I remember a time in elementary school when I was at war. There was a kid who had it out for me. He had essentially declared war between us. Granted, my behavior probably didn't help the matter, and something I said to or about him was part of the onset of hostilities. We had a few skirmishes, a battle here and there, but we never went full scale land invasion. Neither of us really wanted to duke it out until one was incapacitated and the other arrested, especially not me. The other kid was bigger, faster, stronger, and meaner. I knew who would win this war if the fighting ever really took place, and it wasn't me. I spent a lot of time not being where he could find me. I wasn't specifically being a coward (I had helped create the war after all), but I certainly wasn't looking to engage the enemy in open combat. Even so, I continued my trash talking as though I really did want the final showdown.
In the same way that my words had initiated a war with this kid, my sin created a war between God and me. My whole life apart from Christ was consumed by this war. I spent all my time actively engaged in offensive gestures specifically designed to provoke a confrontation. This was, of course, sin. My behavior, my thoughts, my very being were an affront to a holy God. Also, just like it was with the kid, I really didn't want a final confrontation. I did not want the judgement I knew in my heart of hearts I was destined for. What can be known of God is made plain to all of us, just as Paul tells us in Romans 1. I didn't need to be a prophet to know the outcome of my war with God. I would lose. So, just like always, I avoided the confrontation while continuing my provocative gestures.
Thankfully, oh so thankfully, God did not end the war by nuking me into oblivion. He went nuclear, but the object of his righteous wrath was Jesus. The Lamb of God stood in the fiery heat of God's divine justice, at the very center of the nuclear blast of God's holy fury, in my place. He took the whole of my well deserved punishment and declared, "It is finished." Hostilities could finally cease. The war was over. God had won. My sins were atoned for. Everything I had done to initiate and continue the war was washed away by the blood of Jesus. There could be peace.
Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I have peace with God. What a comfort. What joy these words provoke in my spirit. I've been at war before with human enemies, and it was terrible. The constant fear of the next confrontation, the trembling at potential outcomes, the total domination of my life by the conflict cannot begin to compare to the war I had engaged in with God. Hiding from an omniscient God is silly and impossible. Yet I spent most of my life trying to do it. Engaging in hostilities with an omnipotent God is stupid and eternally deadly. Yet I willfully did so. It was a war I was destined to lose, and yet here I am in spite of it all. No more hiding from God, because there is peace. No more provoking God, because there is peace. No more fear and trembling. No more war. Peace. PEACE. PEACE! Thank you, God. Thank you, Jesus, for peace.
But God. Two words, six letters, two very different meanings depending on how it is said. These two words bring hope. They bring new life. They bring comfort, strength, and reassurance. Or, they can be the whining of an ungrateful child.
I've read Ephesians 2:1-7 almost exclusively this week. Beside me sits a stack of study bibles. One has incredible notes on translation and textual criticism (NET), another is the Greek key word study bible (highly recommended for in depth study), and the last one leans very much toward an evangelical understanding of scripture (the Quest study bible), but none of these has any notes, discussion, or help with these verses. One might think, from the utter lack of study notes, that the verses are all but self explanatory. Well, for someone like me, they are obviously not.
The first three verses are actually quite easy to grasp.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sinsin which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
I get this part. It's a simple description of me. I can comprehend being dead, sinful, passionate about the wrong things, and a child of wrath. In my flesh I see all this and more. The stench of death wafts up from my walking corpse like the foul odor of a fresh dog pile. I've carried out those desires of the body and mind...just like the rest of mankind. Of course, Paul wrote this in the past tense. He's describing the Christian before Christ. My problem is that I still see some of that in my current, post-salvation life. I can control the bodily part of sin easy enough. Not stealing is easy, I just don't do it. Don't be drunk with wine? Cake. I don't drink wine or any other alcoholic beverage. Staying faithful to my wonderful spouse? Done. These hands have touched no other. The desires of the mind, however, can be a different story entirely. Do I want to steal? Drink? Lust indifferently to my marital state? Yes, of course, duh.
