The Syrian Refugee Crisis

This post is pretty long, but please, before you get mad at me or are tempted to fire off a nasty response, please do me the favor of hearing me out completely.

Like many of you, I imagine, last week my knee jerk response to the terrible atrocities in Paris was to immediately support those who are calling for our country to refuse to admit any Syrian refugees into the United States. Those calls have been doubled down on in the last few days by over 25 governors, many of who claim to be Christians, who say they will refuse to accept any of these refugees.

But then on Sunday, God used a missionary who spoke at our church to show me that kind of thinking is sinful because it is so contrary to how God would want us to treat these people. This particular missionary is working with and coaching a group of church planters who are sponsoring refugee families in the Phoenix area. These Christian families are being the hands and feet of Jesus by doing practical acts of love and meeting needs. The goal is that over time, the almost 100% Muslim families they are sponsoring will develop  a level of trust so that they will hear about the Jesus who i is the source of the love that is being demonstrated toward them.

That led me back to the Scriptures to see what the Bible teaches about how I am to view and treat these refugees. The first thing for us to note is that every single disciple of Jesus is a “refugee” in this world:

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,(Philippians 3:20 ESV)

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,(1 Peter 1:17 ESV)

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.(1 Peter 2:11 ESV)

We are all spiritual refugees who have been shown the love and compassion of Jesus, which is the only way that we will one day get to experience our real citizenship in heaven. So it seems to me that our responsibility to these other refugees, who God loves every bit as much as He loves, us, is to respond with compassion and mercy, not suspicion and hate.

That idea is also borne out in the Old Testament where God repeatedly commands His people to treat foreigners and aliens with compassion and respect. I couldn’t possibly include all those passages here, so here is but a small sampling:

“You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.(Exodus 22:21 ESV) 

 “‘Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’(Deuteronomy 27:19 ESV) 

 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.(Malachi 3:5 ESV)

I certainly know I don’t want to be cursed because I have wronged or perverted justice or thrust aside these people. Many of the Syrian refugees are actually our brothers and sisters in Christ who are facing terrible persecutions and almost certain death for their faith. And even those among the refugees who are Muslims are also being attacked by Muslim extremists due to no fault of their own. God loves these people and so must we.

Don’t get me wrong. I still believe that we are a sovereign nation who needs secure borders. Our federal government’s primary responsibility is to keep our people safe and they have a right and a responsibility to determine who is and is not allowed into our country. I’m reminded of the example of Nehemiah, who when faced with enemies who threatened his God-given work and his fellow Jews, prayed, but who also took the prudent step of posting a guard and having the workers work with their swords strapped to their sides. And it is certain prudent for us to secure our borders so we know who is coming into and leaving our country.

I also believe that the Bible clearly teaches that governments are given the “power of the sword” to carry out God’s wrath against evildoers (See Romans 13:4). And there is no doubt in my mind that radical Islam is nothing but pure evil carried out in the name of a false god. So again the decent nations of the world are not only justified in trying to stamp out this evil, I believe they have a responsibility to do whatever it takes to do that quickly and decisively.

So practically how do we as Christians act in a compassionate way toward these refugees and still protect our country? I certainly don’t have all the answers here, but I’ll humbly offer a couple suggestions:

1.      Perhaps we can limit the refugees that we accept as a country to families with children for whom sponsor families have already been line up prior to their arrival here. There are certainly plenty of people who fit that category and even though we can’t help everyone, that would make a tremendous impact. That would also eliminate the group who is most likely to enter this country for the express purpose of doing harm to us – young, single Muslim men. And it would also serve the most vulnerable among the refugees. That means that as believers we are going to have to step up to the plate and be willing to take on that responsibility personally, not just wait around for others to do that. And if we are not in a position to sponsor a family directly, we can at a minimum financially support those who are on the front lines doing that.

2.      Working with other nations, we can establish safe zones within Syria and other Middle East countries and use the necessary military power to protect the refugees from the Muslim extremists. And then once again, Christians would need to actively work and give to provide food, water, lodging and other necessities to these people.

No matter what we do, there is no assurance that our compassion toward these refugees is won't result in some “bad guys”  getting into our country as a result of these actions. But frankly, we don't have that kind of assurance even if we don't take these actions.. That is really no different than what Jesus experienced on this earth. He extended compassion to many who later turned their backs on Him and shouted “crucify him!” I’d rather err on the side of compassion and live with consequences and hear Jesus say “Well done, good and faithful servant” sooner than might have happened otherwise than to hold on to hate and be safe for longer here on this earth, and hear Jesus say, “I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of lawlessness.”

If you’ve taken the time to read this far, now you may comment.

