31 July 2014

Psalm 71; Judges 4:4-23; Acts 1:15-26; Matt. 27:55-66

What was wrong with Barak?  Deborah reminds him that the Lord had spoken to him, commanded him to take specific action and promised him success and yet he had failed to obey.  His response to her admonition is to say, if you'll go with me.  When men fail to lead, when they fail to obey the Lord, the Lord is forced to resort to raising up women who will lead.  Her response, “I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman" is clearly intended to shame him but he doesn't seem to mind.  In fact, when the time comes to act Deborah has to again implore Barak to step up to the plate and act.  He finds success that was promised but indeed the king, Sisera, is not killed by the leader of the army but by Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, who drives a tent peg through his temple.  Why, I wonder, were the men of God so weak in that time?

There were many women there looking on from a distance.  The men had, by and large, fled the scene in fear that they would be tabbed as Jesus' disciples and perhaps be tried and crucified too and they weren't ready to suffer and die for His sake yet.  The faithful women, however, were there that day in love, unafraid to identify with Him as He had identified with them.  Jesus changed the idea of what it meant to be a disciple by allowing these women access to the teaching and in His interactions with women throughout the Gospels so it is not surprising that in spite of the horror of this scene they are present.  All through this day, the women are there, even at the end when Joseph receives the body and takes it to the tomb.  The leaders remember that Jesus said He would rise again and ask Pilate to secure the tomb but he has had enough of them for one day, ordering them to see to this nonsense on their own.  In his mind, he had washed his hands of this entire affair.  The men, other than Joseph, don’t distinguish themselves this day.

Why is it that Peter believes it necessary and proper to fill the place of Judas?  There had been twelve apostles just as there had been twelve tribes and that number is important in Judaism.  Why though does Peter believe it is their prerogative to fill out that number?  He comes up with a standard, the person had to have been part of the group since the baptism of John and had to have seen all Jesus had done.  After prayer asking God to reveal that person to them, they choose lots, I suppose as the way God will reveal this person.  I am sure Matthias was a perfectly solid disciple but we never hear from him again.  One thing Peter and the others don't understand is just how much a game-changer the Holy Spirit is going to be.  Eyewitnesses aren't the only ones who can powerfully attest to Jesus now.  Also, I believe that the Lord had already chosen the twelfth apostle, a man named Saul of Tarsus.  Men gotta do what men gotta do though.  Waiting wasn't their forte.

30 July 2014

Psalm 72; Judges 3:12-30; Acts 1:1-14; Matt. 27:45-54

It is amazing isn't it that only a few years into their enjoyment of the land the people are serving the king of Moab, the nation that wanted Balaam to curse them and instead blessed them?  For eighteen years they served this king who, along with the Ammonites and Amalekites defeated them in battle.  Ehud was left-handed, which was thought to be a handicap in those days, something wasn't quite right about left-handedness.  It worked to his advantage, however, was in some ways redeemed by the Lord because it allowed him to get a weapon past the guards of the king.  A right handed man would have strapped the knife on his left leg and would then have been discovered by the bodyguards of the king but Ehud's "disability" allowed him to be the perfect assassin and he was then able to plunge the knife into fat king Eglon.  His act of daring, the Lord's answer to the prayer of the people, became the catalyst for them to act to throw off the yoke of the king and win their freedom.

Jesus had given so many signs in His ministry that they could hardly be counted much less fully recounted in the Gospel accounts.  As He died on the cross the people, who misunderstood His cry of Eli to be calling to the prophet Elijah, taunted Him for a miracle, " let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.”  He was, on that cross, saving Elijah himself.  The signs continue at Jesus' death with the tearing of the temple curtain, earthquake, and the bodies of the saints coming to life.  The last is the strangest of all isn't it?  Why doesn't Matthew tell us what in the world happened to these people after this event?  At any rate, the signs caused the centurion and those with him to conclude something was different about Jesus, whether He was "the" Son of God or "a" Son of God.  People were still, even in death, coming to faith in Jesus at some level.  Even death on a cross wasn't a handicap to their faith.

I wonder what the disciples thought it would mean that they would receive the Holy Spirit and power.  Were those two separate things?  What kind of power?  They had to have some ideas about this matter as the Holy Spirit empowered people like Bezalel and Oholiab, the men who constructed the tabernacle under Moses' leadership. the leaders to whom God gave some of the Spirit He took from Moses, Saul, who was given the Spirit and prophesied, David, and the prophets themselves, from Elijah all the way to Malachi and John the Baptist.  The Spirit was given for a particular purpose to specific people.  Here, it was to be so that they could be Jesus' witnesses wherever they went.  That meant that they would say and do things that authenticated Him.  Even better, as we know, the spirit would be poured out on all flesh, their witnessing would be fruitful, even among Gentiles.  All barriers or handicaps would be shattered.

29 July 2014

Psalm 61, 62; Judges 2:1-5,11-23; Rom. 16:17-27; Matt. 27:32-44

As soon as the leaders of Joshua's generation are gone, Israel begins to be lax about following the commands of the Lord.  The first place they cease being obedient is in the making of treaties with the nations who occupy the Land.  It is easier just to make peace than to bother with conquest.  The angel of the Lord says that this disobedience will result in these nations becoming a thorn in the side of Israel and the nation will ultimately become servants of their gods and, shortly thereafter, we are told they began serving the Baals and Ashtaroth, fertility gods whose worship promised good crops.  The Lord no longer protected them from their enemies and finally, judges were raised up.  The people needed a godly leader to show them the way of life the Lord commanded.  The nation would then have an on again, off again relationship with the Lord, depending on whether there was a leader and what sort of leader was.  Leadership is important to the people of God.  Their failure to conquer the Land meant there would always be snares for them, tests of fidelity.  One sin beget the possibility of many others.

The people, less than a week ago, wanted to make Jesus king.  They hailed him as the son of David and cried out Hosanna, Lord save us as he rode into town in fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah.  They hung on every word of His teaching and marveled at His healing power.  Now, because the leaders had decided that Jesus was a threat that would take away their places as leader and possibly the right of the Jewish people to continue to worship freely, these same people were playing follow the leader and rejecting Him as Messiah.  They had no idea why they had rejected Him, only that the leaders had found something amiss.  Now, because of this, they turn on Him and deride Him on the cross.  No longer do they cry for Him to save them, they jeer at His seeming inability to save Himself at the exact moment He is saving them by dying for them.  Again, bad leadership is a culprit.

Although Paul has never been among the church at Rome, as a wise and experienced leader he is aware of two problems in every church, those who cause division in some way and those who teach false doctrine.  No matter how large or small the church these two threats are present in the church.  Not only the leader(s) of the church need to be vigilant but the members themselves need to be prepared to deal with these issues and the people who cause them.  In the world of mass media and the internet there are constant threats to unity in the church, there are at least as many false teachers whose "strange fire" can come into the church as there are those who teach truth.  Paul says, "I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil."  Sounds like Genesis 3 language doesn't it?  We need to know where to go to get that wisdom concerning good and evil.

28 July 2014

Psalm 56, 57; Joshua 24:16-33; Rom. 16:1-16; Matt. 27:24-31

Joshua is at least as skeptical as Moses was about the future of the nation in their ability to serve and be faithful to the Lord.  They say all the right things, ascribing to Him the credit for all they have accomplished in the conquest of the Land but Joshua is less than convinced that their commitment is wholehearted.  He says plainly, you won't follow through, you will fail and He won't forgive your transgressions and sins because you will chase after other gods.  In fact, you have to make a beginning in convincing me by putting away the gods you have among you right now.  Human nature is such that we want and therefore anything that promises to give us what we want becomes a god to us.  The best way to identify a god in our lives is by devotion, what we spend time pursuing.  It can be politics or money or nearly anything at all.  Where we invest our time, talent and treasure, not to mention our hearts, is a god that is competing for our attention and allegiance.  What is winning the battle in your life?