In this I find the lesser utterance of "but God." I want what is not mine, feel the rebuke of the Spirit and whine, "but God, I should have it!" The stress of life leaves me wanting an escape and I whine again to God about the burden of my sobriety. Across my path wanders a woman obviously dressed in the manner of the world with her wares displayed for all to see. The whining sounds like a jet powering up for takeoff. I've "done" nothing wrong in any of these instances with my body, but those sins of the mind are right there to take up the slack. At times I'm left to wonder about the very state of my soul.
As I wrote earlier, there is another way in which the two words are used. Paul uses them in Ephesians 2 thus:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
But God. All of those things I see in my flesh, in my mind, make me a child of wrath. They make me worthy of nothing but the righteous justice of a holy God. They make me a vessel fit only for destruction, consumed by his fiery wrath. But God. For his own glory, motivated by his own love, in the richness of his mercy and grace did more than simply atone for my grievous sins. He made me alive to share in the resurrection life of Christ. But God...gives me hope. But God...gives me strength. But God...gives me reassurance of his love. But God...gives me new life in Christ!
Now if I could only hear Paul say but God more often maybe I'd quit saying it the other way.
I read once (in Mad magazine, I think) that one's laziness factor is calculated by multiplying the amount of work one avoids by the amount of work done to avoid the other work. Reading Paul's epistles I see this idea crop up over and over again. Paul spent a great part of his energy battling the Judaizers. Some people of his time went around trying to convince the newly converted Gentile Christians that their salvation was incomplete or invalid unless they took upon themselves Judaism (expressed through circumcision) as well as faith in Christ. I sometimes wonder if these meddling Jews were the thorn in Paul's side as he had to contend with them and their teaching repeatedly and often.
Today we don't really have to deal with that specific set of troublemakers. Very few advocate for taking up the whole of Jewish law in order to be saved. For sure, there are those who think the law still a great idea and uphold as much of it as possible, but I don't know of any who set it as a barrier between individuals and salvation. We do, however, have a passel of folks who would set up other barriers. Some people can't ever accept that the work of Christ on the cross is sufficient for salvation. They demand some other work be added to the death of Christ to atone for sin. And they demand proof. In gaming terms, they tell us "screen shot, or it didn't happen." They want a detailed expense report to justify our justification. "Sure, Christ picked up the check, but you at least put something in for the tip? Right?"
I keep saying "they," but what I really mean is "we" and "I." If I read closely enough in Galatians, I can't help but find those timeless principles that are just as applicable with my own behavior as they were to those early Christians who were tempted to increase their laziness factor by working feverishly to avoid the simple task of believing. I must ask myself tough questions regarding this. I must ferret out the ways in which I spurn the great gift of love paid for by Jesus on the cross. When I look deep inside I see at the very core a disbelief in my own salvation. The old man protests against his death. I look into the depths of my sin and declare it greater than Christ. The real question is this: what am I having such a hard time believing?
The answer to the question, sadly, is that I don't believe the testimony about Jesus. I can give lip service to the gospel message, but just like the Judaizers of Paul's day, I stand looking at the cross of Christ and declare the work unfinished, contrary to Jesus' own utterance. According to them, the work of man in trimming off a bit of the flesh was required to effectuate salvation. In my own way I keep trying to cut off a little of my flesh rather than accepting that Jesus gave me a whole new life when he rose from the dead. By his death and resurrection all that flesh, the whole of the old man, is dead and buried and the new man given birth. I seem to have a hard spot with this idea. At least my behavior indicates as much.
For freedom Christ set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
Itis a yoke of slavery, one of my own making, and one I willingly submit to. Because of unbelief. I feel like the father of the demon possessed boy in Mark 9 who cried out "I believe; help my unbelief!" Indeed. Lord, help my unbelief so I can quit trying to make the cut.
Every once in a while a verse will kick me right in the teeth. After a Saturday of Sea Cadets, and a day of worship/family/relaxing on Sunday, my time of reading and study fell off a little. Work on Monday means catching up on all the things that slipped the last couple of weeks, so today didn't look like much of a chance for spiritual enlightenment either. I quickly read through some Galatians (still trying to really get the whole of that epistle), bounced through some Luke for gospel reading, and landed in James because that is where the current sermon series is coming from.
