Proverbs 13: September 2013

Look! It’s 9:13 on 9/13/13. That means…absolutely nothing.

 

Proverbs 13:9 should be read seeing the contrast between a natural “light” for the righteous and an artificial “lamp” for the wicked. One is lasting—Let there be light!—while the other requires fuel and eventually will give out.

 

Proverbs 13:19 feels disjointed, but one thing to contemplate: the righteous have their desire realized, but the wicked just keep doing evil. The righteous follow God and settle in, while the wicked do no such thing.

Buds! Numbers 17

I have to admit, much of the current section of Numbers relates to leadership and rebellion in the time of the Exodus. Numbers 17 is no different on that front: there is a rebellion, this time against Aaron. God nips it, in the bud, with a bud.

The story is simple: after the previous rebellions and to address the undercurrent of rebelliousness, God commands that each tribe furnish a staff. (Or a rod, basically a piece of dead wood, shaped and smoothed.) They are to engrave names on each rod for each tribe, and then place these in front of the Ark of the Covenant. The next day, the dead wood that is Aaron’s rod has bloomed, demonstrating God’s choice of Aaron to head the Levites and the Levites to lead Israel.

We end with the fear of the other tribes to come too near the Tabernacle, because they fear death. The problem, however, is not their proximity. It is, in fact, their rebellion. God commands Aaron to leave his staff at the Tabernacle to be a constant reminder of God’s choice.

At this point we can make two errors, and they are similar to the typical two errors of Christians studying the Old Testament. The first is to cast it completely aside as if it’s only history. The second is to make our current situation perfectly analogous to the narrative and follow it to the letter.

Let us dispense with the first error: God preserved the Old Testament for us for a reason. It is not just informative, there are principles here worth noting and applying. We see here good principles: that God appoints leaders for His people; that God’s presence can be intimidating; we ought to remember how God has worked through people and supported people.

In these areas, we should recognize the truth: God does utilize people to lead His work in this world. We do not have people who are as blatantly called-out as Aaron and Moses in these days, rather we have people who clearly meet the New Testament model for leadership. We also should understand that it is only safe to draw near to God if our sins are forgiven through Christ. And it is valuable to note what God has done: history and theology belong together.

When we look at the second error, we need to be even more careful. Many of the Old Testament lessons that might be lost to the first error are repeated in the New Testament, so it is our loss to commit the first error but it may not be destructive. Committing the second error, though, can be highly dangerous.

Take a look at this scenario: a person claims to be the leader of a Christian organization. Could be a school, a church, a ministry, a blog. That person then demands that, as God-anointed leader, they receive no criticism at all. They then offer various proofs of their leadership. Unlike Aaron’s rod, though, these are open to interpretation. The so-called leader claims these as proofs, though, and one must either accept him or get out.

This is a dangerous road to go down. The only source of authority in the Christian church is the Word of God, and anyone who pushes people to disdain that for his own leadership is a wolf. Or at least on his way to wolf-dom, though he may come back. We need to be very careful: the Church is not Exodus Israel. It is possible for people to follow the Lord Jesus Christ through the wilderness without following one specific man.

That was not the case for Israel. They had to unify behind Moses and Aaron, or they would have met disaster. There are times, perhaps, that individual churches are in similar states, but this is not the overall case.

Learn the lesson that is here: God has a call on your life to do something. Get to it, rather than grumping that His call on you is not to do what the other guy does.

Today’s Nerd Note:

The Rod of Aaron goes into the Ark of the Covenant. I don’t know what happens to it in the long run. The Rod or the Ark. I’d love to find either one

Proverbs 12: September 2013

Proverbs 12:9 is a little muddled to me. I do find a couple of commentaries in my Logos Bible Software that agree that it’s a bit muddled. The main view appears to be this: better to have a small reputation and be independent than to be famous and starve. It’s not about being wrongly esteemed, but about being less than famous. There is the possibility of a vowel redistribution, as in a few other Hebrew places, which would make this Proverb reflect that it is better to work for yourself, to be your own servant.

 

Either way, I think we can apply this to the idea of not trying to live large and get famous. It’s better to do what you do, and let fame happen if it does.

 

Proverbs 12:19 comes again to honesty and integrity. By now, and we’re not even halfway through Proverbs, we should all know that honesty is better. Lies do not last. End of story.

