Author Archives: Christopher J Wiles

Unknown's avatar

About Christopher J Wiles

Hey there. My name's Chris. I'm a teaching pastor at Tri-State Fellowship, and a research writer for Docent Research Group. Thanks for stopping by; be sure to stay connected by subscribing to blog updates and more.

Myth 1: A disciple is someone who “has it all together.” (Matthew 7, Titus 3)

Posted on by
Reply

A major goal throughout this series will be to tear down and deconstruct the various cultural “myths” we tend to believe as Christians.  Where do these myths come from?  Well, they’re mostly bits and fragments that emerge from the evangelical sub-culture.  If we’re not careful, we can allow these myths to craft a form of Christianity that is less an avenue of conversion but an enemy to conversion.  And—if you think about it—what better tool could the devil have in his arsenal than to convert God’s people to a form of Christianity shaped more by culture than it wields the power of the gospel.

The first myth we’re tackling is a simple one: that a “disciple” means someone who “has it all together.” What is a “disciple?”  A disciple—at its most basic—is a student, usually of one particular person.  Jesus wasn’t the first to have disciples.  His cousin John the Baptist had disciples.  Many rabbis (Jewish religious teachers) had groups of disciples that spent their days at their sides.  And long before that, Greek philosophers had students who would literally follow them around, listening to their teaching.  It was known as the peripatetic school—from a Greek word that literally meant “to walk around.”  So to be a student had more meaning than today.  It wasn’t about waking up and attending a class for an hour or so.  It was a lifestyle of staying close to the side of the teacher.  It was therefore about intellect as well as character.

Of course, in today’s thinking, we have a mental portrait of what we think a student of Jesus should be.  Probably someone overtly “religious,” a sort of “Ned Flanders” type who has it all together: right answers, church attendance, and a list of good deeds under his belt.

But the Sermon on the Mount is arranged such that it concludes with a warning against religious hypocrisy.  In this passage, Jesus tells the crowds:

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:21-23)

In his commentary on Matthew, D.A. Carson observes that in Jesus’ day, the word “Lord” would not have been widely understood.  But at the time Matthew was writing—some 30 years after Jesus’ resurrection—the people would have understood the word “Lord” as having the same import as the word LORD in the Old Testament.  So for a person to call Jesus “Lord” meant they understood their theology quite well: Jesus was God in the flesh.

But their devotion didn’t stop at the level of intellect, but penetrated to the level of emotion.  They didn’t just call Jesus “Lord;” they called Him “Lord, Lord.”  In Semitic culture, the repetition of a name was meant to convey emotion (Luke records a story wherein Jesus conveys His concern for a woman by repeating her name: “Martha, Martha”).  This was an expression of emotion.  These were folks who raised their hands during worship and wept during prayer.

So these folks had an intellectual knowledge of Jesus, they had an emotional connection to God, but finally, they had a track record of obedient service.  They “cast out demons,” they did “mighty works.”  These were the folks who taught Sunday School and volunteered for short-term missions work.

What portrait do we get?  We get someone who had a set of right beliefs, emotions that leaned toward God, and a list of good religious deeds.  And it’s at this point that you and I should start to feel ourselves break out in a cold sweat, because if we’ve spent any time in a church then there’s a very good chance that we, too, possess intellectual knowledge, emotional conviction, and a devotion to service.  But Jesus says these kinds of people aren’t worthy to be called His disciples.  But why?  The answer is hinted at in the next section:

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

It’s natural to assume that Jesus was using the word “rock” in the same sense as other Biblical writers.  David, for instance, referred to God as his “rock” and “fortress” (Psalm 18:2).  So what is Jesus saying?  To obey Jesus—to truly be a follower of Jesus—means to trust not in the shifting sands of my own achievements (intellectual or otherwise), but rest solely on the character of God.

This is why Jesus’ reference to suffering is such a big deal.  “Crises reveal character,” wrote C.S. Lewis.  Suffering strips away all of the things we naturally cling to, exposing our true source of confidence and trust.  Our happiness can be swept away like the sands beneath a flood.  But trusting in the gospel—in the rock-steady character of God—leaves us prepared for anything.

This is why Paul would later write a letter to Titus, encouraging him in his ministry to stand strong in the face of the shifting sands of cultural opposition and false religious teaching.  In Titus 3, Paul starts by encouraging Christian character in the political sphere:

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, 2 to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.  (Titus 3:1-2)

This seems generally wise, of course, until we realize that Paul understood the basis for this—and all human conduct—as rooted in the gospel:

3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. (Titus 3:3-8)

Titus 3:5 will become sort of our “theme verse” in these next several weeks.  This, this is the rock on which we stand.  The tragedy of contemporary Christianity is that we’ve dismissed the gospel as elementary when it should be elemental.  We’ve convinced ourselves that the gospel is about a sinner’s prayer at the beginning of our spiritual life, and then we move on to the serious work of becoming a “good” person.  But if we don’t allow the gospel to shape every aspect of our lives, then we effectively step off the solid rock and into the shifting sands of human experience and self-righteousness.

In the coming weeks, we’ll explore how the gospel changes the way we approach such things as the spiritual disciplines, evangelism, personal holiness, etc.  Discipleship isn’t about “working harder” or “being really hard on myself.”  Instead it’s about trusting in what God has done for us—and trusting in what God can do with us, and through us.

“The Romance of the Fragment” (Romans 5)

Posted on by
1

Tragedy happens quickly; restoration takes its time.

The taller and more narrow our pedestal, the greater our chances of falling to the earth in a clamor of dust and ash.  Just ask Adam—a 500-year-old sculpture by Renaissance master Tullio Lombardo.  The sculpture of Adam was on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City when it mysteriously crashed to the ground, shattering into literally hundreds of pieces.  Carol Vogel’s 2014 article in The New York Times was—perhaps appropriately—entitled: “Recreating Adam, From Hundreds of Pieces, After the Fall:”

“What followed was more than a decade of painstaking restoration that was unprecedented in the Met’s history. The project took so long there were rumors that the statue was beyond repair….In decades past, museums would have also restored a damaged work of art in a way that got it back on view as quickly as possible. In the case of a massive marble sculpture like Adam, conservators would have resorted to using iron or steel pins that required drilling many of the sculpture’s joints. But such invasive work can be risky, curators said, potentially harming the marble….Nobody at the Met thought that the process would take 12 years. But [the Met’s director] reiterated in a recent interview, that he wanted Adam ‘brought back to a state where only [art insiders] could tell anything had happened.’”