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Honoring our government officials

This week I read something that I didn't particularly like in 1 Peter chapter 2:

Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. (1 Peter 2:13-14 ESV)

I don't like what Peter wrote because it contradicts completely my own fleshly nature which would rather fight most of our government leaders rather than submit to them. Submitting to our governmental leaders, and praying for them, as we are instructed to do in 1 Timothy 2, is certainly not an easy thing to do living in a culture where our government leaders often reject the clear teaching of the Word of God and ridicule those of us who hold to the truth of Scripture. So certainly there must be some exceptions to Peter's command here, right? As it turns out, there are, but probably not nearly as many as we would like or that we think.

Do I only have to be subject to and honor those officials with whom I agree? The word "every" in verse 13 seems to preclude that idea. But surely, I only need to honor those officials who are godly and follow Biblical principles, right? Peter seems to answer that objection a few verses later:

Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. (1 Peter 2:18 ESV)

Obviously I am not saying that we don't have a right, or even an obligation to confront evil when it is promoted by any government official. But what the Bible teaches consistently is that if and when I do that I must do it respectfully and honorably or else I risk damaging my testimony for Jesus. If people are going to dislike me I want it to be because I am committed to follow Jesus, not because of my political opinions.

In this digital age it is particularly easy to be disrespectful of our governmental officials with whom we disagree. It is so easy to post an unflattering image, or re-post untrue information because we failed to take the time to check that it was factual or to post a meme that attributes words to a person that he or she never uttered or to just call people names. And while I am often tempted to do many of those things because I get so mad at what is going on in our country, I need to remember that God holds me to a higher standard.

I think it's also instructive to note that Jesus never spent much time at all arguing with, protesting or confronting government officials, even though many of His followers wanted Him to be that kind of Messiah. I can't believe that if He were on earth today, Jesus would waste much of His time at all posting disparaging comments about political leaders on Facebook. He'd be far to busy praying for them and doing what He could to meet their needs. Maybe we ought to follow His example.

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The Oregon School Shootings

There has been a lot said and written over the last few days about the latest school shooting in Oregon. Much of that discussion has focused on things like gun control and mental health, which is certainly appropriate. But in my opinion that focus fails to really get to the heart of the issue. I'd like to briefly address two of those root problems.

Much of the discussion that I've seen seems to be reluctant to acknowledge that we live in a world where evil exists. But that evil is not just limited to the limited handful of people who engage in such despicable acts. Each and every one of us has a heart problem that God described like this to the prophet Jeremiah:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?(Jeremiah 17:9 ESV)

Certainly there are individuals who suffer from mental illness, and I'm not suggesting that we don't need to do more to identify and treat these people. But at the same time, we need to acknowledge that we all suffer from spiritual illness that is due to our deceitful and desperately sick hearts. And since that is a spiritual problem, it requires a spiritual solution.

The Bible clearly identifies the only solution to our heart problem - faith in Jesus. But, unfortunately as a culture, we've rejected that remedy. Collectively, we've stuck a finger in God's face and told Him we'll do things our way rather than His. We've removed Jesus from our homes and our schools and our courtrooms. And we think that by blithely adding "God bless America" to the end of a speech, that is going to somehow make up for thumbing our noses at God. Given our unashamed disregard for God, the only real surprise is that we don't see many more of these kinds of events. I'm reminded of this warning of God to His people:

Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’”(2 Chronicles 7:22 ESV)

The other issue that gives rise to these kinds of events is a blatant disregard for human life in our culture. As a culture, we not only fail to value the lives of our most vulnerable - the unborn and the aged - but we actually have large numbers of people who argue that it is a good thing to use our tax dollars to support an organization that kills and dismembers unborn children so that their body parts can be sold for a profit. That same disregard for human life carries over to television, movies, and especially video games, where large portions of our society have been desensitized to the taking of human life. So why should we be surprised when we produce people, mostly young men, who have absolutely no regard for human life and who therefore commit these horrific acts?

No laws or programs are going to solve this problem. The only long term solution is to return to God as a country. Earlier I quoted from 2 Chronicles 7. In that same chapter, we find the only remedy to these problems:

if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.(2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV)

Are you being part of the solution by praying to God for His mercy and by asking Him to turn our country from our wicked ways?

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The Pope's Visit

Now that Pope Francis’ visit is coming to an end, I wanted to take a moment to share a few observations:

1.      I am deeply concerned about what I term “Pope-mania” – which is really nothing more than the worship of a human being. The Bible is clear that no one other than God deserves our worship – not even an angel, alone another human. When John attempted to worship an angel who had made revelation to him, here is how the angel responded:

 “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” (Revelation 19:10 ESV)

I have no doubt that the Pope is a pious man, but like all the rest of us, he is a sinner in need of God’s grace. I can’t find one verse in Scripture that excludes the Pope when it claims that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.

