Is God "pro war"?
Is He against humanity other than His chosen? In both cases the answer is no but we are
both pro war and against God. He works
with what He has to work with and we will have that ultimate war at all
costs. He does not declare war, His
enemies are coming against Him and His people, not the other way round. They are coming against Jerusalem and He will
not allow them to triumph over His will, His chosen or His creation. Ultimately, God acts to defend and uphold His
glory and righteousness. Since Genesis
9, when He hung His battle bow in the clouds, He is not at war with us. We, His representatives on earth as His
chosen, are in a battle but as Jesus says, we are to love our enemies, those
who choose to be our enemies, and as Paul wrote, our war is not with flesh and
blood. We, therefore, need to sharpen
our spiritual weapons for the spiritual battle.
These first verses from the reading clarify the
parable. The words faithful and
dishonest point back to the parable as does the idea of being trustworthy with a
stewardship of someone else's assets. True
riches are what should entice us, not the things of earth. There is a stewardship interest in the
Gospel. Can we be trusted with God's
self-disclosure, His Name, His most important asset? Do we value the right things? The Pharisees, we are told, were lovers of
money and they laughed at this teaching.
It would seem, wouldn't it, that Luke is telling us that they were
prosperity preachers, believing that their good works and righteousness got
them stuff? Jesus slams them as
unrighteous, unjustified before God, and says that the world's value system is
not God's (see Isaiah 55). What in the
world is that verse about divorce and remarriage doing here? God's will is clear, one man, one woman, for
a lifetime. Are we willing to fight for
that?
We do have a value problem.
Some parts of the church exalt the rich man and some parts exalt the
poor man. James says, show no
partiality. It would seem that the
church to whom he wrote had a problem with valuing wealth, as some believers in
the prosperity Gospel would do. Poverty,
in those circles is a sign of God's disfavor, there must be something wrong in
your relationship with God that causes him to withhold the blessings that are
yours by right if you are a child of the king.
In other circles, God has a preference for the poor. Mary, the mother of Jesus, certainly gives
license to that idea when she said, "He hath filled the hungry with good
things; and the rich he hath sent empty away." In all things, it comes down to what is it
that satisfies you. Are you seeking that
which is true food and drink or are you satisfied with something less? With
people, we are to make no distinction between rich and poor, Jew and Greek,
male or female, etc, we are all created in the image of God. That which God values along with His Name is
His image. People are more important
than anything else on earth.
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