In the last couple of verses, Sarai decided they were going to try and have a baby through her maidservant since there hadn't been any babies yet. We talked about why that was such a boneheaded move, and now we'll look at some of the consequences of trying to achieve in the flesh what God promised in the Spirit.
[Genesis 16:4-6]
After they go through with it, and Sarai's maid becomes pregnant by Abraham, the maid gained some animosity towards Sarai (To no one's surprise.) Sarai admits her mistake, but acts like a jerk towards Hagar until she ends up running away from camp.
Works of the flesh breed pride, competition, and contempt. You see this frequently when "accountability partners" go awry. In an attempt to force by the flesh what God promised as a work of the spirit, well-meaning discipleship groups start up things snapping yourself with a rubber band when you have negative thoughts or kicking each other in the nuts every time you look at porn. Everyone who has tried this knows that, at best, this results in red wrists and sterility, and at worst results in shame, dishonesty, and ruined relationships. Hagar was mad at Sarai for convincing her to go along with this stupid plan, and Sarai was mad at this woman who was carrying her husband's baby. Fleshly attempts at fake righteousness destroy relationships.
[16:7-11]
It's interesting that, despite their stupidity, Hagar's child was still a child of Abraham, and God had promised Abraham that He would bless his children. God's not one to skip out on a deal, so an angel informs Hagar that she can safely return to camp and that her children will be numerous just like Abraham was promised.
It's good to know that, even when we do something stupid, God is still God and His promises do not change. We can screw up and complicate things, but we can never stop the promises of God. So if God has promised you something and you ran away from it, it's still a promise and you can't destroy it completely.
[16:12-16]
This promise fulfillment came with a bit of catch though: this son is going to be a bit crazy and pretty much everyone is going to hate his guts. This had immediate fulfilment when Abram eventually had a song through Sarai, and that son and Ishmael didn't get along very well, and it had future fulfillment in that Ishamel's descendants founded Islam where Issac's descendants founded Judaism. God fulfilled the promise of fruitfulness to both descendants, but they were destined to be at war for the rest of their existence.
Similarly, there are people who will always hold to a fleshly, self-made righteousness. And while they may still be successful to a degree, they will always be at war with those who hold to the true promise of salvation by Grace through the finished work of Jesus. There will always be works-obsessed Hagars giving birth to book-burning, event-picketing, skirt-measuring Ishmaels, and they will "dwell in the presence of all [their] brethren." We can help each other out, and we have no excuse to be mean to each other, but this grace vs. works split will always be present in the church.
It's a tough thing to deal with, because it leads easily into "You disagree with me! You're an Ishamel! Burn the witch!" if you're not careful. It's easy to lash out at anyone telling you to stop being an idiot and say "I do what I want, you Pharisee!" when you are legitimately being an idiot. But there will always be Issacs and Ishmaels, and there will always be lazy people using it as an excuse to not have to put any effort into their lives. I think this is why the Bible warns us to not freak out over other people's convictions and to leave the ultimate judgement to God without kicking out everyone who disagrees with us.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Take My Maid, Please
Is it two weeks later already? How about that....
[Genesis 16:1-3]
There are a lot of interesting things happening in this section. Abram and Sarai both know that there's supposed to be a bunch babies going on, since that's the entire reason they decided to go wandering the desert and getting into wars and do all this fun stuff they've been doing. However, Abram's pushing 90 years old and, even when people are still living 150-ish years, that's pretty old. Sarai understandably gets impatient and does a couple of things to try to remedy the situation:
First, she accuses God of deliberately messing this up. Her thoughts aren't that there might be something else they need to do or that it's just not time, but that God is stopping her from having a baby just for the lulz.
Second, she comes up with a plan to let Abram also marry her maid and possibly have a baby with her instead. Also notable is that Abram was all for this plan.
For the most part, these guys have been pretty good about having faith in God to fulfill these promises. But here it seems like their patience ran out. They didn't see the promise coming fast enough to suit them so they decided to take matters into their own hands and fulfill this promise themselves. Even though God was pretty clear that the descendants would come from Sarai herself, they were tired of waiting and decided to rely on their own strength and their own plans to make this promise happen.
We often don't like God's version of a plan, so we come with a plan that's pretty similar but a lot more appealing to us. God says you're going to be a missionary and you say "Well...I'm a missionary to my business." God says you're going to be a business owner and you say "Well...I set up a separate checking account for missions donations so that's kinda like a business." God says to go give someone specific encouragement to their face and instead you poke them on Facebook and post them a funny picture.
More dangerously, this attitude is most prevalent when it comes to salvation and morality teachings. The Bible teaches that submitting your heart to God makes you a new creation; that as you grow closer to God you develop spiritual fruit and God transforms your heart to be more like Jesus. Alone, you are broken and fallen and the best works you can will yourself into doing are just rags made filthy by the pride that comes with forcing yourself to be a "good person." We know this, and yet we are not satisfied with the speed that it happens in ourselves or in other people so we feel like we have to force the matter.
You see this the most in youth sermons. The youth pastor knows that God transforms hearts, but also feels pressure to preach a sermon so good that 15-year-olds who got saved last week live with the same maturity and wisdom of a 40-year-old who has been saved since he was 17. The youth pastor knows that the reason he doesn't have sex outside of marriage is because he loves his wife, loves God, and so would never defile himself and cheapen the gift of love he has to give his wife; he knows the reason he doesn't do drugs is because he has a purpose in life that can't be achieved when he is stoned out of his mind or when his body is destroyed by these substances; he knows that he is a "good person" because God has worked on his heart throughout the years and now his desires line up better with God's, but this does not work fast enough, so he throws in other things to try and get the kids to clean up their act immediately. Love is slow, so scare them with STDs; self-respect takes time, so show them disturbing pictures and play to their pride so they'll pressure each other in a more acceptable way; spiritual maturity takes time, so we'll come with disgusting false sermons from out-of-context passages scaring kids into thinking it takes longer to get back into the presence of God than it does to "fall out" of it.
God promised us righteousness as a result of our marriage with Jesus, but we don't see it happening so we suggest our congregations take on fear as a wife and try to bear righteousness through her. We marry ourselves to pride, success, hatred, and things of the flesh to try and bear through them the fruit God promised we would bear through Christ.
