The Patriarchs - Miraculously Providential

This is the thirteenth and final post in a series that I am doing based on the lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the accounts of which are found in the book of Genesis.  In spite of the title of this series, the record of the experiences of the men listed above are only incidental to me.  What I find far more interesting, relevant, and important is the revelation of the character and nature of God that we can see by observing these men's lives.  Each post will coincide with a lesson being taught in a classroom.  As such, they will not be in a traditional essay format.  Rather, it will be a slightly expanded version of the notes that I hand out in class.

The Genesis Account

Gen. 33:4-11 – Jacob greatly feared his reunion with Esau due to the way he had treated his older brother in the past.  He knew he needed to confront this fear but that didn’t make it any easier.  Jacob faces his fear and uses creativity to, as much as is possible for him, obtain a positive outcome to the situation.  Then he places his future in God’s hands.  And miraculously, as He so often does, the Lord made it so that the encounter was a thing of beauty.

Supporting Scriptures

Mat. 18:15-17 – This passage is an essential component of biblical teaching on the issue of confrontation and settling disputes.  It is a wonderful resource because it lays out for us a logical, ordered sequence of steps we are to take when we find ourselves in this situation.  The first step of this sequence is probably the most important because most Christians never even get past it.  When an offense has been committed by another, whether directly against us or just in general, we are to open a dialogue with the offender.  Notice the following sentence, which gives us the reason we are to do this.  It is not for the purpose of winning an argument.  It is not for the purpose of advancing any agenda of our own.  Rather, it is for the sole purpose of restoring a relationship that has been damaged in some way.

Gal. 6:1-2 – Here Paul builds upon and adds to the teaching that Jesus already delivered in Matthew.  The importance is re-stated of restoring relationships in the body of Christ.  This is the entire reason why we are commanded to confront.  And when we do so it absolutely must be with a spirit and attitude of humility.  We must understand that we are just as capable as the brother or sister we are seeking to restore of falling into the same trap of temptation and sin that they have found themselves in.

Phi. 1-25 – This issue of unity and reconciliation in the Church is of such paramount importance that an entire book of the New Testament (albeit a short one) is dedicated to it.  Paul writes a letter to Philemon (an influential member, possibly even a leader, and at the very least the one in whose home the church met) in the church at Colossae.  In this letter the Apostle urges his brother to accept back into fellowship a man named Onesimus, a former slave of Philemon’s who had run away and subsequently became a Christian.  Paul uses flattery, reminders, and even guilt trips in a vigorous effort to convince Philemon to turn from the norms of Roman culture, which dictated that he had the right to execute Onesimus, and instead restore the unity of the church.  Paul goes to such great lengths because he believes, correctly, that this issue of reconciliation is of absolutely paramount importance in the body of Christ.

Questions For Meditation

Why do Christians hesitate to engage in confrontation with other believers?

As an elder in a local evangelical church, I find it interesting that one of the more common reasons people have sought me out over the years has been to complain about a problem they are having with someone else in the church.  When I inquire whether they have talked to the other party the answer, almost every single time, is no.  The majority of people shy away from confrontation.  They certainly desire a resolution to whatever problem they seem to be having.  But the preferred default method seems to be to contact an elder and have them take care of things.  As the passages of Scripture listed above make clear, this is not the correct procedure for Christians in the body of Christ to follow.  So why do people do it?

The short answer to this question is rather mundanely that we are sinful in our tendencies.  But to expand upon that answer and provide specifics, we are contaminated by fear, anger, and pride.  Fear prevents us from seeking out confrontation because of a dread of pain, both emotional and physical.  It is undeniable that conflict sometimes results in pain.  And as beings whose number one priority is the preservation of our own comforts, confrontation is often seen as diametrically opposed to that. 

Furthermore, conflict is often born out of being taken advantage of by someone else.  As such, we perceive that our human rights have been violated.  This concept is on some level formed from the ideals the United States was founded on.  But on a deeper plane it really stems from nothing less than pride.  It is antithetical to a fallen human mind to accept a perceived slight, constituting as it does a compromise of our self-imagined prerogatives.

