30 September 2010
Psalm 105:1-22; Hosea 5:8-6:6; Acts 21:27-36; Luke 6:1-11

The problem is a lack of knowledge of the Lord. They have come to believe that sacrifice and offering are the key to getting Him to do what He has promised. They have become religious and what God has desired is knowledge of Him. We often exchange relationship for religion, because it is easier. Because they have forgotten that their relationship is covenant and promise they have been willing to accept other gods. It is only when it all goes wrong that they will return to their first love, the One who gave them the land. Our God lacks nothing, He needs nothing from us. He is not a needy girlfriend either, the love of the Trinity for one another assures us that He does not need our love to feel complete or worthy. He chose in love to have relationship with us and yet it is on His terms not ours. Relationship means that worship is not duty nor is it what we do to appease Him, it is intimacy and desire.

The Pharisees are the religious people of Jesus’ day. They know all the rules, they invented many of them. As we see in these two vignettes, they are constantly watching Jesus to see whether He will play by their rules. Religious people are always watching others and their practices to see where they will slip, where they will fail to measure up to the standards they have set. It happens in worship, were the candles right, did the priest hold his hands properly, did he wear the right things or the opposite of that in the more protestant religious folks who determine that it is wrong to say creeds, wrong to use candles or vestments, wrong to use written prayers, etc. We are divided from one another and waste our time over what, to God, are inconsequential issues. In these two scenes from the Gospel we see Jesus setting the needs of people above the rules for the Sabbath. Was the God the great rule maker in the sky or was He someone you could spend the day with on His day?

Things turned in a hurry in Jerusalem. Those who stirred up the crowd were those from Asia who were aware of Paul’s work there. They, like Paul, were in town for the feast of Pentecost and now they had their chance. All their complaints have to do with religion and the final accusation, that Paul has brought Gentiles into the temple and defiled the holy place, is actually not even true, based only an assumption that Paul has done so because they saw him with an Ephesian. The scene that ensues with the tribune of the cohort is reminiscent of the trial of Jesus, no one can agree on the charges that are to be brought but everyone is certain he is guilty of something.

O give thanks to the Lord, call on his name,
make known his deeds among the peoples.
Sing to him, sing praises to him;
tell of all his wonderful works.
Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
Seek the Lord and his strength;
seek his presence continually.
Remember the wonderful works he has done,
his miracles, and the judgements he has uttered,

29 September 2010
Psalm 101, 109; Hosea 4:11-19; Acts 21:15-26; Luke 5:27-39

The apostasy isn’t confined to the spiritual realm it seems, but it is also in the morality of the people. The particular complaint is against the northern kingdom of Israel as opposed to Judah. (Recall the two were separated when Solomon’s son Rehoboam became king) The complaints here related to the worship of the Baals involving new moons, bacchanalia, and orgies. Baal was a fertility god and worship of him took the form of what is known as “sympathetic magic.” Baal was thought to provide the rain on which agrarian economies depended and in order to entice the god to have relations with his consorts and provide the rain, his people engaged in relations on earth. The Israelites apparently took up this worship and these practices, an utter abomination to God. What things does the world do in order to achieve prosperity that are un-Christian and instead are superstition that Christians should not do?

The call of Matthew to be a disciple has the potential to become very divisive. The first disciples were all friends and fellow fishermen and now one is called who participates in a detestable profession, tax collector. Tax collectors were collaborators with the foreign government of Rome and their profession was questionable in that they were collecting the tribute demanded to the emperor, something Jews had ethical problems with. The first thing Matthew does is invite Jesus and the others to a feast at his home and the Pharisees swoop in like vultures asking the disciples why they are now sharing fellowship with such men as these. Jesus says that His mission is to reach those who are sick, acknowledging that they are indeed sinners, so they change their tactics to why are you feasting when John and his disciples fast. They have not accepted John in the first place and now they use him as a standard! Jesus’ answer points to His identity and the new age that has come.

Why does Paul do what the elders suggest here? Why does he participate in this Jewish ritual and custom? He was obedient to the elders of the church but the purpose was to appease the Jews who oppose him. We are often tempted to respond to our critics in order to get them on our side and when we do we are rarely successful we are simply compromised. Here, Paul’s compromise is completely unsuccessful and it is a wonder why he agreed to participate. It is important that we not bend our message to popular sentiment and that we not allow ourselves to be co-opted by religion or even by leaders if it is a matter of conscience. Engaging with critics is generally not worth the effort.

With my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord;
I will praise him in the midst of the throng.
For he stands at the right hand of the needy,
to save them from those who would condemn them to death.

28 September 2010
Psalm 97, 99; Hosea 4:1-10; Acts 21:1-14; Luke 5:12-26

The priests are held out for special blame in the apostasy of the land. The priests have forgotten their duties and when the priests fail to uphold the law and the Word, the people will wander from it as well. We live in a time in the west when the Word of God is frequently not preached or taught in many churches or it is treated as a piece of literature rather than the inspired Word of God. It is presented as somehow a cultural artifact of a bygone era and its teaching neglected because they do not comport with modern mores and sensibilities. The reality is that much of the law did not match up with the morality and ethical sensibilities of its own time because it is a timeless Word. We can seek out the knowledge of good and evil somewhere else or we can get it from God. Choosing to reject His word is choosing to reject the one who spoke the word and here we see that those who are given to teach God’s word come in, as James wrote, for special judgment.

Jesus knew the danger of popular acclaim and that is why He regularly retreated to “deserted places” to pray. The most important thing we can do as leaders is to get apart from the crowd and spend time alone in prayer so that He can set the agenda for our lives and our ministry rather than the crowd. There is always a great temptation to follow and do the will of the crowd because it appeals to our vanity to see people coming to the ministry, but it is the way to make many mistakes to be led by the appeal to vanity. This was one of the original temptations of satan to Jesus and he wasn’t done tempting Him by a long shot. With the paralytic I believe that the most important thing was to forgive his sins, whatever they were, and that somehow sin was connected with the condition or Jesus would not have begun there. It was easy to see the infirmity but more difficult to see the real need. Jesus didn’t proclaim forgiveness simply to be provocative, but because it was necessary and the result was provocation but only if you don’t realize who He is.

What was Paul supposed to do? Prophetic words concerning what would happen to him if he went to Jerusalem were given to him on two occasions here, once in Tyre and then in Caesarea. Was God sending him a message not to go to Jerusalem or was the Lord only telling them what would happen next? We have to be careful with prophecy given to us. We have to make sure that even if someone interprets it to us that we submit both the word and the interpretation to the Lord in order to know what we are to do. Paul’s final answer on the issue is that the Lord’s will be done. We can only surmise that in all this Paul was submitted to the will of God as we have seen him time and again prevented from going one place or another by the Spirit of God and then pulled in a direction he had not intended by that same Spirit.

The Lord is king; let the peoples tremble!
He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
Let them praise your great and awesome name.
Holy is he!
Extol the Lord our God;
worship at his footstool.
Holy is he!

27 September 2010
Psalm 89:1-18; Hosea 2:14-23; Acts 20:17-38; Luke 5:1-11

The Lord will reverse the curse! The promise is that He will take Israel to Himself. She will call Him husband instead of speaking to Him as Baal. She will know that it is Yahweh and not Baal who is her true love and the one who provides all things. There is nothing she can get from another that the Lord cannot and will not provide. The love of God is incredible. How could He continue to love Israel after she has gone after other gods? He has no covenant obligation to love her when she has broken covenant with Him and rejected Him yet He will not give her up, His desire is always for her. This passage speaks of reversing the curse on the children of Hosea, they who represent Israel to the Lord, those who were not shown mercy or love will be and those who were not His people will be His people, His beloved, and this covenant will be an everlasting covenant of peace and plenty.

