Tag Archives: Bible

Letters

The Pilgrimgram 2026-03-19 07:03:00

Does God owe us anything?

This question comes from my walk with Papa yesterday. I was thanking him for all that he is, all that he does for me, and I found myself saying that I owe him everything. The logical follow-up to that is to acknowledge that he doesn't owe me anything, and I started to say that, but I felt a check in my spirit. 

So we talked about it. He reminded me that he required people who make a promise to him to fulfil that promise [Numbers 30:2, Deuteronomy 23:21-23, Ecclesiastes 5:4&5 for starters]; if he expects that of us, then he will expect that of himself as well.

So yeah, if he has promised something, he does owe me the thing he has promised. 

• It's complicated by the reality that there are things that I think he has promised which he has not actually promised. That's my error.

• It's complicated by the fact that some promises in Scripture have conditions on them: If you do this, then God will do that. Ignorance of the conditions does not invalidate them.

• It's complicated by the reality that not every warm and fuzzy statement in the Bible is a promise to me personally, or to the people I hang out with. It's beyond the scope of this article to identify which are for me and which are for someone else. 

• It's complicated by the fact that he doesn't generally promise to live up to the timetable of my expectations. He very well could be still working on it. 

• It's complicated by the reality that sometimes we think that we're owed something because of what I've done (or tried to do), or because I think of myself as something special. That is not part of his promises, and he specifically rules it out [Titus 3:5].

• It's complicated by the reality that there are promises that he has already fulfilled that I haven't seen/experienced yet. I don't know if that's my mistake, or if that's just the way life is (or if he's just being sneaky, like my bride does with birthday presents).

So yeah, God owe us anything? Yeah, he does. But only what he's promised. He doesn't owe us anything based on who we are or what we've done for him.

It strikes me that it might be worth my time to learn what promises God has actually made, and listening to warm fuzzy things that other people say about God is not a substitute. 

At least that's how I see it. How do you see it?

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Letters

How to Walk With a Limp

Balaam is interesting. He appears to have a legitimate prophetic gift, but you sure wouldn’t know it by watching how he works. The ungodly king asks him to do an ungodly job: curse the people of Israel.

But God said to Balaam, “You shall not go with them; you shall not curse the people, for they are blessed.” [Numbers 22:12]

God says not to do this job, but Balaam asks again, because the money is good, and because there’s lots of prestige when you’re working for a king.

God answers differently this time: 20 That night God came to Balaam and said, “Since these men have come to summon you, go with them, but do only what I tell you.”

So Balaam goes on the trip, but then God sends an angel, three times, to kill him on the way to the job.

Perhaps that should have been a clue. This is where the donkey speaks up and reveals what's really going on, crushing his foot against a stone wall in the process. Perhaps that also should have been a clue. 

And still, Balaam doesn't give up. He is still pursuing this high-paying prestigious job. He continues on; I assume he was limping from the crushed foot.

It occurs to me that God didn't actually change his mind. Rather, since Balaam was determined to find a way to go, God got out of his way, and let him sin. That’s not pretty, but we’ve seen God do that in other places. [Romans 1:24; Revelation 22:11]

That doesn’t make it right, of course. That means that God is serious about giving us free will, even a free enough will to make serious mistakes.

I believe that it’s John 7:17 that says that God will reveal the truth to the people who are willing to obey. I think Balaam was experiencing that: he wasn’t willing to obey, so he didn’t get the truth. Apparently, a commitment to riches and prestige is not a good way to find the truth.

I think a lot of people have experienced this, where God gives them permission to do the wrong thing, because they are not committed to doing what God says to do, they’re not really listening for the truth; they’re working to persuade God of their opinion.

As I came to this passage, I realized I have done this. I have come to God, asking for his direction, but I wasn’t really ready to hear his will. What I really wanted to hear was my will, but in his voice. That didn’t work out so well. Blew up a full seven years of my life. I still walk with that limp.

I don't know about about you, but but I think I want to to learn this lesson better.

Is it just me, or is it maybe not a good sign if God changes his mind about that thing he had just told you not to do?

Perhaps that should have been a clue. This is where the donkey speaks up and reveals what's really going on, crushing his foot against a stone wall in the process. Perhaps that also should have been a clue.

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Letters

Ezekiel’s Failing Shepherds

Ezekiel’s prophecy to the shepherds of Israel spoke to me recently. (I’ll quote it at the end.)

The essence of the accusation is that the shepherds – the ones responsible for taking care of the people – were taking care of themselves at the expense of the people. They betrayed the people they were responsible to care for. 

