in it. I deny that the sun, moon, and stars determine anything. Only the God who created them determines anything. The sign of the cross, the only reliable and unchanging sign, unites all who voluntarily submit to it. According to the Bible, God considers astrology an abomination.

At my age, I still look at print sources first when I have a question. When I first looked through my concordance to find suitable scriptures for this post, the best I could find was Deuteronomy 4:15-20. The heart of that passage forbids God’s people to bow down and worship the sun, moon, and stars. Since I see no evidence that people who follow astrology consider their consultation with their horoscopes as worship, I knew I had to look elsewhere.

Looking online, I quickly found a page in The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible that gives four scriptures where the Bible condemns astrology and four that purport to show that it approves of astrology. It is remarkably easy to do as the author of this site has done and comb through the Bible to find statements that seem to be in conflict. I used to have quite an extensive list of them myself, but the more I study the Bible to understand what each passage says, the harder it is to find contradictions.

If my list hasn’t reached the vanishing point yet, it will with further study. I like to think it has reached the vanishing point. But I am coming to learn that as wide as the gulf is between reading and studying the Bible is, the gulf between agreeing with it and truly believing it is even wider. In any case, The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible has provided an excellent selection of scriptures. In order to keep this post from getting completely out of hand, I will look at one in detail and touch on the others only briefly.

I call your attention to Isaiah 47:12-15, which includes one verse before and one verse after the passage on that site, quoting from the NIV instead of the KJV for easier readability.

12 “Keep on, then, with your magic spells
   and with your many sorceries,
   which you have labored at since childhood.
Perhaps you will succeed,
   perhaps you will cause terror.
13 All the counsel you have received has only worn you out!
   Let your astrologers come forward,
those stargazers who make predictions month by month,
   let them save you from what is coming upon you.
14 Surely they are like stubble;
   the fire will burn them up.
They cannot even save themselves
   from the power of the flame.
These are not coals for warmth;
   this is not a fire to sit by.
15 That is all they are to you—
   these you have dealt with
   and labored with since childhood.
All of them go on in their error;
   there is not one that can save you.

In context, this passage is a part of Isaiah’s condemnation of Babylon, the ancient civilization that invented astrology. A couple of hundred years after Isaiah’s time, a resurgent Babylonian empire led by Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the temple and every other important public building, and took the inhabitants back to Babylon as exiles. The prophet Jeremiah predicted that the exile would last 70 years, which it did.

The prophet Daniel, one of the exiles, served as a high administrator for the Babylonian government and functioned sort of like a personal pastor to Nebuchadnezzar. He repeatedly demonstrated his superiority to the vaunted Babylonian astrologers and diviners. Daniel lived to see the end of the Babylonian empire and continued to serve the conquering Persian empire. Isaiah predicted the astrologers’ inability to understand or do anything about the hand writing on the wall that appeared the night the Persians entered the city.

The other scriptures posted by the skeptic (Leviticus 19:16, Deuteronomy 18:10-12, and Jeremiah 10:2) are three of a significant number of passages that condemn enchantment, divination, sorcery, astrology, etc. These systems of thought and practice looked to other gods besides the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And what’s wrong with other gods? For one thing, they encouraged drunkenness and debauchery. They also required human sacrifice. Over the centuries millions of babies were burned alive to appease them.

Today, we no longer make idols from a block of wood and then pray to them. We have atheists and agnostics instead. It is a grievous error–and the very same one–to look at anything in creation (and not the Creator) as if it controls events on earth. It is also an error to suppose that the universe controls itself or that it is entirely random and not under any control.

None of the scriptures the skeptic lists as approving astrology (Genesis 1:14, Judges 5:20, Matthew 2:1-2, and Luke 21:25) actually does so. Genesis 1:14 indeed says that lights in the heavens (the sun, moon, and stars) are intended as signs, but they proclaim the glory of God. They don’t determine anything. Judges 5:20 is part of a poem commemorating a victory over an enemy general named Sisera. In the imagery of the poem, all nature (including specifically the stars and a river) joined the brave Hebrews against Sisera’s superior army. Only the most cursory reading could ever suggest any reference to astrology at all.

The Star of Bethlehem, described by Matthew, was not any ordinary zodiac sign. It was something special that led the scholars who studied it to travel a great distance to present their gifts to the baby who was God incarnate. As far as the verse in Luke is concerned, it harmonizes quite nicely with many scriptures that describe a time when the stars will cease to shine (Isaiah 34:4, Ezekiel 32:7, Joel 2:10, etc. in the Old Testament, to Revelation 6:13; 8:12, and 12:4 in the New Testament).