Abram's faith had already been counted to him as righteousness; the plan was laid out and everything was on track before Abram and Sarai decided they could give it a push. And though we struggle with sin and watch those around us fall, we have already been declared righteous through the finished work of Jesus. You still help each other do the best you can, but when you get to the point where you think you're helping the salvation process or you start trying to modify behavior with petty fleshly incentives instead of an attitude grounded in our relationship with God, you are over-stepping your bounds and throwing a wrench of works into God's plan of Grace.
---
I was going to keep going there, but I think that's quite enough for today. The rest of chapter goes into some of the consequences of this decision, so we'll have some more fun with it next time.
[Genesis 16:1-3]
There are a lot of interesting things happening in this section. Abram and Sarai both know that there's supposed to be a bunch babies going on, since that's the entire reason they decided to go wandering the desert and getting into wars and do all this fun stuff they've been doing. However, Abram's pushing 90 years old and, even when people are still living 150-ish years, that's pretty old. Sarai understandably gets impatient and does a couple of things to try to remedy the situation:
First, she accuses God of deliberately messing this up. Her thoughts aren't that there might be something else they need to do or that it's just not time, but that God is stopping her from having a baby just for the lulz.
Second, she comes up with a plan to let Abram also marry her maid and possibly have a baby with her instead. Also notable is that Abram was all for this plan.
For the most part, these guys have been pretty good about having faith in God to fulfill these promises. But here it seems like their patience ran out. They didn't see the promise coming fast enough to suit them so they decided to take matters into their own hands and fulfill this promise themselves. Even though God was pretty clear that the descendants would come from Sarai herself, they were tired of waiting and decided to rely on their own strength and their own plans to make this promise happen.
We often don't like God's version of a plan, so we come with a plan that's pretty similar but a lot more appealing to us. God says you're going to be a missionary and you say "Well...I'm a missionary to my business." God says you're going to be a business owner and you say "Well...I set up a separate checking account for missions donations so that's kinda like a business." God says to go give someone specific encouragement to their face and instead you poke them on Facebook and post them a funny picture.
More dangerously, this attitude is most prevalent when it comes to salvation and morality teachings. The Bible teaches that submitting your heart to God makes you a new creation; that as you grow closer to God you develop spiritual fruit and God transforms your heart to be more like Jesus. Alone, you are broken and fallen and the best works you can will yourself into doing are just rags made filthy by the pride that comes with forcing yourself to be a "good person." We know this, and yet we are not satisfied with the speed that it happens in ourselves or in other people so we feel like we have to force the matter.
You see this the most in youth sermons. The youth pastor knows that God transforms hearts, but also feels pressure to preach a sermon so good that 15-year-olds who got saved last week live with the same maturity and wisdom of a 40-year-old who has been saved since he was 17. The youth pastor knows that the reason he doesn't have sex outside of marriage is because he loves his wife, loves God, and so would never defile himself and cheapen the gift of love he has to give his wife; he knows the reason he doesn't do drugs is because he has a purpose in life that can't be achieved when he is stoned out of his mind or when his body is destroyed by these substances; he knows that he is a "good person" because God has worked on his heart throughout the years and now his desires line up better with God's, but this does not work fast enough, so he throws in other things to try and get the kids to clean up their act immediately. Love is slow, so scare them with STDs; self-respect takes time, so show them disturbing pictures and play to their pride so they'll pressure each other in a more acceptable way; spiritual maturity takes time, so we'll come with disgusting false sermons from out-of-context passages scaring kids into thinking it takes longer to get back into the presence of God than it does to "fall out" of it.
God promised us righteousness as a result of our marriage with Jesus, but we don't see it happening so we suggest our congregations take on fear as a wife and try to bear righteousness through her. We marry ourselves to pride, success, hatred, and things of the flesh to try and bear through them the fruit God promised we would bear through Christ.
Abram's faith had already been counted to him as righteousness; the plan was laid out and everything was on track before Abram and Sarai decided they could give it a push. And though we struggle with sin and watch those around us fall, we have already been declared righteous through the finished work of Jesus. You still help each other do the best you can, but when you get to the point where you think you're helping the salvation process or you start trying to modify behavior with petty fleshly incentives instead of an attitude grounded in our relationship with God, you are over-stepping your bounds and throwing a wrench of works into God's plan of Grace.
---
I was going to keep going there, but I think that's quite enough for today. The rest of chapter goes into some of the consequences of this decision, so we'll have some more fun with it next time.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
The Jibblies
I'm going to keep this up. Had two tests this week so I was busy with that, but I'm also a lazy butt. But we're pushing on!
[Genesis 15:1-3]
Riding on that cool victory of saving Lot, God decides to give Abram a pep talk, saying "See? See? Told you I'd shield you." God also encourages Abram for not taking the spoils from the jerks who ran the town, assuring Abram that the relationship they have and the promises God gave him are an even better reward than the ones he just passed up.
Abram jumps on this opportunity to go "Yeah cool thanks. About those promises..." and begin to ask God exactly when that whole promise thing was supposed to happen. Abram was obvious concerned as he had been promised that his descendants would form an entire nation, but here he was well past 70 years old with his only current heir being one of his servants that he just happened to like more than others.
Abram demonstrated to us last time with his private militia that it does not violate your relationship or your promise with God when you prepare on your side; in fact, you're expected to prepare on your side. Here he demonstrates that it's not wrong to question what's going on. Abram expected descendants, and victory in saving Lot wasn't extremely fulfilling when the first promise didn't look like it was going to be fulfilled, so he calls God out on it, and that's okay. Compared to some of the stuff David prayed, his questions were quite tame.
We never see God punishing doubts and questions. When you make inquiries for the purpose of learning more, God rewards that. We all have an aversion to people questioning our beliefs, and a sense of guilt comes when we question our own, but plenty of Bible folks weren't afraid to call God out on whether or not He was who He said He was. We freak out over things like Richard Dawkins books, but if people are asking questions we should be able to answer them. When someone refuses to let me even ask questions, I immediately begin they are manipulating me and actually have no idea what they're talking about.
[4-6]
God doesn't really give Abram any new information, but reassures him that he's going to have so many descendants that his head will spin. God later ends up fulfilling this in two different ways: the literal, physical country of Israel is a fulfillment of this promise, as well as the spiritual descendants that would come through future covenants.
