Psalm 63:1-11
O God, you are my God;
I earnestly search for you.
My soul thirsts for you;
my whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in your sanctuary
and gazed upon your power and glory.
Your unfailing love is better than life itself;
how I praise you!
I will praise you as long as I live,
lifting up my hands to you in prayer.
You satisfy me more than the richest feast.
I will praise you with songs of joy.
I lie awake thinking of you,
meditating on you through the night.
Because you are my helper,
I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings.
I cling to you;
your strong right hand holds me securely.
But those plotting to destroy me will come to ruin.
They will go down into the depths of the earth.
They will die by the sword
and become the food of jackals.
But the king will rejoice in God.
All who trust in him will praise him,
while liars will be silenced.
Luke 4:1-2
Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.
I wonder, as Jesus walked through the Judean wilderness, was He praying this Psalm? It is coincidence that this specific Psalm was paired with this passage from the gospels in the One Year Bible reading for March 20th, but I believe there is something wonderful about the pairing.
“My soul thirsts for You in a dry and weary land.”
I don’t know if anyone else has ever felt thirsty, but I know that I have. I remember being on vacation in Mexico and suspecting that if I drank the tap water I would become sick. One night, late in the evening, I became thirsty. Looking around, I discovered that Rachael and I had finished off the last of the bottled water, and that there wasn’t anything to drink but the questionable tap water. I tried boiling the water in a pan I found under the stove, but the pan was greasy and made the water taste metallic and even more questionable. I probably agonized for an hour trying to figure out what I could drink before finally going to bed, hoping I could make it till morning came and we could buy more bottled water.
I’ll be honest, that night I was not thinking about how much I wanted to know God better.
And yet this story, and this Psalm, declare that in the desert David (and Jesus) was aching more for the presence of God than for food or water. What type of relationship must a person have to be that focused on the One who can bring true life?
For me, today’s reading was a reminder of the passion for God that I desire to have. I’ll readily admit that I’m not there yet. Even when all my other needs are met, my heart still wanders from my true love. But God is gracious, and He is growing in me a desire and passion for Him.
O God, You are my God. I earnestly search for You.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Dangerous Irrelevance of the Old Testament Law
We're now at a place in our One Year Bible that I sometimes call "the tough stuff." Repeated ceremonial laws and rules for cleanliness. What are we to do? It's been awhile since I posted, but hopefully the length of this post will make up for any lack of insight I've had the past few weeks. -Joe
While I was sitting in Common Ground Coffee House & Deli the other day, a man approached me and stated that he’d overheard that I was a pastor. I confirmed his statement and he proceeded to enlighten me to some interesting facts he’d been reading in the Old Testament recently. We had a nice conversation about the Passover and some different observances and then he began to go on his way. As I turned my attention back to my game of FreeCell (I was in the middle of a 25 game winning streak), he added one final comment:
“You know, I’m really trying to follow the Old Testament law… Jesus fulfilled it, but He didn’t abolish it… it’s just hard to figure out which ones still apply and which ones don’t.”
And then he walked away.
In hindsight, I wish I’d said something to him, challenged him in some way, for I believe with all my heart that he is on a journey towards a headache, and I believe with all my head that he is on his way towards heartache. And though his zeal for the Lord and for His word is laudable, his misunderstanding of the relationship of the Old Testament to our lives is going to cause a lot of unneeded struggle in his life.
The apostle Paul speaks directly to people like this man in his epistle to the believers in Galatia. What Paul said is this: Gentiles have never been, and will never be, required to follow the Jewish law laid out in the Old Testament. Paul is never more passionate than when he’s defending this thesis. He rebukes Peter for suggesting by his actions that Gentiles were less right with God for being uncircumcised; he calls the Galatians foolish for believing that something other than faith was needed; he even wishes emasculation upon the ones who are trying to convince the Galatians to follow the law.
If this weren’t enough, Paul goes on to tie Jews into the same deal that the Gentiles received; no one is saved by the law, all are saved by faith in the grace of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Perhaps no verse is so important to this discussion as Galatians 5: 3-4: “If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey all the of the regulations in the whole law of Moses. For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”
That said, I’ve talked to people who with this understanding, have decided that there is no reason to read the Old Testament, because it is irrelevant to the modern Christian walk (not to mention that it’s hard to understand and often boring).
