30 September 2015

Psalm 101, 109; 2 Kings 18:9-25; 1 Cor. 8:1-13; Matt. 7:13-21

Ten years after the northern kingdom of Israel/Samaria fell to one Assyrian king, another Assyrian king, Sennacherib, moved to conquer the southern kingdom of Judah and took the fortified cities.  Hezekiah offered terms, to do whatever the king imposed on him.  Sadly, in order to pay the demands of the Assyrian king, Hezekiah took the silver from the temple treasuries and stripped the gold from the doors of the temple, work he had done in the earliest years of his kingship.  Then, he worked behind the scenes with the Egyptians for protection against the Assyrian.  This came to the attention of the Assyrian king who sent emissaries to confront this treacherous alliance though it isn’t certain that they “knew” this had happened.  Their message is plain, don’t trust in the Egyptians, they are no longer the formidable power in the region, and don’t trust in your God, look at where that has gotten you so far, the temple ruined and bare.  It is a sad moment in history to hear this message and know it is true.  However, have they trusted in the Lord?

Have we made the way too easy?  In making the Christian life about nothing other than a confession of belief I am concerned that we have made it something other than what Jesus said it was.  He speaks of few finding and following the way, that fruit matters and that there will be some who think they are in the kingdom when in fact He never knew them at all.  Jesus never makes the proposal that if someone gives lip service to following Him that is good enough.  He always called for complete commitment to the way of the Lord.  Doing is a key component of discipleship, not just knowing the will of God. The Great Commission was simple, we weren’t supposed to just baptize people, we were given the task of teaching them to “obey” everything He commanded.  Sometimes I think we worry too much theologically about the mechanics of salvation and too little about the life that is intended to flow from redemption.

Paul’s argument re the eating of food sacrificed to idols is to agree with those who say that an idol is not a god, it is nothing at all.  There is but one true God and one lord, there are not other gods who compete for supremacy with Him, they are simply idols.  The problem, however, is that this knowledge should not lead us to abuse our freedom in knowing this truth.  Some do not understand this reality and they believe that there are multiple gods and if they see one who knows the truth eating in the temple of another god, they will presume that this is an acceptable practice and return to the worship of idols.  We have to be careful that we don’t allow our freedom that comes from knowing the truth to cause another to stumble.  Loving our neighbor means sometimes choosing to have our own freedom circumscribed.  Jesus could have done a great many things that He didn’t do.  He did only what the Father showed Him to do.  We need to do the same, prayerfulness in all things is necessary.

29 September 2015

Psalm 97, 99; 2 Chron. 29:1-3,30:1-27; 1 Cor. 7:32-40; Matt. 7:1-12

When Hezekiah restored the temple he also chose to call together the entire nation.  He sent out letters to both the northern and southern kingdoms to call them to worship for Passover.  They had to postpone its celebration for a month because the priests had not purified themselves to serve at the right time.  The entire nation was given a chance to prepare themselves for the celebration.  Hezekiah was calling them to come based on the original dedication of the temple when Solomon prayed that when the people were in exile or in some other extremis, they would turn back and pray, that the Lord would hear, redeem and restore them.  Unfortunately, many laughed the messengers to scorn in the matter but some came and joined the people of Judah.  Hezekiah continued breaking rules by depending on the mercy of God that the heart’s desire to celebrate the Passover would count as cleansing and the blood thrown on the people would further do the work of preparation.  (Sound familiar.)  The Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people, rules were less important than the heart.  It was certainly a Passover for the ages. 

Who is Jesus talking about not judging?  He continually says “your brother” in this passage. We are first to judge ourselves, to examine our lives, openly and honestly and when we have done this, we can help our brother with his sin.  If I fail to deal with my sin and focus only on my brother’s sin, I will lose perspective and be unable to deal lovingly with him.  CS Lewis gained an appreciation for loving the sinner and hating the sin when he realized he constantly did the same in himself.  When we turn our gaze inward we lose the idea of judging our brothers and sisters and we, instead, can act toward them in love and compassion.  Verse 6 turns away from the kind of judgment Jesus is speaking of, among brothers, to outsiders, dogs and pigs, which is itself a judgment.  After all these teachings, Jesus teaches that the kingdom is open to those who ask, seek and knock, but it is only for those who have heeded the prior teachings and who are purifying themselves for the encounter. 

Paul here is giving opinion not law.  He is clear that this is his judgment on matters of marriage, not some principle that must be followed.  In all this writing he is trying to say, keep your passions under control if you can in order that you may give your undivided attention to the Lord.  Marriage, like many other things in our lives, causes us to be only partially devoted to the Lord because we are also devoted to one another.  Clearly, God has always intended marriage to be the ideal.  The first commandment was to be fruitful and multiply and this was linked, in Genesis, with the idea of a man leaving his parents and cleaving to his wife.  Paul’s thoughts here are completely driven by being prepared for the coming of the kingdom.  His preoccupation is the same as John the Baptist’s, to prepare a people for the day of judgment.  If we thought Jesus was returning today, would we get married or do a great many other things?  Preparation for an encounter with God requires an undivided mind but He also doesn’t want us to sin by passion that He has provided a channel for in marriage. 

28 September 2015

Psalm 89:1-18; 2 Kings 17:24-41; 1 Cor. 7:25-31; Matt. 6:25-34

When the Assyrians re-settle the land of Israel, they do not fear the Lord and so He sends judgment among them in the form of lions who kill them.  This causes the people and the king to fear “the god of the land.”  They know that this is the work of a god but they believe in a god too small, a god only of a region or territory.  The king asks that priests from Israel be sent to teach the people the law of the god of the land.  The priests apparently leave out the first commandment, they are to have no other gods before Yahweh, as they practice many religions in addition to the worship of Yahweh.  It would seem they didn’t teach the law so much as they taught religious practices.  Apparently, things settled down after that but there was some knowledge of the Lord in that place, although it was incomplete.  They feared the Lord and served other gods.  The priests had their chance and blew it.

What would it look like if we really took Jesus seriously when He said, “do not be anxious about your life…”?  What percentage of our time is spent being anxious about our lives?  In that first reading, it would seem that the people who re-settled the land were constantly doing religious things. There must have been altars all over the place. The reason for all this was to implore the gods to give them stuff.  They couldn’t depend on the gods to provide rain and fertility or peace and prosperity, there was no covenant, they had to practice religion in the hopes the gods would be appeased and do these things.  Israel, and we, have a covenant with God that He will do these things, we can trust Him.  That is exactly what Jesus is saying here, don’t be like other people, seek the kingdom of God and all these things will be provided to you.  Seeking the kingdom and the righteousness of God is all we have to do.  If we did, what would our lives look like?  What witness would that be to the world around us?

Paul conditions his thoughts on remaining single on “this present distress.”  In the circumstances, that persecution is coming to those who profess Jesus as Messiah and Lord, and He is coming soon. Marriage adds burdens that keep you from seeking the kingdom when you most need to do so.  The concerns of our lives call us from that primary thing of seeking the kingdom of God.  Paul is convinced that this present form of the world is passing away so he asks, why conform to its pattern?  Contrast this to Jeremiah’s words in his prophecy that the people who are exiled in Babylon are to settle, to give their children in marriage, and live normal lives in that place because they are going to be there a long time.  Was Paul wrong about these things because he was wrong that the world was passing away?  No, he goes back to Jesus’ words in our Gospel reading to keep first things first.  If we do that, we teach what the priests of Israel failed to teach the Assyrians in the land, the proper fear of the Lord as the only God, exposing idols as idols.

27 September 2015

Psalm 66, 67; 2 Kings 17:1-18; Acts 9:36-43; Luke 5:1-11

The northern kingdom, Israel/Samaria, comes to an end under the reign of Hoshea.  Hoshea essentially ruled under the authority of the king of Assyria.  In return for payment of tribute, he was allowed to keep his position as king of Israel until he decided to reach out to the king of Egypt and stop paying the tribute to Assyria.  The Assyrian king chose to show who was actually king and imprisoned Hoshea and besieged the land for three years prior to taking over entirely. The chronicler gives the litany we expect to hear of the sins of the people which caused the Lord to bring judgment against the nation.  The worshiped the gods of the surrounding nations, forsaking the One who brought them up from Egypt and gave them the land.  They set up idol worship of the Baals, the Asherah poles, they made golden calves (what was the obsession with golden calves?) and not only did they do these things, they refused to hear and repent when the Lord sent prophets to them.  We are familiar with all these things but then we read, “And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings…”  When we begin worshipping false gods, there is no end to the depravity we are willing to commit, we lose touch with the notion of being created in the image of God and filled with His breath of life.