Would that it were as easy as washing one's hands to wash away the guilty stain of sin.  Pilate tries an intellectual conceit to transfer the guilt of the crucifixion of an innocent man yet his fear of the people starting a riot, breaking the Pax Romana, and therefore facing another decision, to crack down on Israel or risk the wrath of his Roman overlords, but in the end he made a decision that Jesus would be crucified.  He used the same algebra that we hear from the council leaders in John 11, that one man's life can be sacrificed rather than risk something more.  Utilitarian ethics certainly didn't begin in the 18^th century with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.  Pilate calculates the cost to himself as too high to do the right thing.  Afterwards, he had Jesus flogged and the soldiers of the governor, Roman soldiers, treated Jesus with scorn and contempt, it wasn't just the Jews who bear the responsibility for this heinous crime.

For a man who hasn't been to Rome Paul certainly has a good many friends there doesn't he?  By my count he notes at least 27 people by name here as he wraps up the epistle.  His travels and his work in missions have borne real fruit and those who have received him and who have received from him are alike mentioned as brothers and sisters.  Paul surely had no fears of the movement dying when he could see such fruit and know that even though Rome, for instance, was a place he had not personally visited, his alumni, his children, were there on missions themselves.  Paul did more for the spread of the Gospel than any apostle and yet even today in the church there are those who reject his apostolicity and authority.  The early church chose to canonize much of Paul's work as truth, why is he so questioned by those who come 2000 years later and who, in many ways, owe their faith to Paul's work and that of those whom he gospeled?  We are becoming like the nation after Joshua and his generation of leaders, those we will find in the next Old Testament book, "all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes."

27 July 2014

Psalm 24, 29; Joshua 24:1-15; Acts 28:23-31; Mark 2:23-28

Joshua recounts Israelite history from Abraham to the present day.  They began as a people who worshipped other gods, Abraham's father and his people.  Abraham was chosen out of futility and darkness to know God and to be covenant partner with Him, all grace.  Following on Joshua tells of the work of God in delivering them from slavery in Egypt and from Pharaoh and his army at the Red Sea, the time in the wilderness, the battles they fought and won there with the Lord's help, and finally the conquest of the Land and the defeat of the peoples who possessed the Land.  In all these things He speaks of the sovereignty, goodness and faithfulness of God in dealing with His people.  All these are gifts from Him, they cannot claim responsibility for anything at all.  They played their part but without Him it would never have been enough.  Ultimately Joshua says a choice has to be made, to believe these things, this version of history, with the Lord as the hero, and therefore to serve Him as God or to choose the vain imaginings from which they were taken or the gods of the peoples they have conquered, but Joshua and his house will choose the Lord who has done these things.

The Pharisees are nit-picking but Jesus' answer to their query would have astounded them.  He is comparing Himself to David, the greatest king of all and the one from whom Messiah would come.  The episode in David's life which Jesus likens to the current situation is when David and his men are on the run from Saul who is bent on killing them and they have no food but eat the bread of the presence from the tabernacle which is meant only for the priests.  David's actions were presumptuous but since it was David it is okay.  For Jesus to make this comparison would have been incredibly offensive to the leaders who were surely completely taken aback when He did this.  He doesn't stop there though does He?  He takes it one step further and says He is the Son of Man.  He has just healed many people among them, they have to make a decision.

Paul makes a simple plea, believe in the one he is proclaiming, Jesus of Nazareth, as Messiah.  It makes no sense to them, this Jesus died on a cross and is no more.  The resurrection isn't persuasive because they are looking for the wrong kind of Messiah, one who will be an earthly king.  Paul's final judgment on them is that they are exactly like their fathers before them, failing to listen and believe the truth.  They are making a choice, a fully-informed choice and they are stiff-necked just as their ancestors.  Those are the words that Paul heard Stephen utter as he was about to be stoned, while Paul stood by and watched, right before he had his own encounter with Jesus.  

26 July 2014

Psalm 55; Joshua 23:1-16; Rom. 15:25-33; Matt. 27:11-23

We skipped forward a good long ways in Joshua since yesterday, about 14 chapters to be precise.  We now have Joshua speaking to the people, giving his valedictory address as he bids them farewell just as Moses had done in Deuteronomy.  The difference is that there is no one to take his place as he had taken Moses' place.  No obvious and anointed leader is prepared to take the mantle and that is not going to be a particularly good thing.  His instructions to be strong and do all the Law, deviating neither right nor left are the same instructions he was given but now they are addressed to the nation.  He is clear that the success they have enjoyed and all the success they will have in the future in the work of driving out these other nations to possess the Land is due to the Lord fighting for them and says they are to cling to Him always.  One of the particular dangers he sees is intermarriage with the nations that will become a snare and a trap to them.  He knew the propensity of the human heart to wander from God and allow other gods to come in.  He knows that if they do, they will perish from the Land.  Prophetic words for them and us.

When Pilate asks if Jesus is king His response is, "You have said it."  He means that Pilate has spoken truly, it makes no difference what Jesus says.  How ludicrous is it that Jesus stands before this man who seemingly has the power of life and death over Him as the king of the Jews.  Pilate doesn't know what to make of the situation but comes up with what he believes is a solution, a choice between Jesus and the insurrectionist Barabbas.  Surely they will come to their senses and see who the real danger is to their own existence.  Insurrection could mean the loss of freedom of worship and other freedoms granted by Rome.  If Barabbas continues to foment rebellion Rome will crack down and they know it.  What Pilate doesn't know is that God is in charge and this will end only in Jesus' crucifixion.  Their hearts are far from Him.

Paul's plan is to go to Jerusalem and then come to Rome later after he has finished his errand of delivering the offerings the Gentile churches of Macedonia and Achaia have collected to provide for those in need in Jerusalem.  He believes that when he comes to Rome, "I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ."  He indeed goes to Rome after Jerusalem but it will take a while to get there and once there he will be a prisoner but does that mean he did not come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ?  He was able to preach and teach while resident among them, he didn't allow his situation to be a hindrance to the work he was given to do.  Where are we allowing it in our lives?  We have been given at least ten talents in the church in America today, we need to put them to use.  

25 July 2014

Psalm 40, 54; Joshua 9:22-10:15; Rom. 15:14-24; Matt. 27:1-10

The Gibeonites response to the questioning by Joshua is to say, we believed that your God was able to do whatever He wants to do.  That is an astounding admission in a world that believed in territorial gods.  As soon as the nations surrounding it, including Jerusalem itself, hear of this pact between the Israelites and Gibeonites, they begin to fear what it may mean for their own kingdoms and so decide to take decisive action against Gibeon.  Why go against Gibeon rather than Israel itself?  One reason, if you notice the identities of the parties, is that Israel refers not to a city or a kingdom but a people as opposed to all the others who are named for the places they inhabit.  We learn here that Gibeon was a large city and the men of the city are warriors.  The combination of the two nations is the threat but the city is deemed to be more important than the wanderers.  They miscalculated.  The Gibeonites, in spite of what we are told about them, knew where the real strength in the partnership was found.  Israel is, for them, the stronger covenant partner, as the Lord was to Israel.  Israel's strength is not in herself, it is in the Lord fighting for the nation as happened this miraculous day when the sun stood still long enough to vanquish her enemies.

When Judas saw that Jesus was condemned he tried to give back the money he had been paid to betray Jesus.  He thought he had set into motion the events necessary for Jesus to "out" Himself and take over as Messiah.  Judas was, I believe, a true believer who was impatient for Jesus to be Messiah, the messiah Judas wanted him to be, the one who would lead the people to overthrow Rome and set up the kingdom in Jerusalem.  God's real interest has always been a people rather than geography.  Who we are matters more than anything else.  We are to be vice-regents, have always been intended to be that since the beginning.  God's kingdom is not limited by any geography or national boundaries, it is the universe.  Nation-building as we understand it in the secular sense is not God's agenda.  Judas, like the king of Jerusalem and his allies, miscalculated and when he realized the magnitude of his error he, like Pilate, tried to rid himself of the guilt for his actions.  Even in this, we see the sovereignty of God in the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy. 