And though this perspective is slightly less dangerous than the former, it is equally misdirected and based upon a profound misunderstanding of the Biblical message of grace.
You see, reading only the New Testament, without studying the old, is like reading the third book in a trilogy without reading the previous two. Though Return of the King is a good book (and movie) on its own, it’s greatness and grandeur come from the story and conflict set up in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. In the same way, the New Testament is good on its own (a fact well attested to by the number of standalone New Testaments floating around in motel nightstands and Christian bookstores).
Like many Christians, I am tempted to skim past or skip altogether the legal documents of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It is difficult reading; ceremonial law after ceremonial law, followed by rules for what should and should not be eaten (by the way, bacon is forbidden by Jewish law, which is one of the big reasons I’m glad to be a gentile Christian living under the new covenant). I am led to a question: why is all of this written down in the inspired Scriptures of our loving and all-powerful God?
The answer is found throughout the book of Leviticus, but many people miss it. All you need to do is pay attention to whatever is repeated. The thing said the most is probably the most important.
One phrase is repeated in Leviticus 11:44, 45; 18:2, 4, 5, 6, 21, 30; 19:3, 4, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 25, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37; 20:7, 8, 24; 21:12, 15, 23; 22:2, 3, 8, 9, 16, 30, 31, 32, 33; 23:22, 43; 24:22; 25:17, 38, 55; 26:1, 2, 13, 44, and 45. This phrase is repeated 74 times in the first five books of the Bible, almost 50 times in Leviticus alone. What is this key to understanding the law?
“I am the LORD.”
The capitalized use of LORD in the English translation is representing the name YHWH, the personal name of God revealed to His people. Do you understand?
The entire law of God is focused on one divine purpose: God is describing Himself to us. He is showing us in every verse of the law what His nature is, what His character is, who He is as our God. When He details how cloth should not be mixed and how all sorts of things should be kept separate, He is describing His holiness to us; He is telling us that He is separate and pure. When He describes family relations, He is telling us that He is relational and that there are proper ways for relationships to work. When He says that people should leave some leftovers in their fields for the poor, He is telling us that He cares deeply for the downtrodden of this world. When He says, do not misuse the name of the LORD, your God, He is not so much telling people not to say “god” as a swear word (though it’s still a bad idea) as He is warning us not to misunderstand who He is. He is the LORD.
So when the New Testament says that Christ fulfilled the law, it is not simply referring to the fact that Jesus led a blameless life; no, it is making the bold assertion that Christ has finished the picture begun in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Hebrews 1 makes it clear. “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”
So you see, the law was always powerless to make us righteous, but it was powerful to show us our God. And where the law was limited even in it’s ability to do that, Christ has fulfilled all of the law and prophets, completing all that God gave Him to do. And just as the law cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of Christ, so Christ cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of God’s revelation which came before.
So let us read, and understand the marvelous purity and grace of our God.
While I was sitting in Common Ground Coffee House & Deli the other day, a man approached me and stated that he’d overheard that I was a pastor. I confirmed his statement and he proceeded to enlighten me to some interesting facts he’d been reading in the Old Testament recently. We had a nice conversation about the Passover and some different observances and then he began to go on his way. As I turned my attention back to my game of FreeCell (I was in the middle of a 25 game winning streak), he added one final comment:
“You know, I’m really trying to follow the Old Testament law… Jesus fulfilled it, but He didn’t abolish it… it’s just hard to figure out which ones still apply and which ones don’t.”
And then he walked away.
In hindsight, I wish I’d said something to him, challenged him in some way, for I believe with all my heart that he is on a journey towards a headache, and I believe with all my head that he is on his way towards heartache. And though his zeal for the Lord and for His word is laudable, his misunderstanding of the relationship of the Old Testament to our lives is going to cause a lot of unneeded struggle in his life.
The apostle Paul speaks directly to people like this man in his epistle to the believers in Galatia. What Paul said is this: Gentiles have never been, and will never be, required to follow the Jewish law laid out in the Old Testament. Paul is never more passionate than when he’s defending this thesis. He rebukes Peter for suggesting by his actions that Gentiles were less right with God for being uncircumcised; he calls the Galatians foolish for believing that something other than faith was needed; he even wishes emasculation upon the ones who are trying to convince the Galatians to follow the law.