You might be familiar with the concept of a leader “fleecing the sheep.” That’s a bad thing. God sounds pretty serious when he talks about it here. 

I’ve encountered “Christian ministries” whose “ministry” was mostly asking for donations. It’s pretty easy to see there’s a problem with that. I’ve thought, “I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes on Judgment Day,” and I stopped asking questions. 

But this morning, I felt the Good Shepherd drawing my attention in a couple of new directions that I hadn’t considered before. 

First, I realized that while *some* of these failing shepherds might know full well that what they’re doing is wrong, there are probably others who are doing the best they can, and still failing, still qualifying for inclusion in this judgment. So far, I see four categories. 

• We’ve already considered the shepherds who are fully aware that they’re betraying their people.

• I have known leaders that had good intentions, but no actual skill at leading anyone. Bible School or Seminary doesn’t make you a competent leader of people. 

• I have known leaders that had good intentions, had great skill at leading, but they had missed the memo that they were called to build God’s Kingdom, not their own. It’s too easy to get a business card printed these days. 

• I have known leaders that had good intentions, great skill, and wanted to build God’s kingdom, but their moral compass had lost its bearings, and they fell into all sorts of temptations and corruption. So sad.

○ And, of course, there are a huge number of faithful shepherds, who put both the needs of the sheep and of the Good Shepherd ahead of their own, many times at great personal sacrifice. I’m really thankful for these men and women among us!  

Outrage is a really popular, and really powerful thing these days, and frankly, it’s a worldly response to some of these failing shepherds. But for some of them, I wonder if pity might not be appropriate. 

And since neither outrage nor pity fixes anything, maybe we should pray for these poor failing individuals. And especially for the sheep that they oversee. The Good Shepherd, it seems, is more about redemption than about punishment.

But he wasn’t done stretching me. 

I’ve always thought about this passage in the context of church leaders; after all, we call them “shepherds” sometimes. 

But then I realized that he’s talking about people who have a responsibility to take care of other people, and that is not just about church leaders. (That unbiblical and artificial “sacred/secular division” busted my chops again!)

I realized that God is concerned about “secular” leaders who betray their people, too. 

• These days, it’s not too difficult to think of political leaders who betray the people who voted them into office. The number of leaders whose net worth increases by tens of millions of dollars while on a salary is indicative. And embarrassing. And those whose income grows the fastest seem to not stand up very well for the issues of the people they represent. 

But then I realized that this betrayal might be a bigger issue than even self-enrichment. No wonder God is so frustrated about it. 

• I thought about business leaders who put their own profits, the profits of their businesses ahead of the people that they are “serving” in their business. Names came to mind: Disney, Pfizer, Merck, Amazon, Enron, Weinstein, Epstein. There are others. I suspect that there are business leaders in all the same categories of failure as church leaders. 

• Then it occurred to me that there has been a similar betrayal in our education system. Claudine Gay at Harvard made a lot of headlines in the past year or two, and higher education has, as a whole, been pretty active at disassembling the faith of their students. But there have been thousands of videos of teachers and  school board meetings revealing an intentional effort to violently change the values, and occasionally the gender, of the students they “serve.” 

• We’ve discussed the betrayal of the mainstream media enough over the past several months; so many of them have transformed from “presenters of news” to propaganda tools of both government and big business. Both news media organizations and news personalities.

So what do we do with all these shepherds who have failed us, who are still failing us? 

Well, I begin by praying. If we fail in our prayers, nothing else matters. I’m still praying that the things that have been hidden in the darkness so long would be brought out into the light, and dealt with justly; I pray it for every aspect of our culture here: government, church leaders, business leaders, media, all of it. (I pray this for my own life as well, but that’s a different conversation.)

More and more, I’m finding my prayers including calling for repentance in the hearts of the leaders who have made a living betraying our trust, preying on those they are called to serve. God is no less interested in redemption in the 21st century than he was in the first century. 

-----

The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! 

Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. 

You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them. 

"'Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: This is what the Sovereign LORD says: 

I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them. 

[Ezekiel 34:1-10] 


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Letters

Time to Be Fierce in Prayer

This Psalm really arrested me the other day. I was minding my own business, listening through the Psalms, when God nudged me to pay particular attention to what I was hearing. David is talking about people who are deceitful, who are speaking “with a lying tongue.” 

And I realized that he might just as well be talking about the news media of our day, about the political system right now, even of the education system in our world. I sat up and paid more attention to what the Bible is saying here. These are direct quotes from the Bible, remember: 
 
• “Set a wicked man over him, And let an accuser stand at his right hand.” (Let his job, his work life, be messed up!)

• “Let his days be few, And let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, And his wife a widow.” (Let him die!)  