Vogel reports that experts in the field describe such restoration projects as “the cutting edge of art history.”  Restorers speak of “the romance of the fragment,” the re-assembly of damaged pieces to make the artwork whole again.

Yet for us—all of Adam’s true daughters and sons—there can be no “romance of the fragment,” no possible way of assembling our disjointed thoughts into a cohesive whole.  In fact, our every medicine seemingly only causes more illness.  Even in our best moments we are dimly aware that we are broken, beyond repair.  Our attempts to find wholeness through career, through relationships, through sex, through sports, through artistic triumph—even through religious devotion—only magnifies our brokenness, like children gluing pieces of china together in hopes our parents won’t notice the cracks in the dinner plates.

Malcolm Muggeridge—the twentieth century journalist—once remarked that original sin is the doctrine most often denied, yet the one most easily proven.  Just turn on your television set, and your living room will flicker with the evidence of a world where Adam’s legacy may be seen and felt.  Yet the problem is never simply “out there,” out in the world, someone else’s problem.  No; the problem goes deeper.  As a Russian writer once put it, “the line between good and evil runs through every human heart.”

We’re speaking, of course, of the nature of original sin.  When Paul summarized the gospel of the people of Rome, he described it as a glorious exchange.  Or—more specifically—a series of exchanges.

THE FIRST EXCHANGE: ADAM TO US

First, Adam’s rebellion in the garden was passed on to us:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because wall sinned—13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. (Romans 5:12-14)

We are all the products of a fatal, genetic error.  The early Church called this “original sin,” a doctrine that states that sin is more than just what we do; sin is something we are.  We are “polluted in father and mother,” wrote Origen, a member of the early Church.  If this is true, then we can’t possibly defend ourselves as merely being “born this way,” or the products of heredity and environment.  No; we are guilty by simple virtue of being born.

But, you might object, surely that’s unfair.  In Western societies, we tend to think of responsibility as personal.  If my brother, father, sister, etc. commits a crime, I am not guilty—unless I participate.  So to be condemned for Adam’s sin seems unfair.  But this assumes you haven’t yourself participated in the same kind of rebellion that Adam did—or that even from birth you have a desire for self-indulgence.

Gary Willis says it best:

“We are hostages to each other in a deadly interrelatedness.  There is no ‘clean slate’ of nature unscribbled on by all one’s forebears….At one time a woman of unsavory enough experience was delicately but cruelly referred to as ‘having a past.’  The doctrine of original sin states that humankind, in exactly that sense, ‘has a past.’”  (Gary Willis, Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home, p. 384)

THE SECOND EXCHANGE: OUR SIN TO CHRIST

Paul writes:

15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:15-17)

The gospel is a glorious exchange, wherein my wickedness—the same “reputation” I earned from Adam—is given to Jesus.  On the cross, Jesus paid the penalty for my depravity.  And, in return…

THE THIRD EXCHANGE: CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS TO US

When Christ takes our sin, so too does he impart to us His righteousness:

 18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for fall men.19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:18-21)

Christian thinkers have termed this as the doctrine of “imputation,” the process by which each of these exchanges takes place.  The imputation of Christ’s righteousness, we might say, is what puts back together the image that was broken.

And that’s why Luke, in writing his biography of Jesus, would extend Christ’s genealogy all the way back to “Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:38).  For Luke, both Adam and Jesus were “sons of God”—though each in their own unique way.  But while the first Adam would result in ruin, the second Adam would bring about restoration.  For the first Adam, what began in a garden resulted in a graveyard.  But for the second Adam, what began in the graveyard would result in a garden.

“The deformity of Christ forms you,” wrote Saint Augustine.  And he was right.  If Jesus was broken so that I could be made whole, it liberates me from trying to reassemble the pieces on my own.  I am set free from the “romance of the fragment,” a romance that leads only to codependency and grief.  Instead, I may begin each day with joy, knowing my identity no longer comes from Adam, no longer comes from my career, no longer comes from a shameful past, no longer comes from my need for relationship, for sex, for sports victories—no longer comes externally at all.  Instead, my identity comes from Jesus, whose once-for-all sacrifice undoes the years of grief, and fills in my broken cracks with grace.  And life.  And joy.

 

Boundless Love (Ruth 4)

Posted on by
Reply

Love is never truly blind.  In recent years, marriage has become the latest boundary between social classes—the privileged elite more likely to marry than those living in poverty.  In 2012, the New York Times reported that in addition to this, Americans tend not to marry outside of their social class, only reinforcing the growing socioeconomic rift:

College-educated Americans…are increasingly likely to marry one another, compounding their growing advantages in pay. Less-educated women…who left college without finishing her degree, are growing less likely to marry at all, raising children on pinched paychecks that come in ones, not twos.

Estimates vary widely, but scholars have said that changes in marriage patterns — as opposed to changes in individual earnings — may account for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of inequality. Long a nation of economic extremes, the United States is also becoming a society of family haves and family have-nots, with marriage and its rewards evermore confined to the fortunate classes. (Jason DeParle, “Two Classes, Divided By ‘I Do,’ in The New York Times, July 14, 2012)

Opposites—including sociological opposites—never really attract, do they?  This is why it’s a common trope in love stories and fairy tales for a rich man or a king to stoop to marrying a mere peasant.  Think Cinderella.  We love tales of overlooked women moving from rags to riches.  If we stop and think about it, it’s actually quite condescending—not to mention a little sexist.   So why would this cultural trope persist?  I’d like to think it’s because we recognize a kindness inherent to the gentlemen of these stories, men who set aside cultural limitations and bias to heroically choose the maiden.  We love thinking that love—like beauty—can’t be limited by economics and social class.

