Silence is golden.
But it is difficult. We're creatures that can make a wide variety of noises, from beautiful songs to embarrassing grunts and groans.
We are creatures meant to be in relationships, and as my wife has often reminded me, good communication is essential to a good relationship.
So we talk. Part of talking is sharing experiences in the hope that some of what we know will be helpful to someone else, or that hearing some of what they have gone through helps me with my situation.
As a writer, one of the greatest compliments I have ever received is when someone has said to me, "What you wrote is exactly what I was feeling and couldn't figure out how to say myself." I have friends who are song-writers, and one of those friends likes to say, "I was writing that song the day I heard it on the radio,'' by which he means someone else has found a way to say exactly what he wanted to say.
Our words can encourage, build up, give confidence, inspire, bring healing, educate, unite ... and they can do all the opposite as well.
For Job's friends, the quiet ran out after seven days. I guess they couldn't stand it anymore. They wanted their friend to deal with what was happening, and so they offered their best advice, their learned suggestions, and shared their frustrations of watching Job go through what he was going through.
It was only natural for them to begin to offer reasons for Job's pain, and solutions for getting over what was happening.
Among their suggestions:
Job 4:1-8 – basically, bad things happen to bad people.
Job 5:6-9 – things don’t happen for no reason. Turn to God and perhaps He’ll forgive.
Job 8:1-4 – maybe your children sinned and you’re paying for that.
Job 11:4-6 – whatever this is, it’s less than you deserve.
Job 15:1-6 – your arrogance condemns you.
Job 22:21-23 submit to God and be restored
Here’s the point. All of these statements have a basis in truth. They certainly sound legitimate. I guarantee you there are times in your life (and certainly in mine) when this type of advice is right on the mark. Job's friends are not considered foolish, and, like Job, they were probably used to offering counsel.
And yet, they are wrong.
Have you ever sat and listened to a Christian give bad advice? I have. Heck, I’m sure I’ve given bad advice in the name of bringing Christian comfort or Christ-like council.
But while we know Job’s friends meant well, from our perspective we can recognize that they, too, were being used by Satan to try to bring Job down. I don’t think any of us ever want to be the tools of the great Accuser working for evil in the lives of our fellow believers!
Reading Job has caused me to pause before offering up advice. I recognize that, in a sense, I’m offering advice as I write this blog, but I feel compelled to take that chance. Maybe it would be better if I left the pages blank and just kept my mouth shut. But lets consider a few guidelines for giving advice – or for receiving it.
First and foremost, ask yourself: is it Biblical?
One of Job's friends said, "We have examined this, and it is true . . ." (Job 5:27) But how do I know that what I’m hearing from a friend or what I’m about to say to a friend is indeed true? Only if I have spent enough time in God’s Word so that I have a basis for knowing what is really Biblical advice or not. The Bible is called a "double-edged sword" capable of penetrating to the deepest places, and "judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).
My own personal observation and opinions do not necessarily equal fool-proof counsel. Even what was true for me in a given situation – a verse that really spoke to me or the wise counsel of a friend that got me through something – may not have the same effect on someone else. Honestly, there are so many differing opinions available to any of us from a variety of sources that to assume that all opinions are true would be one of the most foolish decisions anyone could make. As one Christian write put it, "Only the Bible is trustworthy for perfect counsel, and when you can lean on clear, Biblical teaching, you are leaning on a rock that will not move."
Secondly, is what you are saying based in truth??
Job's friend Zophar urged Job to "put away the sin" that was in his hand, and to "allow no evil to dwell" in his tent. (Job 11:14) Zophar couldn't look at Job's condition without assuming that Job had sinned greatly against God. Likewise, Eliphaz shared the same counsel with Job: "Those who sow trouble reap it." (Job 4:8)
But the facts simply didn't support their observation. God had called Job "blameless and upright," (Job 1:8) bragging on how well his faithful servant had been living. The suffering that followed was the toughest test of Job's life, not punishment for his worst sin.
Eliphaz and Zophar's counsel, while wise in some cases, simply missed the mark when said to Job because it was not based in the truth of Job’s situation.
Careful attention must be paid to the factual information behind any counsel. If the facts aren't correct, the counsel is almost certain to be just as faulty. Slow down, and check the facts.
And here’s a tough one: is what you are going to say really necessary?
I'm sure you know some people who just can't help but tell other people what is wrong with their life, or what they could do better. If you tell them something that is bothering you, they can't help but tell you how to fix it. If you're having problems with work or your mate or children, they can and will offer answers.
Hopefully it's because those people care. But sometimes we need to verbalize what is going on in our lives without hearing someone tell us how to fix it. Most of the time we know how to fix it, or what caused it, or that there is nothing we can do; it just helps to share our concerns with a friend.
Consider Job and his friends' advice. As well-meaning and well-intentioned as I'm sure their advice was, in the big scheme of things, did Job really need these long-winded debates about sin and justice and why good things happen to bad people in those days after the greatest crisis of his life? Was it really necessary for even his wife to offer her opinion of what he should do?
Will Rogers once said, “Never miss a good chance to shut up.” Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes once said of his sidekick, Watson: “You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.” The writer George Eliot said, “Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”
It may be that the wisest comfort we can bring to someone who is hurting is to say as little as possible.
Sometimes – and maybe more times than we recognized - there are times when the best thing we can do for one another is simply to sit together in silence. Maybe even cry together. Job 2:13 tells us his friends "sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was." How wonderful it would have been if Job's friends had followed that counsel, and kept their silence past a single week. Because so much of what they go on to say was not just unnecessary, but simply wrong.
In giving advice, acknowledge you could be wrong! .
Not once in the book of Job do any of the friends leave the door open for possible error. "I've observed it," said one (4:8). "We have examined it," said another, "and it is true." (5:27).
I'm usually not one to sound overly confident. Maybe because I've been wrong enough to know better. Sometimes the smartest thing we can say is that we may never know why something happened. And in the end, when face to face with God, we realize "why" is meaningless. Job's questions of "Why" disappeared the moment he encountered God, and as far as we know they never appeared again. All of the "great debates" of the middle chapters of Job are forgotten once God showed up. As a pastor once put it, "The Perfect completely overwhelmed the imperfect."
I am always amazed at how spiritually and intellectually dense Jesus’ disciples could be. Here were these 12 men who spent three years walking with Jesus, hearing him debate others, seeing him comfort people, getting a chance to discuss the days’ events in private with him well into the night. And yet they could still, at times, be so thick-headed.
John 9 tells the story how one day the disciples were walking along the streets of Jerusalem and engaged in a theological debate. It was the kind of conversation that Jewish Rabbis and teachers had been having for centuries.
"Rabbi," they asked, "who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
Imagine that. A blind man, almost certainly within hearing distance, suddenly becomes the subject of an insensitive, unnecessary discussion about his morality, or at least the morality of his parents. Wasn't life hard enough for a beggar who couldn't see?
And Jesus treats their debate as utter foolishness.
He says, in effect, "You've missed the point entirely. You're debating theology and philosophy and what you think are lofty ideas – which has nothing to do with this man’s physical condition. This has happened so God can be glorified."
Finally, do the people you are talking to know you love them?
As this dialogue continues between Job and his friends, it gets more heated. Job insists he’s justified, and the friends are frustrated that Job won’t admit he's wrong. Bildad, in chapter 8, even takes a cheap shot at Job’s children when he says, “When your children sinned against (God), he gave them over to the penalty of their sin." Of course, Bildad doesn’t know that Job’s children were not suffering any penalty for their sin, but that their death was an unprovoked attack on Job by Satan.
No matter how Biblical, truthful, and needed advice might be, let’s be honest: it won’t be listened to if not given in love. Paul urged one of his early churches to "speak the truth in love." (Eph. 4:14) To another, he reminded them that he could sound out wonderful truth with the voice of an angel, but without love, his words would sound more like an irritating, clanging cymbal to the person who needed to hear the counsel. (1 Cor. 13:1)
Remember, it’s not just the person going through the tough time who is to glorify God. Ideally, if we’re in a position to bring comfort and perhaps advice or counsel, we want to glorify God with what we say.
Let me return to where we started: How do you glorify God?
I wonder how many times have you met someone going through something like what Job went through - lost their job, maybe lost their family, lost their ability to provide, lost their health - and thought to yourself, “Now, that’s how you bring God glory!”
When you see someone suffering, do you ever think that person might be doing more to glorify God than, say, Billy Graham?
I’m not trying to compare here because certainly I don’t know the answer to that. But we know Job brought down Satan. In a great cosmic battle played out in the landfill of the land of Uz, Satan was humiliated.
I have a feeling that, to some extent, so were Job’s friends.
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Friday, May 4, 2018
Sometimes, the best thing we can do for people is shut up (Job, continued).
Glorify God and Enjoy him Forever.
Yes. If you are a follower of Christ, I assume you want to do that. You want to glorify God. Certainly you want to enjoy Him forever.
Then I start thinking, what does it mean to “glorify God?”
So I think – Let me go rehab houses in North Birmingham and deliver food to the hungry and those shut in. Let me go dig wells and bring clean drinking water to people in Southeast Asia. Let me go with a team of doctors and tend to the sickness of people high in the mountains of Honduras. Let me start a drive to collect shoe boxes that bring not only joy but the Gospel to thousands of children around the world.
But then I look at Job, and I wonder – what if glorifying God means losing everything I have – my job, my income, my children, my health? What it if means my spouse turning on me, or betraying me (think Hosea, a prophet who was given the dubious honor of marrying a beautiful woman who turned out to be incredibly unfaithful, but to whom Hosea was told to remain faithful so his life could be a living example of God’s relationship to Israel)?
Whoa. Wait a minute. Do I really want to glorify God like that?
Mother Theresa once said, “I know God won’t give me more than I can handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.”
It’s like a youth director I had when I was in high school, a guy named Dan Dehaan who said, “If you are going to ask God to be humble, be prepared for him to humiliate you.” That has stuck with me. Truthfully, I want the kind of humility I can be proud of, you know?
And that kind of “glorifying God” is, to me, scary. But remember the C.S. Lewis quote on Aslan: “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
So we see Job, having lost so much, sitting outside the city gates where he once sat as a leading citizen, trusted advisor, example to all who passed before him, now reduced to sobbing over his losses and scrapping himself with pottery shards in an attempt to get some relief for the sores that have broken out all over his body.