Jesus teaches the crowds about the kingdom of God and the fishermen a thing or two about their trade. Jesus tells them to put out their nets in deep water for a catch and Peter informs him that they have been fishing all night without success. They wouldn’t have normally fished during the heat of the day as the fish would have been down deep and the work of bringing them into the boat would have been difficult if a sizeable catch were made. In spite of those misgivings, they let down their nets and the haul is amazing. Peter, upon seeing it, ascribes worship to Jesus and in words very similar to Isaiah’s response to seeing the vision in the temple in Isaiah 6, asks Him to go away from him for He is a sinful man. He has somehow seen holiness in this encounter and reacts as Isaiah did upon the proclamation of the holiness of God. Peter, like Isaiah before him, is given a chance to serve the Lord rather than being rejected by Him.

What a wonderful testimony Paul makes of his work in Ephesus but what a sad moment this is for those who love him. He is able to say that he never ceased to labor on their behalf and that he is confident that he is not responsible for the blood of any of them if they have not faith. That hearkens back to Ezekiel who is told by God that if he warns a sinner and they do not repent he is innocent of their blood but if he fails to warn them, he is complicit in their sin and their blood is on him. Paul can say that he has preached the Gospel always, even when he has been opposed. This speech is similar to the book of Deuteronomy in that Paul is aware in the spirit that his future will not be a return visit just as Moses knew he was soon to die. It is also similar in that he is warning them of what the future will bring and that they should keep the faith and not allow themselves to be turned away from Jesus no matter who it is that attempts to lead them astray. The love of the people for this man who brought them the Good News of salvation and eternal life is plain, they truly appreciate his work and his life and they are pained to hear that he is going to suffer and will not see them again. That is how we should leave when we have ministered among people.

Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord,
your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones.
The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours;
the world and all that is in it—you have founded them.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne;
steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.
Happy are the people who know the festal shout,
who walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance;
they exult in your name all day long,
and extol your righteousness.

26 September 2010
Psalm 66, 67; Hosea 2:2-14; James 3:1-13; Matt. 13:44-52

Hosea’s prophecy is poetry regarding the unfaithful wife and it is an extended metaphor for Israel. They have chased after other gods whom they believed provided them with the abundance they have enjoyed. The prophecy is that Israel will soon be exposed for what she has been, no more than a whore. That is strong language then and now but it is exactly the image the Lord intended, an image intended to shock them into the realization of what they had done. She will lose everything and her nakedness will be exposed for the world to see. She will know that the gods she has sought, the lovers she has known, are nothing at all and care nothing for her and she will attempt to return to her husband but he will hedge in her ways. However, His love for her in not ended, as we see in that last verse, He will woo her to the wilderness and there will reclaim her as His own.

The kingdom of heaven is to be valued above all else and for those who know its value it becomes the prize of life. Its value is such that we will sacrifice everything we already have in order to obtain it. Is that our attitude towards God’s kingdom when we pray the Lord’s prayer? Do we seek first His kingdom in our lives or are we distracted by many things? It is indeed shocking when we realize how little we actually value the gift we have been given and when we compare it to all else, including the stuff under the sun that Solomon warned us about in Ecclesiastes, we know it intellectually but we don’t live into what we know. Take a look at the amount of time you give to God as opposed to the time you devote to work, sports, the internet, and everything else in life and see if you can tell that you understand the value of God’s kingdom.

How do we tame the tongue? Can anyone argue with James concerning the tongue’s power or its deviltry? In pastoring a church I can say that many more problems have been caused by what someone, myself included, has said than by anything that has ever actually be done. If we could learn to tame the tongue the rest of the world would flock to the church but they see that the same problem that infects the world is at least as great in the church. If we listened to Paul and spoke to one another words of encouragement and spoke of the Lord to one another we would be a very different place. It all comes down to what we truly value.

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us,
that your way may be known upon earth,
your saving power among all nations.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you.

25 September 2010
Psalm 87, 90; Hosea 1:1-2:1; Acts 20:1-16; Luke 4:38-44

The prophet is instructed to take a wife who is either a prostitute or one who will be unfaithful to him. It is uncertain which way the description is to be interpreted. What is not difficult or uncertain is how to interpret the reason for the description. She is representative of the people of Israel who could be said to be whoring after other gods or unfaithful to the Lord. Hosea’s children, likewise, are a sign to the people of themselves in the eyes of God. They will receive no mercy, they are not His people so long as they continue unfaithful to Him and He has named the place where they will be broken. We need always remember that He is a jealous God, He has done much to purchase us and it is the height of unfaithfulness to go after other gods. Their names in that day were the baals, today they may be consumerism, materialism, and many others which claim the better part of our lives.

The healing ministry at Capernaum begins with Peter’s mother-in-law and then continues after sundown, as the Sabbath ended. The people respected the Sabbath restrictions of the Pharisees enough to wait but surely they had laid their plans and expectantly waited for the time when they could get their sick and those who needed inner healing to this man, Jesus. Luke gives us the detail of Peter’s mother-in-law that shows that Jesus did not respect the Pharisaic restriction, He performed this healing at her house when he returned from the synagogue. The disciples are excited about the response to the ministry and implore Jesus to return and make this a base of operations but He has drawn away from the crowds and gone away to be alone with the Father. Good leaders need to spend time away in order to get their marching orders not from the crowd (however small that number may be), but from the Lord.

In this passage from Acts the pronoun “we” appears. Apparently Luke joined Paul on this part of the mission and is now providing first hand reporting. He was there when Eutychus fell out of the window and died as Paul spoke well into the night and in that story gives us several details, “there were many lamps”, the time of night when it happened, and Paul’s words directly quoted. Luke also tells us that Paul was eager to be in Jerusalem at Pentecost. Why would Paul want to be there? Was he expecting the Lord to do as He had done on that first Pentecost?

Lord, you have been our dwelling-place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!

24 September 2010
Psalm 88; Esther 8:1-17; Acts 19:21-41; Luke 4:31-37

The edict of the king is reversed. The Jews were allowed to defend themselves in any way possible and given authority to be ruthless in their defense of themselves. The bottom line is that there was mutually assured destruction and therefore détente. No one wanted to be the cause of a war no one could win. Sounds like the era in which I grew up in the 1960s to the 1980s. What a reversal of fortune that only God could have brought about! The king saved face by not canceling his own words but by issuing this second order which nullified the first. The fear of the Jews had fallen on the people but why? For the same reason it was true in Jericho at the conquest of the land, it was obvious that their God was with them, watching over them and protecting them.

Jesus spoke with authority, the authority of the law-giver Himself. When you have given the law you are the authority on application and purpose. No one could ever speak as authoritatively on this than Jesus. With the Holy Spirit, however, He speaks to us concerning His Word today as authoritatively as He did when He taught in the synagogue. Here, we see His authority extended beyond the words of the Scriptures to authority over demonic spirits. His command was instantly obeyed by this spirit, just as all of creation obeyed the Word in Genesis 1. There is only one creature that was disobedient, humankind. We form our own opinions and follow the devices and desires of our own hearts until they are circumcised and made His.