(Note: Since I don’t want this post to turn into a book, I don’t have time to address the whole concept of the distinction between “clergy” and “laity”, which actually appears nowhere in the New Testament or the misunderstanding of Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:18 that is used wrongly, in my opinion, as justification for the establishment of the papacy in the first place.)

2.      Although many of His followers certainly wanted Him to, we have no evidence that Jesus ever attempted to influence the politics of His day. About His only foray into politics recorded in the Bible was to tell people to pay their taxes. When He spoke about things like taking care of the poor or meeting the needs of others, He addressed the religious leaders, not the political leaders.

For the most part, His disciples followed His example. When Paul appeared before Felix, Festus and Agrippa, he didn’t speak to them about their politics, he spoke to them about Jesus and the gospel.

My greatest disappointment with the Pope’s visit is that he had a great platform to share the gospel with a nation who certainly needs to hear about the hope that we can find in Jesus, but instead he used his influence almost exclusively for the purpose of trying to influence our nation’s politics.

3.      Finally, I find it very hypocritical that so many of our politicians of both parties who would be the first to cry “separation of church and state” as a convenient way to limit any influence of the Bible on our morals as a nation were so quick to embrace the Pope when his message suited their purposes. 

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My take on the Kim Davis situation

I’ve been reluctant to chime in on the whole Kim Davis situation – in large part because I’ve struggled personally to decide exactly what to think of this situation. And even after thinking and praying about this for a couple of weeks now, I will admit I still don’t have all the answers. Let me also acknowledge before I share my thoughts that I know that others who I respect greatly will disagree with some of my conclusions – I know that because I’ve read or heard some of them already. I’m OK with that because this is certainly one of those “gray areas” where we can disagree and still respect and love each other. I also want to apologize up front for the length of this post, but I couldn’t really find anything I could cut out and still make a coherent, comprehensive argument.

In the unlikely event that you don’t know who Kim Davis is, she is the Kentucky county clerk who has refused to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples. Let me say first of all that I do admire Kim for standing up for her Biblical convictions. However, I do question whether the way she has chosen to do that is appropriate. Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen many people cite several Biblical texts to support Kim’s actions. The most commonly used passages seem to be the Hebrew midwives who refused Pharaoh’s order to kill the Hebrew males when they were born (Exodus 1), and Daniel and his three friends in Babylon. For the reasons I’ll expand on more in a moment, I’m not sure that any of these situations are actually as relevant to Mrs. Davis’ situation as some have claimed.

The Hebrew midwives were not government employees. They had not taken an oath that required them to carry out Pharaoh’s edicts. So it was certainly appropriate that as individuals, they chose to follow God and not Pharaoh.

What about Daniel and Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah – Daniel’s three friends that we all know better by their Babylonian names – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? When they petitioned the chief eunuch regarding the eating of foods that would have defiled them (Daniel 1), they were not government employees either. So once again their decision to follow God rather than man’s laws was appropriate and noble.

But by the time they are faced with a decision of whether or not to bow down to the image King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, they were government officials (Daniel 3). But when they failed to bow down to that image, they did that as individuals and not as government officials who had taken an oath to carry out the king’s commands. But even more important, they understood that their decision was going to subject them to the consequences imposed by the king and they willingly submitted themselves to the fiery furnace. They never claimed that as government officials they had the right to either compel or prevent others from following the law of the land.

Probably the closest parallel would be in Daniel 6. Daniel is clearly a government official here, but when the king issues an order to quit praying to his God, he refuses to submit to that order. I believe it is clear that Daniel made that decision as an individual, and not in his role as a government official. And he did that knowing that the consequence for his actions is that he would be thrown into the lion’s den, which by the way also meant he would lose his government job. Like his three friends, he never used his position as a government official to try and compel the decisions of other individuals. He just chose to obey God himself.

Kim Davis is an elected official who has taken an oath to carry out the law. She did not take an oath to merely carry out the laws with which she agrees. (As a side note, I agree there is a lot of hypocrisy among with those who claim that Mrs. Davis has an obligation to carry out the law, but who are quick to defend other elected officials who only enforce the laws with which they agree. But their hypocrisy is really irrelevant here).

While, like many others, I am deeply troubled by the fact that five unelected judges have effectively made a new law which overturns our country’s long history of upholding a Biblical model of marriage, the fact is that is now the law of the land regardless of what the Kentucky legislature or any other elected body has or has not done. So those who argue that she is right not to issue marriage licenses are essentially claiming that she is committing the lesser of two sins – i.e. that it would be a “worse sin” to “participate” in a homosexual marriage by issuing a marriage license than it would be to sin by violating the oath she has taken to uphold the law. The problem with that argument, in my view, is that I can’t find even one place in the Bible where we are instructed to choose between sins and pick the “lesser” one. So it seems to me that there must be a way for Mrs. Davis to act in a manner that would not require her to sin at all.

