Month: September 2020

Self-Important Religious Folk

On By TimIn Amos 07, Persecution, ProphecyLeave a comment

So Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee back to the land of Judah. Earn your sustenance there, and prophesy there. But do not prophesy any more at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.”

Amos 7:12–13 — Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

The prophet is never welcome in the homeland. There are people who will always demand he change what is said. They will bully the prophet to move from the land. They will even kill the prophet.

We all seem to love prophecy as some sort of prediction of what is to happen. At it’s simplest, prophecy is just speaking truth. In the Bible, some of that truth is yet to happen.

Regardless, the words of the prophet were always sought, but not always welcome and not always honored. Jesus even told us this…

He said, “Woe to you also, you lawyers! For you load men with burdens difficult to carry, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.

“Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. So you are witnesses and entirely approve the deeds of your fathers, because they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the beginning of the world, may be required from this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it shall be required from this generation.

“Woe to you, lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

Luke 11:46–52 — Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

After Jesus said those things, people began to really conspire against Him. But the ones who tell the truth are always persecuted by the self-important religious folk.

A Child is Born, a Son is Given

On By TimIn Creation, Daily Walk, Encouragement, Eternal Security, Freedom, Heaven, Isaiah 09, Jesus, Prophecy, Reconciliation, Resurrection, Salvation, The CrossLeave a comment

Here’s something that has occupied the spare processing cycles in my brain when the screen saver is active. In other words, there is something that I have been considering deeply.

For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6 — Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

This is one of those memory verses I learned from years of listening to Handel’s Messiah. In that first line is a distinction that is easy to overlook. A child is born and a son is given. It is a prophetic announcement of the birth of Jesus. A child would be born to us humans. Not just any child, but a Son would be given. That Son would be unique. This announcement clearly shows that Jesus is God, not that He came from God.

In a discussion on the Godhead I just perused, I again pondered this idea. This God-Man… This Son, or Word, that was given to us. The interesting part of the conversation prompted me to write my thoughts down and share them.

The discussion was over the Son or Word and whether saying He is begotten by God somehow darkens the idea of His existence from “eternity past.” It’s precisely what derives from the idea of being begotten means, and sort of considers the hypostatic union. That is the union of God and man that is Jesus.

I want to give a foundation from here. This is what God says of Himself in the final chapters of the Old Testament.

For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

Malachi 3:6 — Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no change or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.

James 1:17–18 — Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

From these two witnesses, it is clear that God doesn’t change. The writer of Hebrews adds to this.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

Hebrews 13:8 — Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

How does a God Who doesn’t change incarnate?

It sort of intrigues me that the God Who clearly says He is the same and doesn’t change somehow put on humanity.

It is precisely that idea that I think is too simplistic of an explanation. If He puts on humanity, He changes. Or maybe that doesn’t count as a change.

God has a Unique Relationship with Humans

I think it goes back to something foundational.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:26–27 — Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

This idea of God making us in His image. What is that, really?

I know one of my favorite Bible nerds says we are imagers. Meaning we get to make God known to others in unique ways.

What if this image is something profound like it is something that is really a part of God?

No… I am not drifting off into pantheism or panentheism.

I’m not saying we are God. Yet there is something more here. When you read the Bible, you’re going to read some things that you might be tempted to glance over.

Beloved, now are we children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

1 John 3:2 — Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

There is something so spectacular reserved for humanity. It cannot be put into words.

For those whom He foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified.

Romans 8:29–30 — Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

It’s this imager-thing. We are made in His image initially and will be conformed to His image. There are other texts that iterate these ideas like being a joint-heir with Jesus.

Jesus even spoke of this in some of His last words before the crucifixion.

I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You. May they also be one in Us, that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory which You gave Me, that they may be one even as We are one: I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfect in unity, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

John 17:20–23— Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

I don’t think we can even begin to ponder what is in store for each of us who loves Jesus.

And Many Animals

On By TimIn Jonah 3, Redemption, Second ChanceLeave a comment

Sometimes I cannot read the Bible without other ideas swirling in my brain. Most of those ideas are just vapidity. Yet every once in a while, an idea coalesces with the Scriptures that is intriguing. It happened this morning.

In reading Jonah, this stood out.

Then he made a proclamation in Nineveh:
“By decree of the king and his nobles:
No man or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not eat or drink water. Both man and animals shall cover themselves with sackcloth and cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change His mind. He may turn from His fierce anger, so that we will not perish.”

Jonah 3:7–9 — Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

To give some context, Jonah was sent to Nineveh because of the wickedness practiced in the city. It is said that the wickedness itself came up before God.

Of course, Jonah didn’t heed God’s command to go and purposed to go to sea traveling in the opposite direction away from Nineveh. God sent a storm on the ship, Jonah persuaded the shipmates to throw him overboard. God appointed a fish to swallow Jonah. In that fish, Jonah came to his senses and was spit out on dry land.

The fish must have brought Jonah very near Nineveh as God commanded Jonah yet again to go and give them His message.

Upon this second command, Jonah complied and did as God said. He preached the coming destruction of Nineveh to the inhabitants of the vast city. The message was heard, even by the leaders of the city. That takes us to the passage above.

Aside from the repentance and crying to God for mercy, there is a tacit confession of sin in the decree. Not only that, all people and animals were to participate in this plea for mercy.

That is where ideas collide. Sometimes, I read scriptures with the objections of skeptics in mind. In this instance, clearly the animals are involved in the plea for mercy. That says to my way of thinking, that the animals are also complicit in the evil of the city, most likely not of their own volition.

The objections skeptics raise are sometimes centered around the genocidal portions of the Old Testament where God wiped out entire nations that included men, women, children and animals. Why “innocent” animals is what some ask.

Implicit in this king’s decree is that animals are used in ways perhaps to perpetrate calamity on others.

It was a passing thought on encountering that, and I pushed on thinking that was probably a fancy imagination.

There is a biblical principle, on the testimony of two or three witnesses, a thing is established. I tend to apply this to what the Scriptures say. But God wants to make sure we understand.

After God relents in bringing judgment to Nineveh because of their confession, Jonah disdains the compassion of God. God gives Jonah a practical lesson in compassion. He uses a plant to comfort Jonah in his angry grief.

God concludes that lesson in a succinct summary.

The Lord said, “You are troubled about the plant for which you did not labor and did not grow. It came up in a night and perished in a night. Should I not, therefore, be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people, who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

Jonah 4:10–11 — Modern English Version (Thinline Edition.; Lake Mary, FL: Passio, 2014)

It was this last interaction recorded between God and Jonah. The very last phrase is a second witness to that what I thought was my fancy imagination.

Somehow animals are involved in perpetrating evil.

Some commentators think that herds would be destroyed as collateral damage. That is why they are mentioned. I don’t think that is why.

Suffice it to say, cattle… Especially bulls were venerated in the pagan cults. The motif is clear in the Bible, even when Aaron says “these be your gods” for the Israelites. Baal is depicted as a mating bull.

Much of these ancient cults (religious systems) used practices that would upset or modern sensibilities. These cult practices involved sex with animals as well as burning their own children.

It’s easy for a skeptic to reject the Bible on a sophomoric surface level not understanding the contexts in which it is written.

I get this is a bit controversial. But I think that the ideas included in Jonah’s text demonstrate clearly that God is just.