Aug. 14 – Thoughts on Psalm 89-90 & Romans 14

Paul makes a pretty startling claim in Rom. 14:23 – “Everything that does not come from faith is sin.” – and the implications are vast and terrifying.

When we think or teach or talk about sin, we usually frame it in terms of things we can and can’t do.  We each make lists of things that are sinful and not only avoid those but also work hard to be sure others avoid them as well.  We also make lists of things that are faithful and try to do these things but also work hard to be sure others do them as well.  Our lists can go something like this:

Sinful:  lying, swearing, killing, hating, not being nice, not going to church, not going to our church, nudity, gossiping about me, not believing in the same things I do…
Faithful:  telling the truth, working hard, praying, going to church (as long as it’s one of which I approve), helping those who aren’t as rich or powerful as I am, checking in with sick or hurting friends, going to church activities…

And the lists go on and on, filled with God things and personal preferences which mix and intermingle dangerously.  We judge people based on our lists and live according to them, trying to avoid everything on the Sinful list while doing everything on the Faithful list.  The logical outcome of this train of thought, which we never get to, is that if we could just succeed in this, try hard enough, be good enough, then we could be righteous based on our lists.  Paul calls these “The Law” and teaches us differently.

Paul says that this list is (1) not the way to righteousness, that only comes through faith in Jesus Christ, (2) different for everyone (and the Pharisees claim, “heresy!”) according to Rom. 14:14, and (3) incomplete when it comes to righteousness, for the “Sinful” list includes everything (yes, everything) that is not on the “Faithful” list.

So can we stop living by our lists and spending our effort trying to root out our “sins” (as if we could achieve that) and instead spend our effort building our relationship with God who has forgiven our “sinfulness” and just wants us to love and live with Him?

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Aug. 13 – Thoughts on Psalm 87-88 & Romans 13

Given the current political polarization and polemic, Paul’s teaching to submit to governing authorities is an interesting one to ponder.  It stands in stark contrast to John’s teaching about governing authorities in the book of Revelation, where they are to be endured and hidden from.  Many commentators explain this difference as a difference in position of these two inspired authors of equal books.  For Paul, a Roman citizen who lives under authorities (the Romans) who brought peace, roads, and relative equality, submission was a good option and one supported by our view of God’s power and control of this world.  If it was happening, then it must be God’s will, so governors had to be God’s instruments.  For John, a Bishop in exile by the governing authorities and overseer of 7 churches facing government persecution even to the point of death, submission didn’t make any sense.  John’s answer was to endure and demonize (literally in some aspects).  This is supported by our view of free will and the prevalence of sin in the world.

But what about us?  Is the current governmental system and party in power to be submitted to or endured and demonized?  Do we follow Paul’s teaching or John’s?  Both absolutely denounce violence against a leader as should any Christian, but there is a difference in the two views.  Following Paul means obeying the laws and policies, welcoming the leadership as God’s tools put in place by God, whether for judgement or betterment.  Following John means surviving by any peaceful means necessary, and following rules that obey God’s law but not others.

Given the undermining of truth, human rights, and righteousness of this and most previous administrations, we all have to make a choice.  What part will you play in politics, and in what way?  Do you submit or endure?  As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, and that means a lot of prayer, wisdom, and discernment.

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Aug. 12 – Thoughts on Psalm 84-86 & Romans 12

Romans 12 is a laundry list of do’s and don’t’s, just what atheists think the whole bible is.  But it is also an amazing compilation of some of our most beloved and useful verses.

“Don’t conform but be transformed by God.
Be humble.
Use the gift you’ve been given.
Hate evil; cling to good.
Be devoted to God’s family.
Be zealous in your faith.
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Share with Christians in need.
Practice hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you.
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
Live in harmony with each other.
Don’t be proud.
Associate with those in low positions.
Don’t be conceited.
Don’t repay evil for evil.
Do what is right.
Live at peace with everyone.
Don’t take revenge.
Care for your enemies.
Overcome evil with good.”

This list differentiates between how we are to interact with fellow believers and how we are to interact with the world.  But in both, there is a common theme: Be Like Jesus.