A cool bit of text here says that Abram believed God, and God credited him righteousness for it. Righteousness is a tricky subject when it comes to pre-law Bible characters. They did not have the Levitical law, so their righteousness couldn't really be based on whether or not they wore polyester or covered their poop properly. Instead, in the case of Adam and Eve, He bases their righteousness on obedience with what He has told them. In Abram's case, Abram got righteousness credited to his account for his faith. Elsewhere in Scripture the covenant God has with us today is compared to God's covenant with Abram moreso than God's covenant with Moses and Israel, so this is worth paying attention to.
I'm a math major, and I like to see the world as obeying mathematical rules that God Himself laid down. One of those rules deals with equality: if we're dealing with a value and we want to switch it out for another one, we can only do that if the two values have been proven equal. If we don't like one side of an equation, we can't just say "Man, that would be a lot easier to solve without those fractions. I'm gonna switch that side out for the number 6. Done." unless we have proved somewhere that the side in question is equal to six. God could not have exchanged Abram's faith with righteousness unless faith was equal to righteousness. God doesn't cook His books. If He wrote "righteousness" in Abram's ledger, that means that, under the covenant He had with Abram and, by extension, the covenant He has with us, faith and righteousness are the same thing. In Abram's case, it was faith in God's promise for descendants. In our case, it is faith in the finished work of Jesus.
[7-20]
I'm going to be honest: this part is weird and I'm never entirely sure what to do with it.
Basically, Abram asks for proof, so he goes and cuts a goat and a cow in half, and leaves them outside along with a dead bird. He gets tired trying to fight vultures off of them, falls asleep, and gets the jibblies. After the jibblies, God tells Abram that his descendants will be captives in another land for 400 years, but it's cool because God will beat the crap out of the other guys after they get out. Then Abram wakes up and has a vision of an E-Z-Bake Oven and a flashlight moving through the dead animals.
The best explanation I've heard for this is that this mimics a covenantal ritual like the ones every culture seemed to have before we all collectively realized that handshake was a lot easier and a lot less messy. I don't remember the details, but it involves walking between the animal caracasses and getting the blood on their robes. What Abram saw was God manifesting Himself to walk through and sign the covenant for both of them (The only good explanation of the imagery I could find was that the oven was supposed to evoke the future pillar of cloud and the torch the pillar of fire that He would use to lead the Israelites through the desert.) The significant picture here being that God signed for both of them; Abram wasn't even involved. Just another picture of how God's covenant with us is Him coming down here, not us building up to Him.
[Genesis 15:1-3]
Riding on that cool victory of saving Lot, God decides to give Abram a pep talk, saying "See? See? Told you I'd shield you." God also encourages Abram for not taking the spoils from the jerks who ran the town, assuring Abram that the relationship they have and the promises God gave him are an even better reward than the ones he just passed up.
Abram jumps on this opportunity to go "Yeah cool thanks. About those promises..." and begin to ask God exactly when that whole promise thing was supposed to happen. Abram was obvious concerned as he had been promised that his descendants would form an entire nation, but here he was well past 70 years old with his only current heir being one of his servants that he just happened to like more than others.
Abram demonstrated to us last time with his private militia that it does not violate your relationship or your promise with God when you prepare on your side; in fact, you're expected to prepare on your side. Here he demonstrates that it's not wrong to question what's going on. Abram expected descendants, and victory in saving Lot wasn't extremely fulfilling when the first promise didn't look like it was going to be fulfilled, so he calls God out on it, and that's okay. Compared to some of the stuff David prayed, his questions were quite tame.
We never see God punishing doubts and questions. When you make inquiries for the purpose of learning more, God rewards that. We all have an aversion to people questioning our beliefs, and a sense of guilt comes when we question our own, but plenty of Bible folks weren't afraid to call God out on whether or not He was who He said He was. We freak out over things like Richard Dawkins books, but if people are asking questions we should be able to answer them. When someone refuses to let me even ask questions, I immediately begin they are manipulating me and actually have no idea what they're talking about.
[4-6]
God doesn't really give Abram any new information, but reassures him that he's going to have so many descendants that his head will spin. God later ends up fulfilling this in two different ways: the literal, physical country of Israel is a fulfillment of this promise, as well as the spiritual descendants that would come through future covenants.
A cool bit of text here says that Abram believed God, and God credited him righteousness for it. Righteousness is a tricky subject when it comes to pre-law Bible characters. They did not have the Levitical law, so their righteousness couldn't really be based on whether or not they wore polyester or covered their poop properly. Instead, in the case of Adam and Eve, He bases their righteousness on obedience with what He has told them. In Abram's case, Abram got righteousness credited to his account for his faith. Elsewhere in Scripture the covenant God has with us today is compared to God's covenant with Abram moreso than God's covenant with Moses and Israel, so this is worth paying attention to.
I'm a math major, and I like to see the world as obeying mathematical rules that God Himself laid down. One of those rules deals with equality: if we're dealing with a value and we want to switch it out for another one, we can only do that if the two values have been proven equal. If we don't like one side of an equation, we can't just say "Man, that would be a lot easier to solve without those fractions. I'm gonna switch that side out for the number 6. Done." unless we have proved somewhere that the side in question is equal to six. God could not have exchanged Abram's faith with righteousness unless faith was equal to righteousness. God doesn't cook His books. If He wrote "righteousness" in Abram's ledger, that means that, under the covenant He had with Abram and, by extension, the covenant He has with us, faith and righteousness are the same thing. In Abram's case, it was faith in God's promise for descendants. In our case, it is faith in the finished work of Jesus.
[7-20]
I'm going to be honest: this part is weird and I'm never entirely sure what to do with it.
Basically, Abram asks for proof, so he goes and cuts a goat and a cow in half, and leaves them outside along with a dead bird. He gets tired trying to fight vultures off of them, falls asleep, and gets the jibblies. After the jibblies, God tells Abram that his descendants will be captives in another land for 400 years, but it's cool because God will beat the crap out of the other guys after they get out. Then Abram wakes up and has a vision of an E-Z-Bake Oven and a flashlight moving through the dead animals.