The recent Supreme Court decision does not require Mrs. Davis to directly participate in sin by entering into a homosexual marriage herself. That would certainly be much more akin to the Biblical examples I’ve cited in which people were commanded to personally engage in actions that violated God’s commands. And if she genuinely believes that by issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples she would somehow be participating in evil (I would probably agree with her there), then she is entitled to resign her government position and avoid any sin whatsoever.

God never promised that following Him would be easy. Nor did He promise that following Him won’t mean that we have to make difficult decisions and even have to give up some things – like a job – in order to do that.

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Telling the truth in a digital age

I think we would all agree that the Bible clearly teaches that we are to speak the truth. Here is just a small sampling of passages that make that clear:

Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who act faithfully are his delight.(Proverbs 12:22 ESV) 

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.(Psalm 34:13 ESV) 

No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house;no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes.(Psalm 101:7 ESV) 

But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.(Matthew 5:34-37 ESV)

But in this digital age and the proliferation of social media, it is easy to engage in spreading lies and deceit without even realize we're doing it. When we share a photo that has been altered or a video that has been cleverly edited to make it seem like something it is not, or attribute words to someone who did not actually speak them, are we not lying and deceiving?

I'm convinced that if we're going to choose to participate in any kind of social media, we have a responsibility to carefully research that which we are posting to make sure that it is in fact truthful before we share it with others. What do you think?

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The seriousness of sin

In reading the book of Ezra the last two weeks, the main thought that I came away with was just how serious sin is. The people of Israel had violated God's laws regarding marrying foreign women and had suffered God's wrath as a result. But it was not until Ezra and others mourned over that sin, that they finally decided they needed to repent and take some very serious action to deal with their sin. It certainly could not have been easy to free themselves from their foreign wives and children.

I think there is an important lesson for us here. Notice that Ezra and the other leaders did not focus on the sins of the surrounding foreigners, but rather on the sins of Israel. It seems that this teaches that the church ought to be more concerned about mourning over our sins and repenting of them than in condemning the world around us. And that is often going to require doing some things that might be very difficult to do.

I'm certainly not suggesting that we just "cocoon" ourselves and become isolated from the world around us or that we quit promoting a Biblical worldview. We are to be salt and light, after all. I'm just suggesting that as the church, we follow Jesus' teaching and get the log out of our eyes before we go around trying to take the splinters out of the eyes of others.

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How to Help Your Kids Benefit from the Sermon

I ran across this post the other day and thought it had a lot of good suggestions on how to help your kids benefit from the sermon:

How Pastors and Parents Can Help Children Benefit From the Sermon

Love to hear your thoughts on this. What other suggestions do you have?

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Singing to One Another in Worship

I was intrigued by this verse from Ezra 3 in my Bible reading today:

And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD... (Ezra 3:11 ESV)

The word that caught my attention was the word "responsively". My initial study revealed that a lot of modern translations actually leave that word out - which is really a shame because it really is needed to give the sense of what was going on here. Apparently there were several different courses of priests and Levites who were singing back and forth to each other as they worshiped God. And the chorus, or refrain to that singing is one that is found often in the Psalms and also in 1 Chronicles:

“For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.”

Although when we sing in worship we are responding to God - who He is and what He has done - there is also a sense in which we are building God's Word into the lives of others in the body by singing to each other. I'm wondering if perhaps Paul had this verse in mind when he wrote these words:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.(Colossians 3:16 ESV) 

Next time you're a part of corporate worship you may want to consider how you are helping the Word of Christ to dwell richly in your life and the lives of others through your singing. 

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Are we OK with some sins?

I ran across this article last week and it got me to thinking about whether we are really OK with some sins but not others:

http://www.faithit.com/9-sins-the-church-is-okay-with/

I know that these are the kinds of sins that I tend to struggle with and I need to remember that in God's eyes they are just as serious as the "big" sins I see in the lives of others. We would all do well to remember Jesus' command to remove the log from our eye before we go around trying to remove the splinter from someone else's eye.

What do you think of this list? Are there some others you would add? 