• “Let the creditor seize all that he has, And let strangers plunder his labor.” (Let him go bankrupt.)

• “As he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment, So let it enter his body like water, And like oil into his bones.  Let it be to him like the garment which covers him,  And for a belt with which he girds himself continually.”  (That's just messed up!)

And as I was listening, I found myself repulsed. “God, that’s messed up! I can’t pray this for my enemies!  Who was the demented person was that wrote this, anyway?” Oh wait. King David, the “man after God’s heart” wrote these words. <gulp>

My powerful reaction ‒ and his patient response to my reaction ‒ went on for some time. “Christians can’t pray this way. We’re supposed to love our enemies! [“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…” Matthew 5] Are you rescinding that instruction?

“No, absolutely not. But I am re-shaping your understanding of it. My children have long labored under the delusion that godliness required them to be ‘nice’ to people who were abusing them.”

And he reminded me of Hebrews 12: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” In the same breath, he reminded me of my mother’s famous “spank spoon.” 

In no way did she ever want me to die! She didn’t even want me maimed. But she was dealing with a high-energy little boy who didn’t understand limits very well. And it took a big smack to teach me the lesson. (She used to buy wooden spoons by the dozen; I needed help learning.)

Now at this point in this discussion, I could go one of two ways. I could go on about the right way to apply this sort of prayer in 21st century America, and maybe both help some folks not to be scared off by this sort of prayer and help some other folks not to pick up arms and slice off a persecutor’s ear. 

Or I could turn left to the point that God was making with me. I think I’ll do that. 

“Son, it’s time for my children to learn to get a little more fierce, a little more dangerous in their prayers for the people who are trying to be their enemies. There’s a time to pray angrily.” (Did you ever notice the command for us to be angry? Ephesians 4:26 says “Be angry, and do not sin.” The first command there is to be angry, at least sometimes. The rest of the verse gives limits.)

In practical terms, it is appropriate to be angry that Charlie Kirk is now dead, that hell is paying rioters in the streets, that little kids are being stolen away from their families. And it is good and healthy for that anger to shape and to power our prayers. (It’s also appropriate for us to live within the rest of Ephesians 4’s limits on anger.)

My *very strong* recommendation is to listen very closely to Holy Spirit if you feel the urge to pray this sort of prayer. I remind us: David was a man after God’s own heart. If we are not first and foremost after God’s heart, this is not safe territory; it’s too close to giving a little kid a loaded gun to deal with schoolyard bullies. Don’t do it! 

But when this is on Jesus’ heart, when you feel Father pointing you this direction, when Holy Spirit is nudging you, don’t rebel and decline to exercise the tools he’s given us. Go carefully, but go there when he is taking you there. 

“My children need to not be afraid of their anger, of their ferocity. That’s from me. Use it.”



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Letters

Time to Be Fierce in Prayer

This Psalm really arrested me the other day. I was minding my own business, listening through the Psalms, when God nudged me to pay particular attention to what I was hearing. David is talking about people who are deceitful, who are speaking “with a lying tongue.” 

And I realized that he might just as well be talking about the news media of our day, about the political system right now, even of the education system in our world. I sat up and paid more attention to what the Bible is saying here. These are direct quotes from the Bible, remember: 
 
• “Set a wicked man over him, And let an accuser stand at his right hand.” (Let his job, his work life, be messed up!)

• “Let his days be few, And let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, And his wife a widow.” (Let him die!)  

• “Let the creditor seize all that he has, And let strangers plunder his labor.” (Let him go bankrupt.)

• “As he clothed himself with cursing as with his garment, So let it enter his body like water, And like oil into his bones.  Let it be to him like the garment which covers him,  And for a belt with which he girds himself continually.”  (That's just messed up!)

And as I was listening, I found myself repulsed. “God, that’s messed up! I can’t pray this for my enemies!  Who was the demented person was that wrote this, anyway?” Oh wait. King David, the “man after God’s heart” wrote these words. <gulp>

My powerful reaction ‒ and his patient response to my reaction ‒ went on for some time. “Christians can’t pray this way. We’re supposed to love our enemies! [“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…” Matthew 5] Are you rescinding that instruction?

“No, absolutely not. But I am re-shaping your understanding of it. My children have long labored under the delusion that godliness required them to be ‘nice’ to people who were abusing them.”

And he reminded me of Hebrews 12: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” In the same breath, he reminded me of my mother’s famous “spank spoon.” 

In no way did she ever want me to die! She didn’t even want me maimed. But she was dealing with a high-energy little boy who didn’t understand limits very well. And it took a big smack to teach me the lesson. (She used to buy wooden spoons by the dozen; I needed help learning.)