The best explanation I've heard for this is that this mimics a covenantal ritual like the ones every culture seemed to have before we all collectively realized that handshake was a lot easier and a lot less messy. I don't remember the details, but it involves walking between the animal caracasses and getting the blood on their robes. What Abram saw was God manifesting Himself to walk through and sign the covenant for both of them (The only good explanation of the imagery I could find was that the oven was supposed to evoke the future pillar of cloud and the torch the pillar of fire that He would use to lead the Israelites through the desert.) The significant picture here being that God signed for both of them; Abram wasn't even involved. Just another picture of how God's covenant with us is Him coming down here, not us building up to Him.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Lot has Been Kidnapped by Canaanites!
Short hiatus due to oversleeping, homework, and general laziness. But we're back! Friday's usually NT day, but I'm gonna stick with Genesis for today just because.
[Genesis 14: 1-12]
A big long list of countries goes to war with each other and ends up capturing Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot had unfortunately decided to camp out. Oddly enough this isn't even the real reason that Lot picked a stupid place.
[Genesis 14: 13-14]
One of Lot's buddies escapes and goes to tell Abram that Lot got himself kidnapped. Abram goes into hardcore favorite uncle mode and suits up a private militia that he apparently keeps on hand at all times and trained them himself from people born in his camp. I always forget exactly how rich Abram had to have been from the Bible description and from the fact that he has a private security force with him. We like our Bible characters poor so that people with lots of money will feel bad and give it to our cause, so you don't hear Abram's wealth mentioned much.
It's also notable that Abram kept some muscle with him even though God promised protection. More than once when expressing my desire to get a concealed handgun license I've been chided for a lack of faith because the person in question "trusted God to protect them." I find this argument absurd, because I know for a fact that anyone who tells you this probably wears a seat belt and looks both ways before crossing the street. There is a dangerous, unbiblical mindset (moreso in Charismatic circles) that faith can be measured by lack of precaution and reckless behavior. This is where you get people not protecting themselves as faith in God's protection, or not preparing for their sermons as faith in God's inspiration, or not practicing decent hygiene or medicinal habits as faith in God's healing. You see it the most in the medical sense, where taking medicine or getting a flu shot is offensive to Christians who have deluded themselves into thinking that God's protection means that you don't have to take care of yourself.
Abram kept a small military force with him because he's a rich guy wandering around foreign countries and knows he's going to get jumped a time or two. This did not violate God's promise because we are expected to handle ourselves as best we can. It paid off in this respect because now he's able to go on a rescue mission and get Lot back. If he had disbanded all his security because "Well, God said I'd be successful" he probably would have not lived this long anyway and definitely would have been able to save Lot. Reckless stupidity disguised as faith can get people killed.
[Genesis 15: 16-17]
Abram wins. 'Cause Abram's a bad enough dude to rescue Lot.
[Genesis 15:18-24]
There's a casual mention here of Melchizedek, a priest to whom Abram paid a tithe of all of his earnings. Typically when God makes a covenant with man, there's a priest who mediates. There wasn't a lot of information on the period from Adam to Abram, but you could see God Himself as the priest of that time; during most of the Old Testament the Levites take the job of priest; nowadays we're back to God Himself (Jesus specifically) as the high priest with all of us being lower-ranking priests, mediating our own relationship with God. Melchizedek was the priest over God's covenant with Abram, and we don't know a lot about him. Some think he was a king of a literal Salem (though there's little to no historical evidence of this,) and some think he was a manifestation of Jesus Himself (I lean towards that interpretation, but I'm not sure.)
Regardless, Abram gave him a tenth of the spoils from the battle. There are always those who say that tithing is unbiblical because we are not under the law anymore, but here we see Abram tithing before the Levitical law came into existence. While it may not necessarily be a hard and fast "exactly ten percent or I curse your income" law like it was during the old covenant, the practice of tithing and the principle behind it are still alive and well. The tithe exists as a sign that God is first. Nothing cuts to your mind and heart quicker than money, so making sure God gets the first portion of your income keeps you in a position of acknowledging God first, and remaining aware and thankful that it all comes from Him anyway.
Also, the king of Sodom tried to thank Abram by giving him all of the spoils from the war, but Abram refused and only took enough to feed his people. His logic for this was that he didn't want the king of Sodom to get the glory of making Abram rich. The text hasn't really gotten into it yet, but Sodom was about as about as wretched a hive of scum of villainy as you could get. To have his name and wealth forever associated with the king of such an evil place would have put a sour taste to his legacy forever. Sometimes your integrity is worth taking a convenience or financial handicap.
[Genesis 14: 1-12]
A big long list of countries goes to war with each other and ends up capturing Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot had unfortunately decided to camp out. Oddly enough this isn't even the real reason that Lot picked a stupid place.
[Genesis 14: 13-14]
One of Lot's buddies escapes and goes to tell Abram that Lot got himself kidnapped. Abram goes into hardcore favorite uncle mode and suits up a private militia that he apparently keeps on hand at all times and trained them himself from people born in his camp. I always forget exactly how rich Abram had to have been from the Bible description and from the fact that he has a private security force with him. We like our Bible characters poor so that people with lots of money will feel bad and give it to our cause, so you don't hear Abram's wealth mentioned much.
It's also notable that Abram kept some muscle with him even though God promised protection. More than once when expressing my desire to get a concealed handgun license I've been chided for a lack of faith because the person in question "trusted God to protect them." I find this argument absurd, because I know for a fact that anyone who tells you this probably wears a seat belt and looks both ways before crossing the street. There is a dangerous, unbiblical mindset (moreso in Charismatic circles) that faith can be measured by lack of precaution and reckless behavior. This is where you get people not protecting themselves as faith in God's protection, or not preparing for their sermons as faith in God's inspiration, or not practicing decent hygiene or medicinal habits as faith in God's healing. You see it the most in the medical sense, where taking medicine or getting a flu shot is offensive to Christians who have deluded themselves into thinking that God's protection means that you don't have to take care of yourself.
Abram kept a small military force with him because he's a rich guy wandering around foreign countries and knows he's going to get jumped a time or two. This did not violate God's promise because we are expected to handle ourselves as best we can. It paid off in this respect because now he's able to go on a rescue mission and get Lot back. If he had disbanded all his security because "Well, God said I'd be successful" he probably would have not lived this long anyway and definitely would have been able to save Lot. Reckless stupidity disguised as faith can get people killed.
[Genesis 15: 16-17]
Abram wins. 'Cause Abram's a bad enough dude to rescue Lot.