Peter and the others have fished all night and caught nothing at all.  They are now washing their nets so that the next evening they can go out and do it all again.  When you’ve toiled for nothing at all the work of cleaning and prepping is all the more difficult and into this comes Jesus to say, take me out a little ways in the boat so that I can teach more effectively.  When Jesus had finished teaching, He tells Peter to go further out, into the deep water, and let down his nets for a catch.  Peter, probably feeling incredibly weary after a long night and knowing that if he obeys in letting down his nets he will also have to clean them again, and with little expectation of success, lets down the nets into the deep water, which will also mean a lot of hauling of nets back up.  Incredibly, they caught so many fish that the nets were in danger of breaking and when they got the catch on board, both boats were sinking.  Peter saw in this something holy, something fearful, something like Isaiah saw and he reacted similarly, “Go away from me Lord, I am a sinful man.”  At that, Jesus called and, based on what he had seen, Peter proved he really believed and followed.  There was something more important than fishing.

Tabitha or Dorcas, was truly a disciple and a saint, she was full of good works and charity.  Why did the disciples implore Peter to come to them without delay?  Tabitha had already died and they had already begun the work of preparation for her death.  Did they believe Peter could resurrect her from the dead?  When he came, out of respect for this extraordinary woman, they began to show him all she had done, the tunics she had woven for the widows in that place.  Peter, moved to pray, even in this hopeless situation, apparently received word from the Lord that he was to speak life, in words very similar to what Jesus said at the home of the synagogue ruler, calling her to arise and, rise she does, in a glorious act of resurrection.  Peter, the sinful man who begged Jesus to go away from him, now does as Jesus Himself had done, a true disciple.

26 September 2015

Psalm 87, 90; 2 Kings 11:1-20a; 1 Cor. 7:10-24; Matt. 6:19-24

“Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal family.” She nearly wiped out the entire Davidic line but one of her daughters managed to secret away a grandson, Joash.  Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and, like her mother, a Baal worshipper.  She had married Jehoram, king of Judah, as part of a treaty between the two kingdoms and the king had tolerated her Baal worship in the land.  Now, she decides to rule herself, like her mother, and to destroy her own family in order to secure that throne against other claimants.  Joash is hidden in the house of the Lord for six years while his grandmother reigns before Jehoiada, the priest, brought him forward and made him known to the guards of the temple as the rightful king.  There is a Mosaic parallel here.  When Joash is proclaimed as king by the guard, Ahaziah claims this to be a treasonous act but the guard are ready to put her to death and, along with her, the priests of her god, Baal, and to destroy all the places where this god is worshipped.  So ends the extended reign of Jezebel through her daughter. The evil of this woman is finally purged from the land.

Do you remember the little song that, in part, said, “Be careful little eyes what you see”?  The two sayings that bracket Jesus’ words on the eye being the lamp of the body, that through which light enters the consciousness, are explained by this middle paragraph.  The teaching follows on the ideas of the Lord’s Prayer, looking for the coming of God’s kingdom and in so doing, seeing the world for what it truly is, a wonderful creation of a loving God but one that is fallen and compromised.  Our treasure is not here on earth, it is passing away, and we are to look to things eternal and when we do, our eyes are filled with the light that comes from God, that first light that came into being prior to creation.  We are then able to see clearly all things and properly assign value to all things.

Paul’s presumption is that the converts are adults who already had lives when they came to faith.  Those lives are now problematic for many of believers.  I have certainly known people who became followers of Jesus when they adults whose spouses didn’t follow them in faith.  It makes for difficult marriages but I believe with Paul that the right thing to do is remain in the marriage.  I have also seen incredible redemption when that unbelieving spouse comes to faith.  What does Paul mean when he says that the belief of one spouse hallows another? It means that God is in that house through the believing spouse, and the conditions are then better for the other to come to faith by seeing the changed life of their spouse.  We have always to keep our eyes on the prize so Paul says not to worry about externals, those things don’t have to do with salvation and the eternal reward.  Energy expended on changing those externalities is often taken from more important things like the pursuit of the kingdom.  

25 September 2015

Psalm 88; 2 Kings 9:17-37; 1 Cor. 7:1-9; Matt. 6:7-15

The kings of both kingdoms, Israel and Judah, meet their demise on the same day.  Jehu, after his anointing by the servant of Elisha, carries out his mission to kill Joram, king of Israel, son of Ahab and Jezebel and it happens that the king of Judah, Ahaziah, is there also.  All this takes place at the property of Naboth the Jezreelite.  Remember Naboth? He was the man who owned a vineyard in Jezreel who would not sell it to Ahab, who wanted it for a garden, because the property was his family’s inheritance from the original conquest of the land.  Jezebel had two worthless men come forward to accuse him of something and he was killed.  The killing of Ahab’s son on this ground redeems and avenges that event but the entire redemption awaits the death of Jezebel.  Fitting that two eunuchs, perhaps they were so at her command, throw her down to her death.  In addition to the avenging of Naboth, when Jehu hears that the dogs have eaten Jezebel’s corpse he sees that Elijah is also avenged on this woman as his prophecy is fulfilled.

The model for prayer Jesus gives the disciples is simplicity.  There is depth in the prayer that must be considered and I wonder why we so blithely repeat it in worship when it was clearly intended for serious consideration.  From the start, the prayer recognizes certain things, that our relationship with God is Father but we hallow His Name and beg for His kingdom to come and see the reunification of heaven and earth as the place where His will is done.  That is recognition of the world’s problem, that His will isn’t being done, a reminder that we live in a post-Genesis 3 world that needs redemption.  We acknowledge then our complete dependence on Him in all things, including our daily bread. We ask for Him to forgive us because we know we need it but that forgiveness presumes that we are people who forgive others, as though our forgiveness somehow serves as an example for Him to follow.  We know, however, that He makes the first move in that regard and that there is promise of forgiveness, right from Exodus 34 when He makes self-disclosure that He is a forgiving God.  We then recognize we have an enemy, and we need protection and deliverance.  The prayer calls us to theological depth of understanding but it also keeps all things simple.  It is all based in His Word but, like the commandments to love God and neighbor, requires us to consider all He has said on the matter and all He has done to show us the truth.

Paul reckons that the power of sexual desire is great and can cause the downfall of a marriage.  He counsels that married people have a regular sex life and reminds each partner that their body isn’t under their own authority, it is given to the other.  His fear is that if sex is not a normal part of married life the power of that desire will lead to immorality, sex outside marriage.  In all things, Paul counsels self-control for those who are unmarried.  What he also says is that unmarried life and self-control are actually preferable and only if you cannot exercise self-control should you get married.  Part of this is that he believed in the imminent coming of the kingdom of God but he is also writing to a sex-obsessed culture in Corinth and calling them to a different sexual ethic, he is trying to say that sexual desire need not dominate our lives.  It is possible to determine not to indulge our passions and lusts and instead give ourselves fully to the Lord.  Praying for the coming of the kingdom of God is spiritual warfare against Jezebel’s kingdom in our world today.  

24 September 2015

Psalm 34; 2 Kings 9:1-16; 1 Cor. 6:12-20; Matt. 6:1-6,16-18

Jehu is anointed as king of Israel and given a very specific charge, to bring an ignominious end to the house of Ahab.  Elisha sends a servant to do the work of anointing into the midst of a meeting of the council of the commanders of the army to do this work.  Jehu initially demurs when asked what the servant had said to him in private but then admits that he had just been anointed king over Israel.  When they heard it, the commanders rose up and proclaimed it from the steps that Jehu is king.  Why did they refer to the man who had come, one of the sons of the prophets, as a “mad” man?  What was the attitude towards prophets in those days that led them to speak thus of him?  They accepted his word, that Jehu was king of Israel and acted as if it were true, going out to conspire against Joram towards the end to which Jehu was commissioned. 