Book: The One Year Holy Land Moments Devotional

Yikes, but that’s a long title.
The One Year Holy Land Moments Devotional from Tyndale Momentum is a compilation from Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein’s Holy Land Moments radio program. These devotional moments are then commented on by Tremper Longman III, a Biblical Studies professor. It is an intriguing collaboration between a teacher of the Jewish faith and a teacher of the Christian faith.
I came to this with a measure of doubt. There is a pretty big gulf in belief between modern Judaism and modern Christianity. While there is much we as Christians should learn, there is just an undercurrent of divergence in our understanding. The shared heritage of the Pentateuch, Prophets, and Writings is valuable, but how well will this work?
An additional concern was whether or not Longman’s contributions would integrate well with Rabbi Eckstein’s. Would the Christian insight flow well with the Rabbinical statements?
The results overall are good. Rabbi Eckstein’s focus is on the Jewish concepts and rabbinical understandings of what we as Christians would call Old Testament passages. This includes providing clearer pictures of holy days such as Rosh Hoshannah and Yom Kippur. These insights are helpful, and Longman’s paragraph to connect to Christian views flows well throughout.
The devotional book is written with six entries per week, with a seventh day for reflection. The reading is easy, and the questions posed are worth the time. If you are looking for a new devotional book for the next year, this one is worth a try.
Note: Free book in exchange for the review.

Proverbs 11: September 2013

It is hard to post on September 11 without making note of the day. This is not a happy day in memory for most Americans. Do not forget.

 

Proverbs 11:9 has two seemingly disconnected statements, but both reflect on the use of words. Further, there is a connection up to 11:6 and down to 11:12. There is power in words: power to destroy our neighbor and power to spread knowledge that helps. Pick one.

 

Proverbs 11:19 is fulfilled on an eternal scale rather than one we can measure. There are frequent anecdotes that illustrate this in the near-term, but then there are exceptions. Certainly the Christian view sees that the only righteousness which will truly attain life is the righteousness of Jesus, imputed to believers. That does not excuse us from some actions of righteousness, though.

 

Proverbs 11:29 raises a point that I cannot reconcile. Why in the world would a person deliberately trouble their own home? Yet Solomon is not concerned with the why here. Only with the result: trouble, long-term trouble. I think the argument could be made that the troubler is out to bring an early demise to the paterfamilias, hoping for a cash windfall. Instead, he will get the wind. However, there’s more here, especially when you look ahead at Proverbs 15:27 which describes one who profits illicitly as “troubling his own house.”

 

The connection is there, and worth pondering. What matters more? Home or profit?

Remembering

September 11. This day brings so much to mind for any American who was mentally awake in 2001. There was such an odd combination of fear and anger, it was like nothing I hope to ever experience again.

And now, it’s twelve years later. Twelve years in which we have have seen thousands lose their lives in an effort to find, engage, and destroy people who want to be like the hijackers before those folks get to civilian populations. Twelve years in which tens of thousands of people have seen their lives greatly changed by that conflict, for bodies can be intact while minds are shaken.

It was a moment we all swore we would never forget. A change we promised we would make in our nation as a whole. To love one another. To focus on what matters. To serve each other and seek the benefit of our neighbors.

Since then, I fear we have have chosen to have a Day of Remembrance rather than lives of remembering. Take a look across the last twelve years. We pause every year on this day and take moments of silence. We read the names of the lost. All of this is good.

But in the intervening 364 days a year, how do we act? What type of leadership do we put up with from our governing authorities? Where do we love one another and seek the benefit of others?

Take a look at the news from the last decade. We’ve driven people to homelessness through real estate profiteering. We have no idea how to make access to health care affordable for people in general. We continue to assume that individual freedom comes without responsibilities. We hold that privacy allows us to kill off the weakest among us.

And we tolerate infantile behavior, paid on the tax dollar, from what should be the 546 most reasonable, most gracious people in the country.

We can lay all the wreaths we want to. We can skip the day on social media to honor the dead. We can buy a firefighter lunch today.

But when 9/12 goes back to the same old routine, it becomes empty. It is as if we think that one day is enough. It is not.

So, what do we do?

Speak a little more sweetly. Talk more with your neighbors. Text less while driving. Give blood. Care. Help. Support. Walk around with your eyes open to the world around you.

Go forward with your life, remembering there is a constant stream of blood, shed from 1775 (and even before, really) until this very day that enables your life.

Dear Olivia,
I feel like this is a good year to write you this letter. You’re twelve now. You’re starting to learn a lot more about how the world works, and there are some things that I think you need to know.

I want to start off, though, with an apology that I think I owe you. I don’t feel compelled to offer the same apology to your younger siblings, but I owe it to you. You see, you are not growing up in the world that your Mom and I brought you into. Some things changed between your birth day and your first birthday. Those changes showed me that you are growing up in the wrong book.