[Genesis 15:18-24]
There's a casual mention here of Melchizedek, a priest to whom Abram paid a tithe of all of his earnings. Typically when God makes a covenant with man, there's a priest who mediates. There wasn't a lot of information on the period from Adam to Abram, but you could see God Himself as the priest of that time; during most of the Old Testament the Levites take the job of priest; nowadays we're back to God Himself (Jesus specifically) as the high priest with all of us being lower-ranking priests, mediating our own relationship with God. Melchizedek was the priest over God's covenant with Abram, and we don't know a lot about him. Some think he was a king of a literal Salem (though there's little to no historical evidence of this,) and some think he was a manifestation of Jesus Himself (I lean towards that interpretation, but I'm not sure.)
Regardless, Abram gave him a tenth of the spoils from the battle. There are always those who say that tithing is unbiblical because we are not under the law anymore, but here we see Abram tithing before the Levitical law came into existence. While it may not necessarily be a hard and fast "exactly ten percent or I curse your income" law like it was during the old covenant, the practice of tithing and the principle behind it are still alive and well. The tithe exists as a sign that God is first. Nothing cuts to your mind and heart quicker than money, so making sure God gets the first portion of your income keeps you in a position of acknowledging God first, and remaining aware and thankful that it all comes from Him anyway.
Also, the king of Sodom tried to thank Abram by giving him all of the spoils from the war, but Abram refused and only took enough to feed his people. His logic for this was that he didn't want the king of Sodom to get the glory of making Abram rich. The text hasn't really gotten into it yet, but Sodom was about as about as wretched a hive of scum of villainy as you could get. To have his name and wealth forever associated with the king of such an evil place would have put a sour taste to his legacy forever. Sometimes your integrity is worth taking a convenience or financial handicap.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Go Jesus!
[Matthew 4:1]
It was when Wild at Heart quoted this passage that I knew that book was going to suck. It used "the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness" as Biblical proof that macho bear-wrestling men are God's favorite kind of men, leaving off the rest of sentence that says the wilderness thing was so Jesus could have a run-in with the Devil.
Eldredge's brainwashing crap aside, it's interesting that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness specifically to be tempted. Immediately after Jesus publicly accepted his death and resurrection, He gets to take a test over what it's going to take to pull this off.
Know that when you make a decision, you're immediately going to have to face tough choices about it. The devil likes to attack your decisions to convince you that you're not able to commit things in hopes that you'll stop trying, and God tends to allow these temptations so that you can see that you can overcome them.
[4:2-4]
To prep for the adventures ahead, Jesus fasted for forty days. After a forty-day fast, He was hungry. This brought on the first test: the devil told him "well, you've got your magic Jesus-powers, and I assume your fast is over since you Jews like your forty-day things, so why don't you just zap yourself up some bread out of these here rocks?"
Jesus replies with the Scripture "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
So the first test was basically for Jesus to "cheat" and get Himself some bread using His privileges as God. We'll see later that Jesus is not hesitant to use a miracle or two when it comes to making food for people, so it's interesting that this miracle is one He won't do. Part of it is that this miracle would have been only for Himself, and not others. But I think the biggest issue here is that He's fresh off of His baptism, committing Himself to the mission of coming and dying for our sins. This requires that He comes and lives life as human being completely: that He walks as we walk, eats as we eat, and resists temptation using the same willpower that we use. If He were not fully human and able to fall for all the same reasons we could, His sacrifice would not have been as transferable as it was and teh redemption of the human race would not have been complete.
If Jesus had gone through with this desire and miracled up some bread, that would have been a step away from His commitment to live life as a human. If He can conjure up food whenever He feels like it, it's a slippery slope from there to just poofing around everywhere with teleport powers and making sure other temptations come nowhere near Him, cheapening and possibly nullifying His victory over sin. There probably was nothing wrong with making some bread, but it was the beginning of a path He did not want to travel.
It must have been hard for Jesus to go through life, knowing this power was there and not using it. It's like playing a video game and trying not to use a guide, when the internet is just sitting there going "Come on...you're stuck... look up the solution to this one puzzle... you're not even having fun right now, what could it hurt?" but that first solution you look up pretty much dooms you to using a guide for the rest of the game, and your achievements are hollow and fake.
So don't compromise anything about your goals, your promises, or your work. Even if you skimp on something that's not technically wrong, compromise leads to compromise and you'll likely end up destroying what you set out to do.
Actually, I don't really feel good ending on that note. While that's a good lesson, it's not the point of this passage. We don't learn about Jesus just to get pithy advice for our everyday life. We learn about Jesus so we see how awesome Jesus is. So when you're praying and you're worshiping, add this bit of information about what Jesus went through for you to your awareness. When you're thanking Jesus for who He is and what He's done, let there be a little more awe behind your praise because of everything Jesus had to put aside and not use, even though it was staring Him in the face. At any moment, He could have said "Forget this, I'm living like the King I am" and zapped Him up the best food in the world, spawned a palace under His feet, and said "you guys suck. I don't feel like destroying you all, so you can all come be My slaves and feed Me stuff," propped His feet up, and lived as our eternal earthly King. But He didn't. He didn't do it because He loves us so much that the death on cross route was more appealing to Him. He refused to even make bread for Himself so that He could empathize with our lives. He didn't compromise at all so that we could have eternal rewards that we don't deserve.
This took way too long, so I'm gonna cut it off short here, but yeah. Think about that.
It was when Wild at Heart quoted this passage that I knew that book was going to suck. It used "the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness" as Biblical proof that macho bear-wrestling men are God's favorite kind of men, leaving off the rest of sentence that says the wilderness thing was so Jesus could have a run-in with the Devil.
Eldredge's brainwashing crap aside, it's interesting that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness specifically to be tempted. Immediately after Jesus publicly accepted his death and resurrection, He gets to take a test over what it's going to take to pull this off.
Know that when you make a decision, you're immediately going to have to face tough choices about it. The devil likes to attack your decisions to convince you that you're not able to commit things in hopes that you'll stop trying, and God tends to allow these temptations so that you can see that you can overcome them.
[4:2-4]
To prep for the adventures ahead, Jesus fasted for forty days. After a forty-day fast, He was hungry. This brought on the first test: the devil told him "well, you've got your magic Jesus-powers, and I assume your fast is over since you Jews like your forty-day things, so why don't you just zap yourself up some bread out of these here rocks?"