Concurrent with and often born out of pride is anger.  Our pride dictates that we not accept offenses.  Then our anger comes along and inflames us to ungodly rage.  In this state, the last thing we desire is for a peaceful and harmonious resolution to the situation.  We certainly are not concerned at all about the other person.  We simply want our own interests to be cared for and our bruised egos pampered.

How does the worldly concept of confrontation differ from the biblical model?

Worldly, cultural influences tend to dictate a policy of avoidance and/or hostility when it comes to confrontation.  This mindset has its roots in the individual as outlined in the previous question.  With a sinful and fleshly starting point as the basis for our world view, anything that has the potential to introduce those undesired elements into our lives is seen as something to be avoided at all costs.  As children we learn that dealing with conflicts between two people face to face does not end the way we want most of the time, due to selfish motivations.  And as we grow our society takes those convictions and brings them into full flower.  We might see parents talking about other adults behind their backs.  We are perhaps encouraged to run to mommy or daddy when trouble between siblings brews.  As adults the corporations we work for often follow policies of non-confrontation, instead instructing us to take our disputes to a third party such as a supervisor.  And this of course mirrors the judicial system in our country.  Much has been made of how litigious America is.  Some would argue that point and both sides present compelling arguments.  But for the purpose of this discussion it is irrelevant.  The point is that Americans have fairly easy access to a well-designed legal system in which they are freed from the responsibility of confronting an offender directly.  And this of course feeds right into the aforementioned desire to avoid problems or complications that our flesh hungers for.

In contrast to this we find the Bible advocating, even commanding, a completely different approach to conflict resolution in Matthew 18:15-17, as seen above.  There are four stages of this model, and each stage has three necessary components.

1. Stage one is for the offended to approach the offender privately.  This applies whether a person has been sinned against directly, or whether they have just observed another Christian sinning.  Presumably, someone who has a relationship with Christ ought to be offended on His behalf any time the glory of God is defiled by sin, just as Jesus was in the temple in Jerusalem when He overturned the money changer’s tables.
2. Stage two, only to be moved to if stage one is unsuccessful in restoring a right relationship between the two parties, is to take a witness or two along with you and again seek for reconciliation with the other party.
3. Stage three is to tell the offense to the whole church.  Presumably this would be funneled through the church leaders, if they haven’t already been involved to this point.  Again, the goal of this is to bring the sinner to repentance and restore them to right relationship with God and their community.
4. Finally, if all three of the preceding steps have met with failure then the sinning person is to be put out of the church completely.  This is the historic act of excommunication.

At every point in this process we are advised to follow in the footsteps of Jacob in the confrontation with his brother Esau.  In Genesis chapter 32 we find the prelude to this meeting of estranged relatives.  Jacob is informed that Esau is traveling to meet him with 400 men.  This fills Jacob with fear, considering the less than charitable manner in which he had dealt with his brother before leaving for Haran two decades earlier.  His plan of action is as follows:

• First he prayed to God for help.  He asked him for mercy in preserving his and his family’s lives.  But he related this request to the previous promise of God to prosper Jacob and make of him a great nation.
• Then he planned.  He used the intellect and creativity God had blessed him with to devise a strategy for confronting his brother.  Jacob sent five different servants on ahead, each with a gift of animals for his brother.  And he instructed them very carefully to present these gifts to Esau in a humble manner, referring to Jacob as Esau’s servant.  Finally, he divided his immediate family into companies, spreading them out behind him while he went on to meet Esau first.  In all of this Jacob hoped to use his gifts to blunt any anger Esau was feeling, and use his family to soften Esau’s mood when he saw the women and children.
• Finally, he acted.  It is noteworthy that after all of his preparations had been put into place it was Jacob who finally went forward alone to confront his brother.  He did not use his wives or children as shields to preserve his personal safety.  Rather, he put them behind him but in such a way as for Esau to observe them easily from afar and perhaps further ease any tensions that might be present.  It is also worth mentioning that Jacob insisted on his brother accepting his gifts.  Esau attempted to decline them but Jacob persisted.  He knew that in the future, if it should happen that Esau was tempted to remember the former wrongs committed against him, the ongoing presence of a gift from his brother would go a long way toward calming his temper.