Paul's aim was to break new ground for the Gospel.  He said he didn't want to go anywhere someone had already been because he wanted to lay his own foundations and therefore he hadn't come to Rome because someone else had preached the Gospel there.  He believes now, however, that there is no new ground to break in the area and so plans on going to Spain and his travels would take him through Rome for a brief visit.  Rome herself, the hated occupier of Jerusalem, was a place where the Gospel was flourishing and which, ultimately, Jesus would completely conquer and claim for His kingdom.  God's ways are not our ways.  Trusting in His sovereignty and preaching the Gospel are all we have to do.

24 July 2014

Psalm 50; Joshua 9:3-21; Rom. 15:1-13; Matt. 26:69-75

The people of Gibeon are an interesting lot.  They hear what the Lord and the nation have done to Jericho and Ai and determine to not let the same happen to themselves.  Their plan is to trick the Israelites into believing that the word of the Lord has spread far abroad and that they have come from afar seeking to make peace with this people.  They costume themselves so that it appears they have come from a distant land with worn-out clothing from the journey and dried out food and mention only that they have heard what the Israelites' God did for them in Egypt and in the wilderness wars with the Amorites and Og, king of Bashan.  Does all this deception remind you of Jacob?  The failure here is identified in verse 14, "the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord."  They failed to pray about the matter and Joshua made peace and a covenant with them.  Once the deception is discovered the people murmur against the leaders but, even though the Gibeonites entered into the covenant falsely, Joshua determines that he is bound by it and will keep faith.  The people are, however, reduced to menial labor on behalf of the nation.  They had been told not to enter covenants with the people of the land, this was disobedience to a command from God but Joshua honored his word.

Peter's denials of Jesus are painful to imagine, especially after he had so strongly stated that even if all the others fell away he would not, and especially after Jesus prophesied his failures.  He is here in the courtyard to see what the end of this will be, and he is afraid of an association with Jesus because he fears that he will also be arrested and tried.  He will, but not this night.  Peter is doing his best to hide his identity as a disciple.  He can't hide being a Galileean and having been seen with Jesus but he wants no one to know his true identity, disciple.  Jesus' restoration of Peter and his central place as leader in the apostolic band is all the more evidence of grace.  Joshua made the Gibeonites the cutters of wood and drawers of water for all the congregation, but Jesus made Peter the central figure in the church.  Peter will be the man he always wanted to be.

Jesus came in the form of a man and because He did, the people didn't recognize Him.  Paul himself didn't recognize the one he was looking for in Jesus.  He required a heavenly visit and the proclamation from heaven by Jesus that He was the one Paul was persecuting.  Paul knew what grace looked like, he knew he deserved to die and yet he was given a place of honor, an apostolic mission and call.  For that reason Paul urges the Roman church to be gentle with the failings of their brothers and sisters.  The goal of the community is unity in proclamation and those who proclaim the Gospel best are those most aware of their own weakness and failure, their own need for forgiveness, the recognition of just how great grace truly is.  So long as we continue to deceive ourselves and others about who we really are, we will never receive the grace on offer.

23 July 2014

Psalm 119:49-72; Joshua 8:23-35; Rom. 14:13-23; Matt. 26:57-68

(Apparently the compilers of the lectionary believe the sensibilities of the average reader to be easily offended, they left out verses 23-29 in the reading.  An old cinematic trick, fade out on those parts and fade back with the suggestion that something unseemly happened in the interlude.) 

Did you see the other odd parallel to the life of Moses, the less obvious one in those first verses?  "Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction.^"  Remember back to Exodus 17, before they come to Mt Sinai when they are fighting their first battle (as they are here at Ai because God had given them Jericho without a fight) against the Amalekites and Joshua fought the battle while Aaron and Hur held up Moses' arms.  After that battle the covenant is struck at Sinai and here Joshua renews the covenant by writing on the stones of the altar erected at Mt Ebal a copy of the law of Moses.  They are obeying the Law by offering sacrifices it commands.  Then, the people are divided between two mountains, Ebal and Gerizim, just as they were in Deuteronomy 27 in obedience to the command given in Deuteronomy 11. These little parallels may seem insignificant to us but they would have been obvious signs to the people that Joshua was a leader like Moses, that is the reason those little details make their way into the text.  There is nothing insignificant in God's world, it is full of signs and meaning.  Do we have eyes that look for significance?

A verdict had to be established on the testimony of more than one witness and their testimony had to agree.  We know, because the Gospels tell us, that Jesus indeed said something about destroying and rebuilding the temple in three days but did He actually say, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’?  What He said was if they destroyed the temple He could rebuild it in three days.  The first part of their testimony wasn't true, He wasn't offering to destroy the temple at all.  Jesus, however, doesn't defend himself against this false accusation and allows it to become the spark that ignites the flame.  His statements to the high priest regarding whether He is the Christ and that from now on they will see Him at the right hand of power make clear that He is claiming equality with God and if so, and if it is untrue, it is certainly blasphemy.  Now, they have something for which to convict and crucify Him. 

Is Paul saying that we should abstain from things we have no reason to believe are "unclean" or sinful for us?  I am certain that he isn't suggesting we should allow the conscience of the most "Puritan" among us to dictate what we do but he is saying that we should be careful that these things not cause that other brother or sister to stumble.  Love should be the guiding principle in all that we do and nothing is too small to consider in this regard.  Eating and drinking may be a small thing to us but for that other it might be a great stumbling block and we should be willing to forego our own freedom for the sake of the other when necessary.  Small things, small acts of love or obedience can have great consequences. 

22 July 2014

Psalm 45; Joshua 8:1-22; Rom. 14:1-12; Matt. 26:47-56

There are some interesting similarities between this story of the destruction of the city of Ai with Israel at the Red Sea.  After the problem of devoted things is dealt with the Lord now sends Joshua up against Ai.  The strategy is to send a large group of soldiers around behind the city while Joshua and a force camp in plain sight of the city, like the Lord sent Israel doubling back in front of Pharaoh to entice him to come out against the nation at the Red Sea.  They were to make a show of running, to the wilderness, for safety from the attack coming out of the city and to look as though they were in fear and defeat as had actually happened shortly before.  Once they got to a certain place, the Lord commanded Joshua to raise the javelin in his hand towards the city as a sign to the ambush forces to come against Ai.  Remember what the Lord told Moses to do with his staff at the Red Sea?  Now, however, as opposed to the Red Sea, the people cooperate with God's plan, they get to share in the work with Him.  The city is overrun and the men of Ai see this behind them but, like Israel at the Red Sea there is nowhere to run because the Israelite army is both behind and before them and their god is unable to deliver them. 

Judas offers an impersonal greeting, calling Jesus only rabbi while Jesus responds with the word that must have caused Judas great shame, "Friend."  Judas describes the relationship via title while Jesus couches it in terms of personal friendship.  Can you imagine how that one little word pierced Judas' heart?  After the striking off of the ear of the servant of the high priest Jesus response hearkens back to the temptation in the wilderness to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple, "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?"  It is not necessary for the Father to do so for Jesus to believe but He knows that is not the plan.  Jesus' question regarding why have they come out here against Him in the night rather than when he was teaching in daylight reframes even Judas' original greeting to say He is not treated like a rabbi but rather as a robber.  He is in complete control in the situation even though it looks as though these others are.  How sad that all the disciples fled and left Him alone.  Where was Judas do you think?