With all else gone, we see that Job has still got friends. Good friends, actually. They hear about Job’s problems and come to him as good friends do.
Job 2:11 - “Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to console with him and comfort him. And when they saw him from afar, they did not recognize him; and they raised their voices and wept; and they rent their robes and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”
Think about that. The friends saw their friend lose everything – family, wealth, health, position, prestige – and while so many people would avoid someone like that (and we’ll see in Job 42 that apparently quite a few people did just that), these three are moved to compassion, to tears, to true sorrow over the plight of their friend.
One of the hardest things to do – at least it is for me – is to know what to say when a friend is going through something hard. We want to show we care, our hearts are in the right place. But we just don’t know what to say.
When I was a boy, I had an older cousin who was a missionary in Equador. She dedicated her life to serving God in South America, married a doctor, became pregnant, then came home to see her family and the baby died. Just months old – what we used to call “Crib death.” Our family was at the house, trying to do what we could, but I remember a pastor who came over and, looking for something to say, said something like, “Just know that your son is in the arms of Jesus.” And I’ll never forget what she said, “I’d rather my baby be here in my arms, where he belongs.”
I remember being so impressed with this kind of honesty. The pastor was right – at least, we hope he was – that the baby was in the arms of Jesus. But my cousin was hurting, and those words didn’t bring any comfort.
I know it’s hard to be with someone who is going through something difficult and not say something. I know we all feel like we have to say something, make an attempt to say something of comfort.
Is there anything worse than going through the receiving line at a funeral? We say things like “Doesn’t he look natural!” when we know a dead body is about the most un-natural thing in the world. We say, “He is in heaven now” and I think of my cousin and her response of, “yeah, well, he belongs here with me.”
We say, “Call me if there is anything I can do for you.” That’s not bad and it’s well-meaning and I’ve said it myself. But I had someone say to me, “What does that mean? Do they really think I’m going to pick up the phone in the middle of the night when I’m crying my head off and call so they can hear me cry?” I know my friends’ reaction seems a little extreme, but it was an honest reaction to all these people who she rarely saw when her husband was dying and now suddenly they want her to call.
I know a couple who went years trying to have a child, but to no avail. And a well-meaning friend actually said to them, “Well, maybe God just doesn’t mean for you to be parents.” Can you think of anything more un-comforting to say? Fortunately, this couple did eventually have children and are wonderful parents.
I read a story of a lady whose child was born with a condition that caused it to die rather quickly, and she tells of a friend who said to her, “Well, we prayed for our children every day of my pregnancy and they were all born healthy and with no problems.” The first lady, of course, was left wondering, “Did I not pray enough? Is this my fault?”
My own wife was in a terrible car wreck a few years ago, in a coma and we didn’t know if she’d live. Her recovery took months (and continues even now, years after the accident). I will never forget a well-meaning lady saying to her, “Well, you certainly look good. Look at all the weight you’ve lost!” Yes, this is what you call a “crash” diet: get hit by a car, be fed through a tube for a month …
We’re going to get critical of Job’s friends in a few minutes. But first – let’s give them credit for caring enough to stick their nose in Job’s business. They see a friend hurting, and they come to him, and sit with him for seven days, not saying a word. Do you know how hard that must have been? And yet we’ll soon see it was the smartest thing they did.
And you know what it says to me? Sometimes the best thing we can do for people is just be there. Don’t talk. Just be there. Your physical presence can mean more than anything you can say.
When my wife was in ICU and I was at the hospital day and night for a month, we had some wonderful friends who came by. But one friend, in particular, came and just sat in the waiting room. She never asked for me to come out of the ICU where I sat by my wife’s bed, she had no expectation of coming back to see us. She was just there for us.
Another friend called me and said, “Let’s go to lunch.” We walked to a fast food place across the street from the hospital. He said, “I don’t want to know how you are or your wife is or what is going on. Let’s just be normal for a few minutes.” He’ll never know how much I appreciated that. Our conversation was banal, ordinary, maybe even at times we didn’t speak, but it meant so much to me at that time.
It’s hard to be quiet. Particularly after a certain amount of time passes and we start thinking, “OK, you’ve suffered. It’s time to get on with your life.”
But then, very often we don't know the whole story. What we learn from the story of Job is that there was something more going on, greater than we could imagine, with cosmic consequences, and whatever Job's friends would say (and we'll get to that in the next blog) was just wrong. Oh, it sounded good. And in another situation, Job's friends might even be right.
Not this time, though. And that's a lesson for all of us.
Be careful - no, be thoughtful before you speak.
And there is nothing wrong with silence. Just being there can speak volumes.
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
What in the world is going on? (Job 1-2)
What is the chief purpose of man?
According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
What does that mean?
A couple of verses we like to quote that we often use to bring us some comfort are Romans 8:28 (“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”) and I Corinthians 10:13 (“…God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able …”)
But then I look at the lives of so many Saints and think, I couldn’t possibly face what they faced.
Or perhaps I look at those verses and think, “What, if I wasn’t so spiritually mature, this disaster might not have happened to me?” Those that know me know my wife went through a horrible automobile accident a few years ago, with injuries from which she may never completely recover (although we always hope and continue working toward that end). If The Trophy Wife was not so mature in her faith, would she have been spared that accident? Would a friend’s child not have been born with a disability? Is the untimely death of a friend's spouse a sign of her great spiritual maturity?
Those questions are why I love the book of Job - a book that is both very disturbing in some respects, very unsatisfying, and yet one that has come to bring me great comfort, particularly in times of confusion and trouble.
It’s an interesting book. It has the longest speech in the Bible attributed to God. It also gives us a strange glimpse behind the curtain into heaven (which I discussed in the previous post). The big picture of Job is that there was a man who was, in one sense, blameless in God's sight. He was leading a basically upright life. And there is a reality called Satan who challenges God that his man is not as good as he thinks he is. God gives Satan permission to attack Job, and he does so first through his family and possessions, and then through sickness.
We learn that Job was Wealthy. A community leader. Husband of one wife. Father (good father). Feminist (includes daughters as heir; after his ordeal he has seven sons, who remain unnamed, and three daughters so remarkable they are mentioned by name in Job 42:15.) Good friend. Faithful family priest. Trusted advisor.
And then we get this event that I call “the Wager.” God is apparently pleased with Job. Satan thinks Job only pleases God because God has given Job so much. If Job were to lose everything, then Satan is convinced that Job would turn on God. On the other side, God is so confident in Job’s faith that He says, “Go ahead, do your worst – within certain parameters – and we’ll see what Job does.”
I have to admit, to think that Job is simply a game chip, the "ante" if you will, in this cosmic game between God and Satan bothers me. But of course, Job is not just a toy; he’s a human being, created in the image of God, who has, I believe, Free Will. Job is apparently free to choose how he responds to what is coming, else there is really no wager going on.
And while we, as readers, get to know the reason for all that is about to befall Job, Job never knows. Even in the end, when God shows up and actually talks to Job, God never says, “Well, see Job, Satan showed up one day and was ragging on you, and I just had to shut him up so …” No, if anything, we’ll see God never explains himself and apparently feels no need to enlighten Job as to what is going on.
There is really a lot about this story that troubles me. Here are just a few of the big ones:
Satan has to ask permission from God to do evil. Doesn’t that, in some way, make God culpable for evil? That doesn’t fit with my comfortable theology of God and the Fall and Sin.
Killing of the Innocents – Job’s children; his servants. When Satan attacks Job's possessions, ruins them all, and then takes the lives of all ten of Job’s children, we learn how terrible Satan can be. But beyond that, what did those children and those servants have to do with the contest between God and Satan? Aren’t they, in a sense, innocent bystanders? Are they just collateral damage? And think of the implications of that – what if what you feel are major events in your life are really just a small part in another person’s story?
God fails to protect one of His most faithful servants. All things work together for good? Nothing happens that is more than Job could bear? We get death of Job’s children, then the death of Job’s servants, then the loss of Job’s wealth, and then Job is hit with some kind of horrible disease: boils from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. And his wife even finally has enough and tells Job, "Curse God and die."
I don’t know about you, but I don't like anything about the story. I don’t like God having a conversation with the enemy. I don't like God watching from the sidelines. I don't enjoy the blood-letting. I can’t help but wonder, in particular, where is the fairness in Job’s children having to die.
Nothing about this story seems to make sense, and it certainly isn't satisfying.
But at the same time, there should be comfort in being reminded that Satan is subordinate to God. Satan goes to God with a desire, and must be allowed to carry it out. This is an awesome thing to realize, that Satan does nothing in this world except by God's permissive will. God is the governor of the universe. Satan does not have a parallel role to play with God, but rather a subordinate role to play under God. Anytime we think we can blame Satan for something that is happening, we must also reckon with the fact that God is permitting it, which is what Job remarkably does.
While it certainly looks like Job's children and servants were collateral damage, remember this is a story about Job. There are a multitude of stories going on all around us. Maybe for the purpose of this story, Job's children/servants were secondary characters, like the best friend in a movie who comes to an untimely death. But that doesn't mean there wasn't another story centered on them, something else God was accomplishing. I don't know that, obviously; it just makes me feel better about my own life. What I suspect, though, is that the things I think are major events in my life may be supporting stories in the bigger scheme of things. I have to leave that to God.
And we will see that God doesn't fail to protect His faithful servant Job. God did, after all, put limits on what Satan could do. It just reminds us that our own ideas of what constitutes "protection" are not God's ideas. Remember the story of the blind man in John 9, where the disciples ask Jesus, "Who sinned - this man or his parents?" Meaning that he wouldn't be blind if it wasn't the natural result of some sin. And Jesus says, "No one sinned to cause this blindness; this is so God's Glory could be revealed in him."
As for everything else that happens – death, loss of wealth, friends abandoning him, wife seems to turn on him, health deteriorates to the point that Job has to get out of his own house and go sit in the local landfill where he spends his day scrapping his sores with broken pieces of pottery – Job’s response is, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
And the writer says that Job did not sin.
Isn’t that exactly what God told Satan would happen?