Demetrius begins a persecution against Paul because it is costing him money for the message of Jesus to be proclaimed and received. He knows, however, that such a story line will only attract a limited number of people so he broadens the appeal to be nationalistic civic pride and it catches on. Jingoism is always a good way to get people to your side quickly, it appeals to a base nature within us that we are better than them, whoever them are. Here we see some who have come to the demonstration without a clue why they are there or what is actually going on. As it turns out, Alexander has better sense than any of them and quells the rebellion by appealing to Roman law that will cost them dearly if they have public demonstrations such as this. In all this, there is no religious argument at stake. It is nearly successful and yet in the end nothing was changed.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

23 September 2010
Psalm 146, 147; Esther 7:1-10; Acts 19:11-20; Luke 4:14-30

Haman’s bad week got a good bit worse as he was hoisted on his own petard, quite literally. His pride got him in the end. He was insulted by Mordecai’s failure to recognize his greatness and contrived to destroy Mordecai and his people and overreaching ended up being his downfall. He couldn’t be satisfied until everyone bowed down to him and that desire to be important cost him his life. The world hasn’t changed much in all the centuries since Haman, rulers the world over have this same attitude. As Lord Acton observed in the 19th century, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

The day of the Lord has come and the good news is that it is all about us! Jesus declares His purpose is to save and redeem us, to reverse the curse upon us. He is here as God’s agent to fulfill His promises towards us. The people respond well in the short term but then fall back on the question of, wait a minute, we know this guy, we know his family, how can he be the one? Jesus isn’t polite in His response to them, pointing to the faithlessness of God’s people throughout the generations as evidence that it has always been thus. With both examples of Elijah and Elisha, it was Gentiles who received God’s blessing not God’s people who could have come to these men but did not or would not. God’s desire has always been to bless His people but they would not receive His messengers and so it will be with Jesus.

The name of Jesus is not an incantation as the sons of Sceva learn in a painful manner. They had observed the miracles and signs being done through Paul and apparently had come to believe not in Jesus but in the name as the key to the miracle. The demons became, in a sense, agents of God through their attack on these men. What they did bore witness to the power of the demons and the unseen world but at the same time bore witness to the God whom Paul not only named but whom he also served and proclaimed as more powerful than those demonic forces; the result being that people put away the magic that called forth the demons when they saw the true impotence of the demonic in light of the power of God. Belief matters, not taking the name in vanity.

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long.
Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord will reign for ever.

22 September 2010
Psalm 119:97-120; Esther 6:1-14; Acts 19:1-10; Luke 4:1-13

This has to be one of the most humorous stories in the Bible – at least for everyone except Haman. His pride has taken over to the point that he assumes that the man the king wants to honor must surely be Haman himself and he ends up being the escort for the man he despises more than any other. The irony is bitter and poignant and Haman knows that things have turned in the wrong direction as far as his fate is concerned. Again, no mention is made of God but clearly his wife’s words, ‘If Mordecai, before whom your downfall has begun, is of the Jewish people, you will not prevail against him, but will surely fall before him.’ will point to the God of the Jewish people protecting them. It must have been with a deep sense of foreboding that he went to the banquet and this without knowing of the relationship between Mordecai and Esther.

Jesus shows us the way to face temptation, through knowing the Word of God. In the first two temptations it would have been easy for Him to simply have said no but He relied on the written Word to speak to temptation. It is a good practice for us to respond in this same way as it causes us to develop a way of thinking about everything in life through the lens of God’s Word . If we are to have a Biblical worldview it must inform our thoughts in all situations. The WWJD bracelets of several years ago should serve as the phylacteries of the Old Testament, the menorahs on doorposts of Jewish homes, the keeping of kosher dietary laws, etc., that we need to think about all things through the grid of what has God said. Finally, satan attempts to use the same tactic against Jesus, quoting Scripture to entice Him to throw Himself down and allow God to catch Him. Jesus, however, has the principle of arguing from Scripture down better than the enemy. The principle of don’t put God to the test trumps the passage used to tempt as it is clear and the other is ambiguous with respect to a particular situation, it doesn’t say do this thing, it is simply a promise and Jesus rightly argues that the clear command is more important.

Paul here sees that there is something lacking in the “disciples” he found there. What was lacking? Was it the Holy Spirit or a testimony of Jesus? It seems that these disciples were unaware that the one of whom John spoke had come and Paul then baptizes them in the name of Jesus and they receive the Spirit with evidence of tongues and prophecy. Paul finds the ground of Ephesus fruitful once he leaves the synagogue behind and remains there teaching for two years. Paul never runs from opposition, he knows the truth that Haman’s wife knew, that if God was truly with him he need not worry about who opposes him.

Oh, how I love your law!
It is my meditation all day long.
Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
for it is always with me.
Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.
Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live,
and let me not be put to shame in my hope.

21 September 2010
Psalm 78:1-39; Esther 5:1-14; Acts 18:12-28; Luke 3:15-22

Pride goeth before a fall. Esther is accepted into the court of the king and makes one simple request, that he and Haman should come to a banquet that day. The king then offers again to do anything up to half his kingdom for her and she demurs and invites them again the next day. Haman is satisfied with himself and all that is in his life, he is truly a blessed man but he wants Mordecai to recognize that publicly. His obsession with Mordecai reaches its peak here and he believes he now has the power to act quickly and decisively to take care of this situation once and for all the next day. The book of Esther is intriguing in that there is no direct mention of God, the Lord, or any other title in the entire book yet it is a clear presentation of the sovereignty of God in all things and in fact forms the basis for a celebratory festival to this day, the feast of Purim.

John the Baptist pointed out the sin of Herod marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias and became a thorn in the flesh to the ruler. John was not a people-pleaser and could do nothing but speak the truth. He saw a Messiah coming in judgment and he was right, but not in the short-term. When he baptized Jesus, it was similar to Samuel’s visit to Jesse for the purpose of anointing the next king of Israel, all the people are baptized and then Jesus comes and John receives the sign for which he has been waiting, the Messiah has come. Why did Luke insert the arrest and imprisonment of John in the middle of this passage rather than after Jesus’ baptism? Apparently Herodias and Haman had something in common, they didn’t like it when the little people refused to bow to them.

The convert Paul made in our reading yesterday becomes collateral damage in the war against Paul and his message. The people want Paul either arrested or driven out of town but the governor refuses their request on the grounds that Paul hasn’t broken any laws he is charged with enforcing so the crowd’s reaction is to beat up the synagogue official who had converted to Christianity. After all these things, Paul resumes his work of starting new work and encouraging existing churches. Finally, we meet Apollos who was beginning to have a powerful ministry but there was something missing in his testimony, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. What would it mean that he was preaching about Jesus but didn’t have the Holy Spirit? Do we have preachers and leaders today who have the verbal testimony of Jesus but not the baptism of the Spirit? Do we lack power for that reason?

I will not hide them from my children;
I will tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.

20 September 2010
Psalm 80; Esther 4:4-17; Acts 18:1-11; Luke 1:1-4, 3.1-14

Mordecai pleads with Esther to use her position to influence the king with respect to his edict. Esther says it might mean her death to approach the king without being bidden. The king was set apart and would not allow anyone to come into his presence unless he extended the royal scepter to invite them there. Mordecai’s argument is that God will deliver His people one way or another, with Esther or without her. She has been uniquely positioned to be able to do this, she has been chosen by God for such a time as this. There is a parallel with Nehemiah in this decision she takes to go into the presence of the king and his decision to allow the king to see him with a downcast face. In both cases they make the decision to take personal risk for the potential good of their people.

Could Luke have given us more precise information as to the dating of Jesus’ birth? Look at all the names of leaders he has in that first sentence in chapter 3. John’s message was repent and believe. The repentance part is important and we mostly get it confused with confession but it means that not only do we confess we also turn our lives in a different direction. Confession is agreement with God about what constitutes sin and it also means we adopt God’s attitude towards sin in our lives, we find it abhorrent and turn away from it. John here tells the people coming to be baptized that they are simply seeking protection and refuge rather than real repentance and changed lives. Is that a problem in the church today? Have we so concentrated on getting people saved that we have forgotten to disciple them?

Paul was a man willing to argue with the Jews at the drop of a hat it seems. Does that mean he is simply an argumentative man or is he being Christ-like? His point and purpose is to show them that Jesus is their Messiah, the one to whom the Scriptures point. It seems that they would be the simplest place to start as they have the most information about the Messiah. He argues with them until there is no point in arguing any longer and then moves to speak to the Gentiles and when he does a synagogue official becomes a believer also. He received a word from the Lord to keep on preaching and so he remained eighteen months with this encouragement. Paul was a man who understood what it meant to repent and turn around.
The same folks who now persecute him also persecuted Jesus.

