I think a theme of Ecclesiastes is man’s helplessness, which is a humbling thing to realize.
But we don't like to acknowledge it. Whether it be in the arts, society, architecture, infrastructure, government, or even war man loves to glorify man. Look at us! Look at what the human race accomplished, isn’t it incredible? Today we live in an age when arguably we have seen the most human achievement in the history of the planet. Sixty-six years after we figured out how to fly – something that has been attempted and dream of for thousands of years – we landed on the moon.
Certainly the human race is great. Look and see how there is virtually no situation man cannot become accustomed to (or bend to its will). The world is becoming increasingly under out control.
But is it? I would say that Solomon’s writing – nearly three thousand years old – is still true in a day and age where it appears that man is in control. In reality, we are as helpless as ever.
But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. (Ecc. 9:1)
If we were to label the “best” members of society it would be the righteous and the wise. That’s how we tend to categorize men and women. Mother Theresa is revered for her righteousness and compassion, Albert Einstein for his intelligence. I think we look at great men and women with admiration because we see in them the spark of greatness, something they have willed of themselves. Somehow they have a different discipline, a different ability or level of control, and they have been made great. The rest of us regularly feel Solomon’s helplessness, but we look up to great men and women because they seem to have things under control. What is their secret?
Simply put, they don’t. Even the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hands of God. All of us are in His hands.
It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice… This is an evil that happens under the sun, that the same event happens to all. (Ecc. 9:2,3)
Once again Solomon presents to us the problems with the world. Is it this way because of death, and there is death because of sin. Truly this was not how God made the earth, because when He made it things were “good”. Now we see that everything is tainted and our lives – our greatest gift! – are burdens. We slave away day after day to sustain them, and in the end, we die. What’s words than that is being conscience of God and not only slaving to survive but slaving to be true to Him – only to see that you will die the same as those who don’t fear God.
Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun. (Ecc. 9:6)
This is all a bitter truth because of our rebellion and sinful nature towards God. Here Solomon echoes Genesis 6:5-6 (right before God floods the earth):
Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. (Ecc. 9:3)
That truth is hard to hear and may will not admit it, but it’s true. Who do we tend to hope the opposite is true, that man is inherently good?
I can think of three reasons:
1) We are image-bearers of God. Before He made us, God said:
“Let us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make man in our own image, and after our likeness.” (Gen. 1:26)
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27)
What exactly does “image” and “likeness” mean? I think it means a variety of things. We bear the image of a perfect, holy, and righteous God. A God who loves, who knows joy, a God who delights in relationships. We can see many of these qualities “stamped” into us. Most every human being (on some level) loves, longs for joy over pain, and likes relationship. Humans need relationships.
Another way we bear God’s image is our mind. We are more intelligent than any other creature on earth, in fact, God gives them us to have dominion over the same way He has dominion over us. Leadership and authority are marks of God.
Also, we were made in the image and likeness of a good God. For this reason we have “morality” and conscience. We recognize good and evil. When we go to movies, the good guy usually wins, and that’s how we like it. So we are made in God’s image and we were made to be good. If there is good in us, it is because of God.
2) We like control. When we say “Man is inherently good” we are trying to say man is in control of being good or evil (and, at the core, is good). We love the idea that we can be in control of our goodness, but ever since Adam and Eve took control in rebellion against God we have not controlled the rebellion (of evil and sin) in us, it has controlled us. But we love to believe that we have freedom in this, we love to think being on the “Naughty” or “Nice” list is a choice or applied discipline.
Why do we love the idea of freedom to be good or evil? I think because if we can’t be good we don’t want the God-given despair that should come with that, instead we want to stay in “control”, rather than admit our helplessness. In short, we want to be God. We want to be the definition of good and evil rather than Him.
Ecclesiastes slices through our false notion of control and points out that even if we devoted ourselves to righteousness we would be unable to control sin within us:
Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. (Ecc. 7:20)
The apostle Paul later echoes this:
For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
Once again, we see our helplessness. Just looking at the way in which we are controlled by sin reveals the falsehood in the phrase “Man is inherently good.”
3) I think the truth is too painful. The practical situation we often use the above phrase in is about a particular person. We apply it when someone does evil but we don’t want to accept it. Bill Clinton did what? But really he’s a good man, he just screwed up. Underneath he is a good man, he’s just made some mistakes.
The funny thing is we don’t apply this to everybody. Some people are just “evil”. If Adolf Hitler had a Clinton moment of infidelity, we wouldn’t be surprised and wouldn’t feel the need to defend him. We would not say “Underneath he’s a good man.” That sounds ridiculous to say about Adolf Hitler.
We constantly play this game of good guy/bad guy, labeling everyone we come into contact with white caps or black caps because the phrase “Man is inherently good” doesn’t carry over to everybody. We look at Hitler and say, Whoops, this premise seems out of whack. Some people are just plain evil, but man is still inherently good. Do you see what scares us? We see Hitler and see that he, too, was a human, like you and me. Could the same possibility for evil that was in Hitler live in you and me?
No, some people are just plain evil, but man is still inherently good. Right? What about Bill Clinton? He sinned, but he doesn’t seem totally evil like Hitler, in fact, he seems a lot like you or I. Maybe he’s good underneath. Man is still inherently good.
Your friend sins against you. You can’t believe it. But you’ve known them for ten years and it seems wrong to say they’re evil or that they’ve done evil. You love them! Surely love wouldn’t call something evil! How could you say that to your friend? Man is still inherently good.
You screw up. You do something deplorable, something you know is wrong but you couldn’t help yourself. You were helpless. Certainly you aren’t bad. Certainly you aren’t selfish and evil. You are a good person who had a strange fluke of character and made a mistake. For this reason the most you cling to the axiom, Man is inherently good.
Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. (Ecc. 9:3)
No, I’m not evil! Maybe from your point of view, or your family’s point of view (or maybe not!), but in order to truly know we need a different perspective.
Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life. His opinion, therefore, is very valuable in determining if someone is good or evil. Surely the world is made up of good guys and bad guys, right Jesus? Of which, I, of course, am a good guy? Jesus Christ will shake His head to such questions. Jesus – God – can see everyone’s heart, and no matter how good you think you are, Jesus knows the honest truth.
John writes this about Jesus:
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. (John 2:23-25)
Jesus isn’t stupid or naïve. Never would He have said, “Man is inherently good. In fact, most of them are good people.” He’s the only one who knows the deepest parts of all humans, and He knows they’re rotten.
So this information frustrates us and ticks us off. What about me? I give to the poor, I smile at the elderly! I go through great pains not to look lustfully at women! What about me?
You too, Jesus says: I don’t trust you.
But the goodness of Jesus is that He tells us to trust Him. He takes sin and evil and tramples it underfoot on the cross, and He gives us a new nature in that we will be like Him rather than us. That’s what we need, a heart transplant, not rules to follow. Righteousness is given by grace through Jesus Christ, it is not attained.
Jesus reaches down in our helplessness and gives us control over sin, but at the same time makes us obedient to Him. Isn’t that funny? Man in all his greatness was made to serve something. If it will not be God, it will be sin. If God is not our master, sin is. But we have the illusion of control and being good and this blinds us to the truth. We get proud so it becomes painful to admit our need for God, for a new master.
But this master is infinitely easier than the old one – sin – which destroys, decays, leads to death, swallows up life. Sin leaves us in despair like Solomon – ‘life is pointless and headed to destruction.’ But through Christ we are made new, and his invitation is to us all. In His words:
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28)
9/28/09
Wednesday 30 September 2009
Wednesday 23 September 2009
Where Your Treasure Is... (Ecclesiastes 6)
Why is shopping so much fun? Have you ever bought something and just felt good afterwards? Why does it feel so good to bring home new stuff? And why does that good feeling disappear so quickly?
In my own life I have been very blessed, I’ve usually been able to get what I want when it comes to things. Throughout my (short) life there come times when I get very excited about purchasing a particular thing. For example, I love making movies and as a kid I dreamed of owning animation software so I could create CG effects just like Hollywood. Well, at some point in high school I did some shopping around and found an industry standard program, Maya, on sale with a student discount. Animation software (good software) is very expensive and way out of a high schooler’s budget (or his parents’ budget, in my case) but the student discount made it affordable. I got very excited and set my hopes on that software. Eventually I got it, and although I did use it a lot, I can see what Solomon’s frustrated about in this chapter:
There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. (Ecc. 6:1-2)
Things ultimately don’t satisfy, and this frustrates our logic. Maybe its built into us or maybe its worse today because every day we are being bombarded with advertisements telling us product X will satisfy. We are frustrated when we consume and then find out we are still hungry.
All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. (Ecc. 6:7)
The point Solomon hits repeatedly in this chapter and throughout Ecclesiastes is “Stuff doesn’t satisfy”. So what’s the point? He laments the human life:
Even though he [a man] should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good – do not all go to the one place? (Ecc. 6:6)
And:
For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun? (Ecc. 6:12)
If the Bible ended here I think few would disagree with its ideas, especially those of Ecclesiastes. Here we get a truthful, grim portrait of what it means to be human, and if we’re honest I think most people see life in this way.
I remember feeling this way before I became a Christian. Material things in which I was not lacking did not satisfy, things in life don’t satisfy because when we put them in perspective we see our lives “pass like a shadow”.
Needless to say every human being on the planet is still interested in their happiness. We struggle for it. I think we all have our own set of “things” we strive for in life that we think will bring happiness – whether they are daily events or actions or things further down the road. Of course, many people’s are similar, but I think we all have our own set. What are yours?
For me, the small stuff is daily things – I like certain foods, eating a certain amount; I like to be comfortable, I like to have a hot shower every day. These are daily things that I (consciously or unconsciously) strive for because I know they make me happy.
I like watching movies, playing video games, reading a book. I get into these phases where I strongly desire to watch a move again, or maybe I want to play a video game – I get a longing to experience those things, and in my head I am promised bliss. The funny thing is I do them and then time seems to begin to fall through my hands like sand, and before I know it I’ve played the computer game for three hours and I still haven’t satisfied that longing, that instinct that told me it would me happy.
But those are just examples of fleeting, materialistic desires, right? That’s why they don’t satisfy. What about “important things”? For me the “important things” are like most people’s: friends, family, and “achieving my potential” or “doing something with my life”. It’s very true that these things, mainly the first two, satisfy in a much deeper way than material pleasures. It is more rewarding to visit an old friend than to buy a DVD. It just is. God has made us relational in nature just as He Himself is (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) so naturally such things satisfy deeper.
If you were to ask people what are the best parts of life, nearly all of them would say friends and family. It also feels nobler, too, to place our joy in other people rather than in our selfish needs. What’s interesting about this passage in Ecclesiastes is it asks to imagine carrying out these attempts at happiness to the umpteenth degree. Let’s say you do live a long, healthy, life, with many grandchildren – wouldn’t that put you at peace? Look at what Solomon says:
If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his life are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. (Ecc. 6:3)
What an incredible claim. If you could imagine a dream life, a life filled with people you love and enjoy, there would still be something missing.
In his book “Desiring God” John Piper argues that we are not satisfied in life NOT because we are selfish and seek after our own happiness, but rather, we don’t seek after it enough! If we truly long to be happy, we should search for that which satisfies the most! The problem is in our lives we keep “striving after the wind” (to borrow a phrase from Solomon). We chase fleeting pleasures and joys. Some people party and find that the joy in a party is very fleeting – it is not still with them when they wake up in the morning. The happiness an alcoholic or drug addict seeks is very fleeting and the appetite is never, never satisfied. What alcoholic did you ever meet who had joy in abundance? It doesn’t happen.
Jesus tells us where to find happiness:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in or steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)
That’s our problem! All of our treasures – the thing we look to for joy – are on earth. They do not compare at all with “treasures in heaven”, namely, Jesus. We were made to be in relationship with Him and unless He’s in our lives we will not be satisfied.
“I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
King David wrote of the joy of knowing the Lord:
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:9-11)
God is full of love and pleasures forever more. Just knowing Him is enough! If we were serious joy seekers, we would seek Him first in everything. Jesus puts it beautifully:
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:45-46)
If we could only imagine a tenth of the pleasure of being with Christ it would be enough to make us sell all that we have because in comparison our stuff is nothing. That doesn’t mean you need to sell all of your stuff now, or even hate it, because the things we have now are blessings. What it does mean is do not place your treasure in your stuff – place it in Jesus. And where your treasure is, “there your heart will be also”.
In my own life I have been very blessed, I’ve usually been able to get what I want when it comes to things. Throughout my (short) life there come times when I get very excited about purchasing a particular thing. For example, I love making movies and as a kid I dreamed of owning animation software so I could create CG effects just like Hollywood. Well, at some point in high school I did some shopping around and found an industry standard program, Maya, on sale with a student discount. Animation software (good software) is very expensive and way out of a high schooler’s budget (or his parents’ budget, in my case) but the student discount made it affordable. I got very excited and set my hopes on that software. Eventually I got it, and although I did use it a lot, I can see what Solomon’s frustrated about in this chapter:
There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. (Ecc. 6:1-2)
Things ultimately don’t satisfy, and this frustrates our logic. Maybe its built into us or maybe its worse today because every day we are being bombarded with advertisements telling us product X will satisfy. We are frustrated when we consume and then find out we are still hungry.
All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. (Ecc. 6:7)
The point Solomon hits repeatedly in this chapter and throughout Ecclesiastes is “Stuff doesn’t satisfy”. So what’s the point? He laments the human life:
Even though he [a man] should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good – do not all go to the one place? (Ecc. 6:6)
And:
For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun? (Ecc. 6:12)
If the Bible ended here I think few would disagree with its ideas, especially those of Ecclesiastes. Here we get a truthful, grim portrait of what it means to be human, and if we’re honest I think most people see life in this way.
I remember feeling this way before I became a Christian. Material things in which I was not lacking did not satisfy, things in life don’t satisfy because when we put them in perspective we see our lives “pass like a shadow”.
Needless to say every human being on the planet is still interested in their happiness. We struggle for it. I think we all have our own set of “things” we strive for in life that we think will bring happiness – whether they are daily events or actions or things further down the road. Of course, many people’s are similar, but I think we all have our own set. What are yours?