So in the story of Ruth and Boaz, we can’t help but love the way Boaz sets aside any cultural barriers that might otherwise be in place, and do whatever it takes to “redeem” Ruth—that is, to marry her by securing Elimelech’s land.  It’s a business transaction, really.  But as we observed yesterday, there’s something radically subversive about the way we see true love flourish beneath the unpolished cultural surface.   In Ruth 4, we see this transaction take place at the city gates—actually a small architectural enclave where business was regularly conducted.  Think of it as sort of an ancient version of City Hall:

Now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there. And behold, the redeemer, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. So Boaz said, “Turn aside, friend; sit down here.” And he turned aside and sat down. 2 And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said, “Sit down here.” So they sat down.3 Then he said to the redeemer, “Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech.4 So I thought I would tell you of it and say, ‘Buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people.’ If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not, tell me, that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it, and I come after you.” And he said, “I will redeem it.” 5 Then Boaz said, “The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance.” 6 Then the redeemer said, “I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it.”

Do you hear what’s going on here?  The “redeemer” had the right to purchase the land—but wait, Boaz notes: Ruth comes with it.  Reluctant to take on this wife, the redeemer politely passes.  Boaz is now free to purchase the land—and in “redeeming” the land, he acquires Ruth as his wife.

7 Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging: to confirm a transaction, the one drew off his sandal and gave it to the other, and this was the manner of attesting in Israel. 8 So when the redeemer said to Boaz, “Buy it for yourself,” he drew off his sandal. 9 Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, “You are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and to Mahlon. 10 Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place. You are witnesses this day.”11 Then all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem, 12 and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.”

The text notes the cultural custom.  In a pre-modern world there were no contracts to sign.  So they would often seal the deal with some visual demonstration in the eyes of witnesses.  Commentators note that the practice would vary, but in this case the removal of Boaz’ shoe was intended to be a pledge to make good on his plans to purchase the land and marry Ruth.

13 So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. 14 Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! 15 He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” 16 Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. 17 And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

The story now culminates in the ultimate purpose: to show how God—working seemingly “behind the scenes”—used these unusual circumstances to continue His mission to bring all men back to Himself.  And, ultimately, the original readers would recognize the way these events secured the lineage of King David:

18 Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez fathered Hezron, 19 Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amminadab, 20 Amminadab fathered Nahshon, Nahshon fathered Salmon, 21 Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, 22 Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.

If these last verses sound familiar, it’s because you might remember the way they repeat in the opening verses of Matthew:

2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram,] 4 and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of David the king. (Matthew 1:2-6)

But there’s something even deeper—even more spectacular than all of that.  It’s that Jesus is the true and better Boaz, who pays the price to redeem His bride, the Church.  As Paul writes, “He has purchased us with His blood” (Colossians 1:14-24).  Jesus is the ultimate redeemer—paying the price on the cross so that we could be brought into fellowship and glorious relationship.  And here’s the most amazing part: this union was brought about through love, through mercy.  None of us are in God’s social or economic “class” in any sense of the word.  No; we are unworthy of the redemption freely offered through God’s grace alone.  But instead He came to us, He died for us, so that we might be enabled to live for Him.

Does God Help Those Who Help Themselves? (Ruth 3)

Posted on by
Reply

Does God “meet us halfway?”  I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said that “God helps those who help themselves,” a phrase that’s become so commonplace I suspect many are surprised to learn it’s not actually in the Bible(!).  Humans have a deeply-ingrained sense of fairness.  In October of 2014, NBC News reported findings of a study that shows humans are naturally wired to be gratified by “fairness:”

“You might expect that deep inside the human cortex, the brain generally acts to maximize rewards for itself. But new research shows that the same part of the brain that lights up when a person is rewarded for their work, the striatum, responds more when that award is fair. This suggests that we have an inbuilt idea of fairness as well as a learned one.” (from: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/human-brain-finds-fairness-naturally-rewarding-study-n230021)

What—if anything—does this have to do with religion?  We expect God to play “fair,” to reward our faith with an equal measure of blessing.  So when blessings occur, we feel a natural sense of pride at having deserved such a reward.  And when blessings seem absent, we might feel a sense of guilt or injustice over not having achieved what we expected.

In the story of Ruth and Boaz, we find a curious mixture of God’s power and human responsibility.  It’s mysterious, truly—and a relationship that the Bible never fully reconciles.  As we observed previously, the story of Ruth unveils the fact that God is orchestrating the events of human life in such a way that what seems random is actually within the sovereign control of God.

So now that Ruth has met Boaz, Naomi sees before her an opportunity.  It’s time to play matchmaker:

 Then Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, should I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you? 2 Is not Boaz our relative, with whose young women you were? See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. 3 Wash therefore and anoint yourself, and put on your cloak and go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. 4 But when he lies down, observe the place where he lies. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do.” 5 And she replied, “All that you say I will do.”

What’s going on here?  In his commentary on Ruth, Robert L. Hubbard observes the way that Naomi’s plan and God’s actions are beginning to flow together:

“Earlier Naomi had wished for these same things (1:8-9). Here human means (i.e., Naomi’s plan) carry out something previously understood to be in [God’s] province. In response to providentially given opportunity, Naomi began to answer her own prayer! Thus she models one way in which divine and human actions work together: believers are not to wait passively for events to happen; rather, they must seize the initiative when an opportunity presents itself.” (Robert L. Hubbard, The Book of Ruth, p. 199)

So her mother hatches this elaborate plan for Ruth to get Boaz to notice her—an event that’s become a common illustration in every bad Christian dating book ever sense.  I mean, this is where things get weird.  Naomi’s plan is for Ruth to put on her best party dress, a pair of heels and some mascara and go down to where Boaz is working.  She was then supposed to “uncover his feet.”  Now, here’s where interpreters like to point out that maybe this is getting a little risqué.  It’s possible—but only possible—that “uncover the feet” is referring to a lot more than just his legs (sorry; I only point this out because, again, a lot of bad Christian books have said exactly that).  But all we really need to see is that Ruth is supposed to uncover his robe a bit, then lay down at his feet.  It was an act of both submission and devotion—a way of communicating to Boaz, “Hey; I know I lost my husband, but I’m ready to move on if you wanna buy me dinner.”