A 17^th century saying of Rupertus Meldenius, a German Lutheran theologian, encapsulates Paul's point here to the Romans, "In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity."  Sometimes that is easier said than done.  The first "controversy" Paul addresses here is vegetarianism as opposed to omnivorism.  That seems an easy one to deal with and certainly we would think it easy to agree this is a non-essential but some would actually disagree in our day that it was non-essential but rather a serious ethical issue regarding our relationships with the animals.  I know of others who get their dander up over days esteemed by one over another, people who have gone back to what they call the "Jewish roots" of the faith and reject Sunday worship in favor of Old Testament sabbatical practices and who argue that those who do not see eye to eye with them are pagans, quite literally.  The hardest thing in the Christian world is to determine the categories of essential and non-essential and while we argue the world burns.  We have fallen for the same strategy Joshua used against Ai and we have abandoned Jesus as the disciples have but only because we have allowed ourselves to follow rabbit trails.  Here is a good article to help us sort these issues out and work towards the living into that aphorism.

21 July 2014

Psalm 41, 52; Joshua 7:1-13; Rom. 13:8-14; Matt. 26:36-46

An inauspicious beginning to the conquest of the Land.  It all began with breaking faith with the Lord.  They should have learned a lesson early in breaking faith but we never do.  When there is a one-to-one straightforward correspondence between breaking faith, sin, and punishment for that sin the world is much simpler isn't it?  If we knew that there were to be immediate consequences for sin it would be easier for us to correct and repent but God treats us with more dignity than that.  He allows us to rebel against Him rather than coercing us via carrot and stick methods to obey Him.  Here, the Lord begins the teaching of the people by revealing the value of obedience.  They cannot continue in their sin if they are to conquer the Land.  The sin of a few affected the entire nation.  We don't have the sense of community in the same way they did but when we read the letters to the churches in the book of the Revelation we see that they are addressing the sin of the community.  Jesus prayed for oneness among His followers and Paul taught the theology of the body of Christ.  How do we need to recover that theological emphasis?

Passover is a night of watching or guarding as described in the book of the Exodus.  This night is kept by both God and man.  God watches over Israel and Israel watches for God and what He will do next.  Modern celebrations of the holiday include leaving a chair empty for Elijah should he return in fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi 4 and someone is sent to the door to open it, look out and see if Elijah is coming.  Another rabbinic teaching was and is that of wakefulness.  To fulfill the command to keep it as a night of watching requires wakefulness.  The Passover is ended when someone falls fast asleep, that is when they cannot be wakened by speaking to them.  What are they waiting for?  They are waiting as they did that first Passover night in Egypt for deliverance from bondage, for freedom.  Elijah is important because of Malachi's prophecy, he will be the forerunner to Messiah.  Jesus says Elijah has already come in the form of John the Baptist.  Now that the Passover has ended with the sleeping of the disciples, the time has come for the fulfillment of the hopes of the nation for deliverance.  Time for the Lamb of God, John's appellation for Jesus, to be slain.

Paul picks up on the idea of wakefulness and extends it to the church.  We are to wake from sleep for redemption draws nigh.  Paul, as Jesus has done in His teaching, connects that wakefulness and watching with active obedience to the command to love.  Jesus said that waiting was a time of obedience, doing the work given to us by the master.  Paul says that work is loving our neighbors and also pursuing righteousness, eschewing evil.  The call to the church is to live as always watching for the coming of Jesus, not just one night a year.  We are to be a sign of the kingdom, not simply looking for signs.  The community is meant to be a witness to the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, a garden like Eden in the midst of the world. 

20 July 2014

Psalm 63, 98; Joshua 6:15-27; Acts 22:30-23:11; Mark 2:1-12

This is certainly one of the strangest conquests of a land you will ever see.  For six days the Israelites marched round the city in procession and when they were done retired to their camp.  On the seventh day, they marched round seven times and then were ordered to give a shout of victory with the promise that the city was given to them for destruction.  The people obeyed and the walls fell flat.  There is no explanation for this except God did something.  The only things that escaped destruction were the gold and silver which were the Lord's and were given to the treasury of the Lord and Rahab and whoever else she had in her house with her.  The spies were sent to her and brought out her family to the camp, she was one of them now.  She is one of the first people of peace we see in the Bible, and she ends up in the line of both king David and then, necessarily, Messiah.  She was willing to align herself with God's purpose and plan and was richly rewarded.

In the midst of all His work of healing in Capernaum a paralyzed man is brought by his friends, let down through the roof, and laid before Jesus.  Can't you just see a grin on Jesus' face as he looks up to see this man being lowered down?  His first words are, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  He knows this will arouse questions in the minds of those scribes, experts in the law, who are gathered there and answers their unspoken objections by proposing a typical rabbinic problem,  Which of these is greater than the other?  The question was whether it was easier to heal a man or pronounce forgiveness. Jesus answers His own question by saying I will prove I can forgive sins by healing the man and commands the man to get up, pick up the mat on which he had lain, and go home, which he does.  All, we are told, marveled in amazement.  I would suppose that to mean, even the scribes.  The faith of the friends, which we are told Jesus observed in their act, was rewarded.

I think we have to take Paul at his word concerning not knowing Caiphas was high priest.  At that time the office of high priest tended to switch back and forth between Caiphas and a couple of others and, due to his travels, Paul may not have known who was high priest.  Calling him a whitewashed wall was a bit over the top nonetheless and certainly offensive.  Paul's reply indicates he was genuinely sorry for his words.  He finds his wedge issue in the resurrection to divide his accusers and it worked like magic.  The reality of the resurrection is a dividing wall between the followers and believers in Jesus and the rest of the world today.  The resurrection is something that has to be dealt with one way or another.  Great moral teachers and examples aren't necessarily risen from the dead but that was always the claim of the church, that which caused the rest of the world, both Jew and Gentile, to either accept or reject Him.  It always comes down to faith, are we willing to go that extra mile and believe that which seems impossible or are we staying in the boat where it seems safe?

19 July 2014

Psalm 30, 32; Joshua 6:1-14; Rom. 13:1-7; Matt. 26:26-35

There are two groups of people here who it would be difficult to imagine being part of aren’t there?  The first group is the people of Jericho who are shut up inside the city walls, no one either coming or going.  They are waiting for a siege.  They see this overwhelming group of people outside the city of whom they have heard things that can hardly be believed in the forty years since they left Egypt.  They are in fear and yet, what in the world are these people doing marching around the city blowing their trumpets and carrying the ark on long poles every day?  The second group are the Israelites who have heard that Joshua's plan is to march round Jericho each day for seven days blowing those trumpets.  Doesn't really sound like a plan of conquest does it?  They must have looked a sight walking around the city and then retiring to the camp.  The city had to be suffering after receiving no provisions for a week. 

The disciples probably wondered about Jesus as the people of Israel had wondered about Joshua.  What was He talking about that the bread was His body and the wine His blood of the new covenant?  They were thinking that this was it, the final Passover prior to the fulfillment of not only the prophecy but the hopes for the kingdom being restored and here Jesus was talking about what sounded like death.  He is still talking about the coming of the kingdom but the metaphors and symbols aren't sensible to them.  As they go to the Mount of Olives Jesus tells that something is going to go horribly wrong and Peter, God bless him, stakes his claim to being the most faithful disciple.  No matter what these other weaklings may do, Peter will never leave Jesus.  Jesus prophesies that Peter's betrayal will be the worst of all.  He isn't the man he thinks he is.

In light of so many evil governmental regimes in the world how can Paul possibly say, "there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God"?  If we have learned anything in the first two lessons today we have certainly learned that sometimes God does things or allows things that make absolutely no sense to us at all.  Paul can say these things because he believes in the sovereignty of God as much as any man who ever lived.  He is writing here to the church in Rome, a place he wants to visit and in fact he will visit Rome, as a prisoner, and he will die there because of the governmental authorities.  Along the way, however, he submits to their authority with the same attitude Jesus took to Pilate when He said, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above."  The sovereignty of God in all things means that sometimes we will simply have to believe it to be true even when it looks differently to us.  Trust and obey have to be our mantra in those times.    

