I have a new idea for blog postings to set this one apart from the crowd. I'm a fair hand as an exegete, so I thought I would find a random verse generator--one that would pop up a random verse from anywhere in the entire Bible, not just from a selected list of verses--and utilize it to pick a verse to comment upon. I would take the first verse that came up, no matter how obscure, no matter what the topic, and explain it in context.
This seems pretty challenging to me, and might make a fairly interesting set of comments. It may also be a good way to come up with sermon topics and article ideas, which are just about the hardest part of my job, week in and week out. After so many years of speaking and writing, coming up with something "new" is an arduous task (not quite as tough as those of Hercules, but near enough). So, if I can use this means to spark ideas for my real work, I come out ahead.
In addition, this will also be a way of studying the Bible more thoroughly in areas that I would not normally be attracted to. I tend to gravitate toward the gospels and the historical books of Scripture, so the fact that the choosing would be random and quite out of my hands makes this a bit of a prod to venture outside my comfort zones.
Perhaps this is the answer to my questioning blog a few weeks back. I did get the idea as I was praying last night, so that may be a clue that this is a direction God wants me take.
Anyway, here goes!
Showing posts with label Bible study. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible study. Show all posts
Friday, February 10, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
"Sipping" God's Word Through a Firehose
Since the end of 2011, I have been engaged in following a Bible-Reading Plan developed by Professor Grant Horner in 1983. Unlike other plans in which a person reads, say, a chapter from the Old Testament and one from the New, this system has one read ten chapters each day. The Bible is divided into ten "lists" of books, and each day one chapter from each list is read. So, one reads a chapter from the gospels, a chapter from the Pentateuch, a chapter from the Psalms, a chapter from Paul's epistles, etc.
What a challenge this is! Even a speedy reader like me has to devote a good half-hour or more to this task each day. I am not looking forward to the day I have to read Psalm 119 in addition to nine other chapters! However, it does allow one to make connections between ideas in various sections of the Good Book, and if a person reads from his regular Bible, he quickly comes to recognize where certain verses or passages are.
But it is sometimes almost overwhelming. As someone once said, it is like trying to drink the water of God's Word through a firehose! It can seem to be too much, especially on busy days when the stresses of life are pressing down on the mind to get to other matters that must get done!
It is good that Professor Horner recommends that a person should simply read the chapters, neither skimming them or trying to glean too much from them. The idea is just to read God's Word to familiarize oneself with its content, and our amazing minds, a wonderful gift of God, does the rest. Without our realizing it, our subconscious is working with the material we have gone over, and that knowledge is stored away for use later. As we read it again and again, it becomes more firmly fixed and more easily used.
Even though it is a struggle at times, it is well worth the effort! There is no one standing over us with a whip if we miss a day or only have time to read a few chapters. We can always catch up when we have the time to do so.
So come join me by the fire hydrant for a good soaking in the Word of God!
What a challenge this is! Even a speedy reader like me has to devote a good half-hour or more to this task each day. I am not looking forward to the day I have to read Psalm 119 in addition to nine other chapters! However, it does allow one to make connections between ideas in various sections of the Good Book, and if a person reads from his regular Bible, he quickly comes to recognize where certain verses or passages are.
But it is sometimes almost overwhelming. As someone once said, it is like trying to drink the water of God's Word through a firehose! It can seem to be too much, especially on busy days when the stresses of life are pressing down on the mind to get to other matters that must get done!
It is good that Professor Horner recommends that a person should simply read the chapters, neither skimming them or trying to glean too much from them. The idea is just to read God's Word to familiarize oneself with its content, and our amazing minds, a wonderful gift of God, does the rest. Without our realizing it, our subconscious is working with the material we have gone over, and that knowledge is stored away for use later. As we read it again and again, it becomes more firmly fixed and more easily used.
Even though it is a struggle at times, it is well worth the effort! There is no one standing over us with a whip if we miss a day or only have time to read a few chapters. We can always catch up when we have the time to do so.
So come join me by the fire hydrant for a good soaking in the Word of God!