And in regards to that, Paul begins this section with the amazing call to offer yourself as a living sacrifice.  Sacrifices in the context of Paul’s world were killed before they were sacrificed.  Lambs (or oxen or pigeons or…) were taken to the priest at the temple who then expertly slaughtered the animal, cutting it’s throat.  It was then offered as a dead sacrifice.

So what would it mean, what does Paul specifically mean, to offer ourselves as living sacrifices?  First, we offer ourselves.  Rather than offering a lamb or a bull or a pigeon, rather than offering money or a hostage, we offer ourselves – this is between us and God.  Second, it is we who do the offering.  We don’t give ourselves over to someone else to offer us – this is between us and God.  Third, we don’t offer ourselves once we’re dead but right here and right now in the midst of our busy, productive, sinful, painful, boring, exciting lives.  We offer ourselves as living sacrifices, and in so doing give God the greatest gift we possibly can – relationship, obedience, Christ-likeness.

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Aug. 11 – Thoughts on Psalm 81-83 & Romans 11:19-36

“If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!  Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him and their punishment would last forever, but you would be fed with finest wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”  – Ps. 81:13-16

Why don’t we listen to God?  And I don’t mean ‘listen’ as in “use our audio receivers to detect sounds coming from God”.  I regularly get people ashamed or worried about the fact that they have never heard an audible sound they knew came from God.  This concern usually means they have surrounded themselves with people who have exaggerated hearing an audible voice – this phenomenon is extremely rare though not unheard of.

No, I mean ‘listen’ the way I say it to my kids, because that is the way God means it here: “Why won’t you just listen to me?”  Given the promises of God for we who listen, and the promises of God for those who won’t, I have to ask why in the world we wouldn’t listen?  It seems an easy thing to do when the reward is the defeat of all our enemies.  Unless…

What if we don’t have any enemies?  When we live in the lap of luxury, we don’t need our enemies defeated, so where’s the profit?

What if we don’t really believe this passage, or the Bible, or God?  What if we’ve listened again and again and yet still find ourselves defeated?

What if we believe ourselves self-sufficient?  What if we can defeat our own enemies, thank you very much?

Our obedience is directly related to our willingness to let go of our own (or our family’s) comfort, to our faith and trust in God’s word, and to our pride.  Any of these or a hundred other things can keep us from obeying – listening to – God.  Which is it for you?

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Aug. 10 – Thoughts on Psalm 79-80 & Romans 11:1-18

At our last house, as with every house we’ve owned, we needed a lot of landscaping work done.  The previous owners had brought in a professional to design their landscaping, and this person had done a fantastic job.  However, the owners for whatever reason had then never tended it, leaving it to grow wild.  When we arrived on the scene, we had to pull out all the overgrown and dying shrubbery, flowers, and even uproot a small tree.

In it’s place, we bought a tree of our own.  The space was small and close to the house, so we wanted a smaller tree.  The neighbors had two huge weeping willows in their back yard and we loved them, so we decided to find a small (8 foot tall) weeping willow.  Finding out there is no such thing, we bought the next best thing – a willow bush grafted on to the trunk of a different but compatible tree.  It created a small weeping willow, and we were content.

From this experience, I learned about grafting new branches to old trees.  I learned that the graft doesn’t always take, but when it does it is often seamless.  I learned that this new creation may well send out branches of the trunk variety in the midst of the grafted-in branches.  And I learned that you can create brand new things with these grafts.

Paul says that Gentiles (that’s you and me) are “grafted branches” on the tree of Christian faith.  The trunk is Judaism, that faith through which God worked in the world for millennia.  But the branches of this tree have been broken off through their unfaithfulness, namely their refusal to accept Jesus as the Messiah and to accept righteousness as a free gift rather than an earned reward.  In the place of these branches are new branches, Gentile followers of Christ.  In grafting us in, God made a seamless graft, one that created a brand new thing, but one where the old characteristics of the old trunk can easily turn up in the new grafted branches.

Most notably, we can quickly turn to legalism just as the Jews did.  And just like the Jews, a righteousness that is a reward for obedience is not a free gift as God intends.  So as newly grafted branches, Christians with a Jewish heritage, we must be extra careful to keep the free gift of God’s grace free.

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