For me, the small stuff is daily things – I like certain foods, eating a certain amount; I like to be comfortable, I like to have a hot shower every day. These are daily things that I (consciously or unconsciously) strive for because I know they make me happy.
I like watching movies, playing video games, reading a book. I get into these phases where I strongly desire to watch a move again, or maybe I want to play a video game – I get a longing to experience those things, and in my head I am promised bliss. The funny thing is I do them and then time seems to begin to fall through my hands like sand, and before I know it I’ve played the computer game for three hours and I still haven’t satisfied that longing, that instinct that told me it would me happy.
But those are just examples of fleeting, materialistic desires, right? That’s why they don’t satisfy. What about “important things”? For me the “important things” are like most people’s: friends, family, and “achieving my potential” or “doing something with my life”. It’s very true that these things, mainly the first two, satisfy in a much deeper way than material pleasures. It is more rewarding to visit an old friend than to buy a DVD. It just is. God has made us relational in nature just as He Himself is (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) so naturally such things satisfy deeper.
If you were to ask people what are the best parts of life, nearly all of them would say friends and family. It also feels nobler, too, to place our joy in other people rather than in our selfish needs. What’s interesting about this passage in Ecclesiastes is it asks to imagine carrying out these attempts at happiness to the umpteenth degree. Let’s say you do live a long, healthy, life, with many grandchildren – wouldn’t that put you at peace? Look at what Solomon says:
If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his life are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. (Ecc. 6:3)
What an incredible claim. If you could imagine a dream life, a life filled with people you love and enjoy, there would still be something missing.
In his book “Desiring God” John Piper argues that we are not satisfied in life NOT because we are selfish and seek after our own happiness, but rather, we don’t seek after it enough! If we truly long to be happy, we should search for that which satisfies the most! The problem is in our lives we keep “striving after the wind” (to borrow a phrase from Solomon). We chase fleeting pleasures and joys. Some people party and find that the joy in a party is very fleeting – it is not still with them when they wake up in the morning. The happiness an alcoholic or drug addict seeks is very fleeting and the appetite is never, never satisfied. What alcoholic did you ever meet who had joy in abundance? It doesn’t happen.
Jesus tells us where to find happiness:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in or steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)
That’s our problem! All of our treasures – the thing we look to for joy – are on earth. They do not compare at all with “treasures in heaven”, namely, Jesus. We were made to be in relationship with Him and unless He’s in our lives we will not be satisfied.
“I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
King David wrote of the joy of knowing the Lord:
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:9-11)
God is full of love and pleasures forever more. Just knowing Him is enough! If we were serious joy seekers, we would seek Him first in everything. Jesus puts it beautifully:
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:45-46)
If we could only imagine a tenth of the pleasure of being with Christ it would be enough to make us sell all that we have because in comparison our stuff is nothing. That doesn’t mean you need to sell all of your stuff now, or even hate it, because the things we have now are blessings. What it does mean is do not place your treasure in your stuff – place it in Jesus. And where your treasure is, “there your heart will be also”.
Be Still - Ecclesiastes 5:1-7
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words. (Ecc. 5:1-3)
This passage in my bible (the ESV) is labeled “Fear God”. When I first became a Christian I remember reading in Romans:
They [Israel] were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. (Romans 11:20-22)
I read that one morning and it bothered me all day. I didn’t think that we should fear God. Isn’t God love (1 John 4:8)? Doesn’t His “steadfast love endure forever” (Psalm 136)? Isn’t this the God of peace and grace Paul writes of at the beginning of every epistle (like 1 Cor. 1:3)?
The answer is “Yes” – God is love, through him we receive grace upon grace (John 1:16). God sustains us from to death, providing food, sunlight, everything, and through His Son, dead on a cross, risen three days later, we truly see that God’s steadfast love endures forever.
But it’s important to remember the Jesus we worship is “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). When John the beloved disciple, left for dead on the island of Patmos, sees his friend and Lord we get a true picture of Jesus’ glory:
…and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. (Rev. 1:13-16)
That’s a glorious and terrifying image – this is a King. This is not someone you should cross – He’s got a sword coming out of His mouth and in His right He’s holding seven stars. I can barely palm a basketball.
Our American culture doesn’t like this image of Jesus or God – we like the idea of a guy in the sky with a white beard who is nice to us and gives us what we want. We call on him when we need him, but otherwise we leave him alone. When something bad happens, its his fault because he’s not strong enough to stop things. As for Jesus, he’s a white guy with flowing locks who smiles all the time and only says “Don’t judge” and “Love your neighbor”. His death was about revealing what hatred does – that’s the true evil! – and today he’s in heaven, looking down on us and crying every time someone sins; but he can’t do much about it.
God is love but God is also God. He is the highest, the greatest, the Lord of all! When we think of the President of the United States of America we have awe and respect (if not for the man then at least for the office) and the President’s jurisdiction is only America! God’s dominion is the entire earth, the entire galaxy, the entire universe; from the biggest star, the greatest nebula, to the tiniest electron. There is not corner of creation God did not create or does not have control over. This makes the God of the Bible and the God of Jesus Christ all the more compassionate and incredible, that with so much power and wisdom and depth He would enter Himself into our lives and offer us piece through Christ. The President doesn’t call and ask us how our marriage is going – why does God?
This makes the very person of Christ compelling. Even though “all things were made through him” (John 1:3) Jesus actually comes down from heaven – “for God is in heaven and you are on earth” (Ecclesiastes 5:2) – and lived as a man. How limiting, how constraining! And yet the truth is that He is God. God then surrendered His power at the hands of weak earthly powers who crucified Him. Jesus’ death is His ultimate act of humility.
Yes, through Christ we are made new, our sins are forgiven, the temple curtain is torn, and we can press into God – but it is essential that we understand the full power and majesty of our King.
God is the one you must fear. (Ecc. 5:7)
Without a fear for God we will not be able to truly worship Him or even respect Him. For example, it’s a common literary situation for a person to meet their nation’s leader only to find they are a human being like themselves. In Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We” (pretty much a Russian “1984” from which George Orwell drew inspiration) our main character, D-503, lives in a totalitarian dystopia called One State run by a man named “The Great Benefactor”. This guy is worshiped and revered, and you can guess that anybody who crosses him or One State ends up dead (in a pretty gruesome way in this book, you’ll have to read it for yourself). Eventually D-503 gets to meet the Great Benefactor and he is surprised to meet, simply, a man. This man, this “fearless” and “wise” leader, is a man – a balding man, at that.
This is a common theme: the wizard is just a man behind the curtain. These feelings of disillusionment with true authority and power are very true in earthly examples – Barack Obama is just a man, the Queen of England is only a woman – but the same cannot be said of God. He has power, He has authority, and we hate it because He is good and we are wicked. We hate it when God tells us “That’s evil”. We tend to shout back “Well, you must be evil”. God is the reason we even know what evil is, that is, God defines good – simply who He is defines “good”. Certain things like love and faithfulness are good only because they are God’s qualities. Certain things like adultery and unfaithfulness are evil because God does the opposite.
So it is very healthy and necessary to hold God in high esteem in our hearts and with much fear. One part of this chapter that really sticks out to me is:
It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. (Ecc. 5:5)
I’ve made promises to God before and broken them later. I should’ve realized who I was making a promise to and the magnitude of such a thing – for if you promise someone who never breaks His promises, how much more will He be able to hold you accountable?
Mark Driscoll says “we take ourselves too seriously and God too lightly”. Too often people who profess faith in Christ say “I’m saved” and they move on with their lives, never living in thankfulness and fear and awe of their King. Too often our Sundays are just tradition – “the sacrifice of fools…they do not know they are doing evil” (Ecc. 5:1) – and we pay no heed to the majesty of God and His divine right to simply kill us as rebels of His purposes and Kingdom. We don’t see the absolute miracle of our salvation, that we deserve absolute death. With the Lord there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Ecc. 3:7). Before the Lord we should have awe and reverence and remember it is God’s absolute goodness that allows us to pray to Him at all.
I’ll end with this haunting and beautiful picture from Revelation:
When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. (Rev. 8:1)
Can you image that? Silence in heaven. I’m not sure, but when that happens that might be the first time ever (maybe during Jesus’ death as well, but this is all just speculation) that such a thing has happened. From eternity past to eternity future I would guess heaven’s been rocking and rolling in worship of God – and here we have silence.
Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10).
Father, You are more incredible than I can imagine. Help me to love and fear and revere You with my whole heart. Your grace in light of Your righteous anger is staggering. Please help me live in great fear and trepidation, not compromising here and there for things that I know are sinful. At the same time, help me to live by Your power and not my own and help me not to give You my second best. I need You for everything, God, and only by Your grace will I live a righteous life. Thank You that I will not know Your wrath on me on that day that is to come. Thank You that Jesus is returning and that because of Your grace I will dance – in awe and fear and love – rather than run and hide, sure of my destruction. I praise Your holy name, please fill me with Your Spirit now and use me to glorify You. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.
This passage in my bible (the ESV) is labeled “Fear God”. When I first became a Christian I remember reading in Romans:
They [Israel] were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. (Romans 11:20-22)
I read that one morning and it bothered me all day. I didn’t think that we should fear God. Isn’t God love (1 John 4:8)? Doesn’t His “steadfast love endure forever” (Psalm 136)? Isn’t this the God of peace and grace Paul writes of at the beginning of every epistle (like 1 Cor. 1:3)?
The answer is “Yes” – God is love, through him we receive grace upon grace (John 1:16). God sustains us from to death, providing food, sunlight, everything, and through His Son, dead on a cross, risen three days later, we truly see that God’s steadfast love endures forever.
But it’s important to remember the Jesus we worship is “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). When John the beloved disciple, left for dead on the island of Patmos, sees his friend and Lord we get a true picture of Jesus’ glory:
…and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. (Rev. 1:13-16)
That’s a glorious and terrifying image – this is a King. This is not someone you should cross – He’s got a sword coming out of His mouth and in His right He’s holding seven stars. I can barely palm a basketball.
Our American culture doesn’t like this image of Jesus or God – we like the idea of a guy in the sky with a white beard who is nice to us and gives us what we want. We call on him when we need him, but otherwise we leave him alone. When something bad happens, its his fault because he’s not strong enough to stop things. As for Jesus, he’s a white guy with flowing locks who smiles all the time and only says “Don’t judge” and “Love your neighbor”. His death was about revealing what hatred does – that’s the true evil! – and today he’s in heaven, looking down on us and crying every time someone sins; but he can’t do much about it.
God is love but God is also God. He is the highest, the greatest, the Lord of all! When we think of the President of the United States of America we have awe and respect (if not for the man then at least for the office) and the President’s jurisdiction is only America! God’s dominion is the entire earth, the entire galaxy, the entire universe; from the biggest star, the greatest nebula, to the tiniest electron. There is not corner of creation God did not create or does not have control over. This makes the God of the Bible and the God of Jesus Christ all the more compassionate and incredible, that with so much power and wisdom and depth He would enter Himself into our lives and offer us piece through Christ. The President doesn’t call and ask us how our marriage is going – why does God?
This makes the very person of Christ compelling. Even though “all things were made through him” (John 1:3) Jesus actually comes down from heaven – “for God is in heaven and you are on earth” (Ecclesiastes 5:2) – and lived as a man. How limiting, how constraining! And yet the truth is that He is God. God then surrendered His power at the hands of weak earthly powers who crucified Him. Jesus’ death is His ultimate act of humility.
Yes, through Christ we are made new, our sins are forgiven, the temple curtain is torn, and we can press into God – but it is essential that we understand the full power and majesty of our King.
God is the one you must fear. (Ecc. 5:7)
Without a fear for God we will not be able to truly worship Him or even respect Him. For example, it’s a common literary situation for a person to meet their nation’s leader only to find they are a human being like themselves. In Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We” (pretty much a Russian “1984” from which George Orwell drew inspiration) our main character, D-503, lives in a totalitarian dystopia called One State run by a man named “The Great Benefactor”. This guy is worshiped and revered, and you can guess that anybody who crosses him or One State ends up dead (in a pretty gruesome way in this book, you’ll have to read it for yourself). Eventually D-503 gets to meet the Great Benefactor and he is surprised to meet, simply, a man. This man, this “fearless” and “wise” leader, is a man – a balding man, at that.
This is a common theme: the wizard is just a man behind the curtain. These feelings of disillusionment with true authority and power are very true in earthly examples – Barack Obama is just a man, the Queen of England is only a woman – but the same cannot be said of God. He has power, He has authority, and we hate it because He is good and we are wicked. We hate it when God tells us “That’s evil”. We tend to shout back “Well, you must be evil”. God is the reason we even know what evil is, that is, God defines good – simply who He is defines “good”. Certain things like love and faithfulness are good only because they are God’s qualities. Certain things like adultery and unfaithfulness are evil because God does the opposite.
So it is very healthy and necessary to hold God in high esteem in our hearts and with much fear. One part of this chapter that really sticks out to me is:
It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. (Ecc. 5:5)
I’ve made promises to God before and broken them later. I should’ve realized who I was making a promise to and the magnitude of such a thing – for if you promise someone who never breaks His promises, how much more will He be able to hold you accountable?
Mark Driscoll says “we take ourselves too seriously and God too lightly”. Too often people who profess faith in Christ say “I’m saved” and they move on with their lives, never living in thankfulness and fear and awe of their King. Too often our Sundays are just tradition – “the sacrifice of fools…they do not know they are doing evil” (Ecc. 5:1) – and we pay no heed to the majesty of God and His divine right to simply kill us as rebels of His purposes and Kingdom. We don’t see the absolute miracle of our salvation, that we deserve absolute death. With the Lord there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Ecc. 3:7). Before the Lord we should have awe and reverence and remember it is God’s absolute goodness that allows us to pray to Him at all.
I’ll end with this haunting and beautiful picture from Revelation:
When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. (Rev. 8:1)
Can you image that? Silence in heaven. I’m not sure, but when that happens that might be the first time ever (maybe during Jesus’ death as well, but this is all just speculation) that such a thing has happened. From eternity past to eternity future I would guess heaven’s been rocking and rolling in worship of God – and here we have silence.
Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10).
Father, You are more incredible than I can imagine. Help me to love and fear and revere You with my whole heart. Your grace in light of Your righteous anger is staggering. Please help me live in great fear and trepidation, not compromising here and there for things that I know are sinful. At the same time, help me to live by Your power and not my own and help me not to give You my second best. I need You for everything, God, and only by Your grace will I live a righteous life. Thank You that I will not know Your wrath on me on that day that is to come. Thank You that Jesus is returning and that because of Your grace I will dance – in awe and fear and love – rather than run and hide, sure of my destruction. I praise Your holy name, please fill me with Your Spirit now and use me to glorify You. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.
Tuesday 22 September 2009
We Live in Darkness - 1 Corinthians 8 Part 1
I read: 1 Corinthians 8
In 1 Corinthians Paul is addressing questions the church in Corinth had. Paul addresses them with love and truth. Wouldn’t it be exciting today to get a letter from Paul (or God, whom this letter is ultimately authored by) addressing all of our church debates today? Hey, Apostle Paul, what’s the deal with evolution? How are we supposed to read Genesis 1 & 2? Or: Hey Paul, is it really Jesus’ physical body and blood when we take communion?
We’ve seen over the course of church history and even biblical history that there are always theological disputes like in 1 Corinthians 8. The reason why is because often times our questions can’t be answered in black and white – and when we try to answer them in such ways we often end up fighting with brothers and sisters who disagree.
This is exactly the kind of problem Paul is addressing. “Now concerning food offered to idols” (1 Cor. 8:1). To help contextualize this debate let’s change the topic from food offered to idols to drinking, a hot church topic in our time.
Many churches today have different “doctrines” when it comes to alcohol. If you’re a Southern Baptist you can’t drink alcohol at all.
It’s interesting that Paul doesn’t respond to this debate in a similar way. He doesn’t say: “Well, since it’s bad for some it’s evil for all. Don’t do it.” Instead Paul highlights this tension that marks the Christian life. We are not called to cut off everything in the world because then who would hear the gospel? We are supposed to be in the world (which is evil and sinful) but not of it (we must be righteous).
Interestingly, Paul’s answer starts by calling everyone in the debate to look at their motives and their hearts. Paul calls them back to the knowledge we are given through God’s grace: the knowledge that points out sin and folly and God’s greatness. In the case of food offered to idols the wisdom of God reveals:
“an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth – as indeed there are many “gods” and “lords” – yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we all exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Cor. 8:4-6)
Okay, Paul says, we as God’s children have been blessed to see and know the one true God, and consequently, see that there are no other gods. “However,” Paul continues, “not all possess this knowledge” (1 Cor. 8:7). If everybody did, there wouldn’t be any chicken sacrifices or moon worship (this stuff still goes on today, just like always). People would see the one true God and know that there are no other gods before him. But most people don’t see that – in fact none of us can unless God reveals Himself to us.
Let’s take a quick detour (okay, this won’t be quick) and remind ourselves how we have gained this knowledge of God. First, we remember that we are rebels, we re sinners, we are not good. We think and do bad stuff. If we’re honest with ourselves – and we don’t rationalize our goodness by comparing ourselves to people “worse” than us - we’ll see this. We don’t care about God or seek Him even though nature itself is declaring His love to us (“The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky above proclaims his handiwork” Psalm 19:1). Instead, we live our lives, focused on me, me, me, and we try to eek out whatever pleasures we can from this life. We do things that hurt people and we do things that hurt ourselves because either 1) we don’t realize it or 2) we can’t stop.
Please, take a minute and examine yourself: don’t compare yourself to Adolf Hitler and the worst people of our time, compare yourself to Jesus and ask: “Am I as righteous as Him? Am I without sin?” If you answer “yes” then you’ve just lied to yourself, which is a sin and now you’re back with the rest of the human race.
This kind of existence doesn’t lead to joy, it leads to death – “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
Think of us as a deaf, dumb, blind people. Our sin has made us this way. We stumble about in darkness, unsure of where we’re going or what we’re doing.
John, the “beloved disciple” who wrote the Gospel of John writes about how we are in darkness and that the light we need is Jesus:
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. (John 1:9)
Buddhism and other religions talk about this need for “enlightenment” – which expresses the idea that we are currently in the dark. This is exactly right. What Buddhism and other religions get wrong is how to get the light to shine on them – we can’t reach “enlightenment” or escape spiritual darkness by “denying ourselves”, by denying our bodily functions, or by thinking and living a certain way, or even doing certain things. No, we are deaf, dumb, and blind.
How can a blind man make himself see or a deaf person make themselves hear? They wouldn’t even have a concept of what sight and sound are! If, hypothetically, a blind person could give himself sight, would he even know what it was? (I’ll return to this in a moment).
Again, can a people who have been in total darkness their whole existence build a fire for some light? They don’t even know what a fire looks like!
We need a second party to 1) tell us about fire and 2) to build one for us. Or, in the case of the blind man, he needs someone to 1) tell him about sight and 2) give it to him. The blind man would only know what sight is if someone else had told him about it. Jesus, the “light of men” (John 1:4) does that for us and more. He gives us eyes to see and tells us what it means. He truly is the light shining in the darkness (John 1:5).
So if we are in darkness it is plain to see that we will never have clarity or spiritual wisdom or truth about the world until it is revealed to us by someone who has sight. Every spiritual teacher or authority who has ever lived cannot offer us insight to that which is not known – Buddha, Aristotle, Plato, they all had to use their brains to speculate about what truth was, or what lies beyond the grave. But ultimately any truth they did discover is marred by their blindness. Picture them in the dark finding objects and feeling them all over – they may be able to tell you quite a lot from all they have to work with but if someone turned the lights on, the truth would be made plain.
Jesus, on the other hand, knows all truth and knows God because He has lived with Him forever.
Let’s say there is a rich man in town you know nothing about because he lives on a hill, very high up beyond your field of sight. You know he lives there but as to his person and character: you have no idea who he is. You try to guess what he does and what he’s like, you discuss it with other people who live around you – but they don’t know either. You have guess but you can never be sure.
Then one day the rich man sends his son down to talk to you and the other people about himself. This son completely destroys your theories and speculations about the man because he has seen him firsthand and knows him intimately. In addition, this isn’t something like the rich man’s garbage collector, this is his son. Not only does the son know the rich man, he is the best authority on how to describe him and explain him, because in a way he is the rich man too, his very flesh.
We can see in this metaphor the value of testimony from one who truly knows. Jesus claims to be the Son sent by God:
“And the Father who has sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.” (John 5:37-38)
Jesus points out that although we have a lot of thoughts and theories about God, we have not seen him. Jesus alone has, and He says that He has been sent to tell everyone just who God is.
You would think if this were true – God’s Son come to earth – that there would be more rejoicing, more excitement. Our eyes would be healed! The darkness will be lifted and we will see! Isn’t that what everyone wants?
The problem is that people are so marred by the darkness that they enjoy it and hate the light.
Jesus says:
“The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)
So, to drive home the main point, we are rebels of God reveling in our darkness and Jesus’ light hurts our eyes. But it’s the only thing that will save us – only through Jesus hand we are saved, only through this light can we clearly see who God is.
“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)
And:
…from his fullness we have all received, grace up on grace. (John 1:16)
This sight, this clarity, this knowledge is a gift of grace. That’s what I’m trying to say. Once we have this gift it’s easy to scoff at those who don’t – once we have the knowledge of the one true God it’s easy to scoff at the person who bows down to the moon – but this is incredibly arrogant of us. The only reason you know there’s nothing in the moon to worship is because God through Jesus revealed it to you. This arrogance in know in the truth leads to problems in the way we interact with non-believers, or those still in darkness.
In 1 Corinthians Paul is addressing questions the church in Corinth had. Paul addresses them with love and truth. Wouldn’t it be exciting today to get a letter from Paul (or God, whom this letter is ultimately authored by) addressing all of our church debates today? Hey, Apostle Paul, what’s the deal with evolution? How are we supposed to read Genesis 1 & 2? Or: Hey Paul, is it really Jesus’ physical body and blood when we take communion?
We’ve seen over the course of church history and even biblical history that there are always theological disputes like in 1 Corinthians 8. The reason why is because often times our questions can’t be answered in black and white – and when we try to answer them in such ways we often end up fighting with brothers and sisters who disagree.
This is exactly the kind of problem Paul is addressing. “Now concerning food offered to idols” (1 Cor. 8:1). To help contextualize this debate let’s change the topic from food offered to idols to drinking, a hot church topic in our time.
Many churches today have different “doctrines” when it comes to alcohol. If you’re a Southern Baptist you can’t drink alcohol at all.
It’s interesting that Paul doesn’t respond to this debate in a similar way. He doesn’t say: “Well, since it’s bad for some it’s evil for all. Don’t do it.” Instead Paul highlights this tension that marks the Christian life. We are not called to cut off everything in the world because then who would hear the gospel? We are supposed to be in the world (which is evil and sinful) but not of it (we must be righteous).
Interestingly, Paul’s answer starts by calling everyone in the debate to look at their motives and their hearts. Paul calls them back to the knowledge we are given through God’s grace: the knowledge that points out sin and folly and God’s greatness. In the case of food offered to idols the wisdom of God reveals:
“an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth – as indeed there are many “gods” and “lords” – yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we all exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Cor. 8:4-6)
Okay, Paul says, we as God’s children have been blessed to see and know the one true God, and consequently, see that there are no other gods. “However,” Paul continues, “not all possess this knowledge” (1 Cor. 8:7). If everybody did, there wouldn’t be any chicken sacrifices or moon worship (this stuff still goes on today, just like always). People would see the one true God and know that there are no other gods before him. But most people don’t see that – in fact none of us can unless God reveals Himself to us.
Let’s take a quick detour (okay, this won’t be quick) and remind ourselves how we have gained this knowledge of God. First, we remember that we are rebels, we re sinners, we are not good. We think and do bad stuff. If we’re honest with ourselves – and we don’t rationalize our goodness by comparing ourselves to people “worse” than us - we’ll see this. We don’t care about God or seek Him even though nature itself is declaring His love to us (“The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky above proclaims his handiwork” Psalm 19:1). Instead, we live our lives, focused on me, me, me, and we try to eek out whatever pleasures we can from this life. We do things that hurt people and we do things that hurt ourselves because either 1) we don’t realize it or 2) we can’t stop.
Please, take a minute and examine yourself: don’t compare yourself to Adolf Hitler and the worst people of our time, compare yourself to Jesus and ask: “Am I as righteous as Him? Am I without sin?” If you answer “yes” then you’ve just lied to yourself, which is a sin and now you’re back with the rest of the human race.
This kind of existence doesn’t lead to joy, it leads to death – “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
Think of us as a deaf, dumb, blind people. Our sin has made us this way. We stumble about in darkness, unsure of where we’re going or what we’re doing.
John, the “beloved disciple” who wrote the Gospel of John writes about how we are in darkness and that the light we need is Jesus:
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. (John 1:9)
Buddhism and other religions talk about this need for “enlightenment” – which expresses the idea that we are currently in the dark. This is exactly right. What Buddhism and other religions get wrong is how to get the light to shine on them – we can’t reach “enlightenment” or escape spiritual darkness by “denying ourselves”, by denying our bodily functions, or by thinking and living a certain way, or even doing certain things. No, we are deaf, dumb, and blind.
How can a blind man make himself see or a deaf person make themselves hear? They wouldn’t even have a concept of what sight and sound are! If, hypothetically, a blind person could give himself sight, would he even know what it was? (I’ll return to this in a moment).
Again, can a people who have been in total darkness their whole existence build a fire for some light? They don’t even know what a fire looks like!
We need a second party to 1) tell us about fire and 2) to build one for us. Or, in the case of the blind man, he needs someone to 1) tell him about sight and 2) give it to him. The blind man would only know what sight is if someone else had told him about it. Jesus, the “light of men” (John 1:4) does that for us and more. He gives us eyes to see and tells us what it means. He truly is the light shining in the darkness (John 1:5).
So if we are in darkness it is plain to see that we will never have clarity or spiritual wisdom or truth about the world until it is revealed to us by someone who has sight. Every spiritual teacher or authority who has ever lived cannot offer us insight to that which is not known – Buddha, Aristotle, Plato, they all had to use their brains to speculate about what truth was, or what lies beyond the grave. But ultimately any truth they did discover is marred by their blindness. Picture them in the dark finding objects and feeling them all over – they may be able to tell you quite a lot from all they have to work with but if someone turned the lights on, the truth would be made plain.
Jesus, on the other hand, knows all truth and knows God because He has lived with Him forever.
Let’s say there is a rich man in town you know nothing about because he lives on a hill, very high up beyond your field of sight. You know he lives there but as to his person and character: you have no idea who he is. You try to guess what he does and what he’s like, you discuss it with other people who live around you – but they don’t know either. You have guess but you can never be sure.
Then one day the rich man sends his son down to talk to you and the other people about himself. This son completely destroys your theories and speculations about the man because he has seen him firsthand and knows him intimately. In addition, this isn’t something like the rich man’s garbage collector, this is his son. Not only does the son know the rich man, he is the best authority on how to describe him and explain him, because in a way he is the rich man too, his very flesh.
We can see in this metaphor the value of testimony from one who truly knows. Jesus claims to be the Son sent by God:
“And the Father who has sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.” (John 5:37-38)
Jesus points out that although we have a lot of thoughts and theories about God, we have not seen him. Jesus alone has, and He says that He has been sent to tell everyone just who God is.
You would think if this were true – God’s Son come to earth – that there would be more rejoicing, more excitement. Our eyes would be healed! The darkness will be lifted and we will see! Isn’t that what everyone wants?
The problem is that people are so marred by the darkness that they enjoy it and hate the light.
Jesus says:
“The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)
So, to drive home the main point, we are rebels of God reveling in our darkness and Jesus’ light hurts our eyes. But it’s the only thing that will save us – only through Jesus hand we are saved, only through this light can we clearly see who God is.