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HOW DOES THE OLD TESTAMENT APPLY TO THE LIFE OF A CHRIST FOLLOWER TODAY? - Part 3

Part 3 of a 3 part post:

Let’s work through an example of how this process can be used. We’ll use this command from the Book of Deuteronomy: “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house, if anyone should fall from it.Deuteronomy 22:8 (ESV) I checked it out very carefully and I am pretty sure that this commandment is not addressed anywhere in the New Testament. Since it doesn’t fit either of the first two criteria we need to apply this process. Since Mary and I have a home with a flat roof, there is a parapet around the edge of the roof, but for any of you who have houses with pitched roofs, I’m pretty sure you’re violating the literal command since your house is not constructed with a parapet. But are you really violating the spirit of the law here? The first thing we have to do is to identify the general principle, which is pretty easy to do in this case because God gives us the reason for the command. The reason for building the parapet is to keep someone from falling off the roof and being injured or killed. So the broader principle here is that I am to protect my family from harm. The second step is to see if that principle is confirmed in the New Testament. Let me suggest a few passages that would be applicable here:In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.Ephesians 5:28-30 (ESV) But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.1 Timothy 5:8 (ESV) Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you1 of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.1 Peter 3:7 (ESV) So the principle that I am to be diligent in protecting my family, and especially my wife, is certainly confirmed in several places in the New Testament. And that principle can certainly be applied to a number of specific situations. In my personal case, one way I apply that principle is that I have made a commitment never to speak ill of Mary in public or to say anything to anyone else that would damage her reputation. If I have an issue with her I will only discuss it with her one on one in private.
 If we follow the example of Jesus, then the question we ask won’t be “Do I have to keep this commandment?” but rather “How can I keep this commandment?” And this process provides the framework that will allow us to do so.

What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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HOW DOES THE OLD TESTAMENT APPLY TO THE LIFE OF A CHRIST FOLLOWER TODAY? - Part 2

Part 2 of a 3 part post:

Now we’re ready to develop three principles that will help us answer the question we’ve posed: 1.     If there is an Old Testament Law that is restated in the New Testament, then it is still binding and valid Most of the moral law fits in this category. In fact, we’ll see this next week as Jesus begins to take several of the Ten Commandments and expand upon them in order to help His audience understand the spirit of the Law as well as the letter of the Law.  I don’t think anyone would really argue with this first principle. Even those who want to completely ignore the Old Testament would be okay with this. So we don’t need to spend any more time here. 2.     If there is an Old Testament Law that is set aside in the New Testament, it is no longer binding This principle is best demonstrated by the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. Some in the church were teaching that a person could not become a Christ follower unless they first became a Jew and observed the command to be circumcised. At the leading of Peter, Barnabas, Paul and James – all of them Jews – the decision that was reached is that it was not necessary to follow the Biblical command to be circumcised. However, the council did not completely dismiss the need to follow other Old Testament laws that dealt with idols, sexual immorality and eating the blood of animals. Most of the ceremonial law fits into this category. That makes sense since Jesus completely fulfilled that aspect of the law through His sacrificial death on the cross. 

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near…When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.Hebrews 10:1, 8-10 (ESV) When the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, it is as if God further emphasized the fact that Jesus completely fulfilled these ceremonial laws since it is no longer possible for the people to make sacrifices. Another area where this principle applies is most of the dietary laws that were set aside by both the words of Jesus as well as by the word of God in Acts and in other New Testament writings. Again, no one will really argue this principle at all. In fact, those who want to ignore the Old Testament really like this one. But that leaves us with the most difficult task of all – how do we deal with those parts of the Law that aren’t specifically mentioned in the New Testament. And there are obviously a lot of them. 3.     If there is an Old Testament Law that is not specifically mentioned in the New Testament, then apply this process:
 

• Identify general principles

• See if the principle is confirmed in the New Testament

• Apply the principle to the specific situation

God gave the Old Testament Law to His people for their own good. For instance, the dietary laws were intended to prevent them from becoming sick from food-borne illnesses. Many of the social laws were designed to protect people’s dignity – especially women, the poor, slaves, widows and others who were often in positions where they were unable to protect themselves. The ceremonial laws were given as a way for the people to deal with their sin before God. So as we look at those laws, we need to determine the underlying principle that gives rise to that command. 
Once we’ve identified the principle behind the specific law, we can then go to the New Testament and see if that same principle is given to us there. Since the entire Bible is consistent from cover to cover, we’re going to find that in almost every case, even if the specific Old Testament Law is not addressed in the New Testament, the underlying principles behind the law will be confirmed in some way there. 
Having identified the underlying principle, we can now take that principle, rather than the specific law itself, and apply it to whatever situation we might be dealing with in our lives.

Tomorrow I'll finish off this post with a practical example of how to do this. 

 

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HOW DOES THE OLD TESTAMENT APPLY TO THE LIFE OF A CHRIST FOLLOWER TODAY? - Part 1

I first this together several years ago, but wanted to share it again after a lot of you just finished reading Leviticus with me. It's fairly log, so I'll share in in several parts over the next few days.

