7 July 2012

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

Balaam continues to prophecy concerning the future glory of Israel, that all her enemies will be defeated.  His words begin with a formulaic expression concerning where he gets these words, by the opening of his eyes so that he may see the vision of the Lord and the hearing of the Lord’s word.  This would have been odd for Balaam as we are told in yesterday’s lesson, he normally resorted to divination.  He no longer needs to read signs, he receives a vision and a true word from the Lord and faithfully delivers it.  Oddly, later he will give wisdom concerning how to conquer Israel, suggesting that intermarriage between Israelite men and Moabite women will turn the hearts of the men and therefore the nation, away from God.  Even though this day he prophesied good for the nation, he is one of the most reviled men among the Israelites. 

The Sadducees ask the ridiculous question concerning marriage after death in the resurrection.  Jesus answers that this life is not a perfect analog for the life to come.  We worry about such things when we truly have no idea what the life to come is like.  Will we have the same passions and desires then that we have now?  Marriage is a wonderful thing but perhaps there is an even greater love that no longer seeks to possess that is awaiting us in heaven, one that is more like the love Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13.  Jesus is also queried about the most important commandment, a typical question one would ask of a rabbi.  Rabbis always worked towards simplicity, boiling down things to their essentials, and here Jesus summarizes the entire law in two commandments, love God with everything you have and love your neighbor as yourself.  Love is the ethic and loving God means loving all He commands and teaches which will guide us in loving ourselves and our neighbor since it takes sin, morals and ethics seriously.  Love isn’t overlooking or excusing sin and bad behavior, it is dealing with it for the love of God. 

Creation and those created in the image of God are both under a curse due to the sin of those first image bearers.  Paul says creation groans in anticipation of the revelation of the sons of God.  Creation needs true image bearers, those who will care for God’s creation as He cares for it.  It has been subjected to limitations not because of its sin but ours.  The creation is capable of more and so suffers not being able to do all it was intended because of us.  In the new creation we will be truly amazed at what its capabilities are once the curse is lifted.  We are to long for the kingdom of God to come that we might truly realize the blessings He intends for His people.  We will see with our eyes the true goodness of God and the true greatness of God.  Let us pray that He will open our eyes and our ears that we may see and hear and speak as true prophets.

6 July 2012

Psalm 140, 142; Num. 24:1-13; Rom. 8:12-17; Matt. 22:15-22

Balaam says that his eyes have been opened and he now hears the word of the Almighty.  In this, he sees Israel as beautiful and blessed, in spite of the fact that he is not one of them.   Balak now has a choice to make, fight them or bless them.  The prophet has finished his word with the words the Lord spoke to Abraham and Balak can either bless or curse the nation.  He can listen to and heed the words of the prophet or persist in his hardness of heart against them.   His words to Balaam are that the Lord had kept him from being rewarded because he did not do the will of the king.  What sort of prophet would only speak that which the king commanded.  He is of far greater service if he speaks truth.   

The real question is left in the wind.  They are able to identify whose image or likeness is on the coin.  Jesus has carefully chosen His words here.  The words image and likeness would surely strike directly to the heart of those who had posed the initial dilemma to Jesus.  When they, experts in the Word, heard those words they had to have immediately responded to them by recalling Genesis and the special creation of mankind in the image or likeness of God.  Money is the creation of Caesar while we are the creation of God.  The answer was perfectly composed, particularly for a Jewish audience.  They were more concerned with things of earth than things of heaven and the choice of this particular question proved that truth. 

Paul says we are debtors not to the flesh but he never directly says to what or whom we are debtors.  He obviously means that we are spiritual debtors but what does that mean exactly?  It goes back to both the prophet in our first lesson and the answer Jesus gives in the Gospel.  Balaam has been allowed to live in spite of his planned disobedience to the vision he had been given and the Lord prevented him going through with that disobedience and used the donkey to open his eyes to the spiritual reality rather than killing him on his way.  Jesus points beyond the question of money and earthly allegiance to the greater reality that we owe our very lives to the Lord.  In the case of both Israel and believers, we have been redeemed from our true master, sin and death, and therefore we owe an eternal debt to the one who has redeemed us that outweighs any earthly obligation.  We now are children of God, more than image bearers, our lives are to be rendered to Him whose image we bear and who has adopted us into His family.

5 July 2012

Psalm 131, 132; Num. 23:11-26; Rom. 8:1-11; Matt. 22:1-14 

Balak’s plan is for Balaam to see only what he wants him to see and to trick the eyes.  If the prophet only sees a fraction of the people he knows are there perhaps he will be able to believe and prophesy that the king will defeat those he has determined to be his enemies.  That determination is completely his own choice, he need not confront them and treat them as enemies, they have only asked for safe passage through his land.  What Balaam has seen though in the angel of the Lord, he fears more than the king’s anger.  Balaam may be a Moabite prophet but he knows to fear the Lord whose angel has confronted him so he speaks only the blessing the Lord has pronounced on His people, whether the prophet likes it or not.  He can no longer disobey the Lord without understanding the consequences. 