Of course, that’s not to say the act wasn’t at least a little scandalous.  I remember my Hebrew professor pointing out that at the threshing floor, where kernels and chaff would separate in the winds, there was literally “fertility in the air.”  We’re meant to see romance and risk involved here.  And, what’s more, we can’t even point to some cultural reason why Naomi gets this idea in her head.  In his commentary, Leon Morris points out: “…why it should be done in this way we do not know. Nor do we know whether this was a widely practiced custom or not. It is not attested other than here.” (Leon Morris, “Ruth” in Judges-Ruth, p. 287)

Ruth obeys dutifully, waiting for Boaz to fall asleep before going in, uncovering his feet and then laying down (don’t miss the exclamation mark in our English text in verse 8):

6 So she went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had commanded her. 7 And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. 8 At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! 9 He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” 10 And he said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. 11 And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman. 12 And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. 13 Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning.”

Ruth’s request is that Boaz spread his cloak over both of them.  The symbolism is clear, even to modern eyes.  She’s asking for a marriage proposal.  And Boaz is upstanding enough not to give her one, until he’s absolutely sure he’s the right man for the job.  There may, after all, be someone else who is closer to her and may have the “right” to marry her.  I know that sounds sociologically backward to today’s readers—and certainly a bit sexist.  But I’d love to point out the way that this story seems to be culturally subversive in its portrayal of women.  Despite all the ways that a patriarchal society has worked against Naomi and Ruth, God provides for them through his sovereignty.  Even the kindness of Boaz is ultimately seen as directed by the hand of God.

We’re left to understand that nothing untoward happened between the couple that night, though Ruth returns home early enough to avoid suspicion.  I can’t help but picture Naomi sitting in the kitchen in her bathrobe—pot of coffee on—waiting to ask: “Soooo…how was your date?  Did you uncover his feet?”  “Moooom!  You’re so embarrassing!”

14 So she lay at his feet until the morning, but arose before one could recognize another. And he said, “Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.” 15 And he said, “Bring the garment you are wearing and hold it out.” So she held it, and he measured out six measures of barley and put it on her. Then she went into the city. 16 And when she came to her mother-in-law, she said, “How did you fare, my daughter?” Then she told her all that the man had done for her, 17 saying, “These six measures of barley he gave to me, for he said to me, ‘You must not go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law.’”18 She replied, “Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out, for the man will not rest but will settle the matter today.”

Naomi has a high view of Boaz.  She knows he’ll be true to his word, and the matter would be resolved—hopefully in their favor—that day.

What lessons are there for us?  Most of us won’t be put in a weird situation like this.  But we can trust in the providence of a God who offers us shelter, security, protection—not because we’re good but because He’s God.

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty  He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge… (Psalm 91:1, 4)

So let’s get serious for a minute.  What about this story seems fair to you?  At what point is God merely helping a young woman who helped herself?   Sure, we see risks taken, and the promise of reward suspended above her head.  But ultimately we must equally see the way that up until this point, so much has rested in the hands of a God who brought her up to a point when such a risk could even be taken.

In the eighteenth century, a famous preacher named Jonathan Edwards suggested that perhaps both man and God are active in our lives:

“In efficacious grace we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some and we do the rest. But God does all, and we do all. God produces all, we act all….God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are in different respects, wholly passive and wholly active.”

I don’t know how else to put it, really.  More recently, Dallas Willard wrote that “grace is opposed to earning, but it is not opposed to effort.”  Indeed.  The miracle of the gospel—the miracle of Christmas, for that matter—is that God steps in.  He doesn’t meet us halfway.  He doesn’t wait until we’re out of the margins of life before He reaches in to help us.  And the most beautiful treasure of all is not merely that God offers us blessing, but that God is our blessing.  He arrives in a lowly manger, He ascends to the agony of a cross, and He promises a return, when all things shall be new again.

Signs and Wonders (Ruth 2)

Posted on by
Reply

Does life have meaning?  Purpose?  Or is it all just one big accident?  When we find ourselves in the margins of life—caught somewhere between expectation and reality—we find ourselves asking: “Is God in this?”

Few today would agree that our world has any intrinsic purpose or meaning.  Terrorist attacks, an unstable stock market, rising divorce rates—all of these have had a profound psychological impact on western civilization. In a 2012 article in the New York Times, Todd and Victoria Buchholz noted that among young people, the word “random…has morphed from a precise statistical term to an all-purpose phrase that stresses the illogic and coincidence of life.” While the generation of the 1960’s could still express some measure of idealism, today’s world is fraught with pessimism and uncertainty.  Life, at its core, is unpredictable.

What, then, becomes of faith?  If life is full of uncertainty, if meaning is in the eye of the beholder, then Christianity—nay, all religion—shrinks to the level of mere therapy.  A beautiful dream—but nothing more than an opiate to numb ourselves to the problems of our world.

Yet are we really satisfied with such a bleak description?  Of course not; this is arguably why we remain captivated by the power of story.  In his 2004 book Jesus Goes to Harvard, cultural analyst Harvey Cox writes that stories represent a “common vocabulary.”  Though the students of his Harvard University classroom have been taught to be suspicious of “absolute truth,” deep down they seem to recognize that “there [is] something fundamentally inadequate about moral relativism.”   Indeed, our world’s most enduring stories—such as the Star Wars saga, or Lord of the Rings—open to us a world of depth and meaning, calling us subtly toward a truth bigger and better than any celluloid fantasy.

This is why the stories of Scripture become so valuable.  For in these pages we find a world sensitized to the beautiful way that God enters into the human situation, to set us free from the dolor and lifelessness of a world without meaning.

Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. 2 And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” 3 So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. 4 And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.” 5 Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?”6 And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.7 She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.”