      Like we find with so many areas of our lives as Christ followers, people often tend to drift to one of two extremes when answering this question. Although it is becoming less and less prevalent in our culture, there are those who would say that we must follow literally every part of the Old Testament Law. That, in turn would mean that we would stone adulterers and kill children who are disrespectful to their parents. Since most people aren’t willing to go that far, they often tend to gravitate to the other extreme and claim we can just ignore the Old Testament altogether. They usually justify that position by quoting Paul in Romans 6 where he writes that we are not under law but under grace. Unfortunately, that conclusion ignores the context of Paul’s letter as well as Jesus’ words that we’ve been looking at this morning. If Jesus didn’t abolish the Old Testament, we dare not do that. So what I want to do this morning is to see if we can’t develop some practical principles that will help us to find a middle ground that is consistent with the words of Jesus that we’ve focused on this morning. Before we get to the specifics, I want to take a moment to address the nature of the Old Testament Law. Many commentators have divided that law into three categories:

•         The moral law – this is the part of the law that deals with moral behavior and the penalties for violating those standards of conduct. This part of the law is summed up in the Ten Commandments and then further detailed in other related commandments. This part of the law applies to all men.

•         The civil law – this part of the law applied only to Israel and guided how they were to live as a people when they entered into the land that God was giving to them.

•         The ceremonial law – this is the part of the law that applied to Israel’s worship. It includes the sacrificial system.

 These distinctions can be somewhat helpful to us in determining how to apply the Old Testament to our lives as long as we recognize the limitations of this approach. Not all the law fits neatly into one of these three categories and there is often some overlap. But keeping this structure in mind will help us as we develop some practical principles.

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Some thoughts on Leviticus

For those of you who have been reading the book of Leviticus with me for the last month or so, I wanted to share a few thoughts:

1. My guess is that if we didn't have some kind of systematic Bible reading plan, we'd probably just skip over Leviticus. It's not easy to read and much of it seems so irrelevant to us in the United States in the 21st century. But there is actually much we can take away from reading this Old Testament book.2
2. My main takeaway is that God is holy and that therefore He wants His people to be holy. Holiness, is not, as we often think of it, just "being good". God is not holy because He is just like us, only "better." To be holy means to be "set apart" or unique. The detailed rules that God set forth in Leviticus were primarily a way for His people to live so that they would be unique and set apart from all the nations around them.
3. The second main takeaway is the seriousness of sin. Because man's sin separates him from God, it takes some radical actions to deal with that sin. Fortunately for us the bloody sacrifices of Leviticus have been replaced by the blood of God's own Son.
4. God gave those laws to Israel for their own good and to protect the dignity of his people in that particular culture at that particular time in history. For instance food regulations were intended to protect against food borne illnesses at a time when there was not refrigeration. The laws concerning slaves did not condone the practice of slavery but protected those who were subject to a practice that existed in that culture.

I think the greatest difficulty most people have is determining exactly how Leviticus and the rest of the Old Testament Law are to be applied in the lives of a disciple of Jesus in the 21st century in America. Several years ago, I addressed that question and developed what I believe to be a practical and Biblical approach to that question. I'll be sharing that with you in my next several posts.

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A Challenge for Us as Men

I ran across this video on my Facebook feed today and wanted to pass it on to other men. 

https://www.facebook.com/GodsNotDeadTheMovie/videos/842824672487983/

This is well worth five minutes of your time to watch this and whatever additional time it takes to think about what you need to do in your life to address this challenge. 

About the only fault I can find with the video is how a guy that is the chaplain for the Dallas Cowboys could possibly have so much wisdom.  

I'd love to see your comments.

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Jesus, not traditional values, is the answer

In light of yesterday's Supreme Court decision regarding homosexual marriage, I wanted to share with you a post by Tom Terry that gets to the heart of the issue and how we should respond as disciples of Jesus. In part, Tom wrote this:

Ultimately, what stands before us is not a nation that has rejected traditional values.Rather, it is a nation that has no faith in Jesus. Why should a nation that doesn’t know Jesus embrace the values that were taught by him? The values themselves won’t save the nation. That can only be done by the person, Jesus...
Therefore, the choice that is before us is to either advance our values to the culture or advance the person of Jesus. Traditional values are important and necessary, but they are not the final answer. Personal transformation through Jesus is the answer...
The Gospel is the answer to a declining culture. Evangelism is the means to stemming the tide of personal evil. Discipleship is the necessary task for strengthening a people whose faith and values will forever be under the assault of those who despise the true knowledge of the historical Jesus.

You can read the entire post by clicking here. I 'd love to hear what you think.

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Follow Up on Last Sunday's Message

I received this from Nate Kugler this week and thought it was really good and I wanted to pass it on to all of you:

As a PS to your message, you said ‘Heart work’ is God’s work but we have an important role.

