Isaiah sees unrighteousness, idolatry, eastern religious practices
as having taken over in Israel. He is sickened
by the idolatry of the people. The idol
worship had a particular end, a greater idolatry, than simply the making of an
image to worship, this is the worship of stuff that drives a mania for more
stuff, so why not worship stuff itself. We
have to feed the beast of our desire for that which we can see, enjoy, and
hoard. Isaiah also sees a day when the
peoples of the earth will stream to Jerusalem, the mountain of the Lord, not
with idols in tow but seeking true wisdom, true righteousness, knowledge of the
Law of God. That Law points to Him, it
begins with Him and ends with coveting other things, which points away from
Him. Our passion should be to know Him and
to possess what He offers but our passion tends in the direction of what we can
see and leads us to all other sins in order to gain those things. Again, is the church a place where people are
streaming because they see a community with different values and desires?
Did they really overdo it this much in flattery, "Teacher,
we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly
teach the way of God." That level
of pretended sincerity would work with very few people but that is the problem
with feigned sincerity, it always tips its hand. Jesus' response is brilliant. Whose image is
on the coin? If it is Caesar's it must
certainly belong to Caesar so give it back to him. Whose image do they bear? God's, so give to Caesar what is Caesar's and
to God what is His. Don't worry about the
money, you're asking questions about things that aren't important and eternal. The question reveals their hearts, they are
worried about stuff. I think of this
passage whenever anyone asks me about whether or not tithing is important or
whether they are justifying their lack of giving by saying Jesus didn't tell people
to tithe. The questions that concern us
reveal our hearts.
Paul sees the believers in Thessalonica as receiving the
message in truth because He sees that they became imitators of the churches in
Judea and were then persecuted. Two things
reveal to him that they are indeed followers of Jesus, who they became and that
they were persecuted for it. A change in
life is evidence of the power and the work of the Holy Spirit, the one Spirit
given to all. That this change in them
occasions opposition is to be expected. When
our values and priorities change, people notice and the initial reaction is
that they don't like it and they don't like us as well as they did when we
shared their values and priorities. They
feel judged. We in the church have
concerned ourselves so much with making people feel accepted and not judged
that we have eliminated the distinction between believers and non-believers in
many cases. We have encouraged believers
to become more like non-believers in order to win them. Does that sound like Paul's strategy? We are
to love and not judge those outside but there is still to be a distinction.
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