“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)
And:
…from his fullness we have all received, grace up on grace. (John 1:16)
This sight, this clarity, this knowledge is a gift of grace. That’s what I’m trying to say. Once we have this gift it’s easy to scoff at those who don’t – once we have the knowledge of the one true God it’s easy to scoff at the person who bows down to the moon – but this is incredibly arrogant of us. The only reason you know there’s nothing in the moon to worship is because God through Jesus revealed it to you. This arrogance in know in the truth leads to problems in the way we interact with non-believers, or those still in darkness.
Love Builds Up - 1 Corinthians 8 Part 2
With a debate like “food offered to idols,” Paul attacks the hearts of those debating first before addressing the issue. In comparison if we have the knowledge that drinking can be a false idol and a detriment to our health and character and sinful it’s still wrong to lord it over non-Christians because they have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s like yelling at the blind man, “Walk like me, you idiot, stop stumbling! Can’t you see?”
Paul says first we need to remember love, which does not lead to arrogance:
Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. (1 Cor. 8:1-3)
Amen! Paul says before we can debate this issue you need to find out where your heart is.
So what is the answer to the debate? Paul’s answer brings us back to the idea of “tension” – something that definitely marks the Christian life.
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. (1 Cor. 10:23)
We know that food offered to idols is really offered to nothing (1 Cor. 8:4-6) but we should measure our decision to eat it with our conscience*. Maybe someone used to sacrifice to idols and worship them and upon receiving God’s gift of salvation and knowledge they don’t feel right still doing it (1 Cor. 8:7). Because, Paul explains:
Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. (1 Cor. 8:8)
It’s just food, if you have a clean conscience, go ahead. Of course, this isn’t really a situation we’re likely to find ourselves in today, so let’s contextualize it. Drinking alcohol is permissible – no where in scripture does it condemn the act of drinking itself, only drunkenness – but maybe you’ve had a history of alcoholism and when you got saved you said “Never again”. In your case it would be wrong to drink because your conscience would be panged.
But maybe your conscience is not panged and you enjoy alcohol – you enjoy it without sinning, you enjoy it in God’s abounding grace. It is wrong for you to say, though, in your conscience and in your knowledge that God has given you, that everyone should drink as you do. Likewise, for the one who doesn’t drink by the knowledge God is given him it is wrong to say everyone shouldn’t drink. These are forms of pride that set brother against brother, and the Spirit of God is about unity and love. Remember:
This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.
Truly we need to turn to the Spirit of God about these things, and through Him will we find unity and peace and grace not only for other believers but non-believers as well. Take a look at this unity that Paul writes of in another letter, Ephesians:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (4:1-6)
Next time we feel like starting a theological argument let’s remember those words and see where our heart is. Let us pursue unity in the Holy Spirit so that people will see and know that “we are Christians by our love”.
Finally, Paul admonishes the one with a guilt-free conscience to be careful.
But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. (1 Cor. 8:9-11)
Again Paul writes later after writing “All things are lawful”:
Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. (1 Cor. 10:24)
Keep in mind the people around you. Although something may be lawful for you, ask yourself: what does this tell the person in darkness about the light? This tension of Christianity is between identifying sin, discerning evil, and living in freedom. There’s a tension in the way we live our lives: does it help our brother or sister? Are we living in love for him or her? If you can drink but your friend’s an alcoholic, don’t take him to the bar. If you can drink but it makes people who aren’t Christians (but look up to you as a symbol of Christ) doubt the righteousness that is in you, don’t drink.
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Cor. 10:31)
(9/21/09)
*I have since realized in reading more of 1 Corinthians (should've done that first!) that ultimately Paul does condemn eating food offered to idols (10:14-22). Although earlier he pointed out that the sacrifices to idols are worthless he then says this shocking thing:
What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. (10:19-21)
So I was mistaken, the ultimate answer is Don't do it. In this way the alcohol parallel I tried to establish doesn't really work because it's a different matter. In that way my "answer" was more correct, but not when it comes to the food sacrificed to idols. I still like though that Paul does spend time on the people's hearts in the matter (he doesn't outright say "Don't do it") and in a way gives them an example for how to dissect an issue like this. (10/4/09)
Paul says first we need to remember love, which does not lead to arrogance:
Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. (1 Cor. 8:1-3)
Amen! Paul says before we can debate this issue you need to find out where your heart is.
So what is the answer to the debate? Paul’s answer brings us back to the idea of “tension” – something that definitely marks the Christian life.
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. (1 Cor. 10:23)
We know that food offered to idols is really offered to nothing (1 Cor. 8:4-6) but we should measure our decision to eat it with our conscience*. Maybe someone used to sacrifice to idols and worship them and upon receiving God’s gift of salvation and knowledge they don’t feel right still doing it (1 Cor. 8:7). Because, Paul explains:
Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. (1 Cor. 8:8)
It’s just food, if you have a clean conscience, go ahead. Of course, this isn’t really a situation we’re likely to find ourselves in today, so let’s contextualize it. Drinking alcohol is permissible – no where in scripture does it condemn the act of drinking itself, only drunkenness – but maybe you’ve had a history of alcoholism and when you got saved you said “Never again”. In your case it would be wrong to drink because your conscience would be panged.
But maybe your conscience is not panged and you enjoy alcohol – you enjoy it without sinning, you enjoy it in God’s abounding grace. It is wrong for you to say, though, in your conscience and in your knowledge that God has given you, that everyone should drink as you do. Likewise, for the one who doesn’t drink by the knowledge God is given him it is wrong to say everyone shouldn’t drink. These are forms of pride that set brother against brother, and the Spirit of God is about unity and love. Remember:
This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.
Truly we need to turn to the Spirit of God about these things, and through Him will we find unity and peace and grace not only for other believers but non-believers as well. Take a look at this unity that Paul writes of in another letter, Ephesians:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (4:1-6)
Next time we feel like starting a theological argument let’s remember those words and see where our heart is. Let us pursue unity in the Holy Spirit so that people will see and know that “we are Christians by our love”.
Finally, Paul admonishes the one with a guilt-free conscience to be careful.
But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. (1 Cor. 8:9-11)
Again Paul writes later after writing “All things are lawful”:
Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. (1 Cor. 10:24)
Keep in mind the people around you. Although something may be lawful for you, ask yourself: what does this tell the person in darkness about the light? This tension of Christianity is between identifying sin, discerning evil, and living in freedom. There’s a tension in the way we live our lives: does it help our brother or sister? Are we living in love for him or her? If you can drink but your friend’s an alcoholic, don’t take him to the bar. If you can drink but it makes people who aren’t Christians (but look up to you as a symbol of Christ) doubt the righteousness that is in you, don’t drink.
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Cor. 10:31)
(9/21/09)
*I have since realized in reading more of 1 Corinthians (should've done that first!) that ultimately Paul does condemn eating food offered to idols (10:14-22). Although earlier he pointed out that the sacrifices to idols are worthless he then says this shocking thing:
What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. (10:19-21)
So I was mistaken, the ultimate answer is Don't do it. In this way the alcohol parallel I tried to establish doesn't really work because it's a different matter. In that way my "answer" was more correct, but not when it comes to the food sacrificed to idols. I still like though that Paul does spend time on the people's hearts in the matter (he doesn't outright say "Don't do it") and in a way gives them an example for how to dissect an issue like this. (10/4/09)
Ecclesiastes 4
Jesus is incredible because not only is He the answer to the oppression mentioned in 4:1-3, He also fully experienced it on the cross.
Look at Solomon’s words and picture Christ handed over to be crucified:
Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressor there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. (4:1-3)
You want to see human evil? Look at the cross and you’ll find an innocent man bleeding and shaking. The righteous (Christ) was overpowered by unrighteousness. Does that sound like an event that is even possible for a righteous God in total control?
If I saw someone crucified I would probably think something like verse 3. “Better are the dead than this fellow”. At the end of “Braveheart” when William Wallace is tortured the crowd – who, upon Wallace's entry, mocked and threw rubbish – cries for mercy. Better is this one dead than to suffer what he is suffering.
Solomon raises a fundamental human question here: Why does suffering go on? If God is in control why does He allow women to be raped and people to be murdered? Like Solomon we look and see “all the oppressions that are done under the sun” (4:1). Things haven’t changed in the 2,000+ years since Solomon wrote this book.
The other day my roommate told me about a young woman about to be married, a grad student at an Ivy League school. One night she went into her building on campus to research (for which you need an access card) and she disappeared. Her body was found a week later in the walls of the building.
That kind of thing makes me want to cry out, “Why?” I’d almost rather she’d never been born than to experience that.
How is Jesus the answer to oppression like that? How can He possible undo such harm as afflicted upon that young woman? Or the Jews in World War II?
First, God is not uncaring. His “steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136). He is also good and is outraged at every rape, every murder, every story like the young woman’s. He’s seen every evil deed ever performed under the sun, and it angers Him. It grieves Him. It’s always grieved Him, from the beginning of evil in Genesis:
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (Gen. 6:5-6)
But not only with rape and murder and great evil does God’s anger stop. He hates all of it. He hates our pride and arrogance, He hates our selfishness and He goes as far as to say just hating someone is murdering them. Just lusting after a woman is adultery. God doesn’t just perceive outward evil, He sees what we do and say in our hearts and minds.
There is evil in the earth, and that’s not the way it was supposed to be. We cry out “Why?” when we see suffering and evil and I think that’s appropriate, but we need to realize something – we’re not “separate” from the evil that goes on. We are apart of it and contribute to it! From God’s perspective, sin is sin. I am no better than whoever murdered that young girl because I have sinned, I have evil within me. To be judged by God’s perfection reveals me to be a filthy, selfish, proud, arrogant, perverted, hateful person. I would rather eat a gallon of ice cream than share it, I would much rather enjoy lusting after every girl I see than respect their husbands. I have transgressed God’s law, and I am part of the oppression.
Jesus is the answer because in the oppression He suffered on the cross He accepted the right punishment for me, for us all. In order for God to be just He had to answer our sin and oppression, and He expels His full anger on the cross. His perfect Son becomes sin for us to free us from the oppression of being under sin. He also frees us from our desires that oppress others. We are made new in His blood and we are promised to be heirs of a kingdom where there is no sin and oppression, where people listen to God and God can be seen fully by a people not marred by sin, but a people made righteous and clean by Christ.
This last bit of the chapter is fascinating and is definitely about Christ:
Better was a poor and wise youth…
Jesus was poor, wise, and young when He died.
…than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice.
Very similar to our friend Solomon.
For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been poor.
Jesus came to the earth in flesh – which, being God, must have been like prison – submitting to our daily needs and feelings, our struggles and our pain. In the world He created He was poor.
I saw all the living who move about under the sun, along with that youth who was to stand in the king’s place. There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. (4:13-16)
This sounds like an image from Revelation – everyone streaming to Christ, with no end to the people:
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)
Can’t wait to be there with Solomon, made new and pure by Jesus.
Look at Solomon’s words and picture Christ handed over to be crucified:
Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressor there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. (4:1-3)
You want to see human evil? Look at the cross and you’ll find an innocent man bleeding and shaking. The righteous (Christ) was overpowered by unrighteousness. Does that sound like an event that is even possible for a righteous God in total control?
If I saw someone crucified I would probably think something like verse 3. “Better are the dead than this fellow”. At the end of “Braveheart” when William Wallace is tortured the crowd – who, upon Wallace's entry, mocked and threw rubbish – cries for mercy. Better is this one dead than to suffer what he is suffering.
Solomon raises a fundamental human question here: Why does suffering go on? If God is in control why does He allow women to be raped and people to be murdered? Like Solomon we look and see “all the oppressions that are done under the sun” (4:1). Things haven’t changed in the 2,000+ years since Solomon wrote this book.
The other day my roommate told me about a young woman about to be married, a grad student at an Ivy League school. One night she went into her building on campus to research (for which you need an access card) and she disappeared. Her body was found a week later in the walls of the building.
That kind of thing makes me want to cry out, “Why?” I’d almost rather she’d never been born than to experience that.
How is Jesus the answer to oppression like that? How can He possible undo such harm as afflicted upon that young woman? Or the Jews in World War II?
First, God is not uncaring. His “steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136). He is also good and is outraged at every rape, every murder, every story like the young woman’s. He’s seen every evil deed ever performed under the sun, and it angers Him. It grieves Him. It’s always grieved Him, from the beginning of evil in Genesis:
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (Gen. 6:5-6)
But not only with rape and murder and great evil does God’s anger stop. He hates all of it. He hates our pride and arrogance, He hates our selfishness and He goes as far as to say just hating someone is murdering them. Just lusting after a woman is adultery. God doesn’t just perceive outward evil, He sees what we do and say in our hearts and minds.
There is evil in the earth, and that’s not the way it was supposed to be. We cry out “Why?” when we see suffering and evil and I think that’s appropriate, but we need to realize something – we’re not “separate” from the evil that goes on. We are apart of it and contribute to it! From God’s perspective, sin is sin. I am no better than whoever murdered that young girl because I have sinned, I have evil within me. To be judged by God’s perfection reveals me to be a filthy, selfish, proud, arrogant, perverted, hateful person. I would rather eat a gallon of ice cream than share it, I would much rather enjoy lusting after every girl I see than respect their husbands. I have transgressed God’s law, and I am part of the oppression.
Jesus is the answer because in the oppression He suffered on the cross He accepted the right punishment for me, for us all. In order for God to be just He had to answer our sin and oppression, and He expels His full anger on the cross. His perfect Son becomes sin for us to free us from the oppression of being under sin. He also frees us from our desires that oppress others. We are made new in His blood and we are promised to be heirs of a kingdom where there is no sin and oppression, where people listen to God and God can be seen fully by a people not marred by sin, but a people made righteous and clean by Christ.
This last bit of the chapter is fascinating and is definitely about Christ:
Better was a poor and wise youth…
Jesus was poor, wise, and young when He died.
…than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice.
Very similar to our friend Solomon.
For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been poor.
Jesus came to the earth in flesh – which, being God, must have been like prison – submitting to our daily needs and feelings, our struggles and our pain. In the world He created He was poor.