Friday, October 8, 2010
Evil Is Real (Part Five)
Luke 4 contains Satan's temptation of Christ, and it is instructive to see what Jesus did in the face of evil:
We should not think that Satan tempted our Savior with merely three or four temptations, as recorded in this chapter, as well as in Matthew 4. The text says that He was "tempted for forty days"—meaning that He was under constant attack for the full forty days, every day! This was an intense, prolonged test and more personal and powerful than we have ever experienced. The terrible evil that He faced in the wilderness would likely have crushed us.
The passage implies that Satan left the worst temptation to the very end, when Jesus was seemingly at His weakest point. He had not eaten food or drunk water for forty days. But was He passive all that time? Did our Savior just sit or lie on the sand for those nearly six weeks, allowing the Devil's temptations to batter Him like one sandstorm after the next? Luke does not present Him like that. Jesus did not fast because He had nothing to eat in a barren land. Remember, He is the One who inspired the instructions about fasting in Isaiah 58, so He clearly knew the spiritual strength that fasting provides. At the end of the forty days, He may have been weak as a kitten physically, but spiritually, He was the powerful Son of God.
Perhaps the temptations were not just storm after storm, but were like an ever-strengthening tempest that culminated in a hurricane. What did Jesus do? Each successive onslaught was harder to resist. How did He face it? Jesus bent all His will and strength on overcoming each temptation as it broke on Him. He pulled out every spiritual weapon to defeat each one.
Luke does not say that He pulled out His scroll of Deuteronomy and began instructing Satan on the finer points of God's way of life. Jesus already had them deeply embedded in His mind. He was prepared—by long years of study and deep meditation on what He learned—to face Satan's attacks. We also know that, not only was He fasting when out in the wilderness, but as His everyday practice, He prayed regularly, almost constantly.
Here are four tools that we also must use to rid evil from our lives: 1) Bible study, 2) meditation, 3) fasting, and 4) prayer. When Satan hit Him with temptation, Jesus did not need to do some emergency Bible study. Not only was He the Word of God in the flesh, but He also knew Scripture by heart. When Satan sent a temptation, Jesus quoted an opposing scripture verbatim. The right words—words that He had inspired as God of the Old Testament—came immediately to mind, and He hurled them at Satan like a razor-sharp weapon (Ephesians 6:17).
Christ never treated evil as if it did not exist. In addition, He knew the weakness of His own flesh. He is the only person who has ever totally resisted the pulls of the flesh, though He suffered them just as we do (Hebrews 2:14, 18; 4:15). However, He was strong in the Spirit of God and able to resist them. We see in this vignette from His life that, even so, it was no easy task for Him. We know that it is certainly not easy for us, but if we want to be like Him, we have to approach it just as He did.
The apostle Peter, who witnessed the life of Christ firsthand, had a certain approach to life in which events like this made a great impression on him. Thus his epistles, both I and II Peter, are full of advice on how to be diligent to overcome and grow. In the three middle chapters of I Peter, he tells us how we are to resist evil, how we are to do good, how we are not to be as the rest of the world is. Perhaps these things were tough for him to do too, which is why they made such an impression on him and thus is why he passed these instructions along. It is a good thing that he did! God inspired it to be included in His Word because we need the admonition.
Notice I Peter 2:19-24, where Peter is speaking about submitting to masters:
Peter says that Jesus overcame these things by committing Himself to the One who really knows what is in our characters, what our hearts are really like. In that commitment was great faith that the Father, knowing Him intimately, would guard Him and help Him to the very end—that considering Him as the apple of His eye, God would be with Him even through the grave.
Note, too, Christ's reaction to the evil that was done to Him: He did nothing like it in return. He did not return evil for evil; out of Him came no defiling sin. What did He do? He did self-sacrificial acts of goodness toward His revilers and persecutors—and not only for them, but as Peter goes on to say, He also did it for us, His brethren. Throughout His life, He consciously performed self-sacrificial acts of goodness for others. As Peter says in Acts 10:38, Jesus "went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil."
There is our pattern to follow! He did not allow evil to get Him down or to change His course—He just kept on doing good. That is how He fought it: He faced it down with the Word of God, committed Himself to His Father's will, and repaid evil with good. His method will work for us too.
Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan [where He had just been baptized] and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." (Luke 4:1-3)Just prior to this, Jesus had been highly complimented by the Father: "You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased" (Luke 3:22). Jesus, then, must have been feeling confident, for the voice booming such praise out of heaven was a massive pat on the back. Then, Luke 4:1 relates that He was filled with the Holy Spirit; the power, the strength, of God was pumping through Him. It was at just this point—before He commenced His ministry—that Satan pounced.
We should not think that Satan tempted our Savior with merely three or four temptations, as recorded in this chapter, as well as in Matthew 4. The text says that He was "tempted for forty days"—meaning that He was under constant attack for the full forty days, every day! This was an intense, prolonged test and more personal and powerful than we have ever experienced. The terrible evil that He faced in the wilderness would likely have crushed us.
The passage implies that Satan left the worst temptation to the very end, when Jesus was seemingly at His weakest point. He had not eaten food or drunk water for forty days. But was He passive all that time? Did our Savior just sit or lie on the sand for those nearly six weeks, allowing the Devil's temptations to batter Him like one sandstorm after the next? Luke does not present Him like that. Jesus did not fast because He had nothing to eat in a barren land. Remember, He is the One who inspired the instructions about fasting in Isaiah 58, so He clearly knew the spiritual strength that fasting provides. At the end of the forty days, He may have been weak as a kitten physically, but spiritually, He was the powerful Son of God.
Perhaps the temptations were not just storm after storm, but were like an ever-strengthening tempest that culminated in a hurricane. What did Jesus do? Each successive onslaught was harder to resist. How did He face it? Jesus bent all His will and strength on overcoming each temptation as it broke on Him. He pulled out every spiritual weapon to defeat each one.
Luke does not say that He pulled out His scroll of Deuteronomy and began instructing Satan on the finer points of God's way of life. Jesus already had them deeply embedded in His mind. He was prepared—by long years of study and deep meditation on what He learned—to face Satan's attacks. We also know that, not only was He fasting when out in the wilderness, but as His everyday practice, He prayed regularly, almost constantly.
Here are four tools that we also must use to rid evil from our lives: 1) Bible study, 2) meditation, 3) fasting, and 4) prayer. When Satan hit Him with temptation, Jesus did not need to do some emergency Bible study. Not only was He the Word of God in the flesh, but He also knew Scripture by heart. When Satan sent a temptation, Jesus quoted an opposing scripture verbatim. The right words—words that He had inspired as God of the Old Testament—came immediately to mind, and He hurled them at Satan like a razor-sharp weapon (Ephesians 6:17).
Christ never treated evil as if it did not exist. In addition, He knew the weakness of His own flesh. He is the only person who has ever totally resisted the pulls of the flesh, though He suffered them just as we do (Hebrews 2:14, 18; 4:15). However, He was strong in the Spirit of God and able to resist them. We see in this vignette from His life that, even so, it was no easy task for Him. We know that it is certainly not easy for us, but if we want to be like Him, we have to approach it just as He did.
The apostle Peter, who witnessed the life of Christ firsthand, had a certain approach to life in which events like this made a great impression on him. Thus his epistles, both I and II Peter, are full of advice on how to be diligent to overcome and grow. In the three middle chapters of I Peter, he tells us how we are to resist evil, how we are to do good, how we are not to be as the rest of the world is. Perhaps these things were tough for him to do too, which is why they made such an impression on him and thus is why he passed these instructions along. It is a good thing that he did! God inspired it to be included in His Word because we need the admonition.
Notice I Peter 2:19-24, where Peter is speaking about submitting to masters:
For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: "Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth," who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.What does he say that we are called to? Suffering! One could say we are called to be hit over the head for doing good. In reality, God's way is so antithetical to the way of Satan and of this world, that it is only natural that doers of good will suffer rather than be rewarded for their good works. Of this, Jesus Christ was the most extreme example—and not just on the last day of His life! He suffered every day He drew breath. Satan never stopped tempting Him for long, and His flesh never stopped trying to pull Him towards evil.
Peter says that Jesus overcame these things by committing Himself to the One who really knows what is in our characters, what our hearts are really like. In that commitment was great faith that the Father, knowing Him intimately, would guard Him and help Him to the very end—that considering Him as the apple of His eye, God would be with Him even through the grave.