Jesus replies with the Scripture "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
So the first test was basically for Jesus to "cheat" and get Himself some bread using His privileges as God. We'll see later that Jesus is not hesitant to use a miracle or two when it comes to making food for people, so it's interesting that this miracle is one He won't do. Part of it is that this miracle would have been only for Himself, and not others. But I think the biggest issue here is that He's fresh off of His baptism, committing Himself to the mission of coming and dying for our sins. This requires that He comes and lives life as human being completely: that He walks as we walk, eats as we eat, and resists temptation using the same willpower that we use. If He were not fully human and able to fall for all the same reasons we could, His sacrifice would not have been as transferable as it was and teh redemption of the human race would not have been complete.
If Jesus had gone through with this desire and miracled up some bread, that would have been a step away from His commitment to live life as a human. If He can conjure up food whenever He feels like it, it's a slippery slope from there to just poofing around everywhere with teleport powers and making sure other temptations come nowhere near Him, cheapening and possibly nullifying His victory over sin. There probably was nothing wrong with making some bread, but it was the beginning of a path He did not want to travel.
It must have been hard for Jesus to go through life, knowing this power was there and not using it. It's like playing a video game and trying not to use a guide, when the internet is just sitting there going "Come on...you're stuck... look up the solution to this one puzzle... you're not even having fun right now, what could it hurt?" but that first solution you look up pretty much dooms you to using a guide for the rest of the game, and your achievements are hollow and fake.
So don't compromise anything about your goals, your promises, or your work. Even if you skimp on something that's not technically wrong, compromise leads to compromise and you'll likely end up destroying what you set out to do.
Actually, I don't really feel good ending on that note. While that's a good lesson, it's not the point of this passage. We don't learn about Jesus just to get pithy advice for our everyday life. We learn about Jesus so we see how awesome Jesus is. So when you're praying and you're worshiping, add this bit of information about what Jesus went through for you to your awareness. When you're thanking Jesus for who He is and what He's done, let there be a little more awe behind your praise because of everything Jesus had to put aside and not use, even though it was staring Him in the face. At any moment, He could have said "Forget this, I'm living like the King I am" and zapped Him up the best food in the world, spawned a palace under His feet, and said "you guys suck. I don't feel like destroying you all, so you can all come be My slaves and feed Me stuff," propped His feet up, and lived as our eternal earthly King. But He didn't. He didn't do it because He loves us so much that the death on cross route was more appealing to Him. He refused to even make bread for Himself so that He could empathize with our lives. He didn't compromise at all so that we could have eternal rewards that we don't deserve.
This took way too long, so I'm gonna cut it off short here, but yeah. Think about that.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Sons of Snakes
Since it seems like I generally won't have time on Sundays, I think I'm going to switch Friday to a New Testament day, just so I at least get it twice in the week.
[Matthew 3:1-5]
There was on Old Testament prophecy that, before the Messiah came, there would be a forerunner who told of His coming and warned people to get their act together. This role was filled by John the Baptist, who spent the time before Jesus started His ministry telling people to repent, because stuff was about to go down. It wasn't hard to him to get people's attention, because he was quite a character who wore patchwork clothes he probably made himself, he lived in the desert, and he ate bugs.
Even by Old Testament prophet standards (except possible Ezekiel), John was a bit eccentric. I'm sure God got a huge kick out of sending someone like John to be the first step in His plan, just because of how much it likely bothered the persnickety religious folk of the time. God likes to disrupt our views of how we think things should go, so it fits that, in a culture that valued proper behavior, nice clothes, and clean temples, that God would kick everything off with a bug-eating hobo.
Never get so wrapped up in your image of what Godly person looks like or how God works in general, because it's easy to miss it when God decides to use someone outside of your mold. The people at this time were waiting for a Messiah, and probably assumed He'd be a rich, attractive political powerhouse who would lead an army to Rome and win everyone their freedom, so the leaders missed this stinky crazy guy in the desert for not fitting their image. Nowadays we look for the eccentric poor underdog to be the source of God's work so much that we balk at any rich eloquent people who dare to be rich AND sincere. The minute you think you know the kind of person and events through which God works is the minute He throws something outside your comfort zone at you to see if you'll break down your perceptions.
[3:6-10]
John, like Jesus who will soon come after Him, is not a fan of Pharisees, who were the higher-ups in the church at the time. When the Pharisees come into the crowd, John immediately begins insulting their mothers and telling them to repent, certainly winning him lots of points back in town.
Being the spiritual leadership at the time, the Pharisees were the ones who read the Scriptures, interpreted the rules, and passed them on to the common people who mostly couldn't read. They were quite proud of their knowledge of all of the Old Testament laws and the extra laws they had come up with to make sure no one got close to breaking the real ones. The law said that you couldn't work on the Sabbath, so they determined that it you couldn't walk more than a certain amount on the Sabbath. They spent a good deal of their time arguing rules like this and informing people of any new ones they came up with.
The law was for the Jews, who were the descendants of Abraham (Abram currently in our Old Testament reading, but we'll get to his name-change soon.) Being God's chosen people, the Phraisees and all of Israel took pride in their heritage, so John was making quite the stir when he said that it wasn't that big a deal and that God could give Abraham children from rocks. When seemed to downplay the importance of Abraham as an ancestor and said an ax was going to the tree,he was foreshadowing how Jesus was about to come and open up a covenant with everyone, not just the Jews. The ax was going to the root of the old Covenant, and a new one was going to be planted in tis place where the children of Abraham don't get special treatment just for their family tree and memorizing long books and getting punches on their good deeds card. He was calling for repentance and realization of their sins to prepare them for the covenant that was coming.
So you can see why John was really popular with the religious folk.
[3:11-12]
When John baptized, he was making people aware of their sins, and getting them prepared mentally and spiritually for the message Jesus was going to bring. John submersed them in water to represent their death to the old ways and their birth to the new one, but physically he was just getting them wet. He was doing this to prepare them for Jesus, who was going to baptized them with the Holy Spirit and with fire, both which have a much more noticeable effect upon submersion that you can't hide with a dark t-shirt.
John was a big deal. He was prophesied centuries before he came on the scene, he was bearing the most important message of all time, and he had the whole country's attention. But John knew his place. John knew that what he was doing was merely symbolic, and that his job was just to prepare the way for Jesus to come do His work.