Jesus presumes something here doesn’t He? He presumes we will “practice righteousness.”  He assumes we will give to the needy, that we will pray and that we will fast.  What He doesn’t want us to do is practice our righteousness for the wrong reasons.  Righteousness isn’t about getting other people to applaud you and believe you are righteous, it is about doing the right things for the right reasons.  Keeping a commandment, a mitzvah, isn’t something to be applauded for is it?  If I simply do the things I am supposed to do I shouldn’t get an extra reward for it, just check off the box that says, “meets expectations.”  Practicing righteousness is something we do to please the God who loves us, not to win acclaim on earth as a righteous person.  We either work from approval or for approval, the choice is up to us, and how we work shows which way we look at things. 

Is Paul arguing that all things are lawful or is he quoting some saying that was current in Corinth which argued against law at all?  Clearly, given the injunctions of the Jerusalem Council which determined the boundaries given for Gentile converts vis a vis the law, he is not arguing literally that all things are lawful.  Sexual ethics were one of the two things on the list that must be taught to Gentiles, along with certain restrictions concerning food sacrificed to idols and meat with the blood in it.  Paul likens our bodies to the temple of God.  The temple of the Holy Spirit should be treated as a sacred thing and therefore we are to keep it as such by what we do with our bodies.  We are to glorify God in our bodies by the practice of righteousness.  The practice of unrighteousness does the opposite.  There is such a thing as judgment and we saw in that first lesson that God will execute His justice on those like Joram who dishonor Him. 

23 September 2015

Psalm 119:97-120; 2 Kings 6:1-23; 1 Cor. 5:9-6:8; Matt. 5:38-48

                                

As opposed to the situation under Elijah, who felt alone although there were many other prophets in Israel at the time, there is a large company of prophets in the time of Elisha, so many that there isn’t enough room for them and they feel the need to move apart and expand.  Elisha served the king well in warning him against the army and king of Syria and the king determined to kill the prophet so sent an army to find him and seize him.  The prophet, however, saw in the Spirit, saw the truth of the situation, that the armies of heaven were surrounding the city of Dothan and were actually protecting the prophet from harm.  His servant, and we have to assume it is no longer Gehazi, could not see these without the prophet’s prayers to open his eyes.  How often do we fail to see God’s protection and live in fear and trembling when we should have confidence and hope.  Elisha saw the spiritual reality of the situation and took charge via the power of God but was merciful to those who had sought his life. 

The law of an eye for an eye is known as lex talionis and was the way of the world, a concept not foreign to Judaism.  Jesus, however, changes the ethics of retaliation to say that we are to love our enemies, not seek revenge or retributive justice against them.  What is the basis of this ethical injunction?  It is nothing more than the reality that we are created in the image of God, every one of us.  We too often forget that truth and act as though our enemies are flesh and blood not spiritual enemies.  Elisha got it right, he knew that the forces that really opposed him and sought his life were spiritual not these armies who were under authority.  We, as Christians, are called to a much higher ethical standard because of the understanding that we are sinners, all of us, and we are called to take compassion on others, even those who persecute and harm us because we, too, are capable of evil against one another.

Paul’s words are clear, we are not called to separate ourselves from those who do evil in general because all do evil and there would be no evangelism if we were separatists.  We are, however, to separate ourselves from those who would call themselves brothers and sisters who act like the world.  The ethical and moral law is applied to those people, and we are to judge those who would be part of the body of Christ because they have accepted the standard and yoke of Christ while those outside are judged by God alone.  Likewise, he says that we are not to have lawsuits against one another because the world is not to judge us.  We should handle disputes and disagreements within the body rather than allowing them to spill out into the world.  Surely we can live out wisdom, mercy and justice among ourselves.

22 September 2015

Psalm 78:1-39; 2 Kings 5:19-27; 1 Cor. 5:1-8; Matt. 5:27-37

It always looks like Gehazi is working an angle.  When he sees Elisha send Naaman away without accepting payment he determines that he will get something out of the deal and chases down the Syrian in order to extract something from him.  His gambit is to lie, that two men have come, sons of prophets even, and they are in need of some silver and some clothing.  Naaman’s gratitude towards prophets was great and he willingly complied with the request.  Gehazi apparently forgot that his master was a prophet and thought he could lie to him as easily as he had lied to Naaman.  The encounter with Elisha is reminiscent of the encounter in the garden between God, Adam and Eve, but the fall has advanced further than in that encounter.  Adam didn’t know how to lie well or didn’t know enough to lie while Gehazi doesn’t seem to think twice about how to answer his master’s query about where he has been.  He is naked and unashamed when he should be greatly shamed about his actions.  Elisha’s response is to curse the man and his descendants, more or less ensuring that the line will not continue long as contact with lepers was forbidden.

Did moral law matter to Jesus?  The moral law presumes certain things like integrity in marriage which itself here is presented in terms only of man and woman.  The presumption concerning sexual ethics is opposite sex attraction.  Marriage is conceived of in the second part as between a man and his wife.  The moral law is built on those presumptions and precepts.  What would have happened in this early stage of Jesus’ ministry if He had supposed some other configuration? No one would have taken anything He had to say with any degree of respect at all.  When He did this moral teaching, He raised the standard beyond action to the heart in matters of adultery, telling us to guard our hearts first.  In marriage and divorce issues we have much to consider in the culture of divorce and remarriage we have created.  Regarding oaths, our speech should stand on its own, no oath should be required.  Do we know anything more than Gehazi about shame in all these matters?

Paul is a bit upset about sexual immorality among the Corinthians isn’t he?  His prescription is simple, throw the man out of the church.  Tolerance is not a virtue in Paul’s world.  He is concerned about the leaven of sin among the church, that tolerating such sin will ultimately contaminate the morals of all.  I don’t think it likely that he was concerned that there would be an outbreak of men sleeping with their father’s wives, but that all sexual morality would be corrupted by tolerating this one sin.  His concern was first for the church but his concern was also for the sinner, that satan could destroy the flesh.  Destruction of the flesh only is something Jesus said not to fear.  Are we prepared to be ruthless with respect to sin as Elisha, Jesus and Paul are here?  That goes for sin in the church and also sin in our own lives.

21 September 2015

Psalm 80; 2 Kings 5:1-19; 1 Cor. 4:8-21; Matt. 5:21-26

Isn’t it strange that we are told that Naaman, a Syrian, was a mighty man of valor through whom the Lord had given Syria the victory over Israel?  This, in spite of the fact that he did not know or worship the Lord.  Apparently the slave girl from Israel cared about her master and sought to help him with healing his leprosy by sending him to Israel to the prophet, Elisha.  The king of Syria was willing to take a chance on the matter but the king of Israel received the message as a passive-aggressive declaration of war, his failure would result in a “quarrel.”  Elisha doesn’t act in the way Naaman expects, perhaps he has some experience with “prophets” in his own land and expected that Elisha would do similar things.  Elisha, in fact, doesn’t even bother to come personally, only sending a messenger with instructions.  Naaman’s servants speak into his disappointment and anger and ask essentially what Pascal’s wager states, try it, why do you have to lose?  The answer turns out to be that what he lost was his leprosy there at the Jordan and what he had to gain was faith in the one, true and living God. He was a sincere man, willing to humble himself and believe based on evidence.  Elisha sets a standard here for knowing the difference between prophets and fortune tellers or shamans, he won’t take money for what the Lord has done.

As always, Jesus raises the bar on sin.  Anger leads somewhere ugly.  When we are angry at our brother or sister the first thing we tend to do is to de-humanize them.  We forget that as fallen humanity we are imperfect and fallible, all of us.  It is our default in anger to equate the person with the sin, “He’s a thief” or “She’s a liar.” It is important that we deal honestly with sin but that begins by realizing that the person is simply a person, not a thief or a liar.  If we sin against one another we need to deal with the sin between us but the goal should be restoration of the person and the relationship.  I can’t forgive someone who is a thief but I can forgive someone who stole.  When God sees us, does He see us as nothing more than the worst thing we have ever done or does He see us in compassion and love?  The cross tells us the answer to that question and it also gives us the ethics for living together with other sinners.

