"Be a father to orphans, and be like a husband to their
mother; you will then be like a son of the Most High, and he will love you more
than does your mother." What a beautiful thought and even more so because
it is truth. The passage talks about the
contours of the ethical life in the kingdom of God in practical and simple
terms that express "Love your neighbor as yourself" quite
nicely. James wrote, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the
Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep
oneself unstained from the world."
It sounds a good bit like this passage doesn't it? I know it is not Scripture (Ecclesiasticus
that is), but that doesn't mean it isn't biblical thought.
Interesting that we are using a
book from what we call the Apocrypha (hidden) and what the Roman Catholics call
Deuterocanonical (2nd canon since it was written between the testaments) and
now here we have at least one of the passages whose interpretation divides
Protestants and Roman Catholics. As
Protestants we aver that this statement applies not to the man Peter but to his
confession of Jesus as the "Christ, the Son of the Living God." Romans believe that Peter is the rock on
which the church is built and to him personally are given the keys to the
kingdom, which is certainly a defensible interpretation of the passage but not
of the reality that it was James, the brother of Jesus, who led the church in
its earliest days or that it was Peter to whom Jesus' next direct address was,
"Get behind me Satan." At any
rate, Jesus' affirmation of Peter's confession tells us who Jesus understood
Himself to be, the church wasn't mistaken.
Paul says that the rock that followed them in the wilderness
was Christ. They tasted and saw that the
Lord was good, they experienced His goodness, His presence and His provision
and yet they fell away. Paul reminds the
church at Corinthian that an experience of Jesus isn't enough, we are called to
persevere in faith and love and life. Paul
speaks of four particular sins to be avoided: idolatry, sexual immorality, putting
Christ to the test (doubting God), and grumbling or murmuring against God. These four are particularly issues always in the
church and in our lives and Paul says that for these the Lord laid even His
people low. We are called to avoid the temptation
to these sins. When was the last time
you experienced any one of these? How
did you do with that test?
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