I saw all the living who move about under the sun, along with that youth who was to stand in the king’s place. There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. (4:13-16)
This sounds like an image from Revelation – everyone streaming to Christ, with no end to the people:
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)
Can’t wait to be there with Solomon, made new and pure by Jesus.
Sunday 20 September 2009
Wrestling with Ecclessiastes 3
So far there seems to be an overwhelming bitterness in Solomon's tone. Everything seems unsatisfying, and there are a lot of observations followed by questions. If all of scripture is about Christ, then we know the answer to Solomon's questions is Jesus Christ. I have some questions, starting with verse 10:
I have seen the business that God has given to children of man to be busy with.
What is this “business”? It’s not literal work, I don’t think, although Solomon talks about a life of work in Ecclesiastes 2:18-23. The first time he mentions this same phrase “business that God has given” is in chapter 1:
And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. (1:13)
So is the “business” the task we are given to understand God? Because of our sinfulness He is not with us the way He made us to be, so since the beginning of Adam’s fall man has had to “figure out” who God is. That’s philosophy.
When I was growing up I believed you couldn’t really know who God is for sure, you just had to speculate and figure Him out on your own. This is why there are so many different religions and philosophies, people say “This is God” or “I don’t like your god so I’m going to change him (or her, dang it!) to fit my own box.” Not all of these perspectives are right – and we can see how frustrating it is to define God with human logic. Perhaps this is what Solomon is talking about in 1:13.
But Solomon knew God! He grew up with a father, King David, who loved and revered God. Solomon had the Scriptures to learn about God. He even saw God twice. Is it the task of philosophy he is lamenting over?
Back in chapter 3, Solomon writes:
I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Maybe this business is referring to our life in a fallen world. God has been gracious and given us jobs, work, families, things to busy our lives iwht , but it still is terrible because He is not here with us. I wrote before that being a Christian can be awful at times because you realize you’re not with the one you love the most. It’s like your dad is off at war and until he gets back you’re not complete. There’s a vacuum in your life that He is supposed to fill but because of sin we have death and we are apart from God.
It’s almost more frustrating, then, that God makes everything “beautiful in its time” (3:11) because it reminds us of the beauty and the glory we’re missing out in.
The phrase that sticks out to me in this passage is “he has put eternity into man’s heart” (3:11). Maybe that’s the reason we hate death so much – it isn’t natural, or, it isn’t in our nature. We aren’t supposed to end, and we know that. Why is death so scary? If we were fine with “ending” why does every human being find death so unappealing, so hateful? We try to comfort ourselves with silly platitudes like “the circle of life” but that’s not comforting because that circle promises more life! It doesn’t express the finality of death that we are faced with. It promises a new beginning which doesn’t exist after death (that is, apart from Christ).
Some people say “I don’t want to live forever after death, I want to finely being at peace.” Yet in this line of thought they are expressing the desire to be “at peace” – clearly something that can only be felt when one exists. To be honest, I can’t even fathom what it would mean to not exist – what would happen to my consciousness? Would I feel nothing? Would I still be? Even non-Christians tend to think of some form of existence after death, usually in the form of peace or calm (which is funny, because this is exactly what we are promised in living forever with God).
So why is this sentence contrasted with “he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (3:11)? This text was written before Jesus, before His death – maybe Solomon is lamenting that this world sucks and it doesn’t make much sense that God appears to be sitting around doing nothing while evil and injustice happens every day. Why doesn’t God take care of sin? Solomon can’t see what’s going on.
Maybe Solomon thought that everything was about Israel – that was the way God would fix the world. And once Israel had a good king (like Solomon himself) everything would be fine. Israel could crush the bad guys in the world and build a kingdom for God. That should fix the world – but it didn’t. Solomon himself turned away from God and worshipped idols. Perhaps he realizes that although he started out righteous (in his eyes) he has ended up sinful.
Permit me some creative license. Maybe Solomon’s thoughts were like this: “I know the Lord is righteous and holy, and I know there is evil on the earth, but he set apart Israel to be His own people, through us He will bless the nations and fix them.
God has made me king of this nation and has given me great wisdom. If only people had wisdom, maybe then there would be no sin! How much sin and folly happens because of ignorance? I know the Lord and I fear Him, I wrote hundreds of proverbs about Him and I, in all my wisdom, said
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7)
I was given knowledge by the Lord and I wrote proverbs for my people, wise sayings with true and good advice. I said
The integrity of the upright guards them,
but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them. (Proverbs 11:3)
I’m the smartest man in the world and I can see that it’s good to be good and bad to be bad. The LORD our God has given us statutes and commandments, Israel, let us walk in them!
A good man obtains favor from the LORD,
but a man of evil devices he condemns. (Prov. 12:2)
See! I’ve got this all figured out! We need to be good and through my wisdom and others we can be on our way to a world without sin! The world as it should be! The world before the fall!
Where there is no guidance, a people falls,
but in an abundance of counselors there is safety (Prov. 11:14)"
I (Nathan) may be going a little far here, but it is a danger to get caught up in practical ways to deter sin, like “Don’t do it”.
Maybe in the sentence “eternity into man’s heart” we could imagine a pre-Christ mindset. “I know the Lord, I know He is good, I’ve got to do good too. I don’t want to be punished by God and I want to live so I will do good.” I don’t know what they thought would come after death but I think Solomon at least anticipated judgment:
God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.
So it would be like we commonly believe today – there is a God, He’s good, don’t do evil or you’ll go to hell. Be good and you’ll go to heaven. Yay! Solomon writes:
I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. (Ecc. 3:18)
The worldview we commonly have is that the world is nothing but a testing ground for God to see which of us is good and which of us is bad. The problem with this system is if taken seriously by God – and God takes our sin seriously – then the results would be:
Good people: 0 Bad people: 6,000,000,000,000+ (or however many people have lived ever)
The number of good people admitted to heaven would be zero. We’ve all screwed up. Even Mr. Perfect Smartest-Guy-in-the-World King Solomon screws up and sins greatly. He realizes that even among the “good people” on earth there is sin:
Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. (3:16)
Even the best people on earth are tainted by sin. Mother Theresa? She did something in her lifetime that was evil. For all her good works, she is not perfect.
Here Solomon sees our depravity and instead of remembering we are image bearers of God, he compares us to animals:
For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? (3:19-21)
So this leads Solomon to a great questions: “What is the point of it all?” God, what are You doing? So You’re good and You demand good. You punish the evil, but evil is everywhere! I’m the smartest guy in the world and I thought my wisdom would keep me walking in righteousness but I couldn’t help myself and I sinned! I thought I was a good guy and I’m a sinner. I thought You were testing us but instead we all deserve death and to go down to the depths. What’s the point? Should I just eat, drink, and be merry (3:12-13)?
The crappy thing on top of this is You’ve set eternity into my heart so I care about these things! I can’t just suck pleasure out of the world because You’ve got me pondering all this stuff and wondering what will happen when I die – because I don’t know! You’ve hidden stuff from us and I can’t see past death.
Who can bring him to see what will be after him? (3:22)
Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down in the earth? (3:21)
Who?
And the most frustrating thing about this is:
I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. (3:14)
I can’t see what You’re doing and there’s nothing I can do to change it! Are You going to just condemn everyone and let evil run its course? It doesn’t matter – I have no control and it seems like I’m doomed in whatever happens."
I (Nathan) am twenty years old and am a new Christian – this stuff (the book of Ecclesiastes) is hard for me to grasp and I may have been way off base, but I know the answer to Solomon’s “who” question, by the grace of God today we know it.
The who is the only good man who has ever lived: Jesus Christ. Jesus comes and tells us what “the point of it all” is – not death, but life. We are supposed to be righteous – but by God’s strength, not our own. We have hope because we know that God has forgiven all of our sins through his Son, God has created a way to know Him through Jesus Christ. And in its through Jesus that our toil - “What gain has the worker from his toil?” (3:9) – turns into joy:
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ…but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a goodwill as to the Lord and not to an, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. (Ephesians 6:5, 6-8)
Our boring job turns into joy because it is a form of worship! We have Jesus to hang on to in the toughest times. In the boring times. Jesus to praise in the good, because we know the world is but a shadow of the things to come and that life comes from knowing Jesus Christ.
That is what we were made for – fellowship with the living God. And the beautiful thing is we are saved by grace – because we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we have all rebelled against Him and no amount of good deeds, no amount of avoiding sin in the future can save us – by our own strength we will fail. It is foolish to put such faith in ourselves. We should put our faith only in the gospel, which renews me every day, which keeps me every day, which keeps me from guilt, shame, and evil – which makes me righteous before God!
Think about that. I – and people I know – could say with certainty that I do not deserve to stand blameless before God. My mother would certainly not call me blameless before her. And yet, through Christ, I am righteous before God. Because Jesus died in my place I am made new. What a profound mystery, what a horrible exchange (it would seem) for Christ – that He would lose his life and take on my sin, giving me his life and his righteousness.
Finally, Jesus satisfies our desire for truth: He tells us who God is, He makes us worshippers in “spirit and in truth” – for it is vain to worship a lie. Jesus offers clarity, peace, and joy. Jesus suffered it all for the joy set before him, so that he could come to each of us when we ask “What happens when we die?” and with a smile on his face, say “Believe in me, and you will have eternal life with the God everlasting. He’s your Father, He loves you, I love you, and I’m inviting you home.”
I have seen the business that God has given to children of man to be busy with.
What is this “business”? It’s not literal work, I don’t think, although Solomon talks about a life of work in Ecclesiastes 2:18-23. The first time he mentions this same phrase “business that God has given” is in chapter 1:
And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. (1:13)
So is the “business” the task we are given to understand God? Because of our sinfulness He is not with us the way He made us to be, so since the beginning of Adam’s fall man has had to “figure out” who God is. That’s philosophy.
When I was growing up I believed you couldn’t really know who God is for sure, you just had to speculate and figure Him out on your own. This is why there are so many different religions and philosophies, people say “This is God” or “I don’t like your god so I’m going to change him (or her, dang it!) to fit my own box.” Not all of these perspectives are right – and we can see how frustrating it is to define God with human logic. Perhaps this is what Solomon is talking about in 1:13.
But Solomon knew God! He grew up with a father, King David, who loved and revered God. Solomon had the Scriptures to learn about God. He even saw God twice. Is it the task of philosophy he is lamenting over?
Back in chapter 3, Solomon writes:
I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Maybe this business is referring to our life in a fallen world. God has been gracious and given us jobs, work, families, things to busy our lives iwht , but it still is terrible because He is not here with us. I wrote before that being a Christian can be awful at times because you realize you’re not with the one you love the most. It’s like your dad is off at war and until he gets back you’re not complete. There’s a vacuum in your life that He is supposed to fill but because of sin we have death and we are apart from God.
It’s almost more frustrating, then, that God makes everything “beautiful in its time” (3:11) because it reminds us of the beauty and the glory we’re missing out in.
The phrase that sticks out to me in this passage is “he has put eternity into man’s heart” (3:11). Maybe that’s the reason we hate death so much – it isn’t natural, or, it isn’t in our nature. We aren’t supposed to end, and we know that. Why is death so scary? If we were fine with “ending” why does every human being find death so unappealing, so hateful? We try to comfort ourselves with silly platitudes like “the circle of life” but that’s not comforting because that circle promises more life! It doesn’t express the finality of death that we are faced with. It promises a new beginning which doesn’t exist after death (that is, apart from Christ).
Some people say “I don’t want to live forever after death, I want to finely being at peace.” Yet in this line of thought they are expressing the desire to be “at peace” – clearly something that can only be felt when one exists. To be honest, I can’t even fathom what it would mean to not exist – what would happen to my consciousness? Would I feel nothing? Would I still be? Even non-Christians tend to think of some form of existence after death, usually in the form of peace or calm (which is funny, because this is exactly what we are promised in living forever with God).
So why is this sentence contrasted with “he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (3:11)? This text was written before Jesus, before His death – maybe Solomon is lamenting that this world sucks and it doesn’t make much sense that God appears to be sitting around doing nothing while evil and injustice happens every day. Why doesn’t God take care of sin? Solomon can’t see what’s going on.
Maybe Solomon thought that everything was about Israel – that was the way God would fix the world. And once Israel had a good king (like Solomon himself) everything would be fine. Israel could crush the bad guys in the world and build a kingdom for God. That should fix the world – but it didn’t. Solomon himself turned away from God and worshipped idols. Perhaps he realizes that although he started out righteous (in his eyes) he has ended up sinful.
Permit me some creative license. Maybe Solomon’s thoughts were like this: “I know the Lord is righteous and holy, and I know there is evil on the earth, but he set apart Israel to be His own people, through us He will bless the nations and fix them.
God has made me king of this nation and has given me great wisdom. If only people had wisdom, maybe then there would be no sin! How much sin and folly happens because of ignorance? I know the Lord and I fear Him, I wrote hundreds of proverbs about Him and I, in all my wisdom, said
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7)
I was given knowledge by the Lord and I wrote proverbs for my people, wise sayings with true and good advice. I said
The integrity of the upright guards them,
but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them. (Proverbs 11:3)
I’m the smartest man in the world and I can see that it’s good to be good and bad to be bad. The LORD our God has given us statutes and commandments, Israel, let us walk in them!
A good man obtains favor from the LORD,
but a man of evil devices he condemns. (Prov. 12:2)
See! I’ve got this all figured out! We need to be good and through my wisdom and others we can be on our way to a world without sin! The world as it should be! The world before the fall!
Where there is no guidance, a people falls,
but in an abundance of counselors there is safety (Prov. 11:14)"
I (Nathan) may be going a little far here, but it is a danger to get caught up in practical ways to deter sin, like “Don’t do it”.
Maybe in the sentence “eternity into man’s heart” we could imagine a pre-Christ mindset. “I know the Lord, I know He is good, I’ve got to do good too. I don’t want to be punished by God and I want to live so I will do good.” I don’t know what they thought would come after death but I think Solomon at least anticipated judgment:
God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.