In whatever ministry you're called to, you are merely preparing the way for Jesus to come do His work. You are not the star, Jesus is the star. You're not worthy to carry Jesus' shoes for Him, so you are definitely not worthy of taking credit for His work. It would have been easy for John to get a cocky "I'm in the freaking Bible!" attitude and feel good about himself, but he knew his place. You should know yours as well.
[3:13-17]
So it was probably pretty awkward for John, with this realistic attitude of his, when Jesus Himself comes up and asked to be baptized. John was likely hesitant to let Jesus go through this symbolic shedding of the sinful nature and rebirth into the new nature, because the entire message here kinda revolved around Jesus being the one who does not sin. But Jesus insisted, and John knew better than to argue.
When everyone else was baptized, it represented death to their old, sinful self and rebirth to the new, fulfilled self. Jesus chose this act to mark the beginning of His ministry, not because He had sin to repent of, but because His entire reason for coming was to take the death that everyone else deserved for the sins, and rise again, victorious over these sins. His baptism did not represent exactly the same thing, but He too agreed to a symbolic death and rebirth, to signal to everyone present and to God the Father up in Heaven that He accepted His purpose and was ready to begin His ministry.
[Matthew 3:1-5]
There was on Old Testament prophecy that, before the Messiah came, there would be a forerunner who told of His coming and warned people to get their act together. This role was filled by John the Baptist, who spent the time before Jesus started His ministry telling people to repent, because stuff was about to go down. It wasn't hard to him to get people's attention, because he was quite a character who wore patchwork clothes he probably made himself, he lived in the desert, and he ate bugs.
Even by Old Testament prophet standards (except possible Ezekiel), John was a bit eccentric. I'm sure God got a huge kick out of sending someone like John to be the first step in His plan, just because of how much it likely bothered the persnickety religious folk of the time. God likes to disrupt our views of how we think things should go, so it fits that, in a culture that valued proper behavior, nice clothes, and clean temples, that God would kick everything off with a bug-eating hobo.
Never get so wrapped up in your image of what Godly person looks like or how God works in general, because it's easy to miss it when God decides to use someone outside of your mold. The people at this time were waiting for a Messiah, and probably assumed He'd be a rich, attractive political powerhouse who would lead an army to Rome and win everyone their freedom, so the leaders missed this stinky crazy guy in the desert for not fitting their image. Nowadays we look for the eccentric poor underdog to be the source of God's work so much that we balk at any rich eloquent people who dare to be rich AND sincere. The minute you think you know the kind of person and events through which God works is the minute He throws something outside your comfort zone at you to see if you'll break down your perceptions.
[3:6-10]
John, like Jesus who will soon come after Him, is not a fan of Pharisees, who were the higher-ups in the church at the time. When the Pharisees come into the crowd, John immediately begins insulting their mothers and telling them to repent, certainly winning him lots of points back in town.
Being the spiritual leadership at the time, the Pharisees were the ones who read the Scriptures, interpreted the rules, and passed them on to the common people who mostly couldn't read. They were quite proud of their knowledge of all of the Old Testament laws and the extra laws they had come up with to make sure no one got close to breaking the real ones. The law said that you couldn't work on the Sabbath, so they determined that it you couldn't walk more than a certain amount on the Sabbath. They spent a good deal of their time arguing rules like this and informing people of any new ones they came up with.
The law was for the Jews, who were the descendants of Abraham (Abram currently in our Old Testament reading, but we'll get to his name-change soon.) Being God's chosen people, the Phraisees and all of Israel took pride in their heritage, so John was making quite the stir when he said that it wasn't that big a deal and that God could give Abraham children from rocks. When seemed to downplay the importance of Abraham as an ancestor and said an ax was going to the tree,he was foreshadowing how Jesus was about to come and open up a covenant with everyone, not just the Jews. The ax was going to the root of the old Covenant, and a new one was going to be planted in tis place where the children of Abraham don't get special treatment just for their family tree and memorizing long books and getting punches on their good deeds card. He was calling for repentance and realization of their sins to prepare them for the covenant that was coming.
So you can see why John was really popular with the religious folk.
[3:11-12]
When John baptized, he was making people aware of their sins, and getting them prepared mentally and spiritually for the message Jesus was going to bring. John submersed them in water to represent their death to the old ways and their birth to the new one, but physically he was just getting them wet. He was doing this to prepare them for Jesus, who was going to baptized them with the Holy Spirit and with fire, both which have a much more noticeable effect upon submersion that you can't hide with a dark t-shirt.
John was a big deal. He was prophesied centuries before he came on the scene, he was bearing the most important message of all time, and he had the whole country's attention. But John knew his place. John knew that what he was doing was merely symbolic, and that his job was just to prepare the way for Jesus to come do His work.
In whatever ministry you're called to, you are merely preparing the way for Jesus to come do His work. You are not the star, Jesus is the star. You're not worthy to carry Jesus' shoes for Him, so you are definitely not worthy of taking credit for His work. It would have been easy for John to get a cocky "I'm in the freaking Bible!" attitude and feel good about himself, but he knew his place. You should know yours as well.
[3:13-17]
So it was probably pretty awkward for John, with this realistic attitude of his, when Jesus Himself comes up and asked to be baptized. John was likely hesitant to let Jesus go through this symbolic shedding of the sinful nature and rebirth into the new nature, because the entire message here kinda revolved around Jesus being the one who does not sin. But Jesus insisted, and John knew better than to argue.
When everyone else was baptized, it represented death to their old, sinful self and rebirth to the new, fulfilled self. Jesus chose this act to mark the beginning of His ministry, not because He had sin to repent of, but because His entire reason for coming was to take the death that everyone else deserved for the sins, and rise again, victorious over these sins. His baptism did not represent exactly the same thing, but He too agreed to a symbolic death and rebirth, to signal to everyone present and to God the Father up in Heaven that He accepted His purpose and was ready to begin His ministry.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
First Patriarch Problems
[Genesis 13:1-5]
It sounds like they had been journeying for quite some time. I'm sure this was still some awkwardness about the whole Egypt incident, and that Sarai was probably going to hold that over Abram's head for the rest of his life any time she wanted to buy something expensive. But since spirits were getting low, they all traveled back to the altar that Abram had set up when God promised him the land and they did some praying there.