Two stories from my own life that I want to share here.
One occurred when I was a sportswriter, covering the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. I was in Olympic Park that Friday night when the bomb went off. It was shocking. This was pre-9/11. Stuff like this didn’t happen in the United States. I walked around, seeing people dazed and bleeding, and when they were willing I listened to their stories. The scene went on literally all night. And all around me people were asking, “Why?”
Then I thought of friends who have lived in other countries where bombs do go off, where kids have been known to walk to school knowing there could be snipers, in countries where what we might consider the simplest of illness can mean death. And it hit me that we in the United States shouldn’t ask “Why?” but rather “Why not?” Why should we be spared what so much of the rest of the world lives with on a daily basis?
The other story occurred on the morning of September 11th, 2001. It was my father’s birthday. My father lived with us. I remember standing in my living room, watching with horror the events of the Twin Towers in New York City ( as well as the other events of that day), and thinking to myself, “I’m so glad I don’t live in New York. That would never happen here.” And I swear almost the moment I thought that, something in my heart or soul or mind said, “So you put your faith and confidence in where you live, and not in God?” That may sound silly, but it really had an impact on me. It was like the rich man who built extra barns for all his wealth, thinking he was safe and secure. He quickly found out his barns and wealth and position did not protect him.
Therefore, it is clear that Job was right to say, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away," and "Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and not receive evil?"
Some things – most things – are just out of our control. Even if we’ve worked hard to accumulate wealth or power or good looks, most of us didn’t get to choose where we were born or who our parents are, which plays a lot into our ability to parlay our talents and intellect into a comfortable life. So much is just ‘chance’ – or providence, as the old-timers would say, properly giving God His due.
What this part of Job tells me is that all these things that I go through that I consider “epic” might actually be just footnotes in the bigger chapter of something else. Even though in my view, I’m the star of this movie and everything centers around me, Job shows me there may indeed be a bigger story, one I can’t see, one I can’t begin to fathom. I may not be anywhere near as important as I think I am.
But then again, I might be. Just as Job was.
So what is my role? To live out my faith regardless, to not think more or less of myself, to be faithful.
Because so much of what happens to us seems senseless. But maybe that part of the point. Suffering doesn't make sense. The more natural expectation in life is spelled out in the first paragraph of Job. We want for every new baby a good family, a good childhood, a good education, eventually a fulfilling and well-compensated job, a good home, and a retirement set against the sunset of a perfect life. We want the first paragraph of Job, which tells us this man was blameless, upright, righteous, and the greatest man among his people. He was a man who did without something we'd all like to do without. He was a man without suffering.
If only life could really be that way.
What the heck is going on here?
I tend to agree with Job when he wishes he could take God to court in Job 9.
32 “He is not a mere mortal like me that I might answer him,
that we might confront each other in court.
33 If only there were someone to mediate between us,
someone to bring us together,
34 someone to remove God’s rod from me,
so that his terror would frighten me no more.
35 Then I would speak up without fear of him,
but as it now stands with me, I cannot…”
Job is hardly alone in this feeling persecuted by God.
David, in Psalm 13 – “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”
Jesus, as he genuinely wrestled with the internal agony before the crucifixion. "Must I really do this?" he asked, under such stress that blood vessels popped in his forehead. "Is there no other way?" (See Luke 22:42-43)
But wait – what did Job say? Something about, “If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together?”
Who is Job asking for here? Could it be Jesus?
What does Job – way back in the Old Testament, know about Jesus? About a redeemer? A savior?
Job 19:25 “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth….”
That’s pretty profound for a guy who lived thousands of years before Christ; who lived before the giving of the Ten Commandments (the law); who wasn’t even, as far as we know, Jewish!
Maybe Job isn’t such a strange story. Maybe it’s our story – all of us. Maybe this is just part of the plan - We commit to being followers of God, so God choses, for whatever reason, to risk His reputation – His glory – on our actions.
What we need to be reminded of is that this story is not about you or me. It’s about God – His Glory.
And our opportunity to be part of a great victory for God's Glory, one in which that great cloud of witnesses shouts in triumph while the Accuser, Satan, slinks away in defeat.
According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
What does that mean?
A couple of verses we like to quote that we often use to bring us some comfort are Romans 8:28 (“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”) and I Corinthians 10:13 (“…God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able …”)
But then I look at the lives of so many Saints and think, I couldn’t possibly face what they faced.
Or perhaps I look at those verses and think, “What, if I wasn’t so spiritually mature, this disaster might not have happened to me?” Those that know me know my wife went through a horrible automobile accident a few years ago, with injuries from which she may never completely recover (although we always hope and continue working toward that end). If The Trophy Wife was not so mature in her faith, would she have been spared that accident? Would a friend’s child not have been born with a disability? Is the untimely death of a friend's spouse a sign of her great spiritual maturity?
Those questions are why I love the book of Job - a book that is both very disturbing in some respects, very unsatisfying, and yet one that has come to bring me great comfort, particularly in times of confusion and trouble.
It’s an interesting book. It has the longest speech in the Bible attributed to God. It also gives us a strange glimpse behind the curtain into heaven (which I discussed in the previous post). The big picture of Job is that there was a man who was, in one sense, blameless in God's sight. He was leading a basically upright life. And there is a reality called Satan who challenges God that his man is not as good as he thinks he is. God gives Satan permission to attack Job, and he does so first through his family and possessions, and then through sickness.
We learn that Job was Wealthy. A community leader. Husband of one wife. Father (good father). Feminist (includes daughters as heir; after his ordeal he has seven sons, who remain unnamed, and three daughters so remarkable they are mentioned by name in Job 42:15.) Good friend. Faithful family priest. Trusted advisor.
And then we get this event that I call “the Wager.” God is apparently pleased with Job. Satan thinks Job only pleases God because God has given Job so much. If Job were to lose everything, then Satan is convinced that Job would turn on God. On the other side, God is so confident in Job’s faith that He says, “Go ahead, do your worst – within certain parameters – and we’ll see what Job does.”
I have to admit, to think that Job is simply a game chip, the "ante" if you will, in this cosmic game between God and Satan bothers me. But of course, Job is not just a toy; he’s a human being, created in the image of God, who has, I believe, Free Will. Job is apparently free to choose how he responds to what is coming, else there is really no wager going on.
And while we, as readers, get to know the reason for all that is about to befall Job, Job never knows. Even in the end, when God shows up and actually talks to Job, God never says, “Well, see Job, Satan showed up one day and was ragging on you, and I just had to shut him up so …” No, if anything, we’ll see God never explains himself and apparently feels no need to enlighten Job as to what is going on.
There is really a lot about this story that troubles me. Here are just a few of the big ones:
Satan has to ask permission from God to do evil. Doesn’t that, in some way, make God culpable for evil? That doesn’t fit with my comfortable theology of God and the Fall and Sin.
Killing of the Innocents – Job’s children; his servants. When Satan attacks Job's possessions, ruins them all, and then takes the lives of all ten of Job’s children, we learn how terrible Satan can be. But beyond that, what did those children and those servants have to do with the contest between God and Satan? Aren’t they, in a sense, innocent bystanders? Are they just collateral damage? And think of the implications of that – what if what you feel are major events in your life are really just a small part in another person’s story?
God fails to protect one of His most faithful servants. All things work together for good? Nothing happens that is more than Job could bear? We get death of Job’s children, then the death of Job’s servants, then the loss of Job’s wealth, and then Job is hit with some kind of horrible disease: boils from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. And his wife even finally has enough and tells Job, "Curse God and die."
I don’t know about you, but I don't like anything about the story. I don’t like God having a conversation with the enemy. I don't like God watching from the sidelines. I don't enjoy the blood-letting. I can’t help but wonder, in particular, where is the fairness in Job’s children having to die.
Nothing about this story seems to make sense, and it certainly isn't satisfying.
But at the same time, there should be comfort in being reminded that Satan is subordinate to God. Satan goes to God with a desire, and must be allowed to carry it out. This is an awesome thing to realize, that Satan does nothing in this world except by God's permissive will. God is the governor of the universe. Satan does not have a parallel role to play with God, but rather a subordinate role to play under God. Anytime we think we can blame Satan for something that is happening, we must also reckon with the fact that God is permitting it, which is what Job remarkably does.
While it certainly looks like Job's children and servants were collateral damage, remember this is a story about Job. There are a multitude of stories going on all around us. Maybe for the purpose of this story, Job's children/servants were secondary characters, like the best friend in a movie who comes to an untimely death. But that doesn't mean there wasn't another story centered on them, something else God was accomplishing. I don't know that, obviously; it just makes me feel better about my own life. What I suspect, though, is that the things I think are major events in my life may be supporting stories in the bigger scheme of things. I have to leave that to God.
And we will see that God doesn't fail to protect His faithful servant Job. God did, after all, put limits on what Satan could do. It just reminds us that our own ideas of what constitutes "protection" are not God's ideas. Remember the story of the blind man in John 9, where the disciples ask Jesus, "Who sinned - this man or his parents?" Meaning that he wouldn't be blind if it wasn't the natural result of some sin. And Jesus says, "No one sinned to cause this blindness; this is so God's Glory could be revealed in him."
As for everything else that happens – death, loss of wealth, friends abandoning him, wife seems to turn on him, health deteriorates to the point that Job has to get out of his own house and go sit in the local landfill where he spends his day scrapping his sores with broken pieces of pottery – Job’s response is, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
And the writer says that Job did not sin.
Isn’t that exactly what God told Satan would happen?
Two stories from my own life that I want to share here.
One occurred when I was a sportswriter, covering the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. I was in Olympic Park that Friday night when the bomb went off. It was shocking. This was pre-9/11. Stuff like this didn’t happen in the United States. I walked around, seeing people dazed and bleeding, and when they were willing I listened to their stories. The scene went on literally all night. And all around me people were asking, “Why?”
Then I thought of friends who have lived in other countries where bombs do go off, where kids have been known to walk to school knowing there could be snipers, in countries where what we might consider the simplest of illness can mean death. And it hit me that we in the United States shouldn’t ask “Why?” but rather “Why not?” Why should we be spared what so much of the rest of the world lives with on a daily basis?