In his analysis of Ruth, Ronald Hals points out just how great this story is:

“…the author’s real meaning in 2:3b is actually the opposite of what he says. The labelling [sic] of Ruth’s meeting with Boaz as ‘chance’ is nothing more than the author’s way of saying that no human intent was involved. For Ruth and Boaz it was an accident, but not for God.” (Ronald Hals, A Theology of the Book of Ruth, p. 61)

Is it possible there’s no such thing as chance?  Is it possible that God is already at work—seeking to reverse the fortunes of this young woman and her family?

8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. 9 Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.” 10 Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” 11 But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. 12 The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” 13 Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.”

14 And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over.15 When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. 16 And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.”

Boaz is impressed with Ruth.  In part this is due to her hard work ethic, and I think it adds a human touch—maybe even a comedic one—that he seems really into the fact that she’s such a hard worker.  Some guys like broad shoulders, I guess.

17 So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. 18 And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. 19 And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” 20 And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.” 21 And Ruth the Moabite said, “Besides, he said to me, ‘You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’” 22 And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted.” 23 So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

Ruth and Naomi’s fortunes are starting to turn.  For the first time, the story begins to ascend out from the margins and into the light.  Can God do the same for us?  Deep down, this is what every human heart longs for.  Yet for many of us, we’ve yet to really wrap our minds around the sheer absurdity of our circumstances.

In the 2002 film Signs, Mel Gibson plays a former minister who lost his faith.  When strange lights appear in the skies overhead, the world is gripped by fear.  Gibson’s character comforts his brother:

“People break down into two groups. When they experience something lucky, group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance. I’m sure the people in group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way. For them, the situation is a fifty-fifty. Could be bad, could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they’re on their own. And that fills them with fear…But there’s a whole lot of people in group number one. When they see those fourteen lights, they’re looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever’s going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope. See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?”

Is it possible that there are no coincidences?  I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason, but I don’t believe that there’s any such thing as mere accidents.  God is weaving a great story in which each of us has a part.  It’s a story about Jesus—the center and focus of all human history—yet in an incredible act of grace God allows us to be a part of this story, to allow Christ to be the “author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1).  Don’t live life as if it were random.  Don’t live life as if it were mere chance.  Live instead as if all of life were a gift from God, and live as if all of life were a chance for love.

 

It’s a Not-so-wonderful Life (Ruth 1)

Posted on by
2

“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.”  These immortal words were spoken by little Zuzu, played by Karolyn Grimes in the beloved Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life.  But for Grimes, “life has never been wonderful.”  In a 2011 interview with NBC news, she chronicles the death of her parents at age 12, her upbringing by her religiously-strict aunt and uncle, her husband’s cancer, her son’s suicide.  Yet she could always find comfort in looking back at the film that granted her early fame:

“It’s not a Christmas movie, not a movie about Jesus or Bethlehem or anything religious like that…It’s about how we have to face life with a lot of uncertainty, and even though nobody hears it, most of us ask God to show us the way when things get really hard… and (like in the film) it can be in Martini’s (bar), not a church on Christmas.”

Many people in our world feel the same—that religion has let them down, that Christmas can’t possibly bring us the joy it promises, as though Hallmark had written a check reality could never cash.

Jesus’ family tree contains a similar story.  In Matthew 1:5 we read that Jesus’ genealogy contains “Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth…”

The story of Ruth is a story of faith in hard times, of finding joy even in the margins.  The story is set during the time of the Judges, and its opening chapter deals a shocking blow as we narrow our focus to the characters of Naomi and Ruth:

In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, 5 and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

In a primitive, patriarchal society, this was harsh news—and in some ways represented a possible death sentence.  Without the support and security of husbands, these women were forced to fend for themselves—made all the worse by the fact that “there was a famine in the land” (Ruth 1:1).

What would become of Naomi’s daughters-in-law now that their husbands had passed on?

6 Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. 7 So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.8 But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9 The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. 10 And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.”11 But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? 12 Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons,13 would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” 14 Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

In his commentary on Ruth, Frederic Bush observes that given the primitive living conditions of the ancient world, it’s understandable that these women would abandon their mother-in-law in favor of finding their own security.  In some ways, it’s almost like on the airplane when you’re told that in an emergency, you should secure your own oxygen mask before you try and assist someone else.  But at the same time, we may marvel at the faith of Ruth—who clings, we’re told, to Naomi even though she’s not flesh-and-blood.

15 And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” 16 But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” 18 And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.

Now the story has established this elegant yet sad partnership of Naomi and Ruth.  Like some men come to a funeral, these two women came to the town of Bethlehem.

19 So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” 20 She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21 I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

22 So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

In the ancient world, names could often be used to reveal (or at least reflect) the contents of your heart.  So Naomi changed her name from Naomi (which meant “sweetness” or “pleasantness”) to Mara (meaning “bitter”).

At this point in the story, we find no real hope of resolution.  And perhaps we needn’t search for one.  The story, of course, is not over, but we remain confronted by the reality that life will not always bring comfort or immediate satisfaction.  Suffering is a part of life—part of the Christian journey, in fact.  Disappointment haunts us; anxiety lurks around every bend.  At Christmastime, these emotions become magnified by memories of loss, and reminders of failure.  The Christmas cards you sign by yourself—and not with your husband or wife.  The mantle that features one fewer stocking than last year—or the dinner table with one less plate.  Go through these experiences—endure these hardships—and Naomi’s name-change will no longer seem so strange.  Freud once argued that when we lose someone, we mourn not just the loss of the person but the loss of our role in relationship to that person.  He used the example of mothers who lost sons during wars.  These mothers grieve not just their sons, but also their identity as mothers.  Naomi experienced this same thing—and perhaps you do, too.  She missed her husband, she missed her sons—but she also had to grieve the fact that she was no longer a wife or a mother.

We can be thankful, then, that in our suffering we can still cling to the hope that we are adopted into God’s family.  Our earthly identities—whether as parents or spouses—may shift with the harsh winds of time and pain.  But the enduring truth is that we may count ourselves connected to God and his great family of believers.

And we can be all the more confident that God’s story hasn’t finished yet.  It’s no accident that the church historically celebrated “Advent”—looking not just to Jesus’ first coming, but his second.  A time when all would be made new.  When death and pain would be conquered.  Christmas—insofar as it is a day on the calendar—cannot possibly contain all of this hope.  All of this joy.  We must therefore learn to suffer as we look forward to this new day.