Let your hand be upon the one at your right hand,
the one whom you made strong for yourself.
Then we will never turn back from you;
give us life, and we will call on your name.
Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.

19 September 2010
Psalm 93, 96; Esther 3:1-4:3: James 1:19-27; Matt. 6:1-6,16-18

Mordecai, as a Jew, could not bow down and do obeisance to Haman, he was not the Lord’s anointed, he was simply a man of local honor. The entire culture seems to have been a respect based culture in which disrespect was punished severely, here by putting to death all the Jews and the first time by setting aside Queen Vashti for disrespecting the king. Haman has enough sense to know that it would be petty to frame the issue in terms of himself so he does it by playing to the king’s vanity, they won’t respect his orders, they only obey their king, their God. The ploy works and now the die is cast for the date on which this edict will take effect. There are 11 months to wait and to sort out what can be done.

Whatever you do, do unto the Lord. That would essentially sum up the Gospel reading today. What does it mean to do all these things in secret? If we do things unto the Lord then we have no reason for pride and we cannot receive acclaim from others. Much of what Jesus says here is also said by the prophets, particularly Isaiah. The people of God have always had a penchant for showing their religiosity and piety to the world, we are often proud of our humility. Jesus affirms all these things but tells the people not to emulate the religious leaders for they have received their reward from men for all they do. Some of the people I admire most are those whose charity is not known to others. Do we do what we do for the sake of vanity or because we love others as He loves them?

James focuses his epistle on doing what you believe, life and belief in concert with one another. Some accuse James of being “works oriented.” What we have tended to forget in our struggles with right doctrine over the past few decades is that our faith is not simply about doctrine, but about the change in our lives due to our faith. If believing that we have received eternal salvation, forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, and that Jesus’ life is an icon of perfect humanity, life as it is supposed to be lived, doesn’t cause us to change our own life here, its goals and aims, its preoccupations and its trajectory, then we don’t truly believe. In Jesus we see that our lives are to be poured out unto God for His glory and in His service and if we don’t take up the cross and follow then we cannot truly call ourselves Christians. It is never the works that save us, the works we do are a thankful response to grace.

O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvellous works among all the peoples.
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be revered above all gods.

18 September 2010
Psalm 75, 76; Esther 2:5-8,15-23; Acts 17:16-34; John 12:44-50

Esther is the favorite of the king and chosen to be his queen. She had not revealed to anyone that she was a Jew as Mordecai had commanded her. We get a picture here of a young orphan girl who was compliant and obedient to her elders, heeding the advice of Hegai who had charge of the women concerning her appearance before the king and Mordecai concerning the issue of disclosure of her ancestry. The plot begins to thicken when Mordecai hears of a plot to assassinate the king and reports this to Esther and the plot is foiled.

Jesus has simply been obedient to the Father in all He has done and all He has spoken. For that reason He can say that if you have seen and heard Him you have seen the Father. If you reject Him you reject the One who sent Him. His purpose was not judgment but to bring light, offer life to the world, free for the taking. He has shown the difference between light and darkness and men have chosen the darkness rather than the light. What does he mean when He speaks of hearing and not “keeping”? We are responsible to live into what we believe. We are to become salt and light ourselves and bring that light into the world just as He has done and that requires more than preaching and more than testimony, it requires life lived in accordance with His word and example. We are to be obedient to the Father as He has been obedient and He has given us the Spirit which will help us and guide us if we will listen as He listened.

Paul does the work of cultural anthropology and sociology that needs to be done by any missionary. He notes first in his talk at the Areopagus that Athenians are very religious, they have shrines to many gods and, in fact, are open to idea that there are gods that even they do not know about. The city where I live is like Athens, very religious. It is not particularly Christian but it is religious, there are many religions here, many of them focused on healing of body, mind and spirit. Paul continues by saying that his work is to reveal this unknown god to them. This God is sovereign over all things, having created all things. He is self-sufficient, requiring nothing from His subjects. He quotes their poets and philosophers in saying that they too have found something about this God although He continues to be “unknown” to them. He gives a very basic statement about Jesus and then speaks of raising Him from the dead, at which point he loses some of the crowd who cannot believe in such a thing. Is that a problem in our culture(s) today? In fact, it is relatively commonplace that people believe in life after death, in some form or other. Where is the problem today when we try and tell the world about Jesus? It seems to me that the push-back comes more often in the insistence that Jesus is the only way to have a good eternity.

One thing I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in his temple.

17 September 2010
Psalm 69; Esther 1:1-4,10-19; Acts 17:1-15; John 12:36b-43

The first chapter of the book of Esther is setting the stage for what is to come, how did there come to be an opportunity for Esther to become queen. Vashti’s refusal to come at the king’s bidding opened a door for a new queen to be the king’s favorite. It is easy to see the patriarchal societal dominance of the time and place in the response of all the males to Vashti's refusal to comply with the king's command. Their response is basically if you, the king, allow your wife to get away with disobedience then all the women will think they can ignore the wishes and commands of their husbands, so you have to nip this in the bud right now. It also reveals something of the weakness of Ahasuerus that she felt comfortable in ignoring his wishes and also that he was so easily swayed by his royal officials. There is a rich rabbinic tradition concerning Vashti's character that has opposing views and leave us to choose one or the other.

It is incredibly sad that those to whom Jesus came in fulfillment of the promise of God did not recognize or believe in Him. It is equally sad that there were those who did believe but who were afraid of what they would lose if they made that belief a public matter. There are those today who fall into those categories, those who don’t believe even though they have seen and experienced incredible things and those who are more concerned with what the world thinks rather than what God thinks. John does not sugarcoat his thoughts on these last ones, they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God. Do we care more about human glory or the glory that comes from God? How do we show our answer to that question?

What an interesting concept, the Jews became jealous and roused the crowd by pleading the case for the emperor, defending his honor and place of privilege against the claims of Paul and the new converts concerning a new king, Jesus. Those who make common cause with them are “wicked men of the rabble.” Politics certainly makes strange bed-fellows. The continuing thread in these lessons relates to the belief that if we let these people do such and such then pretty soon everyone will so we had best make sure no one has the right to act on their own. If it were only as simple as that we could win the world by getting a few converts.

I will praise the name of God with a song;
I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
This will please the Lord more than an ox
or a bull with horns and hoofs.
Let the oppressed see it and be glad;
you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
For the Lord hears the needy,
and does not despise his own that are in bonds.

16 September 2010
Psalm 70, 71; Job 28:1-28; Acts 16:25-40; John 12:27-36a

I know that my congregation will laugh at this but here goes. When I read this passage and see the question where is wisdom to be found I think of Genesis 3. What the author of Job says is that the earth replies, we don’t know but we have heard of it. The conclusion is “Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” In Genesis 3 Adam and Eve search for wisdom, the knowledge of good and evil, in fruit because the serpent has reassured Eve that death will not be the result of disobedience, they need not fear the Lord, He won’t do what He said. We are often doing that today in the church when we deny the reality of eternal judgment. When we understand that judgment and death are realities we have the proper fear of the Lord and then we can come to Him for wisdom. It was that truth that Job came to understand, the power and might of God, and the wisdom of God that transcends the correlative theology of good for good, evil for evil. There is more to God and His ways than observable cause and effect.

The crowd did understand that when Jesus spoke of being lifted up He was speaking of His death. How did that fit within the context of the glorification of the Son of Man? Like Nicodemus and others we see the paradox of Jesus prior to His resurrection as the insoluble riddle, the enigma no one could understand. The wisdom of God, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, is folly to man and yet it transcends the wisdom of man and makes that wisdom folly. We think an earthly throne is glory and yet Jesus reveals God’s glory not on a throne but on a cross and in the suffering that precedes it. Do we have the mind of Christ that seeks the glory of God in all things?