18 July 2014

Psalm 31; Joshua 4:19-5:1,10-15; Rom. 12:9-21; Matt. 26:17-25

The encampment of the Israelites on the plain of Jericho would have been enormous.  It would also have caused exactly what we see in the kings of the surrounding nations, fear.  When you realize that the Land is possessed of seven nations at the time, you get a sense of just how formidable a nation the size of Israel would have been to those who stood in the way of their possession of the Land.  Only in a place the size of Egypt could they have realistically incubated to the size they had reached.  As Joshua prepares to move into the land he sees a man with a drawn sword who will not declare himself either foe or ally.  He is the commander of the Lord's army, and it is down to Joshua to decide whether to be foe or ally of this one man who represents the army.  Joshua kneels before him.  Wise move.  Then, the man tells him what Moses heard from the bush, take off your shoes, this is holy ground.  It is the Lord's.

With all the hubbub about Jesus at the time, how excited would someone who knew Him or at least knew of Him, would be when they were told, "The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples."  That announcement, following on the triumphal entry only a few days before when the people hailed Jesus as the fulfillment of their messianic expectations, would surely have raised visions of the ushering in of the messianic age, the restoration of the kingdom and in particular the restoration of Jerusalem.  The disciples would have been truly startled to finally hear Jesus say that His time had come after hearing it had not come so often.  The expectation of the Jewish people at Passover, then and now, is that this will be the time when, in fact, the kingdom is restored.  Everything pointed to this being the moment.  How odd and out of place it would have been, then, to hear Jesus speak of betrayal.  I believe Judas' expectations and also then his disappointment at Jesus' failure to step into the role, led him to this act, to force Jesus to take action.

Paul recognizes that the kingdom is being realized but that it exists in the midst of the kingdom of the world.  The kingdom is being realized in and through us who are citizens of the kingdom of God by virtue of our belief in Jesus as Messiah who has come and who will come again.  We are, in the words of Stanley Hauerwas, resident aliens in the world.  Paul lays out the contours of how to live as resident aliens.  He takes evil in the world for granted and says don't be overcome by it but instead overcome it with good, as Jesus did.  His words assume we understand we will have enemies and there will be evil formed against us as we navigate this life but says we are to be like Jesus, not repaying evil for evil and leaving judgment and vengeance to God.  We, like Joshua, have to decide which side to align ourselves with, God or otherwise.  It is not up to Him to align Himself with our agenda but the other way round.

17 July 2014

Psalm 37:1-18; Joshua 3:14-4:7; Rom. 12:1-8; Matt. 26:1-16

The waters of the Jordan are heaped up but there is more here than just damming the water going on.  The people passed through on dry ground.  The river bed would not be dry simply because the water stopped flowing for a time, it would be a muddy mess.  Can you imagine how long it would have taken for the people to pass through with all their possessions, tents, animals, etc.?  Joshua then commands the tribes to each take a stone and erect a monument here at the entrance to the land that will be here as a memorial to the goodness and faithfulness of God.  Nothing other than a river crossing has happened at this point but Joshua's actions here underscore his faith in what God will do in faithfulness to His covenant promises to the nation.  It is similar to Abraham's actions in erecting an altar when he first came into the Land over five hundred years before in faith that God would fulfill the promise to his seed.

In the midst of Jesus' prophecy concerning the next few days and the intrigue of the priests and Judas to fulfill the prophetic word, we have the little story of the woman with the alabaster flask of ointment.  She comes while Jesus is visiting at the home of Simon the leper (how would you like to be known that way for all eternity?) and pours her ointment over Jesus' head, an incredibly presumptuous thing to do.  It is thought she was a prostitute as they frequently carried such flasks as an enticement and advertisement to men.  For her to pour out this allurement would be tantamount to repentance, leaving behind her former ways.  Jesus' disciples believe this to be a waste of money that could be given to the poor but He says this will be a memorial to her forever.  How amazing that this one act of sacrificial love would stand forever in the knowledge of the church.  We never know how important such a small act in the grand scheme of world history can be.

As we offer ourselves as living sacrifices we use our gifts and talents, our time and our treasure to Him who has given us all things by His grace.  When we do, we never know how remarkably He will use them.  In real estate appraisal terms, only in His service are all these used for their highest and best purpose.  Only He truly knows for what end He gave us these things and when we employ them not for our glory or our own selfish ambitions we find their ultimate aim.  The woman in the Gospel found that when she ceased using her ointment for commerce its value increased.  The rocks that were near the Jordan were simply rocks before the people created the memorial for all time.  We never know how important small things can be.  We don't have to set our store by doing something great, just doing it for His glory.

16 July 2014

Psalm 38; Joshua 3:1-13; Rom. 11:25-36; Matt. 25:31-46

Joshua leads the people to another river, just as they had come to the Red Sea under Moses' leadership.  That time, they had Pharaoh's army behind them, preparing to destroy them from the earth and the Red Sea presented an obstacle that seemed to them insurmountable until God acted to dry up the Sea for them to pass through to safety.  Now, they had the wilderness behind them, where their mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, were buried.  It was a place of relative safety, a place where the Lord had provided for them and where many of them were born and raised these past forty years.  Now, they had to face the fears that lay before them, the fears that had kept them in the wilderness these forty years.  Crossing the Jordan was the first step towards conquering those fears and it required the step of faith not to stand at the river but to step into the river and wait for the Lord to act as He promised in parting these waters.  To move forward required faith and they had to prove they had faith by moving forward.  The next step depended on His faithfulness.

Jesus tells about the great judgment day and the separation He will make on that day.  We know that we enter the covenant by faith but that faith has to have an effect on our lives.  We, like the people Joshua led, have to step out in faith and live according to the faith we have.  The incarnation tells us that faith is meant to be an active thing.  We have been given the gift of life and that life is now to be lived in faith to the glory of God.  Faith calls us to get out of the boat, out of our fears, out of isolation and selfish motives and give and love actively.  Those who are judged as worthy to enter the everlasting kingdom are those who have extended themselves in faith and love.  Those who are not are those who have lived for themselves and have not loved others as themselves.  Faith demands us to step out.  If the Israelites did not take that first step into the river and remain there until God acted they would never have inherited the kingdom He promised, neither will we.

Paul sees a "partial hardening" in his own people, the Jews.  That idea comes from the Exodus doesn't it?  God is described as hardening Pharaoh's heart concerning the Israelites and it is that hardening that kept him from seeing the great deliverance of God.  He failed to recognize God when he saw Him at work.  The Jews of Paul's day and ours experience this as well in failing to recognize Jesus as Messiah.  That partial hardening, Paul says, is what has allowed the Gentiles to come into the covenant in faith.  The hardening is partial in this case because God is faithful to His promises and He has promised much to Israel.  Paul believes God will be faithful to those promises so the hardening isn't permanent and it is partial because some believe.  In spite of his obvious pain at this reality, after eleven chapters of doing serious theology, Paul does what we all must do, turn to doxology, the praise of the one who is inscrutable except for what He chooses to make known.  In the end, praise and thanks are all we have to offer.

15 July 2014

Psalm 26, 28; Joshua 2:15-24; Rom. 11:13-24; Matt. 25:14-30

Wouldn't you want something more easily seen and identified than a scarlet cord as the sign not to kill you and your family?  Such a small thing could be either missed or mistaken, but that was the agreed upon sign that this house was Rahab's house and all who were in it would be saved from the massacre of the city of Jericho.  Do you see the echo of Passover in this obedience?  She and her family were gathered in her house and this insignificant sign meant that they would be safe if these men, these spies, returned and were faithful to their word.  The Israelites, on the night of Passover, had to trust the scarlet blood on the doorposts of their homes for their own safety and now this Gentile prostitute obediently believes and gathers her family to this place of safety in the midst of death.  The spies return with a simple message, “Truly the Lord has given all the land into our hands. And also, all the inhabitants of the land melt away because of us.”  In today's parlance, "Let's roll."