If this weren’t enough, Paul goes on to tie Jews into the same deal that the Gentiles received; no one is saved by the law, all are saved by faith in the grace of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Perhaps no verse is so important to this discussion as Galatians 5: 3-4: “If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey all the of the regulations in the whole law of Moses. For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”
That said, I’ve talked to people who with this understanding, have decided that there is no reason to read the Old Testament, because it is irrelevant to the modern Christian walk (not to mention that it’s hard to understand and often boring).
And though this perspective is slightly less dangerous than the former, it is equally misdirected and based upon a profound misunderstanding of the Biblical message of grace.
You see, reading only the New Testament, without studying the old, is like reading the third book in a trilogy without reading the previous two. Though Return of the King is a good book (and movie) on its own, it’s greatness and grandeur come from the story and conflict set up in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. In the same way, the New Testament is good on its own (a fact well attested to by the number of standalone New Testaments floating around in motel nightstands and Christian bookstores).
Like many Christians, I am tempted to skim past or skip altogether the legal documents of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It is difficult reading; ceremonial law after ceremonial law, followed by rules for what should and should not be eaten (by the way, bacon is forbidden by Jewish law, which is one of the big reasons I’m glad to be a gentile Christian living under the new covenant). I am led to a question: why is all of this written down in the inspired Scriptures of our loving and all-powerful God?
The answer is found throughout the book of Leviticus, but many people miss it. All you need to do is pay attention to whatever is repeated. The thing said the most is probably the most important.
One phrase is repeated in Leviticus 11:44, 45; 18:2, 4, 5, 6, 21, 30; 19:3, 4, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 25, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37; 20:7, 8, 24; 21:12, 15, 23; 22:2, 3, 8, 9, 16, 30, 31, 32, 33; 23:22, 43; 24:22; 25:17, 38, 55; 26:1, 2, 13, 44, and 45. This phrase is repeated 74 times in the first five books of the Bible, almost 50 times in Leviticus alone. What is this key to understanding the law?
“I am the LORD.”
The capitalized use of LORD in the English translation is representing the name YHWH, the personal name of God revealed to His people. Do you understand?
The entire law of God is focused on one divine purpose: God is describing Himself to us. He is showing us in every verse of the law what His nature is, what His character is, who He is as our God. When He details how cloth should not be mixed and how all sorts of things should be kept separate, He is describing His holiness to us; He is telling us that He is separate and pure. When He describes family relations, He is telling us that He is relational and that there are proper ways for relationships to work. When He says that people should leave some leftovers in their fields for the poor, He is telling us that He cares deeply for the downtrodden of this world. When He says, do not misuse the name of the LORD, your God, He is not so much telling people not to say “god” as a swear word (though it’s still a bad idea) as He is warning us not to misunderstand who He is. He is the LORD.
So when the New Testament says that Christ fulfilled the law, it is not simply referring to the fact that Jesus led a blameless life; no, it is making the bold assertion that Christ has finished the picture begun in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Hebrews 1 makes it clear. “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”
So you see, the law was always powerless to make us righteous, but it was powerful to show us our God. And where the law was limited even in it’s ability to do that, Christ has fulfilled all of the law and prophets, completing all that God gave Him to do. And just as the law cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of Christ, so Christ cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of God’s revelation which came before.
So let us read, and understand the marvelous purity and grace of our God.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
The Blindness of a Godward Vision
Six days later Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed so that his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.
Matthew 17:1-2 (NLT)
I am struck by the description of the glorified Christ: his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light. It’s such a similar description to the way YHWH (the Hebrew name of God used in the Old Testament) is described throughout the rest of scripture that it’s impossible to miss the connection. But I think my awe is really about something else; I think I am amazed that this is how Jesus is described because it’s so different from how I always picture Him.
Like most lifelong churchgoers, I grew up in a church where we had several pictures of Jesus hung in various places. I mostly remember the one where Jesus is perfectly posed for the portrait of His face; He gazes heavenward bathed in the soft orange-yellow glow of a nice God’s pleasure. He’s a kind looking, Arian, long-haired hippie type… infinitely approachable and the kind of guy you’d expect to find sitting at a campfire in Yosemite (do they still allow those?) playing happy tunes on his beat up nylon string guitar. To be honest, I kinda liked that Jesus.