In the very moment that the jailer believes to be his undoing and will certainly lead to his death for dereliction of duty he finds life. God set Paul and Silas free along with the other prisoners but no one left. Paul and Silas were in prison and yet praising God when all this happened. I don’t often react to suffering, especially when it seems unjust to me, by praising God but these men did. They understood suffering to be part of the package because Jesus had promised that we would be scorned by the world just as He had been. Here we see God using the circumstances to bring a family to faith in Him in Philippi. The church grew even with Paul in prison. Who can know the mind of the Lord?

Let all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you.
Let those who love your salvation
say evermore, ‘God is great!’

15 September 2010
Psalm 72; Job 42:1-17; Acts 16:16-24; John 12:20-26

Job speaks and agrees with the Lord. I have spoken without understanding, what you have shown me is too wonderful for me to have imagined. Seeing and hearing are two different ways of learning and it is important for us to “see” God at work in our lives. The word became flesh is an important concept in the learning of God’s people. If you have ever put together a grill you know how it can sometimes be confusing to read the instructions and illustrations help greatly. Job’s theology wasn’t completely wrong in that, all things being equal, there should be a correlation between sin and bad things and righteousness and good things. It was wrong in that it left no room for God’s sovereignty. In the end, Job’s friends have to repent and show contrition by an excessive sacrifice and when they do, Job prays for them to receive forgiveness. It is certainly gratifying when those who sin against us confess those sins and it makes it easier to pray “for” them. How often do we as the friends practice confession of sin against our brothers and sisters as opposed to excuse making?

The Pharisees have just said that the whole world is going out to Jesus and here come the Greeks to see Him. They were surely somewhat confused by Jesus’ answer to the request to see Him and it seems likely that they thought this might be the moment that Jesus’ kingly reign would begin based on the triumphal entry, these Greeks coming as people came to Solomon, and Jesus’ statement that now was the time for glorification. Nothing in that scene prepared them for what was actually going to happen.

The problem with the slave girl wasn’t that she wasn’t speaking truth it was who got glory for that truth. Was the purpose of her testimony to bring the hearers to the living God that Paul proclaimed or did it simply allow her masters to make more money. Sometimes people ask me about fortune tellers and how they differ from prophets and my usual answer has to do with whether someone does it for money and does the information provided give glory and honor to God. Here it is clear in the reaction of the girl’s masters in stirring up opposition to Paul and his proclamation, the Gospel he preached was a problem once their hope of gain from it evaporated. Job’s friends had not given glory to God in their theologizing, they had spoken falsely about Job and thus about God and the situation.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
who alone does wondrous things.
Blessed be his glorious name for ever;
may his glory fill the whole earth. Amen and Amen.

14 September 2010
Psalm 61, 62; Job 40:1,41:1-11; Acts 16:6-15; John 12:9-19

This creature known as Leviathan is one that cannot be controlled by any creature under heaven and the Lord uses its example to show that we are impotent even in our own realm and yet the Lord God made them all. All of creation, until us, responded to Him in such a way as to be obedient to His will. We alone among the created order rebelled against His authority and all the trouble in the world is traceable to that rebellion and sin. Before we begin to assert ourselves, our wisdom and understanding against the Lord we need to remember who we are.

It is assumed that Lazarus had died by the time of John’s Gospel. The prevailing belief about why the synoptic Gospels do not include the story of Lazarus is that he was still a wanted man at some level and it was not safe for him if his story was once again told during his lifetime. Here we see the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah in particular. The crowds have heard about Lazarus and now they believe that Jesus is coming in triumph to establish the kingdom in Jerusalem and greet Him with all the acclaim and accoutrements of a ruler. They have seen His power over disease, infirmity and now death itself and have come to the only conclusion that makes any sense, He is Messiah.

The Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Jesus prevented Paul from going places. Has the Spirit ever prevented you from going anywhere? We must live in tune with God’s Spirit and His will if we would truly follow Him. In the Lord’s Prayer we ask that He lead us not into temptation but then it is up to us to be sensitive to His leading and His Spirit if we are to not fall into temptation. Paul is obedient to the will of God preventing him but then to the Spirit of God in the dream of the man of Macedonia. How strange then that the person he meets there is not a man at all but a woman named Lydia (or perhaps she is a woman from Lydia, it is difficult to tell). It would be this woman through whom God would move forward His kingdom in the region. It is best not to be too literal in our interpretations of visions.

Let me abide in your tent for ever,
find refuge under the shelter of your wings.
For you, O God, have heard my vows;
you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.
So I will always sing praises to your name,
as I pay my vows day after day.

13 September 2010
Psalm 56, 57; Job 40:1-24; Acts 15:36-16:5; John 11:55-12:8

The Lord continues to show Job the vast difference between Him and us. Job’s gets in a short response, I get it, shutting up now. Even compared to a created being, referred to as behemoth and variously interpreted to be hippopotamus, crocodile, etc., we are as nothing and yet we do as CS Lewis said, put God in the dock and call Him to answer our questions and complaints as though we have the wisdom to cross-examine Him. If we would proceed we must understand the extraordinary arrogance of our position.

Mary worships Jesus by pouring this perfume over his feet. Jesus says that this is preparation for his burial. He knows the leaders are plotting to arrest Him and He knows what is to come. Mary has spent lavishly on this offering and as the men eat and Martha serves, she makes her offering to Jesus in love. Remember the home of Simon the Pharisee when the sinful woman does a similar thing in bathing the feet of Jesus when Simon had not offered basic hospitality and now consider that Mary even more lavishly performs that service. Jewish slaves in a Jewish home could not be asked to wash the feet of anyone, it was thought to be beneath them. Mary willingly and lovingly performs this service. Judas does not understand and shows that he values money more than people, even more than Jesus. Jesus’ rebuke is to say that there is a time for everything but Mary here has recognized the moment and responded to Her insight that nothing is more important.

Why does Paul have Timothy circumcised? Timothy’s situation is slightly different from the Gentile converts to the faith. Timothy’s mother is Jewish which makes him a Jew as well, it is proper for him to be circumcised in that he is a Jew whose faith has been fulfilled in Jesus. Paul never preached that anyone not a Jew should become one, but that everyone who was a Jew should identify themselves fully with it through Jesus. It is not, however, by circumcision or obedience to the law that we are reconciled to God or brought into the family of God, but by the blood of Jesus and faith in the efficacy of His sacrifice on our behalf. Paul then delivered the decisions of the Jerusalem council to the Gentiles, not insisting on their circumcision.

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
until the destroying storms pass by.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
Let your glory be over all the earth.

12 September 2010
Psalm 24, 29; Job 38:1,18-41; Rev. 18:1-8; Matt. 5:21-26

This passage of God’s response is remarkable in many ways, speaking of storehouses of the snow and hail, the place where light is distributed, and the places of darkness and light. The natural order of the world is truly amazing to consider in its variety, immensity and magnificence. I believe that most of the time JB Phillips was right, our God is too small and, like Job, we esteem ourselves too highly. We need to get a bigger picture of the universe God created by speaking it into being and then remember where we fit in that context before we pray to Him. The fact that we are at the center of that creation, in God’s image, charged with the stewardship of creation, should cause us to see what we have made of His perfect creation and to begin with praise for creation and then move to humility for what we have done. It should, however, cause us to love Him more for the reality that He desires relationship enough to come and die for us.

People not things. Just as we were told not to kill another human being because they are the image bearers of God, so here Jesus extends that commandment beyond murder to include hatred. One of the first things we learn when we try to understand forgiveness in a forensic way is that we must begin the process by re-humanizing the person who has wronged us. We have come to identify them not as a person like us, but someone who is the sin they committed against us. We set ourselves up as God in that we are not sinners like them, we have been wronged and are innocent victims. Jesus’ teaching here is based on that principle, that we have to stop dehumanizing others, we have to love our brothers in spite of their imperfections and our own. If He, being perfect, could love us, can we not love one another for His sake?