Do you realize that all you have, your gifts, talents, friends, family, house, cars, job, everything, is a gift from God?  Without His provision you would have none of those things.  In this parable, Jesus tells of three servants who were given stewardship over their master's possessions and two are commended for increasing the value of his assets in his absence while one hoarded what was entrusted to him and refused to risk it at any level and was called wicked and slothful by the master.  What are you doing with all the Lord has given you?  Are you investing these things for your own benefit of for the kingdom?  Are you perhaps afraid of Him and therefore doing nothing lest you fail?  Let today be the day you, like Rahab, begin to risk everything for the sake of Him who gives all things.  Come out of selfishness and fear and into faith.

Rahab, a Gentile, was the first person we know of who was grafted into Israel after the covenant at Sinai when the nation was truly constituted.  She was grafted in by faith, the faith that led her to harbor these Israelite spies, the faith in their God that led her to confess their fear, and the faith to hang that scarlet cord in the window of her home.  Paul writes with obvious love for his fellow Israelites who have rejected Messiah, Jesus.  He knows that once he was one of them not only in the covenant but also in rejection.  He knows too that covenants with God are irrevocable and everlasting and that the Gentiles are coming in as part of the same covenant and they are coming through faith in God who sent His Son for redemption of the world.  His words are to not become proud and to take nothing for granted.  God's severity in rejecting those covenant partners who will not believe has become kindness to the Gentiles but both His severity and His merciful lovingkindness must always be borne in tension.  Let us give thanks to the One who has loved us enough to save us eternally.

14 July 2014

Psalm 25; Joshua 2:1-14; Rom. 11:1-12; Matt. 25:1-13

If we decided to plant a church somewhere and sent out a team to do the evaluation of the city and they came back and their story began by noting they spent several days at the home of a prostitute from whom they garnered much of their information, what would our reaction be?  That is exactly what Joshua's spies did.  The previous spies had gone to and fro in the land and brought back some of the produce of the land and a bad report about the size of the people but we aren't told they talked with anyone.  These spies hear a remarkable story.  What they learn is that these people had heard about the Israelites for forty years and had lived in fear and dread of their coming to Jericho.  They have lived in the wilderness forty years for fear of an enemy that was itself living in fear of them.  The people of Jericho knew God was with the Israelites, "we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt…for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath."  They believed in the Lord more than the Israelites.  Where are you paralyzed by fear from doing what the Lord has called you to do?

It was the custom of the time that a bridegroom would come, late in the night, to the home of the bride who was expecting him.  The attendants of the bride would greet the groom and his friends and carry lamps to light the way for he and his "groomsmen" to the home of the bride.  At their approach the doors would be opened for them and the feast would begin.  Some of the bridal party were wise, saving some of their oil in case of delay, while others were not and, predictably, their oil ran out prior to the coming of the groom and his friends.  There was no way to know how long the delay would be so the wise virgins refused to share their oil with the others.  The result was that when the groom came the foolish virgins were out replenishing their oil and could not go in to the banquet.  Preparation is key and we are always to be watching for coming of Christ, whether in glory or simply in calling us to some particular work.

Paul says that Israel has temporarily missed the salvation promised to it but that by no means has the nation been rejected.  The covenant is an everlasting covenant and will not be nullified by sin.  Rather, the trespass of the people of Israel, Paul's people, has allowed an opening for Gentiles to be brought into the covenant and receive salvation through grace, not works.  Sometimes fear is the issue and sometimes pride is the issue.  We must guard against either of these in our lives and in the church.  There are churches who believe themselves to be the only true Christians, they have truth the rest of the church lacks and has lacked down the centuries.  There are other churches that have, in fear of reason or science or some other worldly  enemy, capitulated in fear.  Strength and courage must always be balanced by humility.

13 July 2014

Psalm 148, 149, 150; Joshua 1:1-18; Acts 21:3-15; Mark 1:21-27

Can you imagine hearing the promises God made to Joshua?  I will give you everywhere your foot treads. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.  Why then does God have to tell him so many times to be strong and courageous?  It is because He always leaves work for us to do.  He isn't going to destroy the peoples of the land in advance, He is going to use the nation to do that work but He will empower them for the work.  They will have reason to fear but they are to always fall back on His promises, the words He spoke to Joshua, to overcome their fears.  The greatest promise is that He will not leave or forsake them.  When he tells the people these things they assent to God's choice of Joshua as leader and I love their statement, "Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you."  That is a cringe-worthy statement if I have ever heard one.  They also admonish him to be strong and courageous and their prayer is that God will be with him as He was with Moses.  That should be the prayer of all God's people for all God's leaders.

I love Mark partly because of the word immediately.  He had a huge sense of urgency in all he wrote, "immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue", "immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit."  If I wrote that way you would all get our your imaginary editing pencils and strike through it in both places.  The people have been amazed at Jesus' teaching and now, with the authority with which He commands the demonic presence in the man and its obedience, they are more amazed and in awe of Him.  Jesus knew the fullness of the promise the Lord made to Joshua and He walked in faith and power all the days of His life.  Do we walk in the power of God in this way?  We should proclaim the truth in confidence and we need fear no weapon formed against us. 

Once at Tyre and then a couple of days later, at Caesarea, Paul is warned not to go to Jerusalem because of what will happen to him there at the hands of the Jews.  Paul, however, will not be dissuaded from continuing His journey there.  Jesus, likewise, knew what was going to happen in Jerusalem at the Passover, and yet, in obedience He went.  He knew his own destiny better than any man who ever lived and accepted His fate not only willingly but for the glory of God.  Paul, remember, was told way back in the beginning of his walk "how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” He, too, walked fearlessly even though he knew it wouldn't end well.  What have we to fear?  Be strong and courageous, Jesus promised He would be with us, even to the end of the age, as we go about keeping the Great Commission.

12 July 2014

Psalm 20, 21; Deut. 34:1-12; Rom. 10:14-21; Matt. 24:32-51

We live here in the mountains and I frequently get up on top of mountains with the possibility of seeing long distances and when I do I think about Moses on top of Pisgah, seeing the land that will be the nation's inheritance.  I can't imagine what it would have felt like to have spent forty years tending my father-in-law's sheep, another forty trying to lead the people and being maligned and challenged all along the way and then seeing what might have been but for the bad report of the spies and my own sin.  In death the people mourn the loss of this leader of whom it is written, " there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel."  Moses may have spent all those years struggling to lead them and they spent forty years kicking against the goads, but they revered him in the end.

The wise servant is the one who is simply doing what he was told to do.  He wasn't interested in the details of the return of the master, he had a job to do and was engaged in that work. During its history the church has sometimes been so preoccupied with the end times and looking for the signs of the end that it loses its focus on ministry.  I have probably had more requests to study the book of the Revelation than all the other books of the Bible combined and yet only here at the last of His life does Jesus mention much about these things and then only in relatively vague but reassuring terms.  The reassurance is that you aren't going to miss seeing these things, it is as obvious as the fig tree sprouting leaves, or in our case the dogwoods, when you see the signs you will absolutely know what you're seeing.  The only thing to do is keep spreading the Gospel, not concern ourselves with signs of the end.

Is it enough simply to pray for our friends, neighbors and relatives?  At some point being nice isn't enough either, we have to preach the Gospel, they need to hear the word of Christ.  The preaching of the Gospel is an important thing but we tend to leave it to preachers and those who have they mythical "gift of evangelism."  We are all called to be preachers of the Gospel, not just those who have been to seminary.  Seminary has a place and purpose but all of us who have Christ Jesus as our Savior also have the ability to preach the Gospel.  The liturgical churches, especially, should have people who are well-equipped to share, we say each week the Nicene Creed, the outline of the faith of the church.  The preaching is simply a matter of fleshing out the outline.  We need not fear, it is the work He has given us to do and He has also given us the Holy Spirit to help us.  Ask Him today for the one thing lacking, opportunity.