James poses a unique challenge for me because I've tried to write about it and teach from it before. It's hard to approach it and not feel like I already know it all. I think about it from a teaching standpoint rather than a learning attitude. I read out of it what others should get from it, not what this dunce needs to receive from it. Teachable moments from that letter usually come stapled to the end of the 2X4 God uses to implant them into my head. Today produced one such teachable moment.
I mused a little on the seeming contrast between Paul's exhortation to faith rather than works in Galatians and James' construction of dead faith apart from works. It would be real easy to chase that rabbit trail and pit one apostle against another. My own version of prophesy sees me becoming either legalistic or licentious should I attempt such a study on so little sleep and prayer. James' instructions concerning the tongue are always easy pickings, but I felt the need to reach above the low hanging fruit today. If I've slacked off my writing for the weekend I should put some real effort into the work today. Because of this I kept on reading past James 3.
With James 4 coming up I expected my "inspiration" to come from verse 4 where James reminds us that friendship with the world is enmity with God. That is always such an awesome, convicting verse. Who can't find some way in which he is betting on the wrong horse in this race? I know I can't. So, looking forward to verse 4, I never even saw verse 3 coming. God was swinging for the fences with His teaching stick, and I leaned into the stroke.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
The thing is I've been asking God for a lot lately. I've hinted previously about my current spiritual struggles, and pleading with God seems like a great place to start with fixing things. I've asked God for healing, for renewal, for wisdom, restraint, for all sorts of things, but I've never honestly examined my motives for asking. Even this doesn't really get to the bottom of what's going on. Verses 1 and 2 point to the core issue. James asks "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?" and then immediately answers that it is my passions warring within me that cause such things. Boy howdy do I ever have some passions (also translated evil desires, desires for pleasure, and lusts) waging a full scale war within me. They are most certainly at the root of the quarrels and fights going on in my life.
With the physical imprint of this verse raising a welt on my forehead I'm forced to look at what I really want to get out of God renewing my mind and purifying my thoughts. Admittedly I want more peace in my house. I want my marriage to be strengthened by my good behavior rather than weakened through my abysmal thought life. I want my children to honor me, my fellow believers to respect me, and I want my walk to be pure and blameless. All these are good things, but should any of them be my end game? No. Each of these things in its own way is tainted by my pride. I want them, and I ask for them, wrongly. I want to spend them on one passion or another. Even worse, I may just want a little Christian camouflage to cover up the real ugliness that I'm hiding inside. Of course I'm not going to receive the good gifts I ask from God if all I really want to do is drape them as a fig leaf over my nakedness.
James is kind enough to supply a little proper motivation for my prayers just a couple of verses later. He reminds me that God jealously yearns for the spirit he made to dwell in me. That spirit is the new life, the rebirth that came with my salvation. What he yearns so eagerly for is that spirit to burst forth from the dead soil that was the old me and produce sweet, spiritual fruit. He longs for me to honestly exude love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and the hardest one for me: self-control. He longs to see these in me as the outworking of my faith just as James instructed earlier. God desires these things to be produced by the richness of my intimate relationship with him, not because of my desire to impress the world. He wants my faith to demonstrate new life rather than old death. He wants to see the work of Christ being completed in me because "those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." (Gal 5:24) Would ya look at that; James and Paul are not quite so opposed as I had imagined. Both are instructing me in the exact same lesson. Homerun, God, homerun.
Fear can be a good thing sometimes. When I'm a little drowsy behind the wheel fear can snap me wide awake. Fear can keep me from doing something stupid because the consequences are terrifying. It can also hinder me. As a crane operator, fear of heights could keep me from being effective at my job. Every time I'm up in the cab of the crane moving it around, looking down the 80-100 feet to the wharf deck, and simply doing my job I'm amazed at how little my innate fear of heights comes into play. It's one fear I've somewhat mastered, at least concerning the cranes I operate (don't ask me to go on my roof.)