So what we find with this example from biblical history is the sequence we ought to follow at every phase of the model of confrontation taught by Jesus.  We should first pray, seeking the favor of God.  We should then plan, using the wisdom and knowledge God has given us to the fullest measure possible to do everything in our power to bring about a successful resolution to the situation we are facing.  And then we must act.  It is unavoidable that at some point we must take action if we are to be obedient to the Lord’s command.  But rather than a haphazard and poorly conceived implementation on our part, the model of Scripture is one of care and precision prior to the action which will ultimately serve to both make the final confrontation much easier for us and also increase the likelihood of obtaining a favorable outcome.

When we refuse to follow the biblical model of confrontation there is a word that describes our actions.  What is it?

The Bible is quite clear on how we ought to handle confrontations.  The Scriptures elevate the importance of reconciliation and unity to a very high level.  The letter that Paul wrote to Philemon concerning Onesimus the runaway slave is worthwhile to consider.  Even though Philemon was a leader in the Colossian church and a solid believer, Paul knew the cultural world view he was fighting against in urging Philemon to accept his wayward slave back as a brother.  In the Roman world, if a slave ran away and was then recapture, the owner had the right to mete out any form of punishment he wished, up to and including execution.

In light of this Paul goes to extreme lengths in this letter to convince Philemon of his obligation to go against culture and place the unity of the church and his personal reconciliation with his slave on a higher level of importance.  He uses the following tactics in his letter:

• Flattery (Phm. 1)
• Encouragement (Phm. 4-7)
• Logic (Phm. 11)
• Manipulation (Phm. 17-19)
• Assumption (Phm. 21)
• Reminder (Phm. 25)

With this much emphasis in the teachings of Jesus, the actions of Paul, and the model of Jacob placed upon biblical confrontation for the purposes of harmonious reconciliation, can it be called anything less than outright disobedience when we refuse to follow suit?  Can we possibly excuse ourselves because of cultural norms?  Philemon certainly could not use that argument against Paul.  And we cannot use it today as an excuse to get out of courses of action we may find less appealing than others.

The really astounding thing is that, as in the case of Jacob, if we would just submit and follow the Bible’s teaching in this area, more often than not the confrontations are nowhere near what our fearful minds built them up to be.  Jacob trusted God and He gave his servant such a miraculous and providential resolution to the conflict with his brother than it must have overwhelmed him with how good his God was.  I have had to confront people over the years on a number of different issues.  I never look forward to it.  I shy away from confrontation just as much as the next Christian.  But in almost every situation, when I have submitted in willing obedience to the will of God He has stepped in and worked the situation out so beautifully that it brings me to my proverbial knees in an expression of wonder and adoration.  My prayer is that you, if you struggle with biblical confrontation, will be willing to set aside your personal fears and/or your cultural world view in this area and submit to the Lord so that you too can be amazed at His providence.

The Real Santa Claus

Let’s talk about Santa Claus.  No, not an overweight old man with white hair and a beard who dresses up in a red suit and flies around in a sleigh driven by reindeer hopping down chimneys all night long on Christmas Eve.  That’s the modern consumer driven marketing version designed to facilitate the spending of billions of dollars every year on material goods.  What I want to tell you about is the real Santa Claus.  You see, our modern version of the name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas (SEEn-ter-class), which is itself a modified and corrupted transliteration of the original name, Saint Nikolaos, or Nicholas.

The real person of Nicholas was born in 303 A.D. in Asia Minor, or modern day Turkey.  His parents were wealthy Christians who trained him in the faith from an early age.  After they died in an epidemic while Nicholas was still young he went to live with his uncle, the bishop of Patara, who continued to teach the young man about Christianity.  So as you can see his formative years were deeply rooted in the Christian faith.  When Nicholas grew up he became a bishop himself, of the town of Myra.  And he took the teachings of Jesus very seriously.  In particular Christ’s command to the rich young man to sell all he had and give to the poor.  Nicholas took this idea and ran with it, developing a reputation for secret gift giving over the years and having many stories told about his exploits.  Many of these stories are fanciful and not very believable, involving miraculous powers and supernatural occurrences.