So what is my sign? If I look to my birthday and then consult a horoscope to find the universe’s plan for me, I can only grieve my Creator. The idea that the zodiac or anything in nature determines nature’s course is a spiritual counterfeit. Whoever follows the counterfeiter winds up where he is going. If I look to the Creator and seek his plan for me, I become part of his family. Whoever follows Jesus winds up where he is going. My sign is the sign of the cross, the sign that promises that whatever catastrophes I have to endure will be followed by a glorious future. No one who still wears a body of meat and bone can even imagine it.

Recycled resolutions: love one another

Posted on January 11, 2011 by dmguion

A Christian’s New Year’s resolutions all boil down to one: I resolve to be more obedient to God’s commandments. I gave up making New Year’s resolutions years ago, not because I think I don’t need to improve, but because I don’t want to confine resolutions to do better to one time of the year. I do notice, though, that people who talk about their New Year’s resolutions tend to resolve the same things over and over. Recycled resolutions! But does God ever recycle his commandments? As a matter of fact, he does.

According to a well-known anecdote, when the apostle John was an old man who had to be carried to church, his message always consisted of a single commandment, “Little children, love one another.” When asked why he essentially preached the same sermon all the time, he replied that if his flock would just do that one thing, little else needed to be said. He probably had something similar in mind when he wrote, “Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command. . .” (1 John 2:7-8a, NIV)

How many times and how many ways has that one commandment, the commandment to love, been presented in Scripture? I don’t know if anyone has counted, but it’s a lot. In a way, it’s the same commandment, recycled over and over again. But recycling entails remaking something old and perhaps worn out into something new. Just a few verses are enough to show how God recycles that one commandment:

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord (Leviticus 19:18)
The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:31)
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (John 15:12)

The commandment as found in Leviticus appears as but one among many. It is easy not to notice it at all and difficult for all but the most spiritually sensitive to notice its significance. In context, “neighbor” meant only other Hebrews. God had not yet revealed to them their place in introducing him to the whole world. As far as the Mosaic law was concerned, they were free to bear grudges and seek revenge against outsiders.

Jesus exalted that commandment, along with the one to love God totally and without reservation, above all others. By that time, most other rabbis also considered those two commandments paramount. But from the parable of the Good Samaritan, we know that Jesus greatly expanded the meaning of “neighbor.” It no longer meant “fellow Jew.” It meant “fellow human.” In this version of the commandment, it is impossible for any of us to encounter a fellow human being that we don’t have to love as we love ourselves.

How well do we love ourselves? We all love ourselves to some extent, but we also suffer from self-loathing to some extent. Whatever our answer is, it puts a limit on our ability to love our neighbor. We may well see good role models among our friends and acquaintances and strive (resolve) to become more loving, but our best role models still fall short of perfection. Jesus removed that limitation in his final teaching to his disciples in Gethsemane. He told them to love each other (and surely their neighbor by his expanded definition) as he himself had loved them.

In a sense, each new restatement of this one commandment demands more of us. And yet each gives a clearer picture of what obedience looks like. I may be able to restrain my grudges and refrain from seeking revenge, but the leap from there to loving seems unbridgeable. I may be able to recognize that I must love other people, but if I must love them the way I love myself, they may not think it looks or feels very loving. I may not succeed in loving anyone else the way Jesus loves me, but at least I know what it looks like and feels like.

And so as God recycles this one commandment, obedience comes closer to the very core of my being. It demands more and more of me, but at the same time it increases my ability to comprehend it. Obedience comes more and more within reach.

When Christians make resolutions, New Year’s or otherwise, they boil down to a resolution to obey God better and to partake more of the character of Christ. If they’re the same resolutions we’ve made before, are we just rehashing them? Or are we recycling them?

What I have learned about the readers of Grace and Judgment

Posted on January 7, 2011 by dmguion

I have been writing Grace and Judgment since October 2009, so 2010 marks the first complete calendar year of its existence. I will be studying statistics for the year carefully to see how I can build on the blog’s successes and improve on the weaknesses I discover. Meanwhile, I will use a post to share what I have learned about the people who read it, to introduce you to each other.

People have visited Grace and Judgment from 57 different countries representing every inhabited planet on Earth. Almost 58% of traffic comes from search engines, 30% from referring sites, and the rest from direct traffic, which I understand includes people’s bookmarks. Not everyone who has visited has stayed very long or come back, so by readers, I mean the 244 of you who have returned at least once.

I’m not sure how to interpret all of the numbers of visits I find in Google Analytics into numbers of visitors, but more than 9% of all visits represent someone’s 100th visit or more.