The other story occurred on the morning of September 11th, 2001. It was my father’s birthday. My father lived with us. I remember standing in my living room, watching with horror the events of the Twin Towers in New York City ( as well as the other events of that day), and thinking to myself, “I’m so glad I don’t live in New York. That would never happen here.” And I swear almost the moment I thought that, something in my heart or soul or mind said, “So you put your faith and confidence in where you live, and not in God?” That may sound silly, but it really had an impact on me. It was like the rich man who built extra barns for all his wealth, thinking he was safe and secure. He quickly found out his barns and wealth and position did not protect him.
Therefore, it is clear that Job was right to say, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away," and "Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and not receive evil?"
Some things – most things – are just out of our control. Even if we’ve worked hard to accumulate wealth or power or good looks, most of us didn’t get to choose where we were born or who our parents are, which plays a lot into our ability to parlay our talents and intellect into a comfortable life. So much is just ‘chance’ – or providence, as the old-timers would say, properly giving God His due.
What this part of Job tells me is that all these things that I go through that I consider “epic” might actually be just footnotes in the bigger chapter of something else. Even though in my view, I’m the star of this movie and everything centers around me, Job shows me there may indeed be a bigger story, one I can’t see, one I can’t begin to fathom. I may not be anywhere near as important as I think I am.
But then again, I might be. Just as Job was.
So what is my role? To live out my faith regardless, to not think more or less of myself, to be faithful.
Because so much of what happens to us seems senseless. But maybe that part of the point. Suffering doesn't make sense. The more natural expectation in life is spelled out in the first paragraph of Job. We want for every new baby a good family, a good childhood, a good education, eventually a fulfilling and well-compensated job, a good home, and a retirement set against the sunset of a perfect life. We want the first paragraph of Job, which tells us this man was blameless, upright, righteous, and the greatest man among his people. He was a man who did without something we'd all like to do without. He was a man without suffering.
If only life could really be that way.
What the heck is going on here?
I tend to agree with Job when he wishes he could take God to court in Job 9.
32 “He is not a mere mortal like me that I might answer him,
that we might confront each other in court.
33 If only there were someone to mediate between us,
someone to bring us together,
34 someone to remove God’s rod from me,
so that his terror would frighten me no more.
35 Then I would speak up without fear of him,
but as it now stands with me, I cannot…”
Job is hardly alone in this feeling persecuted by God.
David, in Psalm 13 – “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”
Jesus, as he genuinely wrestled with the internal agony before the crucifixion. "Must I really do this?" he asked, under such stress that blood vessels popped in his forehead. "Is there no other way?" (See Luke 22:42-43)
But wait – what did Job say? Something about, “If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together?”
Who is Job asking for here? Could it be Jesus?
What does Job – way back in the Old Testament, know about Jesus? About a redeemer? A savior?
Job 19:25 “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth….”
That’s pretty profound for a guy who lived thousands of years before Christ; who lived before the giving of the Ten Commandments (the law); who wasn’t even, as far as we know, Jewish!
Maybe Job isn’t such a strange story. Maybe it’s our story – all of us. Maybe this is just part of the plan - We commit to being followers of God, so God choses, for whatever reason, to risk His reputation – His glory – on our actions.
What we need to be reminded of is that this story is not about you or me. It’s about God – His Glory.
And our opportunity to be part of a great victory for God's Glory, one in which that great cloud of witnesses shouts in triumph while the Accuser, Satan, slinks away in defeat.
Monday, April 30, 2018
What happens in heaven (Job 1)
Who rules in heaven?
I used to ask that question to kids when the Trophy Wife and I led Children’s Worship at the church we attended in East Lake, a community in Birmingham, Al., that could best be described as ‘transitional.’ The children’s ministry did not reflect the attendance of the church as a whole because it was decidedly mixed. Our Vacation Bible School drew kids from the neighborhood, which was racially mixed, while Sunday morning worship was very White.
When I asked that question, these kids would kind of look at me as if unsure of what to answer, like it was a trick question. Eventually, someone would answer “God?” in a quiet voice, turning the answer into a question.
Then I would ask, “Who rules in hell?” And it was amazing – without missing a beat, with no pause whatsoever, I’d get a very loud, confident response from both the kids who grew up in church and those who didn't: “The Devil!”
Which is incorrect, of course. God rules in Hell just as He rules in Heaven. God created Hell as a place of punishment and separation where, eventually, the Devil (or Satan or Lucifer - pick your name) himself will be cast into for all eternity. How can the character we call “the Devil” rule in a place where he is being sent as punishment for his rebellion?
But what amazes me about this is how much our theology is shaped by popular culture. I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons that often depicted this fiery-red, pitch fork wielding, horned Devil sitting on some kind of throne in this place called “Hell,” directing his demons.
The character of Satan, in John Milton’s epic “Paradise Lost,” at one point says, “Here we may reign secure, and in my choice to reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
I put that last line in bold face, because it has been oft-quoted. And I wonder if that isn’t where this concept began that permeates our culture that somehow Heaven and Hell are equal and opposite reflections of each other, the one where God reigns over streets of gold while the other is a place where Satan reigns over fire and brimstone.
Even our concept of Heaven gets twisted. In the popular book “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom, a newspaper columnist I really admire, the story is told of a man who feels unimportant, who dies and goes to heave and meets five people who tell him how much his life really did matter. There the man discovers what his life was all about – but nowhere in this story do we get a glimpse of God or Jesus Christ.
Even in our Christian churches, when a member dies we often hear people say, “They’ll be welcomed in Heaven by …” and we’ll go on to list a lot of family and friends who preceded this person in death – spouse, maybe a child, mother and father, a dear friend – without mentioning the only person that matters: Jesus.
The Trophy Wife and I went to see a really wonderful movie recently called “Paul, the Apostle,” which has to do with the apostle Paul in prison in Rome, and the plight of Christians being persecuted in that city yet converts being added to their number daily. In the end – and I hate to be the spoiler – Paul is executed, and we get a glimpse of Paul awakening in this place that we assume is heaven, and all these people who are lined up to meet him. Off in the distance, finally, we see this person coming over a hill that we assume is Jesus, as if Jesus is waiting to let these family and friends greet Paul before Paul sees the one person that, if you’ve read Paul’s writings, you know Paul was most longing to see and who is the focal point of a Believer’s afterlife.
I am afraid I am sounding critical here, and I guess I am. I'm not saying we won’t see other people in Heaven. I assume we will – Jonathan Edwards put it this way: “The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things . . . but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in anything else whatsoever, that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them.” In other words, all these other things will be secondary gifts that God gives us, and our happiness in those things will only be part of our happiness in being in the presence of God.
But I know that the one person who, according to Scripture, will welcome me and who will be the focal point of it all is God, with His Son Jesus by His side. As the Apostle John wrote of his experience in viewing Heaven: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).
But for some reason, we have trouble putting Heaven and Hell in a proper, Biblical perspective.
That was a long introduction to get to where I what I really want to talk about, which is the first two chapters of one of my favorite books of the Bible, the book of Job. I encourage you to read the first two chapters, because it's a strange, strange story with a lot of implications.
Job gives us this glimpse into Heaven, into the presence of God. And when I read this passage with people in church, I always ask “What bothers you about this passage?” And there is a lot to be bothered about.
But one thing that always gives people pause is the line that says “One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”’
Wait. Satan in Heaven? Presenting himself to the Lord? And God not only acknowledging Satan, but having a conversation with him?
I have had people say that can’t happen, that God cannot tolerate the presence of evil. I have had people say that God banished Satan from heaven and would not allow him to return. I have had people tell me this is just a story, a prologue to an allegory if you will, not to be taken literally because Satan would not be in Heaven.
Yet in the book of Zechariah (3:1-2) we read, “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. …” and in Revelation (12:10) where it says, “Then I hear a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night …”
Satan is throughout the Bible story – blinding minds (2 Cor 4-4); stealing God’s Word (Matt 13:19); opposing God’ work (1 Thess 2:18); tempting God’s people (1 Cor 7:5), attacking God’s word (Gen 3:1) spreading false doctrine (1 Tim 1:3), persecuting God’s church (2:10).
But throughout it all, Satan’s main purpose seems to be spelled out in that verse in Revelation: accusing. If indeed, as Zechariah and Revelation say, Satan stands beside God making accusations, then clearly there is something going on we don’t often hear about in our churches.
And if you go on to read the story of Job, it’s kind of a scary idea. Because while Job is certainly “upright and blameless,” I wonder if Job isn’t a picture of all of us, to some extent; I wonder if Satan doesn’t stand there accusing even me to God, trying to prove me unworthy in God’s eyes (which I am of course, except for the fact that my unworthiness has been replaced by the ultimate worth of Jesus and his Sacrifice, redeeming me in the sight of God and even, I assume, before the eyes of Satan himself).
And while I love that God is so confident in Job’s faith that God even says to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job?”, and I pray that would be worthy of that kind of faith in me by God, I also fear that kind of attention by Satan and God. Do I really want God to say to Satan, “Consider my servant Ray?” Especially when I see what happens to Job next?
Maybe Job isn’t such a strange story. Maybe it’s our story – all of us who are followers of Christ. Maybe this is just part of the plan - We commit to being followers of God, so God choses, for whatever reason, to risk His reputation – His glory – on our actions.
And I have to ask, what is God thinking? Doesn't He realize how weak and willing to sin I am?
Yet from the beginning, didn’t Satan believe he could turn Adam and Eve against God? Didn’t he even believe he could tempt Jesus himself to turn against God? Isn’t that the essence of the whole cosmic battle?
Job was an ordinary man, flesh and blood. But he was asked to endure something with cosmic consequences.
For some reason, what we do here in this life matters to God. Paul says in 1 Cor 4:9 - “We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.” There are verses about the cloud of witnesses that observe what we do. Maybe that’s the gathering that takes place at the beginning of Job, that presenting of the beings to God.
It’s an amazing responsibility we’ve been given.
I wonder if I really comprehend what my faith means to God. In some mysterious way, Job’s ordeal was worth it to God, because God took a risk in giving human beings like you and me free will, giving humanity a value to God that we can’t imagine. I’ve often wondered about that passage in Matthew 13:58, where Jesus’ power seems limited by a lack of faith.