Now at this point in this discussion, I could go one of two ways. I could go on about the right way to apply this sort of prayer in 21st century America, and maybe both help some folks not to be scared off by this sort of prayer and help some other folks not to pick up arms and slice off a persecutor’s ear. 

Or I could turn left to the point that God was making with me. I think I’ll do that. 

“Son, it’s time for my children to learn to get a little more fierce, a little more dangerous in their prayers for the people who are trying to be their enemies. There’s a time to pray angrily.” (Did you ever notice the command for us to be angry? Ephesians 4:26 says “Be angry, and do not sin.” The first command there is to be angry, at least sometimes. The rest of the verse gives limits.)

In practical terms, it is appropriate to be angry that Charlie Kirk is now dead, that hell is paying rioters in the streets, that little kids are being stolen away from their families. And it is good and healthy for that anger to shape and to power our prayers. (It’s also appropriate for us to live within the rest of Ephesians 4’s limits on anger.)

My *very strong* recommendation is to listen very closely to Holy Spirit if you feel the urge to pray this sort of prayer. I remind us: David was a man after God’s own heart. If we are not first and foremost after God’s heart, this is not safe territory; it’s too close to giving a little kid a loaded gun to deal with schoolyard bullies. Don’t do it! 

But when this is on Jesus’ heart, when you feel Father pointing you this direction, when Holy Spirit is nudging you, don’t rebel and decline to exercise the tools he’s given us. Go carefully, but go there when he is taking you there. 

“My children need to not be afraid of their anger, of their ferocity. That’s from me. Use it.”



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Principles for Understanding Some of the Ways of God.

1. God doesn’t show you all his cards all the time.

• Consider Job. Hell smacked Job around really hard, and Job complained that God had done it. God takes his time answering Job, but when he does, he never says, “That wasn’t me, that was ol’ stink-butt.” Rather, God took the blame, and basically told his boy that “This requires more understanding than what you have at the moment.”

2. God lets his kids write his story. His kids are people. They don’t always get all the details right.

• Consider David’s impetus for numbering Israel: who was it? Compare these versions of the story:
○ Again the anger of the LORD was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, "Go, number Israel and Judah." [2 Samuel 24:1]
○ Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. [1 Chronicles 21:1]
3. God works within the expectations his kids have. He doesn’t change everything all at once.

• [God] also said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." But Abram said, "Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?" So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. [Genesis 15:7-10]

God did not tell Abe to cut the animals in half for the covenant. That was just what Abe was used to. God went along with it, since it didn’t break anything.

• Consider Genesis 22, when God tests Abraham. Abe came from a culture where the gods demanded human sacrifices, so God starts the conversation in those terms [22:2]. But then he interrupts the process in order to show his boy that He doesn’t do things that way. [22:11-13].

4. Everything really does point to Jesus.

• Consider “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” [Luke 24:27]

• “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” [Hebrews 1:1-3]

• “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!” [John 5:39].

5. The people of God don’t always interpret God right.

• The Pharisees of Jesus’ day should be enough proof of this point all by themselves. [See the gospels.]

• Job’s friends sure don’t get God right either. “After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: "My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” [Job 42:7]

6. The Bible is not a textbook about right and wrong. It’s not how to know God [John 5:39]. The Bible is the story of God’s relationship with his people, and his efforts to build relationship with them.

7. The things that you experience from God are not always about you. Sometimes, they’re lessons for someone else.

• God was teaching the Egyptians a lesson, too during the Exodus: “And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” [Exodus 14:4]

• Sometimes he’s showing us off to ol’ stink butt, or to the hosts of heaven.

8. Understanding God is ultimately well beyond our capabilities. We know what he shows us, and no more, though we might have theories and guesses that may or may not be distractions.

9. Progressive Revelation is a real thing. As time goes on, God reveals more and more of himself.

Job & Abraham didn’t understand much about God. David had much more revelation. And He has revealed so much more of Himself in Jesus.

Bottom line: We in the New Covenant have a much better understanding of some of the ways of God than did people before us.
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Correlation Does Not Imply Causation

I was working my way through the Book of Acts recently, and Philip really caught my attention. Philip is awesome!

Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city. [Acts 8:5-8]
Philip has some of the coolest stories. One day God said, “Go over there,” and he met a senior administration official from Ethiopia, a guy who has come almost 2000 miles to worship God, who had questions about the Messiah from his readings in Isaiah. Phil introduces him to Jesus and the guy wants to get baptized in the first puddle they pass.

When they come up out of the water, God transports Philip to Azotus, a coastal town 30 miles north. That’s just plain cool.
 