It is Paul’s desire not to destroy the faith of the Corinthian church but to humble them in their arrogance.  In contrast to his own life struggles in preaching the Gospel, he says they are rich and beloved.  Is there something wrong with this?  Paul certainly seems  to think so, that they have compromised the Gospel because when the Gospel is preached by apostles it results in persecution.  It reminds me of the letter in Revelation to the church in Laodicea, the lukewarm church, “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”  A good portion of the church in America today looks like the church in Corinth, believing it is blessed because it is prosperous and allowed to flourish. We need to be humbled a bit in order to see our own pitiable state.

20 September 2015

Psalm 93, 96; 2 Kings 4:8-37; Acts 9:10-31; Luke 3:7-18

This story is very like the story we read recently about Elijah, a widow and a son.  In that instance there was already a son and the woman was not wealthy but she was the widow of a prophet.  Here, a wealthy woman determines to provide a place for Elisha when he is in Shunem and, in gratitude, he offers to do something for her as well.  She wants for nothing he can give to her but his desire is great to return the favor she has shown him.  Elisha’s servant, Gehazi, offers up the idea that she has no son and her husband is old, perhaps it would be a good thing for her to have a son who would be there when the husband dies, a good thing for many reasons, so it is done.  When the son dies, the woman is determined that the one through whom this son came is the one through whom he will be restored to her.  She speaks to no one of her loss but Elisha and refuses to go at his word, her faith is completely in the prophet himself.  This miracle is similar to the work Jesus did in restoring the daughter of the synagogue ruler in many respects.

John didn’t trust those who came to be baptized.  He was unsure about their motives.  If their motives were pure, they would “bear fruits in keeping with repentance.”  To their credit, they asked the most important question, “What then shall we do?”  John’s answers were both practical and personal.  He spoke to ordinary people, soldiers, and tax collectors and gave them ethical precepts to follow.  Kingdom ethics require us to reach out and love in both word and deed and teach us also to be satisfied with what is due to us rather than greedily taking more.  In all three cases, you could sum up his teaching as loving your neighbor. John’s message was plain, the kind of people you are is determinative, not baptism.  His mission was to prepare a people who would be kingdom people, not just people who had done the right religious things.

Saul/Paul (Saul is Hebrew and Paul is the Greek form of Saul) is converted and no one trusts him.  Ananias has to have a word from the Lord reassuring him that indeed the conversion is real before he will go and lay hands on him that he might regain his sight, just as Joseph had to have his own visitation prior to marrying Mary.  The people in the synagogues at Damascus initially wonder what has happened because of what they know about Paul and then determine that his initial mission of persecution of the church was the right one and decide to carry it out on him. The disciples there have been convinced his conversion is genuine and rescue him from their plot.  When he goes to Jerusalem the church there wants nothing to do with him, they don’t trust him either.  Barnabas, for the first but not the last time, raises Paul up and he begins his new missionary ministry.  Barnabas’ testimony was at one with John’s in the Gospel reading, he testified that Paul had repented and born fruits in keeping with that repentance.  Changed life, not religion, is the mark of conversion.

19 September 2015

Psalm 75, 76; 2 Kings 2:1-18; 1 Cor. 4:1-7; Matt. 5:17-20

We know there were true prophets at Bethel and Jericho, they all knew what day it was, the day for Elijah to be taken up to heaven and for Elisha to take his place as prophet-in-chief.  Elisha knew it too, he may not have known the details of what was going to happen but he also wasn’t going to leave his master alone. As they come to the Jordan, Elijah takes his cloak, rolls it up, and strikes the water causing it to part, enabling them to pass over on dry ground. Sounds an awful lot like Moses and Joshua doesn’t it?  The “double portion” Elisha requests is that portion due to the eldest child in a family upon the death of the patriarch.  As we see, there are other prophets but Elisha’s request is to be primary, sort of like the disciples trying to decide who would be greatest after Jesus’ death.  Proof of the anointing was in Elisha taking Elijah’s cloak, striking the water and seeing it part.  A new prophet has arisen.

Jesus defines righteousness as related to the law.  He affirms that His mission is not to abolish the law and prophets but to fulfill them.  There is continuity between Jesus and what we know as the Old Testament.  The question we have to ask is plain, what part of the law is Jesus talking about?  He clearly does away with parts of the “law” or the interpretation of the law.  When He does the miracle of water into wine at the wedding in Cana there is a statement about handwashing as there is when they ask why the disciples don’t properly wash their hands before meals.  The ceremonial and ritual laws are done away with but the moral law is something Jesus regularly expounds upon, right from the start here in the Sermon on the Mount.  When we teach others to ignore the moral law, we teach something other than what Jesus taught.  Just as Elisha took up the cloak of Elijah and struck the water to part the Jordan as proof he was in line with the prophet, so we must teach what Jesus taught, value what He valued, and pursue righteousness in excess of the righteousness of the Pharisees.

What does it mean for Paul to be found faithful?  He would clearly be talking about his teaching lining up with what he received.  Paul taught the moral law, in a couple of chapters he will confront the lax morals of the church in Corinth.  He, however, got into trouble with some because he did not teach the ritual and ceremonial parts of the law and there were those who believed that these must be observed by the Christians as well.  Apostolic faithfulness is teaching what the apostles taught and we know these things from the book of the Acts, the Didache, and other sources such as the Creeds of the early church which were the codification of the teaching of the church.  Our faithfulness is measured by the Great Commission, making disciples and teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded.  It isn’t just teaching, it is obedience, doing what He did and taught.

18 September 2015

Psalm 69; 2 Kings 1:2-17; 1 Cor. 3:16-23; Matt. 5:11-16

(It gets a little confusing at the end of the passage.  “Jehoram became king in his place in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, because Ahaziah had no son.”  These are two men named Jehoram, the one who became king in place of Ahaziah is a son of Ahab while the second, the king of Judah is a son of Jehoshaphat.)  Ahaziah sends to the god Baal-zebub, god of Ekron to determine if he will live after a fall.  Elijah gets a word from the Lord that the king has sent out messengers to the god and that he has a word for the king, he will not live and God knows what he is up to sending messengers to another god.  When told what the man looked like who intercepted the messengers, that he wore a hair shirt and leather belt, the king knows it is Elijah, just as anyone with a description of John the Baptist would be able to immediately identify him.  The first two groups of fifty soldiers the king sends to bring Elijah to him meet with an untimely demise when the prophet calls down fire from the sky (he’s quite good at fire) and the third pleads for his life and the life of his men.  In the end, Elijah goes, delivers the message in person and his prophecy proves true.  With all the proof that Elijah was a man of God, why did the king not repent and turn to the Lord?

If we are salt and light, we are obedient to the call of God in our lives.  We are doing what we are supposed to do.  Salt and light are states of being, but if the properties of saltiness and light are hidden, then they are “wasted.”  Light was the first thing created, brought into being by fiat, and without some light, we cannot see and properly live.  Salt, likewise, is essential to human life, not just an enhancer.  For the world to know the Lord, we need to be salt and light, it is part of the reason you have received the revelation of truth, that you may share it with others.  All this is wonderful but the analogies are preceded by another truth, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”  We will be treated like the prophets who were shamefully ignored and ill-treated by the nation when they revealed God’s judgment against the leaders and the people.  Being salt and light is what we are intended to be but they will not win the world’s admiration.  We are not to worry ourselves with that, however, we are called to obedience to the one who gave us life.

We are no longer simply bodies living in this world.  If we are redeemed, we are the temple of God, the place where He dwells.  If He is to dwell in us, we should take great care of His abode.  When the temple was consecrated, the shekinah glory was manifest to all because they had done all in accord with His will concerning its construction but also its hallowing.  We are to treat our bodies with exactly that same level of care.  That requires obedience to all He commands.  The result of that is that the Spirit dwells in us, we are changed into His likeness, and others can see that glory.  Paul says, “all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.”  What would change if we believed all things are ours?