We need a right understanding of God, of Heaven, of what our lives mean in the sense of eternity and what it means when the Westminster Shorter Catechism says that our chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.
See, true faith is not about getting God to give me the life I want.
True faith is about putting me in a position to glorify God in whatever comes my way.
Ravi Zacharias said it this way: Faith is confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in his power so that even when his power does not serve my end my confidence in him remains because of who he is.
Because Satan is indeed in heaven – for a time, anyway – accusing us before God, saying we’re not worthy and ready to make a bet with God that we will reject God when things don’t go our way.
The question we must live with every day is, who is going to be proved correct? Satan? Or God?
I used to ask that question to kids when the Trophy Wife and I led Children’s Worship at the church we attended in East Lake, a community in Birmingham, Al., that could best be described as ‘transitional.’ The children’s ministry did not reflect the attendance of the church as a whole because it was decidedly mixed. Our Vacation Bible School drew kids from the neighborhood, which was racially mixed, while Sunday morning worship was very White.
When I asked that question, these kids would kind of look at me as if unsure of what to answer, like it was a trick question. Eventually, someone would answer “God?” in a quiet voice, turning the answer into a question.
Then I would ask, “Who rules in hell?” And it was amazing – without missing a beat, with no pause whatsoever, I’d get a very loud, confident response from both the kids who grew up in church and those who didn't: “The Devil!”
Which is incorrect, of course. God rules in Hell just as He rules in Heaven. God created Hell as a place of punishment and separation where, eventually, the Devil (or Satan or Lucifer - pick your name) himself will be cast into for all eternity. How can the character we call “the Devil” rule in a place where he is being sent as punishment for his rebellion?
But what amazes me about this is how much our theology is shaped by popular culture. I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons that often depicted this fiery-red, pitch fork wielding, horned Devil sitting on some kind of throne in this place called “Hell,” directing his demons.
The character of Satan, in John Milton’s epic “Paradise Lost,” at one point says, “Here we may reign secure, and in my choice to reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
I put that last line in bold face, because it has been oft-quoted. And I wonder if that isn’t where this concept began that permeates our culture that somehow Heaven and Hell are equal and opposite reflections of each other, the one where God reigns over streets of gold while the other is a place where Satan reigns over fire and brimstone.
Even our concept of Heaven gets twisted. In the popular book “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom, a newspaper columnist I really admire, the story is told of a man who feels unimportant, who dies and goes to heave and meets five people who tell him how much his life really did matter. There the man discovers what his life was all about – but nowhere in this story do we get a glimpse of God or Jesus Christ.
Even in our Christian churches, when a member dies we often hear people say, “They’ll be welcomed in Heaven by …” and we’ll go on to list a lot of family and friends who preceded this person in death – spouse, maybe a child, mother and father, a dear friend – without mentioning the only person that matters: Jesus.
The Trophy Wife and I went to see a really wonderful movie recently called “Paul, the Apostle,” which has to do with the apostle Paul in prison in Rome, and the plight of Christians being persecuted in that city yet converts being added to their number daily. In the end – and I hate to be the spoiler – Paul is executed, and we get a glimpse of Paul awakening in this place that we assume is heaven, and all these people who are lined up to meet him. Off in the distance, finally, we see this person coming over a hill that we assume is Jesus, as if Jesus is waiting to let these family and friends greet Paul before Paul sees the one person that, if you’ve read Paul’s writings, you know Paul was most longing to see and who is the focal point of a Believer’s afterlife.
I am afraid I am sounding critical here, and I guess I am. I'm not saying we won’t see other people in Heaven. I assume we will – Jonathan Edwards put it this way: “The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things . . . but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in anything else whatsoever, that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them.” In other words, all these other things will be secondary gifts that God gives us, and our happiness in those things will only be part of our happiness in being in the presence of God.
But I know that the one person who, according to Scripture, will welcome me and who will be the focal point of it all is God, with His Son Jesus by His side. As the Apostle John wrote of his experience in viewing Heaven: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).
But for some reason, we have trouble putting Heaven and Hell in a proper, Biblical perspective.
That was a long introduction to get to where I what I really want to talk about, which is the first two chapters of one of my favorite books of the Bible, the book of Job. I encourage you to read the first two chapters, because it's a strange, strange story with a lot of implications.
Job gives us this glimpse into Heaven, into the presence of God. And when I read this passage with people in church, I always ask “What bothers you about this passage?” And there is a lot to be bothered about.
But one thing that always gives people pause is the line that says “One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”’
Wait. Satan in Heaven? Presenting himself to the Lord? And God not only acknowledging Satan, but having a conversation with him?
I have had people say that can’t happen, that God cannot tolerate the presence of evil. I have had people say that God banished Satan from heaven and would not allow him to return. I have had people tell me this is just a story, a prologue to an allegory if you will, not to be taken literally because Satan would not be in Heaven.
Yet in the book of Zechariah (3:1-2) we read, “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. …” and in Revelation (12:10) where it says, “Then I hear a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night …”
Satan is throughout the Bible story – blinding minds (2 Cor 4-4); stealing God’s Word (Matt 13:19); opposing God’ work (1 Thess 2:18); tempting God’s people (1 Cor 7:5), attacking God’s word (Gen 3:1) spreading false doctrine (1 Tim 1:3), persecuting God’s church (2:10).
But throughout it all, Satan’s main purpose seems to be spelled out in that verse in Revelation: accusing. If indeed, as Zechariah and Revelation say, Satan stands beside God making accusations, then clearly there is something going on we don’t often hear about in our churches.
And if you go on to read the story of Job, it’s kind of a scary idea. Because while Job is certainly “upright and blameless,” I wonder if Job isn’t a picture of all of us, to some extent; I wonder if Satan doesn’t stand there accusing even me to God, trying to prove me unworthy in God’s eyes (which I am of course, except for the fact that my unworthiness has been replaced by the ultimate worth of Jesus and his Sacrifice, redeeming me in the sight of God and even, I assume, before the eyes of Satan himself).
And while I love that God is so confident in Job’s faith that God even says to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job?”, and I pray that would be worthy of that kind of faith in me by God, I also fear that kind of attention by Satan and God. Do I really want God to say to Satan, “Consider my servant Ray?” Especially when I see what happens to Job next?
Maybe Job isn’t such a strange story. Maybe it’s our story – all of us who are followers of Christ. Maybe this is just part of the plan - We commit to being followers of God, so God choses, for whatever reason, to risk His reputation – His glory – on our actions.
And I have to ask, what is God thinking? Doesn't He realize how weak and willing to sin I am?
Yet from the beginning, didn’t Satan believe he could turn Adam and Eve against God? Didn’t he even believe he could tempt Jesus himself to turn against God? Isn’t that the essence of the whole cosmic battle?
Job was an ordinary man, flesh and blood. But he was asked to endure something with cosmic consequences.
For some reason, what we do here in this life matters to God. Paul says in 1 Cor 4:9 - “We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.” There are verses about the cloud of witnesses that observe what we do. Maybe that’s the gathering that takes place at the beginning of Job, that presenting of the beings to God.
It’s an amazing responsibility we’ve been given.
I wonder if I really comprehend what my faith means to God. In some mysterious way, Job’s ordeal was worth it to God, because God took a risk in giving human beings like you and me free will, giving humanity a value to God that we can’t imagine. I’ve often wondered about that passage in Matthew 13:58, where Jesus’ power seems limited by a lack of faith.
We need a right understanding of God, of Heaven, of what our lives mean in the sense of eternity and what it means when the Westminster Shorter Catechism says that our chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.
See, true faith is not about getting God to give me the life I want.
True faith is about putting me in a position to glorify God in whatever comes my way.
Ravi Zacharias said it this way: Faith is confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in his power so that even when his power does not serve my end my confidence in him remains because of who he is.
Because Satan is indeed in heaven – for a time, anyway – accusing us before God, saying we’re not worthy and ready to make a bet with God that we will reject God when things don’t go our way.
The question we must live with every day is, who is going to be proved correct? Satan? Or God?
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
Know thyself
Self-discovery. Self-esteem. Self-fulfillment. Self-expression. Self-knowledge.
Library shelves –if not entire libraries – are filled with books helping us as individuals to learn more about ourselves, discover ourselves, look inside ourselves to feel better about ourselves.
And a certain amount of self-awareness and introspection is healthy.
But I fear there is a huge difference between a ‘certain’ amount and the amount of introspection that many of us engage in, that our cultural know-it-alls tell us we need to do in order to be emotionally healthy and well-adjusted.
Simply sign on to Facebook to see how many “selfies” – pictures we take of ourselves – are posted. I was on a flight recently with a women's college athletic team. The young lady across the aisle spent the entire two-hour flight scanning pictures on her phone – of herself. She zoomed in, cropped, turned, and did all the things we can do on our phones to see ourselves. I saw an article recently that said 30 percent of pictures taken by young people age 18-24 are “selfies.” In fact, "selfie" was the 'word of the year' recently, indicating how important and used that word became in today's world. The very word reeks of narcissism.
Most Christians are familiar with the verse where Jesus said he can sum up the law and the prophets in a couple of sentences: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Unfortunately, the words from that verse that seem to stick with us are “buzz buzz buzz love noise noise noise yourself!”
I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t love ourselves. What I am saying is that loving ourselves is pretty easy. Even those of us who are not happy with the way we are seem pretty consumed with our own misery and insecurities and how we don’t think we match up to whatever the “ideal” is. We can be consumed with both how great we think we are as well as how lacking we think we are, and both are indications of an over-absorption with self.
That verse we usually call “the Greatest Commandment” (there is one, followed by "a second that is like the first") says nothing about loving ourselves, except that we should love others as we love ourselves. And I’ll come back to some thoughts on that idea in a minute.
There is a real value in some amount of self-study. Scripture acknowledges this: we're told to examine ourselves in 2 Corinthians 13:5; examine our ways in Lamentations 3:40; keep a close watch on ourselves in 1 Timothy 4:16; keep our hearts with all vigilance in Proverbs 4:23; look carefully at how we live in Ephesians 5:15, and to not think more highly of ourselves than we should in Romans 12:3. These commands require us to do some soul-searching and looking inside ourselves.