Note, too, Christ's reaction to the evil that was done to Him: He did nothing like it in return. He did not return evil for evil; out of Him came no defiling sin. What did He do? He did self-sacrificial acts of goodness toward His revilers and persecutors—and not only for them, but as Peter goes on to say, He also did it for us, His brethren. Throughout His life, He consciously performed self-sacrificial acts of goodness for others. As Peter says in Acts 10:38, Jesus "went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil."
There is our pattern to follow! He did not allow evil to get Him down or to change His course—He just kept on doing good. That is how He fought it: He faced it down with the Word of God, committed Himself to His Father's will, and repaid evil with good. His method will work for us too.
Friday, January 1, 2010
What Is Real Conversion? (Part Five)
Romans 12:1-2 summarizes what must occur during the conversion process:
Paul calls it "the renewing of your mind." This renewing is not making the mind new in the sense of time. For instance, to say one has a new bike suggests that it was recently purchased; someone else has not used it. The renewal of Romans 12:2, however, speaks to quality. We might understand it better by using the terms "refresh," "revive," or "rejuvenate." When a tool—say, a chisel—is old and dull, a craftsman will renew it by cleaning off the rust, sharpening the edge, and perhaps putting on a new handle. Essentially, this is what God is doing in renewing our minds. He is taking an old, ill-used mind, cleaning it, sharpening it, and putting it to use in His work.
Consider that another spirit has had many years to shape our minds to follow his way (Ephesians 2:2; Revelation 12:9). Satan the Devil's way of life is that of pride, vanity, lust, greed, envy, deceit, murder, adultery, and covetousness—all the evil things that we are supposed to be putting off. While he had a hold on us, Satan impressed his ungodly way on our minds, but now God has called us and is now in us by His Spirit, transforming us, refreshing our minds, so that we can change the quality of our minds from carnal to spiritual. The transformation that we are undergoing will take us from the self-absorbed, degenerate, sensual mentality to the outgoing, pure righteousness of God's own mind.
The last part of Romans 12:2 can be paraphrased as, "so that you may test or experience all the benefits of His will." Without His mind being formed in us through the Holy Spirit, we would have no way of truly understanding His will or His way. Our minds must be transformed so that we can have even the capacity to understand the differences between God's way and Satan's way, as well as the overwhelming benefits of living as God prescribes. Only then, as it says in Deuteronomy 30:19, can we truly "choose life." This process is happening in us so that we can make the choices that will allow us to live eternally.
Paul covers this transformation of our minds in I Corinthians 2:
The apostle proclaims that, by God's Spirit, not only can we understand some of the things of God, but the Spirit is so powerful that we can plumb their very depths! Of course, we do not know these things just by having the Holy Spirit in us; we learn them over time and through much experience in using the Word of God (Hebrews 5:14). This is why conversion is largely a process, as transformation into Christ's image occurs over years of study and growth.
In verse 11, Paul explains the Spirit's work in us by an analogy. Just as the human spirit enables us to understand material things (Job 32:8), God's Spirit works on a similar but higher plane, allowing us to grasp spiritual matters, specifically, "that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God" (I Corinthians 2:12)—the benefits of doing God's will, as Romans 12:2 suggests. Of course, this spiritual insight sets us apart from people in the world, so we should not expect them to understand either our doctrines or practices. Frankly, Paul says, it is beyond them.
At this juncture, the apostle reaches his goal in this passage: the subject of judging or discernment. With the Spirit working in us, we now have the ability to discern true from false, right from wrong, good from evil from God's perspective. By writing that "we have the mind [Greek nous] of Christ," Paul means that we can have the thoughts, intellect, or understanding of Christ! However, in this context, the meaning of nous is even more specific: "the faculty of judgment; the ability to discern." In other words, we can learn to judge just like Christ. This is overwhelming to consider, but it is ultimately the goal of the work of God's Spirit in us.
Obviously, this fact places tremendous responsibility on us, as well as an extraordinarily high goal before us. It requires us to exercise our spiritual faculties of understanding and judgment far more than we probably do, but what great purpose does not call for equally great effort?
Next time, we will tackle the daily grind of the conversion process.