One of the most credible of these stories involves a father with three young daughters of marriageable age.  In that culture the family of a young woman had to provide a dowry along with the bride to be, so as to help the new family build a foundation.  If you were too poor to afford a dowry your daughters didn’t get married and oftentimes were either sold into slavery or turned to prostitution in an effort to avoid starvation.  Well, the specific details of the story vary, but one version goes that this father fell on hard times and didn’t have any money for his daughters to get married with.  They were to be sold as slaves, beginning with the eldest.  The night before her sale, the young lady washed her stockings, hung them in front of the fire to dry, and went to sleep.  In the morning she saw a lump in her stocking.  Reaching in she found a small bag filled with gold, enough to provide food and a dowry for her.  The next night the same thing happened to the middle daughter.  On the third evening the father decided to find out what was going on so he stayed awake through the night.  Eventually, he caught Bishop Nicholas in the act of climbing onto their roof and dropping a sack of money down the chimney and into the stocking hanging in front of the fire place.  Nicholas asked the father to keep his identity hidden.  He wanted to remain anonymous in keeping with his Lord’s instructions about giving in secret.  Nevertheless, stories about him spread and his fame grew.

In 325 A.D. he was asked to attend the Council of Nicaea.  If you recall, the main topic of debate at this council was the deity of Christ.  Arius, a priest from Alexandria, was teaching that Christ was not God but rather the first of all created beings; still deserving of much respect but not on the same level as God Himself.  Opposed to Arius was Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria as well as none other than our Bishop Nicholas.  The story goes that during the council Nicholas became so enraged at Arius’s heretical teachings that he punched him right in the face on the council floor.  What’s fascinating about this is that today modern versions of Arians still exist, in the form of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who do not believe that Jesus is God.  It is quite fascinating that they refuse to celebrate Christmas, a holiday with ties to the man who opposed their ancient teacher.  They would deny this of course, stating instead that they don’t observe Christmas solely because they perceive it to be unbiblical.  But I think it’s an interesting coincidence nonetheless.

The point in all this for me is one of reminder.  I am reminded of the rich heritage we have as Christians.  I am reminded how clouded and distorted our cultural perceptions are.  And I am reminded that in spite of all the exaggerations, all the mysticism, all the consumerism, and all the secularization the character of Santa Claus is drawn from a real historical figure who was attempting to do nothing more than obey his Lord and master, Jesus.  That is a version of Santa Claus that I can get behind and support wholeheartedly.

The Patriarchs - Patiently Longsuffering

This is the twelfth post in a series that I am doing based on the lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the accounts of which are found in the book of Genesis.  In spite of the title of this series, the record of the experiences of the men listed above are only incidental to me.  What I find far more interesting, relevant, and important is the revelation of the character and nature of God that we can see by observing these men's lives.  Each post will coincide with a lesson being taught in a classroom.  As such, they will not be in a traditional essay format.  Rather, it will be a slightly expanded version of the notes that I hand out in class.

The Genesis Account

Gen. 17:17 – The reality of the biblical record is that men like Abraham, although praised in scripture for their faith, were very deficient in the “day-to-day” application of that faith.  In this case, the patriarch actually has a period of doubt and laughs at God’s promise.  It is fascinating that the Hebrew word used here to describe Abraham’s laughter is the root of the word that would eventually become Isaac’s name.  There is a duality of implication to be seen here in the naming of the promised child.  First, it served as a continual reminder to Abraham of the fact that he had once doubted.  Second, it represents the transformation of doubting and mocking laughter into believing and rejoicing laughter when the birth came to pass.