17 September 2015

Psalm 71; 1 Kings 22:29-45; 1 Cor. 2:14-3:15; Matt. 5:1-10

Yesterday I was impressed with Jehoshaphat because he asked, after hearing from four hundred prophets, for another opinion.  Today, he lets himself be suckered into wearing his kingly robes into battle while Ahab disguises himself.  Wearing the robes made him an easy target for someone wanting to kill the king. How could he be so foolish?  When he cried out they realized it wasn’t the king of Israel and he was able to escape but Ahab wasn’t so fortunate, he died even with his protective armor on.  Did you notice that in this passage he isn’t referred to by name until verse 39?  He is simply called the king of Israel throughout the passage until we hear that all he did is written in the books of the Chronicles of the Kings.  Finally, we are told that Jehoshaphat was a good man but he didn’t lead the people away from the false worship of the high places.  Leadership is about more than doing the right things yourself, it involves leading others to do the same.  Sometimes a good example isn’t enough.

Jesus begins His ministry with a teaching time on the mountain.  The Beatitudes is a beautiful piece of literature but it is also some of the most challenging teaching you’ll read.  Jesus says our worldview needs to be checked at the door.  Those He says are blessed include those who are poor in spirit, who mourn, who are meek, who hunger and thirst, and who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.  Those aren’t the people we typically think of as blessed.  We would rather be cheerful of heart, self-confident and assertive, full of good things in life and well thought of by the world.  Those are things I hear praised in much preaching.  Jesus taught that we have to have kingdom eyes, minds and hearts, that if we are satisfied with the stuff of earth we have settled for something other than what we are designed for.  We are called to see the world as He sees it, in pain, tribulation and longing for redemption.  We are called to be very different from those who do not believe.

When we talk of spiritual things we need to remember Paul’s words here, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”  Why do I see so many people on Facebook arguing with atheists over the things of God?  That is folly, and a waste of time.  Praying for those people is far more important than arguing over things they cannot accept or understand.  After these things Paul goes back to his original point about divisions among them over teachers.  All that matters is Jesus, the foundation stone of all things. Paul knows about leadership in the church.  It isn’t about attracting people to yourself, it is about attaching them to Jesus. 

16 September 2015

Psalm 72; 1 Kings 22:1-28; 1 Cor. 2:1-13; Matt. 4:18-25

Ramoth-Gilead is east of the Jordan river, on the other side of the Jordan.  The tribe of Gilead, if you recall, chose as its inheritance, land on that side of the river and Moses required them to go ahead of their brothers into the Land and remain there for the conquest of the land promised to the remainder of the nation. Ahab determines it is time to recover that land that has now become part of Syria and so asks the king of Judah to join him in his battle to win back the land.  Four hundred prophets are brought (when was the last time we saw such a company of prophets – Mt Carmel, the prophets of Baal), all of whom prophesy victory for the kings in this endeavor but Jehoshaphat is unconvinced and asks if there is not yet another prophet.  The king of Israel says there is yet one more, Micaiah, who never prophesies anything good for him.  Micaiah is a man of integrity and the Spirit.  He alone says that this will be a failed enterprise to go rescue Ramoth-Gilead, that the Lord has, however, determined that the king will go up because a false spirit has infected the prophets who have come before Micaiah.  The king is determined to do what he has envisioned and will not listen. 

Jesus calls four fishermen to be His first disciples and their reaction is that they left their nets and their businesses behind and followed Him.  We don’t know what they knew but surely they at least were familiar with John the Baptist, his extraordinary birth, his proclamation and possibly the baptism of Jesus as well as John’s testimony concerning Him.  These things perhaps were part of their reasoning for immediately accepting His call to be disciples.  Matthew tells us that Jesus began proclaiming the kingdom in word and deeds of healing.  The response was that people believed and brought all those who needed healing from any affliction, physical or spiritual and that they came from all over the region, from Syria to beyond the Jordan and all points in between, even from Jerusalem itself.  A prophet has arisen in Galilee such as has never been seen before.

Did Paul preach Christ crucified among the Corinthians because he lacked wisdom and insight other than this message?  Absolutely not, Paul was a well-educated man who had been trained by Gamaliel, one of the leading rabbis of his day.  Paul was a Roman citizen by birth which means he would have also received education in the best schools of the time.  He knew, however, that compared with the cross of Christ, nothing else had true power.  He was able to debate in the Areopagus but he knew that true wisdom pointed beyond earth to eternity and the cross was the sign and the power.  When Paul speaks of the secret wisdom of God he is not talking about Gnosticism but about wisdom that is only available to those who have the Spirit of God, he is speaking of the same things that Jesus said to Nicodemus that a man must be born again, born of the Spirit, to understand spiritual things.  Wisdom that surpasses the limits of human inquiry is available to those who have the Spirit of God.  Micaiah had wisdom the four hundred other prophets did not.  We have wisdom that is inaccessible to even the most learned of men.  We can stand in the confidence of the Spirit of God, leading us into true truth.

15 September 2015

Psalm 61, 62; 1 Kings 21:17-29; 1 Cor. 1:20-31; Matt. 4:12-17  

Elijah confronts Ahab in his sin of idolatry but also for the murder of Naboth and the taking of his vineyard for his own.  Do you see in this passage some parallels with the story of David and Bathsheba and Nathan.  David did much the same thing as Elijah in that affair and Elijah’s reaction to the confrontation was similar to David’s. There is also a small tie to the story of the Garden.  Who is it that led Ahab astray, or incited him as the text says?  His wife was the protagonist in idol worship. Ahab knew better since he was an Israelite, he knew the law, Jezebel was a Baal worshipper, it was Ahab’s duty and responsibility to lead her in the truth he knew.  The Lord accepts Ahab’s repentance and the punishment announced is delayed to the next generation, just as it was with Solomon.  The Lord knew that the son would be as weak as the father, that Jezebel’s influence was simply too powerful for either man.

Jesus’ residence in Galilee after His baptism and time in the wilderness fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah.  Matthew, writing for a primarily Jewish audience, continually points to prophetic fulfillment in the life and ministry of Jesus because he wants his Jewish readers to see that Jesus was indeed the Messiah they expect.  Here, however, the ministry beyond the nation is in view, Galilee is described as Galilee of the Gentiles and the people who dwelt in darkness and in the region and shadow of death who see this light.  Jesus’ message at the start of His ministry is familiar isn’t it, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  Sounds an awful lot like John the Baptist’s proclamation.  Repentance is always the first movement in preparation for the coming of the kingdom of God. 

When I read Paul’s opening questions, asking where are the wise, the debaters of the age, the scribe, I have in mind the failure of atheist in chief, Richard Dawkins, to debate with the apologist, William Lane Craig.  When we stand in truth, we have a wisdom from God that cannot be denied.  The cross is a stumbling block to all.  Jesus’ death is one problem the cross presents, His resurrection another, the ascension yet another, and all these require us to accept truths that simply cannot be true in an earthly sense.  Science doesn’t support the idea of physical resurrection from the dead, so either Jesus didn’t really die or He wasn’t really physically resurrected from the dead.  The ascension is a ridiculous idea based on a nonsensical cosmology of a three-tiered universe and we all know better than that except we really don’t, we have no idea what lies outside, above or below our universe if we can speak in such terms.  If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, Paul says that the cross of Christ is its outer limit but in such a way that wisdom has wrapped back around on itself, fear and love are knit together in that event.  Here, he says, we find “righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”  The key is to repent of our own wisdom and confess we have walked not in light but in darkness, we have, like Ahab, followed after idols of our own making, a wisdom quite apart from God’s.