As I was enjoying the stories about Philip, my mind recalled, “This is Philip the rookie Deacon, not Philip the apostle.” Besides, these are the actions of a young and enthusiastic revivalist, not a senior church leader.

I considered, “Some of those deacons did some pretty great things!”
And as I was thinking this, it seemed that Father whispered, “Correlation is not causation.”

OK, that caught me off guard. I waited. He didn’t say any more, but I realized I was correlating “Philip is a deacon,” with “Philip has some awesome God stories!” 

Both statements are true, but they are not necessarily connected. Just because Phil was a deacon, just because Phil served widows does not explain Phil showing up in the middle of Azotus, dripping wet from the baptism, with no wet footprints behind him. (No wonder people listened to his preaching!)
The principle strikes me as much bigger than Phil’s wet footprints in the desert. 

Just because Jesus spit in the dirt and rubbed the resulting mud in a blind guy’s eyes does not mean that spitting in dirt is the way to heal blindness. [See John 9:6]

Just because Jesus was the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” does not mean that God set Adam & Eve up to fail.

I’ll bet you can think of some other correlations that we are tempted to think of as cause-and-effect stories.

On the other hand, this principle does not prohibit deacons from doing amazing things in God, and does not prohibit God from healing blind eyes with mud. God knowing what’s going to happen does not imply that God caused it to happen.
It seems to me that we’ve been too darned lazy in our faith. We see two things together and we’re quick think “Cause and effect!” And if I’m honest, too many Bible teachers are quick to point out such correlations, because they preach well and because digging deeper is kind of a lot of work! And so we just believe them.

So this is going to be another point in my ongoing story of “Believers need to think for themselves, durn it!” We need to think things through with the insight of Holy Spirit more than … well … more than short-cutting the process.
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EVERY Good Gift

I hold a belief that I don't think I've heard others talk about before. So of course I need to talk about it.

This is one of those things that I *think* I believe. I observe that I live my life as if it's true.

Jesus' younger brother, James said this: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” [James 1:17]

So I've been thinking about that verse for a few years (like you do).

+  *EVERY* good and perfect gift is from Father. If it's a good gift, then Father is behind it. If my Mama gave me a cookie, then I'm (very) careful to thank her for it, but I still figure that God was behind it, because that's who He is. So I give thanks to Him as well.

+ Every gift that comes from Father is good and perfect. This does Not assume that everything that comes into my life comes from God. If it's bringing stealing, killing and/or destruction, then it's from somebody else. What my Father gives is always good and perfect.

+ “Heavenly lights.” I still don’t know what to do with that, so I try not to let it distract me from what God IS saying to me in this. (Don’t get sidetracked on this one, please.)

+ God does not change like shifting shadows. Someone else has said that he’s the same yesterday, today & forever. That works for me.

One of my personal goals is to increase my thankfulness. This integrates with that pretty nicely. Any good thing comes to me, I give thanks to my Father, regardless of who handed it to me.
 
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Jesus Misdirects the Literalists


I recently stumbled over yet another place where Jesus sets up the literalists for failure. It seems he did that a number of times.

One time was in John 2. He had just made a whip out of cords (a slow and tedious process, by the way) and cleaned out the temple of the religious merchants who were taking advantage of the worshipers.

"The Jews" (the religious authority figures) were demanding to know his authority for such a disruptive action; they asked for a sign to demonstrate that authority.

"Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days," he replied [John 2:19]

That's kind of a pretty black-and-white statement, isn't it. There's nothing in the context to give away that this needed to be interpreted metaphorically, though Scripture tells us that detail [2:21].

Now let's be honest, this particular group of people were not experiencing a teachable moment. Rather, this was one of those times that they were not particularly disposed to hearing the truth from him. These people were apparently so committed to their authority (and to their profits) that they were unwilling to hear the truth. So he hides it in metaphor, but he doesn't tell the unteachable ones that he's hiding truth from them.  

Another situation was in John 6, where he was trying to speak truth about spiritual matters to people who had just had one free lunch and were looking for another. These guys were asking for a sign, too (v30), though they were not very subtle about the fact that they really wanted the free lunch (v31), and Jesus knew it (v26).

In all fairness, he spent quite a lot of energy (v35 - 51) trying to communicate actual truth with them. It seems to always happen: when their source of free food made it clear that there will not be any free food today, they turned on him (v51), and so he does it again: he speaks truth in metaphor, but doesn't tell them that it's a metaphor. (If you pay attention, you can maybe see this happening in our Federal government these days, too.)

"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." [John 6:53, and repeatedly through v58].