Gen. 18:12-15 – Sarah laughed at the Lord’s promises.  Do you see what she is doing here?  She is taking her understanding of reality and applying it to her assessment of the validity of the truth claims of God.  In effect, Sarah was “wise in her own eyes”.  Is there anything more ridiculous than for a human being with severe limitations both in capacity to comprehend truth and in ability to evaluate truth to elevate their own deficient ideas to a higher plane than God’s?  In fact, ridiculous is too polite of a word to use in describing this type of thinking.  The Bible doesn’t call it ridiculous, it calls it evil.

Supporting Scriptures

Pro. 3:7 – There two emphatic logical links in this passage.  On the one hand we have over estimating the worth of one’s own wisdom being equated with evil.  On the other hand we have rightly estimating the worth of God’s wisdom being equated with good.  There is no middle ground.  To count ourselves as wise is the opposite of fearing the Lord.  And when we fear the Lord that action is described as a turning away from evil.  Therefore, if we do not fear the Lord, seen here by implication as being wise in our own eyes, then we are in fact doing nothing less than turning to evil.

2 Pet. 3:3-10 – Human patience is defined as “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.”  This definition is insufficient to describe the divine patience of God.  It is true that God does not become unjustly angry.  However, to say that He tolerates delay, trouble, or suffering is to imply that He is affected by the passage of time, the presence of conflict, or the intrusion of distress; all of which are patently false when applied to God.  In fact, I think that even describing Himself as patient, as He does here in 2 Peter, is a bit of an anthropomorphism in which God ascribes to Himself a human characteristic for the purpose of helping us to understand Him better.

Questions For Meditation

What does Abraham and Sarah’s laughter imply about their belief in the promises of God

This is pretty obvious.  They didn’t believe Him.  They placed their own understanding in a position of higher importance and relevance than their trust in God’s promises.

What would be a modern day evangelical Christian equivalent to the mocking laughter that Abraham and Sarah displayed?

With this question I am very specifically referring to people who are already Christians.  I am not talking about unbelievers who do not place their faith and trust in Christ.  I believe the parallel today with the behavior exhibited by Abraham and Sarah is behavior exhibited by authentic practicing Christians.  They were the ancient, pre-incarnation and pre-new covenant equivalents of modern day believers.  As such, the best way to apply the timeless truth of what they experienced then is to line it up alongside what we Christians experience today.

With that being said, I believe the manner in which we express the same tendency to doubt and dishonor what God has said is through our worry.  We will define worry later.  But for now let’s just operate on the assumption that it, whatever it is, is wrong.  We can rest assured of this truth when we consider the teachings of Jesus.  Specifically, in Matthew 6:25-34 our Lord gives us a thorough debunking of the human tendency to worry.  He pointedly asks a series of rhetorical questions designed to make us feel ashamed of our unbelief:

           i)     Isn’t life more than just food?

          ii)    Isn’t the body more than just clothing?

         iii)   Aren’t we more important than birds?

         iv)   Doesn’t God care for us more than for flowers?

Jesus then follows with an absolutely blistering epithet: “You of little faith!”  It is as if we are children who, due to their overpowering terror of the dark refuse to trust the word of their parents that there is nothing to fear.  This was, quite frankly, a manipulative statement designed to do nothing less than to cause shame and embarrassment in the hearts and minds of His audience.  It ought to do the same to us.

The astonishing fact that God did not execute discipline upon Abraham and Sarah for their unbelief should drive us to consider how patient and longsuffering He is with His children.  In light of that, how does this attribute of God give us a detailed road map for exactly how to live worry free lives?

There are a few preliminary steps we need to take in attempting to answer this question.  We need to define, from a human perspective, what it is to wait and to worry.  This will give us an understanding of what it means to have patience, again from a human perspective.  Then will follow the all-important step of considering how the patience of God contrasts with this.

The human concept of waiting is like this.  We have a desire for a thing to occur immediately.  However, we have no power to make that longed for thing happen.  Therefore we are required to “wait” for a force outside of ourselves (e.g. time, another person, circumstances, even God) to act in such a way as to cause the effect we are desiring.  Seen in this light, to wait is to live with unsatisfied yearning.