14 September 2015

Psalm 56, 57; 1 Kings 21:1-16; 1 Cor. 1:1-19; Matt. 4:1-11

Ahab wants a vineyard owned by his neighbor, Naboth.  Naboth, however, is unwilling to part with the inheritance his family had received from the Lord when the land was apportioned originally.  In Israel, as opposed to the surrounding nations, property rights were sacrosanct, even the king could not compel someone to give over their property.  Ahab simply wants a vegetable garden close to the house and when Naboth refuses to sell, he pouts like a child.  Jezebel, who was not Jewish, asserts the divine right of kings to do as they choose, which is her heritage.  Jezebel follows Jewish law in one respect, she asks that two worthless men bring a charge against Naboth for cursing the king.  Jewish law required not one, but two witnesses in order to bring a charge against someone.  How do you go about finding two “worthless” men?  Apparently it wasn’t a problem, they were found, did as instructed and Naboth was stoned for his infraction.  This is an incredibly rare thing in the Old Testament, a story where the law regarding stoning someone to death was actually carried out.  This frees up the vineyard for Ahab to take it over.

What does it mean to be submitted to the lordship of God?  Jesus shows here what it means to be a faithful subject of the King.  He is surely famished after the forty day fast He has just completed but when satan tempts Jesus to act to turn stones into bread, Jesus refuses to do so because the Father has not commanded such a thing.  Jesus was always moved to act not on His own timing or at the particular demands of others, but when the Father prompted Him to act, thus, not all in Israel were healed, only those the Father willed. Next, satan tempts Jesus to test the love of the Father by throwing Himself down so that the angels, in accord with prophecy, will keep Him safe from harm.  Finally, he tempts Jesus to bow down and worship him in order to receive the kingdoms of earth.  Did satan know considerably less about Jesus than he thought or were these simply his best attempts?  Jesus’ submission to the Father, trust of the Father, and the heavenly kingdom which He would receive for faithfulness were far more significant than anything else.

The Corinthian church needs first to be reminded that what has brought them together is the grace of God in Christ Jesus.  From that foundation, Paul can move on to speak about the divisions.  It is Christ who will sustain them to the end, not Paul or Apollos or Cephas.  There is no excuse for divisions about men.  It is the old argument about who is greatest that the disciples used to have and in the end it is settled by pointing from men to Jesus. I have actually experienced the division Paul speaks about.  I have people in my life who are upset with me because I said something about their favorite TV pastor they didn’t like.  We need to keep our eyes and hearts fixed on God’s kingdom and not man’s.  Jezebel cared nothing for God’s law, He wasn’t her god but her husband was king so she dedicated herself to extending that kingdom no matter what it took.  Satan offered Jesus earthly kingdoms and He held out for the eternal one.  We can appreciate men who preach the power of the cross to us but we can only worship the One who died there.

13 September 2015

Psalm 24, 29; 1 Kings 19:8-21; Acts 5:34-42; John 11:45-57

What Elijah ate under the broom tree must have been some pretty amazing stuff.  He ate and went in the strength of that food forty days and nights.  Elijah has his speech down pat, I am the only one left who follows Yahweh and they want to kill me.  He is sticking with that story no matter what, he is done, there is no hope left for the prophet. The Lord calls him out of the cave and yet in all the powerful manifestations of God’s presence Elijah remains in the cave until the low whisper and then he wraps his face in his cloak, it isn’t safe to “see” God, and goes out.  The Lord asks the same question and Elijah gives the same answer.  He is tired and alone.  Ultimately the Lord gives the prophet his final marching orders, anointing two men as king and another as his replacement prophet but he also needs to know something, there are seven thousand who have not bent the knee to Baal, he is not so alone as he has said.  Elisha means God is salvation, and that will be his ministry, just as Elijah, the Lord is God, was the great proclamation of the man.  Elisha begins his ministry as apprentice or assistant to Elijah, exactly what he needed, a partner so he wasn’t alone.

This Gospel reading immediately follows the raising of Lazarus from the dead, so we can assume Mary in that first sentence is the sister of Lazarus.  It makes her quite an important figure in the story of Jesus but John does it in such a way that makes it easy to overlook her.  Do the Pharisees want a Messiah?  Their concern is that if Jesus keeps on doing signs, so many people will believe in Him that the Romans will “take away both our place and our nation.” The high priest is the one who finally comes up with the logic of one man dying for the nation being the best course of action but he failed to see that was exactly God’s plan in a more ultimate sense.  He is only thinking of preserving the nation in a temporal sense.  After this, John tells us they withdrew to a region near the wilderness, out of plain sight of those whose desire it was to arrest and crucify Him, the time was not yet right.

Another leader here among the Sanhedrin, Gamaliel, Paul’s rabbinic teacher, the grandson of Hillel, the founder of one of the most famous rabbinic schools, counsels against rash action against the apostles.  He reminds them of others who have arisen and, for a time, gained a constituency and then flamed out in one way or another.  He has seen movements come and go and generally they simply go away.  If, however, this is of God, then opposition would be foolish, so they just beat the apostles and warn them not to preach and teach in the name of Jesus.  Apparently, they didn’t understand the effect of the resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  These men knew first hand that death was not the final answer, they were fearless, so they preached in the temple every day thereafter, almost daring the council to take action.  What do we fear that keeps us from boldness?  Whatever it is, we apparently value it more than the Gospel.

12 September 2015

Psalm 55; 1 Kings 18:41-19:8; Phil. 3:17-4:7; Matt. 3:13-17

Why did Ahab go up and eat and drink at the command of Elijah?  Elijah said there was the sound of rushing rain and yet when he sent his servant to look, there was nothing at first. There was, in fact, nothing the first six times.  Finally, the seventh time there was a little cloud and that was enough.  Does that kind of remind  you of Noah sending out the raven?  Again, Elijah commands Ahab and the king obeys.  He is always, it seems, in need of someone to tell him what to do and willing to do it.  Why do they both go to Jezreel?  It was a second home for Ahab but why did Elijah go to the entrance of Jezreel?  What did he think would happen there?  Jezebel sends her murderous intentions regarding the prophet and his reaction, even after the defeat of the prophets of Baal, was fear, running for his life.  Elijah fled to the wilderness, forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb/Sinai.  All he wanted was for it all to end, the man was exhausted.  It seems to be a pattern in life, you reach the height and expect it to continue and then, suddenly, reality hits, Jezebel is still there, she still wants your life, and it’s just too much to bear that this one thing won’t stop.

John’s mission is fulfilled, he has revealed Messiah.  These two men, cousins by birth, whose destinies were intertwined since prior to the world began, together in the river, one whose ministry was coming to completion, the other whose ministry is just beginning, are our exemplars.  John knew his role was to prepare a people for the coming of Messiah and now, he recognizes in Jesus his own shortcomings, he is not fit to baptize Jesus, it should be the other way around.  John, who has referred to the ones others believed righteous as vipers, now is humbled before Jesus, a man no one knew.  Jesus, the only perfectly sinless man in history, now accepts a baptism for repentance, identifying Himself with sinners at the start of His ministry and persevering to the end in that identification.  We share John’s mission, to make Jesus known and to call the world to repent and be baptized.  We share in the Holy Spirit to show us how to do that in both word and life.  We are to be like both men, fearless and focused in the pursuit of the kingdom and His righteousness.

It is good to remember that we have an enemy.  We forget that sometimes and we get comfortable and then when he strikes against us we get knocked down too easily.  Paul is perhaps thinking of those here whose way of looking at Jesus is that He was an embodied spirit rather than fully God and fully man.  These would deny that what happens in the body matters at all, that the spirit of a man is all that is important.  We are not to make peace with the world or seek the world’s things, our citizenship is in heaven, we are exiles here for a time and our longing should be for our true home.  If we keep those things in mind, we will navigate this life much better, rejoicing in the Lord and not in anything else.  He is the giver of all good things, and we are to appreciate His handiwork in this world and also the gifts He gives us like one another.