From the hindsight of the New Covenant and the Last Supper [See Luke 22], we know that he's talking about eating the bread and drinking the cup of the New Covenant; people who do not join with Him in the New Covenant don't have life in them. But they thought he was talking about literal cannibalism, and they had every reason to think that.

But being honest again, this group of people had resisted Jesus' best attempts at making this a teachable moment. These folks had committed themselves inflexibly to one view of Jesus. So again, he hides the truth in metaphor, but he doesn't tell the unteachable ones that he's hiding it from them.

And this is the point where that gets more than usually uncomfortable for me. I've been a rather un-gracious proponent of Biblical Literalism in various points in my history: Interpret it all literally unless it says not to. In fairness, I was reacting to a movement that had explained away all of the supernatural events in the Bible by calling them metaphors for spiritual reality. I didn't like that. (But over-reacting is seldom a successful response.)

And then I realized that Jesus is still in the business of hiding truth in plain sight. From time to time, he still hides the truth in metaphorical (or "apocalyptic" or even "prophetic") language. And he still doesn't tell us that he's doing that.

There are still believers for whom truth is hidden. There are some people who are so committed to their power, their position and their paycheck that despite their words, they don't really want the truth; it might threaten all that. And there are some believers who are so convinced that their view is the right view, so they shut down any truth that challenges that.

Some of these are Christian leaders, and I'm guessing that we could all point to some (but let's not, OK?). And scads of them write books and promote their views on social media, and I'm pretty sure we've all run into some of them.

But the bigger lesson is not for "them." It's for "me" and for "us." Not a one of us is immune from these truth-blinding errors. I guess we need to read the Bible for ourselves and let both Holy Spirit and our brothers & sisters help us see the truth that Jesus has hidden where we least expect it.

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Letters

So Many Rules!


I was thinking about the Old Covenant recently. Why were there so MANY laws and limitations?

I was reflecting that God had offered an AMAZING covenant relationship, very nearly the New Covenant way back then.

“‘Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. ‘And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” [Exodus 19:5-6]
 

The people chickened out, rejected that covenant, and proposed another covenant.

Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” [Exodus 20:19]

It was described more clearly in Deuteronomy:

“Go yourself [Moses] and listen to what the LORD our God says. Then come and tell us everything he tells you, and we will listen and obey.” [Deuteronomy 5:27]

I read that as the establishment of both the priesthood (“Moses, you go talk to God for us!”) and the Law (“You tell us what God says, and we'll do that!”).

And immediately afterwards, there's a mountain of detailed rules and regulations.


My thought has been, “Why would God do that?”

And then I realized: the Law was never intended to be the vehicle for God to relate to people; it was the vehicle for the people to keep God at a safe distance.

So God spiked the punch.

God never intended for the Mosaic Law (“The Old Covenant”) to succeed at forming the relationship between God and man. God intended it to fail (it wasn’t his idea anyway), but in failing, to point to the New Covenant, which now needed to be delayed for a while, until the people were ready for it.

“The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” [Romans 5:20]

“So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” [Galatians 3:24-25]

From that first moment on the mountain in Exodus, God was already planning to make his people ready for REAL covenant, for the New Covenant in Christ.

Dang, he’s amazing.
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Letters

God Reveals His Secrets

“Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” [Amos 3:7]

I woke up with this on my mind recently and I’ve been chewing on it for a while.

The phrase, “his servants the prophets” suggests there are some prophets who are not submitted as servants to him. He apparently doesn’t reveal his secret to them. The gift is not enough; I need to be fully on-board with him.

Application: I don’t need to listen to prophets who are not God’s servants, whether they’ve anointed themselves or they’re servants of something else (Money? Sex? Power?), or they’ve just fallen off the wagon. Discernment (personal & corporate) is a big advantage here.

The same phrase also suggests that there are some servants who are not prophets. In the days of Amos, there were just a few who had God’s spirit and spoke for him; in our days, well he’s instructed every believer to earnestly desire to prophesy [1Corinthians 14:1].

Application: being fully his is not sufficient; prophets need to speak what God says and when he says to. They need to be called for the purpose of speaking his word to the community. More than that, I need to not pay attention to the “prophecies” from God’s people who are not actually anointed by God to speak for him at this time. Discernment is a big advantage here, too.

I'm going to over-simplify this and say that there are things that he doesn’t reveal, except to people who are comfortable hearing his voice and who are fully committed to him.

The other thing that’s captured my attention is the Hebrew word “sôḏ,” which is variously translated “secret,” “plans,” “counsel.” A couple of translations render it “secret counsel” in this verse, which I think is pretty interesting.