The judgment of God is on sin and here we see that sin is thought of as the glory of Babylon because it is no longer thought wrong. Do we live in a world that no longer knows right from wrong and glorifies that which should be our shame? Unfortunately, we do. We no longer measure good and evil by any standard that considers God’s perspective. We have diminished the Lord with relativism and have denied His authority over us, even His very existence. Should we as believers doubt that God’s judgment will be on sin and on those who deny Him and His will for His creation? What is our response to the world, however, to simply condemn it or to grieve over it, pray over it and work in love as Christ loved us to change it?

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name;
worship the Lord in holy splendour.

11 September 2010
Psalm 55; Job 38:1-17; Acts 15:22-35; John 11:45-54

“Why?” is the question. God’s answer is that it would be impossible to give that answer unless Job knows all things necessary to understand the answer. Job felt alone in his suffering, his friends had deserted him and God didn’t seem to hear or care about him. In God’s answer Job learns that God hears him and is with him. He learns that after God tells Job the infinite variety of created beings and that God alone knows all things about the created order, Job matters to God enough that God will take notice of him and answer him. The answer to “why?” is less important than God’s willingness to speak to him, which itself is a vindication of Job to these others who hear.

It is incredible that the Pharisees and other leaders react to the news of the raising of Lazarus from the dead by plotting to kill the one who accomplished it. Their complaint was that He kept on performing signs and if they didn’t stop Him somehow the people would believe in Him and the Romans would take away their privileged position. Why not rather believe in Him yourselves? Were they serving the Romans, themselves, the people, or God? They saw their positions as coming from the Romans. The people were their slaves at some level, they no longer cared about the people, they were their betters. Caiphas here tips his hand on the future, if we want to keep our places in the world, we need to get rid of this Jesus. So much for the sovereignty of God.

The church in Jerusalem greets and instructs the church in Antioch by sending a letter and emissaries. The decision of the Jerusalem council is conveyed and the church in Antioch is overjoyed by the encouragement they received. In the letter the council also affirms the leadership and teaching of Paul and Barnabas. This is a decisive moment for the Gospel among the Gentiles and for Paul’s ministry to them. If the church had not recognized that something new was being done by God in a sovereign way and had imposed further restrictions on them, it would have been disastrous. They chose to leave the question of “why?” up to God because of the evidence of the giving of the Spirit to the Gentiles, God was clearly with them.

Cast your burden on the LORD,
and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
the righteous to be moved.

10 September 2010
Psalm 40, 54; Job 29:1, 31:24-40; Acts 15:12-21; John 11:30-44

Job completes his defense of himself by defending not only his conduct with others but also his loyalty and faithfulness to God. He has not been enticed to worship anything or any other god. He has not failed to give thanks to God in all things and he has never rejoiced over the misfortunes of others. He is, as we learned at the outset, a blameless man in all things. He has kept close watch over his lips, his conduct and his heart and he can proclaim without shame his innocence.

Mary repeats Martha’s affirmation of belief, if Jesus had been here He could have prevented this death. The mourners see Jesus’ grief over death, not part of the original plan, and they express belief that this one who had healed the man born blind could indeed have healed Lazarus. They affirm His love on account of His grief but why hadn’t He come when He heard Lazarus was sick? Their faith fails, however, when Jesus tells them to take away the stone. In the King James version we see the words, “Lord, he stinketh”, a quaint but accurate translation. No one believes Lazarus will live, the situation is beyond hope and yet when Jesus calls him, there he comes. The elements are all here that we will see at the resurrection of Jesus, the tomb, stone, bandages and the head piece, but then they are all signs that another has done the work, here the mourners participate.

James wisely decides to side with the Gentiles. Upon hearing the testimony of Peter, Paul and Barnabas he determines that God is up to something new and the Gentiles are included without the law or circumcision. The church only requires certain teaching, those that will set them apart from the rest of the Gentile world. They need to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols which will limit their social interaction with some. In addition they must abstain from blood, a prohibition that antedates the Mosaic law, it was given to Noah as the life of the animal was “in the blood.” Strangled animals also are prohibited for the same reason, there might be some blood of life still in the flesh. Sexual immorality was also to be taught and practiced by the Christians, as something unique to Yahweh’s law as opposed to other cultures. We have very few rules given to us, just like Adam and Eve, and yet we still try and negotiate even those.

Blessed is the man who makes
the LORD his trust,
who does not turn to the proud,
to those who go astray after a lie!
You have multiplied, O LORD my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
none can compare with you!
I will proclaim and tell of them,
yet they are more than can be told.

9 September 2010
Psalm 50, 59, 60; Job 29:1, 31:1-23; Acts 15:1-11; John 11:17-29

Job continues to maintain his innocence to the end. Our understanding of the suffering in our life usually comes down to the issue of justice. I can understand and live with suffering if it is in payment for sin, if it is justice for something I did or didn’t do, sins of commission or omission. Job says not only did he not actively sin in ways like lusting after another woman but he also did for others what they could not do for themselves, if he saw a need, he met it. If our only theological argument for suffering is retributive justice, we can’t make sense of the world. Sin deserves death in the eyes of God, it is rebellion against Him with whom we have covenant. Job has only one explanation for suffering and will not accept it as justified. Is that your attitude towards suffering?

After four days everyone gave up hope. Jewish belief was that for three days the spirit of a person kept vigil over the body to see if it would re-vivify but that after that it departed to Sheol. Lazarus had been dead four days therefore his spirit had gone and there was no longer any hope of reuniting it with the body. Martha believes Jesus could have prevented her brother’s death and that there is a resurrection (in opposition to the Sadducees) and then makes a remarkable statement of what she believes about Jesus, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world." Her reaction to all this is to go and get Mary and refers to Jesus as the Teacher. Mary seems to know exactly who this teacher is and rises immediately to go to him. None of this makes sense to them but their love for Jesus trumps whatever disappointment they might have felt.

The first real crisis of belief in the church is resolved at the first church council. How are we saved? That is the issue. Are we saved by faith in Jesus or by faith in Jesus, circumcision and obedience to the law? It is indeed a thorny issue for the new church and it seems that Jesus hadn’t left them with an answer. He had, however, given them the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth and here is the first test and it is an important one. Peter recalls his own experience of preaching to the uncircumcised at the house of Cornelius and his experience proves decisive in his mind, they received the Holy Spirit through faith and all the rest adds nothing to the equation. Circumcision seems like a small-ish matter, an operation that is relatively routine today, but it wasn’t just the physical mark that matters, with it went a promise to keep the law and here Peter says that neither they nor anyone else had succeeded in keeping that promise, it has always been faith by which we are saved. It has never been about justice, always grace.

I will sing of your strength;
I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.
For you have been to me a fortress
and a refuge in the day of my distress.
O my Strength, I will sing praises to you,
for you, O God, are my fortress,
the God who shows me steadfast love.

8 September 2010
Psalm 119:49-72; Job 29:1, 30:1-2, 16-31; Acts 14:19-28; John 11:1-16

Yesterday Job longingly reflected on the good old days and now he says there is a 180 degree turn in his circumstances and God shows him no mercy. At some level he is saying he is a better man than God for he, Job, cried for those in misery and had pity on them, but no one, not his friends, not God, has any pity for him. He knows God is sovereign, able to do anything He chooses, but He is also eternal while Job only has this one life and it has become bitter to the point he no longer values it at all. (Just a reminder, Jesus’ incarnation and His suffering as an innocent man on our behalf will not allow us to reflect on these things as Job does. Jesus shows us how to live our one earthly life in spite of pain and injustice.)