But I also remember, around the same time I spent long minutes looking at the picture of the hippie Jesus and wondering how they got a color camera in the 1st century, afternoons laying on the playfield at school experimenting with staring at the sun. Like all boys at that age, I had heard my mom quite clearly when she said I’d go blind for looking at the sun, but I had wanted very badly to have glasses (which is another story for another blog) and I was curious. The interesting thing I learned while staring at the sun is that for sometime after the long look, it is virtually impossible to see anything else. I would walk around and all my friends looked like the same green-faced alien. After staring at the sun, everything else seemed different… and less extravagant.
As I read this passage from the gospel of Matthew, I am forced to reconcile my two childhood experiences. Staring at the picture in my church, I learned of one Jesus; staring at the summer sun, high above the earth, I learned of another Jesus. And as kind as I still believe Jesus is, I believe the image that burned into my retinas and threatened to leave me blind is a much closer resemblance to the One who “did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped.” This belief leaves me fearful and hopeful. Fearful because Jesus is not as safe as I once believed Him to be (remember C.S. Lewis’ immortal description: “He is not a tame lion”); hopeful because He is not powerless. Though He can identify with my weakness, He does not share it. He is almighty God. He is strong. He is able to protect the weak and care for widows and orphans. He is above and beyond my understanding. He is holy and luminous and altogether other. He is God.
And when I look at Him now, I find that everything else in the world seems less extravagant. The shiny brilliance of my materialism fades to a dull gray and the other things I’ve loved become unfulfilling. And when I see Him, when I really seem Him, I am satisfied so deeply by His brilliance that I am content to never see another being again as long as I live.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face,
and the things of earth will grow strangely dim
Look full in His wonderful face,
and the things of earth will grow strangely dim
in the light of His glory and grace
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Heroes
I must admit that I love Hollywood’s recent fascination with super heroes. As a twentysomething male I find my pulse quickened even at the mention of this summer’s imminent release of Spiderman 3. I keep buying magazines like Premier, Entertainment Weekly, and Rolling Stone just because they have an article about Peter Parker, Mary Jane and the introduction of Spidey’s arch-nemesis Venom.
That said, I was also somewhat disappointed with last summer’s big blockbuster, Superman. I watched it, enjoyed the special effects, comprehended the storyline, and especially admired Kevin Spacey’s take on Lex Luther; but somewhere deep inside me there was a disconnect with “the superhero of superheroes.” It did not take me long to figure out what bothered me.
Superman is too perfect.
Though I can admire Superman for his unmatched strength, indestructibility, incredible speed, ability to fly and his impeccable moral character, I cannot relate to him. This was exaggerated even more with last summer’s movie, where his face had an airbrushed perfection, his acting had little emotional depth, and his supersuit never bunched in the wrong places. Though I could understand his conflict as an observer, I couldn’t feel what he felt, because I’m nothing like Superman. Peter Parker, on the other hand is someone I can relate to. He’s a normal kid, with lots of emotional and social problems who one day finds himself equipped with great power, which also brings great responsibility. He wrestles with balancing the different commitments in his life, having to sacrifice what he wants for what he feels he ought to do, and sometimes failing to get it right. He is far from perfect, and I find myself moved by his story, because it’s my story as well.
That’s why I’m so thankful that God wrote the Bible the way He did. It certainly seems within God’s power to find the best humans on earth and make them His chosen people; He could find the strong men with impeccable moral character and great interpersonal skills. Instead, God starts the story of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, three generations of a dysfunctional family.
In last weeks reading, we discovered that though Abraham trusted God enough to offer his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, he had major problems trusting God with his wife as they traveled through foreign nations. And as he tells the leaders of not one, but two nations, that Sarah is his sister (which though not entirely untrue, was still quite misleading), we want to jump out of our seats and scream at the screen, “Don’t lie to this guy! God is on your side and He’ll protect you! Trust God!”
And then we learned that Isaac picked up most of his father’s bad habits. When he tells the king that Rebekah is his sister, with déjà vu we begin to wonder if God just has a soft spot for liars.
If that were not enough, Jacob and Esau come along and then the story gets really interesting. Where Abraham and Isaac were flawed individuals who had a few problems with telling the truth when they got scared, Jacob is a downright sleazeball, tricking his two-fries-short-of-a-happy-meal brother into selling him his birthright for a cup of soup.