Just hold on.  Try to hold on.

When the Bible is NSFW (Genesis 38)

Posted on by
Reply

There are some stories that fall into the category of “Not Safe for Work.”  On the internet, people often use the acronym “NSFW” to describe websites or articles that might offend one’s employers.  It’s not always what you think.  Some sites earn the label just by containing a PG-13 level of harsh language, or—in the case of news reports—by describing events of a particularly horrific nature.

It may surprise us that not only is the Bible “not safe for work,” but neither is Jesus’ family tree.  There are a number of stories and unsavory characters embedded in Jesus’ genealogy, and much of our attention will be given to some of their stories.  Today—as with last Sunday’s sermon—we will be giving attention to the story of Tamar, from Matthew 1:3, where Matthew includes “Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar.”

The book of Genesis details the story of God establishing not only the natural world, but also a people for himself.  Through a man named Abraham, God established a plan for his people—a promise of land, descendants, and blessings forevermore.  This meant that for God to keep his promises, the genetic line would have to be maintained from Abraham onward—which is actually what we see happening in Jesus’ genealogy.  So the story of Tamar is about God’s determined plan to make that happen by any means necessary.

Now mind you, the story of Genesis 38 takes place over the span of about 20 years, so if some of these events seem sudden it’s because the narration has been compressed for simplicity:

It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. 2 There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua. He took her and went in to her, 3 and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er.4 She conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. 5 Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shelah. Judah was in Chezib when she bore him.

So far, we have Judah and his three sons: Er, Onan and Shelah.

6 And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 7 But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. 8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” 9 But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother’s wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. 10 And what he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also. 11 Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house, till Shelah my son grows up”—for he feared that he would die, like his brothers. So Tamar went and remained in her father’s house.

Tamar got married to Er, but for reasons left unstated he displeased the Lord and was put to death.  Now, in that era the brother-in-law would be expected to step up and marry the widow.  Onan did just that.  But as we see from the text—and yes, this is the “NSFW” part, amiright?—Onan wanted to enjoy the benefits of marriage without the responsibility of being a Dad.  So God took him out as well.  So if Tamar was to have a child—and, in so doing, continuing Abraham’s genetic line, which was part of God’s master plan—it would have to be through Shelah.  But Judah was a little nervous.  Tamar didn’t have the best track record when it came to husbands.   So he insisted she wait until “Shelah…grows up.”

12 In the course of time the wife of Judah, Shua’s daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 13 And when Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep,” 14 she took off her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage.    15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 He turned to her at the roadside and said, “Come, let me come in to you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?” 17 He answered, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.” And she said, “If you give me a pledge, until you send it—” 18 He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She replied, “Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and went in to her, and she conceived by him. 19 Then she arose and went away, and taking off her veil she put on the garments of her widowhood.

Notice verse 14 specifies that Shelah was now grown up.  But Judah failed to keep his word.  Tamar was still single.  How would Abraham’s genetic line be preserved?  How would God maintain his promises?

Tamar exacted a plan by which she would conceive by Judah—that’s right, her father-in-law (did we mention this story isn’t quite “safe for work?”).  Doing so was her last recourse to ensure that Abraham’s line would continue through her—especially now that Judah’s wife was dead.  In his commentary on Genesis, Allen Ross notes:

“The text of Scripture does not cast any moral judgment on Tamar…It is not appropriate to judge her by Christian ethics, for in her culture at that time, her actions, though very dangerous for her, were within the law.  She had the right to have a child by the nearest of kin to her deceased husband.  She played on the vice of Judah to bear this child, and her deceptions worked.”  (Allen Ross, Creation and Blessing, p. 616-17)

In other words, we may find this a bit…icky…but Tamar basically did what she had to do.

 

20 When Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite to take back the pledge from the woman’s hand, he did not find her. 21 And he asked the men of the place, “Where is the cult prostitute who was at Enaim at the roadside?” And they said, “No cult prostitute has been here.” 22 So he returned to Judah and said, “I have not found her. Also, the men of the place said, ‘No cult prostitute has been here.’” 23 And Judah replied, “Let her keep the things as her own, or we shall be laughed at. You see, I sent this young goat, and you did not find her.”

 

24 About three months later Judah was told, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality.” And Judah said, “Bring her out, and let her be burned.” 25 As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, “By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.” And she said, “Please identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.” 26 Then Judah identified them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not know her again.

 

27 When the time of her labor came, there were twins in her womb. 28 And when she was in labor, one put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.” 29 But as he drew back his hand, behold, his brother came out. And she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself!” Therefore his name was called Perez. 30 Afterward his brother came out with the scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah.

 

Judah was busted.  His moral outrage over Tamar only revealed his own hypocrisy.  Yet the most astonishing thing is that through Tamar’s actions the genetic line was preserved.  And, as we now see, this story became woven into the story of Jesus.

 

Where do we see the gospel in such a bizarre story?  It’s simple, really.  Jesus is the true and better Shelah.  Judah had withheld his only remaining son from her, because he viewed her as an unworthy bride.  God the Father did not withhold his only Son, because he knew it was the only way to redeem the unworthy bride—that is, the Church (Ephesians 5:25-27).

 

Paul writes that God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:31).  This is the message of Christmas: that God sent his only Son into the world that his death would pay the penalty for man’s sin—and in his second coming would restore the whole world.

 

 

Jacob and the life of faith (Genesis 48)

Posted on by
Reply
From left: Trent Williams, Luke Greffen, Chris Wiles, and Nathan Buchman at the Youth for Christ Scott Frey Golf Classic.

From left: Trent Williams, Luke Greffen, Chris Wiles, and Nathan Buchman at the Youth for Christ Scott Frey Golf Classic.

This past Fall, I played golf for the first time.  How’d I do?  Well, if you know me, let’s just say I did exactly as well as you might expect me to do.  And here’s the thing: if you’re an avid golfer, don’t be offended, but golf is the most boring sport in the world.  After six holes, I was like: “Are we done?”  But we weren’t.  There were twelve more to go, and friends, that’s just stupid.