Fear in my faith, however, is an entirely different ball of wax. Of course I'm not alone in experiencing fear of sharing Jesus. It can be all too easy to become concerned with the opinions of others rather than being concerned about their eternal condition. Even while reading the passage that brought up this topic I was confronted with that fear. At work it can be a fearful thing to be seen reading the Bible. Certainly there are other Christians here, but we all seem to be on covert ops here. Of the hundreds of civilians and military people I work with I can't name more than a handful of fellow travellers. Fear of the opinion of others keeps us quiet, and in our silence there is isolation.
The passage that brought this up was Galatians 2. Normally we would get all excited about Paul's proclamation of the new life from this bit of scripture, but we gloss over why he had to make such a statement. He didn't just say it because it's true, and he didn't just say it to the Galatians. He was telling them of the confrontation he had with Peter! He who was nick named "the rock" by Jesus apparently had a fear problem. The same guy who stood up at Pentecost and delivered one heck of a sermon, the same guy who stood before the council and boldly proclaimed Jesus to the same folks who had just crucified our Lord had a habit of going wobbly. In fact, Peter is probably the squishiest rock in the Bible. Just recall his infamous threefold denial of Jesus after the arrest. Yep, that guy was just as afraid of people's opinions as I am.
In Galatians 2 we find out that Peter's old habit had reared its ugly head again. When he was hanging out in Antioch Peter was openly defying the Jewish customs of not eating with us dirty Gentiles. However, when some dudes from Jerusalem showed up he repented of his fellowship with the non-Jewish Christians. Paul says plainly that Peter did this because he feared the Jews. The guy whose proclamation of faith serves as a foundation for the whole church (and more if you're Catholic) stood up to unsaved Jews but wilted before some wayward, judgmental Jewish Christians. He shamed himself because he was ashamed of the true gospel of Christ. This is why Paul confronted him. This is why Paul (the least of the apostles) had to set the great and mighty Peter, the Rock!, straight on the truth. When Paul said "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me," he said it to Peter.
In Hebrews I'm reminded that I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, the faithful who went before and lived out their faith. It is by looking to their example that I am to take courage, put aside fear, and "run with endurance the race set before [me]." One of those witnesses is Peter. The great and squishy rock who had to be set straight by Paul when his fear compelled him to deny Christ a fourth time. He got better, obviously, and so can I. Sometimes all it takes is a reminder from a brother like Paul who spoke not just to Peter, but to me.
Sometimes no amount of study produces inspiration. Today is a perfect example. I was drawn to Philippians for some unknown reason, and I fully expected to have some insight, an epiphany, or at the very least a verse that would stick in my head and haunt me all day. So I read the book. Then I read it again. And again. And even a fourth time. The result: nada. I can't really even tell you what the epistle is about.
There really should be something there. Philippians is an outstanding letter. Paul throws down some serious doctrine. The Christology in chapter 2 alone is worth the price of admission. But even that weighty proclamation and exhortation to imitate Jesus in his humility did not speak profoundly to me today. Perhaps it is because pride is not my current dilemma. I've backed myself into a corner of spiritual humiliation. Any pride I might have suffered from has been crushed by current circumstances which stand before me as a well lit mirror, reflecting every spiritual imperfection in undeniable clarity. I've heard it said "be humble or be humiliated," I chose the latter.
Maybe I just need to read down a little farther. In 2:14 Paul tells the believers to "Do all things without grumbling or questioning..." It's also said that a b******* sailor is a happy sailor, and I'm downright giddy. In the midst of this current challenge I find my heart only partially in it. It's not that I don't want to "be blameless and innocent, a child[] of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom [I] shine as [a] light[] in the world..." but I sure am in no mood to put forth the effort required to become any of those things. As with almost everything else I've ever wanted to be...a great guitarist, a fantastic penny whistler, a painter, etc...I want to be those things, not become those things. Becoming any of these, or a blameless Christian light in the world, requires commitment, dedication, focus, and practice. No wonder Catholics consider sloth a deadly sin. A little bit of that anti-leaven will flatten the whole lump.