For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?  But we have the mind of Christ.  (1 Cor. 2:16)

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (1 Cor. 3:16)

Keeping this in mind that we have the mind of Christ and that the Holy Spirit lives permanently in us,

1. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies to make you obey its passions.

2. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness,

3. but preset yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to live and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.  But put on  the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.  (Rom. 13:14)

But it is impossible to live the Christian life in my own strength.

It is common for people to seek to gain salvation through good works.  It is also common for Christians to seek to gain favor with God through good works.

However we read in Col. 2:6, 7 that just as you have accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to live in obedience to him.  Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught.   Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done.  (NLT)

We received Christ by faith and so we need to live the Christian life by faith depending on having the mind of Christ and remembering that the Holy Spirit dwells permanently in us.

I can do all things through him [Christ] who strengthens me.  (Phil. 4:13)

Put into action God’s saving work in your lives, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.  For God is working in you giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him.  (Phil. 2:12b, 13 NLT)

So if I am

        not letting sin reign in me

        not presenting myself as an instrument of unrighteousness

        but presenting myself as an instrument of righteousness

        putting on the Lord Jesus Christ and

        making no provision for the flesh

I do so because I have the mind of Christ and

the Holy Spirit dwells permanently in me

and it is God who is at work in me

        giving me the desire to obey him and

        giving me the power to be able to do what pleases him.

So I am thankful for what he has done, and give him the praise instead of wanting God to love me more because I am such a good person.

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Worshiping as God desires

In Deuteronomy 12, Moses makes it very clear that the way we worship is to be determined by God and not according to "what is right in our own eyes". It is also clear in that chapter that we are not to pollute our worship by incorporating practices from other religions that God sees as an abomination. Although we would never do that deliberately, that can occur in some ways that are very subtle at first.

This chapter seems to address many in our culture today who tend to choose a church based on "what's in it for me" or try to find a church that "meets my needs" or one that operates according to my preferences. We must work hard to make sure that our worship conforms to God's Word and not what we want it to be.

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What God does and what I must do

In Deuteronomy 1, we see the balance between what God does and what I must do. As I read through that chapter, I noted all the things God had done for His people. He had set the land before them (vv. 8, 21); He had given the land to them (vv. 20, 25, 36, 39); He went before the people, fought for them, carried them and showed them the way (vv. 30-33). But in order to actually possess the land the people had to do their part. They had to actually enter and take possession of the land (v. 8). But because the people looked around at their circumstances instead of keeping their eyes on God, the got scared and rebelled against what God had command them to do. 

It seems to me that God still operates like that today. He had done everything that is required for us to be able to be saved and live a life of obedience to Him. But we still have to do our part and actually live like that.

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Job - Religion to Relationship

To me the book of Job is not primarily about suffering. It is more about how Job moves from being very religious to having a relationship with God. That journey is summarized near the end of the book:

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;(Job 42:5 ESV)

I want to be able to say that in my life. I want to go from just hearing about God to seeing Him with my spiritual eyes. 

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How being self-focused clouds our ideas about God.

In Job 32, Elihu speaks for the first time in the book. What strikes me about his words is how self-focused he is. The words "I" and "me" dominate his words. And twice he even admits that what he is about to speak is "my opinion". Even though he is young, he is impressed with his own wisdom. While it is true that Job's three friends who have already spoken often had wrong ideas about God, Elihu certainly doesn't do any better. 

What I take away from this section of Job is that knowing God is a matter of humility that recognizes that God is so big and so awesome that my little human mind can't ever totally figure Him out. There are always going to be things about God that remain a mystery just because He is God and I am not. That doesn't mean, however, that I can't know God quite intimately because He has revealed so much about Himself in His Word. But to do that I have to get my focus of of myself.

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Be careful with how we view our circumstances.

In Job 29:1-5, Job looks at his circumstances and concludes, wrongly, that God is no longer with him. Our present conditions - good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, easy or hard - are a very poor barometer of God's love and concern for us. 

God had allowed Satan to test Job because God knew that this process was going to result in Job's relationship with God being take to a whole new level. The pain Job was experiencing was for his own good, but he just couldn't see that yet.

We are prone to making the same mistake Job made and making wrong assumptions about how God feels about us based on our circumstances. God is often using the trials in our lives to draw us closer to Him and to develop our character, but we usually don't see that in the midst of our trials.

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Sometimes fewer words are better

In Job 25, Bildad's words are few and for a change, what he says is actually true. God is sovereign and holy and no man is capable of being righteous before God based on what he does. Man is indeed a maggot. But what Bibldad fails to see is God's mercy that is extended to man through His Son, Jesus. This seems to be a common mistake that Job's friends make. They understand that God is holy and righteous and that man is not. But they never seem to comprehends God's grace and mercy.