But not to the extent society says we should. Today, everything is about "how I feel" and "respecting my feelings" and "being real'' (whatever that means), and this type of extreme over-kill of self-study reinforces our own natural self-centeredness and self-absorption, which is the crux of sin.
In a previous blog I wrote about knowing God, and how our focus is supposed to be on knowing Him, not Him knowing us. He doesn’t need an introduction to us. He created us. The very hairs on our heads are numbered.
I don’t think the Bible is there to teach us about ourselves. I think the Bible is there to teach us about God – and to learn about human nature. The Bible teaches us more about ourselves than we can ever learn by constant introspection.
The most important things we can learn about ourselves we learn by focusing on Christ.
We’re called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for focusing on our self.
The second part of that verse – love your neighbor as yourself – helps us, I believe, to find our true worth.
Maybe I’m wrong, but if you are confident and happy with yourself, then love others with the same confidence and happiness in them. See them as you see yourself – and encourage them to be confident and happy. Don't make your self-confidence based on how you compare to other people (thinking more of yourself than of others); see others as being just as capable and worthy as you see yourself.
If you have what we call a “poor self-image,’’ meaning you think of yourself as lacking and worthless and unlovable, and you want to overcome that, then start by treating other people the way you wish you could treat yourself, the way you'd like to see yourself. Look at them as if they believe they are lacking and worthless and unlovable, and help them get over that by encouraging them, telling them how wrong they are, reminding them of what they have and how worthy they are and how much you love them. I have to tell you, I can be around people who tell me how much they believe in me all day, and no matter how I feel about myself I always walk away wondering if they might not be right!
In turn, you just might find yourself. Psychologists or psychiatrists or whoever it is that studies people always point out that the people who are involved in other people’s lives tend to be happier and better adjusted. Maybe it’s getting involved in a program that feeds and clothes and builds houses for other people; maybe it’s as simple as talking to a stranger and telling them how great you think they are. But it’s been proven over and over again that when you focus on other people and get engaged in causes outside yourself, you end up feeling happier about yourself, better about yourself, and what we call “well adjusted.”
Crazy, isn’t it? The less we focus on ourselves, the more in-focus we seem to become.
The disciple John often referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Now, John may have thought of himself as being special in some way – and there are conversations he had with Jesus and the other disciples that could lead you to believe that – but I think John was simply saying what all of us can say; we are all the “people that Jesus loves.”
John, in 1 John, writes “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as he is.”
Looking to Jesus is not only how we learn who Jesus is, and what love is, but also who we are and who we are meant to become.
I can't learn that by studying myself.
Library shelves –if not entire libraries – are filled with books helping us as individuals to learn more about ourselves, discover ourselves, look inside ourselves to feel better about ourselves.
And a certain amount of self-awareness and introspection is healthy.
But I fear there is a huge difference between a ‘certain’ amount and the amount of introspection that many of us engage in, that our cultural know-it-alls tell us we need to do in order to be emotionally healthy and well-adjusted.
Simply sign on to Facebook to see how many “selfies” – pictures we take of ourselves – are posted. I was on a flight recently with a women's college athletic team. The young lady across the aisle spent the entire two-hour flight scanning pictures on her phone – of herself. She zoomed in, cropped, turned, and did all the things we can do on our phones to see ourselves. I saw an article recently that said 30 percent of pictures taken by young people age 18-24 are “selfies.” In fact, "selfie" was the 'word of the year' recently, indicating how important and used that word became in today's world. The very word reeks of narcissism.
Most Christians are familiar with the verse where Jesus said he can sum up the law and the prophets in a couple of sentences: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Unfortunately, the words from that verse that seem to stick with us are “buzz buzz buzz love noise noise noise yourself!”
I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t love ourselves. What I am saying is that loving ourselves is pretty easy. Even those of us who are not happy with the way we are seem pretty consumed with our own misery and insecurities and how we don’t think we match up to whatever the “ideal” is. We can be consumed with both how great we think we are as well as how lacking we think we are, and both are indications of an over-absorption with self.
That verse we usually call “the Greatest Commandment” (there is one, followed by "a second that is like the first") says nothing about loving ourselves, except that we should love others as we love ourselves. And I’ll come back to some thoughts on that idea in a minute.
There is a real value in some amount of self-study. Scripture acknowledges this: we're told to examine ourselves in 2 Corinthians 13:5; examine our ways in Lamentations 3:40; keep a close watch on ourselves in 1 Timothy 4:16; keep our hearts with all vigilance in Proverbs 4:23; look carefully at how we live in Ephesians 5:15, and to not think more highly of ourselves than we should in Romans 12:3. These commands require us to do some soul-searching and looking inside ourselves.
But not to the extent society says we should. Today, everything is about "how I feel" and "respecting my feelings" and "being real'' (whatever that means), and this type of extreme over-kill of self-study reinforces our own natural self-centeredness and self-absorption, which is the crux of sin.
In a previous blog I wrote about knowing God, and how our focus is supposed to be on knowing Him, not Him knowing us. He doesn’t need an introduction to us. He created us. The very hairs on our heads are numbered.
I don’t think the Bible is there to teach us about ourselves. I think the Bible is there to teach us about God – and to learn about human nature. The Bible teaches us more about ourselves than we can ever learn by constant introspection.
The most important things we can learn about ourselves we learn by focusing on Christ.
We’re called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for focusing on our self.
The second part of that verse – love your neighbor as yourself – helps us, I believe, to find our true worth.
Maybe I’m wrong, but if you are confident and happy with yourself, then love others with the same confidence and happiness in them. See them as you see yourself – and encourage them to be confident and happy. Don't make your self-confidence based on how you compare to other people (thinking more of yourself than of others); see others as being just as capable and worthy as you see yourself.
If you have what we call a “poor self-image,’’ meaning you think of yourself as lacking and worthless and unlovable, and you want to overcome that, then start by treating other people the way you wish you could treat yourself, the way you'd like to see yourself. Look at them as if they believe they are lacking and worthless and unlovable, and help them get over that by encouraging them, telling them how wrong they are, reminding them of what they have and how worthy they are and how much you love them. I have to tell you, I can be around people who tell me how much they believe in me all day, and no matter how I feel about myself I always walk away wondering if they might not be right!
In turn, you just might find yourself. Psychologists or psychiatrists or whoever it is that studies people always point out that the people who are involved in other people’s lives tend to be happier and better adjusted. Maybe it’s getting involved in a program that feeds and clothes and builds houses for other people; maybe it’s as simple as talking to a stranger and telling them how great you think they are. But it’s been proven over and over again that when you focus on other people and get engaged in causes outside yourself, you end up feeling happier about yourself, better about yourself, and what we call “well adjusted.”
Crazy, isn’t it? The less we focus on ourselves, the more in-focus we seem to become.
The disciple John often referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Now, John may have thought of himself as being special in some way – and there are conversations he had with Jesus and the other disciples that could lead you to believe that – but I think John was simply saying what all of us can say; we are all the “people that Jesus loves.”
John, in 1 John, writes “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as he is.”
Looking to Jesus is not only how we learn who Jesus is, and what love is, but also who we are and who we are meant to become.
I can't learn that by studying myself.
Friday, April 20, 2018
Speaking the truth about God (Job 42)
Do you want God to know you?
Or do you want to know God?
In today’s church and among younger Christians, I often hear people talk about having a “relationship” with God – which is absolutely correct. However, most of our culture seems to think of “relationship” as something that is casual and doesn’t take any real work. Too many of our relationships end when one party gets dissatisfied, usually because they feel the other party in the relationship has quit caring about their feelings, or “just doesn’t understand me.”
I read this quote recently from a student at Calvin College, a Christian college in Michigan, who said, “When I realize that my faith wasn’t necessarily about the Christian Reformed church and it wasn’t even necessarily about the Bible, but about my relationship with God and that God is all-compassing and loving, I felt very free.”
See what I mean? "My faith wasn't necessarily about the Bible, but about my relationship with God."
But how does this young person know God? By his emotion, by what makes him feel loved and affirmed and even approved. It's like we think the important thing is that God knows us, as if we're some kind of mystery to the God who, according to Scripture, knows the very hairs on our head (Luke 12:7).
The issue isn’t God knowing me. He knows me; heck, He created me.
The issue is, how well do I know God?
Occasionally I like to ask the following trick question: How many stories are in the Bible? The answer, really, is just one – the story of God. All Scripture is designed to reveal God to us, through many mini-stories, if you will.
And how do we get to know God? It’s rather old-fashioned, of course, but the best way is to read His Word.
I know, I know. That’s what your fundamentalist grandfather always said. But where is the emotion in reading Scripture? Where is the feel good?
Oh, it’s not that folks are against a structured, daily reading of The Bible, but there sometimes seems to be a “feeling” that it isn’t really critical, because, they argue, God only cares about our heart.
I was going through the book of Job – again – and something in the last chapter hit me in a way that I hadn’t thought about before. It’s pretty simple and straightforward, but maybe because the book is so long (42 chapters), with so much dialogue, I was ready to simply skip through the resolution and hadn’t given the last chapter the complete study it deserves.
But right there after God finishes his long monologue where he reminds Job that He is God and no one else – least of all Job – is, God turns to Job’s friends and “After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”
We get so caught up in God talking to Job that we sometimes forget that Jobs’ friends could apparently hear God, or that God actually talks to the three friends and says, in essence, “You thought you were speaking about me and on my behalf to Job, but you were only speaking from your own wisdom and foolishness.” And God says to them, “You better ask Job for forgiveness, and if Job forgives you, I will forgive you.” There is a whole chapter’s worth of implications in that passage, but I’m not going there right now.
No, what struck me is God getting angry because these three well-meaning and pretty knowledgeable men did not speak the truth about God, and God didn’t (doesn’t) like being spoken of incorrectly.
For some reason, I started reading the book of Ezekiel the other day.