You know your Dad has always loved to read. My favorite books are history books, of course, the odder the better. I have favorite fiction books, too, though. They fall into two groups. The first are futuristic science fiction. Books that feel like Star Trek, where people travel through space just like crop dusters buzz our house these days. Books that point toward a future where things have gotten better. Fewer diseases, clean energy, no hunger. Good stuff.

The other type of fiction books that I have always loved, though, are less hopeful. I like what used to be called technothrillers. The Hunt for Red October, for example, or other Tom Clancy novels. Books that depict a world where good wins out, eventually, over evil, but only after evil exacts a terrible price on the world.

When you were born in early 2001, there was every reason to believe you would grow up in the first kind of book. Even with the contested election in 2000, while I was hopeful that Vice President Gore would not win, there was not a great fear of what would happen if he did win. In all honesty, I think he would have been less harmful, since he wouldn’t have had time to fabricate his semi-documentary film. True, there were some economic questions at hand–how we would deal with rising gas prices, how Enron was really making money, questions like that, but in my naiveté, I really thought better days were ahead.

September 11, 2001, changed all that. It was a normal day at the church we were serving. I was trying to placate the angry man who wanted to demand the pastor’s resignation (no, not me. I was the youth dude.) You and Mommy were at home, and you were likely asleep. Your Grandpa called me at work and told me that some idiot had flown a plane into the World Trade Center. You will have seen pictures of it. It was a pair of towers in New York City. Back when I was in elementary school, those towers were the tallest buildings in the world. Not much to look at, honestly, just two buildings that looked like most boring tall buildings. Just much taller.

The church secretary and I jimmied the lock into the pastor’s office, because that was the only TV in the church, and tuned in some news. There was a hideous column of black smoke coming from the building, and all we could think about was how they were going to get the people out of the building and fight the fire. Then the worst thing imaginable happened. Another plane hit the other tower. Within a couple of hours, there were two more plane crashes and the towers collapsed. More than 3,000 people lost their lives. At the time, there were estimates of upwards of 25,000 dead. Nobody knew.

What I did know was that you were going to grow up in the wrong book. There would be no flying cars and warp travel. No cold fusion or holodecks. Instead, you were going to grow up in a world of metal detectors and suspicions. It was a world that I knew was possible. I remembered the horror of Oklahoma City that led to no more unattended vehicles at major places and license requirements for nitrogen fertilizer. This was going to be worse. You are growing up in a world where every gathering of people is a potential target.

And I wish I could tell you that your father has always been brave and helped stand up to the evil in our world. The truth is, though, I haven’t been. I would like to believe that I have tried, but I am reminded every day of the price that many have paid that we have never had to. I tried in those first few years to earn a uniform and stand shoulder to shoulder with some of my friends that have done so, but I never could.

What I have done is the best I can do. I’ve tried to help you grow up as innocent of the carnage as I could. I don’t know that it was the best way to do it, but that is the choice that we made as your parents. The world, though, is catching up to us and you need to know. You need to know that you were born for a better world, but that I, and my fellow adults, have not been able to deliver it for you.

It really does fall to you and your generation to make it happen. You will have to be brave and strong, just as many others have been through the years. You will have to choose to fight fires, knowing it could be fatal. You will have to choose to stand against evil and tyranny, wherever they are. You will have to choose to stand up for the voiceless. You will have to choose to build bridges that help destroy enmity between peoples.

There is, unfortunately, no great deus ex machina to set the world back on track. No great breakthroughs or moments of positive progress. There is only the truth that you know so well: God created this world; God redeemed this world; God will return and judge this world.

And the biggest thing of all. That God loves the people on this world. He left that message, and left it with us. He works through us and in us to proclaim that. I wish that you could proclaim it to your fellow star voyagers or undersea dwellers. I still long to pastor First Baptist Church, Lunar Rock, as well. Instead, we have the world that is here. One in which the glimmer of hope in the lives of Believers is that can be found among the ashes.

Liv, you were born into a different world than what you live in. My heart aches for that. Yet you are able. I know that the challenges ahead are not insurmountable. You can, and you will, not only survive but thrive. For you are never alone. You are surrounded by people who love you, and even if they are missing, you are kept by the love of God.

As you find the truth of this world we live on, that it is at times a sin-soaked disaster zone and at other times a sin-wrecked crime scene, always remember that the God you serve loves it. He loves the people in it, and He has called you to be one of His messengers to those people. Love them, even though hate surrounds you. Love them, because He does, and that’s all that matters.


Love always,


Dad (Doug)
//Originally published by me at www.sbcvoices.com