So it would be like we commonly believe today – there is a God, He’s good, don’t do evil or you’ll go to hell. Be good and you’ll go to heaven. Yay! Solomon writes:
I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. (Ecc. 3:18)
The worldview we commonly have is that the world is nothing but a testing ground for God to see which of us is good and which of us is bad. The problem with this system is if taken seriously by God – and God takes our sin seriously – then the results would be:
Good people: 0 Bad people: 6,000,000,000,000+ (or however many people have lived ever)
The number of good people admitted to heaven would be zero. We’ve all screwed up. Even Mr. Perfect Smartest-Guy-in-the-World King Solomon screws up and sins greatly. He realizes that even among the “good people” on earth there is sin:
Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. (3:16)
Even the best people on earth are tainted by sin. Mother Theresa? She did something in her lifetime that was evil. For all her good works, she is not perfect.
Here Solomon sees our depravity and instead of remembering we are image bearers of God, he compares us to animals:
For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? (3:19-21)
So this leads Solomon to a great questions: “What is the point of it all?” God, what are You doing? So You’re good and You demand good. You punish the evil, but evil is everywhere! I’m the smartest guy in the world and I thought my wisdom would keep me walking in righteousness but I couldn’t help myself and I sinned! I thought I was a good guy and I’m a sinner. I thought You were testing us but instead we all deserve death and to go down to the depths. What’s the point? Should I just eat, drink, and be merry (3:12-13)?
The crappy thing on top of this is You’ve set eternity into my heart so I care about these things! I can’t just suck pleasure out of the world because You’ve got me pondering all this stuff and wondering what will happen when I die – because I don’t know! You’ve hidden stuff from us and I can’t see past death.
Who can bring him to see what will be after him? (3:22)
Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down in the earth? (3:21)
Who?
And the most frustrating thing about this is:
I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. (3:14)
I can’t see what You’re doing and there’s nothing I can do to change it! Are You going to just condemn everyone and let evil run its course? It doesn’t matter – I have no control and it seems like I’m doomed in whatever happens."
I (Nathan) am twenty years old and am a new Christian – this stuff (the book of Ecclesiastes) is hard for me to grasp and I may have been way off base, but I know the answer to Solomon’s “who” question, by the grace of God today we know it.
The who is the only good man who has ever lived: Jesus Christ. Jesus comes and tells us what “the point of it all” is – not death, but life. We are supposed to be righteous – but by God’s strength, not our own. We have hope because we know that God has forgiven all of our sins through his Son, God has created a way to know Him through Jesus Christ. And in its through Jesus that our toil - “What gain has the worker from his toil?” (3:9) – turns into joy:
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ…but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a goodwill as to the Lord and not to an, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. (Ephesians 6:5, 6-8)
Our boring job turns into joy because it is a form of worship! We have Jesus to hang on to in the toughest times. In the boring times. Jesus to praise in the good, because we know the world is but a shadow of the things to come and that life comes from knowing Jesus Christ.
That is what we were made for – fellowship with the living God. And the beautiful thing is we are saved by grace – because we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we have all rebelled against Him and no amount of good deeds, no amount of avoiding sin in the future can save us – by our own strength we will fail. It is foolish to put such faith in ourselves. We should put our faith only in the gospel, which renews me every day, which keeps me every day, which keeps me from guilt, shame, and evil – which makes me righteous before God!
Think about that. I – and people I know – could say with certainty that I do not deserve to stand blameless before God. My mother would certainly not call me blameless before her. And yet, through Christ, I am righteous before God. Because Jesus died in my place I am made new. What a profound mystery, what a horrible exchange (it would seem) for Christ – that He would lose his life and take on my sin, giving me his life and his righteousness.
Finally, Jesus satisfies our desire for truth: He tells us who God is, He makes us worshippers in “spirit and in truth” – for it is vain to worship a lie. Jesus offers clarity, peace, and joy. Jesus suffered it all for the joy set before him, so that he could come to each of us when we ask “What happens when we die?” and with a smile on his face, say “Believe in me, and you will have eternal life with the God everlasting. He’s your Father, He loves you, I love you, and I’m inviting you home.”
Tuesday 15 September 2009
Walking through Regent's Park (Genesis 1 & 2)
I read: Genesis 1 & 2
I am sitting on a bench in Regent’s Park in the Queen’s Garden. I am under a great willow tree with an enormous trunk that juts out of the pond’s edge. The pond is right in front of me. I love willow trees and their hanging branches – this tree’s branches have been trimmed: they start about four feet above the ground over the path, and as you trace the circle of branches towards the pond they lower, dangling about a foot or two above the water, then back up to four or five feet as the circle loops back to the path. The wind is constantly present in London and for some reason it suggests to me the nearby ocean. A large wind a moment ago lifted up the branches over the water like a curtain.
As I started walking around the park I started wondering what it would have been like in the garden of Eden. There’s something so peaceful about a garden that simply describing one gives the soul rest.
But for all Eden’s beauty the real plus for its real estate was its owner, who was constantly present. I love the image of God, “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8).
Honestly, as refreshing as it is to walk through a garden – especially on a spring day with the wind (for me, anyways) – there is something frustratingly deceptive about it. For instance, as I write this in front of me is the pond. I stare at the water and see tiny waves in constant motion, the surface undulating and rolling as the wind presses its firm hand against it (reminiscent of “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” – Genesis 1:2) and there is something unsatisfying about it all. It is beautiful, and it gives me the desire to respond, but how? My being yearns for a way to satisfyingly accept the beauty in front of me and perform some act in which the feeling, the appreciation of beauty, can culminate.
This frustration is part of God’s truth in His Word that although creation is beautiful, we were not made to worship it. We were made to worship the Creator, and when we realize that we’re on the right track.
In “Desiring God” John Piper uses a good metaphor to explain this. Nature, he says, is like the postman dropping messages at our door – and we, like little children see his uniform and think “how spectacular, how glorious”, and we forget that he is only a messenger. Nature is the same way, daily delivering us messages about Jesus:
The heavens declare the
glory of God
The sky above proclaims his
handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)
That is what makes a garden walk satisfying: responding to God about the beauty, not back to creation. For what is the pond in front of me but water, it has no feelings, thoughts, or emotions, and contrary to the wisdom of Disney’s “Pocahontas” it does not have a life or spirit. When I look out at creation, I need to turn that eye filled with beauty into a heart full of praise
Day to day pours out speech,
and night reveals knowledge. (Psalm 19:2)
Most people on this planet, whether they know God or not, enjoy observing beauty – but the beauty here on earth is nothing but a testament to the glory and beauty of the Lord above.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! (Psalm 34:8)
Why do we find it hard to pursue God the way we pursue a viewpoint from the top of a mountain? In fact, in order to pursue a panoramic vista you have to do more work than to see and taste God – because Jesus did everything for us. Rather than us going up to God, He came down to us. We can press into God because our sin, the thing keeping us form Him, has been atoned for.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from a n evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10: 19-22)
The reason we don’t pursue God is because we like what we can do in our darkness of sin. We don’t want God with us because He is holy and righteous and just – and let’s face it, we’re not – and he condemns a lot of the stuff we do. No, we don’t want to be in the light – not yet. But our time for repentance slips away every day, and our lives are soon over.
I think being a Christian temporarily makes garden walks worse – because our eyes are opened to the full truth that Someone is missing. Because of our sin, we are not walking with who we were made to walk with. We should be walking next to Jesus, face-to-face – and the soul can only wonder what delights could be had with one moment with Jesus on a walk! Until then we’re face-to-face, He is yet unseen, but not unknown, and it is a great gift to have prayer, to speak out your amazement and wonder when you walk under the willow and look up at the branches, when you walk near a stream, when your breath is taken away by the beauty in front of you, or maybe when you feel that breeze blowing on your hands, face, and ears – like the Spirit of God pressing against us, filling our hearts like a sail with praise and adoration for God.
Prayer: Father, thank You for the Spirit – thank You that He reveals truth and turns my thoughts to You. You are a delight to think about and light upon my soul. Holy Spirit, to feel the wind blowing and pressing against me is wonderful, to feel Your thoughts pressing mine and changing them, giving me the mind of Christ. Jesus, You are the epitome of Spirit-filled, You delighted in God every day on earth, You were true to Him every second. I thank You that Your death has ransomed me from my own deserved death so that I have life with You and one day I will walk with You in a garden in the cool of the day.
Father, You are the Highest and the Greatest, the Lord of all. Give me wisdom about the trinity and help me to realize You are One – I have trouble with that. Unite my thoughts to that today. In Jesus’ good name, AMEN.
I am sitting on a bench in Regent’s Park in the Queen’s Garden. I am under a great willow tree with an enormous trunk that juts out of the pond’s edge. The pond is right in front of me. I love willow trees and their hanging branches – this tree’s branches have been trimmed: they start about four feet above the ground over the path, and as you trace the circle of branches towards the pond they lower, dangling about a foot or two above the water, then back up to four or five feet as the circle loops back to the path. The wind is constantly present in London and for some reason it suggests to me the nearby ocean. A large wind a moment ago lifted up the branches over the water like a curtain.
As I started walking around the park I started wondering what it would have been like in the garden of Eden. There’s something so peaceful about a garden that simply describing one gives the soul rest.
But for all Eden’s beauty the real plus for its real estate was its owner, who was constantly present. I love the image of God, “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8).
Honestly, as refreshing as it is to walk through a garden – especially on a spring day with the wind (for me, anyways) – there is something frustratingly deceptive about it. For instance, as I write this in front of me is the pond. I stare at the water and see tiny waves in constant motion, the surface undulating and rolling as the wind presses its firm hand against it (reminiscent of “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” – Genesis 1:2) and there is something unsatisfying about it all. It is beautiful, and it gives me the desire to respond, but how? My being yearns for a way to satisfyingly accept the beauty in front of me and perform some act in which the feeling, the appreciation of beauty, can culminate.
This frustration is part of God’s truth in His Word that although creation is beautiful, we were not made to worship it. We were made to worship the Creator, and when we realize that we’re on the right track.
In “Desiring God” John Piper uses a good metaphor to explain this. Nature, he says, is like the postman dropping messages at our door – and we, like little children see his uniform and think “how spectacular, how glorious”, and we forget that he is only a messenger. Nature is the same way, daily delivering us messages about Jesus:
The heavens declare the
glory of God
The sky above proclaims his
handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)
That is what makes a garden walk satisfying: responding to God about the beauty, not back to creation. For what is the pond in front of me but water, it has no feelings, thoughts, or emotions, and contrary to the wisdom of Disney’s “Pocahontas” it does not have a life or spirit. When I look out at creation, I need to turn that eye filled with beauty into a heart full of praise
Day to day pours out speech,
and night reveals knowledge. (Psalm 19:2)
Most people on this planet, whether they know God or not, enjoy observing beauty – but the beauty here on earth is nothing but a testament to the glory and beauty of the Lord above.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! (Psalm 34:8)
Why do we find it hard to pursue God the way we pursue a viewpoint from the top of a mountain? In fact, in order to pursue a panoramic vista you have to do more work than to see and taste God – because Jesus did everything for us. Rather than us going up to God, He came down to us. We can press into God because our sin, the thing keeping us form Him, has been atoned for.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from a n evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10: 19-22)
The reason we don’t pursue God is because we like what we can do in our darkness of sin. We don’t want God with us because He is holy and righteous and just – and let’s face it, we’re not – and he condemns a lot of the stuff we do. No, we don’t want to be in the light – not yet. But our time for repentance slips away every day, and our lives are soon over.
I think being a Christian temporarily makes garden walks worse – because our eyes are opened to the full truth that Someone is missing. Because of our sin, we are not walking with who we were made to walk with. We should be walking next to Jesus, face-to-face – and the soul can only wonder what delights could be had with one moment with Jesus on a walk! Until then we’re face-to-face, He is yet unseen, but not unknown, and it is a great gift to have prayer, to speak out your amazement and wonder when you walk under the willow and look up at the branches, when you walk near a stream, when your breath is taken away by the beauty in front of you, or maybe when you feel that breeze blowing on your hands, face, and ears – like the Spirit of God pressing against us, filling our hearts like a sail with praise and adoration for God.
Prayer: Father, thank You for the Spirit – thank You that He reveals truth and turns my thoughts to You. You are a delight to think about and light upon my soul. Holy Spirit, to feel the wind blowing and pressing against me is wonderful, to feel Your thoughts pressing mine and changing them, giving me the mind of Christ. Jesus, You are the epitome of Spirit-filled, You delighted in God every day on earth, You were true to Him every second. I thank You that Your death has ransomed me from my own deserved death so that I have life with You and one day I will walk with You in a garden in the cool of the day.
Father, You are the Highest and the Greatest, the Lord of all. Give me wisdom about the trinity and help me to realize You are One – I have trouble with that. Unite my thoughts to that today. In Jesus’ good name, AMEN.
Friday 11 September 2009
Romans 4
In order to better understand Romans 4, I've tried to find the main ideas in it.
Abraham is the father of our faith, both the Jews and Gentiles. His faith, a gift of grace, makes him the "father" of the gentiles (4:11) and his circumcision makes him the "father" of the Jews. Once again, the points seems to be that God's plan is for all, not only for Jews, not only for Gentiles, but for both.
This makes God's promise to Abraham all the more deep and incredible. "I have made you the father of many nations" (Genesis 17:5). To Abraham, this was a good promise, something he would've been excited about. My assumption, though, is that all he expected from it was to have a lot of kids. This was especially incredible because the guy was older than eighty with a barren wife. But God was faithful to Abraham and he did have a son, and then thousands of years later we see God is still faithful to that promise in a way different than Abraham had thought: using Abraham's life as an example of faith. He became the spiritual "father" of many, to those who would be justified by faith in Jesus Christ. God takes what already sounds like a good promise and does incredible things Abraham could never have dreamed.
I love how Paul finishes this section. Throughout this chapter he has been quoting Genesis:
"Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." (Genesis 15:6)
Paul changes it to apply to us:
"It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for or trespasses and raised for our justification." (Romans 4:24-25)
My whole life I found I heard and knew the above: Jesus died for my sins and rose again. But I always had a hard time believing it. Nobody just rises from the dead. They stay dead. It's harder to believe a guy two thousand years ago rose from the dead when you can't see him or talk to eyewitnesses.