And if you want to know what makes God unhappy, read Ezekiel. It’s really pretty brutal. More specifically, in the context I’m trying to make, read Ezekiel 13 from The Message, the passage that says (and I’ve edited for space), “Son of man, preach against the prophets of Israel who are making things up out of their own heads and calling it ‘prophesying.’ Preach to them the real thing. Tell them, ‘Listen to God’s Message!’ God, the Master, pronounces doom on the empty-headed prophets who do their own thing and know nothing of what’s going on! …. All they do is fantasize comforting illusions and preach lying sermons. They say ‘God says . . .’ when God hasn’t so much as breathed in their direction. … Aren’t your sermons tissues of lies, saying ‘God says . . .’ when I’ve done nothing of the kind? Therefore—and this is the Message of God, the Master, remember—I’m dead set against prophets who substitute illusions for visions and use sermons to tell lies. The fact is that they’ve lied to my people. They’ve said, ‘No problem; everything’s just fine,’ when things are not at all fine. …”
If that doesn’t put some fear into you, I don’t know what does.
I write about God, my faith, and even teach a bit when asked. There are all kinds of passages warning people who teach about the extra burden put on them, but these two – the reaction of God at the end of Job and God’s reaction in Ezekiel – really hit me. Because the truth is, I have talked about God my whole life, and I know that things I believed to be true about God 15, 20, 30 years ago were not correct. It’s what I believed at the time, but age and study and learning have shown me where I was wrong, and I am afraid I’ll have to answer for not telling the truth about God, even if I meant well (as I believe Job’s friends meant well).
So how do we know about God?
Now we get to the point.
The primary way we get to understand God is by reading the Bible. God’s Word. Holy Scripture. As Luther would say, “Sola scriptura,” which means that Scripture alone is authoritative for the faith and practice of the Christian. The Bible is complete, authoritative, and true.
I’m not talking memorizing Bible verses, although that’s not a bad thing. Personally, I can’t give you chapter and verse, yet when someone starts quoting a verse of Scripture chances are I know it and can say it along with them (in one translation or another). I know people who can give you chapter and verse and I wish I was like them. I even bought a little book called “52 Verses Every Christian Should Memorize” or something like that, and really worked on memorization. At the end, I knew the verses – but still couldn’t recall book, chapter and verse!
What I’m talking about is just reading. Letting the words seep into your brain, your heart, your soul. It’s reading with a purpose – not to make ourselves smarter, but to know God better.
Jesus, in Matthew 22:37-38 (I know the verse by heart, but had to look up the reference), said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
All your heart, soul and mind, which is pretty thorough. And as we have seen in Job and Ezekiel, wrong thoughts about God produce wrong belief about God. You can’t really love what you don’t really know.
Paul writes in Philippians 1, “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” Love “abounds” with knowledge and discernment.
Paul, again, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
We become what we behold. When I was a kid, I wanted to be like the characters John Wayne played in the movies. So I watched and studied them, and tried to walk and talk like John Wayne (which conjures up a pretty funny image, I know).
Likewise, when we read and study God’s Word, we find it transforms us. We find ourselves suddenly losing interest in doing things we used to do; find that better person that reflects the image of God that resides in us. We start to actually look more like Christ! (Paul even says we should be “imitators” of Christ in Ephesians 5).
Paul, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Most of us want to do “good works.” Young people today, in particular, seem more interested in getting involved in making the world a better place to live than they are in getting a good job, a career, etc. Many young people honestly desire to do something for God. But what Paul said is pretty clear: you can’t be equipped to really do good work until you are immersed in the word of God.
The Bible shows us God’s priorities, His values, His mission, His heart. It shows us what he has been doing in the world, and what He is doing. It shows us, as one writer said, how to love “the forgotten and the misfit. It shows us the value of shepherding our families. It introduces us to the generosity of other Christians (2 Corinthians 8:1–7), and calls us to be openhanded with what God gives us. It heralds the sanctity of every human life and inspires us to fight for the unborn. It declares that race should not be a barrier to Christian unity, but a beautiful occasion for it.”
But along the way, we have to know how to speak correctly about God. And that only comes from knowing God’s Word.
I don’t know exactly where I heard this so I don’t know who to give the credit to, so let me just say this isn’t my original idea. But the words went something like, “This world is not falling apart; God’s plan is coming together.” I like that. It is a great reminder, and a great comfort. But I don’t understand what God’s plan is unless I see the picture presented in Scripture.
When I find myself in those times when I struggle with prayer or reading Scripture, I know down in my soul that I must continue.
It’s like talking to my wife – sometimes I have to stay with the communication process even when it seems we’re on totally different levels. And eventually, because of our commitment, we get back on the same page.
I like the way John Piper put it when addressing the loss of joy in your relationship with God: “… I am reminding you (1) that God is present in the darkness, (2) that he is holding on to his people when they feel barely able to hold on to him, and (3) that though you may feel unsure of your salvation in this struggle, you may be totally sure you will not have salvation if you give up the struggle and walk away.”
You can’t have your relationship with God without the Bible. You can’t grow in your relationship with God without the Bible.
The good news (quite literally) is that we do indeed have access to the Bible - and, therefore, to being able to speak truthfully about God.
Or do you want to know God?
In today’s church and among younger Christians, I often hear people talk about having a “relationship” with God – which is absolutely correct. However, most of our culture seems to think of “relationship” as something that is casual and doesn’t take any real work. Too many of our relationships end when one party gets dissatisfied, usually because they feel the other party in the relationship has quit caring about their feelings, or “just doesn’t understand me.”
I read this quote recently from a student at Calvin College, a Christian college in Michigan, who said, “When I realize that my faith wasn’t necessarily about the Christian Reformed church and it wasn’t even necessarily about the Bible, but about my relationship with God and that God is all-compassing and loving, I felt very free.”
See what I mean? "My faith wasn't necessarily about the Bible, but about my relationship with God."
But how does this young person know God? By his emotion, by what makes him feel loved and affirmed and even approved. It's like we think the important thing is that God knows us, as if we're some kind of mystery to the God who, according to Scripture, knows the very hairs on our head (Luke 12:7).
The issue isn’t God knowing me. He knows me; heck, He created me.
The issue is, how well do I know God?
Occasionally I like to ask the following trick question: How many stories are in the Bible? The answer, really, is just one – the story of God. All Scripture is designed to reveal God to us, through many mini-stories, if you will.
And how do we get to know God? It’s rather old-fashioned, of course, but the best way is to read His Word.
I know, I know. That’s what your fundamentalist grandfather always said. But where is the emotion in reading Scripture? Where is the feel good?
Oh, it’s not that folks are against a structured, daily reading of The Bible, but there sometimes seems to be a “feeling” that it isn’t really critical, because, they argue, God only cares about our heart.
I was going through the book of Job – again – and something in the last chapter hit me in a way that I hadn’t thought about before. It’s pretty simple and straightforward, but maybe because the book is so long (42 chapters), with so much dialogue, I was ready to simply skip through the resolution and hadn’t given the last chapter the complete study it deserves.
But right there after God finishes his long monologue where he reminds Job that He is God and no one else – least of all Job – is, God turns to Job’s friends and “After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”
We get so caught up in God talking to Job that we sometimes forget that Jobs’ friends could apparently hear God, or that God actually talks to the three friends and says, in essence, “You thought you were speaking about me and on my behalf to Job, but you were only speaking from your own wisdom and foolishness.” And God says to them, “You better ask Job for forgiveness, and if Job forgives you, I will forgive you.” There is a whole chapter’s worth of implications in that passage, but I’m not going there right now.
No, what struck me is God getting angry because these three well-meaning and pretty knowledgeable men did not speak the truth about God, and God didn’t (doesn’t) like being spoken of incorrectly.
For some reason, I started reading the book of Ezekiel the other day.
And if you want to know what makes God unhappy, read Ezekiel. It’s really pretty brutal. More specifically, in the context I’m trying to make, read Ezekiel 13 from The Message, the passage that says (and I’ve edited for space), “Son of man, preach against the prophets of Israel who are making things up out of their own heads and calling it ‘prophesying.’ Preach to them the real thing. Tell them, ‘Listen to God’s Message!’ God, the Master, pronounces doom on the empty-headed prophets who do their own thing and know nothing of what’s going on! …. All they do is fantasize comforting illusions and preach lying sermons. They say ‘God says . . .’ when God hasn’t so much as breathed in their direction. … Aren’t your sermons tissues of lies, saying ‘God says . . .’ when I’ve done nothing of the kind? Therefore—and this is the Message of God, the Master, remember—I’m dead set against prophets who substitute illusions for visions and use sermons to tell lies. The fact is that they’ve lied to my people. They’ve said, ‘No problem; everything’s just fine,’ when things are not at all fine. …”
If that doesn’t put some fear into you, I don’t know what does.
I write about God, my faith, and even teach a bit when asked. There are all kinds of passages warning people who teach about the extra burden put on them, but these two – the reaction of God at the end of Job and God’s reaction in Ezekiel – really hit me. Because the truth is, I have talked about God my whole life, and I know that things I believed to be true about God 15, 20, 30 years ago were not correct. It’s what I believed at the time, but age and study and learning have shown me where I was wrong, and I am afraid I’ll have to answer for not telling the truth about God, even if I meant well (as I believe Job’s friends meant well).
So how do we know about God?
Now we get to the point.
The primary way we get to understand God is by reading the Bible. God’s Word. Holy Scripture. As Luther would say, “Sola scriptura,” which means that Scripture alone is authoritative for the faith and practice of the Christian. The Bible is complete, authoritative, and true.
I’m not talking memorizing Bible verses, although that’s not a bad thing. Personally, I can’t give you chapter and verse, yet when someone starts quoting a verse of Scripture chances are I know it and can say it along with them (in one translation or another). I know people who can give you chapter and verse and I wish I was like them. I even bought a little book called “52 Verses Every Christian Should Memorize” or something like that, and really worked on memorization. At the end, I knew the verses – but still couldn’t recall book, chapter and verse!
What I’m talking about is just reading. Letting the words seep into your brain, your heart, your soul. It’s reading with a purpose – not to make ourselves smarter, but to know God better.
Jesus, in Matthew 22:37-38 (I know the verse by heart, but had to look up the reference), said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
All your heart, soul and mind, which is pretty thorough. And as we have seen in Job and Ezekiel, wrong thoughts about God produce wrong belief about God. You can’t really love what you don’t really know.
Paul writes in Philippians 1, “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” Love “abounds” with knowledge and discernment.
