17 July 2011

Psalm 63, 98; 1 Samuel 23:7-18; Rom. 11:33-12:2; Matt. 25:14-30

David and his men seek of the Lord to discern whether Saul is coming against them. David asks that the ephod be brought so that he might inquire of the Lord. He had done the same in the first six verses of this chapter as well. It was not the ephod itself but the Urim and Thummim affixed to the ephod that was utilized for inquiring of the Lord. It is a piece of the high priestly garment that we see rarely in the Bible and most scholars believe that they passed out of use quite early in the history of Israel. There are more references in 1 Samuel to their actual use than in any other book. The friendship between Jonathan and David transcends family relationships or Jonathan’s rise to the kingship of Israel. Jonathan goes to David in hiding and strengthened his hand in God, encouraging him that Jonathan’s father, Saul, would not find him and that he would indeed one day be king. The covenant relationship between these men is a model for Christian friendship.

What is the stewardship we have been given? The parable applies to all of us individually and to the church. We who have received the Gospel and have salvation have a trust and a mission to share the Good News with the world. We have that trust and mission individually and corporately and I wonder what the Lord thinks about the church in the west. Clearly we are a five talent church, we have the money, the freedom, the buildings, the book and the books about the book, all the resources anyone could want and no barriers to actually preaching the Gospel and yet we are providing a negative return to the Lord. It is incumbent on us to recognize the nature of our covenant relationship with the Lord who gave His life for us that we might have eternal life and to commit ourselves to that relationship and His kingdom just as Jonathan committed himself to David.

I love this passage from Romans for its content and for what it says about Paul. For eleven chapters Paul has poured out theological concepts and finally as he comes to the end of that argument he breaks into praise. Theology should absolutely and always lead to doxology or we have done our theology wrong. Everything we know about God should lead to praise to and for God, it is such wonderful truth that we can only praise Him. Not only are those truths praise-worthy, they also are the beginning of the process of transformation. The renewing of our minds begins when we embrace the truth of God against the truth of the world, the flesh and the devil and we begin to understand that the truths of the world about what is important and how things work are not truths at all, that we have been deceived but God wants us to know and live by what Francis Shaeffer called “true truth.” Life change begins at this level, the renewing of our minds in thinking differently based on the truth of God, beginning with how did all that is come to be, beginning with Genesis and then moving forward.

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Tune