A wedding invitation was a two part process.  The guests were first informed of the date and then on that date were summoned when all the preparation was complete for the feast.  They had agreed to keep the date open for the wedding in advance and this particular wedding of the parable was the wedding of the king’s son, certainly an invitation anyone would have been honored to have received.  Yet on the day of the feast, they respond that they are too busy with their daily lives to attend.  These are not extraordinary excuses that are offered, they are workaday things while the wedding of the king’s son is certainly extraordinary.  The wrath of the king against them is great and, since the feast has been prepared, others, not considered worthy of the original invitation, are now brought to enjoy the king’s largesse and share in his joy.  One, however, has refused to put on the garment supplied for the feast and the king’s anger is again kindled because this one has disrespected the king.  We must come in the blood of Jesus, we don’t get to decide there are many ways to the Father, that is not an option Jesus left open. 

The Spirit is life.  When God created Adam and Eve, He breathed life into them, distinguishing them from all the rest of creation.  There was something more than a physical creation in the image of God, the breath of life He gave us differentiated us also.  The Spirit, the pneuma of God, given to believers, is to re-vivify this flesh, restore what was lost in the Fall, the ability to live according to God’s will.  We who have seen Jesus as the incarnate Son of God crucified for us, a righteous man dying for the unrighteous, risen from the dead by the power of the same Spirit, are to be like Balaam, knowing whom to fear and being careful to speak and act only as He leads us.  Are we as careful as that?  Paul had his own vision of Jesus, heard the voice from heaven, and indeed it changed his life completely.   

4 July 2012

Psalm 119:145-176; Num. 22:41-23:12; Rom. 7:13-25; Matt. 21:33-46 

Balaam’s first oracle is a statement that the Lord is blessing Israel and the proof of that blessing is her numbers.  Wherever he looks and from whatever vantage point he takes, all he can see are people, her people are like dust they are so numerous.  Sounds a bit like what God promised Abraham in Genesis 15 doesn’t it?  The odd point he makes is that they do not count themselves among the nations.  They do not yet have a land so they are not a nation in the sense that nations are recognized.  Nonetheless, they are God’s people and they are blessed and protected by Him.  Balak has been warned. 

The Pharisees have the same problem as Balak, the Lord has spoken through this one the crowds recognize as a prophet, and the word He has spoken is a word against them.  This parable is certainly the plainest to all who hear it, there is no surprising ending to this, no private interpretation for the disciples.  The crowd immediately knows the fate of the tenants who have dealt so with the representatives of the owner of the vineyard and finally his son.  The prophetic word will soon be fulfilled in their sight and even those in the crowd will be complicit in the Son’s death.  Will they remember this prophetic word as Jesus hangs on the cross?  Will they realize that they took part in the sin, they who shout, “Crucify Him!”   

There is a war that is being waged within us.  We know intuitively that the Law is good and right and yet in our flesh we go against that Law and do what we do not want to do.  We affirm the goodness of the Law in our hearts and minds and yet something within us desires to violate the law.  We are like Eve, taking the measure of things by the desire they produce within us and acting at the level below the Spirit of God, acting on the level of desire like a beast rather than one created in the image of God.  The Fall is complete, there is no health in us until we are regenerate and then we have the power to choose restored to us in the indwelling of the Spirit.  Who will save me from this body of death?  Indeed, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  By the power of the Spirit we have received grace to perceive Him by faith, believe He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and to walk in His Ways.  Let us commit ourselves this day to living by that Spirit, crucifying the desires of the flesh, blessing what He blesses and cursing what He curses.

3 July 2012

Psalm  121, 122, 123; Num. 22:21-38; Rom. 7:1-12; Matt. 21:23-32 

Balaam doesn’t seem surprised at a talking donkey, one he has had all its life!  The Lord became angry with Balaam over going with the men in spite of the fact that He told him to go.  He knew something of what Balaam was going to do, accept the bribe from the king to bless him when the Lord was not speaking such a blessing at all.  Balaam’s intentions were not pure, he was not prepared to be obedient to the word of the Lord.  The animal is able to see what the prophet is not, the presence of the angel of the Lord, and knows not to try and go further.  Balaam’s anger is kindled against the donkey and the Lord allowed the donkey to speak on this one occasion, since it had seen the angel.  Balaam will now heed the warning given to him concerning his prophecy, he will be looking now for the Lord.

Jesus gave no reference to the authority of his teaching.  Rabbis had authority to teach and do based on who their own rabbi was or had been, their authority was handed down from one to another and Jesus had no rabbi.  His authority was that of the Son of God.  His question concerning John causes the leaders a problem, they cannot deny John’s heavenly authority because the people believed it to be heavenly, so they refuse to answer Him.  The parable proves they are able to discern truth but their actions show that they don’t live in that truth.  Believing is more than mental assent, it is acting on truth. 