11 July 2014

Psalm 16, 17; Deut. 31:7-13,24-32:4; Rom 10:1-13; Matt. 24:15-31

Moses calls Joshua and in front of everyone passes the torch of leadership with the admonition most well-known from the first chapter of the book of Joshua, "Be strong and courageous."  When I was ordained into ministry I was given a Bible that had Joshua 1.9 written in it and that charge was given me by my bishop.  As an assistant I was like Joshua, always ready to take the risk and charge ahead.  I learned what Joshua certainly had to learn, it is always easier to be bold and courageous when your boldness and courage don't have such a steep price.  As a leader you have to count the cost and take into consideration what could happen if things went really badly.  I have certainly been there and done that in my career in ministry and it will cause you to be a bit gun-shy regarding risk.  Moses is a bit more cynical regarding the ability of the people to be faithful and not rebellious, he has no hope for the future of the nation with respect to the Law.  He has seen too much.  Finally, he extols the Lord who is faithful and who has done more than anyone could have asked or expected.  He has faith that no matter what the people do, the Lord will remain faithful to His Word.

Jesus is preparing the disciples, and us, for life without His bodily presence.  The world is in chaos even if we have a sense that it is not.  The strife over and in Jerusalem has been incredibly common down the centuries since it was established as the city of God.  The temple has been overthrown numerous times and now it is a shrine to a false god, the god of Islam.  There has been not peace but détente at one level or another there since Jesus' death.  He also, however, speaks of signs in the heavens that will accompany His coming again, along with false prophets and false claimants to the Messianic throne.  We are to watch for these signs but not as a preoccupation.  Over and again through the Gospels Jesus tells the disciples in parables that so long as we live we are to be about the work of extending and tending the Master's kingdom.  We are to be found, not watching for signs, but doing the work we have been given to do.  This passage should give us comfort that if we are doing so we won't be misled and we won't miss the coming of the kingdom.

When Paul says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved does he intend that to mean that we pray the sinners prayer and keep the matter private?  Clearly Paul could never mean something so quiet and private by this statement.  The man was imprisoned and ultimately died because He confessed that truth with his lips and believed it in his heart.  Those truths are meant to completely re-orient our lives.  The Israelites could have said to one another that God was Lord there in Egypt but the problem was that the Lord sent Moses to request that Pharaoh give them leave to go out for three days to worship Him.  They could have, likewise, believed in their hearts that He was able to deliver them, but they had to take action on their beliefs.  We are to do the same regarding the Gospel.  It is meant to be our life not just a fond hope for the afterlife.  

10 July 2014

Psalm 18:1-20; Deut. 3:18-28; Rom. 9:19-33; Matt. 24:1-14

Moses says it was on account of the people that he was not allowed to enter the Land.  That sounds a bit like Genesis 3 doesn't it?  It isn't strictly true that he was barred from leading them into the Land because of anything they did, it was for his own sin of striking the rock and speaking presumptuously about "we" bringing water forth from it.  He was frustrated with the people constantly questioning his leadership but it was for his own actions that he was being punished.  It may have felt good to say it was because of the people but Moses had to know that he was fudging the truth here just as Adam had done when he blamed Eve for his own action in taking and eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Moses gave in to the temptation to do things his own way rather than God's way.  The Lord isn't always specific about how to do things but when He is, we must obey if we are to see the full blessing.  Because Moses didn't, he had only a bittersweet look at the Land before he died.

Jesus foretells the end.  The first thing that will happen is the destruction of the temple which will occur during the lifetime of many of those who heard this prediction.  Whatever of earth by which you put your store and hope will be overturned eventually.  The destruction of the temple was a devastating blow to the faith and hope of many and the possession of the temple mount by the Muslims to this day is a dagger in the heart of those who long for the restoration of the nation.  The temple was the symbol of God's promise and His presence.  To speak against it was blasphemy and to lose it was to lose hope.  Jesus says that ultimately some will fall away on account of persecution and false prophets and that perseverance in truth is ultimately the fate of only some.  Truth matters and we have to hold fast to truth if we are to greet the kingdom with joy.

The law became a stumbling block to the goal of righteousness and peace with God.  It was given after peace was established and celebrated, that happened in Exodus 19 when the elders went up the mountain and feasted in the presence of God.  The Law was given in the next chapter.  The pattern for that is in creation itself where all things are complete in the creation of man and the first thing God does before putting man to work is celebrate what He has done in the Sabbath day of rest.  All is pursued by faith or it is wrongly sought, it is a righteousness of our own devising.  Moses had to have faith not to strike the rock this time and he failed the test of faith.  We are given a gift, grace, and now we pursue righteousness from knowing we have received grace and love, not as an end unto itself that makes us fit for salvation.  Election means that God is sovereign over all things, that we don't earn salvation or merit it.  

9 July 2014

Psalm 119:1-24; Deut. 1:1-18; Rom. 9:1-18; Matt. 23:27-39

Moses gives his valedictory address to the people.  He has already seen the land but also knows he won't enter the Land with them.  His speech begins at Horeb with the giving of the Law and God's dictate to move out and go and possess the land.  He recounts that he tells the Lord he can't bear the nation, they are "as numerous as the stars of heaven."  The promise to Abram of such descendants has been fulfilled and now all that remained was for those descendants to possess the land of the promise.  His story is of the visit and counsel of his father-in-law, Jethro, that the work of judging between the people, explaining the application of God's law in their disputes with one another, was too much for one man to do.  He reminds them that they presented him with leaders they had chosen to help with the work, to work under and with Moses in this task.  There has always been an organization since that time, they have been accustomed to looking not only to Moses but to these others, they need not fear his absence.

The hypocrisy of the leaders is such that they put on a good front, a show of righteousness, but they are full of dead men's bones, like the tombs that are whitewashed so that the pilgrims at the festival don't think too much about death.  They are also heirs of the  people who refused to accept the prophets and therefore who have rejected God's words of rebuke.  They are exactly like their fathers in that they are even now rejecting God's words to them to repent and believe.  They will soon act as their fathers have acted in persecuting and murdering the prophet sent to speak for God.  Nonetheless, Jesus mourns for the city and the people of God, the very ones who have rejected the prophets, are now rejecting Him, and will soon demand His crucifixion.  God's love knows no bounds for His covenant people.

Paul understands election as completely an act of God.  He points to Jacob and Esau as a perfect example of this process.  Before the children were born there was a prophecy concerning them that the elder would serve the younger.  God had chosen Jacob for some unknown reason to be the line through which the promise to his grandfather, Abraham, would be realized.  Nowhere do we see any human reason we might have for this choice.  Jacob was well named as the deceiver or supplanter.  Paul points to election of this one as an irrevocable matter, Israel is elect because God chose this people and that election is not compromised by the inclusion of Gentiles into the covenant because we come through Israel in Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah.  It is all a mysterious work of God.

8 July 2014

Psalm 5, 6; Num. 35:1-3,9-15,30-34; Rom. 8:31-39; Matt. 23:13-26

There are certain areas that are to be set aside for particular reasons in the land.  First, the Levites are to have their own towns.  They have been taken from the people as a tithe to the Lord so each tribe is to tithe a portion of their land to these men so that they will have some economic independence and will be among each of the tribes, not all clustered in Jerusalem.  The second set aside of land is the establishment of cities of refuge where someone who is a manslayer, not a murderer, may seek refuge.  Refuge from whom?  The kin of a slain person had a legal right to avenge the death of their relative who was killed.  These cities were places an accidental manslayer could be safe from the avenger.  Lastly, we get the death penalty for those who murder.  The law reinforces how precious life is and if anyone willingly and willfully takes a life the penalty is clearly death.  This makes me uncomfortable because it is a big issue to enforce this penalty.  The law requires several witnesses before it can be done and we have very little evidence historically that such penalties were carried out very often.  I also tend to think back to Cain and the Lord's mercy on him for murdering his brother and I have to try and reconcile these two things with one another.  All in all, I think it best that we be extremely careful in these matters rather than allowing blood lust to overtake us.