The apostle Paul presents our marching orders directly. We are to sacrifice our bodies while we still live, that is, we are to submit ourselves wholly to God and to His way of life, which is only reasonable, since having redeemed us, He owns us completely. In addition, we are to reject this world's attempts to pull us back into its ungodly lifestyles, despite its many allurements. Instead, we are to engage in the transformation of our minds into perfect alignment with God's will.I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Paul calls it "the renewing of your mind." This renewing is not making the mind new in the sense of time. For instance, to say one has a new bike suggests that it was recently purchased; someone else has not used it. The renewal of Romans 12:2, however, speaks to quality. We might understand it better by using the terms "refresh," "revive," or "rejuvenate." When a tool—say, a chisel—is old and dull, a craftsman will renew it by cleaning off the rust, sharpening the edge, and perhaps putting on a new handle. Essentially, this is what God is doing in renewing our minds. He is taking an old, ill-used mind, cleaning it, sharpening it, and putting it to use in His work.
Consider that another spirit has had many years to shape our minds to follow his way (Ephesians 2:2; Revelation 12:9). Satan the Devil's way of life is that of pride, vanity, lust, greed, envy, deceit, murder, adultery, and covetousness—all the evil things that we are supposed to be putting off. While he had a hold on us, Satan impressed his ungodly way on our minds, but now God has called us and is now in us by His Spirit, transforming us, refreshing our minds, so that we can change the quality of our minds from carnal to spiritual. The transformation that we are undergoing will take us from the self-absorbed, degenerate, sensual mentality to the outgoing, pure righteousness of God's own mind.
The last part of Romans 12:2 can be paraphrased as, "so that you may test or experience all the benefits of His will." Without His mind being formed in us through the Holy Spirit, we would have no way of truly understanding His will or His way. Our minds must be transformed so that we can have even the capacity to understand the differences between God's way and Satan's way, as well as the overwhelming benefits of living as God prescribes. Only then, as it says in Deuteronomy 30:19, can we truly "choose life." This process is happening in us so that we can make the choices that will allow us to live eternally.
Paul covers this transformation of our minds in I Corinthians 2:
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (I Corinthians 2:7-8)
Without the ability to distinguish between God's way and Satan's way, the leaders of Judea put their Savior to death. What He said and did was a mystery to them, as they had no basis within them to comprehend Him. Without God's Spirit working in them, they had no understanding and therefore no ability to make proper judgments. As we will see, truly converted Christians do.
But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. (I Corinthians 2:9-10)
The apostle proclaims that, by God's Spirit, not only can we understand some of the things of God, but the Spirit is so powerful that we can plumb their very depths! Of course, we do not know these things just by having the Holy Spirit in us; we learn them over time and through much experience in using the Word of God (Hebrews 5:14). This is why conversion is largely a process, as transformation into Christ's image occurs over years of study and growth.
For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (I Corinthians 2:11-14)
In verse 11, Paul explains the Spirit's work in us by an analogy. Just as the human spirit enables us to understand material things (Job 32:8), God's Spirit works on a similar but higher plane, allowing us to grasp spiritual matters, specifically, "that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God" (I Corinthians 2:12)—the benefits of doing God's will, as Romans 12:2 suggests. Of course, this spiritual insight sets us apart from people in the world, so we should not expect them to understand either our doctrines or practices. Frankly, Paul says, it is beyond them.
But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For "who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16)
At this juncture, the apostle reaches his goal in this passage: the subject of judging or discernment. With the Spirit working in us, we now have the ability to discern true from false, right from wrong, good from evil from God's perspective. By writing that "we have the mind [Greek nous] of Christ," Paul means that we can have the thoughts, intellect, or understanding of Christ! However, in this context, the meaning of nous is even more specific: "the faculty of judgment; the ability to discern." In other words, we can learn to judge just like Christ. This is overwhelming to consider, but it is ultimately the goal of the work of God's Spirit in us.
Obviously, this fact places tremendous responsibility on us, as well as an extraordinarily high goal before us. It requires us to exercise our spiritual faculties of understanding and judgment far more than we probably do, but what great purpose does not call for equally great effort?
Next time, we will tackle the daily grind of the conversion process.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Biblical Finance
All the news that is fit to print these days seems to revolve around our hobbled economy. The constant drumbeat of bad financial news is so heavy and insistent that it has become oppressive and, frankly, excessive. Once again, the media are taking every opportunity to scream at us that the sky is falling—or perhaps more descriptively, that our civilization is plunging into a bottomless pit of debt—and the government has responded by going into full crisis-mode. Wall Street investors are behaving like lemmings, running en masse over the nearest cliff every time another bad report comes out. So much for the buy-and-hold strategy.
A few economists and pundits are not as gloomy as
Obviously, Americans are caught between two rival and irreconcilable schools of economic thought. One side believes in increased governmental regulation, massive infusions of public monies, increased taxation, and a command-and-control economy commanded and controlled by Washington politicians and bureaucrats. The other side counters with decreased regulation, incentives for markets and businesses, decreased taxation, and allowing millions of consumers to choose how they will spend (or save) their hard-earned money. The former is essentially a European-style socialism, while the latter is trickle-down capitalism.
Neither approach is God-ordained, by any means. Both are human-devised systems of economic thought, but they begin with different premises. Socialism starts with the assumption that wealth should be divided equally among all but that the means of production and distribution of that wealth should be a function of the state. Capitalism, on the other hand, is founded on the principles of a person reaping—and keeping—what he has sown and of individual liberty. In the real world, socialism—especially its extreme form, communism—has failed every time it has been tried, while capitalism is responsible in part for the burgeoning economies of the British Empire, America in its heyday, the Asian Tigers, etc.
To repeat, neither of these systems has God's stamp of approval. What capitalism has going for it is that it incorporates several biblical principles into its basic structure, and further, it makes the most of certain elements of human nature. For instance, people like to win, to be "King of the Mountain." Capitalism unleashes the human competitive spirit, making the pursuit of wealth into something like a game—and may the best man or woman win.
However, it has downsides too. For example, perhaps its most egregious failing is that it inspires greed. Many supporters of capitalism fall for the well-known Gordon Gecko line, "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good," and they pursue the accumulation of wealth at all costs, leading to all sorts of grievous crimes in the name of profits.
This sin is certainly a factor in the present financial mess we are living through right now. Green-eyed investors gambled on bad home loans leveraged at 30 to 1. Corporations continued to expand beyond their means, even buying out struggling companies to pad their bottom lines. Thinking that the good times would never end, consumers continued to purchase whatever their hearts desired, maxing out their credit cards, signing on to new consumer loans, and taking out second mortgages. Now the piper must be paid, and the money is just not there.
What is God's take on all of this? Obviously, because of the sins involved—greed, dishonesty, theft, oppression, to name a few—He is not pleased, and in fact, we could say that the crisis itself is a predictable, inevitable judgment on the nation for breaking God's law in these areas. When men contravene a law of God, a penalty automatically goes into effect, and the only unknown factors are when and how hard it will fall. America's economic situation—not to mention what the rest of the world is experiencing too—is eliciting comparisons with at least the crisis in the early 1980s, and for some it resembles the Great Depression of the 1930s. Time will tell how severe it will be.
What does the Bible instruct us in these matters? Of course, the Bible is not an economic text, but it does include financial principles that all Christians should know and follow as well as they are able. Here are a few of them:
- God commands that we tithe (Leviticus 27:30; Deuteronomy 14:22). Contrary to the worst aspects of capitalism, God's system is based on giving, not getting. Learning this principle, a part of God's very character, begins with giving Him one-tenth of our income to fund the work of His church. Doing this also helps us to realize what is most important.
- In addition, God commands that we support the needy (Acts 20:35), particularly the widows and orphans, the disabled, the unemployed, and those who, due to circumstances out of their control, need a temporary hand up. This starts with our families, fellow members of the church, and as we are able, others in the world around us.
- God instructs us to avoid debt. "The borrower is servant to the lender," counsels wise King Solomon (Proverbs 22:7). Debt makes us subject, not just to the lender, but also to misfortune and to the unscrupulous. If we have debts, we should have a plan to pay them down as soon as possible and resolve not to incur any new ones.
- The Bible tells us to save so we can pass our wealth to our heirs. Solomon advises, "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children," (Proverbs 13:22). While this is not always feasible, it should be a goal nevertheless, inspiring us—contrary to our fellow American's spendthrift ways—to put a little money aside as often as we can.
The Bible contains other principles, but these are all that space allows. In times like the present, it would make a good Bible study to search the Scripture for them and meditate on their applications to our lives. Perhaps then, we can avoid the worst of the ongoing financial crisis.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Following the Bean
Sometimes, watching world events can be a little like a street-corner shell game. We carefully watch where the bean is placed under one of the shells, and we try to follow it as the dealer, or "operator" as he is known, rapidly slides the shells around the table in a dizzying, chaotic course. Yet, somewhere along the line, our eyes become distracted, and we lose the bean in the confusing flurry of hand movements. Where the bean is becomes a mere guess.
Right now, and for the past several years, the bean has been passed among the shells labeled "Iraq," "Iran," and "Al Qaeda." We have watched news pour out of the Middle East in an almost incessant stream of bombings, attacks, retaliations, offensives, captures, initiatives, talks, and a host of other significant and trivial events. They are enough to make one's head swim! Where is the bean, the nugget of knowledge that will indicate where world news and prophecy begin to align?
In actuality, the news game is worse than the shell game because the former contains far more than three shells. Obviously, there is an "America" shell, a "Russia" shell, a "China" shell, a "Japan" shell, a "Germany" shell, a "Vatican" shell, a "U.N." shell, an "Israel" shell, a "Palestine" shell, an "Arab" shell, an "environmentalist" shell, an "IMF" shell, an "NGO" shell, a "rogue regime" shell, and a bucketful of others. Which ones do we follow? We need more than a scorecard to keep track of them all as they converge, crisscross, scatter in various directions, change speeds, and generally follow no rational pattern. We fear that if we look away for more than a few seconds, we might miss something important and lose the bean.
The game intensifies even further because we have to watch more than just a little table. Though they are rapidly losing market share, newspapers—especially giants like The New York Times—still lay out the playing field. Television and radio news outlets pick up the newspaper headlines and run brief stories based on what the print editors deem to be newsworthy. Internet news sites give the headlines their due, but because of the web's nature, they can also feature stories that hit the cutting room floor at The Times. Beyond this, bloggers have the ability to dig even deeper still, supplying the curious surfer with minute details—and opinions—on just about any news event in the world. Also to be considered are news magazines, governmental and corporate analyses, foundation studies, and of course, private-party knowledge. The amount of available information is staggering.
Perhaps the most worrying feature of the news game is that the bean may not actually be under any of the shells on the table. In other words, there is always the nagging fear that events are happening "under the radar"—and so far out of sight that very few people even become aware of their significance. Because of this worry, a whole cottage industry has sprung up around the edges of the news business, the shadowy realm of conspiracy theories. Here, facts mingle with suppositions and distrust of institutions in an uneasy alliance. Could the bean be hiding out of the mainstream?
One element in the shell game remains to be considered: the operator. In reality, the shell game is a confidence trick, not a fair game of chance. A skilled operator can shift the bean in and out of any shell he desires, and the player will never be the wiser. On the mean streets of New York and other metropolises where this game is common, the operator often works with a pickpocket, further swindling distracted players and spectators. In the end, the shell game is a ruse, a distraction, to carry on other nefarious purposes.
Thus, we must ask the question, how profitable is watching current events in a world awash with information? Is it vital to our salvation, or does it distract us from more important spiritual activities? Does it keep us keyed in on what is really happening in the world, or are we being suckered by Satanic sleight-of-hand? Can we be ready for Christ's return if we are not riveted to the news ticker?
Jesus warns in Luke 21:34-36:
But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and the Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.
It is plain that He commands us to watch, but watch what? He does not say, "Watch world events." We have traditionally interpreted verse 36 to mean that, but the context only tells us to be observant, aware, on guard, alert, on duty. What we focus on is up to us, but Jesus' introduction to His command to watch is heavily weighted toward "watch your step" rather than "watch world events."
The parallel passage in Matthew 24:36-51 gives equal time to being aware of conditions around us and of our behavior toward others. This argues that we take a more balanced approach to following the news bean. Becoming fixated on the intricacies of world news will lead to neglect elsewhere in our lives, and ironically, too often it is our relationship with God that suffers. If fact, we must give priority to prayer, study, overcoming, and living God's way of life, and if we do, God will be sure to reveal the bean's location to His saints when the time comes (Amos 3:7).
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