One of the best things I ever prayed for was faith. In this passage from Romans Paul is revealing that it is faith that buries us and raises us with Jesus. We think of faith as something we have to exert, a level of belief we have to muster up ourselves. This is what I had trouble with, mustering up enough faith, and it's not what Paul is asking us to do - because that would be a work in itself, a way in which we had to earn our relationship with Jesus. No, we are helpless, we need to just give it up to God. Jesus said,
"Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full." (John 16:24)
Sometimes we need to pray for more faith. After I did God answered my prayer within two weeks. I remember going to bed one night, stopping on my way to bed after I had turned the lights out. It's hard to describe, but I knew in my bones that God is real and He was with me right then and there. I felt at peace, that my joy was full. I had been put right with God and had become his child. But I didn't do any of it, Jesus did, and through believing the Bible's testimony we can grow in certainty of it - because the gospels were written by and from eyewitnesses: we can hear their voices still today, in the Bible. They proclaim the love of a man from Nazareth who was murdered and mocked - only to rise again, mocking and destroying death, sin, and Satan. Thank Him and love Him!
Abraham is the father of our faith, both the Jews and Gentiles. His faith, a gift of grace, makes him the "father" of the gentiles (4:11) and his circumcision makes him the "father" of the Jews. Once again, the points seems to be that God's plan is for all, not only for Jews, not only for Gentiles, but for both.
This makes God's promise to Abraham all the more deep and incredible. "I have made you the father of many nations" (Genesis 17:5). To Abraham, this was a good promise, something he would've been excited about. My assumption, though, is that all he expected from it was to have a lot of kids. This was especially incredible because the guy was older than eighty with a barren wife. But God was faithful to Abraham and he did have a son, and then thousands of years later we see God is still faithful to that promise in a way different than Abraham had thought: using Abraham's life as an example of faith. He became the spiritual "father" of many, to those who would be justified by faith in Jesus Christ. God takes what already sounds like a good promise and does incredible things Abraham could never have dreamed.
I love how Paul finishes this section. Throughout this chapter he has been quoting Genesis:
"Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." (Genesis 15:6)
Paul changes it to apply to us:
"It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for or trespasses and raised for our justification." (Romans 4:24-25)
My whole life I found I heard and knew the above: Jesus died for my sins and rose again. But I always had a hard time believing it. Nobody just rises from the dead. They stay dead. It's harder to believe a guy two thousand years ago rose from the dead when you can't see him or talk to eyewitnesses.
One of the best things I ever prayed for was faith. In this passage from Romans Paul is revealing that it is faith that buries us and raises us with Jesus. We think of faith as something we have to exert, a level of belief we have to muster up ourselves. This is what I had trouble with, mustering up enough faith, and it's not what Paul is asking us to do - because that would be a work in itself, a way in which we had to earn our relationship with Jesus. No, we are helpless, we need to just give it up to God. Jesus said,
"Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full." (John 16:24)
Sometimes we need to pray for more faith. After I did God answered my prayer within two weeks. I remember going to bed one night, stopping on my way to bed after I had turned the lights out. It's hard to describe, but I knew in my bones that God is real and He was with me right then and there. I felt at peace, that my joy was full. I had been put right with God and had become his child. But I didn't do any of it, Jesus did, and through believing the Bible's testimony we can grow in certainty of it - because the gospels were written by and from eyewitnesses: we can hear their voices still today, in the Bible. They proclaim the love of a man from Nazareth who was murdered and mocked - only to rise again, mocking and destroying death, sin, and Satan. Thank Him and love Him!
Thursday 10 September 2009
Orphans: Romans 5 & 6 Part 2
Then Paul addresses a common question, a question that reveals how dark our souls are, how much we love sin and how little we love God:
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (6:1)
If Christ has died or all our sins, is it better to keep sinning sot that a larger debt will be paid? Or, as I think of it, is it okay to keep the things that formally made us feel guilty but now have been paid for by Christ?
I see it this way: often times before we know God we do enjoy certain things. Although sex and money don’t satisfy (That is, sex without marital intimacy) they are enjoyable things. There are little things that are enjoyable that we could do free of guilt now that Christ’s death has paid for them.
That would, for one thing, spit on the cross. There is a man, a rich man, who comes to Christ somewhere in the gospels and asks what he must do to have eternal life and Jesus tells him to give up his wealth. The man walks away sad, which we read and think is silly - the man is talking to Jesus! Shouldn't he just give up everything? We of course, do the same thing. We hold on to the junk in our lives: the sin, the darkness, and we say it's hard to give up because we kind of enjoy it. It’s like we have a twinkie and God is offering us a feast. We say, “I like the twinkie.” I like twinkies, but you cannot live on them, and they do not satisfy.
We are so shortsighted! We lower our expectations of happiness to something so low when God is offering so much more! Another food metaphor, it's like God is offering us that feast and we keep going to McDonald's because it's cheap and it's okay. No! Go to the feast!
To return to the problem Paul is addressing I need to be honest. Sometimes I want to sin and I think ahead, I talk myself into the sin, knowing God will forgive me. How sick is that? To say, "Well, I can repent later." But that's what we're talking about, to say, "Thanks for the blank check, Jesus, I'll try to have a good time and rack up a real bill for you to pay." But Paul points out:
“But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?” (6:21)
There’s a lot of things wrong with the mentality I just talked about (you aren’t pursuing God first, you don’t respect His righteousness, you aren’t being obedient to Him, you’re definitely grieving the Spirit) but Paul points out that at the very least – if you look at it from a personal gain, selfish point of view – what are you going to get out your sin? Nothing!
“For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit that you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (6:21-23)
And, in Christ’s words:
“And this is eternal life, that they know you [God] the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)
And:
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
Do you want joy? You need Jesus, you need to be obedient to God, you need to be His slave. The joy you find in him will have no comparison in the world. Isaiah writes:
“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:2)
The stuff you’re eating is crap and will treat you as such. Turn to Jesus! That’s what every person needs…to repent and humble themselves at the cross of Christ and find complete and everlasting joy in Him.
Thank You, Father, that You feed Your children and give them real food and real drink. Thank You for all the richness of knowing You, thank You that the fatherless can call you Father. AMEN.
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (6:1)
If Christ has died or all our sins, is it better to keep sinning sot that a larger debt will be paid? Or, as I think of it, is it okay to keep the things that formally made us feel guilty but now have been paid for by Christ?
I see it this way: often times before we know God we do enjoy certain things. Although sex and money don’t satisfy (That is, sex without marital intimacy) they are enjoyable things. There are little things that are enjoyable that we could do free of guilt now that Christ’s death has paid for them.
That would, for one thing, spit on the cross. There is a man, a rich man, who comes to Christ somewhere in the gospels and asks what he must do to have eternal life and Jesus tells him to give up his wealth. The man walks away sad, which we read and think is silly - the man is talking to Jesus! Shouldn't he just give up everything? We of course, do the same thing. We hold on to the junk in our lives: the sin, the darkness, and we say it's hard to give up because we kind of enjoy it. It’s like we have a twinkie and God is offering us a feast. We say, “I like the twinkie.” I like twinkies, but you cannot live on them, and they do not satisfy.
We are so shortsighted! We lower our expectations of happiness to something so low when God is offering so much more! Another food metaphor, it's like God is offering us that feast and we keep going to McDonald's because it's cheap and it's okay. No! Go to the feast!
To return to the problem Paul is addressing I need to be honest. Sometimes I want to sin and I think ahead, I talk myself into the sin, knowing God will forgive me. How sick is that? To say, "Well, I can repent later." But that's what we're talking about, to say, "Thanks for the blank check, Jesus, I'll try to have a good time and rack up a real bill for you to pay." But Paul points out:
“But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?” (6:21)
There’s a lot of things wrong with the mentality I just talked about (you aren’t pursuing God first, you don’t respect His righteousness, you aren’t being obedient to Him, you’re definitely grieving the Spirit) but Paul points out that at the very least – if you look at it from a personal gain, selfish point of view – what are you going to get out your sin? Nothing!
“For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit that you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (6:21-23)
And, in Christ’s words:
“And this is eternal life, that they know you [God] the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)
And:
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
Do you want joy? You need Jesus, you need to be obedient to God, you need to be His slave. The joy you find in him will have no comparison in the world. Isaiah writes:
“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:2)
The stuff you’re eating is crap and will treat you as such. Turn to Jesus! That’s what every person needs…to repent and humble themselves at the cross of Christ and find complete and everlasting joy in Him.
Thank You, Father, that You feed Your children and give them real food and real drink. Thank You for all the richness of knowing You, thank You that the fatherless can call you Father. AMEN.
Orphans: Romans 5 & 6 Part 1
I read: Romans 5 & 6
"We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin." (Romans 6:6)
This chapter shows the complete separation of us from our sins, and righteousness from impurity, unrighteousness. I think it really shows how diametrically opposed sin and righteousness are and that if we ask the question “How much can I sin?” you’re asking the wrong question.
For in Christ all of our sins have been forgiven, we have been “buried therefore with him by baptism into death” (6:4). Before knowing Christ the Holy Spirit leads us to conviction about many things. Just as the proceeding chapters of Romans strive to convince us of our sinfulness so the Holy Spirit gives us eyes to our disobedience, impurity, and sinfulness before we can fully experience what Paul describes in chapter 5:
“More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (5:11)
And:
“…we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (5:1)
Amazing! Peace with God! The thing we all want. In Chicago this summer when talking to people about their hopes of an after life nearly all of them said “peace” or something like it. We long for it and we seek it everywhere, in money, fame, relationships, when really what we need is to know god. Just as a baby is most peaceful in their father’s arms so we need that rest in our Heavenly Father’s arms. We long for Him to hold us, kiss us, and to delight in us and love us, us loving and delighting in Him back.
And yet we bumble about not sure what we need. Paul writes “death reigned from Adam…” (Romans 5:14). It’s ruling over us, confusing us, distorting truth and it leads us to deny God:
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” (Romans 1:24-25)
I imagine people live their lives stumbling about frantically, filling their lives with crap and things that don’t satisfy – blind to the fat that the reason they are not at peace is because they’re supposed to be their Father’s children, but they’re not! Children are extremely distraught when they are without their parents, and in this way we are all orphans, wandering about, committing more and more evil trying to find happiness in it. But all things done without God don’t satisfy because you’re doing them without God. Good things can lose their meaning – marriage, relaxing, etc. I see an orphan playing with a toy their parent gave them and expecting the toy to fill the role of Father.
To continue with this metaphor our problem of being an orphan isn’t because God died and left us alone, but we died!
“…sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12)
In this rebellion Adam – and every man and woman since him – has ran away from their Father, doing things He hates! And yet we stumble about, drunk, deaf, and blind, headed to the grave because of our sin – mourning for happiness, moaning for it. For joy, for completeness.
Before I was a Christian I stumbled this way, gasping for air, drunk, I don’t know how else to describe the picture in my mind, but I was trying to find joy but couldn’t because the one person I needed the most I had mad into an enemy. I had fallen short of the glory of God, and consequently I could not know Him, nor be complete. The Psalms talk about being headed to the grave.
But thanks be to God in Christ!
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” (5:8-9)
So, we rebel and God’s righteous wrath falls on us, we are condemned, and in our disobedience God gives us up to our passions and lets us get more and more confused (Romans 1:24-27). And yet God is so good that He seeks to reconcile Himself to us by His Son.
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” (5:10)
I love the ministry of the Holy Spirit, because He comes in to convince us of this truth. He comes in to attest this reality – that Christ did not die in vain, but rather in our place, and in his resurrection we too may rise. Because if God has handed us over to our passions, it’s going to take the truth the Holy Spirit speaks to pull us out of our sinful state. We are deaf and need ears, we are blind and need sight, we tell ourselves we are good but need the truth that we are not. I know that John the Baptizer is the one spoken of in Isaiah about “a voice crying in the wilderness” but I think that’s the Holy Spirit too. We live in a lonely, barren wilderness and the Holy Spirit I picture as this voice calling in the emptiness of our lives to see our sin so that we might fal down at the cross of Christ and repent.
Paul talks of a “complete joy” and this is it: to be with the Father, our God, to Love Jesus, to seek Him, and to listen to the Spirit. To be with them brightens anything, makes everything worthwhile and everything meaningful.
“…we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (5:11)
"We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin." (Romans 6:6)
This chapter shows the complete separation of us from our sins, and righteousness from impurity, unrighteousness. I think it really shows how diametrically opposed sin and righteousness are and that if we ask the question “How much can I sin?” you’re asking the wrong question.
For in Christ all of our sins have been forgiven, we have been “buried therefore with him by baptism into death” (6:4). Before knowing Christ the Holy Spirit leads us to conviction about many things. Just as the proceeding chapters of Romans strive to convince us of our sinfulness so the Holy Spirit gives us eyes to our disobedience, impurity, and sinfulness before we can fully experience what Paul describes in chapter 5:
“More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (5:11)
And:
“…we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (5:1)
Amazing! Peace with God! The thing we all want. In Chicago this summer when talking to people about their hopes of an after life nearly all of them said “peace” or something like it. We long for it and we seek it everywhere, in money, fame, relationships, when really what we need is to know god. Just as a baby is most peaceful in their father’s arms so we need that rest in our Heavenly Father’s arms. We long for Him to hold us, kiss us, and to delight in us and love us, us loving and delighting in Him back.
And yet we bumble about not sure what we need. Paul writes “death reigned from Adam…” (Romans 5:14). It’s ruling over us, confusing us, distorting truth and it leads us to deny God:
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” (Romans 1:24-25)
I imagine people live their lives stumbling about frantically, filling their lives with crap and things that don’t satisfy – blind to the fat that the reason they are not at peace is because they’re supposed to be their Father’s children, but they’re not! Children are extremely distraught when they are without their parents, and in this way we are all orphans, wandering about, committing more and more evil trying to find happiness in it. But all things done without God don’t satisfy because you’re doing them without God. Good things can lose their meaning – marriage, relaxing, etc. I see an orphan playing with a toy their parent gave them and expecting the toy to fill the role of Father.