Hold on, this might get nerdly for a minute.

Strong defines H5475 (our Hebrew word “sôḏ,”) as “a session, that is, company of persons (in close deliberation); by implication intimacy, consultation, a secret,” and

Gesenius points out that outside of the Bible, the word speaks of a couch, cushion, triclinium, on which persons recline, hence, (1) a sitting together, an assembly, either of friends or of judges, (2) deliberation, counsel, (3) familiar conversation, or (4) a secret.

In any case, this strikes me as a complex word; no wonder there are so many ways to translate it.

But the imagery in Amos is getting clearer: he invites individuals who are fully his and who are comfortable hearing his voice into a quiet place with himself, where he discusses what’s on his heart. And the imagery is pretty clear: this is not one “big guy” dictating what’s going to happen; this is peers in conversation, in dialog, in deliberation together.

And according to Amos, he doesn’t do anything apart from this sort of counsel, without discussing it with these people in this setting.

It could be argued that he has required that it be this way. In the Psalms, he declares that "The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind." [Psalm 115:16] If he takes that seriously, then he has delegated authority for this planet to us, and no good leader delegates authority to someone else and then steps in, usurps the delegate, and does things on his own authority.

So for God to take action in the affairs of Earth, he needs to first discuss his secret counsel with his human friends, who now carry the authority for action on the Earth.

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Letters

God Reveals His Secrets

“Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” [Amos 3:7]

I woke up with this on my mind recently and I’ve been chewing on it for a while.

The phrase, “his servants the prophets” suggests there are some prophets who are not submitted as servants to him. He apparently doesn’t reveal his secret to them. The gift is not enough; I need to be fully on-board with him.

Application: I don’t need to listen to prophets who are not God’s servants, whether they’ve anointed themselves or they’re servants of something else (Money? Sex? Power?), or they’ve just fallen off the wagon. Discernment (personal & corporate) is a big advantage here.

The same phrase also suggests that there are some servants who are not prophets. In the days of Amos, there were just a few who had God’s spirit and spoke for him; in our days, well he’s instructed every believer to earnestly desire to prophesy [1Corinthians 14:1].

Application: being fully his is not sufficient; prophets need to speak what God says and when he says to. They need to be called for the purpose of speaking his word to the community. More than that, I need to not pay attention to the “prophecies” from God’s people who are not actually anointed by God to speak for him at this time. Discernment is a big advantage here, too.

I'm going to over-simplify this and say that there are things that he doesn’t reveal, except to people who are comfortable hearing his voice and who are fully committed to him.

The other thing that’s captured my attention is the Hebrew word “sôḏ,” which is variously translated “secret,” “plans,” “counsel.” A couple of translations render it “secret counsel” in this verse, which I think is pretty interesting.

Hold on, this might get nerdly for a minute.

Strong defines H5475 (our Hebrew word “sôḏ,”) as “a session, that is, company of persons (in close deliberation); by implication intimacy, consultation, a secret,” and

Gesenius points out that outside of the Bible, the word speaks of a couch, cushion, triclinium, on which persons recline, hence, (1) a sitting together, an assembly, either of friends or of judges, (2) deliberation, counsel, (3) familiar conversation, or (4) a secret.

In any case, this strikes me as a complex word; no wonder there are so many ways to translate it.

But the imagery in Amos is getting clearer: he invites individuals who are fully his and who are comfortable hearing his voice into a quiet place with himself, where he discusses what’s on his heart. And the imagery is pretty clear: this is not one “big guy” dictating what’s going to happen; this is peers in conversation, in dialog, in deliberation together.

And according to Amos, he doesn’t do anything apart from this sort of counsel, without discussing it with these people in this setting.

It could be argued that he has required that it be this way. In the Psalms, he declares that "The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind." [Psalm 115:16] If he takes that seriously, then he has delegated authority for this planet to us, and no good leader delegates authority to someone else and then steps in, usurps the delegate, and does things on his own authority.

So for God to take action in the affairs of Earth, he needs to first discuss his secret counsel with his human friends, who now carry the authority for action on the Earth.

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Letters

Moses the Hot Mess

I was talking with God about Exodus 33, one of my favorite conversations in the Old Testament. And if I’m honest, sometimes one of the most confusing.

I was observing that God wasn’t particularly answering that Moses was asking, and then I remembered that Jesus was pretty famous for that, too. “You and your Son don’t like answering questions head-on, do you?”

And to my immense surprise, he didn’t answer my question head-on either. Instead, he took me inside Mo’s heart, inside his soul, and we looked at some of the stuff going on there. And maybe for the first time, I realized how much Mo was a wounded soul.