There are many layers to the Gospel reading. Mary and Martha’s appeal to Jesus is based on His love for their brother and then we are told that indeed he loved this whole family “so” he didn’t go to them. Jesus immediately knows the situation to be that Lazarus is dead but uses the word “sleep” to describe the situation and then says “Let’s go” after everyone knows Lazarus is dead. The disciples recall that last visit to Jerusalem and now want no part in going back near the city. This is the climactic moment in the earthly life of Jesus, the most dramatic revelation of His identity. Surely, after death, particularly after several days, nothing can be done, so why take the risk of going back there other than to comfort the family? Jesus, however, says this is for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified through it. What could He mean by that?

What a roller-coaster ride Paul’s life was! In the passage before, in this same city of Lystra, the people had been prepared to offer sacrifice to the apostles and to affirm that they were gods and now they are stoned and taken out for dead. The disciples gathered around him and he was restored to health enough to go back to the city. In all things, Paul continued his mission of preaching the Gospel. He never worried about the consequences, he was simply faithful to the mission he had been given, ever willing to rejoice over the work that God was doing. In the light of the suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, Paul knew what it meant to live in suffering for the glory of God. He knew that his life had meaning that went beyond the enjoyment of life itself, the meaning and purpose of his life was bound up in the proclamation of the Gospel. He knew that the writer of Ecclesiastes was right, everything under the sun is vanity but that does not mean that life is meaningless.

Remember your word to your servant,
in which you have made me hope.
This is my comfort in my affliction,
that your promise gives me life.

7 September 2010
Psalm 45; Job 29:1-20; Acts 14:1-18; John 10:31-42

Job’s final defense argument begins as though he were a lawyer in the present day. He opens with a statement of how things used to be in order that we might know the heights from which he has fallen. When he occupied the place of honor, he used it to serve others, not himself. It was a wonderful life. If you want to make your case for restoration, it is important that you show to what you want to be restored. It seems certain that Job was indeed not only a blameless man but also a good man, but this recitation seems a bit over the top, as all memories are.

Clearly, Jesus’ accusers are in a quandary. He has either committed blasphemy with his claim or He is who He says He is. There is no question about what His claim is, they would not make the accusation or pick up stones unless He claimed to be God. He was not misunderstood and here we see that He invites them to examine His claims in light of the available evidence for its veracity. Those who came to the other side of the Jordan to see Him were those who believed, almost like a mini-Exodus from the Land to Him. Their statement re John not having done a sign indicates the test applied to a prophet, He needed to have either done something to authenticate himself or for his prophecy to have come true, Jesus’ signs authenticate John’s prophecy concerning Him.

In both Iconium and Lystra the Lord used signs and wonders to confirm the message of Paul and Barnabas. At Iconium the Jews did what they could to discredit their message among the Gentiles and eventually they were forced to leave there to escape the plot against them. Paul’s healing of the lame man at Lystra brings us to one of the more humorous scenes in the book of the Acts with the people prepared to offer sacrifices to the ones who effectuated the healing. Paul, who didn’t speak Lycaonian, doesn’t realize what they have ascribed to him until they are ready to worship the two apostles. His argument is from lesser to greater, something wonderful was done through him but he points to the one who created all things and who is sovereign over all things. Jesus did even more wonderful things and the people wouldn’t believe in Him and while He pointed always to the Father, He never denied His unity with the Father, not an argument from greater to lesser but unity.

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness.

6 September 2010
Psalm 41, 52; Job 32:1-10, 19, 33:1, 19-28; Acts 13:44-52; John 10:19-30

Elihu, the youngest of the group, suddenly appears and is ready to vent his spleen both at Job and Job’s “friends.” His main complaint is that they have impugned the integrity of God. Job has become God’s accuser and these others have failed to speak adequately in God’s defense. He begins by saying that he has held his tongue out of deference for their age and wisdom but now must speak because he has not heard wisdom. He furthers his argument not by accusing Job of sin in his life but by reminding them all that sometimes pain is, in the words of CS Lewis, God’s megaphone to get our attention so that He might speak to us. He also speaks of something no one has yet mentioned, God’s mercy. They have seen only retributive justice, God punishes for sin and then relents when we confess and repent. Elihu, however, notes God’s mercy is a way of allowing us to rejoice in having back our lives.

Jesus’ answer to his questioners and critics is plain, make up your minds based on the evidence of your eyes. What have you seen? They judge His words or claims to equality with the Father in being the Good Shepherd as though they had been given no signs to judge them by but some recall the giving of sight to the blind and remind the rest. When they ask Him plainly He answers them plainly but not in the words they have chosen. His claim to being one with the Father is plain as to His identity and the works He has done have not been done by others, particularly the miracle in John 9, but they continue to disbelieve. Belief is a difficult thing and requires the Holy Spirit to come to a settled conclusion in which we can stand.

You knew they would turn on Paul in the end and Paul shakes the dust off his shoes and determines to from now on simply go to the Gentiles, his God-given mission field. The passage he quotes is from Isaiah 49, but no one really thought of the Gentiles as being on God’s radar screen in any direct kind of way. Why should they be prepared to hear the Gospel given that they had no experience of God? It is truly a novel idea to go to them and begin to preach and yet the reaction is extraordinary, “when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” Immediately there began a persecution of Paul and Barnabas by the Jews and drove them out of the city. If they rejected Paul’s message it would certainly have been objectionable to them that the Gentiles now claimed to accept the Jewish Messiah and be part of God’s covenant and blessed people because of Him.

I am like a green olive tree
in the house of God.
I trust in the steadfast love of God
forever and ever.
I will thank you forever,
because you have done it.
I will wait for your name, for it is good,
in the presence of the godly.

5 September 2010
Psalm 63, 98; Job 25:1-6, 27:1-6; Rev 14:1-7, 13; Matt 5:13-20

Bildad’s argument is sound, God’s holiness is greater than anything of which mankind is capable. It is no good for Job to claim purity in his life because God’s holiness won’t allow any stain at all. Where he goes off the rails is in describing man as a maggot and a worm. We are created in the image of God and He seeks relationship with us, made us uniquely with that intention. Job refuses to yield his innocence simply because Bildad and the others say he must be guilty. Job believes God is just while at the same time believes God is denying him justice on a personal level, he is appealing to God against God. He acknowledges God is sovereign and his appeal is to God alone while at the same time accusing God of injustice in his situation. Have you ever felt that way?

In the Gospel we are told what our work on earth is, being salt and light. Often we hide ourselves from the world by remaining completely apart from it in spite of Jesus’ own witness of living a very public life among sinners, both religious and otherwise. If the world never sees another way, how can they know there is another way and how can they give glory to a God about whom they never hear? Jesus’ standard for righteousness is higher than we can imagine. “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees” is an impossible task and everyone there would have known that, most especially the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus’ righteousness, however, exceeds theirs and if we put our faith and trust in Him then we have His righteousness imputed to us as if it were our own.

John sees the heavenly host of the Lamb, 144,000 of them in array singing a new song. They are the firstfruits of those redeemed from the earth, those who have resisted the beast and who now serve the Lamb. The angel speaks to all those who live, to fear God and give Him glory as his judgment has come. Do we understand that we should indeed fear God’s judgment, that none of us is able to be declared innocent but for his mercy in Jesus? Finally, the Spirit (a voice from heaven) speaks and declares the blessedness of the dead, a passage we use in Anglican funerals to describe those who have completed their toil on this earth.

Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
when I remember you upon my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.

4 September 2010
Psalm 30, 32; Job 22:1-4,21-23:7; Acts 13:26-43; John 10:1-18

Eliphaz brings nothing new to the party, urging Job to confess his sins, agreeing with God, so that all this can end. The final scene in the movie Braveheart has a time when the torturer leans in and whispers to William Wallace that if he will simply renounce his past, confess his sins and beg for mercy this will all end, there will be no more torture and he will have the death that is coming anyway. Wallace refuses the lifeline because his integrity is too important. Job does the same. How can he confess what he has not done? They are not speaking for God, they are spouting theology that is based in untruth about this situation and about suffering. Job turns to say I am not arguing with flesh and blood, I am arguing with the Almighty and I want a hearing.