To continue with this metaphor our problem of being an orphan isn’t because God died and left us alone, but we died!
“…sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12)
In this rebellion Adam – and every man and woman since him – has ran away from their Father, doing things He hates! And yet we stumble about, drunk, deaf, and blind, headed to the grave because of our sin – mourning for happiness, moaning for it. For joy, for completeness.
Before I was a Christian I stumbled this way, gasping for air, drunk, I don’t know how else to describe the picture in my mind, but I was trying to find joy but couldn’t because the one person I needed the most I had mad into an enemy. I had fallen short of the glory of God, and consequently I could not know Him, nor be complete. The Psalms talk about being headed to the grave.
But thanks be to God in Christ!
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” (5:8-9)
So, we rebel and God’s righteous wrath falls on us, we are condemned, and in our disobedience God gives us up to our passions and lets us get more and more confused (Romans 1:24-27). And yet God is so good that He seeks to reconcile Himself to us by His Son.
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” (5:10)
I love the ministry of the Holy Spirit, because He comes in to convince us of this truth. He comes in to attest this reality – that Christ did not die in vain, but rather in our place, and in his resurrection we too may rise. Because if God has handed us over to our passions, it’s going to take the truth the Holy Spirit speaks to pull us out of our sinful state. We are deaf and need ears, we are blind and need sight, we tell ourselves we are good but need the truth that we are not. I know that John the Baptizer is the one spoken of in Isaiah about “a voice crying in the wilderness” but I think that’s the Holy Spirit too. We live in a lonely, barren wilderness and the Holy Spirit I picture as this voice calling in the emptiness of our lives to see our sin so that we might fal down at the cross of Christ and repent.
Paul talks of a “complete joy” and this is it: to be with the Father, our God, to Love Jesus, to seek Him, and to listen to the Spirit. To be with them brightens anything, makes everything worthwhile and everything meaningful.
“…we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (5:11)
Sunday 6 September 2009
We Need a King (A Wise One): 1 Kings 3 & 4
I read: 1 Kings 3 & 4
Up until this point in Israel’s history things have been pretty hard and difficult because they keep resisting or forgetting about God their King. In the book of Judges the people repeatedly fall into chaos and sin, doing whatever they esteem is right, which leads to big problems.
Israel has always done its best with a leader. God is supposed to be enough, and He is, but the people are too sinful and need a mediator like Moses or a leader like Joshua to Shepard and keep them.
It is fitting that when Israel cries out for a King God sends a shepard. This shepard boy, David, was also a talented musician and later wrote a Psalm about the true Shepard of Christ:
The LORD is my Shepard; I shall
not want.
He makes me lie down in green
pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake. (Psalm 23:1-3)
From what I’ve heard sheep are dumb animals. They need a Shepard. They need someone to guide them away from stupid decisions, from danger, from things that destroy. It’s surprising how sheep-like humans can be. In Judges we see a people that repeatedly do dumb, sheep-like things and it’s easy to condemn them but it’s important to remember we are just like them. We do incredibly stupid things. We need a Shepard, a King, to guide us, and that is Christ. Thankfully God also blesses us with types of Christs throughout history who Shepard and save their people from harm. But the ultimate fulfillment of that role is Jesus. The Christian life enjoys pastors who Shepard and guide their people towards Christ.
So we need a King, a good King. It is much better than a democracy. Look at America. Half of America hates the other half because their ideas about policies are wrong. So the more we talk about things the more we can discuss and agree to disagree and blah blah blah a lot of people argue with each other about who is right. I’m not saying it’s horrible, I like America, but can you imagine if the Kingdom of God was a democracy? Look at church boards, nothing would ever get done. The people would split over the decision of what color everyone’s robes should be. No, Jesus says “white” for the way He’s purified us. That’s that. We need an authoritative leader to grab us and guide us, one in whom we can always put our trust.
Our Shepard and King was born 2,000 years ago, and although in His lifetime He does not “compare” (in worldly terms) with King Solomon, that is, the life King Solomon led; we can see in Solomon the type of Christ to come. There are many parallels. Ultimately Christ would be the better Solomon because He alone would walk in faithfulness, righteousness, and in uprightness of heart before God (qualities of David in 1 Kings 3:6).
Solomon became king as a young man and he is humble enough to admit his youth and inexperience. God gives Him the incredible invitation to ask for anything, anything at all. Even in his naïveté God gives Solomon the wisdom to realize that what he doesn’t need is a long life, or to have his enemies crushed (1 Kings 3:11). No, if enemies are removed there will be more enemies. Rather, those things like how to deal with enemies are a result of knowing and discerning between good and evil. Solomon says to God:
“And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in…
Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” (1 Kings 3:7, 9)
This is great, and in it we can already see God’s gift of wisdom for Solomon to realize he needs more wisdom. It’s similar that in order to ask for grace you already need to have it! Because it is only by God’s grace and the wonderful Holy Spirit that we realize our need for grace.
Here we see the importance of wisdom, a theme of scripture because it is an attribute of Jesus. He is wise and like the famous story in 1 Kings 3:16-28 (where two women claim to be the mother of a baby) Jesus can see through our lies and stories and can cut to the heart of the matter and justice. Justice is so frustrating in this world because we aren’t all-knowing and can’t always discern who did right and who did wrong. Thankfully Jesus can and will never make a mistake. In fact in His perfect justice we see a great paradox, that while He is all-knowing and will never declare the guilty innocent, He will by His blood on the cross declare that very thing! The criminal’s punishment is taken by the judge, if we accept that and ask for Him to do so. What wisdom beyond worldly wisdom.
This section of Solomon’s early life parallels Jesus’ early life, particularly in Luke 2:52:
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
The effects of a good king are many, and in Solomon’s kingdom we get a tiny portrait of Jesus’ eternal kingdom. Here are some verse from chapters 3 and 4 that describe the kingdom under Solomon that stuck out to me:
Judah and Israel were as many as the sand of the sea. (1 Kings 4:20a)
Children are a blessing, and so is population. God wants His kingdom to be crowded.
They ate and drank and were happy. (1 Kings 4:20b)
They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. (1 Kings 4:21b)
But Christ will never die again, so His kingdom is without end, and if He raises us with Him, we will serve Him forever.
They let nothing be lacking. (1 Kings 4:27)
I’m guessing there will be no room anywhere in heaven that has cheap carpet and crappy wallpaper, something God hasn’t gotten around to cleaning up. There’s something to be said for flair and design for kings. Every kingdom in the history of the world has done it. It’s a way of somehow capturing and physically manifesting the glory of the leader. America’s got the White House, Egypt built pyramids (for its dead leaders).
I’m studying in London right now and yesterday I went down to Buckingham palace with some friends. When you get to the palace, things begin to change. The streets begin to look a little nicer, there are huge walls, iron fences with gold symbols, all this stuff that declares Britain’s glory. The Queen’s house is different than the houses down the street. We came in from the side and didn’t realize that in front of the palace is a long road called the Mall which leads to a huge gate in Trafalgar square. That gate declares to the crazy taxi driver going through it that he is entering an important area.
I am confident that Christ’s reign will have the most pomp and glory of any king ever. Seeing Buckingham palace yesterday prompts me to wonder what Christ’s kingdom will be like.
And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom. (1 Kings 4:34)
All peoples flock to Christ and will hear His wisdom and worship His glory, from the poorest of the poor to the richest king, they are all subjects of the true King.
Me praying:
God, thank You that You are in charge and rule from Your throne in perfect righteousness and love. You have never made a bad decision and have never done wrong. For You are perfect. Even evil in this world You turn to good. Help me to pay tribute and submit to You daily. Help me to practically live as Your servant. Christ make me obedient like You. God may I not be a bad servant. Here in London I feel like Solomon – I see work to do, so much ministry and I feel overwhelmed. Please bless me with Your wisdom and Your grace that I may glorify You. Thank You Jesus for Your humble submission to the Father and for Your pursuit of His will. Help me and anyone who is reading this to reveal a bit of Your kingdom through love, patience, and joy. Holy Spirit work in us and help us to abide in Christ. I love You and bow down in awe of You, my King. AMEN.
Up until this point in Israel’s history things have been pretty hard and difficult because they keep resisting or forgetting about God their King. In the book of Judges the people repeatedly fall into chaos and sin, doing whatever they esteem is right, which leads to big problems.
Israel has always done its best with a leader. God is supposed to be enough, and He is, but the people are too sinful and need a mediator like Moses or a leader like Joshua to Shepard and keep them.
It is fitting that when Israel cries out for a King God sends a shepard. This shepard boy, David, was also a talented musician and later wrote a Psalm about the true Shepard of Christ:
The LORD is my Shepard; I shall
not want.
He makes me lie down in green
pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake. (Psalm 23:1-3)
From what I’ve heard sheep are dumb animals. They need a Shepard. They need someone to guide them away from stupid decisions, from danger, from things that destroy. It’s surprising how sheep-like humans can be. In Judges we see a people that repeatedly do dumb, sheep-like things and it’s easy to condemn them but it’s important to remember we are just like them. We do incredibly stupid things. We need a Shepard, a King, to guide us, and that is Christ. Thankfully God also blesses us with types of Christs throughout history who Shepard and save their people from harm. But the ultimate fulfillment of that role is Jesus. The Christian life enjoys pastors who Shepard and guide their people towards Christ.
So we need a King, a good King. It is much better than a democracy. Look at America. Half of America hates the other half because their ideas about policies are wrong. So the more we talk about things the more we can discuss and agree to disagree and blah blah blah a lot of people argue with each other about who is right. I’m not saying it’s horrible, I like America, but can you imagine if the Kingdom of God was a democracy? Look at church boards, nothing would ever get done. The people would split over the decision of what color everyone’s robes should be. No, Jesus says “white” for the way He’s purified us. That’s that. We need an authoritative leader to grab us and guide us, one in whom we can always put our trust.
Our Shepard and King was born 2,000 years ago, and although in His lifetime He does not “compare” (in worldly terms) with King Solomon, that is, the life King Solomon led; we can see in Solomon the type of Christ to come. There are many parallels. Ultimately Christ would be the better Solomon because He alone would walk in faithfulness, righteousness, and in uprightness of heart before God (qualities of David in 1 Kings 3:6).
Solomon became king as a young man and he is humble enough to admit his youth and inexperience. God gives Him the incredible invitation to ask for anything, anything at all. Even in his naïveté God gives Solomon the wisdom to realize that what he doesn’t need is a long life, or to have his enemies crushed (1 Kings 3:11). No, if enemies are removed there will be more enemies. Rather, those things like how to deal with enemies are a result of knowing and discerning between good and evil. Solomon says to God:
“And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in…
Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” (1 Kings 3:7, 9)
This is great, and in it we can already see God’s gift of wisdom for Solomon to realize he needs more wisdom. It’s similar that in order to ask for grace you already need to have it! Because it is only by God’s grace and the wonderful Holy Spirit that we realize our need for grace.
Here we see the importance of wisdom, a theme of scripture because it is an attribute of Jesus. He is wise and like the famous story in 1 Kings 3:16-28 (where two women claim to be the mother of a baby) Jesus can see through our lies and stories and can cut to the heart of the matter and justice. Justice is so frustrating in this world because we aren’t all-knowing and can’t always discern who did right and who did wrong. Thankfully Jesus can and will never make a mistake. In fact in His perfect justice we see a great paradox, that while He is all-knowing and will never declare the guilty innocent, He will by His blood on the cross declare that very thing! The criminal’s punishment is taken by the judge, if we accept that and ask for Him to do so. What wisdom beyond worldly wisdom.
This section of Solomon’s early life parallels Jesus’ early life, particularly in Luke 2:52:
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
The effects of a good king are many, and in Solomon’s kingdom we get a tiny portrait of Jesus’ eternal kingdom. Here are some verse from chapters 3 and 4 that describe the kingdom under Solomon that stuck out to me:
Judah and Israel were as many as the sand of the sea. (1 Kings 4:20a)
Children are a blessing, and so is population. God wants His kingdom to be crowded.
They ate and drank and were happy. (1 Kings 4:20b)
They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. (1 Kings 4:21b)
But Christ will never die again, so His kingdom is without end, and if He raises us with Him, we will serve Him forever.
They let nothing be lacking. (1 Kings 4:27)
I’m guessing there will be no room anywhere in heaven that has cheap carpet and crappy wallpaper, something God hasn’t gotten around to cleaning up. There’s something to be said for flair and design for kings. Every kingdom in the history of the world has done it. It’s a way of somehow capturing and physically manifesting the glory of the leader. America’s got the White House, Egypt built pyramids (for its dead leaders).
I’m studying in London right now and yesterday I went down to Buckingham palace with some friends. When you get to the palace, things begin to change. The streets begin to look a little nicer, there are huge walls, iron fences with gold symbols, all this stuff that declares Britain’s glory. The Queen’s house is different than the houses down the street. We came in from the side and didn’t realize that in front of the palace is a long road called the Mall which leads to a huge gate in Trafalgar square. That gate declares to the crazy taxi driver going through it that he is entering an important area.
I am confident that Christ’s reign will have the most pomp and glory of any king ever. Seeing Buckingham palace yesterday prompts me to wonder what Christ’s kingdom will be like.
And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom. (1 Kings 4:34)
All peoples flock to Christ and will hear His wisdom and worship His glory, from the poorest of the poor to the richest king, they are all subjects of the true King.
Me praying:
God, thank You that You are in charge and rule from Your throne in perfect righteousness and love. You have never made a bad decision and have never done wrong. For You are perfect. Even evil in this world You turn to good. Help me to pay tribute and submit to You daily. Help me to practically live as Your servant. Christ make me obedient like You. God may I not be a bad servant. Here in London I feel like Solomon – I see work to do, so much ministry and I feel overwhelmed. Please bless me with Your wisdom and Your grace that I may glorify You. Thank You Jesus for Your humble submission to the Father and for Your pursuit of His will. Help me and anyone who is reading this to reveal a bit of Your kingdom through love, patience, and joy. Holy Spirit work in us and help us to abide in Christ. I love You and bow down in awe of You, my King. AMEN.
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