Paul, again, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
We become what we behold. When I was a kid, I wanted to be like the characters John Wayne played in the movies. So I watched and studied them, and tried to walk and talk like John Wayne (which conjures up a pretty funny image, I know).
Likewise, when we read and study God’s Word, we find it transforms us. We find ourselves suddenly losing interest in doing things we used to do; find that better person that reflects the image of God that resides in us. We start to actually look more like Christ! (Paul even says we should be “imitators” of Christ in Ephesians 5).
Paul, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Most of us want to do “good works.” Young people today, in particular, seem more interested in getting involved in making the world a better place to live than they are in getting a good job, a career, etc. Many young people honestly desire to do something for God. But what Paul said is pretty clear: you can’t be equipped to really do good work until you are immersed in the word of God.
The Bible shows us God’s priorities, His values, His mission, His heart. It shows us what he has been doing in the world, and what He is doing. It shows us, as one writer said, how to love “the forgotten and the misfit. It shows us the value of shepherding our families. It introduces us to the generosity of other Christians (2 Corinthians 8:1–7), and calls us to be openhanded with what God gives us. It heralds the sanctity of every human life and inspires us to fight for the unborn. It declares that race should not be a barrier to Christian unity, but a beautiful occasion for it.”
But along the way, we have to know how to speak correctly about God. And that only comes from knowing God’s Word.
I don’t know exactly where I heard this so I don’t know who to give the credit to, so let me just say this isn’t my original idea. But the words went something like, “This world is not falling apart; God’s plan is coming together.” I like that. It is a great reminder, and a great comfort. But I don’t understand what God’s plan is unless I see the picture presented in Scripture.
When I find myself in those times when I struggle with prayer or reading Scripture, I know down in my soul that I must continue.
It’s like talking to my wife – sometimes I have to stay with the communication process even when it seems we’re on totally different levels. And eventually, because of our commitment, we get back on the same page.
I like the way John Piper put it when addressing the loss of joy in your relationship with God: “… I am reminding you (1) that God is present in the darkness, (2) that he is holding on to his people when they feel barely able to hold on to him, and (3) that though you may feel unsure of your salvation in this struggle, you may be totally sure you will not have salvation if you give up the struggle and walk away.”
You can’t have your relationship with God without the Bible. You can’t grow in your relationship with God without the Bible.
The good news (quite literally) is that we do indeed have access to the Bible - and, therefore, to being able to speak truthfully about God.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Peace? Goodwill? We can always hope
The story goes that the man was walking down the street on Christmas Day, deep in his own world of hurt. His wife had died two years before; his son was critically wounded while fighting in a war that seemed might never end. And as he walked, he heard the church bells ringing and couldn’t help but feel despair and thought, “Christmas bells! Peace? Goodwill?”
He got home and wrote:
“I heard the bells on Christmas Day their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come, the belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song of peace on earth, good-will to men …”
It’s easy, today, to wonder about the same things. Peace on earth? Goodwill toward men? With this country feeling as divided as it ever has, where even church members – Christians – argue over politics and policies and say things like, “As a Christian how can you vote for …” whomever, or whatever.
And the divide between church-goers and non-church goers seems even greater. Court case after court case is fought over the “intrusion” of faith-based ideas into the public sector, one side arguing that you can’t limit the practice of ones’ faith to the privacy of the home and church while the other side argues you can’t impose your religious “beliefs” (which are often mocked) onto your neighborhood and certainly not your neighbor.
The man walking down the street who wrote those words was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was 1863, and this country was truly more divided than it ever had been. One entire section of the country had pulled away from the other, and in the new territories – out west, where new states were being formed – the battle raged over which side those new states might side with, which policies most of the people agreed with.
In the face of his personal – and national – tragedy, Longfellow wrote, "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays." A year after his wife’s death, he wrote, "I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace." Longfellow's journal entry for December 25th, 1862 reads: "'A merry Christmas' say the children, but that is no more for me."
And so Longfellow, in this poem, went on to write:
“Till, ringing, singing on its way, the world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
You can imagine the cold, cruel irony Longfellow must have found in those words. In fact, he doesn’t hide his feelings in the next verse, which goes:
“Then from each black, accursed mouth the cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent the hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn the households born of peace on earth, good-will to men! ...”
Certainly, 2017 is not the most divided this country has ever been. In my own, increasingly extensive lifetime I can remember being a child coming of age in the 1960s, of seeing my own part of the country torn by arrests and beatings and fire hoses and police dogs, while in other parts of the country riots left stores and cars burned, people beaten by the very people who were their neighbors. On college campuses, students led protests and took over administration buildings to protest a government and a war, and on a college campus in Ohio the national guard fired shots into a protest, killing four students.
I have read of the serious division in this country in 1939-40, over involvement in European wars. And we know of the era of the 1920s-30s, Prohibition and the Great Depression. Maybe it’s the nature of a country as large as ours, and as diverse, to periodically be divided over deeply held beliefs.
Longfellow’s’ words continue:
“And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Today might not be the most divided our nation has ever been, but history brings no comfort when you’re living through a time such as this, when even good deeds are questioned, when honest intent is doubted, when one group seems to honestly believe the other has become a threat and there is no common ground. There seems to be very little ‘‘social’’ about “social media,” just as there was very little “civil” in what is referred to as the “Civil War.” It’s so easy to criticize when you don’t have to face the person you are criticizing; so easy to infer evil motives when you don’t take the time to try to understand the person whose actions you are doubting; so easy to hate when you’re talking about people you never met, never had a conversation with; so easy to “know” the “truth” in an information stream unlike any in the history of the world where not only do we have access to more truth than ever before, but we’re also being lied to more than ever before. And all that access to more information than ever has simply made is easier to refuse to allow ourselves to be challenged in our assumptions.
Still, even in the midst of his despair – and in ours – Longfellow’s’ ending rings true. It has to be true. Life makes no sense unless it’s true.
He writes:
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on earth, good-will to men."
I heard the words of another song-poem recently. I don’t know who wrote it or even who sang it, but these words – or something close to them – stuck with me: “The world is not falling apart. God’s plan is coming together.”
That’s my hope. And every year, through the ups and downs of life, Christmas reminds me of that truth that I hold to and in my life I have found to be self-evident.
And so, I wish you “Peace on Earth, good-will toward men.”
Merry Christmas. And a Happy New Year.
(For full disclosure, the idea of formatting my thoughts between verses of “Christmas Bells” is not original with me. Congressman Gary Palmer did this in a Christmas speech to a veterans’ organization. However, the commentary between stanzas is mine.
He got home and wrote:
“I heard the bells on Christmas Day their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come, the belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song of peace on earth, good-will to men …”
It’s easy, today, to wonder about the same things. Peace on earth? Goodwill toward men? With this country feeling as divided as it ever has, where even church members – Christians – argue over politics and policies and say things like, “As a Christian how can you vote for …” whomever, or whatever.
And the divide between church-goers and non-church goers seems even greater. Court case after court case is fought over the “intrusion” of faith-based ideas into the public sector, one side arguing that you can’t limit the practice of ones’ faith to the privacy of the home and church while the other side argues you can’t impose your religious “beliefs” (which are often mocked) onto your neighborhood and certainly not your neighbor.
The man walking down the street who wrote those words was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was 1863, and this country was truly more divided than it ever had been. One entire section of the country had pulled away from the other, and in the new territories – out west, where new states were being formed – the battle raged over which side those new states might side with, which policies most of the people agreed with.
In the face of his personal – and national – tragedy, Longfellow wrote, "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays." A year after his wife’s death, he wrote, "I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace." Longfellow's journal entry for December 25th, 1862 reads: "'A merry Christmas' say the children, but that is no more for me."
And so Longfellow, in this poem, went on to write:
“Till, ringing, singing on its way, the world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
You can imagine the cold, cruel irony Longfellow must have found in those words. In fact, he doesn’t hide his feelings in the next verse, which goes:
“Then from each black, accursed mouth the cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent the hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn the households born of peace on earth, good-will to men! ...”
Certainly, 2017 is not the most divided this country has ever been. In my own, increasingly extensive lifetime I can remember being a child coming of age in the 1960s, of seeing my own part of the country torn by arrests and beatings and fire hoses and police dogs, while in other parts of the country riots left stores and cars burned, people beaten by the very people who were their neighbors. On college campuses, students led protests and took over administration buildings to protest a government and a war, and on a college campus in Ohio the national guard fired shots into a protest, killing four students.
I have read of the serious division in this country in 1939-40, over involvement in European wars. And we know of the era of the 1920s-30s, Prohibition and the Great Depression. Maybe it’s the nature of a country as large as ours, and as diverse, to periodically be divided over deeply held beliefs.
Longfellow’s’ words continue:
“And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Today might not be the most divided our nation has ever been, but history brings no comfort when you’re living through a time such as this, when even good deeds are questioned, when honest intent is doubted, when one group seems to honestly believe the other has become a threat and there is no common ground. There seems to be very little ‘‘social’’ about “social media,” just as there was very little “civil” in what is referred to as the “Civil War.” It’s so easy to criticize when you don’t have to face the person you are criticizing; so easy to infer evil motives when you don’t take the time to try to understand the person whose actions you are doubting; so easy to hate when you’re talking about people you never met, never had a conversation with; so easy to “know” the “truth” in an information stream unlike any in the history of the world where not only do we have access to more truth than ever before, but we’re also being lied to more than ever before. And all that access to more information than ever has simply made is easier to refuse to allow ourselves to be challenged in our assumptions.
Still, even in the midst of his despair – and in ours – Longfellow’s’ ending rings true. It has to be true. Life makes no sense unless it’s true.
He writes:
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on earth, good-will to men."
I heard the words of another song-poem recently. I don’t know who wrote it or even who sang it, but these words – or something close to them – stuck with me: “The world is not falling apart. God’s plan is coming together.”
That’s my hope. And every year, through the ups and downs of life, Christmas reminds me of that truth that I hold to and in my life I have found to be self-evident.
And so, I wish you “Peace on Earth, good-will toward men.”
Merry Christmas. And a Happy New Year.
(For full disclosure, the idea of formatting my thoughts between verses of “Christmas Bells” is not original with me. Congressman Gary Palmer did this in a Christmas speech to a veterans’ organization. However, the commentary between stanzas is mine.
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