11 September 2015

Psalm 40, 54; 1 Kings 18:20-40; Phil. 3:1-16; Matt. 3:1-12

Elijah first challenges the people to choose, just as Moses and Joshua before him called on the people to choose to either serve Yahweh or someone or something else.  Moses made it clear on the two mountains, blessings for following Yahweh or curses if not.  Joshua said the choice was between life and death and urged the people to choose life.  Elijah says it comes down to Yahweh or Baal, they can’t have it both ways any longer.  Baal was a fertility god, responsible for rain, but now there has been no rain because Yahweh said so and shut up the heavens, a sign like the signs in Egypt.  The challenge to the prophets of Baal has to do with fire to bring rain, and we all know that at the dedication of tabernacle and temple alike the Lord brought down fire to burn up the sacrifices.  Jews should expect Yahweh to do this sign, it is what He does.  As the prophets of Baal cry out and cut themselves attempting to get Baal to send down fire Elijah trash talks, at one point suggesting that Baal is perhaps relieving himself.  Remember how precious a commodity water is in the land after 3 ½ years of drought and yet Elijah commands four jars of it be poured out on the sacrifice and the altar, making it more difficult for fire to consume the sacrifice and a great display of faith in the outcome both in terms of the fire and the subsequent rain to replenish the water.  Elijah engages in none of the theatrics of the prophets of Baal, he simply prays, it isn’t his effort that makes anything happen, it is God.  The Lord’s response is powerful and the people believe.  (Did you notice the word limping appears twice, once in Elijah’s accusation against the people and then in the Baal worship?)

Jesus later will tell the disciples that Elijah has come in the form of John the Baptist.  We are to think of him in those terms even though John refused to accept that designation when asked.  How is John’s ministry like Elijah’s?  He called the people to repent of serving two masters and to prepare for the coming of the Lord who was angry and prepared to judge the nation.  John’s mode of dress and his diet would have been prophetic words against a nation in times of prosperity and peace, which they enjoyed due to the Roman empire.  What they had they had not because of the Lord but because of Rome.  Could we be accused of something similar?  The faux righteousness of the Pharisees and Sadducees fails to impress John who compares them to a brood of vipers.  Fleeing wrath and real repentance are two different things aren’t they?  We get a glimpse of that later when Jesus asks these same leaders whether John’s message was from God or not and they will not answer.  They, too, are limping between two opinions.

Paul knows what is going to happen in Philippi because it happened everywhere else.  Those who come and insist on circumcision, the Law, and all the other ceremonial things will soon be there.  He warns the church about these things and says that he has as much reason as anyone to glory in these things and yet because he has met Jesus he considers all that to be rubbish.  In fact, he considers everything to be rubbish compared to Jesus.  He knows that he has seen real righteousness and that nothing he has ever done has compared to that righteousness so he wants the righteousness of faith in Jesus’ righteousness.  Moreover, he desires to share in Jesus’ sufferings.  I have never, for one second, considered that I want to share in Christ’s sufferings.  If we are inoffensive to the world we won’t suffer.  If, however, we bring the offense of truth and righteousness, we will indeed suffer but these are for glory.  Elijah and John both sided with the Lord and it cost them dearly, just as it did Paul and the apostles.  I need to pray the Lord will cause me to love Jesus, His righteousness and His kingdom so much that I too desire to suffer for Him as He has done for me.

10 September 2015

Psalm 50; 1 Kings 18:1-19; Phil. 2:12-30; Matt. 2:13-23

Elijah is told to go and show himself to the king, Ahab, that the drought might end.  Ahab is desperate to save some of the pack animals as the army depended on these and so sends Obadiah, who we are told feared the Lord greatly and had hidden one hundred prophets and provided for them, out to search for grass and water for the animals.  Obadiah’s greeting of Elijah and his speech to him in response to Elijah’s command to go and tell “your lord”, referring to Ahab, reinforce Obadiah’s love and fear of the Lord.  His concern is that Ahab is bent on Elijah’s death and that Elijah will not be here upon the return of the king.  His fear is that this will cause the king to kill him instead.  When Ahab sees the prophet his reaction is to refer to him as the troubler of Israel.  Elijah points to the king as the troubler of Israel, that this trouble is due to his sin of apostasy and calls for a meeting with 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah at Mount Carmel.  Sounds like unfair odds.

Herod had a penchant for killing.  He had three of his own children killed because he felt threatened by them.  His nature was to be insecure and his solution to his insecurity was to destroy that which “caused” him to feel insecure.  Surprisingly, he was also a Jew, which should have precluded his murderous actions.  There is great irony in the fact that a Jewish ruler ordered Jewish children killed while the deliverer, the one for whom he was looking, was safely in, of all places, Egypt.  This is a reverse exodus.  We should see the parallels between Moses’ story and Jesus’ story.  Who, in the Moses story, is taking all the action?  The answer is the mother.  Who, in this lesson, takes action?  The father, Joseph, who received three dreams from the Lord telling him what to do.  We tend to overlook Joseph after he receives the angelic visitation concerning his wife’s pregnancy but here the Lord specifically speaks three times to this man who obeys all he hears.  Truly, this man was extraordinary, not just a man who happened to be Jesus’ earthly father.

The people to whom Paul delivered the Gospel mattered deeply to him.  He wanted always for them to persevere in the faith he preached.  What a powerful image he uses here: “Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.” He is willing to die and be poured out and not begrudgingly but in gladness and rejoicing.  Paul’s theology of suffering is something we need in the church today.  We need to understand that suffering in our life can be a cause for the release of joy in us and through us to the church and the world.  We live in a fallen world where suffering is a reality and should be expected and yet we are ill-prepared to believe that suffering can be a way in which He can receive glory.  Paul remains, however, convinced that it is possible he will not die here but may come to Philippi and see these brothers and sisters himself.  He, like Elijah at this moment in history, like Joseph, remains hopeful and prepared for whatever lies ahead in faith.  

9 September 2015

Psalm 119:49-72; 1 Kings 17:1-24; Phil. 2:1-11; Matt. 2:1-12

Elijah’s name is a compound word meaning the Lord (Yah or Jah) is God (Eli), the theme of his ministry, that there is but one God and Yahweh is His Name.  He came from Gilead, one of the tribes that settled on “the other side” of the Jordan, or east of Israel proper.  Elijah appears out of nowhere to speak to the wicked king Ahab concerning a drought that the Lord is bringing on the land as a result of Ahab’s apostasy.  Afterwards, Elijah withdraws across the Jordan to live during this drought.  For a time, the ravens brought him bread and meat twice a day and he drank from the brook where he was commanded to live.  Ultimately, because of the drought, the brook dried up and the Lord told Elijah to move to the region of Sidon, which is west and north of the conquered land on the sea in what is Lebanon.  There, the Lord tells Elijah he will find a widow who has been chosen as his host.  When he meets her, she is gathering up sticks to make a fire on which to cook the last of her provisions.  Elijah commands her to make him a cake first and then something for her and the son but with the promise that neither the meal nor the oil will run out.  The woman, in faith, does as the prophet says and for “many days” they marvel at the continuing provision of meal and oil.  Suddenly, the son dies and the woman blames the prophet for exposing her sin in the death of the son she had, at the beginning of the story, been preparing to die with. What “sin” is it she now believes is exposed?  The Lord has blessed her these many days and now, she believes He is punishing her through the prophet. Whatever it is, the raising of the son serves as an expression of God’s grace in a fresh way, the “sin” is forgiven.

These wise men are likely Chaldeans from Babylon.  Why do they know about this star and the child?  If we look back to the book of Daniel we find our answer.  Daniel saved these men’s lives by saving their fathers’ lives.  When the king had a dream he couldn’t understand he called the Chaldeans to come and not only interpret the dream but tell him what it was.  When they could not do as he asked, Nebuchadnezzar ordered them killed but Daniel stepped up and asked for an opportunity to do what they could not.  His ability to both tell the dream and interpret the dream and his plea for these men’s lives, ensured they would have progeny.  They were interested in the God of Daniel and these men had studied the religious texts that informed Daniel so now they come in response to the fulfillment of the prophetic word concerning the birth of the king.  The leaders of the Jews seem uninterested in these wise men, no one offered to go with them to Bethlehem.  Herod, however, always insecure, determined this child might pose a threat to him and decides to try and kill him but the wise men are warned in a dream not to return to Herod, just as two days ago the unknown man of God didn’t return the way he had come.  Interesting isn’t it that God spoke to these men in a dream considering how their fathers’ inability to interpret a dream had been the reason they knew this little prophetic secret in the first place?