I mean, look at what he’d been through:

• He was essentially kidnapped by the king’s daughter [Exodus 2:10], raised as a grandson of the maniacal king who was slave master of his entire family [1:11], and appeared to be in the midst of trying to commit genocide on his people’s race [1:22].

• It appears that his genocidal grandfather didn’t know he was actually a member of the race he was trying to exterminate: he lived with a (shameful?) secret his entire life. Some people think he was being groomed to be the next genocidal king in the land.

• He figured out that he was really part of the slave race, presumably from his wet nurse, who was his birth mom, and it appears that he wanted to use his position of power to free them.

• He makes his first attempt toward their freedom [2:12], which a) fails, b) reveals he favors the slave race over the existing power structure, c) alienates the people he’s trying to save [2:14], d) turns his maniacal grandfather against him [2:15], and e) scares the piss out of him [ibid]. He flees for his life.

• He meets strangers in the desert who mis-identify him as a member of the genocidal ruling race [2:19], and he doesn’t correct them.

• He gives up on doing anything important with his life, marries into a family of nomads and settles for being a shepherd on the backside of the desert, for 40 years. (Sounds like a real “death of a vision” to me.)

• On day 14,600 (approximately) of his life as a hopeless, helpless shepherd, he stumbles on an encounter with a God he’s not known [3:2ff], who gives him a quest [3:10] to do the very thing that he had tried to do 40 years earlier. He’s too broken and still too scared to go back, too intimidated to attempt anything that important [3:11].

• So he argues with God, putting up obstacle [3:11] after obstacle [3:13] after obstacle [4:1] after obstacle [4:10] as to why he shouldn’t be expected to do that job.

• He experiences a couple of undeniable miracles [3:2, 4:3, 4:6] there on the mountainside. He believes his fears more than he believes the miracles.

• In the end, he flat-out refuses to comply with God’s instructions. “Send someone else!” [4:13] He pisses God off [4:14], who adds his older brother to the deliverance party.

We could go on. But I began to better understand the whiny tone in Moses’ voice [33:12-16]. And it was at that point that God pointed out that Moses was an 80-year-old broken man, with a lot of un-healed wounds in his soul. He was kind of a dysfunctional mess. An old dysfunctional mess.

And THAT is who God chose to deliver millions of people from arguably the mightiest nation on the planet at the time.

And you know that God made it personal. “If I can use a messed-up man like that (and I heard the tender affection in his “voice”), I can use you just fine, too.”

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Letters

The Bible Contains Lies. It Says So.

The Bible contains lies. It says so. 

Let me back up. I’ve just finished the book of Job. That’s a hard read, for me, anyway. The book has several sections: 

• Chapters 1&2: The Set Up. The conversations in Heaven between God and the devil (that Job never knows about!), and the resulting destruction of Job’s life.

• Chapters 3 – 31: Job arguing with his “friends,” Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. Mostly, Job is proclaiming his innocence and these three are telling him what God is like and why Job is wrong. 

• Chapters 32 – 37: The lecture from “Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite, of the family of Ram.” Mostly, he’s defending God. 

• Chapters 38 – 41: God speaks up. Essentially, “This is above your pay grade, Son,” but how beautifully he says it! 

• Chapter 42: Job repents, God chews out Eliphaz, Bildad & Zophar, God restores Job. 

The verse that stuck out to me most strongly this time was this:

"After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” [Job 42:7]

And I realized that God just declared that much of Job 3 – Job 31 is “not the truth” about God. That means there are lies there! In the Bible! <Gasp!>

(He also declares that Job was telling the truth when he protested that he was innocent in his suffering.)

So God says at least 29 chapters of my Bible contain lies. That’s worth thinking about. 

Keep in mind that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” [2 Timothy 3:16-17] 

So it’s “God-breathed.” Other translations read “given by inspiration of God or “breathed out by God.” But that doesn’t mean that every word is literally true or actually factual. It means that it’s inspired by God, motivated by God through the men who wrote the stuff down. It’s still profitable for teaching, rebuking & correcting, certainly.

But not every bit of Scripture is actually, factually correct, at least not these 29 chapters in Job. Don’t get me wrong: the Bible is telling the truth when it records the lies these yahoos are telling about God. But they are still lies, and they’re still in the Bible. 

I wonder if there are other places, passages that are also inspired by God, where Scripture (accurately) records people saying stupid things, untrue things? (And I won’t even get into the question of where God is speaking metaphorically or symbolically.) 

The Bible contains lies. It says so. 

So apparently, more skill is required when employing the Bible than merely swallowing everything whole. That’s kind of true for all of life, isn’t it?


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