On the flip side, human worry is exactly the opposite.  We have a desire for something not to occur immediately.  In fact, we would usually like it, whatever it is, to never occur.  And similarly to waiting, due to our inability to shape reality as we wish we are forced to live in perpetual dread of the undesired situation coming to pass.

So then, to be patient, from a human point of view, is to be content in our uncertainty.  It is to relax in the face of the unknown.  It is to laugh at the future, not mockingly or dismissively, but confidently and joyfully.  And over-arching all of this is the reality that human patience is born out of delay, trouble, and/or suffering as indicated in the definition given above.

But this is inadequate and inaccurate when considering the patience of God.  He is timeless, having existed before the presence of time itself.  James 1:17 describes God as having “no variation or shifting shadow” in a nod to the passage of the sun across the sky and the resultant movement of a creature’s shadow upon the ground.  God is omnipotent, tolerating no opposition to His will.  Proverbs 21:30 is quite plain: “there is no wisdom and no understanding and no counsel against the Lord.”  And God is holy, experiencing no imperfection or blemish that would lead to suffering.  In fact, as Habakkuk 1:13 points out, God is too pure (holy) to even approve evil and He cannot look on wickedness with favor.

2 Peter 3:3-10 expresses the idea of God’s patience quite well.  By the word of God the heavens were created in ancient times.  By the word of God the world was destroyed by water.  By the word of God the present creation is destined for fiery destruction.  And all of this has happened or will happen at the precise timing and placement of God’s own choosing.  Again turning to Habakkuk 2:3 God tells the prophet that “The vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.  Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay.”  There is no hint of pent up desire with God.  There is no trace of opposition to His sovereign will.  And there is no presence of anguish over the outcome of events past, present, or future.  Every event in the history of the world has occurred at exactly the time God intended for it to happen.  Thus the underpinning of human patience is completely stripped away when it comes to the Lord.

This is the key to living a worry free life.  We must become so consumed with God that every circumstance, every encounter, every desire, every experience of our lives is viewed through the lens of His revealed character.  As John Piper puts it, we must cultivate a “God entranced worldview”.  Our goal must be to emulate the timeless, smooth, and painless patience of God by clinging to Him exclusively and tenaciously.  Whether we can attain to that goal in this life or not is completely irrelevant.  As Paul makes quite clear in 1 Corinthians 9:24 our mandate is to prepare as runners before a race with the full intention and expectation of winning that race.  This is what Jesus meant in His sermon on the mount that we looked at earlier when, in Matthew 6:33 He said to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness”.

The Patriarchs - Jealously Demanding

This is the eleventh post in a series that I am doing based on the lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the accounts of which are found in the book of Genesis.  In spite of the title of this series, the record of the experiences of the men listed above are only incidental to me.  What I find far more interesting, relevant, and important is the revelation of the character and nature of God that we can see by observing these men's lives.  Each post will coincide with a lesson being taught in a classroom.  As such, they will not be in a traditional essay format.  Rather, it will be a slightly expanded version of the notes that I hand out in class.

The Genesis Account

Gen. 18:1-11 – Abraham goes “all in” in his efforts to be a good host for his guests.  The evidence suggests that he knew these guests were God because he used a word reserved in Hebrew culture to address Yahweh alone.  This means that Abraham’s display of frenzied activity was intentionally directed toward God.

Gen. 22:1-10 – God demands absolute devotion in His followers.  To someone who does not worship the Lord this should look like insane zealotry.

Gen. 29:15-30 – Jacob was a man of passion and commitment.  These qualities led him to engage in some treacherous blunders but they also equipped him to stay the course until he achieved his goals.

Supporting Scriptures

Luk. 14:25-35 – Jesus, in an apparently impromptu moment, makes several statements in this passage.  The problem is that they seem to be rather disconnected and random.  First he talks about hating relatives.  Then He goes off on a tangent about building projects and war preparations.  Finally, He finishes up with a seminar on the properties of salt.  Has Jesus gone off the deep end or is there more here than meets the eye?

Questions For Meditation

Why do we as Christians sometimes fade into anonymity in our culture?