As for repeat visits, more than 9% of all visits came on the same day as that person’s previous visit. About 18% of visits represent someone returning in a week or less. On the other hand, some people came back after an absence of four months or more. Grace and Judgment has both readers who come frequently and people who remember and come back much later. I appreciate you all.

On most visits, someone looks at only one page. It is difficult to separate those visitors who stop to read from those who take a glance and move on. On 15% of visits, someone has looked at anywhere from 2 to more than 20 pages. More than 6% of visits last at least 3 minutes.

My goal with Grace and Judgment has always been to explain the meaning of Scripture in a way that both instructs and inspires. I want to do my part in changing lives and changing the world. Clearly, some of you enjoy it very much and keep coming back. By this time next year, I hope there will be a lot more of you, both in terms of numbers and as a percentage of total visitors.

Your feedback on the poll questions and in comments on posts will help. I’m also on Twitter (@dmguion and @allpurp0seguru), Facebook (including an All-Purpose Guru fan page), and Linked-In.

Rejoice? Always?

Posted on January 4, 2011 by dmguion

“Rejoice always; pray constantly; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (RSV)

Does it sometimes look like the writers of the Bible just didn’t get it? Perhaps people living when it was written just didn’t face the troubles we do. After all, who can rejoice always with all we have to live through?

For the last couple of years, our economy has been rocked by very tough conditions: high unemployment, long term unemployment, lots of foreclosures on peoples’ houses.

We just had a particularly nasty election, with no limits on how much anonymous corporate entities could spend on vicious attack ads. After it ended, the usual promises of bipartisan cooperation seemed to last no more than about fifteen minutes. In recent years, our government has treated us to partisan recriminations while doing little or nothing of substance on some of the urgent problems that face our nation.

It is becoming more expensive to fly anywhere, and increasingly inconvenient and intrusive security measures have many citizens up in arms. But of course, some people are trying to kill us.

When we get to our own personal lives, all of us have been affected one way or another by the various national and international conditions, only some of which I have mentioned. We have also had to deal with our own personal aches and pains, conflicts in interpersonal relationships, disappointments of all kinds, concern for loved ones who are suffering.

To top it all off, we keep hit strings of red lights when we drive, especially when we’re running late. We’ve found out that the store is out of some product we want, or worse yet, stopped carrying it entirely. And so on. We live with all kinds of major troubles, combined with the daily accumulation of petty aggravations.

I quoted the scripture from the RSV, mostly because I have sung it at so many Christian meetings that I memorized it that way. It’s a round, and lots of fun to sing, but I’m not sure how many people seriously contemplate actually acting on it.

For a lot of people, it seems like a cruel joke, recommended by someone who certainly has no understanding of the problems we have to deal with nowadays. Except, of course, Paul dealt with all of it. He was writing to a church he had recently established, shortly before he was run out of town by an angry mob.

So without denying the reality of any of our problems, let’s look carefully at this seemingly crazy commandment.

Rejoice. Always. Rejoice about what? Well, what is happening around us? Is there anything at all besides trouble? Certainly. Some days it might be hard to take our eyes off our troubles and look at anything else. But at the very least, is there some beauty of, say, some flowers or birds, or the brilliance of the moon? When we eat, does the food taste good? Does anyone speak or write words of concern, support, confidence, or gratitude?

Anyone who makes a habit of noticing such things will discover plenty on even the worst days to be glad about, and the psalms use the phrase “rejoice and be glad” often enough that the two words seem like synonyms.

Pray. Constantly. Times of prayer ought to begin and end with praise. Appreciate God for who he is. Until it becomes a spontaneous habit, find prayers of praise in the Bible and tell it to God until his greatness overshadows the day’s troubles. Then, after praising him for who he is, thank him for what he has done, starting with all those things you found to be glad about.

After a while, if we have something to ask for, we can ask in appreciation of the love of God, not in the desperation of our neediness. We can ask from a position of faith rather than worry. We can ask in full assurance of faith that such a loving God will do what we ask when we ask in faith. But prayer is not over when we have presented our requests.

Give thanks in all circumstances. If things are going your way, give thanks to God with a grateful heart. If the whole world and everyone in it seems against you, give thanks to God with a grateful heart, because he has promised never to leave you or abandon you. Plus, you can thank him all over again for what you found to rejoice about. And Paul doesn’t just say to give thanks to God. Each day, even a bad one, presents ample opportunity to give thanks to other people.

So what is God’s will for our lives as expressed in these familiar verses? Take the focus from what’s wrong in our lives and turn it to God. Once you have put your focus on God, leave it there. We should keep trouble in the periphery of our spiritual vision, not the center. It will not go away, but it won’t look nearly as big or overwhelming if we’re gazing at God instead.