Well maybe that's why I got nothing out of reading Philippians today. Although I was willing to read it 4 times (with a 5th in progress), I wasn't willing to heed the words in it. When Paul says rejoice in the Lord always I don't want to rejoice. I want to grouse. When he says to not be anxious but to pray I want to fret. Mostly I want to be lazy. I want God to swoop in and save me from my own damnable self, again. I get a funny feeling that it's not happening this time. I get the feeling he wants me to heed 4:9. It's time to practice what I've learned, heard, and seen in men like Paul.
Another song? I liked the one yesterday, so here's another that speaks to what's not speaking to me:
I was casting about for something to read/study today. For whatever OCD reason I was looking for something with a 1 in the book title: 1 Corinthians, 1 Timothy, 1 John, etc. I tried reading 1 John first and couldn't get into it. That is a heavy book best enjoyed in the company of others. I thought I'd find some comforting words of love, but I ended up with a double dose of conviction I wasn't ready for at 7 AM. Remembering 1 Thessalonians as a hopeful and encouraging epistle I turned to it (turned meaning clicked the rights links on the browser...)
I found exactly what I expected in the first parts of the letter. Paul identifies himself and his compatriots and formally greets those to whom he is writing. Unlike James, Paul always spends some time buttering up the audience for the message he's delivering. With James it's "Greetings! Beatings!" Not so with Paul. Perhaps part of Paul's habit comes from always having to assert his authority. He was, as he described, the least of the apostles and one born unnaturally. All that to say this: I expected the blessings and exhortations I'm accustomed to from Paul and which I normally breeze through in order to get into the weightier part of the book.
1 Thessalonians presents a unique challenge to my study style. Rather than a few words, a few sentences, or even a whole chapter of thanksgivings and prayers, Paul goes on and on about the church at Thessalonica and his relationship with it. I'm sure there's plenty of meaning in that part of the epistle, but it's just not what I am searching for. The result is that when I finally get to "the message" Paul had for the believers there, I feel like I've missed something important. I probably have. At some point I should go back and re-read those chapters.
What struck me in today's study, however, started with a single word. In chapter 4 Paul starts off with "Finally." "You're telling me," I think to myself. Three chapters of what I've always considered the small talk of the epistle before you actually write what you sat down to write? Isn't that a bit excessive? Well, no. It's in there for a reason. Paul spends so much time "buttering them up" because they were a suffering church. Way back in chapter 2 Paul told them "For you suffered the same thing from your own countrymen that we suffered from the Jews." (2:14) Paul should know something about the suffering of Christians under the Jews since he was the initiator of much of that suffering before Jesus took hold of him. The other reason Paul spent so much time on the intro is because he's about to put to the Thessalonians a very difficult doctrine.
With the first couple of words in chapter 4 Paul explains why he wrote so much up that point. A rough translation of what Paul wrote in the first couple of verses is "All these awesome things I just said about how awesome you are, and really you are awesome, well I must demand more awesomeness from you." And here's what Paul demands of them:
For this is the will of God, your sanctification:that you abstain from sexual immorality;that each one of you know how to control his own bodyin holiness and honor,not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. (4:3-5)
How's that for a kick in the teeth? Three chapters of stroking followed by "stop being a bunch of filthy sluts." "Get a hold of yourself...not that way smarty pants!" Didn't Paul just spill a barrel of ink telling the Thessalonians what wonderful Christians they are? If they're so great, why does Timothy's report about their condition lead Paul to command them to abstain from sexual immorality? Isn't that a hallmark of great Christians like the Thessalonians? Aren't people worthy of three chapters of praise already sanctified in their sexual behavior? Apparently not.