This is a critical question both to consider and answer biblically.  The United States is obviously a country of tremendous freedoms that we celebrate at least three times per year, on Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veterans Day.  It is proper and fitting that we do this.  But these same freedoms that we enjoy have a dark under-belly when it comes to Christianity.

Four years ago Lifeway Research conducted a survey of evangelical Christians.  They found that 80% agreed with the following statement: “I have a personal responsibility to share my religious beliefs about Jesus Christ with non-Christians.”  Furthermore, 75% said “I feel comfortable that I can share my belief in Christ with someone else effectively.”  However, 61% of those surveyed had not shared how to become a Christian with anyone in the previous six months and 48% had not invited anyone to church in that same six month period.

What I would like to discuss today is not specifically evangelism.  But I believe that these statistics on the state of modern evangelical evangelistic efforts are a symptom of a more serious disease.

In the Genesis passages cited above, we find three examples of character qualities that God desires in His followers.  These principles transcend the historical time period of the Jewish Patriarchs and inform our understanding of what it means to be an authentic Christian today; or at least they should…

In the beginning verses of Genesis chapters 18 and 22, which we have looked at before in this series, we are presented with two snapshots from the life of Abraham that serve to illustrate what following God meant to him.  The former passage describes a visit from God when Abraham’s tents were pitched near the oaks of Mamre.  At this point the Patriarch is wealthy and powerful.  His covenantal relationship with God has paid huge material dividends already, resulting in vast herds and flocks of cattle and sheep as well as the requisite servants to care for them all.  Abraham was a man accustomed to having others do his bidding.  Yet when he realizes that it is God, in the appearance of three men, who is in front of him, notice what his response is.  He runs from his tent to greet The Lord.  He begs Him to stay so that he can serve his master.  He hurries to his tent and instructs Sarah to make bread.  He runs to the herd and selects a tender and choice calf to prepare.  Then he serves the food and stands by in case anything else is needed.  These are not the actions of a man who is halfhearted in his focus on God.  What comes to mind is a coiled spring, wound up and bursting with unreleased energy, awaiting only the summons of the Master to spring forth with vigor and power.

The second passage, in chapter 22, is even more striking.  Here we find the familiar account of the offering of Isaac.  Abraham travels to Mount Moriah with the full intention of killing his own son for the sake of obedience to his God.  The definition of a zealot is “a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.”  Can we possibly describe Abraham any other way?  It is easy for us to look with a calm detachment on this event that occurred some three thousand ago.  But how would we respond to such an incident today?  I’m certainly not calling for Christians everywhere to go running off to kill their children.  But if we really take a moment to stop and think about Abraham’s actions here it is exceedingly difficult to call them anything but crazy.  Yet the man stands eternally praised and blessed by God in the pages of the Bible because of his loyalty that some would also call zealotry.

To further refine the picture that is emerging, consider the life of Abraham’s grandson Jacob, also known as the deceiver.  In Genesis 29 we find him having already fled to Haran to escape the wrath of his brother Esau.  Jacob the deceiver is living with his uncle Laban, a man who is also cunning and treacherous.  Our protagonist is duped into working double the number of years for the right to marry his love, Rachel.  One could certainly argue that Jacob deserved this for his prior sinfulness at home.  But the point as it pertains to the discussion today is that he was a man of passion.  This great passion informed and drove most of the decisions of his life, both good and bad.  Jacob’s desire for both the material blessings of Esau’s birthright and the eternal blessings of the Abrahamic covenant resulted in the aforementioned deception in Canaan.  But this character trait also dictated that once he had a goal in mind such as marriage to Rachel he was absolutely and unswervingly committed to that goal with a singular passion that caused the passage of seven years to seem but a few days to him.

This then is the picture that the Bible paints of what God both desires and demands in His followers.  First, a whole hearted commitment to Him that is free from the distractions of this world, as witnessed by 2 Chronicles 16:7-9.  And second, an unswerving allegiance to Him that is unmoved by the competing interests and preferences of everything else, which is exactly what Jesus was getting at in Matthew 12:30 when He uttered the famous line “he who is not with Me is against Me”.