In addition to thanking God for something the moment He promises it to you, it's also wise to do like Abram did and set up a reminder of it. Abram built an altar, but your reminder can be as simple as writing it down somewhere and keeping in a notebook, or in your wallet, or taped to your mirror, or as a reminder that pops up on your phone once a day. When it seems like life is taking forever and that the promise is never going to happen, go back to that marker and cry out to God. If we look at the prayers of people like king David in Psalms, God's not afraid for you to ask questions about what in the world is going on.
[13:6]
"God gave me land, but my brother and I are so rich that it's not big enough #ChosenOneProblems"
[13:7-9]
It was a bit cramped in Canaan, and there was starting to be some sheep fights or something. Abram really doesn't want their employees squabbling amongst themselves, so he offers to split the land up. He gives Lot first pick of the land, and promises to go settle the opposite direction from where Lot goes so they can give each other some elbow room.
In-fighting is one of the quickest ways to kill off any movement. When people are starting to squabble amongst themselves and unity is starting to degrade, it needs to be nipped in the bud immediately. I read a book on theater directing which stated that if someone is damaging the unity of the group, they need to be fired immediately regardless of how talented they are. Abram saw the team spirit starting to fall apart, and he did the right thing as a leader and decided they needed to give each other some space. I'm sure it was tough, since they had all assumed they were in this together, and living on opposite sides of their land was probably not in the original plan. But unity is the most important attribute for any team, and it needs to be preserved at all costs. Even if this means some members going their separate ways, it's better than the entire operation falling apart.
[13:10-13]
Lot got first choice of the land, and poor Lot made a really bad decision. The land was nice, and there was a city nearby so he could make a Costco run when he needed to, but unfortunately it was home to a group of people that have the distinction of being the only people after the flood that were so screwed up that God just nuked them. That hasn't happened yet and I'm sure Lot thinks he's gotten off pretty well, but it will turn out to be a decision that comes back to bite him.
[13:14-18]
And Abram gets the rest of the land. God also takes this moment to tell Abram exactly how big this nation of his is going to be: really stinking big. More than can be counted.
It's interesting that God waited for Lot to be gone before delivering this message. I have two possible interpretations of it and I'm not sure which one is more accurate.
First is that God waited until now because Abram had just decided to settle down and his territory was now official, so God could reveal the next step of the plan. After spending some time journeying around, Abram had finally come back to where God said He was going to be in the first place and decided to take a stake in it, so God could start the next phase. In this case, the lesson is that, even when you don't know the long-term plan, if God has told you the next step, you need to pitch your tent and make it official. While you're still journeying around trying to figure stuff out, God's not going to show you what's next. Pitch your tent in the land He's promised you, and He'll go from there.
The other thought is that getting rid of Lot was what allowed God to reveal the next step. It could be that Abram was never supposed to bring Lot in the first place, and that finally settling down with Sarai and going it alone like he was initially told was what triggered God revealing the rest of the plan. In this case, when God tells you something, don't change the terms. Abram putzed around for quite a while before heading out with just his crew, and probably wasted a good deal of time. When God tells you to do something, then do it, and do it completely.
It sounds like they had been journeying for quite some time. I'm sure this was still some awkwardness about the whole Egypt incident, and that Sarai was probably going to hold that over Abram's head for the rest of his life any time she wanted to buy something expensive. But since spirits were getting low, they all traveled back to the altar that Abram had set up when God promised him the land and they did some praying there.
In addition to thanking God for something the moment He promises it to you, it's also wise to do like Abram did and set up a reminder of it. Abram built an altar, but your reminder can be as simple as writing it down somewhere and keeping in a notebook, or in your wallet, or taped to your mirror, or as a reminder that pops up on your phone once a day. When it seems like life is taking forever and that the promise is never going to happen, go back to that marker and cry out to God. If we look at the prayers of people like king David in Psalms, God's not afraid for you to ask questions about what in the world is going on.
[13:6]
"God gave me land, but my brother and I are so rich that it's not big enough #ChosenOneProblems"
[13:7-9]
It was a bit cramped in Canaan, and there was starting to be some sheep fights or something. Abram really doesn't want their employees squabbling amongst themselves, so he offers to split the land up. He gives Lot first pick of the land, and promises to go settle the opposite direction from where Lot goes so they can give each other some elbow room.
In-fighting is one of the quickest ways to kill off any movement. When people are starting to squabble amongst themselves and unity is starting to degrade, it needs to be nipped in the bud immediately. I read a book on theater directing which stated that if someone is damaging the unity of the group, they need to be fired immediately regardless of how talented they are. Abram saw the team spirit starting to fall apart, and he did the right thing as a leader and decided they needed to give each other some space. I'm sure it was tough, since they had all assumed they were in this together, and living on opposite sides of their land was probably not in the original plan. But unity is the most important attribute for any team, and it needs to be preserved at all costs. Even if this means some members going their separate ways, it's better than the entire operation falling apart.
[13:10-13]
Lot got first choice of the land, and poor Lot made a really bad decision. The land was nice, and there was a city nearby so he could make a Costco run when he needed to, but unfortunately it was home to a group of people that have the distinction of being the only people after the flood that were so screwed up that God just nuked them. That hasn't happened yet and I'm sure Lot thinks he's gotten off pretty well, but it will turn out to be a decision that comes back to bite him.
[13:14-18]
And Abram gets the rest of the land. God also takes this moment to tell Abram exactly how big this nation of his is going to be: really stinking big. More than can be counted.
It's interesting that God waited for Lot to be gone before delivering this message. I have two possible interpretations of it and I'm not sure which one is more accurate.
First is that God waited until now because Abram had just decided to settle down and his territory was now official, so God could reveal the next step of the plan. After spending some time journeying around, Abram had finally come back to where God said He was going to be in the first place and decided to take a stake in it, so God could start the next phase. In this case, the lesson is that, even when you don't know the long-term plan, if God has told you the next step, you need to pitch your tent and make it official. While you're still journeying around trying to figure stuff out, God's not going to show you what's next. Pitch your tent in the land He's promised you, and He'll go from there.
The other thought is that getting rid of Lot was what allowed God to reveal the next step. It could be that Abram was never supposed to bring Lot in the first place, and that finally settling down with Sarai and going it alone like he was initially told was what triggered God revealing the rest of the plan. In this case, when God tells you something, don't change the terms. Abram putzed around for quite a while before heading out with just his crew, and probably wasted a good deal of time. When God tells you to do something, then do it, and do it completely.
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