Those “shepherds” who have come before are not truly shepherds, they are simply hired men, people doing a job. A shepherd cares for the sheep as a flock but also as individuals. We see the perfect shepherd in Psalm 23 from the perspective of the sheep. In Ezekiel and Zechariah God accuses the shepherds of not caring for the flock just as Jesus does here. The Lord has promised that ultimately He will throw out those bad shepherds and come and shepherd the flock Himself, the Great Shepherd. Here, Jesus says I am that shepherd, the Lord Himself, come to shepherd His people. He speaks also prophetically of His impending death, we are moving inexorably towards the great showdown with the false shepherds, the hired hands who care not for the people but for the pride and prestige that comes with position.

Paul’s proclamation of the resurrection and salvation of Jesus initially gets a glad reception here, they urge him to return next Sabbath and tell more about this Jesus. Speaking to a Jewish audience, he connects Jesus to the promises of Scriptures and as the fulfillment of the history of Israel. He will preach very differently in the Areopagus to a Gentile audience. Here we see the pattern for Jesus’ own ministry among His people, they hear with glad hearts the gracious words he speaks and their hearts are longing for more but there are always the birds circling nearby who come to take away the seed and keep it from taking root and producing fruit. You know they are there and there will be a change soon in this story.

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

3 September 2010
Psalm 31; Job 19:1-7,14-27; Acts 13:13-25; John 9:18-41

Job’s cry to his friends is that they have piled on. If God has done this justly surely his friends should have comforted him and not accused him. He has not sinned against them in any way to bring this on, he owes them neither apology nor accounting, their role is not to be accuser but rather comforter and they have failed. There is a place for speaking the truth in love but never for speaking speculation in judgment. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. In ministry I have seen and heard this same thing from people who want to figure out the reason for someone’s suffering. When I have suffered grievously I have done the same, begged God to show me what sin this is punishment for. Job continues to believe in the redeemer, the one who will speak for him and proclaim his innocence. His faith is such that these accusations and this pain demand someone to stand with him and say it isn’t fair and it isn’t punishment for his sins.

The scene with the man born blind becomes comical. The parents are afraid of being ostracized from the community if they say that Jesus is the cause of their son’s healing and so simply say they have no responsibility for him, he is of age, ask him. The Pharisees continue to ask the man how he was healed in spite of the fact that everyone has to have heard the truth at least once by now so the man becomes sarcastic with them. Their only response is again to question where Jesus comes from and, although he was born blind and had been for many years, it is clear to the man that Jesus comes from God simply because of this miraculous healing. Blindness isn’t restricted to physical sight, sometimes there is a spiritual blindness as well.

It was customary in the synagogues to ask a visitor, particularly a teacher, if he wanted to share any message and here Paul and his companions are asked if they have a word for the congregation. Paul begins by reciting Jewish redemption history in outline form through David and then leaps immediately to Jesus. Could anyone have imagined what he was up to prior to that sudden twist of “Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Saviour, Jesus”? He makes a thousand year leap in time and then proclaims that Messiah has come in this Jesus, and everyone would have known which Jesus he meant. The redeemer for whom Job was hoping had come and Paul could do nothing other than proclaim Him in line with David, the one through whom Messiah was to come. Is there any doubt this won’t end well in Pisidian Antioch?

Love the Lord, all you his saints.
The Lord preserves the faithful,
but abundantly repays the one who acts haughtily.
Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who wait for the Lord.

2 September 2010
Psalm 37:1-18; Job 16:16-22,17:1,13-16; Acts 13:1-12; John 9:1-17

Job sees that here there is no hope for him, his only hope, his only true friend and advocate is in heaven. Alone in the world, among friends who have become not friends and advocates but accusers before God, the role of Satan, Job’s hope continues to be in God. Although he is crying out to God about the unfairness of the situation and sees his misery as God-inflicted, he remains steadfast in his belief that there is some explanation for this and that it is not sin. He is, however, losing the hope that his “friends” will see his vindication as his death seems to be imminent. We have an accuser whose delight it is to point to our sin in anticipation of the judgment of God that has been pronounced from of old, in Jesus we have an advocate with the Father whose testimony is His own blood on our behalf. We cannot maintain our innocence as Job is able to do, but we always plead the blood of the innocent victim, Jesus.

The disciples are looking for answers to suffering in the same place Job’s friends looked, “Who sinned?” The issue here isn’t sin, it is that God’s glory might be displayed in this healing. We like a tidy cause and effect world that makes sense to us and here we see that it only makes sense in light of the work of God. The defect was a work of God just as the healing was a work of God. The blind man could have asked Jesus to explain why he was chosen to bear this burden but he does not. The Pharisees are concerned not with the healing of a man born blind but the method Jesus used, the making of mud was prohibited as work on the Sabbath. The man was also forced to work to wash the mud off his eyes. The man’s eyes are opened to see and confess Jesus but the eyes of the others are closed because they are only looking for sin not righteousness.

Paul and Barnabbas are sent out on mission by the church at Antioch. They immediately encounter opposition in the form of the magician Elymas at Cyprus. For his sin of opposing the Gospel, Paul asks that he be struck blind, just as Paul himself had been, as a sign to the proconsul of the power of God. This man had “powers” that made him important to the official and here the power of God is proven to be greater than whatever power worked through the magician. In the Gospel lesson we see God using the healing of blindness as a sign and here we see Him causing blindness as a sign. In all things we see the sovereignty of God.

The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
he is their refuge in the time of trouble.
The Lord helps them and rescues them;
he rescues them from the wicked, and saves them,
because they take refuge in him.

1 September 2010
Psalm 38; Job 12:1,14:1-22; Acts 12:18-25; John 8:47-59

“Look, I only get one life, why do you have to make it miserable?” That is Job’s prayer/complaint. It is a painful thing to know that this is your one shot at this life and it is filled with misery and pain. This isn’t how it was supposed to be, but we brought sin into the world and now we have to live with it. Job says that even a tree that has been cut down to the stump still has a chance to produce new life, but we, once we are gone, have no other life. In Judaism, especially very early Judaism, there was no thought of life beyond this life, you simply went to Sheol, the place of the dead. We have the understanding that there is life after death and we have that understanding for two basic reasons, Jesus taught it and then showed it with the resurrection. It doesn’t explain pain and suffering, but it does allow us to understand justice in a different way because we can see the long view of eternity v. temporality. Suffering can be redemptive and purposeful if we allow God to have our suffering for His purposes (see Joni Eareckson Tada).

The conversation turns on the understanding and meaning of the word “death.” What does it mean to die? It was the promise made in the Garden in Genesis 2, “…but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Satan told Eve, you shall not surely die. Upon eating the fruit they did not die, so was Satan correct and God a liar? Death has a different meaning in God’s economy, it means something more like separation from Him. Life apart from Him is like death rather than life. In Jesus, we have the possibility of life restored to us, both now by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and then more perfectly in eternal life. The thing that must be dealt with in order to accomplish that is sin. If there is no sin then there is the possibility of life. Believing in Jesus as the only sinless man, the willing victim for sin, who takes on Himself all our sin, its shame and its punishment before God the Father, yields forgiveness of sins, imputed righteousness, and new life. Apart from that belief, there is only death, even if it seems like life to us because we have never truly tasted life.

Herod believed his own hype. He believed that he was able to receive the glory and honor that was accorded him. Here it seems Herod is willing to receive worship as one of the gods in mortal form. The people of Tyre and Sidon were willing to ascribe such to him in order to win his favor and break the blockade of food to their cities. Herod’s willingness to receive this worship was the cause of his demise. He had killed James the brother of John and imprisoned Peter but it was this sin of presumption that brought God’s judgment against Herod. At that point, there was no hope for the man if he thought he was God. His only hope was to be shown that he was not.

Do not forsake me, O Lord;
O my God, do not be far from me;
make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation.