RBV: Zephaniah 1:8

And it shall be,

In the day of the Lord’s sacrifice,

That I will punish the princes and the king’s children,

And all such as are clothed with foreign apparel.

—Zephaniah 1:8

Zephaniah makes no bones about the fact that his prophecy deals with the Day of the Lord and His anger at humanity for its hostility to Him: "'I will utterly consume everything from the face of the land,' says the Lord" (Zephaniah 1:2). It is clear that He is most disappointed with His chosen people, who should have known better because He had worked with them for many generations (Amos 3:1-2). Yet, even they had become idolaters, worshipping Baal and Milcom and "the whole host of heaven," turning away from God and no longer seeking Him (Zephaniah 1:4-6).

In verse 7, God calls for silence; He wants no more protests or excuses. He has decided to prepare a sacrifice and invited guests to partake of it. The modern Westerner has little notion of what this entails. Under the Levitical system, not all sacrifices were completely consumed in the altar's fire. Some burnt sacrifices, as they were called, were annihilated, but others were strictly divided: Certain parts went on the fire, another part was given to the priest to eat, and the remainder—the majority of the animal—returned to the offerer. Usually, with such a large amount of meat to consume in a short time, the offerer would call a feast for his family and close friends.

From this comes a major principle of the sacrificial system. The altar symbolized a table and the giving of an offering represented the sharing of a meal among God, the priest, and the offerer. The three were united in fellowship, solidifying and strengthening a relationship. For Christians, this three-way relationship exists among the Father, the Son (who is our High Priest), and the Christian. As the apostle Paul enjoins us in Romans 12:1, rather than giving our lives in death to Him, we are to be "living sacrifices," holy and acceptable to God, continuing the relationship in service to Him.

However, Zephaniah reveals that God has something different in mind for the Day of the Lord. For His sacrifice—or sacrificial meal—He has invited guests from afar, and the sacrifice of which they will partake is His people, Judah! In verse 8, He is particularly incensed against Judah's rulers, the corrupt descendants of David, who have led the nation further into sin. He expected the royal house to follow the examples of David and Josiah, but they had instead pursued carnal habits and political expediencies, bringing Judah to the brink of war, captivity, exile, and destruction.

As the verse closes, He highlights the particular failing of listening to foreign influence, seen in the wearing of "foreign apparel." It likely refers to a trend among the aristocrats of the time of wearing the clothing style of the foreign nation he supported in the power-struggle over the strategic land-bridge that was the Kingdom of Judah. (The conflict over that bit of territory is still ongoing today.) At the time, it was probably the distinctive styles of Egypt and Babylon, both of which were quite different from that of the Israelites. The verse suggests that the nation's leaders had stopped wearing Israelite-style clothing altogether—symbolizing their departure from God and what He had commanded (for instance, Numbers 15:38-40)—and by donning the clothing of these powerful, competing empires, they were pledging their loyalties to the nations rather than to God. It could also mean that these aristocrats were worshipping the idols of these nations.

Behind the NKJV's translation of "punish," the Hebrew literally reads that God will "visit" the royal sons of Judah, which, in its negative sense, is a common metaphor for coming in judgment. It should come as no surprise that, when Judah finally fell to the Babylonians, Zedekiah's sons were killed before the eyes of their father, just before he was blinded and taken off to Babylon (II Kings 25:2-7). In addition, many of the aristocrats were killed and their children were dragged off to Babylon as slaves, as was the case with Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego (Daniel 1:1-4).

Judah's destruction in the early-sixth century BC is just a type of the Day of the Lord that will be visited upon the world just before the return of Jesus Christ. God will be just as jealous for the loyalty of His people, true Christians, at that time as He was 2,600 years ago. We need to be asking ourselves if we have allowed ourselves to be "clothed with foreign apparel."

RBV: Psalm 139:21

Do I not hate them, O LORD, who hate You? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?

—Psalm 139:21

The psalmist, King David, makes a claim that the modern Westerner, steeped in the feel-goodism of political correctness and postmodern aversion to judgmentalism, flinches from, questioning whether it is even properly Christian. Such people would cite the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:44-45, saying that we are to love our enemies and do good for them despite their insults and persecutions because our Father in heaven does good to both the evil and the good. While these verses may seem to be in direct contradiction to each other, they are, in fact, complementary, deepening our understanding of God's way.

Critics commonly make the mistake of "proof-texting," that is, considering a text as "proof" of a biblical truth without taking context and other passages into consideration. Plucking this verse alone out of Psalm 139 and giving it ultimate credence would be proof-texting at its worst. In this case, as in many cases of supposed contradictions, context is key to understanding David's thought, expressed in such absolute, impassioned terms.

Verse 21 falls near the end of a long prayer to God in which David relates in various ways that he realizes how well God knows him. That is how he opens the psalm, giving us a very broad hint at its subject: "O LORD, You have searched me and known me" (verse 1). God knew everything there was to know about the king of Israel, including his every thought and word, and in fact, He had made him, designed him, to be that way (see verses 13-16)! Moreover, God was always with him, and if David had even tried to flee from Him, there is no way that he could have escaped (verses 7-12)!

In verse 17, he begins to bring his thoughts around to the idea he expresses in verses 21-22 about hating those who hate God. He opens this section of the psalm with an exclamation about how valuable he considers God's thoughts—His revelation of Himself and His way of life—to be. Thinking about how precious God's truth is leads him to react strongly against those who oppose God and all the good that His Word can do. He asks God to "slay the wicked" (verse 19) for their bloodthirsty fight against Him—and God's people, whose blood is being shed.

David's words in verses 21-22, then, expressing his perfect or complete hatred against God's enemies, are a declaration of loyalty and devotion to God's cause. If they opposed God, he would oppose them. He was all in. So he says, "Search me, O God, and know my heart" (verse 23). He had no reservations about his commitment to God's side, knowing that such devotion would lead to "the way everlasting" (verse 24).

We also need to understand the Hebrew word behind "hate"; it is not as absolute as we tend to consider it. The word is sânê, and its meanings range from real hatred—the intense, visceral emotion of antagonism against another—to be set against or intolerant of another. In this case, David's uncompromising loyalty to God excludes any kind of tolerance of those who have proclaimed themselves as God's enemies. So, in this case, David's hatred of those who hate God is an implacable rejection of them; he has set himself against them because they are actively hostile to God. Thus, his "hatred" is, not malevolence, but in actuality zeal for God, a righteous, vehement devotion to his sovereign Lord.

RBV: Matthew 6:24

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

—Matthew 6:24

Most people who are familiar with the Bible are aware of this statement made by Jesus during His Sermon on the Mount. This teaching on the inadvisability of trying to serve two masters comes at the end of a line of comparisons between two major elements of life. Earlier, He had spoken about two different kinds of treasure, the earthly kind and the heavenly kind. Then He mentioned the good eye and the bad eye, or perhaps it would be clearer to call them the focused ("single," KJV) eye and the confused eye, which illustrate a person's outlook on his life. Obviously, Jesus is trying to help us see the dichotomy between God's way and the way of this world, man's way, or Satan's way, however we may wish to look at it.

In this verse, He moves on to the human will, telling us that it is impossible to give full allegiance to more than one entity, whether it be a family member, a boss, a cause, or even football teams!  As He says, one of them will always be slighted in some way. One's true loyalty will soon be revealed when circumstances conspire to force a choice between them. At the fish-or-cut-bait moment, we will choose to give our time and attention to the one that we really love, and the other we will "hate" by comparison.

As a native of the Steel City, I am a Pittsburgh Steeler fan and always have been. Yet, I have lived in Charlotte since 1992 and have been a fan of the Panthers since the team's first NFL game in 1995. I know a great deal about both clubs, watch most of their games, and avidly follow their player acquisitions and moves. It is good that the Steelers are an AFC team, while the Panthers are an NFC team, so they rarely play each other. But what happens when they do? There is no question: I root for the Steelers. My choice shows that I "love" the Steelers and "hate" the Panthers; I am "loyal" to the black and gold and "despise" the black, Panther blue, silver, and white. In such a situation, I cannot cheer for both.

In the last phrase, Jesus makes it clear that the choice often comes down to God on the one hand and "Mammon"—a word that denotes wealth and possessions—on the other. True, His audience, mostly Jews, had and still have a reputation for pursuing wealth overmuch, but His true audience is everyone. We all want more things, and we sometimes go to extreme measures to get them. When faced with the decision of following God or following the money, too many pick the latter, and in doing so, reveal our true loyalties.

He desires His disciples, therefore, to take note: The true Christian puts God first in everything. If a promotion at work means that a Christian will have to work on the Sabbath or blur some of his principles, he needs to choose God and turn down the promotion. If he can avoid a heavy tax assessment if he fudges the numbers a little on his 1040, he should choose God and submit an honest return. If he finds a wallet filled with cash, he must choose God and return it to its owner. In every case in which we must decide between obedience to God and gaining for the self, God must be our constant choice.

While this may seem somewhat onerous, this kind of total devotion and commitment is what God demands. Jesus is also the one who said,“No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62), and “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26). Even in the verse under discussion, Jesus speaks of “serving . . . masters," which is an allusion to slavery. But we can gladly choose to serve God, the most gracious and beneficent of masters.