Jacob’s story is full of trickery and the misery it causes those around him, until he has an all-night wrestling match with the angel of the Lord and receives a limp and a new name: Israel, which means “He wrestles with God and with man and has overcome.”
That name, Israel, then becomes the name of his descendents, down to this very day when we read often in the newspaper how Israel is still wrestling with God and with man.
Here I am, today, reading these stories and I find myself understanding these characters. As Jacob wrestles with God, I experience my own wrestling match as I try to understand who God is and what His grace means in my life. As Isaac fears losing his wife to a powerful king, I fear losing the things I value most to this dangerous world. As Abraham goes from great moments of faithfulness and trust, to depressing days of mistrust and fear, I see my own fickle nature as I swing back and forth from faithfulness to self-reliance.
Just as Spiderman is my story, so are the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And as I read them, I learn more about myself, and I learn more about the God who created me, knows my frailty, and loves me and blesses me anyway.
That said, I was also somewhat disappointed with last summer’s big blockbuster, Superman. I watched it, enjoyed the special effects, comprehended the storyline, and especially admired Kevin Spacey’s take on Lex Luther; but somewhere deep inside me there was a disconnect with “the superhero of superheroes.” It did not take me long to figure out what bothered me.
Superman is too perfect.
Though I can admire Superman for his unmatched strength, indestructibility, incredible speed, ability to fly and his impeccable moral character, I cannot relate to him. This was exaggerated even more with last summer’s movie, where his face had an airbrushed perfection, his acting had little emotional depth, and his supersuit never bunched in the wrong places. Though I could understand his conflict as an observer, I couldn’t feel what he felt, because I’m nothing like Superman. Peter Parker, on the other hand is someone I can relate to. He’s a normal kid, with lots of emotional and social problems who one day finds himself equipped with great power, which also brings great responsibility. He wrestles with balancing the different commitments in his life, having to sacrifice what he wants for what he feels he ought to do, and sometimes failing to get it right. He is far from perfect, and I find myself moved by his story, because it’s my story as well.
That’s why I’m so thankful that God wrote the Bible the way He did. It certainly seems within God’s power to find the best humans on earth and make them His chosen people; He could find the strong men with impeccable moral character and great interpersonal skills. Instead, God starts the story of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, three generations of a dysfunctional family.
In last weeks reading, we discovered that though Abraham trusted God enough to offer his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, he had major problems trusting God with his wife as they traveled through foreign nations. And as he tells the leaders of not one, but two nations, that Sarah is his sister (which though not entirely untrue, was still quite misleading), we want to jump out of our seats and scream at the screen, “Don’t lie to this guy! God is on your side and He’ll protect you! Trust God!”
And then we learned that Isaac picked up most of his father’s bad habits. When he tells the king that Rebekah is his sister, with déjà vu we begin to wonder if God just has a soft spot for liars.
If that were not enough, Jacob and Esau come along and then the story gets really interesting. Where Abraham and Isaac were flawed individuals who had a few problems with telling the truth when they got scared, Jacob is a downright sleazeball, tricking his two-fries-short-of-a-happy-meal brother into selling him his birthright for a cup of soup.
Jacob’s story is full of trickery and the misery it causes those around him, until he has an all-night wrestling match with the angel of the Lord and receives a limp and a new name: Israel, which means “He wrestles with God and with man and has overcome.”
That name, Israel, then becomes the name of his descendents, down to this very day when we read often in the newspaper how Israel is still wrestling with God and with man.
Here I am, today, reading these stories and I find myself understanding these characters. As Jacob wrestles with God, I experience my own wrestling match as I try to understand who God is and what His grace means in my life. As Isaac fears losing his wife to a powerful king, I fear losing the things I value most to this dangerous world. As Abraham goes from great moments of faithfulness and trust, to depressing days of mistrust and fear, I see my own fickle nature as I swing back and forth from faithfulness to self-reliance.
Just as Spiderman is my story, so are the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And as I read them, I learn more about myself, and I learn more about the God who created me, knows my frailty, and loves me and blesses me anyway.
“No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice.
My body rests in safety.
For you will not leave my soul among the dead
or allow your holy one to rot in the grave.
You will show me the way of life,
granting me the joy of your presence
and the pleasures of living with you forever.”
Psalm 16:9-11
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