Naturally, what is prohibited we seek and what is commanded we fail to do.  In the Spirit, we seek to do God’s will and refrain from that which is sin.  Truthfully, we often fail to live by the Spirit, we try perhaps to live disciplined lives but we cannot repress that inward thing that has disordered desires.  Coveting is a perfect example, while I might not take that which is someone else’s property, that does not mean I don’t want it and am willing to do what it takes to get it.  Covetousness, desiring that which God has not given you, leads to sinful behavior in order to get that which we covet.  That sin might be ethical or moral compromise or it might simply be idolatry, forsaking the pursuing of God in order to pursue that thing.  Our lives are directed towards that which we covet whether that is favor or power or something more tangible.  Do our lives reveal Him to be God or something else to be our god?

2 July 2012

Psalm 106:1-18; Num. 22:1-21; Rom. 6:12-23; Matt. 21:12-22 

The Moabites, remember, are the descendants of Abraham’s nephew, Lot.  Their beginnings were at the cave outside Sodom after its demise when Lot’s daughters got him drunk and had sex with him to get pregnant.  They were, therefore, a despised race as their origins bespoke their mores.  Here, the king fears the Israelites although he simply refers to them as a people who have come out of Egypt and who cover the face of the earth (sounds like the command from Genesis).  The king believes that the prophet Balaam has the power to bless and curse, little does he seem to know about God’s promise to the father of these people that those who bless them will themselves be blessed and those who curse them will be cursed, the prophet’s powers were limited with respect to these particular people.  The question is, does Balaam know who this God is who is speaking to him.  He refers to Him as the Lord, my God, but does that mean he knows this God is Yahweh? 

Did Jesus curse the fig tree because He was angry or because He was teaching?  It would be silly to be angry at the fig tree for failing to produce fruit at this particular time of year so there must have been something more at work.  The nation of Israel was to be a kingdom of priests and their righteousness and the resultant blessing was to be a testimony to the entire world concerning their God and they had failed to produce the fruit intended.  They had, in fact, abandoned the mission and in setting up the moneychangers and sellers of sacrificial animals in the temple courts they had blocked the Gentiles from knowing the Lord as they could not get close to hear and see.  It may have been deliberate on their part since they were under foreign occupation and hated those who ruled over them, but they had become insulated from the world, hiding their light from others, keeping God to themselves.  Sounds a bit like the church doesn’t it? 

If we continue to live like the world and chase after the same things that the world values, do we not also fail to reveal Him to the world?  We have been set free from the chains that hold the world in bondage to the things of earth.   We are no longer slaves, but we don’t always know how to handle our freedom well.  Grace is not license to live as we please.  We have been set free so that we may pursue the kingdom of God and His righteousness, that we might have the same goals and desires that Jesus did, to glorify the Name of the Lord in our lives.  When we do we reveal something about Him and about our redeemed humanity to the world.  We are to be those who have come out of the matrix and our lives should cause others to seek the freedom we have, allowing us to witness to the One who redeemed us.  When was the last time anyone asked you about your freedom?  You have been given the grace to know Him by Name.

1 July 2012

Psalm 118; Num. 21:4-9,21-35; Acts 17:12-34; Luke 13:10-17 

Another story of rebellion over food ends badly.  You would think that surely by now they would have ceased this particular refrain but there may be something in your life that is also a constant source of complaint before the Lord just as they did.  This is an episode that Jesus uses as a comparison with His own ministry in speaking with Nicodemus in John 3.  As the serpent was the problem, so was gazing at the bronze serpent in faith the solution, so will the man, Jesus, hanging on the cross be the solution to the problem which is mankind and He must be apprehended in faith to receive healing.  Finally, the people begin to step into their call to take the land in defeating two Amorite kings and settling in their lands.  Even on the other side of the Jordan they are beginning to take possession of their birthright. 

Jesus heals on the Sabbath and it becomes an offense against the law to the ruler of the synagogue.  The ruler says that if they want healing they should come on one of the other six days of the week.  The woman had this “disabling spirit” for eighteen years and had not been healed, is he really suggesting that if she had come on a Wednesday he would have healed her at any point during those years of her disability?  The woman had given glory to God for her healing, it was clearly a sign that pointed in the right direction.  Jesus applies the law as any rabbi would have done, it was perfectly allowable to help your beast of burden out of a problem situation on the Sabbath, therefore logic dictates that this healing of a person is also allowable.  There is an interesting argument here, the relative value of human life is indisputable in the logical argument, we are a higher form of creation, Jesus makes that clear, although no one in the Jewish culture would have had any doubt about the matter. 

Paul does cultural exegesis at Athens in order to connect the Gospel to their belief system.  The Athenians prized knowledge and were always open to new things, so much so that within their pantheon of gods they were willing to leave room for something else.  Paul says that the unknown god actually is creator of all that is and He wants to be sought and found, He does not hide Himself, He has always desired to be known and in a man He appointed and raised from the dead, He now calls all men to Himself.  Paul never identifies Jesus in this little discourse.  It is the resurrection from the dead that is scandal here.  When Paul wrote the Corinthians he was, perhaps, reflecting on this moment when he said that the cross was folly to the Gentiles.  It is not worldly wisdom that allows us to believe the Gospel, it is faith, itself a gift from the Lord, without it we have no hope and we can only mock those who do believe such things.