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit…”  How much of what we do is from these two motives?  If we consider the second part of that sentence, “but in humility count others more significant than yourselves…” we begin to see how to live in keeping with kingdom ethics.  As Paul says, that is the way of Christ who did this very thing by not only the incarnation but also the cross.  If Jesus had not come, lived, and died on that cross we would have no life at all but all of His life was based on the ultimate condescension of the creator becoming like and subject to His own creation out of love.  Just as Elijah was sent specifically to this widow because God wanted her to know forgiveness of sins and the blessing of life restored, so we are sent into the world in His Name.  We may never know why we are in one another’s lives, but it is always about revealing the grace and love of God.  Isn’t it best if we are intentional about that?

8 September 2015

Psalm 45; 1 Kings 16:23-34; Phil. 1:12-30; Mark 16:1-20

Now that the kingdom is divided, we have to read the books of Kings and Chronicles with multiple kings, capitols and worship places in mind.  Omri began ruling Israel (the northern kingdom) in the thirty-first year of Asa’s reign as king of Judah.  It was Omri who established the capitol in Samaria, which will become yet another way of referring to the northern kingdom.  Omri walked in the ways of Jeroboam in re the worship of idols and, when he died, left the kingdom to his son, Ahab.  Ahab was more wicked than those who came before him.  To the worship of the golden calves, he also worshiped Baal, the god of his wife, Jezebel as well as setting up an Asherah.  Baal and Asherah cults were associated with fertility and their worship entailed sexual imagery as well as actions, temple prostitutes were commonly part of the scene.  In this time also a man named Hiel determined to break the law given through Joshua that prohibited the rebuilding of Jericho and he persevered in this although it cost him two of his sons in keeping with the oracle Joshua had spoken. These sons were, figuratively, sacrificed on the altar of disobedience.

“But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.”  Tell his disciples “and Peter”.  What does that mean and why did he say it that way?  Was Peter ostracized by the disciples after his denials?  Would Peter not have gone had he not been personally mentioned?  At any rate, it was important that Peter be a part of the group and that he needed to be restored.  This would have reminded Peter that he had sinned but it was also a call of grace on offer.  We believe Mark to be Peter’s scribe, this is the Gospel Peter would have written, probably much of his own memories are here.  Those last verses, from 9-20 are not part of the oldest manuscripts and certainly the verses about snakes and poison are not prescriptive for worship as some in our region have practiced it.  Mark’s version of the Great Commission here were, however, part of the inspiration for St Francis.  This version says to proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation and Francis took that literally.  We should too, for Paul writes that all creation groans in anticipation of the revelation of the sons of God.  Proclaiming the Gospel should be about more than speaking it, it is also living it.

Imagine that, Paul says that his imprisonment has led to the advance of the Gospel, not just a hashtag campaign to get him out of prison. Not only that, he believes his imprisonment has led “most of the brothers” to become more bold to speak the word without fear.  Paul admits that he would rather die and be with Christ but his concern isn’t primarily for himself so he concludes it is better for them for him to remain so he resolves to remain.  What kind of man is this?  Paul believes that all believers should be prepared to suffer and shows the way to do that well and like a man of God.  We have lost a theology of suffering in the church.  We don’t have room for it in the prosperity gospel which Paul would say is no real Gospel.  The resurrection should tell us that we no longer should trust in or hope in these things.  We’re too busy with our own idolatry to think about suffering properly.

7 September 2015

Psalm 41, 52; 1 Kings 13:1-10; Phil. 1:1-11; Mark 15:40-47

I wonder why we are not told the name of the man of God who prophesied against Jeroboam and the altar he had set up at Bethel.  His words are certainly powerful, that the priesthood of this abomination will be killed and human bones burned on this altar.  In addition, he prophesies very specifically about another, Josiah by name, who will rise and see to these things.  Jeroboam finds that the man is definitely from God when he attempts to stop him from prophesying and his hand is “dried up, so he could not withdraw it.” Back in the wilderness, Aaron and Miriam challenged Moses’ leadership, claiming they had an equal claim to his position as God’s anointed.  Do you recall what happened at that time?  Miriam was struck with leprosy as a sign of God’s choosing of Moses for the role he had.  Here, the people apparently believed this to be a similar sign and act accordingly to destroy the altar at Bethel.  The man refuses to go with Jeroboam at his pleading, like Samuel refused to go with Saul after his sin.  The Lord has judged Jeroboam, now all that is left is to await the final judgment against him.

The disciples might not have been at the crucifixion, at least all of them, but Mark tells us of some specific women who were bold to stand with Jesus and that also there were “many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.”  One man, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a member of the council, took courage and went to Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus.  His identification with Jesus in His death, particularly His death on a cross, a cursed man according to the law, was probably the end of his term on the council.  Only a true believer would have done such a thing, lovingly caring for the body of Jesus, even to the extent of burying Him in a tomb rather than in a common grave with other criminals.  The Roman practice was to leave the crucified on their cross for the birds to have them, in some cases absolutely forbidding the bodies to be taken down.  Jewish law would, likewise, have forbidden an honorable burial such as this for a man hanged on a tree.  Joseph breaks all convention in the matter to identify with Jesus.  He was clearly an extraordinary man.

It is important in considering the letter to the Philippian church to remember that Paul writes what is often referred to as the “epistle of joy” from a prison cell.  He isn’t pleading for acquittal, isn’t complaining about his situation and the unfairness of it all, he is calling them to rejoice and his hope is secure.  He says, “you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.” How could he say that somehow his imprisonment is connected with grace?  Paul believed that whatever happened to him was somehow connected with God’s grace, be it positive or negative from a human perspective.  That is truly the mind of Christ who prayed the Father to take away the cup of suffering but then “nevertheless, not my will but thine.”  Like the disciples praying for boldness that would lead to persecution, Paul held the kingdom of God and the proclamation and defense of the Gospel to be more important than his own comfort and popularity.

6 September 2015

Psalm 63, 98; 1 Kings 12:21-33; Acts 4:18-31; John 10:31-42

Can you imagine 180,000 warriors ready to fight gathered in one place?  Can you imagine a “man of God” coming to that group of warriors and giving them a word that the Lord said not to go and fight, that who they are fighting against if they do is actually Him? Can you imagine that army and the commander in chief saying, “Okay” and then going home?  That is what we are told here concerning Rehoboam and his army that was prepared to go against the other tribes of Israel.  It is a surprising thing that Rehoboam listened and obeyed after what we read yesterday concerning his attitude towards the people he governed.  Jeroboam knows that he must set up another place of worship, an alternative to Jerusalem, if he wants to keep this people together but why in the world does he precisely repeat the sin of the golden calves, even to the extent of saying the same words Aaron spoke when he lifted up the idols?  Did they not even remember that folly and the Lord’s anger?  They separated themselves from the God who had not only delivered them from Egypt but who had given them the Land and prospered them and it was incredibly simple to get them to accept it. 

The people are prepared to stone Jesus “for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”  There are those in our day who say that we have misunderstood Jesus for two thousand years, that he was  simple rabbi, perhaps the best that has ever been, but a rabbi nonetheless, who was also, perhaps a healer, but nothing more than that and that, in fact, He never claimed to be.  The people here are very clear that He has indeed made such a claim.  In response, Jesus quotes Psalm 82.6, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” He does, however, make a claim to have been consecrated by the Father and sent into the world, to be more than just like them.  He points to His works as proof of that claim and, after He has gone across the Jordan and they have had a chance to think about it, they conclude perhaps this is true.  Sometimes we need a little distance to get to truth that is difficult at the start.

Peter may have had a terrible moment on the night of Jesus’ arrest and trial but now, after the resurrection, ascension and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he is the man he believed himself to be, standing defiantly before the council himself and telling them he will not obey them in the matter of preaching in the Name of Jesus.  The council, for their part, can’t sort out what to do because of the sign of the healing of the lame man.  When the apostles return to the community there is joy and prayer for boldness.  They are confident and convinced of the truth concerning Jesus and, in spite of the reality that they will be under constant scrutiny and persecution they want to be bold.  Is the church today praying for boldness in witness or for deliverance from persecution?