I had to do a little more digging and read some commentaries to get a better picture of what the Thessalonians were actually dealing with. They lived in a time and place where sexual license was practiced with, well, license. They lived in a sex saturated culture. Even their pre-Christian religious experience centered on sex. What was "holy" to them before Christ is the antithesis of what God commands. Rather than abstinence, their old religion demanded indulgence in sexual immorality. What they found in Christ was a life completely opposite of everything they knew up to that point. Come to think of it, their culture wasn't all that different from our own. Although our culture shuns formal religion, it still demands we worship at the alter of perversion and immorality. And we did. Apart from Christ, we were just as debauched as the Thessalonians. Something tells me we (I) have just as much trouble making a clean break with the culture as did those amazing Christians long ago. Maybe Paul spent so much time extolling the virtues of the Thessalonian salvation so his commands about their sanctification would be received with a measure of hope rather than a feeling of despair. Maybe I'm in the same boat, paddling against the same cultural current that threatens to drag me backward out of the will of God. Maybe, just maybe, I should go back and read those first three chapters a little more closely.
On a side note, some of you may know of my recent spiritual struggles (not surprisingly in the same area the Thessalonians struggled), and here's my current favorite song that really speaks to the problem and its solution.
Reading Luke today. One section title caught my attention for a couple of reasons. First, it reads "Jesus Heals a Man with an Unclean Demon." Is this as opposed to a sparkly clean demon? I'm always interested in the specific words chosen by translators/editors, and this one strikes me as very curious. (This is in the ESV, my new favorite reading and studying translation.) In the passage it reads that a man had a spirit of an unclean demon. I'm relatively certain that the section header was written the way it was because of the rendering of this verse. The NET uses the same words. NIV is a little less literal and declares the man to be possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. It reads more as explanatory than simply declaratory. That makes sense, and yet I wonder...
If every word of the Word is God-breathed, then there must be a reason why this demon is also described as unclean. Surely we know that all demons are unclean. The question I have to ask myself is this: did God emphasize the uncleanliness of this demon because in practice I don't treat all of them as unclean? My own personal demons (sin) certainly aren't always regarded as the filthy beasts they are. Truth be told, there are always a few I primp and preen, trying to spruce them up to make them presentable in public. Perhaps God is reminding me through simply including one word (akathartou in the Greek, I checked, it's in the original) that these things are all unclean. It's not just the demons in others that must be cast out by Jesus, it's my own as well. There's no perfume I can put on them to cover the smell of their filth. I can't make them up to mask their ugliness. Scrubbing them with the human soap of rationalization and the fleshy loofah of justification cannot change what they are: unclean. And, if Jesus is my savior and lord, they have no place along side the Spirit of God inside me. Though they protest (and me right along with them sometimes) the words of the Lord must be headed, "Be silent and come out of him!" Being reminded that these things are unclean is exactly what I need. God is not being repetitive. God is saying exactly what I need to hear using exactly the right words. Even the one word that appears like an extra at first blush is perfectly placed to demonstrate His love and to accomplish His will.
The second thing about this that struck me upon reading it is this: yes, there are spiritual forces out and about in the world. With all of life's material concerns pressing so heavily on hearts and minds it can be very easy to forget that the whole of reality cannot be summed up by physics. The physical world is not all there is. Focusing only on the things of this world leads inevitably to neglect of the spiritual world. Luke wrote so naturally about a man with a demon. He didn't go through some convoluted contortions trying to explain away the spiritual world intruding on the physical. He simply stated that a man had an unclean demon in him as if it was as normal as pie because it is. The world of the spirit is not contained within our boundaries. It is part of our lives every day. At work? Yes. Driving with that jackwagon on my bumper? Yes. Everywhere other than just at church with my Christian friends who understand these things? Yes. Throwing the blankets of the material world over my head and pretending the spiritual world can't see me Monday-Saturday works about as well as hiding from the monsters of childhood did. Now, as then, the only thing that chases those unclean spirits away is the presence of Dad surrounding me with his light.
A final thought on this demon possessed guy. He was in the synagogue. Possessed of an unclean demon he still went to church. Not doing so would be like avoiding the hospital for fear of getting blood on the sheets of the exam room. That's what they're there for. Same thing with the fellowship of believers and sin. If I'm physically sick or broken I go to the hospital to get well. If I'm spiritually sick or broken I must go to where the spiritual healing is. Where two or three are gathered in His name...