It was weeks later that my friend Glenn introduced me to the phrase “course management,” which I initially mistook for economics jargon until I did a Google search.  Course management, as it turns out, refers to the way a golfer functions on a course.  Things like: what club to use (and where), whether to hit the ball over or around the sand trap, that sort of thing.  The questions that seemed foreign to me (and had to rely entirely on my teammates for) were second-nature to the seasoned pro.  And if you golf regularly, you certainly enjoy it more when you have a better idea of what you’re doing.

In many ways the spiritual life is like that.  I imagine the concept of “following God” must seem a daunting task to some.  Read the Bible?  Where do I start?  Praying—especially out loud in a small group—must feel more awkward than a bad prom date.

We grow unsatisfied—expecting instant results—and give up too soon.  We maintain some measure of faith—somewhere tucked away for safekeeping—in the hopes of passing our faith on to our children one day.  But there can be no substitute for a lifetime of spiritual devotion.

In Genesis 48, we find Jacob looking toward the future.  By now, he’s on his deathbed, but his memory is far from fading.  As he recounts the past, he expresses confidence in God to sustain his descendants for the future.

Then Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come.

2 “Assemble and listen, O sons of Jacob,
listen to Israel your father.

3 “Reuben, you are my firstborn,
my might, and the firstfruits of my strength,
preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.
4 Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence,
because you went up to your father’s bed;
then you defiled it—he went up to my couch!

5 “Simeon and Levi are brothers;
weapons of violence are their swords.
6 Let my soul come not into their council;
O my glory, be not joined to their company.
For in their anger they killed men,
and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen.
7 Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce,
and their wrath, for it is cruel!
I will divide them in Jacob
and scatter them in Israel.

8 “Judah, your brothers shall praise you;
your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
your father’s sons shall bow down before you.
9 Judah is a lion’s cub;
from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He stooped down; he crouched as a lion
and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?
10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
11 Binding his foal to the vine
and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he has washed his garments in wine
and his vesture in the blood of grapes.
12 His eyes are darker than wine,
and his teeth whiter than milk.

13 “Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea;
he shall become a haven for ships,
and his border shall be at Sidon.

14 “Issachar is a strong donkey,
crouching between the sheepfolds.
15 He saw that a resting place was good,
and that the land was pleasant,
so he bowed his shoulder to bear,
and became a servant at forced labor.

16 “Dan shall judge his people
as one of the tribes of Israel.
17 Dan shall be a serpent in the way,
a viper by the path,
that bites the horse’s heels
so that his rider falls backward.
18 I wait for your salvation, O Lord.

19 “Raiders shall raid Gad,
but he shall raid at their heels.

20 “Asher’s food shall be rich,
and he shall yield royal delicacies.

21 “Naphtali is a doe let loose
that bears beautiful fawns.

22 “Joseph is a fruitful bough,
a fruitful bough by a spring;
his branches run over the wall.
23 The archers bitterly attacked him,
shot at him, and harassed him severely,
24 yet his bow remained unmoved;
his arms were made agile
by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob
(from there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel),
25 by the God of your father who will help you,
by the Almighty who will bless you
with blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the deep that crouches beneath,
blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
26 The blessings of your father
are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents,
up to the bounties of the everlasting hills.
May they be on the head of Joseph,
and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.

27 “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf,
in the morning devouring the prey
and at evening dividing the spoil.”

28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel. This is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him. 29 Then he commanded them and said to them, “I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, 30 in the cave that is in the field at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place. 31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah— 32 the field and the cave that is in it were bought from the Hittites.” 33 When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.

I believe the relationship between God’s activity and man’s to be largely mysterious.  God’s gracious work in the lives of people like Jacob invariably says more about the greatness of God rather than the greatness of man.  God works in amazing ways through his people—including you and me.  But God still asks that we give him the chance to do so.  Life is short.  Time slips through our fingers like grains of sand.  And again, there can be no substitute for a lifetime of faith.  Grace defies our attempts to earn God’s blessing—but it provokes us toward effort to share this blessing with others.  What are you doing to share your faith?  What can you do to better partner with God?

Who’s your daddy? (Matthew 1; Luke 3)

Posted on by
Reply

ancestry

Money may not grow on trees, but there’s big business to be had in studying people’s genealogies—that is, their family lineage.  Search terms for “ancestry” and “genealogy” have risen to the second most searched-for category on the internet—second only (sadly) to pornography.  In 2012, a European private equity offered the popular Ancestry.com 1.6 billion dollars for control of the company (the offer was declined, by the way).

Why the popularity?  Our ancestry offers us a means of answering the age-old question: “Who am I?”  Our identity might be found in our ancestry.  In an article on Salon.com, actor Don Cheadle is reported as saying: “You start feeling more grounded when you can reach back and go … ‘This is who I am all the way back.’”

This is who I am all the way back.  Imagine knowing your roots this intimately.  Matthew and Luke set out to write biographies of Jesus, they included Jesus’ family tree, revealing just who Jesus was “all the way back.”

THE STRUCTURE OF JESUS’ GENEALOGY

Matthew and Luke both include genealogies of Jesus.  Perhaps it would be helpful to see them side by side.  What do you notice that’s similar?  What do you notice that’s different?

 

Matthew 1:1-17 Luke 3:23-38
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

 

2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, 4 and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of David the king.

 

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7 and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, 8 and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, 11 and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

 

12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel,and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud,15 and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

 

17 So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

 

 23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, 27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi,30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Sala, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan,38 the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

 

You might notice that Luke goes back waaaay further than Matthew.  Matthew goes back only to Abraham.  Luke goes back all the way to Adam.  Why?  Well, Matthew is trying to connect Jesus to both David—showing that Jesus is Israel’s true king—and Abraham—showing that Jesus is of true Jewish descent.  Luke is trying to connect Jesus not just to the Jews, but to the entire human race—something that would have been important, as Luke wrote both Luke and Acts during a time when people worried about the inclusion of Gentiles (non-Jews) in the Church.