I believe the reason we as Christians tend to fade into obscurity in our culture is because we lack these qualities.  We are not “all in”, as it were, for the cause of Christ.  Rather, we are “some in”.  We give to The Lord some of our time, some of our finances, some of our passions, and some of our effort.  But we are endlessly swayed and distracted at the drop of a proverbial hat by a myriad of other worldly desires.  This results in the kind of alarming survey numbers regarding evangelism that Lifeway uncovered in their investigation.  Do you think the word alarming is inappropriate when applied to the issue of Christians not sharing the gospel?  Then perhaps the commands of Christ are not the top priority in your life.  Think about it.

What does Jesus mean with His statements about hating relatives and planning for construction/war?

It has been well stated that Jesus of Nazareth was not merely a good man.  Either He was who He claimed to be, God in the flesh, or He was completely insane.  The controversial and provocative statements He made, the unquestioning loyalty He demanded, and the self-sacrifice He expected, if delivered by just a man, are the words of a lunatic.  Luke 14: 25-35 is a good example of this.

In this passage Jesus, His disciples, and large crowds are apparently walking along.  Seemingly on the spur of the moment Jesus turns and begins to talk to the crowds.  What follows is a series of what appear to be random disconnected statements and rhetorical questions that would not seem out of place in the ravings of a madman, if someone took the time to transcribe them.

First He says you have to hate your family if you want to be His disciple.  Then He ups the ante by saying that you have to carry your cross to your own execution to be His disciple.  Out of nowhere He switches gears to talking about planning for a large construction project, in this case the building of a tower.  Jesus turns right around and drops lessons in proper preparations for war by a king.  And then He ends with a command to give up all possessions.

So what gives?  Is Jesus off His rocker?  Of course not.  Rather, there is a unified theme and undercurrent running through this whole sequence that beautifully serves to illustrate and expand upon what we have already looked at in Genesis.

What Jesus is teaching here is nothing less than a complete dissection of the human experience.  Our mental faculties can be divided into two groups; emotions and feelings contrasted by logic and reason.  To be a disciple of Jesus means to have the entirety of your emotional spectrum completely absorbed by Him, to the point that there is nothing left for anyone else that doesn’t run through Christ first.  At the same time, to be a disciple of Jesus means to devote every fiber of your thinking capacity to the contemplation of Him, to the point that there is nothing left for any thoughts that are not first informed by Christ.

If you are not prepared to give 100% in both areas in your pursuit of Christ then the harsh truth is that you are not worthy of Him.  And if you find yourself unable to surrender every single worldly possession to God (e.g. cars, televisions, books, jobs, spouses, children, even life and health) then the harsh truth is that you are not worthy of Him.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that you run out tomorrow and trash everything and live on the street.  It means that you are prepared to go to that length if He asks it of you.  You are prepared to give up everything for the sake of Jesus.

What does He mean with His reference to salt in the same passage?

This is the sobering reality that is the capstone to what has come before.  If a prospective disciple of Christ is not willing to give Him all of their emotion and all of their reason in a carefully considered and precisely measured intention to completely divorce themselves from the world in whatever manner is necessary to draw closer to God then they are as good as salt that is no longer salty.  In other words they are useless.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there.  He goes on to ask a rhetorical question: what do you do with useless salt?  What do you do with seasoning that isn’t even good enough for a manure pile, let alone dirt?  You throw it away of course.  The implication is that the person who claims to be a disciple of Christ yet who does not follow the pattern established in the first part of this passage of absolute devotion to God will be tossed out along with the rest of the trash.  And since we know from verses such as John 6:37 that Jesus will not allow anyone who truly comes to Him to be cast out the only logical conclusion is that the useless person we are describing was never really a part of Christ to begin with.  This should be nothing less than a sobering wake up call for anyone who identifies as a Christian.  If you are feeling provoked, convicted, and/or condemned at this moment, like I am as I write this, then I encourage you to consider that it is Scripture and the words of Jesus that is provoking you.  If this teaching lands on you without emotional impact then I encourage you to consider whether you are really a Christian or not.