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Seeing beyond this world.

The biggest difference between Job and his friends is that Job had the hope that he would one day see his Redeemer face-to-face - in the flesh. His friends, on the other hand, didn't seem to be able to see life beyond the few short years that man has on earth. Because their sole focus was on what they see with their physical eyes, they had no hope. And that really clouded their view of God and of life.

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How to Know God

One of the things we see consistently in the book of Job is that Job and his friends make the mistake of determining what they think they know about God strictly from their own personal experiences. We should not be quick to condemn, however, since we often do the same thing. We cannot truly know God apart from His revelation of Himself that is found in His Word. We have to evaluate our experiences in light of God's Word, not the other way around.

Whenever I hear someone begin with "The God I know..." or "The Jesus I know..." my antennae immediately go up, because it is likely the person is about to make some statement about God that is based on personal experience and not the Bible. 

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Knowing God vs. Knowing About God

It is really interesting to watch Job's journey as the book of Job progresses. At first we see he knows a lot about God and for the most part that understanding is pretty accurate. He certainly has a much more accurate picture of God than his friends, for sure. He understands God's sovereignty and accepts that the struggles he is experiencing are under God's control. Yet at this point Job still lacks a relationship with God.

We need to be careful not to get caught in the trap that Job experienced early in the book of Job. We need to move beyond just knowing about God to really knowing Him and having an intimate relationship with Him. What are some of the ways that you do that in your life?

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The Theology of Job

In reading the book of Job, we need to be careful not to use it alone as a source for our theology. Job, like many places in the Bible, merely records the conversation between Job and his "friends" without commenting for most of the book on the accuracy of their theology. In some places, they exhibit an accurate understanding of God, but their main premise that Job is being punished by God because of his sin, is totally wrong. 

To me, Job is a book about Job's journey from knowing about God to really knowing God. And while God uses others in that journey, they don't always get it right when it comes to God's purpose in Job's suffering. Job eventually understands that and then God uses him to minister to those "friends".

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Can we be too religious?

In Matthew 23, Jesus pronounces seven woes on the scribes and Pharisees. Not only were these religious leaders called hypocrites by Jesus, but their religiosity had blinded them to the fact that they were actually preventing people from coming to God rather than helping people enter into a relationship with God. Their religious exterior covered up the pride that they had on the inside.

The problem with religion is that it is primarily concerned with externals. Unfortunately we have a tendency to drift toward religion because it is usually easier to clean up our lives on the outside and appear righteous than to allow God to transform our lives from the inside out. That requires dying to self and yielding our lives to the control of Jesus and that is much harder to do than most of us would like to admit.

Let's make sure that we don't become so religious that we shut God out of our lives and the lives of others.

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Why Jesus spoke in parables

One of the things I love about the Bible is that I can read a passage that I've read many times before and find something new that I hadn't seen previously. Such was the case with Matthew 13 - especially verse 18. 

“Hear then the parable of the sower: (Matthew 13:18 ESV)

In that verse, the word "then" is key. It reveals that Jesus is using the parable of the sower to show how His teaching using parables fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah that He just quoted. This parable explains why when it comes to spiritual things some people "get it" and some don't. Only those with a heart that genuinely desires God will get and hold onto spiritual truth. That is why the Bible is nonsense to some and indispensable to others.

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Knowing God

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.(Matthew 11:27 ESV)

It is possible to know about the Father apart from the Son. But it is not possible to really know the Father except through Jesus.

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The cost of following Jesus

In Matthew 8:18-22 Jesus' words seem a bit harsh. 

Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”

But the point He is making there is clear. Following Jesus is not always easy. It often requires us to chose to leave other things behind - even good things like family. 

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Praying "us"

It's interesting that Jesus' model prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 uses plural pronouns ("our", "us" and "we"). I'd love to hear your thoughts about why that is significant.

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Using Scripture Profitably

When Jesus is tempted in the wilderness (Matthew 4), He responds to Satan using Scripture. But Satan also tries to use Scripture to tempt Jesus by taking a verse out of context. This shows why it is so important to have a good handle on the Bible as a whole and not just a few favorite verses here and there. That's why it is so crucial to have a plan to read systematically through the Bible on a regular basis.

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A genealogy that shows God's mercy and grace

It is really unusual to see women listed in Bible genealogies. And in his genealogy of Jesus in the first chapter of his gospel, it is interesting that out of all the women who bore the men listed there, Matthew chose to mention the 5 that he does:

• Tamar - a woman who was impregnated by her father-in-law

• Rahab - a prostitute

• Ruth - a Moabite

• Bathsheba - an adultress

• Mary - a young teenage girl

What a great picture of God's mercy and grace. Through these women god produced the Savior that they needed to save them from their sins.

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