But, you might be thinking, why don’t Matthew and Luke match up?  The genealogies given here look quite different.  Various suggestions have been made.  In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther suggested that Matthew gave Joseph’s genealogy, while Luke records Mary’s.  Unfortunately, evidence for this is sparse—limited only to arguments of Greek grammar (!).  In his commentary on Matthew, Craig Keener borrows from an ancient writer and suggests that Matthew was primarily focused on Jesus’ royal lineage, while Luke focused on Jesus’ biological history.  Since Jews did not keep accurate records of their genealogies (which helps explain why many didn’t know Jesus was of royal lineage), it’s probable that both Matthew and Luke are recording history only selectively.  Oh, you say, so the Bible contains errors?  No; it simply means that ancient biographies weren’t constructed with the level of chronological detail that we might expect from modern writers.  Additionally, the “gospel” was an unprecedented genre of literature.  They were meant to be historical, sure—but they were ultimately intended to invoke faith on the part of the reader.  Therefore all gospel writers recorded only the factual details necessary to win audiences with the gospel.

THE MEANING OF JESUS’ GENEALOGY

Of course, if you have a background in church, you may notice a few colorful characters in Jesus’ family tree.  David and “the wife of Uriah” (adultery and murder?), Tamar (who seduced her father-in-law while dressed as a prostitute), Rahab the prostitute…these aren’t the characters you might expect to find in the story about Jesus.  It’s all the more shocking when you realize that ancient peoples believed in what we might call “collective guilt.”  If a person is guilty, so is their entire community.  Yes; one bad apple really does spoil the whole bunch.

Today, while we emphasize individual responsibility, we still tend to think of guilt as contagious.  For instance, in a study conducted by Loyola University (if you listened to last Sunday’s sermon, I misspoke of the study’s origins), participants reported feeling significantly more guilty knowing that the seats they occupied were once occupied by those guilty of misconduct.  According to the report in men’s health, “whether it’s a chair, handshake, or lucky shirt, you’d be wise to seek out people and objects you want to emulate—and steer clear of stuff stained by failure, the study implies.”

But through Jesus, the righteousness of the One is enough to redeem the sinfulness of the many.  Are there some skeletons in your closet?  Do you have a past full of darkness, full of shame?  Jesus can redeem whole generations of brokenness with his lifetime of obedience, and the exchange he offers—my sin for his righteousness.   It is then that you and I might stand faultless before the throne, clothed in righteousness alone.  Over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking at a few characters from Jesus’ family tree, and seeing the various ways that the gospel can transform lives of brokenness into agents for His Kingdom.

 

 

A New Heart (Psalm 51 & 32)

Posted on by
4

We live in a “dirty” world.  God created sex for the biological purpose of reproduction, and for the spiritual/social purpose of strengthening marital bonds.  Such intimacy even reflects the goodness found in God.  Yet when we strip sexuality of its beauty and purpose, we only exchange joy for guilt.  And shame.

Pamela Paul—a journalist for the L.A. Times—recently sought to trace the various ways that pornography has impacted our society.  She assembled this data into a book called Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families.  In it she interviews a woman named Vanessa, who felt a wave of guilt sweep over her after she and her boyfriend introduced pornography into their relationship:

“My [sexuality] has definitely been influenced by similar pornographic forces that men experience…At the same time, it’s icky…I don’t just want to become [another body]….I felt cheapened…I felt so empty after the experience.”

God’s design for sexuality is for couples to become “one flesh”—that is, to experience radical unity of body and soul.  Sex outside of marriage is wrong.  Why?  Because you can never say with your body what you do not say with your soul.

So what do we do with this guilt?  This has been the subject of psychology for more than a century—and the speculation of writers long before that.  Yet these can only offer—at best—a means of masking our guilt.  Only the gospel provides a means for it to be washed away.

At some point in David’s moral failure with Bathsheba, he composed a song of repentance, which we now know as Psalm 51:

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.  Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.  5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

You hear David’s plea?  He wants to be made clean.  At first blush, we might cringe a bit at verse 4—surely it wasn’t just “against God” that David sinned.  What about Bathsheba?  What about Uriah?  What about the servants involved in the scandal?  But David is saying that guilt doesn’t merely spring from a violation in the social order.  No, it goes deeper—it is a violation of the very character of God.  And what’s more, he says, is that we’ve all been born into a natural state of sin.  The ancient writer Origen once said that “everyone who is born into this world is born into a natural state of contamination…[we are] polluted in father and mother.”  The Christian idea of “original sin” doesn’t just say I do bad things.  It says I am a bad thing.  If that’s true, than there is nothing in the world that I can do to absolve my guilt.  I need radical forgiveness and transformation.

6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; 19 then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Does it strike you as odd that God simply forgave David?  Yes; David would experience the tragic consequences of his moral failings.  But David would be cleansed and renewed.  That’s what grace fundamentally means.  You see, when Christ died on the cross, His blood didn’t just cover the sins of the people from then onward.  No, his blood would retroactively cover the sins of all the saints that lived before.

It’s doubtful that David understood this—at least not to the fullness that you and I do.  But David counted on a God whose greater desire was to extend mercy.  Later, the apostle Paul would write that God “saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.  He saved us through the washing of rebirth and the renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).  In a “dirty” world, the gospel promises expiation and regeneration—that is, Christ’s blood cleans our guilt, and God’s Spirit transforms us from inside out.

It’s this righteous character of God that prompted David to write elsewhere:

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

5 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

6 Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him.  7 You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.  9 Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.

10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. 11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart! (Psalm 32:1-11)

You are not “damaged goods.”  Your sins don’t have to define you.  Christ’s blood covers you.  This new relationship changes your identity.

I rarely like to embed videos in these posts—some of you at work might have to wait until later to watch this—but few sermon excerpts speak as powerfully as this one.  This is an excerpt from a conference message from Matt Chandler of the Village Church in Dallas:

Luther once wrote that Christians are “simultaneously justified and yet sinners.”   Paul understood this from his own experience.  In Romans 7 he writes: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:19) But in his same letter he writes: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11)  Following Jesus will cleanse your past.  And His Spirit shapes you into something new.