The woes pronounced on the scribes and Pharisees are based on their observance of the law.  They are straining at gnats and swallowing camels.  Their attention is to the wrong things, the easy things in some ways because they are all performance-based, easily measured things.  They have their priorities all wrong and their values are not God's values.  God's values are things like justice and mercy and the leaders are instead focused on their tithing of their spices.  The question is whether God is interested in these things primarily or secondarily.  Formation of character and becoming like Him in large ways needs to be first rather than second.  I know and have known people all my life who don't drink alcohol, their language never includes curse words or the word hate, but who are filled with envy and hatred, who are judgmental and unloving.  We must not emulate their examples.

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.  We know that because He rose again from the dead, even death, the final enemy, cannot separate us from God.  Knowing we have nothing to fear and that He is our refuge and strength, can we not then live with courage and faith?  He has conquered all enemies though we do not yet see them under His feet,  In this life we will have enemies, we may suffer persecution for His Name's sake as He promised, but the victory is won.  What He has done is of incalculable, because it is eternal, benefit.  We have a land of promise that will have no need of cities of refuge or the death penalty.  We can know God's priorities and values by looking at the man dying on the cross.  We are called to take up our own crosses and follow Him and that requires faith.

7 July 2014

Psalm 1, 2, 3; Num. 32:1-6,16-27; Rom. 8:26-30; Matt. 23:1-12

It seems to me that the Reubenites and Gadites chose what they could see over what God promised.  They saw that the land of Jazer and Gilead was a good place for livestock and determined it wouldn't be any better than this in the promised land, over on the other side of the Jordan.  They rejected God's promise and provision because they didn't believe it would be better than what they were currently experiencing.  Moses certainly flares up against them in his initial response, "Shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here?"  The tribes agree that they will help the rest conquer and possess the land but first let us set up cities and build walls and houses for our wives and little ones.  Moses agrees that this will be a workable solution but they have to promise not to return until the conquest is complete.  Sometimes you have to let people do what they are determined to do, even if it means settling for less than God's best but I wonder how often we settle for less because we think we know what is best for us.

The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.  What is Moses' seat?  They were teachers of the Law, experts in it the same way Moses was an expert.  Jesus affirms the teaching of their lips with respect to the Law.  He doesn't say they are false teachers but He does say they fail to keep what they teach so the people are to follow their teaching but not their lives.  Further, they are not to have rabbis, fathers, and instructors because it raises those people to a place of honor when all are brothers.  We are equally God's children, He doesn't have favorites who know things others cannot know and He doesn't recognize human places of honor.  I, as a pastor, am as accountable to the members of the church for my teaching and my life as anyone else is accountable.  If I go astray in some way it is proper to be corrected.  When we create a hierarchy we often lose sight of the reality that we are all sheep in the end.

All things work together for good or the good.  Seems simple and it is often repeated but is it really as simple as we make it.  The word good is the stumbling block in our interpretation.  We have opinions about what is good but do we really "know" what is good or are all our ideas about good contingent ideas.  What might be a good job situation today might actually be the worst thing that ever happens to me.  Good might be winning the lottery but it might ruin important relationships in my life as well.  Good means one thing, that something is exactly the way God intends it to be.  We settle for less when make our own value judgments about things.  Trusting in the sovereignty of God in all things is more important than my judgment on what is good.  

6 July 2014

Psalm 146, 147; Num. 27:12-23; Acts 19:11-20; Mark 1:14-20

Moses is told to go up on the mountain and look out at the Land because he is going to die soon and the Lord wanted him to see the Land even though he wouldn't be leading the people into it to possess it.  His final desire is that the Lord appoint someone to lead in his stead.  Joshua will be that man but here we see that Moses was distinct from Joshua in several ways.  Whereas Moses anointed Aaron and his sons, and was therefore God's leader over them, the priest Eleazar will now anoint Joshua as leader.  Moses went to the tent of meeting to speak directly with God as with a man, face to face.  Joshua will go to Eleazar who will consult the Urim in the breastplate of his vestments and give the word to Joshua who will then give it to the people.  There will not be a leader like Moses again for a very long time in the nation.  As Christians we know he is not irreplaceable.  We have one who leads as a shepherd who never failed to honor God as holy and who is without sin.  We have a leader who goes before us in resurrection and to the throne.

What is to be the reaction to the kingdom of God coming near?  Repentance and belief are what Jesus called for in Galilee.  We see the picture of what that looks like in the next verses, with the call of the fishermen.  Repentance means to turn away from the direction you were going and go in a different direction.  These men had life mapped out for themselves.  They would work with their fathers until the fathers couldn't work any longer and they would then take over the fishing business and pass it on to their own sons later.  Jesus changed their lives forever.  They knew that the kingdom was something that you forsake everything else to have.  The kingdom of God is not added to your existing life, it is your life or you misunderstood the call.  Does it mean you have no other job?  No, but everything else is secondary to the kingdom.  The luster of all else is now no more than fool's gold.

The power of God is seen in Ephesus when the Jewish exorcists, the sons of Sceva, get schooled by a demon.  They see the power of God in the invocation of the name of Jesus by Paul.  They have seen that even handkerchiefs and aprons he touched were given to the sick and they were healed.  They believe that this is the magical incantation to end all others and try using it to heal a demon-possessed man and end up fleeing bleeding and naked.  They weren't standing in the power of Jesus because they weren't in Him.  The people see that the power of God isn't in the word, Jesus, it is in the spirit possessed by those who know Jesus.  The books they bring out are worth a year's wages for 139 men, can you imagine that?  That is repentance and belief.

5 July 2014

Psalm 137, 144; Num. 24:12-25; Rom. 8:18-25; Matt. 22:23-40

Balaam couldn’t leave it at blessing Israel.  He had to finish by cursing his own king and the other nations round about.  Israel would triumph gloriously over all these kings, would decimate the nations and have the blessing of God.  Wouldn't you think then that Balaam would have a decent reputation and name in Israel?  He doesn't.  If you look forward to Numbers 31 you will see that he was somehow involved in a sad incident in Israel's history, inciting them to commit adultery with the Baal of Peor by sending Moabite women to marry them and lead them astray.  We see him killed in that same chapter.  He is also mentioned in 1 Peter, Jude and Revelation as a wicked prophet for hire who was despised by the nation.  Apparently his fear of the Lord didn't last much longer than this scene we have seen this week.

Both church "parties", the Sadducees and the Pharisees come to test Jesus in their own ways.  The Sadducees don't believe in the resurrection from the dead (to share a cringe-worthy pun, that's why they're so sad you see) so they pose the question regarding who is married to the woman in the resurrection when she was married to all these brothers in this life.  They have the resurrection wrong, this life isn't an analog for the next in every way.  We won't be given the command to be fruitful and multiply in that life so the issue of marriage is a moot point.  Further, to use the present tense of the verb and say that God is God of three men long dead is to be a complete literalist with respect to the Bible.  Jesus affirms even the verb tense as significant and also important to understanding the truth of the Word.  He has a higher view of Scripture than even the Pharisees whom Matthew tells us are astounded by Jesus' shutting up the Sadducees.  Their question is one that was normal at the time, attempting to reduce the 613 laws to their essence.  Jesus says we have two essential duties, love God with all your being, specifically with your heart, emotionally, with your soul, the essence of your being, and your mind, the intellect.  Also, whatever love you have remaining is to be expended in loving your neighbor as you love yourself, in other words, those created in the image of God.  All the rest of the laws hang on these two.

What will it look like when the earth is renewed and there is no sin, God's people are fully revealed in the glory He intended for us to have?  The earth itself, Paul says, groans in anticipation of that day.  The earth too participated in the fall because of human sin.  It no longer fully cooperates with our stewardship activities.  The planet has remarkable properties of recovery and yet I wonder how long it can continue to revive and regenerate itself with all the damage we do to it.  He loved not only those created in His image but also the world He created and gave it to us as a gift.  Do we long with all our hearts to see both God and those created in His image as well as the earth as He saw it that first day when He said it was all very good?